Cottage & Family [Search results for LIFE] 

I love the publication, Somerset Life ~ it is always so much fun when a new one comes out and I rush down to Barnes and Noble to get it as soon as it does ~

This issue was even better because one of the features was about an amazingly talented lady that I have met through her blog ~ I was blog surfing quite awhile ago and ran in to Dawn Edmonson's blog called The Feathered Nest ~ it is one that I visit every day because she always has such beautiful things whether it be something she has created or something just to show us ~ In Somerset Life she shows how she recreates vintage baby shoes in to sweet treasures ~

Visiting blogs amazes me at all of the talent out there and can be quite addictive ~

Spring is here, and you don’t even need to look outside your kitchen window or open your front door to know it. Just waking up to the sweet melody of a backyard robin cheerily singing outside your window is enough to tell you that life is renewed and spring is reborn. The birds of spring have returned and the earth reawakens.

Outside, in our fenced yards and open fields, brightly colored bluebirds and streaked song sparrows flit between tree branches and land carefully among the budding leaves. Singing songs of love to each other, chirping madly over jealousies. Bringing home odds and ends to build their nests - bits of bright string, broken twigs. Items insignificant to everyone else, but the stuff of life for the feathered set.
With the return of spring, we find our winged friends building homes in every unclaimed corner…. under the eaves of buildings, in riverbanks, on rocky ledges, suspended from tips of tree branches, hidden under flaps of loose bark. Even in the nest boxes we offer up with hope. Hanging baskets, mail boxes, old boots, flower pots. Any place that somehow looks like home.
No matter where we live, or what the season, avian accessories create eternal springtime in our homes too. Birds and their nests placed carefully upon our shelves, painted delicately on a wall, stitched on a delicate needlepoint. Perhaps we invite into our homes the same birds we see each spring.

Make sure and join Katies Rose Cottage and the participating shops at Make Mine Pink for Pink Friday "For the Birds" ~

The vintage images are from Lunagirl.com

Congratulations to
Sares
from Loveleigh Treasures!!
You won our giveaway
to Heather's shop!
We used a random
number generator ~

True Random Number Generator Result: 93 Powered by RANDOM.ORG

I am so very excited to be
able to host a giveaway for
Heather at Post Road Vintage!

Her blog and shop are
absolutely gorgeous!!

Heather is a soon to be mom to
six children and she is a wonderfully talented gal!

This is a little bit from
Heather's blog about her ~

"I believe when we create a home for our story to shine, our souls to rest, and our families to come together, life is simpler… and better. I am inspired to help you create this warm and safe spot in your own heart and home. My goal is to help you find joy and creativity in life’s perfect imperfections and to inspire you to create a home that is a reflection of you. {Beautiful + Unique }" ~

These are some of the
beautiful products
on her website ~

You can receive a
$50 gift certificate for
anything in her shop by
winning this giveaway!

You get an entry for
each of the following ~

* Signing up for her
free beautiful online
magazine "Homebound" ~

* Following our blog ~

* Subscribe to Heather's blog ~

The giveaway ends on
July 20th ~

I am really still alive even

though it has been forever since

I have done a blog post :)

Life has been crazy the last few

months with my preggie girls ~

{Steph is 20 weeks & Kristin is 29 weeks }

Stephanie, my youngest daughter, is

20 weeks and has hyperemesis which

is crazy over the top morning sickness ~

She was literally in bed for 3 months

and in the hospital 4 times ~ She had

a subcutaneous pump in her stomach

for most of that time which

helps with the nausea ~

It was a good day when she could

just talk and smile ~

Needless to say my focus has changed

to my girls ❤

The pump came out a couple of weeks

ago and she actually can do things now

which pretty much is a total blessing

and an answer to many prayers ~

Last weekend we

flew to California for

our annual girls trip with my mom,

sister and niece ~ We just spend the

time shopping and laughing alot :)

{me, Steph, my niece Chelsey, sister

Kim and mom Sue standing...

Kristin was not in this picture :( }

{the shoe dilemma ~ I am not sure why it was a dilemma though since they were only $5 hehe! }

{Chelsey and Steph...bestest friends }

Sometimes life as we know

it stops and what is really important

becomes loud and clear ~

We are so excited to start the
Creatively Made Home
e-course and wanted to share it with you!!

Creatively Made Home is an all new e-course about creating a home that reflects your heart in everyday living. It is about inspiring and encouraging you to create and style a home that you and your family love to live in...

This five week online course is hosted by 5 friends who want to help you to define your decorating style so that it is a true reflection of your heart.

Creatively Made Home is hosted by:

Tracey Leber

Sara Duckett

Kimberly Taylor

Jennifer Rizzo

and.....Jeanne Oliver

Here is the jam-packed schedule for the course:

* Each week you will have amazing truthful videos from not only the five teachers but other creative women.

