Thanks everyone for your input...

I love this place called blogland... I ask for advice and I get it! Everyone had such great ideas, I really appreciate them all! So today I thought I would clean off the porch and let you see the rest of it and what I decided to do with the bag. I took down the chalkboard and moved it to the back entrance where we can all see the msg. Give Thanks everyday when we come in the house. When I went in search of our Thanksgiving decorations this week I found a framed vintage postcard (enlarged) so I hotglued some brown velvet ribbon on the back and hung it from the nail, then covered said nail with a little vintage bling! waa laa. Then I moved the rosette over to the side of the bag and swept the porch so I could show you the whole thing! another waa laa (that one is for the fact that I swept the porch!)
Here is a better shot of the door with the white tables on each side...
You can't see this bench in the first pic. because the scarecrow covers it up, it's hard to get a good shot of it without taking a pic into my neighbors window but I wanted to show you the blanket I found this summer for 3.00... can you believe it? I love it!
This is the other side of the door, I need to put a candle on that candle stick... to quick to snap a pic I guess! I made the cone out of an old screen last year and it is hanging from an old sconce, the hydrangeas must have blown out of it... why do I not notice these things before I take the picture? ugh.
I worked inside the house too, I brought this table in from the patio area and I love it in the dining room but more importantly I wanted to show you the deer doily, my Bushie (grandmother) made it! My mom gave it to me years ago and just today I finally put it on a background so we could really see all of the detail in the deer. Even more amazing... my mom told me that Bushie never bought or followed the patterns, she eyeballed the whole thing! It is really lovely and I love it on the grey wool background. I stretched a sweater onto foam board and hot glued it in place then pinned the doily on. I'm sorry, I'm gushing a little but I think it's beautiful, made even more so because she made it!
This is what I started my day working on. I made this burlap cone last year too, right about this time but I left it plain. So this morning I added a rosette that I made out of wide velvet ribbon and then added some vintage millinery leaves and vintage cotton crocheted trim. Here it is with a few greens that I picked out of the apple bag for the pics...
Here it is with a few more greens and a sewn and stuffed paper santa that I made years ago, I couldn't believe it when I looked on the back and saw the date 2005... where does the time go?
A close up of the rosette and lace, I really am on a rosette kick these days but now I gotta buy some more velvet ribbon cuz they make beautiful rosettes!
That's not all folks, I have been making tags, small paper cones, a wool and paper santa and more, just didn't get pics of everything so stay tuned!

Thanks for stopping by, I hope your weekend is wonderful! Theresa xoxo
p.s. thanks again for your help! xoxo

rosette or no rosette?

When it comes to floral arrangements, if you can call this one, I am a simple kind of girl. I had made a basket for the front door with a nest and bird and leaves and white pumpkins and multiple rosettes... oh my gosh, it was waaaaay too fussy for me! So I got the apple bag off of the barn and filled it with eucalyptus, which smells so wonderful and some fake (groan) greens for the door. but now I am questioning the whole rosette thing... gasp! I know right?!!
I really do love the whole simple look of all of the beautiful European blogs and of course Jeanne de Arc, I believe I told you already that I am smitten with that book! So I tried it without the rosette and well... to rosette or not? can you help a girl out?

Here's a wider shot of the porch, not all of it though, I left out Max's scooter and Hannah's razor and well a leaf or 100! Now looking at the chalkboard maybe that has to go too... an I going too far, getting rid of a chalkboard? ;o

This has been an AMAZING day for me... I don't want this to sound like I'm bragging or anything but all in one day I have been informed that I have won 3 giveaways!!! 3!!! I cannot even believe it! Truly I don't really even enter that many, but the ones I do are the ones that have THE GOODS... you know what I mean... THE GOODS!!! Thank you Carola, Joy and Jan, I am so thrilled! I will share pics in a post I promise. Right now I am doing the most obnoxious happy dance ever!

Thanks for stopping in... and remember I could use some help with that bag! Theresa xoxo

From one holiday to the next in the matter of a day...

