It’s almost tea time and I still have to finish the gifts for my guests.
I decided to make lavender shortbread this year and wrap them with pretty ribbon and a tag. The recipe calls for the shortbread to be rolled in course granulated sugar so as part of my gift I made these cute spice jars filled with sugar.
But I haven’t got a clue as to how to treat the tops and handles of the boxes that will hold all the goodies.
Any ideas?
Hello! How are you? I can hardly believe the month of January has come and gone… what about you?
I’ve been busy living life in the real world and enjoying a little extra time away from my work. It’s amazing how a job can consume so much of a persons time leaving little left for the funner things in life...like creating! Oh yes, I know, “funner” isn’t actually a real word, but I like to use it anyway.
There is one part of my job that I dearly love and that’s our annual Tea Party. This year it will be held at the end of February so my friend Nancy and I decided we better start early on our “Tea Treats”… before the month slipped away. We both decided to make cookies and package them up with pretty ribbons and bows…or paper roses.
This is what we came up with for Nancy’s guests. We started with a plain paper mache` box, then cut strips of pattern tissue 5” wide, folded it in half, and began to roll it into paper flowers. Tie it off with pretty ribbon, hot glue it to the lid, and “Viola,” you have yourself the cutest little cookie boxes ever!
I found this idea on Heather Bullard’s blog about a year ago and thought the idea was so sweet and perfect for a tea.
Oh, do you see the darling plate in the second picture? Nancy made them from tissue paper and glass plates…too cute, don’t you think? Me too!
Well, I’ll be spending my day working on my “Tea Treats” and when I’m done you’ll be the first to see what I came up with.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend…any fun plans?
I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I’ve explored the local antiques stores, but with Christmas just around the corner I thought It would be fun to go looking for some Christmas inspiration...antique style. My first stop is always Country Roads Antiques in the city of Orange where so many of the vendors have created the dreamiest spaces. I love the way this old table cloth has been draped across the faux window.
I loved this little corner that was decorated with a small tree and vintage fotos hanging from sweet pink ribbons as ornaments. I tried to take a picture for you, but the tree was against a huge picture window with the sun light streaming through...all I could get was a huge white blur.
I met up with this lovely lady and she reminded me of Vanessa’s Miss Hall-Borchert. As I gazed upon her standing there alone I thought to myself, “she and Miss Hall-B. would be the best of friends. No one should be left alone and friendless as this one was...especially during the Holidays.
I don’t know why, but I loved this little vignette behind the chicken wire…oops! I think these days it’s commonly called, “poultry confinement material.” What a strange world we live in, do you agree? Yes, I thought you would!
I found these rose covered plates that I’ve been searching for forever and a day, but decided to pass them up until hubby called. It seems I’ve been making a lot of “unauthorized purchases” of late. Of course he would never so no to anything I wanted to buy, although there was that time in Petaluma when I fell in love with an ebonized Victorian piano stool inlaid with mother of pearl and he said “absolutely not!” I dearly love to tease him about that one ;-).
I was planning to make gingerbread cookies today and finish my Christmas decorating. I’m so far behind. But, I’ve been trying to ignore a head cold for the past week that has finally gotten the better of me. So who knows…
I may just sit here curled up on the couch all day sipping spiced cider and looking through my old Victoria magazines for old inspirations made new.
I hope you all have a lovely Friday where ever you are.
Thankfully the weather here has started to cool down and we've been experiencing the most lovely overcast mornings with cool breezes. There for awhile, even poor Tallulah needed to wear her sunglasses since the maid who dwells beneath the eaves of Brambleberry Cottage hasn't sewn her drapes yet, but today may be the day! In fact, I just stepped away from this post to bring my work table in and while moving the kitchen island we discovered the islands wheels need shimming up...another project for another day.
Yesterday while my Internet was down I had hubby cut my rod then I hung the table cloth-turned drape in the closet...what do you think? I like how it separates the two spaces and hides some of the clutter behind the mirror. Oh yeah, things have collected back there too. It's a great place to hide all those ugly objects like black out fabric, cutting mats, and power cords. Doesn't it make you nuts having exposed cords all over your cottage? I know it does me, which is why I hide them at all cost!
