Happy Tasha Tudor Day!

What drew me to Tasha Tudor originally was her garden! I had received this book as a gift and was so captivated with her beautiful garden that I wanted to learn more about her!

What I always admired about her was that she seemed to live her life true to who she was. I loved that she was so "old-fashioned". I don't think I would go as far as dressing the part, but I admired that she loved the old ways of doing things. Especially at at time when this was not as "in vogue" as it is now!

Interestingly, I didn't come to know her as an artist until a few years later when I started reading some children's books to my daughter that she had illustrated! I was always more interested in her garden and home life!

A few years ago I was in a "junque" shop in Atlanta sifting through some papers and found these old Corgi Cottage Industries Catalogs! I thought I'd share a few scans from them.

Look she sold cream moisturizing cream!

Illustrations of her beloved Corgis (or Corgyn as Tasha would say)!

Please go visit Clarice at Storybook Woods to find others participating in this celebration (look in her comments).

It's A Rooster Party!

Barb at Bella Vista is hosting a show your rooster party so be sure to go to her blog to find the other participants (she has them listed on her sidebar). When I told her I would join in I also told her that I really don't have a lot of rooster things. Well I have more than I thought! I just don't have them out all at the same time.

This little rug is from Wal-Mart. I'd been looking for one that had a checkerboard pattern and wasn't too large, so I was so happy to find this!

Here are a few pictures from past posts and then I'll show some that haven't been seen before. The red rooster was a Goodwill find in February. It was already a perfect color! The little picture I made from a piece of wallpaper border sample.

This rooster picture is also a thriftstore find a few months later. I added the checkerboard mat (it's contact paper) and painted the frame black.

These plates came 4 in a box from TJ Maxx. I love how they coordinate with each other yet are different!

I really do love my fancy dishdrainer thingie! Even my husband commented that he liked the plates here! I changed out my little arrangement for the rooster party.

I found those little roosters on the top at the thriftstore. They had a box under a shelf that I pulled out and it was full of bisque pieces - I think that's what they're called? (Those paint yourself ceramic things.) Anyway.....I found these three little roosters! Right now they just have a coat of primer on them - I'm not sure if I want to paint them red, black, yellow or keep them white!

Underneath is a homemade placemat made out of rooster toile fabric.

I'm always excited when I find one of these trays! I have 5 of them now (all different scenes but same maker).

Well that's it for all my rooster things! I hope you enjoyed seeing them! Like I said, I didn't realize I had as many as I do and I'm always passing up rooster stuff at Goodwill. They just had plates with a black checkerboard on the rim and roosters in the middle. Had them in my cart and then put them back (and no I never did find that 4th white Parson's chair slipcover)!

BUT.........I did find some other really nice things so stop by Sunday evening for my thriftstore finds!

Architectural Embelishments

Hi all! Just a quick post today. I spent 3+ hours at the dentist yesterday! I know it sounds like I don't have any teeth but I do. LOL! All of a sudden I started having issues which required two root canals, three crowns etc. So this is just a quick check in to say that I will be back Friday for the Rooster Party and the Tasha Tudor day.

But I wanted to show you this cute architechural swag that I found a few weeks ago at TJ Maxx for $9.99! I plan on using it in my Blue Toile Room - just haven't decided where yet

My Summer Gold - Metamorphosis Monday

I have a little transformation that I did on a side garden that I'd like to share for Metamorphosis Monday, our gracious hostess is Susan of Between Naps On The Porch. Be sure to check out her blog to see lots of other before and afters!

I'm calling this garden area on the side of my house my "Summer Gold Border" inspired by the Grace Livingston Hill book "April Gold" (which I'm reading for the third time this summer).

"April gold is flowers. Beautiful bright yellow flowers, yellow as gold....You watch when April comes and you will see little green shoots begin to come up through the ground, and by and by there will come buds, lovely big yellow buds, and then when the rain has fallen, and the sun is bright again you will see a burst of bright yellow flowers, all golden in the morning like sunshine. My April gold! That's what I call my April gold! Lovely golden flowers!"

So this is what it looked like at the end of June! It's taken me months to finish this area. It started getting so hot, I really could only work out there very early in the morning. So I would do 20 minutes here and there. Then I worked on other things and I just finished this yesterday!Sometimes you just have to give yourself a break when you're doing a large or time consuming project and realize it's not going to get done over night (unless you have the funds to hire someone to do it for you -which I don't)!

Garden Before


Bench Before

There's this lantana right next to the bench that comes back every year (it's the only one I have that does that). So I took my colors from it. The last couple years this bench has been red so this year I painted it orange!

We don't ever really sit here because it's too hot usually. This area gets sun all day! We usually sit here under the shade of the crepe myrtle.

Here's what I did:

• weeded
• removed sod to enlarge the bed
• re-trenched border
• moved daylillies & cannas
• planted annuals
• painted bench
• wound some grapevine around the top of trellis
• put down two bales of pine straw

Removing sod is hard work! This grass creeps so you really can't smother it and we don't use chemicals if we can help it. Now, I'm just going to show you the after pictures without any text. All the pictures enlarge when you click on them.

The trellis is just some lattice from Home Depot that we framed and attached to two posts that I topped with finials. I needed something tall on that big white wall that was inexpensive so this is what we came up with. We have a grape growing up the side of it.

Here's a view of the side of it

I think it's all ready for some pumpkins this fall!

I'm so glad this is done...I need to trim my bushes now and think about my fall veggie garden! But now my neighbors have something pretty to look at as they drive by this side of the house (we're on a corner lot).

Thanks for stopping by!