I’ve always loved Christmas, especially Christmas Trees. When I was growing up in the 1960s, it was always a very special day when my brothers and I were allowed to get out the Christmas Tree lights and change out all the bulbs that no longer worked. (Yes, Christmas Trees had bulbs that screwed in back then.) It meant the beginning of the Christmas season in our home and that we would soon be getting our tree!

We always had a live tree. One year when I was a teenager, my mother got an artificial tree and we put it up and decorated it. The next day she took it down and went and got a live tree. I have always had a live tree as my “main” Christmas tree.

When I was in college, I read an article in the local newspaper about a lady who loved Christmas trees so much she put one in every room. Each tree had a different theme, including a tree with ornaments from all of the places she had visited. I was so inspired and knew than that my future plans included a tree in every room.

Through the years I gradually added more and more trees as I gradually had bigger dwellings. Last year was the all time high, we had 16 Christmas trees. I didn’t put them all up this year, I got a late start and only have 12 this year. I almost always vary what I put up and where from year to year.

Last year I took some very nice photos of my trees and thought I would share them with you.  The picture above is of our main tree in our family room.  It doesn’t have a “theme” – but contains ornaments collected over the years. I have an ornament from the 1950s that was once on my parent’s tree, ornaments my daughter bought home from a trip to Europe (I have taught her to get an ornament every where you visit when you are traveling!) and many, many others – they are all very special to me!

This picture to  is my Barbie Christmas tree.  I either have it in my office or bedroom.  Luckily my husband is very understanding of a sparkly pink girly tree!  In addition to Barbie Christmas Ornaments, I use pink lights and other sparkly, girly ornaments I have collected – shoes, pink poodles – even a tiara.

To the right is our front door. You can see the two small trees outside. The large tree in the window is in the dining room. It is our “angel tree” – it is decorated with angel ornaments, mostly in cream and gold. Here is a better picture:
You can also see the two small trees we have inside on either side of the front door.

Also in the dining room (on the other side), I have two matching trees decorated in burgundy and gold.  I just love my dining room – last year we redecorated it and now I have a beautiful place to display my Depression Glass and other glass and dishes that I have collected.

This is my Foyer Christmas Tree, looking into the Dining Room. It is decorated in silver and purple.

In addition to these, I always have a small tree in my kitchen with miniature ornaments I have collected over the years.  Last year we had a Santa Claus tree in the breakfast room, but we did some rearranging and don’t have the space for it this year.

I also have a snoopy tree this year in our office and we are really enjoying it and I have a really pretty and elegant gold tree in my guest bathroom.

I think I have maxed out on where I can have trees, but I will always continue to upgrade them and add new things every year.

Thank you for allowing me to share my home with you and I wish you and yours a very Merry Christmas filled with love and joy and laughter!  Here’s to a wonderful holiday and a happy, healthy and prosperous 2012!

The BEST SBI! promotion of the year – Good through December 25 at midnight, buy one-get one free!  The first site becomes active immediately – you have 9 months to activate the second site.  You can also give one site as a gift, or split the purchase with someone and each get a site for half-price.  This promotion generally only happens once a year.  Here is your chance for the best business building program available.

What is SBI!?  It is everything you need to build an online business – the instructions and all the tools.  It is designed so the average person with no computer experience can learn how to build a successful website that generates revenue.  There are many different methods you can use to earn money for your site and SBI teaches you about all of them, so you can decide what is the best for you.

They have a 10-day action guide that takes you step-by-step from deciding what to make your site about to how to make an income.   The coolest thing is you can build a website that earns you money on a topic you already know and love.  My most successful website is about Vintage Barbie dolls – something I collected for years.

My entire life I wanted to be able to work from home, self-employed, doing my own thing.  I searched for the solution for over 20 years.  When the internet and eBay came into the picture, I knew I could make money (and I did), but eBay is hard work and although you can make money, you aren’t building a buisness that will work for you.  Everyday you have to find stuff to sell, list, pack, ship, over and over and over again.  (If you’re interested, check out  Why SBI! is better than eBay)

Before SBI I sold Vintage Barbie Dolls and clothing on eBay – now instead of paying eBay, they pay me and I like that much better!  Also, I can not even touch my websites for weeks and they still earn money – it goes without saying that if you didn’t work eBay for two weeks you couldn’t make any money!

I give thanks for SiteBuildIt everyday.  It taught me how to get the freedom I’ve always wanted.  In less than three years I was able to walk away from a very well paying job and the first year after that I doubled what I had been making.  
(You can ready my story here – My Success Story – What a Long, Strange Trip it’s Been -
It is the same story that is featured here – Today is the first day of the rest of your life)

SBI! isn’t for everyone, but for many of us it has allowed us to make our dreams come true!  If you want to learn more, visit SBI! – Build An e-BUSINESS, or check them out on Facebook.

