Indulge Your Shelf

Here's a little table I got for free at the end of a yard sale last year; the lady said, "Please just take it!" It's sitting in our basement right now. I want to put it in my family room, to be the warm weather replacement for our electric fireplace, sitting next to the chair where I do my handwork in the evenings: The room's decor is very casual; the walls are sponge-painted a pale, sage-ish green. Here's a view of the top; as you can see, it has deep grooves in the wood so it sort of looks like hardwood flooring: Should I paint the table? What would you do? I'd welcome any and all suggestions, as I'm out of ideas!

Good morning everyone! Thank you to all who entered my Cottage Charm giveaway ! The randomly chosen winner was: Linda from My Shabby Rose Cottage ! Congratulations Linda! And, thank you to all who entered! I sincerely hope you will be back to visit my blog! I know I will be revisiting everyone's blogs in the coming days!

**Remember: today at 11:59 p.m. Mountain is your last chance to enter my Cottage Charm giveaway !** Well, the little guy got out of school yesterday, and the outdoor pool has opened, so, it is officially summer around here! I finished that project at work, which took 28 hours, and am hoping they can take it from there so I won't have to go in again! Can you tell I'm ready for summer fun to begin? This weekend, our neighborhood is having their community garage sale and there are sales galore! This morning I spent 2-1/2 hours driving around to about a dozen sales and found some great stuff, which I will share with you later. Tomorrow, a friend is coming along and we will hit the rest of the sales! For now, I thought I'd show you what I've been working on the last few evenings: pillows for me . You know how it is: you create pretty things for everyone else, or to sell, and don't keep anything for yourself? Well, it has taken me about 3 years (that's how long ...

I really like some of the memes you can find on Sunday Stealing so I decided to do this one, but on Thursday instead of Sunday. I think this particular Sunday Stealing meme, while good, is too darn long ; so, I'm only answering my favorite 10 of the 20 questions! 1. What bill do you hate paying the most? The phone bill, because my husband just flat out refuses to get rid of our land line and it's so annoying to have to pay for it when we could be using our cell phones for everything! 2. Where was the last place you had a romantic dinner? PF Chang's, a Chinese restaurant. It was sort of a fluke; our son was camping so we went out to dinner and a movie, but hadn't made reservations so rather than wait forever for a table we chose to eat at the bar. Now, normally sitting at a busy restaurant bar with the bartender in your face wouldn't seem like it was romantic, but we were sitting next to each other instead of across from each other, and drinking wine, and eating th...

I've just discovered another great Etsy shop called CREATEaTHOUGHT . You know me, and how much I love words...that's why this shop really appeals to me! Through her creations, she seeks to give us a place to put down our thoughts that is as special and unique as they are! Here are a couple of my favorite pieces in her shop : "Orange is really a lighthearted hue journal" I love the poetic tribute to the color orange! And, of course, the buttons! "Spring Flower magnets" These "FridgeFabulous" magnets are super powerful, just right to hold all those heavy works of your family Picasso! I really like the wild asterisk pattern -- it reminds me of the atomic era! Be sure to stop by and see all of CREATEaTHOUGHT's other goodies, and visit the blog , too!

I just joined the Etsy Bloggers Street Team ! That means I have a cool new button over there on my right side bar, and I get to learn more about my community of Etsians who blog! I'm jazzed, can you tell? I'm going to get straight to work and blog about the featured EtsyBlogger, right now! Speaking of work, I'm beginning my second week of temp work for my former employer; things are going well there -- I've learned some PhotoShop basics, and have had a chance to greet and photograph about 80 employees so far. (That's what I'm doing, did I mention that? I'm re-photographing everyone for their new ID badges.)

It's your last chance to enter my Cottage Charm giveaway ! Follow the link to enter on my original post only, before May 29 at 11:59 P.M. Mountain! Be sure to visit Twice Remembered's blog to enter all the wonderful giveaways, and make new blog friends!

The same year Dennis and I got married, our nephews Alex and Spencer were born. They are fraternal twins, born to my brother and his then wife. I'll never forget the day he found out they were having twins: they'd been to her ultrasound appointment and came over to my house for dinner right afterwards, still in shock. "Two heartbeats, Laurie. Two! That means we're having twins! There's two babies in there!" He explained this to me over and again, his eyeballs as big as saucers. Their father commuted for his job between San Francisco and Santa Rosa on highway 101; if you've ever driven that route, you know that there are two nearby exits just north of the Golden Gate Bridge called "Alexander Avenue" and "Spencer Avenue." Driving back and forth those months awaiting the babies birth, he got kind of attached to the names. Alex and Spencer's first Christmas It was six years before we had managed a little cousin for Alex and Spen...

I'm a huge Janeite , or Jane Austen fan, so when I saw this lovely sachet on Etsy called "Simply Jane" I just had to have it! It arrived prettily packaged from Annas Trunk... and went straight into place hanging from the doorknob on my bedroom door! I just love it! You'll have to go see all the other historical reproductions at Anna's Trunk! While I was up in my bedroom, I remembered that I'd wanted to share another photo with you all: I found this little blue baby's quilt at the thrift store and I will treasure it! It has the tiniest hand stitching, the softest worn cotton feeling, and the lovely little hand embroidered wreaths are just precious!

