China painting

I need to get busy and find some new pictures for my blog, this is a section of my mantle. Pink and green, and china painted roses. I love china painting, it is one of the Victorian arts. Lady's of quality china painted to show their talent and their station in life. A lot of free time with the servants doing the work for the lady of the house. And then there was the poor single woman who painted china to support herself. Someone would drop off the plain china and tell her what to paint, pick it up and pay her a stipend, she never got rich and barely got by. China painting is still an art and many do it as a favorite pass time, and some do get paid to teach or sell their wares.
I think china painting is one of the more romantic creative pursuits. I dabble in it myself. I love the way the paint caresses the china, it moves so smoothly. When it is fired and comes out of the kiln it is like receiving a gift... That is if you did a good job before it was fired. :) The items below are on my pie safe, one of my great garage sale finds. So is the rose oil painting leaning on the wall. As well as the hand blown wine decantor to the right, it is from Belgium.

The large plate is a sample of my china painting. I took a class for this one. I call it my $300.00 dollar plate... that's right three hundred dollars, by the time I paid for the class in excess of $100.00, the china the paints and brushes she wanted us to use, it brushed $300.00 easy. Fortunately it turned out pretty good. The rose on the small oval was painted by my best friend. But that is another story.As you may be able to tell from the picture purple is one of my favorite colors. TTFN

35 years together

Well it has come and gone, our 35th wedding anniversary. We had a lovely evening at our daughters cute little apartment. She worked so hard, she hung snow flakes from the ceiling and had twinkle lights every where.

We had tons of presents, this is only the top half, the table was full and some were on the floor.

This is one I wrapped for my daughter, she went to Paris a couple of years ago so I added the Eiffel tower and a bird for flight. I really liked the contrast of the chartreuse paper and the dark aqua ribbon.My daughter has a chicken theme in her kitchen. I found this fabulous box, and filled it with chicken related items. I made the tag like a tiny quilt with an embroidered chicken and some yo yos. She loved it.

You would think we only gave presents to our daughter.... : ) but I just loved the way this one turned out. I made the cone and tag from a wall paper sample, from a book of wall paper patterns, I got at Goodwill. I made the cherries and leaves from some fabric scraps from the apron I made her. The huge fabric bow was left over material from the curtains we had made for her kitchen last summer.

This is one she wrapped for me. I really liked it. the navy blue bow against the brown craft paper was a real good contrast. The peacock, and the frosted fruit picks just finished it off. I think it had my beautiful Ann Taylor sweater in it.

This is the table I didn't do it justice with this picture. She had white Italian style dishes, with multi colored wine and water glasses. Yes we had to have champagne, it just wouldn't be the same without it. She cooked Cornish game hens with an apricot glaze, yumm, asparagus wrapped in phillo, scalloped potatoes, and home made cranberry sauce. I am so proud of her she did it all herself. And I must say I couldn't have done a better job if I had tried.

This is a closer picture of the table, the brown table cloth looks so good with the dishes and glass ware she picked out. The center piece was my contribution to the festivity's, I took a styrofoam ring and covered it with feathers and dried and fresh roses, there are 3 tiny birds all a glitter, you cant have to much glitter. Added the candle in the center and it looked pretty good.

It was a lovely evening, the food was so special, we had wonderful gifts, Don't laugh but my Hubby bought me a metal detector... I know.. But the thing is I asked for it. :) So if you see this crazy lady wandering around waving a funny looking thing around on the ground that will be me looking for my fortune.

This is our feast. Doesn't it look goooood... The hens were done to a turn, and everything else was just right. In the little green bowl is monkey bread, it is the best, full of garlic and herbs baked to perfect doneness. We had cake for desert but we didn't get to eat it because by the time we finished dinner and gifts the snow was really coming down, and she sent us home before it got to bad to travel.

This was our celebration, our "dress-up-sit-d0wn-dinner" our champagne, presents, and each other. And our favorite winter thing SNOW. TTFN

More Snow

This is today, more SNOW!! I can't believe it we never get this, well rarely. It is snowing heavily right now, I admit it is still pretty to look at... but I worry about my family who decided today was a work day. Hubby put the chains on and we have 4 wheel drive so he said it wasn't too bad, but there wasn't much traffic at 6:00 in the morning. Hopefully it will be the same when it is time to come home, as he has to go clear across town to pick up our daughter, and then back home.

I could put a couple of rocks for eyes and a carrot for a nose and it would look like somone sitting in the chairs. Smile

This is the bird house, a bit more snow and you won't be able to see it at all. Well that is the latest from the frozen P.N. W TTFN

Today and yesterday

This is what it looked like this morning, ICE.. it is about 1'' thick. very slippery. Our dog Wolfie went out to do what doggies do, and fell down the stairs, and couldn't get back up, I had to put on my boots, break thru the ICE and go rescue him. We haven't had this kind of cold, ICE, and snow for many years.

