Category Archives: Home decor

Seasonal Snippets

It’s been a very busy month. By busy I mean planting, cleaning, building, sewing, walking, and visiting among other things. Summer is building up to be very busy also. Every Summer we look at the three long months ahead and think of all the time we’ll have and then things start to be planned and before we know it, Summer is over. Right now we have a graduation party, a wedding, a trip to Chicago, visiting relatives and a Sunday school party planned. I would like to have a candlelight dinner on our new porch, but haven’t got the plans all together for that yet. I’d love to have a ladies’ day camp at my house where all my friends could come to spend the day, without children, and swim, sun, hot tub and eat yummy food all day. Doesn’t that sound like fun? I’d love to have all you girls come enjoy the day with me.

I am going to talk about our new porch for a minute. I know you are thinking, “blah, blah, blah, that’s all she talks about. Her new porch. Boring.” I know, but I just love my new porch so much. David and I go out every day and look around and tell each other how much we love it. The stone mason got the stone laid last week despite that it rained every single day.

We had cloudbursts after cloudbursts. The garden loved it, but it made it hard to lay stone as the cement couldn’t set in the rain.

The stone masons made themselves a little tent to work under. I felt so bad for them as I stood inside my nice, dry house and watched them work. They are truly artists at their work. The pillars came out even more beautiful than I ever could have imagined. I am so glad we decided to do them as we were a little afraid of the cost. Since we plan to live in this house the rest of our lives, I think we made the right decision.

David had had his eye on these rocking chairs we saw at Sam’s Club and he finally decided to go buy them. They were the last two they had so I think we were meant to have them. They are so comfortable and made of teak so they will fade to a grey. We have originally become old, I said. Two old folks sitting and rocking on their front porch. I would love to put a bed out there also. To sleep under a metal roof while a soft rain is falling upon it sounds like bliss to me. I fell asleep on our swing in our back yard yesterday and when I opened my eyes, there was a carpenter bee right in front of my eyes. So close that when I swatted at it, I hit it. I wondered just how long it had been flying around my head and looking at my nostrils as a place to call home! Yikes!

I love the way the shadows fall upon the porch. It’s just a magical place, I have to tell you. I know it’s just a porch, but it just makes you feel good to sit out there.

I have been having a wonderful time landscaping around the porch. I had purchased a lot of perennials that I was just itching to get into the ground. I spent a couple of days planting.

This little patch of flowers are on the left side of the steps.

We dug up some more yard for another bed. The less grass I have to mow the better I like it. I have planted these plants and sowed zinnia and cleome around them I also planted some hollyhock bulbs, but I am not sure they will grow. I have decided buying prepackaged bulbs from certain stores are not the healthiest of bulbs. I bought garlic bulbs from one particular store a couple of years ago and not one grew.

Now you know I have to have something about chickens in my garden. I found this cute garden stake at Rural King, one of my favorite stores. It has a little bell that really rings.

I’ve planted and planted. Did I really need to buy eight packets of sunflower seeds? Really?? I managed to find places to plant them, but my garden is getting packed full. This is an old lawn spreader that I painted pink and planted with annuals. A movable flower pot!

I never tire of seeing the perennials bloom every year. The irises, poppies and peonies are beautiful right now. Peonies are probably my very favorite flower. The poppies were started from David’s grandmother’s garden. She always had a beautiful garden in her backyard. I can still see it in my mind’s eye.

Peonies make such a beautiful bouquet. If I were getting married again, I would want to get married when the peonies are in bloom so that I could have them in my wedding bouquet.

Two of my favorite colors together.

Even the white ones are gorgeous.

Meanwhile, David has been working hard to get things ready for summer.

Want to come swim in our pool? What’s that? You say it’s green? This is what it looks like every year when we(meaning David) takes the cover off. Then the real work begins.

David spends many hours cleaning, flushing and checking the chemicals. It’s hard to believe that soon this green pool will be a beautiful, clear blue ready for swimming. Our grandkids are coming over this weekend, so hope the pool will be ready.

