Thanks J, but I just now found THE perfect online craft store! I looked at Joann's and she didn't have what I really wanted. What I like about online stores like this one is they have so many choices, more than a Hobby Lobby would. Our HL isn't all that either. :( Since I last posted I ordered an Apothecary Jar (inexpensive and the right size) and found this website to help me decorate it. They also have a lot of Christmas things to decorate with, all at low prices. They're out of California and have a picture of their store. It's beautiful! Here's the link: Here is a link that might be useful: Craft Store

Great idea, Maggie! I really like your room decor. It is so crisp and clean. I've never seen a house like that hear in Phoenix. We have pretty much Southwestern or Mediterranean. I am a Christmas decoration junky myself. My village alone sits on a 4x8 piece of plywood with various small tables along side it. I think I need another piece of plywood this year. I do store my tree with the lights attached. It took about a week, working a few hours a day, to carefully wrapping lights around each branch. It then took another two weeks for my hands to recover, lol! It was great storing that way for about 6 years. They are slowly blowing out now and I don't look forward to fixing them. A friend of mine had her tree permanently lit by professionals. Her lights finally started to go, so she threw the whole thing out and bought a Costco prelit tree last year. She SAID she was going to throw that one out and buy a new on every year ($150). I'll have to ask her if she did that. It sure would save on storage space(ha!). I don't really have much need for a safe room. Although I may build myself a wine cellar with a keypad from the inside. It would be called a sanity room ;>D

Foxes Pad, I don't go to home stores often (usually antique stores) but when I dare to step inside one everything is greige or beige. I. Am. So. Tired. Of. That. Look. Please, for the love of everything decorating-holy, move on! My father was a designer and had furniture stores since before I was born until 1980ish, and his father before him had a furniture factory until it burned down. The stores were set up as Pal described, but changed often (with the exception of draperies). People could buy off the floor (all floors) or custom order. He went to market twice a year and ordered whatever whenever in between to keep inventory. The last store carried a high price point, but also a variety of price points below so almost anyone could find something. He retired after discovering he could rent the building to another furniture store and make the same money without having to put on a suit daily. So he went from retail to commercial real estate overnight and never looked back. Now, one locally owned furniture store in our area is mostly full of gaudy ornate pieces that look like they belong in Vegas or a bordello. Sad times for those looking to buy modern or traditional pieces. The other carries the greige phase. Actually a new store opened about six months ago and I finally went in at DH's insistence - more greige! Even the accessories in the last two stores are monochromatic with no appeal to me whatsoever. None of my friends buy this and neither do our three adult children, so I'm not sure what age group is buying the bulk of it. The internet has changed the way we shop --> seek, compare, order. Granted you're taking chances if ordering a sofa you haven't sat upon before clicking the button. But isn't it easier to explore the 15,000 lighting options from the comfort of your chain while wearing pajamas and no make-up?! I don't really read blogs. I do look at one a friend writes now and then (she's currently remodeling a house) and I like to read Atticmag, which is really not a blog. I also avoid Apartment Therapy (nothing new there) and recently unfollowed House Beautiful on Facebook (articles I clicked through to read taught me nothing). As someone raised in a furniture store, it is quite depressing.

Cool! I am planning on putting two slow-growing evergreen trees/tall shrubs down at the base of my porch flanking my entryway, and possibly two or three more along the rail of that porch. I have a few sets of battery-operated LED lights, and I'd get more, so that these tree/shrubs can be amply lit, and I can wrap another set or two of lights along the railing for the porch. I have a grapevine wreath base, and can do as I have in past years: add various greens like holly and boxwood and whatever, and a nice ribbon, and hang that over my front door. Where I am moving in the rural countryside, people don't seem to get very highly-intensive in their Christmas/holiday/Solstice decor -- there are lights, but it isn't extensive. I am not going to plan on lights dripping down from my eaves -- indeed, these can be lovely, but I'm going to stay with understated. I have no kids to impress. (Mind you, I love seeing the spectacular displays others have put on! -- whether or not in this neighborhood!) (Indoors, there will be a tree -- probably a real tree, with an option for artificial somewhere down the road -- but never with "pre-lit" lights as I like the option to send creativity in different directions each year.)