Late Summer Days

Over the past few months, my summer days have been very busy creating dream catchers.
I love spending my hours making each one unique to the requests I receive from friends and customers!
No two are exactly alike.  :)

Among them, Petite "Chincoteague" and Petite "Starlight" are headed for London, England.

I also created a couple sweet little dream catchers for a friend's two granddaughters
for Christmas gifts.

Petite "Bella's Song"

Bella loves purple, green, and pink.

Colorful, playful, sweet and whimsical!

Petite "Lily's Dream"

Lily has a love for cottage.

Pink and white florals mix with rustic beads and little bells.

I have a new dream catcher style floating around in my mind that I can hardly wait to start on, too.
Stay tuned for that!
(*wink*)

~~  ♥  ~~

Late summer days also bring a multitude of hummingbirds busily battling over our feeders.

They're refueling for their trek to Mexico or the Yucatan Peninsula.

They know when it's time to leave due to hormonal changes that are affected by the decrease in the late summer's daylight.

The males leave first with the females following a few days later.

Did you know these tiny miraculous creations flap their wings at 80 times per second?

They lick the sweet syrup with their long tongues

at a rate of 13 licks per second.

We will miss our happy hours on the back porch
(sipping our homemade FatCat*HappyDog wine)

listening to their constant chatter and watching them dip and dive

through the flowers and pines;
occasionally stopping to study us like we were strange beings in their world of speed and flight.

~~  ♥  ~~

Late summer days also mean harvesting our garden.
We had our second canning session last week.
After picking four bushels of tomatoes from our 8' foot tall plants...

we spent the day canning 90 quarts of delicious, homemade salsa.
Six hours of chopping vegetables, blanching tomatoes,
and taste testing to perfect our "recipe"....
which really isn't a recipe at all.
We totally wing it and go by color and taste.
Then in to the jars it goes before being hot bathed in the canner for 15 minutes.

Full of our organically grown tomatoes, carrots, green peppers, jalapenos,
celery, onions, and hot chili peppers.
We use it in most of our crock pot recipes, chili, goulash,
tacos, burritos, soups, and even in our omelets.

We'll can an additional 200 quarts/pints by the end of the season.

~~  ♥  ~~ 


Late summer days also mean BIG news!!

Doster Emporium & Heaven's Walk are having a HUGE
End of Summer Sale
Friday and Saturday
August 30 & 31 from 10am - 4pm!  

So, mark your calendars and stop by for some ice cold refreshments while you nab some great deals from
50 -75% off!

~  Blessings  ~

Linking to the linky parties on the lower right of my sidebar.

A Trip, Treasures, and a Tri-fold

Be forewarned:  I'm all over the place with this post.

A bit unlike my usual style,

but I have so much to share with you,
that I'm unloading it all at once.  lol

It begins in the master bathroom.

The bathroom I claimed as my own when we moved here.
The bathroom where I oohed and ahhhed the first time I walked in.
(The bathroom where I stroke the bead board walls periodically just because they're there.)

I'd been wanting to replace this light for the past seven years.

I always wondered why an outdoor light was installed in there.
A couple years ago, I dry brushed it with creamy white to soften the look a bit.
It grew on me after a while.
So, I embraced it and learned to live with it.

After Debbie said she liked it because it reminded her of a lantern on a gypsy wagon,

I reeeally loved that thought ~

And I hesitated about changing it out...

for a moment.

But once the Husband wired this antique sconce I brought home from Michelle's booth at the antique market last month,

I was smitten.

It added a sweet touch of vintage bling to my favorite room in this old farmhouse.

A bit of sweet elegance against the sweet bead board walls.

Yep.  Totally smitten.

~  ♥  ~

We celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary last week,
traveling to Lake Michigan through small coastal towns,
stopping at flea markets, antique shops, and fruit stands.
We picked through dusty treasures, dug through boxes of vintage goodies,
and test-squeezed fresh picked peaches before loading them into the car
with sweet juice running down our chins.