* Each week we will take a room from one of YOU and all five women will give their suggestions telling you how they would transform the room with their style.

* There will be 50+ project videos.
These will be incredible videos that include everything from gardening, cooking, gift giving and decorating.

* There will be written tips from each woman telling you how she starts a room, picks paint, fabrics, etc. You will learn where to start when putting your own home together.

* Tons of beautiful house photos from each of the five women.

* Videos that truly reflect what life is like in each of their homes. The stuff that life is really about.

* Each woman will share their own truthful journey about how they started making their home a reflection of their hearts.

* Each person registered will get an easy entertaining e-book to download.

It will contain go to recipes for beautiful and easy entertaining (they do go together), photos of table settings that take the stress out of having people over, favorite drinks and so much more (and their funniest entertaining story).

* There will be a private Facebook group to connect with other class members.

* There will be a once a week live discussion with one of the teachers!

* You will get printables and pdfs to keep and use again and again.

This course is about loving your home, loving your family and blessing those around you....and having fun doing it.

This course will lavish you with ideas, beauty, inspiration, joy and encouragement!
Come and play house with us.

Class begins October 22.
Registration is now open!

The price of the course is $58 for all 5 weeks!

To sign up for Creatively Made Home, go *HERE*

We can't wait !!

I have been having fun creating more bottles and tying them with seam binding ribbon ~

This seam binding just sat in the HOT Texas sun after being bleached and tea dyed ~ It is all crinkled which is so cool ! I loved the way the colors looked when they were all piled together ~

We also just listed the new Somerset Life ~ It is beautiful as always !
You can find it here ~

I was so excited to
open up the April issue
of Somerset Life and see
a couple pictures that I took ~

I love any of the
Stampington magazines
because they are all such
a wonderful quality and
always have great ideas
and tutorials ~

My pictures are the
open book and the other
book with fabric ~
Right next to me is
abbysgarden's tags ~ Abby's
blog is gorgeous!

Tomorrow is baby shower day so I will be
taking alot of pictures to show you :)

I was sooo excited to finally get to go to an Art Group that I have spent the last few months missing ~ Between weddings and displaying at the Dallas Home & Gift Show, life just passed me by ~

These ladies are wonderfully talented and it was a blast getting to craft with them ~ Everyone worked on their own thing along with alot of talking, eating and laughing ~

It always amazes me how I have talked to these ladies through blogland for awhile and when you meet in real life we feel like we have known each other forever ~

This is us trying to take a picture ~ Joanne, Lisa, Pat, Me, Cami, Cindy
Charlene, Audra, Angela

Some of the ladies were working on tags for Karla's Cottage Alice Tag Book Swap ~

Other ladies were working on Paper Cowgirl Retreat fun things ~

Some were working on Petticoats and Parasols event things ~

And then there were others who were busy crafting on stuff for fun or to sell ~

It was alot of fun and I cannot wait until next month ~

For a limited time all magazines are 50% off

on our website ~

We have :

Romantic Country

Somerset Life

Romantic Homes

Romantic Homes Bed and Bath

Romantic Homes Kitchens

I will try and shove as many in a

flat rate envelope as possible ~

It totally feels like it

has been forever since

I have blogged!

We have been moving our daughter

and son in law into their home

and redoing our master bathroom

and life just flies by ~

In between that I have still

been working on things

for my website ~

I have been LOVING

all of the pictures of

vintage weddings

using burlap, lavender, muslin

and old stuff ~

So going along with that theme

I decided to make a little

flower girl basket and

ring bearer pillow ~

I just love the combination

of burlap and muslin ~

They are on my website here ~

This is a crazy busy time of year for our family and

just with life ~ fun stuff though !!

I wanted to do a quick blog post to let you know that I haven't

fallen off the face of the earth and to show you a few

of the new things on my website ~

Jewelry is now 50% off too !!

Think of Mother's Day coming up :)

Middle Name Game

I was tagged by the darling Priscilla at Sweet Remembrance for the name game.Here are the rules for those that choose to follow them: Players, you must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had. When you are tagged you need to write your own blog post containing your own middle name game facts. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.Here goes for my middle name: Elaine:

E ~ Energetic
L ~ Loving
A ~ Articulate
I ~ Intuitive
N ~ Neat ( not really )
E ~ Emotional
I will be back with my pic of ladies soon !

We got home from vacation late last night and are trying to get back in the swing of things ~ I don't know why it seems so hard to get back to normal life ~

Before we left I went on a shopping trip for a couple of days to stock up on some treasures and found alot of them ~ It was soooo much fun !!
I will be listing them over the next couple of days in between catching up on orders ~
Here is a sneak peek of what is coming ~

My husband and I just got

home from San Francisco where

we were celebrating our

30th anniversary ~

We went with some of our precious

friends, Mark and Lori,

who have a timeshare there ~

We had a huge condo

in Union Square that was GORGEOUS!!