I’m excited to let you know about my latest project, Vintage Bliss Network.  Anyone who knows even a little bit about me, knows of my love for all things vintage!

It all started about 15 years ago.  My daughter discovered Barbie and I think I loved that Barbie more than she did.  I started researching Barbie and ended up on eBay and discovered the amazing world of Vintage Barbie.  I was hooked from my first purchase.

I lived in a large metropolitan area wt the time and I began to scour my local antique stores and flea markets for vintage Barbie items.  I never did find any Barbie items, ever.  But I discovered so many other treasures – depression glass, vintage jewelry and a myriad of other treasures.  I loved them all and had an insatiable desire to learn about them.  I was fascinated by why some things were considered so valuable and others were not.  I wanted to know about the items, when they were made, who made them, where were they sold…

Over the course of several years, I sold over 10,000 vintage Barbie items on eBay.  In 2006, when I decided to learn how to build websites, I wanted to build the ultimate, definitive Vintage Barbie site and I started Fashion Doll Guide.  It now has well over 1,000 pages and many, many more to go.

My second greatest love is glassware.   My mother has always loved and collected glass and I love it as well.  Glassware is a much bigger topic than Barbie, but I also wanted a vintage glassware website, focusing on Depression Glass, so I started SuzieMax Depression Glass in 2007.

I have played around with some other vintage themed sites and I finally decided to bite the bullet and get them all up and moving forward.  I have spent the last week working nonstop to move sites around, to reorganize and to get ready to move forward with them.  Finally, I organized them all into the Vintage Bliss Network - it is the hub, or the mother-ship for all of them.  As I move forward, I will be creating more smaller vintage sites.  There is an unfilled need online for well organized information about many vintage collectibles.

In addition to Fashion Doll  and SuzieMax Depression Glass, the network of sites also includes Vintage Bliss Vintage Dolls, Vintage Jewelry Guide, Vintage Cookie Jars and Vintage Perfume Bottles.   I had tried to combine all of these together, but I like having them separated much better as they are all small, but very well defined niches.

From a website building standpoint, I am using SiteBuildIt for my Barbie and Depression Glass sites.  I am using WordPress with the Thesis theme and the phpBay plugin for the smaller sites.

Those who know me, also know that I am as passionate about beauty, skincare, makeup and fashion as I am about vintage items.  So yes, there is a Beauty Network in the works.  Stay tuned…

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Last year I discovered the most wonderful sheets in the world! They are called microfleece and they are the softest, warmest, coziest things in the world.

Last fall I got a set for myself. I loved them – they are just so wonderful to snuggle into on a cool night. I would probably have never ordered them – but there were literally hundreds of positive reviews and raves about them, I had to try them.

I have never been a big fan of regular fleece sheets at all.  I was hoping they would be different.  They were – they are completely different than regular fleece.

I loved them so much, I told my BFF Lynn about them. She got some and loved them just as much.
I got my daughter Katie as set, she loves them.
I got the Christmas colors to use during the holidays.
I decided to get both my mother and mother-in-law some for Christmas. They both loved them. For months after, my mother would tell me how much she loved them whenever I talked to her.
Last year, I bought a total of 7 sets of sheets and 3 comforters.

When the weather got warmer, I sadly packed away my beloved sheets. For several months I have been waiting for the weather to get cooler and have been looking forward to getting them out & using them again. I had even been talking about looking forward to using them.

Finally it got cooler here. I woke up one morning and thought, “today, I am going to get my sheets down, wash them and put them on my bed”. I was really excited. Then I realized I don’t have any of my beloved sheets that will fit my bed! Last spring we upgraded to a king size bed and all my sheets are queen size. I was so disappointed and a little miffed with myself that I didn’t realize this before!

When I told Lynn about this, she told me they love their sheets so much, they have used them year round. Sounds like a good idea to me.

Luckily the comforters I bought still fit, because I did get King Size. The King and Queen sizes are the same price, so I went for the bigger one. It fit more like a bed spread on my queen-size bed, but even on the king size it has more coverage than the one we were using.

So, I ordered my sheets that day, got them about a week later and have been blissfully sleeping snuggled in the cozy, softness.

I got all of mine from Brylane Homes, I have seen them a few other places, but I don’t think you can beat the quality, price and selection anywhere else.  Check out the reviews of these on this site – over 1400 & most are growing.  One thing I read on the reviews is that some microfleece sheet brands have a big problem with lint.  These do not.  If you have someone on your gift list that is hard to buy for, I whole heartily recommend these.  Of course, you need to get yourself a set or two as well.

