Saturday Digest

This is delicious...especially, when generously sprinkled on Baked Potato Soup. :)

I made concrete eggs using a Wilton egg cake mold I picked up at a garage sale.

I had to do some filing to smooth them down a bit before I glued the two pieces together.  I think I may like these better. I may try again. 

From this post, I know many of you share my joy in peat pots.

I can't remember what these were called, but I found them next to the peat pots at Earl May and they were 25 cents each and VERY cool.  I also found them at Bomgaars for a little less, but not quite as sturdy as these.

They are about 4.5" across the top. They are sturdy enough to hold lighter weight treats or items.

What do you think?  They could make great May Day baskets or small Easter baskets couldn't they?!

I could see filling one with seed packets and adorned  paper and/or fabric flowers to give for a spring time gift.

They have such great texture!

~~Have a great weekend~~

Distractions While Watching Golf

My son had his first golf meet of the season yesterday and the weather was beautiful even though it was a bit windy.

I was hoping he wouldn't notice me laying on the ground taking pictures. (I had to desaturate the trees so you could see him better.)

I love golf.  I love my son.  BUT, watching golf can be a bit slow....so I took pictures of the neatest tree!  Natural pom poms!!

The bark is coming off the tree and it is so neat.  I don't know what kind of tree it is, or if the bark sloughing off is a sign of it dying or just unique to the tree.  Anyone know?

My husband and I are very tall. :) 

Auction Buys

**a pretty little stack of flour sacks**

with one pillow case masquerading as a flour sack, tricky one. 

**sweet crocheted dress**

doll or little girl dress?

**two turquoise 5" crock bowls**

**yeah!**

could go in my tank garden but since I have one, albeit not white, I think I'll sell this one

**large silver ladle**

I would have gone to the auction just for this, it's going to be flattened, mounted on an aged board and be a Holy Water font in my sewing room!

I'm hope you all have a great week!

I'm linking up with Thrift Share Monday at Apron Thrift Girl and Knick of Time's Vintage Style Linky Party.

Another Spring Mantel

This is a bit unconventional and it may kind of look like a store display, but I'm really enjoying the spring colors on our mantle.  I bought a box of reader's digest books at a recent auction. I should probably say, another box of reader's digest books. :)

The covers are soooooo awesome!!  I decided I just wanted to display them for awhile.

I picked up two of these frames at the same auction.  They had some very common portraits in them.  I  popped out the old print and covered the cardboard backing pieces with burlap.  Then I arranged some book flowers I made about a year ago and added some wire accents.  A tutorial to make the book flowers can be found here. They are really fun and easy to make!

The arrangement was missing something and then I found this tutorial to make the origami butterflies.  I was so excited because I knew the butterflies were just the touch the mantle needed.  But, instead of inking the edges of the pages as Karen did, I used my daughters' water color paints to paint the butterflies shades of pastels to coordinate with the books.

It was up in the 80s today here in Nebraska!  It will be interesting to see how the rest of our spring transpires.  I hope there actually is one as I'm not ready for summer!!

I'm linking up with Donna at Funky Junk Interiors.

More

When I dismantled the gift I mentioned in my last post,  I took a picture of the cool bark on the Kentucky Coffee Bean tree branches also in the oil can arrangement to show you. Since I was focused on the middle branch, I didn't even see this heart shape from a previous pruning until I saw the picture on the computer. I love these kinds of surprises!

Then, when I went to take a picture of the painted dried flowers, the spring wind was coming in the windows in the foyer. And, the curtains were blowing in the breeze. It was peaceful. :)

As I tried to capture the breeze on film, my youngest daughters started playing on the porch and I got this fun picture of them through my window.

One good thing leads to another. :)

A Gift That Keeps on Giving

My brother and sister in law brought me a fun gift for my birthday back in February.  It's an old galvanized oil can filled with "winter dried" flowers, brances, and adorned with hearts and packages of seeds.  Well I dismantled it yesterday in order to "spring" it up a bit. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of it first. :(

Anyway, some of the dried flowers she put it there were little brown buttons that used to be Black Eyed Susans.  Yesterday, I went to look in my garden to see if mine had "wintered" the same as hers.

Yes, they had!  Isn't this a neat bunch of dried little buds?

Well, then I noticed that the Purple Cone flowers were awesome too!  Problem was that I was in the mood for spring and these are much more fall and winter-ish.

So, I spray painted some.  Just to see....and I liked it.  The white ones are gorgeous, but very frosty and wintery looking.  

But, the white blend well with the mint green and butter yellow of the others.  I just used spray paint I had left over from other projects, so I count this project as free. 

I decided for such perfectly cheap flowers, only tin cans would do to house them.  I have posted about my love of tins cans before here and here.

Snippets of vintage fabric cut from rag balls really add a perfect touch!!

I've saved some of the dried flowers to paint next winter for a big arrangement of white dried flowers.

I thought I better post this before you, who are gardeners, get your flower beds cleaned out and perhaps miss these beauties.  If you don't have some, maybe a neighbor or friend does who will let you grab them. 

So my gift from my brother and sister in law not only brought me happiness that day, but it made me see my dead winter dried flowers in a new way and led to a very fun project!!

And, it should lead to more flowers with the seeds they gave me.

There's more the gift led to also, but this is enough for one post. :)

Have a great day!

Spring Mantel

Our mantle has been a bit bare since the Christmas decor came down.  This may be just a touch of spring, but it's enough too make it feel fresh.  Having the windows wide open here helps too!