So, I've decided to go off on one of my little rabbit trails. I was over at Vanessa's twitter page a few minutes ago and she twittered about Gypsy Wagons...something I've been dreaming about since FOREVER!!! My own little Gypsy Wagon. The first time I saw one was about 6 years ago while hubby and I were at a Renaissance Faire in Northern California, so much fun by the way!!! We've been looking for a vintage trailer for almost 3 years, but they're either too old, too far away, or too much money so this may be the perfect solution. Hubby can build me my very own gypsy wagon. He is after all a master craftsman! He can build anything! I mentioned to him that there are workshops he could take to build "said wagon" and he says, "PLEASE!!!! Do you think I need to take a class on building anything?" "Oops! Sorry!" was my reply. The only thing he needs help with is trying to interpret my brain and the ideas I come up with. I'm not saying he doesn't understand me, what I'm saying is that I have poor communication skills. I say things like, "honey, can you build me one of those thingy's?" and he says, "what thingy?" and I say, "you know, one of those thingy's I've been wanting. I told you about it a year ago." Then he has to try digging in my head to pull out all the details. I'm guilty of designing things as I go without any plans written down. It must be so frustrating for dear hubby, but he always manages to bring my dreams to reality.
Rabbit trail complete, now back to reality.
On my new room that is! I'm sure you're all getting tired of seeing it so I've decided it's time to move on to other things even though it seems this project is still on going. All I have left to do is decorate my walls and make my drapes. Next weekend I'll be getting my ginormous work table out so I can lay out the fabric and be done with it! I've got this gorgeous chocolate velvet fabric that I'm going to use and line it with blackout cloth. This little cottage has no insulation and when the temperature soars into the 100's heavy drapes are the only things that keep me from going batty.
My Vanessa Valencia's finally came in the mail and I'm so excited!!! I can't wait to frame them up and hang them in my new room. Don't you just LoVe Vanessa? She's the sweetest little elf in Bloglandia. I say she's an elf because she lives under her huge tree filled with treasures and trinkets. Only elves live in trees you know...well there are also squirrels and birds and other such wonderful things, but she's an elf and I love her so!! I Love you Vanessa!!!! We all love you Vanessa!!!!
One of the things we did in the closet was rip out the old shelves and replace them with new ones then added rope molding to the edges. I'm not sure where that idea came from, but it finished the shelves off nicely and added a sweet little whimsical touch.
When we removed the doors I seemed to suffer from a brain blip and forgot how much JUNK was stored in here. Have you ever seen the movie, "27 Dresses"? I love that movie!!! One of my favorite scenes is when she's trying to stuff all those dresses in the closet and the door won't close...so cute!!! That's kind of how this closet was. There were days when I needed to get in there, but was terrified I wouldn't be able to close the door while everything toppling out on the floor.
Do you remember my little desk? I kept debating whether to paint it or not, but after three weeks of feeling like I woke up and went to sleep with a paint brush in my hands I decided to leave it the way I found it. Plus I really am a dark wood kinda girl. Horror of horrors!!!! Dark wood!!!! I just love the warmth of it against a light background ;-).
Fabric, Fabric, fabric...what am I going to do with all this fabric? some of it is the most beautiful Sari fabric from India that I think I'll make into skirts. There are so many lovely colors and patterns that it makes my heart flutter so.
That's what I keep asking myself...is there no end? Apparently, with this project there isn't! It's like the energizer bunny, who keeps going and going and going. The only problem is I'm running out of steam...OH NO!!! Say it is not so...LOL!!! What I need is one entire week with no interruptions to finish it up, but since that's not about to happen I just keep plodding along, joyfully I might add, even though the stream is running out of my choo choo train.
Monday I decided to indulge in a change of scenery so I headed over to one of my favorite antiques stores in the city of Orange. I've been in search of old table linens for who knows what reason...I don't know, they just seem to be calling to me of late.
I'm still working on the room very slowly, but it's finally starting to come together. All the furniture is back in and the shelves are up in the closet so now I'm just waiting for the paint to dry before I put everything away. I have a few little projects to complete and then it will be done.
and Viola! Grandma's lamp has a new petticoat without any alterations having to be made. I was quite surprised when I asked hubby what he thought about the lamp in a petticoat and he liked it. Good thing because it was going to stay that way whether he liked it or not...hahaha!!!
Do you remember this ol' thing? It laid around the backyard of Brambleberry Cottage for about a year soaking in the warmth of the sun, drinking in the rain, and becoming a co-op building for the scariest looking spiders in the world...YIKES!!! There were so many of them and they weren't too happy about been sprayed to death and booted out of their home, but Oh well! Such is life...the spiders had to go.
Mademoiselle is finally back in her room,
I can't tell you how many days I've stood in this very spot
Even Elmo has wondered
The room still looks bare,
I've committed the design faux pas of the century...
My darling linen table cloth, I mean bedspread.
We're still working in our guest room and the progress is
By the two pictures above you can see why I often refer to this old cottage as
Saturday after belly dance my friend Kathy and I headed to
I'm debating as to whether to paint it white or leave it as is.
I wish I had some pictures of the room to show you, but it doesn't look any different from the last post so I thought I'd show you something else.
First I made the little girl kitten...
and then the little boy.
