Cottage & Family [Search results for hope] 

This Friday join Katies Rose Cottage and Make Mine Pink for our Pink Friday shopping event ~

This week's theme is "In the Hope Chest "

I remember when I was a little girl going up to my Great Grandma's attic ~ it was filled with treasures from years and generations past ~ it was so much fun to hear the stories of each treasure lovingly put away in trunks and chests ~

When I was in High School my mom and dad gave me a hope chest that I filled with special linens and other things that I would someday use in my own home ~ these were things that my grandmas and mom would pass down to me or things that I collected that I loved ~

Have fun shopping and dreaming ~

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

I was so beyond thrilled to get to be one of the featured

artists in Sew Somerset magazine! Oh my goodness each and every one

of the Stampington & Company magazines are just so very

beautiful with amazing photographs, ideas and articles ~

I have had so much fun making

Vintage Pocket Pillows and they

are what are in the magazine ~ WOOHOO!!!

I just listed the featured pillows at

Katies Rose Cottage for sale ~

I hope you are all having a wonderful

Christmas season so far ~

Chat with you soon!

I hope everyone has been shopping the boutiques at Make Mine Pink this week because there have been tons of wonderful sales going on for our Christmas Extravaganza !!

Make sure and check the home page on my website everyday because the specials are changing daily ~

Today you will get a FREE "Roses" charm with every order of $35 or more ~ WOOHOO !!!

I am loving these vintage farmhouse tools!
As I was packing up shipping boxes today,
my mom rediscovered these amazing vintage tools
in the depths of our workshop. What an awesome find!

It is so much fun to find treasures, but it is even
more rewarding to discover them for a second time!

I have to admit, it was tempting to keep these for my own house!
But, I couldn't keep these treasures to myself,
they are just too vintage not to share.
I hope you love them as much as we do!

~Kristin

I have been really bad about updating my blog
lately!!

We have been spending much more time
on our Facebook business page ~
It is just easy to add little tidbits
of things over there :)
So if you would like to hear from us a bit
more often, take advantage of sales or just a new thing
we have heard of or learned make sure
and come over and Like our page ~
You also have to make sure and do the drop
down menu under the like button and click on
the "Get Notifications", "Add to Newsfeed"
and the "Add to Interests" button ~

Click on the picture below to take you there ~

We are still going to blog too but just
not as often :)

We hope to see you there!
Lori, Kristin and Stephanie!

It is 10:36 p.m. and I just walked in the door from day 2 at market ~ The day starts early there since we arrive about 7:30 ~ Ohhhhh my gosh I think I am tired ~

But.... it was a really really fun day ~ It is so great to get to meet in person people that I have talked to through blogs or websites ~ Yesterday was fun too meeting people and seeing friends but I didn't even think of taking pictures ~ So today I got a few ~

My daughter, Stephanie just got back from her honeymoon late last night and came up to see me ~ she is so precious and we had fun walking around for a bit and seeing things ~

Brenda from Just a Bed of Roses and her daughter Shellie came by ~ it was awesome to get to meet them after feeling like I have already known them for a few years ~

I hope the other ladies come back by so I can get pictures of them ~ hint, hint .....

This is a picture of the Vintage Rose Boutiques gals at the end of the day ~

One of my favorite pastimes is surfing the web for ideas to incorporate into my art teaching repetoire. It is great to see ideas from other artists and teachers. This year I have found two ideas that I will be using at the beginning of the year:

Really cool rainbow mural

and

Fun paper sculpture for Kindergarten

I will also be trying some Chihuly style sculptures that I saw on

Chihuly Art lesson repository

I hope you have some fun surfing the web for new art ideas too!!!

Who needs curtains
when you have a valance
of hydrangeas ?

I am totally on a mission
this year to figure out
how to dry hydrangeas~
This is my attempt
today ~ Actually these
bouquets are cut at different
times of the bloom to
see which timing is the best ~

I LOVE how the colors are
all so different ~
The bright pink are from
a completely different
plant but all the others
are from the same one ~
Next year I am going to
have some blue ones ~

This picture is some
I dryed in a vase of water ~
They were bright pink when
I cut them and they dried
kind of shriveled and not
really how I want them ~

These are some I cut at
a later time of the bloom
and put in water to see if
that makes a difference ~
So far they are not dry but
I am curious how they
turn out in comparison to
the hanging ones ~

Pretty soon every curtain
rod in my living room is going
have hydrangeas hanging
from them ~
I am thinking I kind
of love them!! I hope they
keep the different colors ~