Look What I Won!

Hello Ladies, hope the weekend is going great for you all!
Today I was so excited to get the most wonderful package in the mail today!  Earlier this week, I won a giveaway over at Bear, Dolly and Moi of some gorgeous fabric from Provence!
It came wrapped in pretty glittered tissue paper!  You know how I love glitter! And of course I love all things French, so this is especially exciting!

And the neatest card!  With a sweet note inside :)

Ok, this is the first bunch of fabric.  I am especially in love with the lavender print, and the blue background with sunflowers and lavender!  I suddenly feel as if I am being transported to the South of France!  Love the olives, too!

And look at this gorgeous fabric!  I think this will be perfect for the little lavender sachets that I plan on making!

I was so excited to look thru all of these beauties!  Morgane so generously sent me additional fabric that she thought I would like.  I love it all!  The one on the far right is my absolute favorite!  I plan on sharing some of this beautiful cloth with my sister, who quilts and is an excellent seamstress.  I know she will just love it, too!
Thank you again, Morgane for your kindness and generosity!  You made my day! 

Sneak Peek of My Latest Project

Good Evening, All.  Thought I would give you a little teaser by showing you a few sneak peeks at one of my latest projects that I'm working on!

I feel so mean to not show you the entire piece!  I will say that it's a little wooden cabinet that I picked up at a friend's garage sale a few weeks ago.

As soon as I saw it, I had a lightbulb moment!  I thought it would make the cutest little French themed cabinet.

The graphics is a copy I had made of a reproduction vintage print I bought in Paris.  Oooh, la, la!

Little shelves inside lined with pages from a vintage French book.  Mod Podge + Vintage French Text .....Be still my heart!

One more glimpse of the outside!  All I have left to do is install the hardware that I removed when I painted the cabinet.  I promise that I will show you the completed creation soon!

Bon Soir!

Care to Join Me for a Cup of Tea?

Good Afternoon, ladies!  It sure is hard to believe that another week is soon coming to an end! I hope you all have been having a great one!

I wanted to share with you today our tea cup collection. Actually, it belonged to hubby's mother, and when she passed away hubby inherited it.  Sadly, I never got to get to know her, as she passed away long before we met.  Anyway, hubby made her a cabinet to hold her collection many years ago. It was his own design. I am so lucky I married a handy guy!

Here it is, hanging in our dining area.  It's quite large, and holds 36 cups & saucers.  I really like the arch design at the top, and the mirror backing, as that not only reflects lots of light, but the pretty tea cups, too.  What I don't like about it is that it's a real dust magnet!  When I do clean it (which is admittedly not as often as I should!), I have to use the stepstool, and I remove all of the cups & saucers and wash & dry them oh-so-carefully by hand.  Then I have to windex the mirror, and dust all of the wood! So it is quite the project!  Ok, I will let you in on a little secret!  When we have company over and I don't have time to clean the entire collection, I just dust everything on the bottom row!  And if we are having tall company over, I do the bottom two rows!  Shhhhh!  Don't tell!

Here is a closer look at some of my favorites in the collection:

Violets are my very favorite wildflower, so I just love this cute one! And I think the cut out pattern is so pretty!

Here it is again.  Isn't the gold detailing pretty?

By now you probably know how much I love blue and white, so I just adore this forget me knot tea cup!

And who doesn't love roses?!

I think this one is so pretty.  It's the coat of arms of all the Canadian Provinces.

I love birds, so of course I really like this robin cup & saucer from Wisconsin.  Many of the tea cups she was given were picked up by friends & family when they traveled, so there are many that represent various states.  Hubby gave her quite a few of these, so the collection has even more meaning to us!

I really love the unusual stem to this cup. And the colors and design are just so pretty!

This is another one of my very favorites.  Isn't the cutwork around the saucer pretty?

This cutie is from Holland, Michigan.

And I love this one by Nippon.  It appears to be very old.

Here's one last look at the entire collection.  What is that unsightly vent thingy above the cabinet, you ask?  Unfortunately it's an a/c vent, and I can't think of any way to disguise it that wouldn't draw even more attention to it!!  At least it's up high and not at eye level!

Oh a side note:  Have any of you seen "Eat, Pray, Love" yet?  We don't go the the movies very often, but we went & saw it yesterday. I really didn't know anything about the movie, other than it was filmed in Italy, India and Bali.  I like Julia Roberts, but the main reason I wanted to see it was because hubby & I went to Italy 10 years ago & fell in love with it!  We can't wait to return!  So the scenery of Italy and Bali were very pretty in the movie.  But it was very slooooow, and very long! (as in 2 hours and 15 minutes long!!)  If I had known, I would've just waited for the dvd to come out.  Oh well, that's just my opinion!

Have a great night!
I am joining Cindy over at My Romantic Home for Show & Tell Friday.
I am also joining Cindy over at I Owe it all to Him What do you collect party.
Be sure to check it out!

Fleur Dis Lis and Heirloom White

What could be better?

You know how much I love all things French.  Well, I adore the fleur de lis motif, and just couldn't pass up these goodies that I found at two separate yard sales a week or so ago.  
      Fleur de Lis + Heirloom White=True Love!

When I first saw these wrought iron wall sconces, they were black.  Not bad, but of course I thought they would look oh, so much better with a couple of coats of heirloom white!

This is what they used to look like! Now whenever I go to a yard or garage sale, I constantly think:  "This would look so much better painted _______."   The blank usually being heirloom white of course, or various shades of blue!

Some distressing and Ralph Lauren antiquing glaze in "smoke" really gives these a different look, I think!  I really love the crystal teardrops at the bottom!