We exchanged heartfelt cards over lunch on The Idler, a unique riverboat restaurant in South Haven,
and ate crab cakes, buffalo wings, and artichoke dip.
It was beautiful day spent together.

source

We wandered through numerous antique shops in South Haven and Saugatuck.
While my husband lugged around a vintage outboard boat motor he ended up purchasing,
I couldn't resist these pretties.

There wasn't a price on the china pieces, but after being told they were $4 a piece,
I found myself grinning stupidly while clutching them in my hands.
Vintage beads for my dream catchers and wind catchers were a happy find,
and a faded Simply Shabby Chic tablecloth I pulled from the bottom of a box beneath a table was only $5.





But the pink and lilac tapestry with a black silk border was my favorite discovery of the day.
Four feet of embroidered flowers and elegant flourishes, beading, and sequins
that I unearthed from a pile of linens under an old table.
The embroidery is exquisite and so unique.
It's a beautiful piece of shabby bohemian goodness.

~  ♥  ~

I recently purchased some RASC fabric and asked
a friend of mine to make a couple of Euro shams for me.

I love the 'Somerset' pattern.
I could only find the fabric in white though, so I dyed it a pale lavender-blue.
It's perfect snuggling next to 'Mon Ami'.

The purples and blues are soothing, and 'ground' the room a bit
amid the white and pinks.

 ~  ♥  ~

As much as I'm loving my bathroom and the new shams on the sofa,
this corner of the living room is currently giving me fits.
Big fits.
The "I-can't-stand-to-look-at-it-anymore-and-don't-know-what-to-do-with-it " kind of fits.

Behind that beautiful fabric is a tri-fold door
that needs.....something.

You're probably wondering why the fabric is draped there.

Well, this is what they looked like when I bought them a couple years ago at the antique market.
They looked wonderful with the French-Nordic decor I had in the house at that time.
Simple, elegant, and very French.

This is what they looked like after I waved my magic rustic wand over them.
I spray painted the doors. Then, after spray painting the chicken wire, too,
stapled that to the back of the doors.

So much better.
Cleaner. Brighter. Airier.

BUT
{sigh}
I've grown tired of the chicken wire...
AND the fabric
(and maybe of the doors themselves....?)
They're not just speaking to me any more for some reason.
They're actually driving me nuts.





I hung an embroidered pashmina on one door
and some of my favorite linen fabric on the other doors to cover up the chicken wire,
and to add a bit of soft color there in the corner.

But now it just looks messy to me.

{sigh}

So, I'm changing them up....
...again...
to see if my new idea sings to my soul.

I'll let you know if I hear any music....  :)

{If I don't, I'll just go back to stroking the bead board in my bathroom...}



~  Blessings  ~

Linking to the linky parties on the lower right of my sidebar!

A Prairie Song

"I am standing in the summer sun,
where the rabbits hide and the small quails run.
I listen to the prairie's song
in every breeze that comes along."
~Betty Lou Hebert, "Prairie Gentian"

I love living in the country ~

where bright prairie meets shaded woods...

shaded woods embrace emerald green swamps...

and cornflower blue chicory hugs gravel roads.

Where Queen Anne's Lace reach for azure skies...

quaint little veggie stands greet the morning sun...

and gentle hills roll into deep valleys.

Where old gates beckon you to explore...

vegetable gardens dot the hillsides...

and small ponds are home to ducks and geese.

Where towering trees dance with their own shadows...

tiny lakes sparkle beyond prairies...

and rows of cornstalks stand tall to the horizon.

Where wildflowers blanket hills...

statuesque trunks guard fenced fields...

rolling hills sigh beneath the bright morning sun...

and tiny white flowers hide in the shadows of trees.

I love living where

sunshine and shadows play hide and seek,
and serenity sings a prairie song.

"I speak to you continually.  My nature is to communicate though not always in words. I caress you with a gentle breeze that refreshes and delights you.  I speak softly in the depths of your spirit, where I have taken up residence.  You can find me in each moment, when you have eyes that see and ears that hear.  Ask My Spirit to sharpen your spiritual eyesight and hearing. I rejoice each time you discover My Presence."

~author unknown

~  Blessings  ~

Linking to the linky parties on the lower right of my sidebar.