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.

 

Holidays at Arboroak

Finally a dry day to photograph! I have been wanting to share my porch and home holiday decor for over 2 weeks. We have had so many dark rainy days here in western Oregon it downright depressing! But today, the sun popped out for the afternoon, so I busily tidied up the porch and grabbed my camera.

 I used our red wagon again, along with an old shutter, and built a festive display around those elements.

 Old cookie tins wrapped with ribbons are great for "weatherproof" gifts!

I strung lights through the wagon greenery. Below is a night time pic

 

On the other side of the porch is my teak bench draped in pinecones and greens with a vintage watering cans and an old enamel coffee pot filled with fir cones and branches.

  Walking inside the front door you see our large craftman's style mantel and fireplace. Pretty by day and even more stunning by night, but almost impossible to photograph at low light due to the golden colors of the walls.

Sharing some of my favorite timeless pieces I have collected thru the years.

 

May your heart be lifted in praise this Christmas
for the wonderful gift of Jesus
and the joy He brings to our lives.
Have a wonderful Christmas

and a Blessed 2015. 

 

From my porch

It can be said that summer is having it's last gasp. Here in western Oregon we have had a fabulous summer. No brutal heat waves, not too much rain (in fact not enough). The weather service just announced that this was the warmest average temperatures on record. Ever. Wow, that was hard to believe. But they factor in the night time temps and we did have a lot of warm nights and many 90f+ days.

With all that being said, my garden looks a lot more tired for the first part of September than it usually does. I took these front porch pics 2 weeks ago. I have to truthfully say that sadly the hanging baskets are toast now.

Note to self for next year. I had too many petunias. They need to be sprayed for budworm at least every two weeks. I missed a dose and they were gone within a week. Million bells will be the alternative next season. 

Next on the porch agenda. Something pretty for fall. But not quite ready to stop enjoying the summer weather.....

Bunny inspiration

 Interesting how finding an inspiration piece can be the start of something creative.

I never have been particularly a person who does an Easter display. If we were hosting a dinner or festivities on this holiday, I would put together a spring centerpiece and that was about it.
I saw this bunny at a garage sale last summer. I just thought he was so cute and at 50 cents, he was going to go home with me. Maybe next Easter I would actually do a display with this lone bunny. In my travels the last few months I did find 3 more cuties, thinking at least I would have some bunnies and eggs to set out for my granddaughters to enjoy.
Then came a wonderful gift from an Easter swap I was part of this spring. Shelly sent me the most precious handmade house and a basket full of goodies. With much excitement, I created this beautiful corner vignette.

And my granddaughters could not keep their hands off the house, especially with the little surprise inside, it was so fun to peek thru the windows! And each egg has a little surprise inside. (not all candy!)

as you can see, Shelly sent me a lot more treasures in the box!

An English tea cup and tea, roses hand lotion, sweet pea seeds and chocolates....

Happy Easter to all my blogger land friends. 

Let us not forget the true meaning of Easter. Christ died on the cross for us that we may be saved from our sins. We are truly saved by his grace

Fall on the front porch

The best part of the season, is that my dark red house really does lend itself to fall colors. I will be honest that I am not a big fan of Autumn (as I have stated that in my past blog posts). Autumn signals a long rainy winter here in Oregon with little sun. But when my flowers are tired, I really do embrace the season. Plus my porch really does look bare.

I was starting to wonder if I was ever going to be able to decorate my porch for fall. We had an outstandingly beautiful summer her in the Pacific Northwest. Usually we gracefully transition into fall with September still summer dry, but not this September. We had 2 big rainstorms dumping EIGHT inches of rain! Normal is just a half inch of rain for the entire month. Needless to say, it was a mess cleaning up my summer porch garden.

Once that icky weather moved on, we were treated to some beautiful Indian summer sun and 75f.  Today I brought out the fall decor.  I must admit that this current fall display will only be fully functional until the next rain and wind event comes along. While my south facing front porch is tranquil and relaxing in the summer and early fall, it becomes a nasty windy place to be in the late fall and winter.  Our inclement weather blows in from the southwest. I learned quickly the first year we lived in this house, that anything that wasn't anchored, would be blown into the field across the road.

The Squirrel Haven Nut Farm sign

~long story~

but a sign I had at another house we lived at several years ago and a not so nice neighbor. 

It always gave us a chuckle, and still does :)

Just before sunset, the colors are amazing!

My Creative Studio

Nope, I am not going for pretty in my working studio! My goal has always been function with plenty of space. Since we are empty nesters, I am afforded the opportunity to use the 2nd largest bedroom as my work space. Facing south with large windows, there is plenty of natural light as well as a view of lovely farmland and mountains. I have to admit, I did clean up a little. Well, it must have been a lot as the hubs came in and said it was really nice in here. The upside is that I got all the thread and little scraps of fabric off the rug!

Keyword: INSPIRE

Greets me each morning

 I snapped this photo in the evening, I couldn't get enough back light during the day to show the entire room. Basically my creative space is divided into 3 parts. Textile and Sewing; Mixed Media; Graphic Arts and Home Office. I have a monster of a corner desk. It was a good idea and functioned well 8 years ago when I was working a day job that required me to have home office space for work related storage. Now that I am 100% self employed, I really don't need this big desk, so being one who strives to work with what I already have, I reconfigured this desk to a peninsula style. It serves as wrapping and mailing station as well as extra space for big projects

 Above is my sewing and textile art center. My big table is one of those folding cutting tables--I hated those black legs, so I got some decorator Velcro and added fabric panels for a skirt. I can store a lot out of sight under that table! Again, you will see that I organize with what I already have or can pick up real cheap. I have 2 idea boards that were garage sale bulletin boards that I covered with fabric. My large ironing board was 10 bucks at a garage sale down the street. It was a real score.

  I love that I can look outside when I am sewing. Both the thread rack and the cup caddie were tag sale finds too. I saved baby food jars when my granddaughters were babies, they make perfect button jars that I can organize by color.

 I have 2 closets. One side is packing and mailing boxes. Above is my fabric storage. I will admit cleaning this up a bit paid off. I found some fabric I forgot I had (aka new project!) and decided I could fit more fabric (aka time to buy more!)

 The opposite side of the room I have set up for Mixed Media and just about any other project that strikes me. I also store quite a bit of my selling inventory too .I do shows now and then, so many of those display fixtures are part of my office store too.

 This is where the graphic art and home office happens (obviously) Since I ditched the day job, I have seriously expanded the graphic art part of my total business. It's fun to create with the old images of the early 20th century. I have become hooked on postcards that date 1900-1950. The artists of that era were incredibly talented!

 Lastly, I pulled up the blinds to snap a pic of what I see out my studio window in our Oregon summer. We have wheat and grass seed fields on 2 sides. It is hard to see, but we also have beautiful mountains in the distance. This pic was taken in the morning, but the mountains are much more defined in the evening.

I hope you enjoyed the tour of my creative studio!