We needed a new walkway to our porch and David spent a day working on it. It was his plan and I must say it turned out really well. I will show you the ta-da moment on another post as I forgot to take pictures of the finished project.

Doesn’t he have a nicely tanned head? Working outside in the sunshine will do that.

Over a year ago, when our new porch was just a figment of our imaginations, we bought this stained glass picture to hang in our front window. We didn’t want to put it up until it would be in the shade as my stained glass pictures in my shop windows faded after years in the sun. I love this with all the different birds on it.

Less you think I have forgotten all about the chooks, I haven’t.

They are so happy to have ground where they can take their dust baths again. Here they are in front of one of the dog houses. There’s Freedom getting ready to run. She always runs when she sees me despite the fact I spent weeks nursing her back to health last year. Ungrateful chicken.

Here she is thinking she has escaped me, but I cut her off at the pass.

Dorcas, or is it Beatrice, is friendlier to me and will come right up to me and let me pick her up. She’s such a pretty girl.

Even though Freedom is afraid of me, she keeps her eye on me. She will follow me all around the coop, but as soon as I go to pet her she’s off to the races again.

Of course laying season is picking up. Sometimes I will find as many as four eggs in one nest. Chickens like communal laying, I guess. We give a lot of eggs away. They are good, organic, free range chicken eggs and taste like butter. I have eaten more eggs this year than I think I have all my life. Egg salad is a mainstay at the Craig house.

Well, hope you are enjoying the weather and getting outdoors and giving God the praise for His glorious creation. Bye.

Porches, Patterns and Pooches

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Crazy week. When you think life is crazy, it sometimes gets crazier. Last week I thought the building of the porch was weeks away. All of a sudden it started Tuesday. Not the building, the knocking down. I barely had time to feel bad about it. Yesterday morning, Wednesday, I slept right through the builders and David knocking the bricks down with sledge hammers. The men said David was like a mad man slinging his sledge hammer. I looked out our front door and there was a big gap where the front of the porch use to be. Now is not the time to back out of this project.

David looks like the unibomber with his black hoodie and his sledge hammer. Oops, hope the government doesn’t read this. Just kidding, government. He had way too much fun tearing down the bricks. See the old siding behind him? Clapboard. Probably the original siding of the house. Also we discovered the original porch was only half as large as it is now. And our new porch will be much larger. Fourteen feet by twenty-five and a half feet larger. The pillars are still standing for now, but they won’t be much longer. It has poured rain today and suppose to tomorrow. Be nice for the weekend, then rain again. Of course, now that we have started a building project. We have holes in our walls where new switchplates and outlets go. We have cracks in the livingroom walls from the old porch coming off. Dave and I will have much patching and painting to do after this is all over. I have found when you start a project, you always end up having more work than you planned to do even when you hire someone to do the work. Understand?

This is the roof of our porch. Later this will be all gone and a new roof and exposed rafters will be here. We will be able to sit on the porch when it is raining and listen to the rain hit the metal roof. Maybe I should put a bed out here.

Mom, do my nostrils match?? Bonnie, we are not talking about your nostrils right now. But, um, they do look a little funny. Plastic surgery, maybe?

“Look at me and my ball! Look at me and my ball!”

Belle, I know I haven’t played ball with you today. You are going to have some little boys to play with you this weekend so you better rest up.

I escape to my shop while the builders are doing their thing. I was looking for a certain pattern, but as I was looking, it was like walking down pattern memory lane. Here are just a few of my vintage patterns.

I sewed a lot for my daughter while she was growing up or at least until she decided she liked “store bought” clothes better than Mom’s handmade ones. I made her a long dress from this pattern in a pink cotton fabric. Ran ribbon around the sleeves and through the eyelet in the chest area.

My daughter looked every bit as sweet as this girl in the picture.

Back when Little House on the Prairie was popular, this pattern came out and I made my daughter a dress out of calico with an eyelet trim like the plaid dress on the cover.

I may have that dress somewhere. I saved a few of my daughter’s dresses because I just couldn’t stand to part with them.

