Cottage & Family:
LIFE

I was inspired today by Rebecca at A Gathering of Thoughts to recover a lampshade ~

That has always been something that I have wanted to do but really never knew how to approach it ~

Her tutorial is super easy to follow ~

This is how mine turned out and it was so much fun ! Thank you Rebecca !

Today I was looking through some vintage ephemera that I have and found this wonderful fashion magazine ~

This is a scan of one of several pages from a magazine called Delineator that I have ~

It makes me smile because I would just love to wear the clothes that they wore ~ The magazine is from 1898 ~

These are pictures of bathing suits ~ It talks about how it is not made of wool because when wool is wet it "clings in a most unsightly way to the figure" ~ Can you even imagine wearing this swimming let alone in wool ~

There is another paragraph that says to wear a bonnet because that way "the summer suns cannot seek out the pretty, delicate skin and leave their imprint of tan or freckles upon it. The dweller in the country home - the city maid as well as her village sister - who would preserve her complexion in its pink - white purity " ~

Oh my goodness ! I just am having the most fun reading from these pages from the late 1800's in fashion ~

I will be posting some more pages for you to copy off soon ~

I don't know how to make them clickable so you can make them larger to copy so if anyone knows how please let me know ~

I was all inspired this afternoon and have a gazillion projects all over the house and none of them are complete ~ Right in the middle of my gazillion projects I decided to read blog updates and saw Diane Knott's mini file folder tutorial ~

I just had to make one right then ~ then I remembered reading on Lisa's blog about the cute little bubble thingies ( it is not a tutorial but as cute as can be ) so I had to do those while I was at it ~

Ummmm that is pretty much how my brain works ~ It is always going all over the place and at one time ~ Isn't that how right brained people are ??? I tell myself that at least ~

I bought this wayyyy cute paper at Anthologies and wanted to use it so bad so I did ~ I did my first mini file folder upside down ~ HMMMMM there goes one piece of paper down the tubes ~

Then I used the other piece to make my other file folder and the magnets ~ I cannot wait to make more because they were easy as can be ( well after I figured out how to make them not upside down ) and fun too !

I am off with my hubby taking some time to sink our toes in the sand ~

Pure Bliss!

My son in law, James took this picture ~ he rocks at photography!!!

We would love to have you come visit our blog page where we hang out everyday!

We are going to have a different special every day
this week!!

Check our website daily!!

This is the first one ~
They will change every
evening and last through
the next day ~

I am so excited to announce
my husband's new ebook,
"10 Tips for Improving
Your Photography Today"

If you sign up for his
newsletter it is free!

Click on the ebook to sign up today ~

My hubby is a landscape and
portrait photographer;
his passion is teaching
others how to improve their
photography. Take a second
and check out his website ~

Lots of love,
Kristin

We love the farmhouse look
of vintage enamelware ~
Since Christmas is right
around the corner, we
thought we would show you
an easy decorating idea
using enamelware for the holidays ~

All the fun things we found
at the flea market ~

First, we drilled holes in the
bottom of a bucket ~

Then added soil from our garden ~

And planted holiday plants such
as rosemary which we can use in
our Christmas cooking ~

The finished project is an easy,
colorful addition to your
vintage decorating ~

We have lots of enamelware
on sale here so you can create
your own farmhouse decor ~

We are so grateful to Artful Blogging
for featuring us in their Summer issue ~

Check out our article on what
inspires creativity on our blog ~

We greatly appreciate all of our
followers and our fellow bloggers
for their support and inspiration!

We are working on a series
of video tutorials, so keep a look out!

UGHHHH !!!

It came to my attention yesterday

that my blog came up with

a warning of malware ~

Apparently it was NOT dangerous

for my blog or yours if you

had my link but

was flagged by google as suspicious~

It was caused by a counter that

I had on my blog that has been removed ~

This is the current status from

Google who was tracking and flagging

the malware ~

"Status of the latest badware review for this site: A review for this site has finished. The site was found CLEAN. The badware warnings from web search are being removed. Please note that it can take some time for this change to propagate."

I apologize because I know

this can be scary because it was for me!

Hi! Lesson plans and pictures from todays workshop on creative collages will be posted up on this blog tomorrow when I get back home from the aenj conference!

I am away for a couple

days antiquing while my

girls and their hubbies are

hanging at our house trying to stay

cool~