Got Flowers?

Why yes, I do.

Vintage pillowcases

The above pretty little pillowcases all came from Goodwill. I'm not actually sure they're "vintage", but to me-they look like maybe they're from the 70's. And the 70's means "vintage" to me. I don't really know what the appeal is-maybe because we had something similar when I was a kid. Also they all have a feel I love-smooth and cool. Sheets must be smooth and cool to the touch! Poly/cotton blend, these all are. I love 'em!

The three above were given to me by my husband's grandmother and my grandmother. I did the embroidery on the top two and the bottom one was already done. I love embroidered pillowcases too. I think maybe because it makes me think of the wonderful grandmothers that were in my life.

I've been using most of them too. No sense in having them hide in a closet. My friend Dawnie displays all hers on a rack-which I think is a wonderful idea. I'm a firm believer that if you love something-it should be out and in use or displayed so you can look at it!

Anyhow.......sweet dreams......

Another 15 cent chair

UGLY!
Ahhhhhh-that's better.☺

Flower update

My wall o' flowers

First zinnia to bloom. (Rhonda-I wonder if this one's from the packet you sent me. I've never seen one that has fuzzies in the middle like this one does. Love it!) Also, look at them thar weeds. (Someone should seriously be weeding.) And the dirty rotten Japanese beetles got to my precious zinnias. (Don't worry-I got out the Sevin and now they're all dead-the beetles, that is.☻)

Ohhh-And I'm really liking this one-although I don't know what it's called, off hand. Loving the red and white stripes.

I only spent a dollar or two on zinnias seeds. My daughter brought the rest of my flowers home from school (greenhouse leftovers). Until I planted them, most of them were half dead and I also didn't know what half of them were-so it was hit or miss. So, I'm really happy to see them bloom!

*Dear Flowers,

I ♥ you, even though I neglect you.

Love, Me

Two quilts I have made

Here are two of the quilts I made my sister. I also made her a big one for her bed-but I just knotted that one. These two are hand quilted. By me. Yeah, I can't believe it either. I used to hand quilt. I just quilted simple, straight, lines-but let me tell you-it was hard work. And it takes patience.

Good thing my sisters, mom, and daughter already received their hand quilted quilts from me-because I have not the desire nor the patience to make any in the near future.

Or perhaps I'm just lazy nowadays.☺

Oh well...

My sister's cool headboard

I finally remembered to take my camera to my sister's house today.

She made this cool headboard

.

She bought the two frames from Linens and Things when they were going out of business. They were getting rid of everything including these display frames they had on the wall. I think she spray painted them and then hot glued or stapled fabric to the back. (I'm not sure-cause I wasn't there.) And then screwed them to the wall.

There you have it-a headboard that doubles as wall art or wall art that doubles as a headboard.

I love it because it adds color and it's cool!

Goodnight Moon!

This ol' world can be a beautiful place!☺

I'm on a roll

These are kind of fun to make. So far, I've made 5 to give away.☺

Clothespin holder

My friend Jessie asked me if I could make her a new clothespin holder because hers bit the dust.

Well-that was a couple weeks ago. Yesterday, I was at my friend Dawnie's house and she let me bring her clothespin bag home to use as a pattern.

I traced it onto this pink material-because it's heavy, cut 'er out, and sewed 'er up. I used this orange bias tape because I already had it out (plus, I like pink and orange together). My machine was acting up, so I hand sewed the bias tape to the neckline with embroidery thread. I added a plastic hanger and there you have it-a clothespin holder. Pretty easy.

***Jessie-I hope you like pink and orange.***

Flour sack gift bag

I was filling my flour container yesterday, and it made me think about this gift bag that my Mom made and gave me (with gift in) a long time ago. At the time I thought it was the coolest thing, and thought to myself that I needed to make one someday.

Well, since I have this blog, I had an empty flour sack, and I still had this Robin Hood gift bag from my mom, I decided to give it a shot.

It was really easy and only took a couple minutes.

Here's how I made it:

1. Take an empty flour sack and flatten it out.

2. Cut across the top about a 1/2 an inch above where you want the top to be.

3. Open the sack up and fold the top down about 1/2 an inch the whole way around.

4. Now-fold the sack up like a brown paper bag or store bought gift bag. (This is probably the hardest part.)

5. Take your hole puncher and punch 4 holes-1 near each corner. (I had cute little hole cover thingy majiggies that I put around each hole.)

6. Take some kind of thick string (I used bias tape-from Goodwill, of course. My mom used jute.) and knot at each hole to make handles. You may have to double knot-if the string you use is too thin.