I am smitten with Jeanne de Arc, the simple beauty of the muted colors, the soulfulness of the photographs, the inspiration of simple decor in the homes they feature. They have inspired me to create some JDA like Christmas decorations. I 'invested' in the latest issue and oh my goodness, it is gorgeous! So I took a small break from making pumpkins (one morning off!) and started on Christmas! Can you believe it? Christmas! I am never-ever this early on starting my Christmas wares but this year I am determined to not be behind the eight ball, o.k. the seven ball maybe, but not the eight ball!!
I did manage to dig out the turkey platters today to take pics of the last set of pumpkins for etsy. I love this platter, it has a big crack in it but I put it out every year anyway. So for this set of pumpkins I was able to scoop up a bunch of stems from the pumpkin bins when the kids and I shopped for pumpkins. I'm pretty sure by the look on the cashiers face that she thought I was crazy when I asked of I could by the stems. She felt sorry enough for the children of the crazy lady to just let me have them! I love how they turned out, just a little bit of a twist from my other ones. Thank you cashier girl!
I got this deer from Karen @ The Graphics Fairy. I think he is just so cool, I put the picture on a paper mache ornament and the ruffled some crepe paper and the leather button came from a vintage coat that I picked up on Sun. at an estate sale. The coat itself wasn't salvageable but I was able to keep the buttons and the collar so it was still worth the whole .50 I had to fork over for it!
I decorated the back with scrapbook music paper. I still need to decide what kind of a hanger I want these to have.
I actually got all of these images from Karen, this one I took over to Picnik and turned it sepia and gave it a little bit of a grainy/soft look. I love how it turned out, just what I was going for jda style. This is a vintage prayer card that Karen has for us to use, really just beautiful. Thank you Karen!
This one already looked like it was printed on canvas or fabric, really beautiful prayer card of Madonna, I am happy to say that I figured out how to ruffle crepe paper on my sewing machine for all of these - way better than doing it by hand! I wanted to add a special glistening jewel to the Madonna ornies and they just kind of finish them off.
I put music paper (scrapbook) on the back of these also and on the sides I either trimmed them in velvet ribbon or silver glitter. These will be going in my etsy as soon as I figure out what hanger I want to put on them. for more beautiful Madonna and Jeanne De Arc type treasures you really need to go over to visit Michelle over @ Petite Michelle Louise, she has some really soulfull pinkeeps, scapulars and reliquaries, I have already purchased a few for some special Christmas presents!
This is the latest addition to the pumpkin patch, I had more and some of them weren't even white, but I have sold them locally and Duane likes them so much he has given a couple away! I love it when he gets excited by this kind of stuff!
These have an array of handmade decorations some have wool rosettes, or burlap, one has a wool mum and the white one on the right has a silk/bamboo crocheted rosette with a jewel in the middle. I have more goodies to show you, my dining room table is a good indication of how many ideas are jumbled in my brain! Thank goodness Halloween is over so I can focus on this stuff again! Plus it was confusing the kids that I was singing Christmas Carols while hot gluing them into their Halloween costumes! ;0
I am linking this up to Jan's Boardwalk Bragfest and to Kathleens White Wednesday because well I'm in need of a party I tell you!
One last party... there are some great ideas shared over @ Tea Rose Home thanks Sachiko!
I'm also linking up with Karen's Brag Monday to show her what I was able to make thanks to her generosity.

Thank you for stopping by! Theresa xoxo

Project Genesis

Happy Monday! I am joining in Suzan's Project Genesis movement today, she posted an awesome tutorial on how to make a reusable shopping bag for us to take to the grocery store so that we can eliminate the age old question... paper or plastic. It's worth checking out (hers is actually almost too pretty for the grocery store) and making some for the next trip to the grocery store! I missed PG last month and had thought about what I would post about and as it turns out it was shopping. As you can see from the picture above, I am from a very large family. Those beautiful parents right up front are the reason why family is so important to me. They decided when they got married to have 12 children. It's true... 12! Who does that? Well, people who love family and what it represents that's who! Now because that was the choice made, there were other choices made as well and being frugal was one of those choices. My parents instilled in me that life is about the people, love and laughter that you surround yourself with, not the stuff. Not that I don't like stuff... cuz I love me some stuff... but it is not my reason to live, I don't cringe if a plate or glass gets broken, and you know why? Because I probably paid almost nothing for it, that's why! I cringe at the cost of some of lifes necessities as it is, so if I am going to get us some of lifes extras well, I'm shopping second hand. I have found here in blogland that so many of you do exactly the same thing. We don't need a mall to define our style, we can create our own by mixing clothes from different eras that we find at the thrift store or a wonderful yard sale. My mom loved garage sales, she would find the craziest stuff - always with a plan, not that she always carried out that plan mind you, but she started out with a plan! She passed on the idea that things can be reused, recycled and passed down. With 12 kids in the family you did not want to be the last boy or girl in the family cuz you know that there is "still some life left in those jeans!" Patches were my moms best friend!
So now I have passed this love of thrift stores on to my children. My older kids shop almost exclusively at thrift stores for their clothes and housewares. I am proud of them for this choice, for one, is there a better way to recycle? They have shopped there on their own since highschool because they did not want to look like they just came from the mall and looked like everyone else at school. They still do that today and the best part, besides the fact that they always look so fabulous when they go out, they are recycling, reusing and passing down everything they buy! By purchasing vintage, and we all know how much we like our vintage, we are all doing our part to keep perfectly good items out of our landfills and giving a gorgeous piece of history another chance at life.
So to wrap this up... keep on sharing all of your vintage treasures here on blogland and you will be passing on the lessons taught to us by our parents... waste not want not! These are important lessons to share with our young children who are so brainwashed by commercials of buy, buy, buy! I am proud to be a frugal shopper and that my dad and mom thought it was more important to fill a home with 12 children that they raised with love and values than it was fill it with valuables. My mom is gone now, and I miss her terribly, but the wisdom she and my dad shared with us about what is really important in life will be with me forever and I hope that I can continue to pass it on to my children, and now with you!
Head on over to Old Grey Mare and visit with the other participants for Project Genesis, if every one of us shared one idea no matter how small, and we tried the ideas shared, just imagine how much better this little planet we call home would be!

Thanks for letting me ramble on...Theresa xoxo