Spring has hit the Rockies! The last few days have been in the high 70's and '80's -- finally! Cookout weather! And, my front flower garden is alive and purple, with lilacs and the last of the gorgeous tulips. I thought I'd better go ahead and post these photos of Pikes Peak. The first photo isn't great quality as I took it with my phone, just to capture how the mountain was almost invisible with the mist in front of it, 'though it was a sunny, pretty day where I was below. The second photo gives you a good view of how it looked with snow still on it just a few days ago. I think this is the last snow-capped view, because the snow is quickly melting away and will surely be gone after the heat we have had for the last few days!

I'm working for the next few weeks, part time, at my former employer. They had an urgent project come up and no one to do it, until they remembered little old me. Today I went in to discuss the project and ended up working for a few hours. As I was driving home 45 minutes later than I'd planned, grabbing dinner on the way, it all came rushing back to me -- the experience of being a working-outside-the-home mother, which I have been before and will surely be again. I felt pushed, rushed, exhilarated, stimulated...and tired. Kudos to everyone reading who does this daily: you are a hero, and a wonder. I'm going to try to stay up on my blogging and blog-reading but if you see less of me while I'm working -- that will be why. One of my favorite reads, Mary at Vintage Patina , posted recently about garage sale wonders and I'm quoting her: "'wonders.' it means different things to different people, i've learned. i think all of these finds are wonder...

An "Aw, Shucks" and a thank you to Charlene for this award! It's a another fun one -- all pink and ribbony, with a great German word in the title and you know how I love that! You must visit Charlene and her blog A Virtuous Woman , where she takes both a spiritual and practical approach to all areas of the home life, including wonderful Southern cooking! I know it takes time, effort, planning and thought to blog; so, I'm nominating every one of my fellow bloggers to grab and pass along if you have blogged/posted an entry on your blog at least three times within the past week/seven day period, including sharing at least one photo; you are all amazing!

I made three Artist Trading Cards (ATC's) this week: The first one I completed was the blue themed card; everything on it is vintage or antique with the exception of the tiny silver bead inside the larger blue flower bead. Next I made the red, white an blue card with some of my favorite tablecloth fabric. It's completely vintage with the same bead exception. Finally I made the pink bird ATC - this one has mostly new fabrics and findings, with a couple of vintage elements. I found it took me about as long to work in small scale as it normally does to do larger pieces, but maybe that's because I'm new at it. Or, maybe I'm just slow . I had fun, and am going to be gifting these. What do you do with your ATC's? Sell them, keep them, trade them...?

I have finally, finally scored an Etsy Treasury and, guess what? It may be starring YOU! I featured my creative, wonderful friends who blog and have Etsy shops. I didn't have room for everyone but filled up all the spaces and the alternates. Go see before it ends in 2, maybe 3, days! Whew! That was fun!

One sunny day last week I had the privilege to accompany my son's sixth grade class to visit a teacher's home in a nearby neighborhood. The teacher wanted to share his home with his students because he had spent four years building it on his five acre property. The home is completely sustainable. In the photo above you can see the side of the house to the left of the tree and school buses. This is the wall of windows, which he doesn't want or need to cover as the house is located at the very end of his property, far from the road or city lights. The fellow with the llama is a neighbor who keeps 27 of the creatures and brought one over for the kids to see. He toured also the kids through his farm set up, which includes goats for cheese and milk and chickens for eggs. The teacher told the children how he built the house; here is how I understood it, in a nutshell: he began by excavating a huge hole on the home site, and then building up walls with discarded tires inside ...

This is a great article about creating a tag line for your business, which I found through the always-great blog, Design Sponge . It got me thinking about having a tag line for my two Etsy shops . Way back when I had my first craft business in 1992, my company name was All Good People (which is now my eBay user id) and my tagline was, "Handmade with love from vintage materials." How about you? Does your creative endeavor have a tagline? Let me hear it! I'm looking for inspiration!

My husband always has to work on Sundays. So, this year for Mother's Day my son and I got together with two friends and their children. Both women were also husband-less for the day; one's husband is serving in Iraq, and the other is single mom. We often spend our Sundays together and it's lovely. This Sunday we decided to have a "Mom" day and instead of centering activities around the boys (all of us have sons) we chose Mom activities! First, we went to a most scenic spot in Colorado Springs and took turns taking photos of each other with our boys. One mom thoughtfully brought roses for us each to pose with! It was an overcast day and there was quite a bit of glare, so many of the photos came out with the boys looking squinty! But, I still love the pictures. In the photo, I'm wearing my mother's orchid brooch. Then, we ate at a favorite deli. I had strawberry shortcake -- what a treat! Next, we drove to my favorite antique store in a nearby town ...