Friday, March 28, 2008

Gardening Angel





Remember the Gardening Angel doll I was working on? I finally finished her! I have been working on several projects this week to place in my Etsy store.


I hope all of you had a wonderful Easter. My whole family came to my house, my sister and her husband, my two nieces, my two sons, and step-mom. Of course there was hubby and me also. We spent the day talking and relaxing. We made a pot of Earl Grey tea after dinner and ate the Easter cookies. I packaged some cookies for my nieces, ages 10 and 6. I asked them if they wanted to take some cookies home and they took them all!

Saturday, March 22, 2008

Happy Easter!


Hello, I just wanted to wish everyone Happy Easter, and share some of the things I've been doing lately. Here is a spring arrangement I did for my Easter table with pansies and bunny. I will be making a chicken casserole, strawberry pretzel salad, asparagus, carrots, and rolls.

I have always wanted to learn how to use the hand decorating bags for icing cookies so decided to try it. I made sugar cookies from a recipe out of the Huntsville Heritage Cookbook. The recipe is called "Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies" and the author said it was her great-grandmother's recipe. It is a great recipe, and the dough was very easy to work with. I would be happy to share it with anyone who is interested. The cookies baked well and didn't crumble.









I made icing from
egg whites, confectioner's sugar, and lemon juice. The consistency was good and easy to work with in the decorating bag.





I was pleased with the results, but need more practice! Hope everyone has a wonderful Easter with your family!

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Thank you God for Spring


I had hoped to take pictures of a doll to put on my post today, but I can’t seem to finish her. She is a gardening angel, and I will post her as soon as I finish. I am just going to say “Thank you God for spring, and the promise of new life.” My quince is blooming and the hydrangeas are beginning to bud. I hope we have some beautiful ones this year—it was such an awful summer last year with no rain and the painful loss of my father. Actually the last 2 years have been difficult for my family. In 8/06 my son was in a serious car accident, and we spent the last half of that year in therapy and recuperation. Then in 1/07 my father was diagnosed with cancer, so most of 2007 was spent in helping him get through the treatments and finally losing him in September 2007. He was such an inspiration in my life, and I will talk more about him later.

Needless to say, my business plans have progressed slowly. Maybe that was for the best, as it has given me time to see what is really important in life—God, family and relationships I am working on business plans to see what works best—my antique shop is not in a high traffic area—so I am in the process of developing a website. I seem to enjoy the more creative side of business, and would like to focus more on that. But I still have some local customers, so I am working on options for opening or closing the shop.

I hope I am not boring everyone with all my wanderings. If any of you have experiences that would help, please share them with me.

Thought for the day: There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature—the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter—Rachel Carson.

Saturday, March 1, 2008

The Joy of Being Creative

Hello everyone,
I am new to the blogging community. I'm not sure about how to do this, but I will give it my best. This really seems like a wonderful way to connect to you creative ones out there. Just wanted to share these little pot holders with you that I made. Collecting vintage fabrics is one of my hobbies and for years, I've had these little squares of veggie fabrics that I wanted to do something with--just didn't know what. I finally came up with this idea--some cute potholders! What do you think? Isn't it amazing that when you have an inspiration to create something and follow through--it brings joy! I hope you have a wonderful day and have some time to be creative.