Friday, December 31, 2010

This One Is For The Birds

We have two adorable love birds who live in the store. They have told me time and time again that they want their turn to write a post on my blog. So to keep them happy I'm letting them write this one. Here goes!


Okay, okay, so we can't say "Polly want a cracker," but we do have hook bills that could leave a pretty good bite if you put your fingers near our cages. If you don't believe us, we would be happy to show you!



May we introduce ourselves to you? Drum roll please. We are the resident Peachface Lovebirds at Casabella, which by the way, is a very cool store in East Cobb. We the mascots, if you will, are much MORE beautiful than the falcons, hawks or thrashers. Besides, those birds are for the guys, we are all about girls! No one took the time to formally name us, so the girls call us "Nipper" and "Baby." The girls feed us, water us, talk to us, play with us, and scold us if we try to bite them. Considering that Casabella is known as the "bird store," we have a pretty good set up.


Sometimes kids like to just sit and watch us tear paper, but mind you it's not JUST tearing paper, we perforate it with our razor sharp beaks and very carefully and almost precisely tuck these pieces of paper into our rump feathers. Why, you ask, do we do this incredibly interesting thing with the paper? Well, it's because we are female Peachface Lovebirds and if we were in the wild we would do this to make nests to lay our eggs. Male Lovebirds not only do not make the nests, they do not know how to tuck bits of paper into their brilliant blue butt feathers like we do, which goes back to the girl thing! We can and will enjoy doing this amazing trick for hours. We are always entertaining the "little ones." It keeps their parents shopping longer!

The next time you visit Casabella, whistle at us and we will say "hello" back in bird language. See you soon!

Friday, December 17, 2010

Get The Look

This year I abandoned the traditional red and green decoration for my mantle. I even decided against gold and white. But I'm getting ahead of myself. My process is simple.

Before deciding on a color, I unpacked my boxes that were filled with decorations. My floor was covered with lots and lots of greenery, ribbon, candle holders, candles, miniature statues, angels, and old and new ornaments.

Next, I thought of a theme. After looking at my decorations, I decided to make color the theme. I chose copper and bronze. Before designing the mantle, I had to clear everything off to make a clean slate.

The first things I put on the mantle were candle holders. I wanted height and these candle holders provided that. I also placed greenery in tall vases to add more height. Then I placed additional greenery to provide a cushion the ornaments and to drape over the edge.  



Ornaments and greenery are placed throughout my home...in the living room, the hallway and the kitchen.


Below is one of the mantles in the store. Pam, one of our merchandisers, did a great job designing this one. Can you guess the story?

I hope that my pictures and directions have made it easy for you to design your own mantle. Bring me a picture, I can't wait to see what you've created!