One year one of my boys dressed as a clown for Halloween and I made the costume. I remember it was a really fun costume to make. Glad I still have the pattern.

I can’t believe I even tried making men’s and boys’ clothes. I used this pattern to make one of my sons this outfit. I don’t know if I still have the pattern or not, but one time I made my younger son slacks with a vest to match and he wore it to school and he came home and told me his teacher didn’t believe him when he said his mother made his outfit.

Back in the day when bell bottoms were the rage, I made David a pair. Just like the white ones in the picture. He wore them, too. A lot.

I’ve been noticing bell bottoms are coming back. They call them boot cut, but some of the pants’ bottoms are very flared, just like bell bottoms. I use to wear bell bottoms. I was a flower child.(without the drugs.) Never have tried illegal drugs. Never had a hankering to.

I loved this pattern. I made my daughter a cute blue calico outfit like the center picture. She looked so cute.

One day, when my daughter was in kindergarten, she came home and said, “Mommy, I am going to be a butterfly in the school play.” My mind started racing. You mothers know what I am talking about. Was I suppose to make the costume? My daughter nodded, yes. Oh, no. My mother happened to be visiting and we rushed to JoAnn’s and looked through all the patterns and found this one. Perfect. I made the butterfly costume and people actually gasped when my daughter came on stage with her long, blonde hair, rosy cheeks, in a pink leotard and her beautiful, butterfly wings. It was a wonderful moment and I can still see her.

My children sprang things like that on me all the time. Once my younger son came home and said he had to dress like Thomas Edison. How did Thomas Edison dress, anyway? We got together what I thought was a fairly decent outfit. What I didn’t know, because I was never told anything, (still not) but my son was the star of the show, The Electric Sunshine Man. He had a huge speaking part and had to sing solos and I didn’t have a clue. Thankfully, one of the mothers video taped it and gave me a copy and I still have it. I just sat there in stunned disbelief that he had learned all those lines and I didn’t know he was doing it. Really, I was awake during their growing up years, but my children constantly surprised me. Still do.

Just wanted to show you a catalog I got in the mail the other day. I usually order clothes from this company, but they also sell other things.

I love this cherub sleeping in what looks like a larger angel’s wing. How adorable is that?

They sell bedding to die for, but since this complete ensemble would probably cost about five hundred dollars, I won’t be getting it.

If I were a rich old maiden lady living all alone in a mansion, I would have stuff like this all around me. I just love this romantic looking stuff, but David, not so much. I have my girly room and that is fine with me. But really, don’t you love these things?

Spring seems to be upon us although she was playing coy for quite some time and now she is throwing temper tantrums with thunderstorms, heavy rains and tonight, tornado watches. But that’s Spring for you. But have you noticed how green the grass is getting and that the daffodils are finally blooming? Even the ones I have had to transplant look like they will bloom this year.

A bud on the weeping cherry tree is telling me that soon Spring is going to burst forth in all her glory.

It appears I am going to have a houseful of grandchildren this weekend for an overnight so I must rest up tonight, because once they get here it’ll be gang busters.

Here’s to porches, pooches, patterns and the promise of Spring. Bye.

Sleepy

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I don’t know why, but for the last couple of weeks I have been so sleepy. I sleep until nine or ten in the morning and by mid afternoon I am sleepy again. Maybe it’s been this extremely cold, damp weather we have been having that chills you right to the bone.

Last night after supper, I was so cold I got three blankets and laid on the couch with them over me and fell asleep until ten o’clock. Stayed up for a couple of hours, went to bed and slept until almost nine thirty this morning. My mother would tell me I am sleeping my life away. I kind of feel that way.

I wish I could be more like my dogs and not be ashamed I am sleeping so much. They don’t seem to mind wasting away a whole day just snoozing. Bonnie stays in my shop all day and doesn’t move a muscle for hours. She doesn’t care what others might think. Look at her, how peaceful she is. By the way, she and Belle got new beds for my shop so now I let them in more often since they don’t get on the furniture anymore. They are loving that.