And there you go-a flour sack gift bag. A unique, cute, little bag that would be cool to give food gifts or kitchen gifts in, don't you think? I do.

***Note-the flour sack my mom gave me was dated 1994. I've held onto that thing for 15 years!***

Homemade Fudgsicles

Get out those Tupperware popsicle molds, grab some Yoohoo (or chocolate milk), pour your Yoohoo in the molds, stick 'em in the freezer, wait a few hours, and voilá-you've got fudgsicles.

*Fruit juice is good too. Also, you can save the juice you (I) would normally dump down the drain-from canned fruit for making popsicles too.☺

We made greeting cards!

Outside
Inside.

I used some of my daughter photos to make greeting cards at Shutterfly.com. I'm really pleased. They look just as good as ones you buy in the store.

I don't know about you-but sometimes I have a hard time finding cards that are pretty and say what I want them to. That might not be a problem anymore. I'll just make my own-thank you very much!

Very affordable too. In fact, much more affordable than Hallmark-and just as nice, I think.

Holy Cows!!!

The view from behind my house-this rainy morning.

Minty fresh

Here's a great smelling summertime candle-Fresh Mint by Yankee Candle.

I bought this a couple years ago, after my sister Kimmie said she really liked this scent. I didn't light it until this morning. I thought this would be a nice summer scent-and it is. Mmmmm... smells great!☺

Just a minute-I'll look on the Yankee Candle website to see if they still make it.....nope, they don't make it anymore. Maybe they'll bring it back, someday. Darn those Yankee Candle people-they always take away the good scents.

This smell reminds me of my husband's grandmother, ~Goosey~, making mint tea. I loved that stuff. Bring water to a boil, throw in a big handful of mint, take off heat, let cool, take out the mint leaves, add sugar and ice, and there you go. Good, refreshing stuff!

***If you ever want to plant mint-make sure you plant it in a container. That stuff runs rampant and will overtake your garden!***

Beautiful handmade paper

Nope-I'm lying. It's toilet paper-but it has hearts on it!

No-I didn't buy it because it had hearts on it-I didn't know till I got home. I bought it because it was cheap!

But-I smiled when I saw the hearts.♥

***If anyone would have told me I would have toilet paper on my blog-I would have called them a nut-job. (But apparently, the nut-job would be me.☺)***

It really is the little things...

in life (like new dish cloths and wash cloths), that make me happy.☺

If yours are getting all stained and yucky-take a few bucks and get some new. It'll make you feel better-I promise!

Custom mousepad

I ordered this lovely custom mousepad of one of my daughter's lovely photos from artsnow.com.

That's artsnow not artscow. (I think they are sister companies or something or other.)

It's only $2.99 with free shipping if you use coupon code mspd99. You can't beat that with a stick.☺

***As if you didn't already know-I ♥ photo gifts.***

I made pie!

Yesterday I made a completely from scratch (meaning I didn't use store bought crust or filling) blueberry pie, for the first time in probably 2 or 3 years. And guess what. I didn't look at a recipe or anything-I remembered everything.

Hold on, while I pat myself on the back.

Okay-I'm done being silly.

But-I was really proud of myself.

And the best thing-it was scrumdiddlyumptious.

PS-I shared with my sister, my brother-out-law, and my niece.

♥♥♥♥♥

Blueberry pie filling

About 3 pints or 6 cups of blueberries (wash and pick off stems)

1 cup sugar

Around 4 heaping teaspoons cornstarch

Put above ingredients in sauce pan. Cook on low-medium heat, stirring constantly, until sugar and cornstarch are dissolved and blueberries are just warm.

Place berry mixture in pie crust. (This is enough filling for a deep dish pie plate.) Top with another crust. Bake 350-375 degrees, around 45 minutes-or until filling is bubbly and crust has lightly browned.

Enjoy!

I love this weed wildflower

I love Queen Anne's lace. And it's in my yard-free for the taking. I couldn't ask for more than that, could I?

***Don't forget-you can color your flowers with a healthy dose of food coloring. See here. ***

I got to them first!

I picked the first of the yellow raspberries. I got to them before hubby did.

Sorry dear-you snooze, you lose!

***I think it's funny that you can see my shadow.***

Homemade cabinet redo

My dad made this cabinet (it was natural oak) for my grandmother. It hung on her wall for many years, displaying her bell collection.

Both of my wonderful grandmas passed away in 1998.

So, this cabinet made it's way back to my dad and it sat in his basement for many more years. Finally, he asked me if I would like to take it, because if not, he was trashing it.