Ok, I am a bad blogger again! I was so excited to start painting this next project, that I neglected to take "before" shots!  I know some of you can relate to this!!  Anyway, I found a pair of these fleur de lis wall hangings that started out being gold.  Well, you know me, I just can't leave well enough alone!

They have a neat all over subtle crackle finish, and unless you were to pick them up (they are super light weight resin), you would think they are concrete architectural elements!

I really like how the distressing and antiquing glaze give them an old world look.

Can't you just picture these, along with the wall sconces, hanging in a chateau (ok, my chateau!) in the French countryside?  A girl's gotta dream, doesn't she?!!

I am linking up with Kathleen over at Faded Charm for White Wednesday. Be sure to check out all of the lovey posts!

Fabric from Provence!

Look what I won!  I am so excited!  You all know how much I adore all things French.  Well, today I discovered that I won this beautiful fabric straight from Provence, compliments of Morgane over at Bear, Dolly and Moi!

What a wonderful surprise!  Now I can't say that I never win anything!  I think I will make some pretty napkins with some of the fabric, and maybe some little sachets stuffed with the lavender I brought back with us when we were in Paris in May.  I was checking out some of the lovely things that Morgane did with the fabric.  She made some beautiful pillows you can check out here, as well as a gorgeous placemat you can read about here.  Thanks so much, Morgane!  I can hardly wait!


A few minutes ago, I was standing at the kitchen window, and saw the sweetest thing in our backyard!  A "junior" cardinal (that's what I call birds that are neither babies or adults :) !) was being fed by its mother!  And papa cardinal had to sweep in for a visit!

I ran and got our camera (our new camera, that I still need to figure out!), and managed to snap this shot!  That's "junior" on the left.  Mama would pick seeds up in her beak, which had fallen to the ground from the bird feeder hanging right above them.  "Junior" would squeak and chirp til Mama would deposit the seeds in his mouth!  So adorable!  Looks like papa thought he had to supervise!

I got one last shot as mama flew off.  Guess she decided she was tired of feeding her little one!


Hope you all are having a great day!

Michigan's Longest Garage Sale!

Did any of you ladies brave the heat an humidity to venture out to any yard sales this weekend?  I did!  Even though I had to work, and my nephew got married, I managed to go to quite a few, as this was Michigan's Longest Garage Sale weekend.  It was billed as being 180 miles long!  Since I had so many other things going on, I didn't venture far from home, but I did hit the jackpot at the ones I went to!

I just love this plaster cherub!  It was only $1, and still had the original $9.99 Michael's price tag on it! I'm no sure what color I will paint it, but I want to give it an aged Old World look.

At the same sale, I got this paper mache angel "thingy", again for just a buck!  It is much bigger than it appears in the photo, and I thought it would be fun to decoupage the entire thing either with vintage sheet music, or pages from a vintage French book.

Speaking of vintage sheet music, I was so excited to find this book of it, which will be perfect for papercrafting!  And I really love this frame, I thought it was so neat with the 3 opening.  Not sure what I will do with it, but I'm sure I'll think of something!  I also found a brand new pack of these pretty notecards featuring a Trillium wildflower, done by a well known Michigan artist.

Here's a closer look.  So pretty!

I know what you are thinking:  "Has she lost her mind?!  That heat sure must be getting to her!"  Don't worry!  The fabric inserts are going "buh-bye"!  I plan on painting the frames Heirloom white, then adding some of my blue & white toile fabric to the inserts, so they will get a tres chic makeover!

Ok, here are more makeover possiblities!  I plan on painting and decoupaging the box on the right.  And I just can't resist wooden candlesticks!  I will probably paint this a nice antiqued aqua color.  On the left is a cigar box, and the woman I bought it from painted the top.  With all due respect to her painting, I plan on decoupaging over it!  I thought I would hop on over to the Graphics Fairy and see if I can find a vintage cigar box label that I can use.  Here is a closer look at the box:

I was thrilled to find this pair of mirrors still in their original Home Interiors box!  A week or so ago I showed you the same exact mirrors that I had found at a church rummage sale (except they were brown).  Anyway, I painted those mirrors a pretty coastal blue color and put themin my Etsy shop, and they sold the very next day!  I was thrilled!  So I plan on doing the same with these mirrors!

I can hardly wait to transform this chalkboard!  Have no fear!  The "love me, love my cat" cross stitch heart is going to be history!  I plan on giving this a much needed makeover!  I just love the cute little ledge at the bottom for chalk!

I know these wooden wall sconces look oh so borning right now, but wait til you see them with some paint and the addition of some pretty wooden appliques!

I was so excited to find a yard sale with tons of beautiful stickers and scrapbook paper!  Heaven!

Ok, I hope you're not getting tired of looking at all of my loot yet!  Since here in Michigan we only have garage sales thru early-mid fall, I thought I had better stock up on junk treasures now so that I'll have a good stockpile of things to transform this winter!  I can't pass up a cute birdhouse! This one will probably be painted Heirloom white (shocking, I know!).

I really love unique candlesticks, and these have the prettiest acorn and oak leaf design.  Thought they would be so pretty for fall!

This last piecs is one of my favorite finds. It's a large (much larger than it appears)  new but vintage looking wooden scoop.  Of course I just have to paint it!  Don't you think it would look neat painted either coastal blue or heirlomm white, and filled with seashells?!  I think this is going to be one of my first projects I will tackle.  Guess I need to get busy!

Oh, I got everything you see here for under $20!

What treasures did you find this weekend?

I am linking up to Debbie Doos Garage Salen Partay.  Be sure to check it out!