It’s not that I haven’t been busy. When I am awake my hours are full. I just finished a Bible study, have been doing some Spring cleaning and have been cutting hundreds of two inch squares for a quilt I am making. It needs over two thousand squares. As I cut them, I sew a few together. I want to have this quilt pieced before hot weather gets here. I’ve been taking care of the chooks. They are beginning to lay more regularly now. They might be getting some new friends later this summer if my daughter gets me the Austrolorps I want. I’m too tired to download any pictures right now, but I will be showing you what I have been up to soon. I made a bunny garland today. Just need to do some hand sewing on it. If I can get out of this sleep funk, I will take some pictures.

We had some exciting news today. Our contractor, Claude(He calls himself Bub) called us today and said he was ready to start work on our new front porch and put in some new windows. I have told you our old porch on our hundred year old house is sinking and pulling away from the house causing cracks in the wall of our living room. David said we had to replace the porch or the side of the house would be torn off eventually. I don’t like that idea. I kind of like to have walls between me and the elements. Another winter like this one with a wall gone? So, we are biting the bullet and getting the porch built. It will go all along the front of our house instead of just halfway like the old one is now. It will have stone facings on the porch posts, a ceiling fan and tiffany like lights by the door. It will have low rise steps instead of the high steps it has now and railings down them so my friends and family won’t fall going up and down them. I have seen people fall off our steps too many times. If we have to do it, we are going to do it right and in style.

So now I have my work cut out for me. I have dozens of flowers to move by next week. If I don’t, I will lose them under the porch. I guess I won’t be sleeping a lot for the next few days.

I am so ready for gardening, though. David tilled the garden and we let the chooks in and they had a ball scratching and pecking at the newly turned soil. I have dozens of tomato plants started and one pumpkin plant that is getting pretty big in its pot. Hope warm weather will get here before it outgrows it. I have flower seeds and gladiola bulbs and beans and squash, plus the rest of the pumpkin seeds to plant. I can hardly wait to make that first trip to the nursery to buy more flower plants. I am losing my porch flower box that David built me when the old porch goes, so I will have to plant hanging baskets now.

Now, if the weather will just cooperate and I can stay awake long enough, I may get something done.

Here’s to sleep, new porches and dreams of gardens. Bye.

A Gathering of Quilts and Seeds

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We spent a night in the beautiful hills of brown in Brown County this week. We stayed at our daughter and son-in-law’s beautiful house in the woods. You have to drive a long, long drive to get to their house. It is surrounded by trees and this time of year it is so beautiful there. Have I used the word beautiful enough???

I broke my camera and cannot use the zoom on it so you will have to use your x-ray vision to see the pygmy goats in their pen. They can get out in the larger pen and I did let them loose and had a hard time getting out the gate because they wanted to come with me.

Anyway, for me it’s almost a vacation to go there. We babysat our two youngest grandsons and had a fun time with them, then when they went to sleep, I sat out on their back deck and looked at the stars. They seemed so close and crystal clear out where there are no city lights to dim them. I think I saw a star explode, if that is possible. There was a bright, flash of light and then it dimmed slowly. Planes flying across the sky were more visible in the night sky. All that could be heard were the cicadas in the trees. Complete silence except for the passing of cars way down the hill. Oh, and the baaing of the pygmy goats.

I have given my daughter several quilts in the past and she has hung them all over her house. Here are a few.

I like how she used a tree branch to hold it. I believe this is a Country Threads pattern. We use to sell these in our store.

I really love this quilt, but it looks better in her house than it does in mine, although I would like to make another one.

I had this log cabin fabric and it worked perfectly.

This block makes me thing of Alaska.

Kind of a blurry picture, but this is the double wedding ring I made for my daughter when she got married. I have since made two more. They are really easier than they look.

I called this Cardinal in the Pines. Do you see the cardinal?

As I tucked my grandsons into bed I saw the quilts I had made them for their beds.

I made this Double T quilt because my grandson’s name starts with T.

I also completed piecing a quilt from some quilt blocks a friend from church gave me. Her mother or grandmother had pieced the blocks a long time ago from old fabric and feed sacks.

