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.

"Prairie Girl"

Although the calendar indicates that spring officially arrived last month,

Old Man Winter was slow to give up his grip here in Michigan,
and when he did,
Mother Nature continues to bless us with an abundance of rain.

Great for greening things up around here,
but not so great for working in the garden.
Great for getting projects completed indoors, though,
like the sweet pink shutters I'm still giddy about.  :)

[You can read about them here.]

So, given another cold, cloudy, rainy day,

I spent it creating a new twist on my shabby, romantic dream catchers.

Inspired by the beautiful fabric garlands that 

Sherry at ShantyGirl

and

Sandi at Wayside Treasures

have been making,

I wanted a rustic, whimsical, bohemian look.

When the sun made a very brief appearance during the afternoon,

I gathered apple and cherry twigs from the woods surrounding this old house,

spread out piles of fabrics on my prairie table...

and the
"Prairie Girl" 
dream catcher was born.

Colorful streamers cascade next to 

dangling seashells collected from the beach,
sparkling glass beads,

shimmering metallic threads,

soft strands of lavender leather,

fuzzy pom pom yarn,

and white, silky feathers.

The soft pastels look pretty next to the beautiful vintage millinery floral garland
hanging on the barn door handle.

The garland was made for me by sweet friend, Rachel at Shabby French for Me.

Prairie Girl is sweet, rustic, bohemian and whimsical.

Each Prairie Girl dream catcher I create is one of a kind.

Each is wrapped in her own quirky, unique, personality.

Each is full of color, sparkle, and captivates with an ethereal, gypsy-like feeling.

Although "Prairie Girl" takes a bit longer to dream into being

because of her thick waterfall of fabric streamers
and multitude of unique, assorted beads,

I love making them and look forward to designing more to sell.

This one, however, just may make her home

catching the morning breezes by my front porch swing ~
where the fabric will flutter in the breeze
and the beads will gently clack together...  :)

But if you know me at all,
I couldn't stop with just one.

A second Prairie Girl dream catcher was adorned with a passion for purple.

Deep purple mingles with turquoise, pink, blue, and aqua with bright gypsy beads.

And a third is embellished with grass green, bright teal, and a touch of rich purple.

So full of happy color,
 I can't help but smile as my hands busily string and tie each one.

Well, a stack of sticks and some pretty, ornate boho beads wait patiently for me on the prairie table,

and a pile of streamers are whispering my name...

Time to create.

~  Sweet Prairie Blessings  ~

PS  These will be for sale in my booth at Doster Emporium
(which is now OPEN!) ~
and I'll be taking them to Allegan Antique Market on May 26, too.
Or if you see one you love, email me!

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

Open for Business!

Two SUVs full of Heaven's Walk treasures

+

  

3 days of pricing and tagging,

hammering and hanging,

and floofing and fluffing...

=

OPEN FOR BUSINESS!

I am so excited!

Heaven's Walk is now officially a booth at Doster Emporium!

The Emporium is located in an old grain & lumber mill in the small, quaint, rural town of Doster.

The Emporium is quite an historical building in the area.  Georgina, who owns it with her husband, has books filled with original orders from grain and lumber customers handwritten in their beautiful, old script.

Old photos of past owners and family members are framed and hung on the walls.

There's even some of the original mechanisms located in the center of the shop where you can see where the grain was poured from.

 







You can take a walk around the beautiful property on a path Georgina created and lined with wildflowers and vintage railroad memorabilia.





There's even a cute little outhouse on the property that Georgina remodeled all by herself.
She's very smart like that, and is such a dear heart!

Georgina said I was "in my element" as I transformed my little white room

into a sweet, cozy, and welcoming French-Nordic atmosphere for this season's customers.

It actually gave me the same feeling of contentment that fluffing my house does.

Unpacking boxes and boxes of goodies,

moving things around (more than once),

tucking things here and there,

and then standing back and sighing contentedly.

Now I understand why all of you gals out there who have had booths for so long

love it so!

I'm praying that this new venture will be profitable,

and most importantly ~

fun!

{It definitely gives me an excuse to hit the yard sales, flea markets, and thrift stores more often,

doesn't it?}

Here are quite a few some

photos of my booth.

  
{Grab yourself cup of coffee,

or if it's after 12 noon -
a glass of wine...}

Update on the Heaven's Walk sign:  It's now up on the wall!

I love making these topiaries!

This rocker was my first attempt at upholstering (with a handmade faux grain sack). The end table is a ReStore transformation.

The French lamp was another ReStore transformation.

The "seaside" corner.

Yep, I had an extremely busy and productive winter
with my Annie Sloan chalk paint, paint brushes, Mod Podge, stencils, and a continuing love/hate relationship with my sewing machine.
Ninety percent of everything you see here was transformed in one way or another by the waving of my magic wand ~

and all of the inspiration came from YOU, my beloved blog friends.
YOU fed my creativity.


So, there you have it.
My new little piece of heaven!

 

If you're in the area,

be sure to stop by to see a bit of Heaven's Walk

at Doster Emporium, meet sweet Georgina,
and come do the happy dance with us!  :)

Ok...just ignore the dorky outfit.  I was wearing my work clothes...and freezing!

The Emporium is located at 12915 Doster Road in Plainwell, Michigan.

Hours are: Wednesday, Friday & Saturday from 12-4pm.

You can contact Georgina at 269-664-3231 if you can't make it during business hours.

She's more than willing to open up the shop just for you!

Be sure to check out Doster Emporium on Facebook, too!

[ Blessings ]

Linking to the parties on the lower right of my sidebar.
Just click on the buttons!


I'd love to have you join Heaven's Walk as a Linky Follower and GFC, too!