Well, I couldn't let it be trashed! But I honestly didn't know what the heck I would do with it. It's quite a large and heavy piece to be hanging, and I really didn't have a good wall for it.

It sat in our shed for a year or two-then my husband said he thought I better do something with it because it was in the way and it would get broke-yada, yada, yada.

It moved to our basement and then one day I had this (I thought) bright idea to put it up on legs.

I went to Goodwill, found a stool with legs for 8 dollars, brought it home. I hammered, hacked, sawed, and demolished the heck out of that stool-but I got my legs.

I primed, painted, and aged the cabinet and legs. Got it upstairs, took out my stash of National Geographics, put the cabinet on those. Took Gorilla glue to the little legs, carefully took out the NG on one side to place my legs, then the other, added glass knobs and tada-a nice, little display cabinet. I had the perfect spot for it too!

I am so glad I salvaged that cabinet. Not only does it have sentimental value, I absolutely love it!

***I did this in 2007 according to the back of the photos I scanned***

***Edited to add-more photos of my cabinet in use.***

I love this thing!

Random

These are random photos taken and edited by my daughter.

I really like the look of them.

Some blog fodder arrived in my mailbox today.

These 4x4 inch stretched canvas prints arrived in the mail today. I ordered them from Artscow.com for $3.99 a piece. Using coupon code 4x4canvas399, good until July 31st.

I'm really quite happy with the quality of these. Especially for the price.

My daughter has been taking and editing some really cool photos lately, so I thought I might order some canvas prints of her cool pics. I may also make her a photo book of them too.

The only thing I am surprised about is that they are kind of shiny. Almost like they have a plastic coating on them.

I suppose that will make them easier to dust. Not that that will happen very often, in this house. But when it does, that inch of dust should be easy to remove!☺☺☺☺☺

Have you ever seen hummingbird food that looks like this?

Yeah, me neither.

But this is what it looks like when you are into watching 24. So don't mix the two, kay?

Thank you Lord for smoke detectors!

***Hummingbird food-1 part sugar to 4 parts water. Boil 1 minute-not 30!☺

***Go here to see one of my hummers. Click on pic to enlarge.

Wade porcelain miniatures...

Or those little figurines that come in every box of Redrose tea.

Some people collect these figurines. I don't, really. But that doesn't mean I don't enjoy opening my box of tea and seeing what I got. It's always fun to find one that I don't already have.

Kinda like Cracker Jacks for big people!☺

Kitchen(ette)

Welcome to my kitchen. (Or kitchenette as I affectionately call it-sometimes. Sometimes not so affectionately.)

I was looking through some of my photos this morning and came across these.

My mom was coming over one day and my house was disasterous, but I had no time to clean 'er up, so disasterous it stayed. For some reason, I want my house to be clean when my mom comes over.

When I got the chance, I cleaned the heck out of it and took pictures so I had photographic evidence that my little kitchenette is clean sometimes. Of course-it only lasts about 2 seconds, because-you know-we have to eat.

So, there you have it-my kitchen(ette), in all it's little, cluttered glory!☺

(By the way-I always try to talk myself out of complaining about my little kitchen. You know-since 90 percent of the people in this world live in poverty and would consider my home a mansion.)

Rock + Hole=

Planter.

My husband works on a strip job, so he finds these rocks with holes in every once and a while. (The hole comes from drilling-I think.) So I told him to bring 'em on home, when he finds them. I now have about six, I think.

Now, I've seen these rocks quite a bit around this area, sitting on the edge of driveways and yards-but they are always up on their side.

I'm sure I saw this somewhere, I have no idea where, but I like mine over on their side. That way-hello-I have a little planter!

Yeah-I like flowers growin' out of my rocks.

They used to be in cupcakes...

Now they're in dirt.

Apparently my friend and neighbor knows that sometimes I like things that would normally end up in the trash, because she wanted to give me some cupcake toppers that she had just taken out of some store bought cupcakes.

I said-sure, I'll take 'em. Then I took them home and stuck them in dirt.

My poor flowers need all the help they can get!

Cup o' Joe

Literally and figuratively! (I think?☺)

Oh, a year or two ago, Joe and Ricky jumped into my cart at (you know where).

I felt sorry for them, so I adopted them into my home. (Didn't hurt that they were wearing red gingham!)

It's called "Grace"

I've seen this picture alot in all different sizes and conditions in thrift stores over the years and I've always admired it. But when I spotted this one in good condition, I thought perhaps I could find a spot for it in my house. And I did, and I love ♥ it!

You can read the history of this photo turned painting here.