I really loved how this turned out. Kind of Christmasy I think. It made a pretty big quilt.

I love the old fabrics in it. This could have been someone’s dress at one time.

This fabric looks like fabric from pajamas that my brothers use to wear. Just a side note. When my brothers outgrew their pajamas, guess who they were handed down to? Yes, I wore my brothers old pjs. Funny thing was, I liked it. The fabric was always so soft because they had been washed so many times and besides, I very rarely got new pajamas when I was younger. I was a tomboy, though, so it didn’t bother me.

More pajama looking fabric. The blocks were very uneven and I had to do some trimming to make it all come together, but I think it turned out well.

This time of year I gather seeds from flowers for next year’s garden. I order zinnia seeds from Wild Flower Seeds out of Texas. I usually get a pound of seed and I can have flowers all over my yard that way. I like to mix the old seed with the new to get several varieties of zinnias.

I go through the garden picking off seeds like this and storing them until Spring. I use to help my mother gather seeds when I was a girl. I enjoyed doing it and Mother always had a beautiful garden.

I gather lots of Cleome seeds. These flower actually reseed themselves, but I like to spread them all over. They are an old fashioned flower that has been around for a long time. David does not like them because they always grow around the pool and lean over and drop their seed in the pool. I did not plant many this year and I still had lots.

This would be several packets of seed for several dollars so I save by gathering the seed.

I gathered them in this little china cup from a tea set I bought at Walt Disney World one year.

Well, I have done nothing this morning but drink coffee, watch the news and quilt so I have got to get up and get moving.

Here’s to Brown County, saving seeds and quilts that make a home cozy. Bye.

Autumn Decor and Dibs and Dabs

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I love Autumn. I love the word, Autumn. I love the colors and the way the sunlight seems golden. I love the cool nights when we throw the windows open wide and sleep deep sleeps in the cool, crisp air. I love the almost too perfect days of blue skies and golden everything.

I also love to decorate for Autumn. I have always felt our house was built for Autumn because it always looks it best this time of year.

I love that Halloween comes in October. There are so many festivals and harvest celebrations in the Autumn. This is the front table of my shop. Those pumpkins are my very own pumpkins that I grew myself this year. David made the wooden pumpkin.

A few years ago we traveled to New York to the finger lakes district and went through several beautiful New England towns. In one shop in one of the towns they were selling wooden jack-o-lanterns. They were kind of expensive and David said, “I could make them.” And he came home and made two for me and one for each of our kids and I painted them. They light up at night. I tell David he could make these and sell them.

These are more of my pumpkins. I am already planning to grow pumpkins again next year. I really like the white ones. There is a scarecrow sitting just opposite these pumpkins, but I forgot to take a picture of him. I’ll show you later.

See how golden everything looks in our house? I picked these hydrangeas and sedum and lamb’s ear to make a dry flower arrangement. Okay, you don’t see the golden? My picture just does not do the light coming in our house justice.

I strung a garland of leaves I made across the kitchen window.

Just a few things I have made to decorate for Autumn.

The Autumn sedum is especially pretty this year.

The squirrels are gathering nuts and other food for winter. This one is pretty plump. Looks like he/she has been eating very well. I put out cobs of corn and the whole cobs disappear. Somewhere in some tree a squirrel has a lot of corn stored away.

Of course we always have candy corn or candy pumpkins out. David is the only one who eats them. I don’t really like them. Does that make me bad?

I got a Yankee Candle catalog this week and was astounded that they had a candle scented like turkey and stuffing. The catalog has scratch and sniff places in its pages and this candle smells very strongly of sage. They also have Sweet Potato Pie scent and Cranberry Sauce scent. I don’t know how they do it, but the scents are very close to the real thing.

A few weeks ago David laid a cement pad just outside the new door in my shop and two of my grandsons and David and I put our handprints in it.

Our other grandchildren will have to put their handprints on with paint and then I will seal the cement for all eternity or until the cement falls apart or I fall apart, whichever comes first. It startles me that my grandsons’ hands are almost as big as mine.