My Newest Adventure is called Pariam Labs and it truly is the adventure I never expected to take…

I have been perfectly happy building my websites, creating a life on my terms and making a very comfortable living from my home office. But as we all know, sometimes life has other plans for us.

I have a teenage daughter (who is about to turn 17 – ugh). Several years ago she had a very serious acne problem. I had tried everything I could think of and nothing was clearing it up. I knew part of the problem was non-compliance. At the same time I had also rekindled my interest in natural health and medicine and had been working on a project and researching quite a bit. I came across an idea for a natural acne treatment for my daughter and decided to try it. I ordered all of the ingredients & put it together. Much to my delight, within 3 days her acne was at least 75% cleared. Within a week or so it was almost all gone. This was after years of acne.

The treatment I created is a liquid & all she had to do was spray it on her face twice a day. Now that she is acne free, she just sprays it on every day or two and it prevents breakouts and blackheads.

I have been a Registered Nurse for over 25 years and at my very first job (as an Emergency RN), I was blessed to work with a doctor who taught me so much about natural medicine. He gave me a book on vitamins and taught me how to treat and prevent many health problems with vitamins and other natural products. My daughter has never had an antibiotic in her life – not a single dose. I attribute this to what he taught me.

Anyway, after my daughter’s success with my little concoction, I started using the product and it completely stopped the monthly breakouts I had been having my entire adult life. We also shared the product with our family and friends and they also had wonderful success.

My husband, Charlie, had the brilliant idea that we needed to sell it. I finally told him to sell it if he wanted to, I already had a successful business (my websites) and was not looking for another one. Well, as they say, the rest is history. You can read the complete story here – About Pariam Labs.

We named the product DeMistify Natural Acne Treatment and have created several variations of it to address other problems we had.  So today we have deMistify, Soothing Body Spray and Fungal Treatment Foam.

Although I went into this business almost kicking and screaming, it has been a wonderful learning adventure so far.  These little products are getting rave reviews and we have met some great people and are learning so much about this type of business.  I have been working on the website.  One thing for sure, if I was going to create a product to sell for the sake of selling products, it definitely would NOT be an acne product – talk about competition!  But we know we were blessed with a wonderful product that truly does help people, so we are working to spread the word.

Visit – Pariam Labs, Natural Acne Treatment

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I’m not much on costumes, but love to dress festively for holidays.  Halloween is on a Sunday this year – you can dress for church or a special day with a great orange top, black jeans and some fun Halloween jewelry.  If you need to dress up, add an orange mockneck top or blouse with your favorite black suit.  Or if you want to go all out – find yourself a sparkly Halloween T-Shirt or Sweatshirt.

For more – Trendy Plus Size Clothes for Halloween

Trendy Plus Size Clothes

Not only are Halloween Barbie Dolls a fun collectible, they are also fun to use in your decorating.  The Halloween Barbie Dolls are a part of the “play” line, not the collectible Barbie line – which means they are very inexpensive to acquire!

The first Halloween Barbie Dolls were the Barbie & Kelly Halloween Target gift set in 1997.

There have been Halloween Barbies every year since – both Grocery Store / Pink Box editions and many years had a Target special Halloween edition.

Read More – Halloween Barbie Dolls

Vintage Barbie and Fashion Doll Guide

My sister-in-law Debbie & her sister Sheila have been HARD at work on their Party Ideas website.

They have some great and creative Halloween Party Ideas – including Costume, Party Decorations, Food, punch & Cupcake Ideas, School Party and Halloween Party Games ideas, pumpkin carving, safety tips and fun Halloween facts. Did you know $100 million worth of pumpkins are grown each year in the United States? Or $19 billion worth of candy is sold each year in the United States?

If you need some great Halloween Party Ideas, they’ve got them!

One Stop Party Ideas
Halloween Party Ideas

My niece Leslie is expecting her first baby in a few months.  She’s been grounded by her doctor and decided to the best way to be productive in a non-strenuous way was to start her own SBI site.

Since she learned so much and had so much fun decorating her nursery, she decided to build a site on Decorating Ideas.

She has a great section on Halloween Decorating Ideas that includes Halloween Cupcake, table, window, pumpkin, yard and door decorating.

Great Decorating Ideas

Halloween Decorating Idea

Front Porch Ideas and More is an Amazing website any day of the year and they have a great Outdoor Halloween Decorating section. If you need ideas to decorate the outside of your home for Halloween, head on over to Outdoor Halloween Decorations for a Fun Porch.

If you’ve already got the decorations and want to show them off – they have Autumn and Halloween Porch Decorating Contests going this month – go enter your masterpiece!

Just looking at their beautiful front porch site & pictures makes me want to go buy some Mums and pumpkins.

Outdoor Halloween Decorations for a Fun Porch

Autumn and Halloween Porch Decorating Contest