I have two of these awesome metal baking pans and tried to sell one in my booth, but didn't have any takers.  Rejection is sometimes a good thing.  When I took my herb wreath down to hang up a Christmas wreath, I needed a place to store it.  The square baking pan was handy (meaning I hadn't put it away) so I just laid the wreath in it to protect it.  It ended up on a shelf for the past months.  When I took it out to hang it up again, I realized that I really liked the wreath tucked in the square shape.

I added some of my dried yellow black eyed susans that were hanging in the laundry room for just another touch of yellow.

This is a picture of my two little gals from two summers ago.  It's funny, but they really haven't changed much in looks except taller.

I used my new mad needle felting skills to felt myself a forsythia-like branch.  (Seen also in the blog banner) 

I had intended to make three branches, but my time ran out, so I was content with one. :)

This "spring" mantle could easily end up staying around for summer. :)

  We've been in the upper 70s here,  could be a bit tooooo warm for March!


I hope your week is moving along smoothly!

Very Cool Twig Tree

A couple of weeks ago I had a chance to stop at a moving sale in another town.  Prices were a bit high for me and this is all I came away with, but it was worth the stop.  For some reason I thought this was the neatest tree.  (And, still do.)

I paid $2 for it and when I got it home, saw there was a goodwill sticker on the bottom that said $3.  What was interesting was that this was owned by someone, donated to goodwill, bought by this person, then put  up for sale and I ended up with it.  Through that, all of the twigs were intact.  I even got it home without breaking any of them.

Then two days later, I go to take it outside to shoot a picture and there is a broken twig and pecans are tucked all through it!  It wasn't even my little girls, it was my 12 year old.

  "Why did you stick the pecans in it?"

"Because I thought it would be fun."

Anyway....I can not figure out how it was made.  Each and every branch is nailed in to the trunk.  A little tiny nail was used in each branch in a spiral formation.  No matter where you'd start, top or bottom, at some point you couldn't get a hammer or even your hand in there to get the nail in.  I'm still studying it.  My idea would be to use a hot glue gun.   :)  

I know it looks like a fall and winter tree but maybe I could add a couple of little birds and make it look like spring.  Or just stick it away until fall and hope more branches don't get broken.

I'm linking up with Apron Thrift Girl and Thrift Share Monday.

The Baby Has Been Showered

We went to Lincoln Saturday for a baby shower for my daughter.  It was at one of her friends' home.  We had such a fun time.

She has the cutest baby bump.

My girls and me. :)

I just had to share this picture of my youngest two gals.  My 5 y/o sitting in the middle (my niece is on the left) sat and ate two cupcakes while squinting at one foot and then the other, back and forth.  She was in her own little world while the adults played a shower game.  Then she came to me with her dress held up like an apron holding the cupcake crumbs.  We just went outside to the porch to drop them.  I actually took about 15 pictures of this scene.  You've been spared. 

I took some pictures of the diaper cake I made at home to show you.  I made the three tiers using about 80 diapers. The Luvs diapers I bought were purple so that dictated the purple color theme. I used three embroidery hoops to tuck them into and hold them firm while I tied a string around them. Then I used wide white ribbon and narrow lace binding to wrap around each tier.  I secured the ribbon with a low temp glue gun.  It really worked well. I decided to offset the tiers to make room to set the "adornments".

I made the roses with long sleeved onesies and attached them with pearl headed corsage pins.

Replacing the shoe laces with ribbon really made these little shoes tie in with the color theme of the cake.

I tucked the original shoe laces in the toes of the shoes. The shoes are also attached with corsage pins.

I bought a bottle of baby bath because it was purple and tucked it in the top tier between the diapers.  The white flower is on a baby headband that is just wrapped around the bottle  of baby wash.  Then two pacifiers are tied with ribbon and looped over the top of the bottle.

I used some ribbon flowers that I purchased just to add a little extra sparkle here and there on the cake.

I also thought you might like to see the corsage I made for her.  I used pink Hersey kisses wrapped in tulle then attached the tulle to wire with floral tape.  

I added sprigs of ribbon and sparkly ribbon roses.

Then also tied in some little plastic baby accents.  We have a store in our little town that sells a lot of these party favor pieces so it was easy for me to come up with the supplies.  

It's exciting times!

I May Be Hooked

I've been wanting to try my hand at felting for some time so when Lisa at Lil Fish Studios posted a tutorial on how to wet felt rocks, it was just the nudge I needed. Thanks again Lisa!

Not related to felting:  You need to look at these adorable little dolls Lisa made too.

Here is the beginning of my felting projects.  There are rocks that I wet felted according to Lisa's directions.  It worked really well, but I think I'll look for smaller stones.  Then I needle felted an egg and a bead.  I found various tutorials and videos on the interweb to lead me in the needle felting.  I'm sorry I'm not referencing any of them because I read a little here, watched a little there. 

Well, after I made the bead, my son challenged me to make a square bead, a cube, if you will.  Actually, I believe he was mocking me in my excitement about my new felting "skills".

So, I googled and yes there were a couple of square felted beads out there.

I gave it a shot, and it led to this necklace.

I actually made the cube by needle felting polyfil into the cube shape and then covering it with my wool roving.  I first covered it with green and then little pieces of gray roving.  I didn't know you could needle felt polyester, but that was another tidbit I learned online. I did it to save on my roving, but for such a small bead I probably won't do it again that way.  The bottom bead is a round one made from the gray roving. 

I have some jewelry making supplies on hand as I've been dabbling a bit in it.  Now, I think I may have a direction of where I can go with it.  Since I took these pictures yesterday, I felted a brooch, a bracelet, and a pendant.  I'll show pictures next week.  

I'll be ordering more roving and supplies!  I'm just really enjoying this new venture.

I bought my roving from this Etsy shop, Wistyria.

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This weekend is a baby shower for my daughter.  The baby girl is due at the end of April! 

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