About Me

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Sublimity, OR, United States
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I am artist of texture and color. I enjoy working with textiles, mixed media and the graphic arts. I am an avid cottage gardener with a love for pass along plants and big fluffy pink peonies and pink roses. Many of my tangible creations reflect my love of the garden and all its wonderful colors. I have been selling my creations online since 2002 beginning as a hobby. After 10 years I quit the day job to pursue my art as a full time passion.
Showing posts with label Summer cottage. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Summer cottage. Show all posts

27 August 2015

Late August porch sitting



It has been a long hot summer here in Oregon and you probably are thinking I am going to say I am ready for the cooler fall weather. NOT...I am quite spoiled wearing shorts and flip flops and picking roses from my cottage garden. The winters here tend to be long, grey and wet. Usually we do not have such dry summers and there have been many downsides to it this year.
Mid July always brings 2 weeks of leaf hopper bugs. Almost impossible to sit out on the porch in the evenings. This year right  on the heels of the leaf hoppers we had an invasion of millions (and I am not kidding) of tiny black ant like bugs. Every house that bordered the farmland here in our little town was affected. It was useless to spray as the numbers were too great and too widespread. So we had to wait them out for another couple weeks. This meant I had to strip the coverings off my bench too.


But now I back in business, enjoying my "porch sittin". I came across this fun transfer at a craft store and added it to an old shutter. It gets a lot of attention from passers by stopping to read what it says.


I covered the bench with an old quilt and topped with a quaker lace tablecloth that has seen better days--always a reuse for everything!
 
  
Easy no sew pillows! An old denim skirt I simply pinned to a pillow form and added some crochet scraps to the the pockets.


My watering can collection is so fun to decorate with. 
Below is a very old can that came from my husbands family in Nebraska
 

Garden flowers in anything that will hold water!
 


As you can see, late summer here brings some really dry farmland. This view is from the front walkway of my porch looking south.
 


So for at least a couple more weeks I will enjoy the last colors, sites and smells of summer. The corn stalks are drying in the back garden and I am already planning the fall porch decor.
 

30 June 2015

Last day of June walk in the cottage garden



Now I should have been here 2 weeks ago with a mid June update. But my cottage garden was looking quite sad in dire need of a clean up. We have not had a normal Oregon summer. Usually temps are below 80f and a bit of rain. But this spring and start to summer we have had HOT and DRY weather 95f plus. Most of the flowers are 2 weeks ahead. So what you are seeing today is what I normally would show you in mid July!


False Queen Annes Lace, always a beautiful soft and lacy addition to the cottage garden, but it does need to be kept tame or it will take over. I pull handfuls of seedlings every spring.
 
The Hollyhocks are just bursting! Can you believe I started with only one plant 4 years ago? It was a mixed color and now I have all shades of burgandy, white, peach and pink. Most have just grow where they reseeded, but I did transplant along the back fence to fill out the garden.






newly transplanted this year from another part of the garden are phlox and bell flowers, they mix in nicely with the coreposis and white coneflowers
 

Hopefully I will be back in August with another beautiful late summer walk--since so many things were early, I am hoping for a repeat performance on some of the early bloomers!

28 July 2013

Vintage Ice Cream Social

A fun party going on at Etsy Cottage Style Blog

This is all about a July Ice Cream Social, so I dug into my graphic files and found a few vintage postcard images depicting summer fun with ice cream!

Enjoy and feel free to snag and save any of these images for your personal use








Got something fun to share at the ice cream social?
pop over and share it with us:)


22 July 2013

Summer on the front porch

Over at Etsy Cottage Style, I joined in on a creativity challenge that was to create an "outdoor space" be it for dining or relaxing. Since we spend most of our outdoor time on our backyard patio were I have always focused my decorating, I decided to focus on our large front porch. It does have seating, and we have a beautiful view of farmland and mountains, but I have really neglected it the last few years. I needed this challenge to make it a lovely place for evening relaxing with a glass of wine.

  Many of you follow my blog know I have been obsessed this summer with apple green. But I do love the combo of yellow and blue too. I already had a lot of yellow going on here so decided adding blue would be inviting in my dark red porch.


As you know, I am a believer in "use what you have", so there is nothing here I went out and bought. The yellow chippy plant stand serves a coffee table. It was a cheap estate sale find that I spray painted and distressed. That cover on the bench is just and old round table cloth I threw over the bottom cushions.




Love this rusty kitchen scale I found at an estate sale this weekend! I actually sanded some of the rust off to smooth it out. The yellow star vase was part of the Bauer pottery set that belonged to my grandmother. An old mason jar full of cornflowers is the perfect country blue.

  A jelly jar of yellow coreopsis is just the sweetest!


  A bit wider view of my updated seating area. I drug the hubs out here to see what I had done, he actually was impressed, his comment was we should sit out here this evening since it is so nice. Now I am impressed because most of the time he really thinks all my fussing around is a waste of time, but he knows I enjoy it LOL.


I planted huge baskets this summer so they would look good thru the end of September. These are only half full, image how big they will be in a month!
 Sharing what we see from our porch, the pics do not do it justice. Below, we had a new full moon last night. It made the porch makeover extra special!





Joining in these parties this week (lots of them!)
Masterpiece Monday at Boogieboard Cottage
Mod Mix Monday @ Mod Vintage Life
Be Inspired @ Elizabeth & Co.
Cottage Style @ Lavender Garden Cottage
Knick of Time Tuesday @ Knick of Time Interiors
Nifty Thrifty Tuesday @ Coastal Charm
Outdoor Wednesday @ A Southern Daydreamer
Garden Party @ Fishtail Cottage  (May 1st – Oct 1st)
Time Travel Thursday @ Brambleberry Cottage
Treasure Hunt Thursday @ From My Front Porch to Yours
Anything Blue @ The Dedicated House
Fabulously Creative @ Jennifer Rizzo
Farm Girl Friday @ Fresh Eggs Daily
Friday Redouxs @ Redoux
Inspiration Friday @ The Picket Fence
Shabbilicious Friday @ Shabby Art Boutique
Show and Tell Friday @ My Romantic Home
Vintage Inspiration Friday @ Common Ground 
Anything Blue Friday @The Dedicated house



08 July 2013

Hollyhock time

Yep, they are in bloom. They surprise me every year. This summer, they are mostly shades of pale pink and peach. There is one dark red and one or two white.

Appears these two are taking turns.
 The bumblebees were loving these hollyhocks, there were hundreds of them. 
They didn't seem to mind me snapping photos this morning.

 

uh! I am not immune from Hollyhock rust either.


I love this study of white and green, so cool and soothing.

This week I am joining in on these parties
Make it Pretty Monday @ The Dedicated House
It’s Bloomin’ Tuesday @ Ms. Green Thumb Jean
Tuesday Garden Party @ An Oregon Cottage
Outdoor Wednesday @ A Southern Daydreamer
Garden Party @ Fishtail Cottage
Simple and sweet Fridays @Rooted in Thyme

15 June 2012

My cottage garden in mid June

My cottage garden is now in it's 8th season. It is different and sometimes better every year.The columbines are just glorious and so are the foxgloves, even tho they hung out under my Lollipop crabapple this year. The roses are just starting to bloom, so I will save those pictures to show you next week when they are at their peak
 My little granddaughters "helped" me in the garden today if you want to call it that, they picked an awful lot of flowers. But that's okay, there is plenty for everyone....I had quite a bit of cross pollination this year on the columbines and foxgloves with some new colors too.







stop by next week for the roses.....

Where we reside

Where we reside

The Oregon Coastline

The Oregon Coastline