The weather was amazing so we

walked our legs off and saw

a ton of things ~

I have been to San Francisco

quite a bit but I forgot how

diverse this city is ~

Since we were close to China Town

we went there a couple of times

and had fun getting the yummy

veggies at amazing prices!

Of course we had to go to

Fisherman's Wharf and

the Golden Gate Bridge ~

One of my favorite places was

where the World's Fair was

in 1915 ~

Oh my gosh it was amazing!! It

totally reminded me of being

in Rome~

It was fun to see Redwood trees

at Golden Gate Park ~

They are a very favorite of

mine and it brought

back sweet childhood memories ~

I love love this age of life!

I am thrilled to add to my magazine collection that is available at Katies Rose Cottage in the Paperie category ~ We have available every month Romantic Homes, Romantic Country and Victoria ~

Soon, I am thinking next week, we will have Somerset Life and Where Women Create ~ if you haven't seen the Somerset issues ever, they are a true treat with gorgeous pictures and articles ~

Yesterday we spent the day at Animal Kingdom in our tie dye shirts that we made over the summer and posted a while back ~ We looked like such dorks but it was really easy to find each other ~ It was alot of fun seeing the animals on the Safari ride but Expedition Everest was our favorite ~

Here we are even being bigger dorks with our It's a Bug's Life 3-D glasses ~ they are pretty darn cute ~

It rained like crazy in the afternoon at Animal Kingdom ~ of course it was the one day we didn't bring our ponchos ~

This is from the front, my daughter, niece and her fiance ~

Today we went to Epcot and tasted foods from around the world at their wine and cheese festival ~ it was great today because the crowds were super light and there wasn't any rain ~ My favorite country to visit was Italy and Paris but they were all fun ~

Our girls in Italy at Epcot ~

Life has been craziness the last 2 months

with some family things that have

taken my attention ~

Times like these completely make me

realize what truly are

the most important things !

On another subject though ......

So I kind of freaked out a bit when I heard

Picnik is closing !! Oh my goodness !!

I am a total computer

goofball and learn my thing

to do on my computer and

once I get it that is it .....

don't throw new stuff in there

because my brain freezes!!

I have been using Picnik since

the beginning of Picnik

( however long that is ) and now

I have been trying to teach

myself how to do my photos in

Photoshop Elements ~

I have been doing the pictures with

the frame thing forever ~

and now they are frame-less .........

which I kinda like !

I am all about a clean look and it makes

my website look less cluttered ~

Haha.... you wouldn't know that I don't have

a drop of A type personality

in my body by that statement!

Anyway today I added more things to my website

and am trying to transition my brain and website

over to Photoshop Elements pictures ~

I am going to kind of miss the

collage thing though !!

Does anyone know how to do collages with

anything else besides Picnik ?

Yesterday for some reason it

was all about the bags !

I have burlap bags and muslin bags

that have been in my studio for a few months

and for some reason

all of a sudden they were calling my name ~

These are what I worked on ~

So seriously ............

I am supposed to be organizing this closet

that I have put off for ohhhh about 10 years ~

We are getting new hardwood floors though

so it is a necessity of life unless the workers

want to get killed when they open it ~

Why in the heck do I have this closet and

how in the heck did it get like this !!

Oh my gosh !

Okay off to organize and toss !

WAIT !! I have worked for 10 minutes and I am

at a stand still ~

For all of your organizy type gals out there ~

What if I have something that

I think is cute or pretty and I really like

it but don't have a clue what to do with it ???

Here is an example ... she is darling but I won't

put her out because she doesn't go with

my decor ~

Do I save her for grandkids one day? ~

Do I put her out on Easter? ~

This is just one example of ..... ohhhh quite

a few things ~

(Oh my gosh, is this what hoarders think ??)

What do I do ?

AHHHHH !!!

I was so inspired when I went to the blog "A Storybook Life" and saw the post about creations under glass ~ The last couple of months I have just fallen in love with Cloches and Apothecary's because you can do so much with them ~ well after reading through the post and looking at all the gorgeous creations that other people have made, I decided to try one too with other ideas on the way ~

These are pictures of my first "creation under glass" ~

Today is Day 3 of the Make Mine Pink "12 Days of Christmas" Shop Hop ~ Make sure and register because prizes are already being given away and there are tons more on the way ~

We have daily specials and today is 10% off your entire order ~ to get the 10% off you have to enter the website through the link on my Home page ~

Yesterday we listed some gorgeous new tags in the Paperie category ~ Here are just a couple ~

Today we are thrilled to have Somerset Life also available in our Paperie category ~