This is what it looked like yesterday! Very snowie and winter wonder landish, about 5" or so of nice fluffy snow. Pretty to look at, fairly easy to walk and drive in.. if you were careful. What a difference a day makes. TTFN

Grape plate

I really like this plate. It is a fine example of china painting. If you do china painting you know how many steps there are to getting a plate to this level of beauty. I do a little bit of china painting but it is not like this. If you look real close, you can see a couple of chips on the bottom. But that is no problem for me because of the quality of the painting. I got this plate at Monticello a wonderful shop in S.E. Portland in one of the antique booths. It is a great place to shop for found objects.

A little note on the weather it has quit snowing :( my family and I were looking forward to a little of the white stuff, for a while. But I understand how it can be a detriment to the economy. TTFN

Award

The Muse Honered me by giving me this award, for the coolest blog ever. How sweet is that.

So, the rules are as follows in order to accept the award, I need to:
Put the logo on my blog.
Add a link to the person who awarded me. (see above)
Nominate outstanding blogs that I follow. (Oh, how does one really choose?)
Add links to those blogs. (See below.)
Leave a message to those nominees on their blog. The nominees are:



Ashley Without Ashley this blog would be in great trouble. She is my go to gal when I don't know how to get something done. Plus she is my darling daughter, and I love her.

Tina Was one of my first commenters, we have exchanged gifts, e-mails and comments. She gave me blogging confidence. She also gave me my first award. Thank you Tina.

SNOW

SNOW!!!! It finally snowed here, we were so excited to have it snow most of the day!! I think we got about 3" or 4" it was so pretty. I took theses early this morning, I should have waited until there was more, but I had a lot to do today. This is the bistro table and a planter on the deck.

One of our seating arrangements on the deck.

My twisted tree, I really need to prune it this coming spring.

The play house, for those of you who saw the beginning of the play house, it is still a work in progress. Hubby has insulated it and sheet rocked, and is mostly done with the tapping. Then it will be up to me to paint, or, I have been thinking wall paper, with roses of course. Then the fun part, filling it up with all the treasures I have gathered.
Well, I am still excited about the snow. Maybe we will get some more tomorrow. You can see the snow falling in the picture.

A peek into my house

This is the top of my oak secretary, I got this lemonade set by helping an antique dealer stage her shop. I took it instead of pay because it was so pretty, and I had always wanted one from the first time I saw one but could never afford it, so I was pleased with the arrangement. And you can see how well it matches my wall color, the wall has 5 colors of paint and 2 colors of glaze. I really like it and it is a good thing because it was quite a job.

My clock is one of a kind, I know because I made it. I decoupaged all the roses and other things, after I spent hours going thru magazines and cutting out what I thought might look good. You really need a lot more than you think to do the job. The clock face is a copy of a Seth Thomas clock. I got the clock at a garage sale for 50 cents it was all broken, but the face plate was in great shape, so I took it out and had it copied at a copy shop. It worked out great. I put a crackle glaze over it and glazed it with gold paint to bring out the crackles. It is a 24" circle, I have it hung over our mantel. TTFN

Now open

This rather random group is now listed on my BRAND NEW ETSY SHOP!! I am so excited. My daughter the computer whizz, came over and got me set up and talked me thru it. I took notes and I added a couple of them on my own, hopefully I can remember how to do it the next time. These are semiprecious stones from my jewelry making days. I am closing out some of my stash. There is carnelian, rose quartz and Amethyst and others I am not sure of the names.

This beautiful Amethyst necklace is so pretty the picture really doesn't do it justice.

The pillow is on my blog but I thought someone might love it, and want it for there very own. :0)

And these Pansy pincushions will look so cute in any sewing basket. Please stop by and see. My ETSY is listed on my side bar. I got the patten for the pansies from "just Lilla's" blog, it is also listed on my side bar in the link list. SOLD TTFN

Anniversarys past

Since it is fast approaching-our 35th wedding anniversary- I thought I would show some pictures of our past celebrations. We have a nice dinner, we call it out dress-up sit-down dinner. My daughter and I wear pretty dresses and hubby obliges by donning a suit or something close. We usually move the table in front of the fire place and have a fire, it makes it so romantic. We always have flowers and candles, and what we call table presents. A table present is a present for each of us on our plate "on the table" hence table presents.

Each year we have a different color scheme, that year was red and purple and silver. I make the flower arrangements, and my daughter and I cook. We try to make each anniversary meal special. I don't know what we had that year.

This year was peach and gold with those fabulous orange and peach roses. There is champagne in the colored martini glass, we always have champagne. What could be more romantic I love the bubbles, and is there anything more romantic than fine food, family, fire light, presents, and champagne. Oh yes, we have other presents...lots of them, and we wrap them as pretty as we can. For all who may be celebrating an anniversary this month. HAPPY ANNIVERSARY!!!

TTFN

needle cases

I have always been interested in sewing accessories, I have found a few vintage needle cases, and it inspired me to make up one of my own. As a quilter I like Sun bonnet Sue. I love to look at the blocks on a quilt and pick out the dress combo I like the best. Well here are a couple of my SBS, needle cases, I just drew out a shape I liked and went from there, to open it you just lift it up under the bonnet and the needles are inside. I also made the ribbon pansies.