Last Saturday we emptied out the attic storage room–the room we call The Anne Frank Room because of the hidden door.  The big, deep drawer units that were in there weren’t the best for organized storage, and Bob is building me shelves.  The plan is that everything that goes back in will be ORGANIZED!  Of course there were some quilts in there.

Since my nephew, Cole, always spends a few days with me after Christmas, and we usually need a project, our project turned out to be organizing the quilts!  He made Excel Spreadsheets for five categories of quilts–Quilts from Karen’s Fabric, Quilts from Karen’s Books, Newly Made Quilts, Quilts from the 1920′s – 1950′s and Quilts Pre 1920.  Each spreadsheet has a spot for the name of the quilt, it’s size, where it’s stored and a place for notes.  Then the fun began–sorting, photographing and tagging!  But not just the quilts that were in the Anne Frank room.  Oh, no!  We did them all.  The quilts from my Swedish immigrant trunk.  Honest, there is a trunk under all those quilts!

The quilts in the studio.

The quilts in the TV cabinet.

We brought the last of the quilts home that were still at the Anna Lena store!

And the biggest stacks of all–the quilts from my books!  On the left, the quilts from Bundles of Fun.  In the middle, the quilts from Fat Quarter Fun.  On the right, quilts from Quilts From My Garden.  Why did I think it was a good idea to make each quilt twice–in different colorways–to see how different they could look?!?

Right now there are quilts EVERYWHERE!  It takes longer to fold them up neatly and store them than it did to open them up and photograph them!

But I brought home my baby crib, and some are going in there.

Quilts from my books are stored at my mom and dad’s house.  The Swedish trunk is full.  The guest beds all have quilts on them.  I’m even going to be selling some of them.  That’s what this stack is.

I’m sure I’ll come across a few more, but I’ll add them to the great spreadsheets Cole made, and it will be so nice to know where everything is!  Thanks, Cole, for making Anna Lena Land a little more organized!

Could it be the two loaves of cardamom bread?

Or the sugar twists?

Or this plate of assorted cookies?

Or the second plate of assorted cookies?

Or the Nanaimo bars?

I’m afraid it’s like those multiple choice quizzes in high school–All of the above!

Wow, I’m in the new Fons and Porter magazine–and I didn’t even know it.

I got suspicious last week when I started getting lots of orders for the Sweet Pea bundles and dress panel.  Then my friend Loretta came for our Redwork Christmas Party, and she had a copy of the magazine!  Jean Nolte designed the quilt, and all the little dresses are embellished with ribbon or rickrack or lace or aprons or pinafores.  It’s just adorable!

I always have fun making samples with my own fabric lines, but it’s so exciting to see what other people do with it.  Thank you, Jean.

In addition to all the other Christmas decorating Sally does, this year she added some special wreaths–six of them, in fact.  Each wreath has a special theme, and they are on the doors to each of the upstairs rooms in her home.

Luckily, there are double doors on the master suite, so there was room for a wreath for Sally and one for Ray!  Ray is quite the coffee guy.  Can you believe she found ornaments like little Starbucks cups as well as an espresso maker!?!

As you might imagine, Sally is a super shopper!  And her wreath reflects that passion with shopping bags and gift cards from some of her favorite stores.

Cole’s room has a baseball theme–and so does his wreath!  If you look carefully, you can see part of the baseball mural on his wall.  Go Mariners!

Some of you may remember the post about Sally’s craft room party.  The purpose of Sally’s craft room is gift wrapping and scrapbooking.  For the party, she had a wonderful centerpiece with adorably wrapped boxes.  Always the frugal one, she repurposed those little boxes for this wreath on the craft room door!

The bonus room contains Cole’s computer, so it got a computer themed wreath.

And last but not least, the guest bedroom.  This room is most frequently used by my daughter Melissa, our friend Robbyn from Florida and me!  We’ve all been known to enjoy a fancy martini or two!

My sister Sally takes Christmas decorating very seriously.

Of course the planters on her front porch are embellished for the occassion.

This large wooden ornament on the front door is a hint of the theme inside.

The stairway in the entry is so lovely.  Couldn’t one make a great entrance down that stairway?

And the niche is the perfect place for this modern tree.

The main tree and packages are in the formal living room.

I love how her skinny tree tucks right in next to her fireplace.

The decorations this year have a really fun and funky theme.

Sally loves polka-dots, and this theme is really ‘her’!

Every gift is a work of art.

With paper and ribbons perfectly chosen.

The mantle has it’s own unique trees.

We got some of these Kosta Boda Sasntas on our trip to Sweden last summer.

There are even matching toss pillows on the sofas.

The coffee table shows off some of her Murano glass trees.

The powder room is, of course, decorated.  More Murano trees….

….and a little something in the shower.

There are Murano trees on the piano.

And elsewhere in the house.

The family room mantle has more of the polka dot lights and a snowman.

On an end table a modern tree shows off her crystal ornaments.

The dining room looked stunning.

Aren’t the place settings adorable?

Even the windowsills are decorated.

Sally has a wonderful collection of Steinbach nutcrackers.

Upstairs there are two trees in the bonus room.  The ornaments on this one are all Cole’s.

And these are Cole’s “international” ornaments from various trips.

You never leave Sally’s house without a favor.

I’m lucky enough to have been to two parties there this year–including a lovely luncheon yesterday.

Thanks, Sal.

P.S.  I have more photos to show you tomorrow!

I know water features (didn’t we used to just call them fountains) are very in right now, but I didn’t plan on one in my vegetable garden.

Mother Nature, on the other hand, thought I should have one–courtesy of the freezing temperatures we’ve had for the last 10 days.

I need a tripod!

Every year, Bob puts up lights on the pump house at our farm.  He does a beautiful job, and even made the star himself.

Our bog sits on busy Highway 101, so lots of cars go past.

And there’s nothing else around except forest, so there is no light competing with the display.

About dusk this evening, I went out to take some pictures of it, but my camera took a long time for the shutter to close, so they’re all blurry.  Maybe you can come see it in person.

The last few days have been calm, but the two weeks before that were a different story.  We had one big storm after another pummel us here at the coast.

I snapped these out the window of the car as we were driving to Raymond.  These are normally fields–not lakes or bays!

But the real damage was from the wind.  Because we have a lot of rain and a high water table, trees here don’t put down very deep roots.

This is at my mom and dad’s old house.  There aren’t many trees left there anymore!

The wind wiped out a few signs in downtown Long Beach.

It’s no surprise we lost power.

We were only out 12 hours.  My mom and dad were out for 48 hours.

This cottage in Seaview was damaged when a huge tree fell.

And this travel trailer got a surprise ride!  Photo courtesy of beachdog.com.

The calm after the storm.