Meeting some Great Friends from Blogland

Hi Everyone!

This last Thursday I got to meet a couple of my favorite people in Blogland, and you all know who you are!

One of my best friends is Joyce from Scrap For Joy. Joyce and her sister Barb wanted to get out of the cold and wet for awhile. They couldn’t have picked a better week! It was sunny and warm on Thursday and we had a ball!

This is L to R Barb, Me, Joyce. We just couldn’t stop laughing! We met in old downtown Mesa and started our day at a store called Domestic Bliss….is that a great name or what? They are changing some of the items they used to sell so all of their crafting items, fabrics, trims, doo dads were 40% off. That was too much fun!

We took a little break and Joyce brought out this sweet little bag with some goodies just for me! :)

Isn’t this the cutest little box???? I just love it!

But it got even more fun when I opened it…look what was inside!

Wonderful tags and goodies…..

Sorry this photo is a little lame, but the sweet charm was made by another friend of Joyce’s, Mimi. She has a sweet blog named http://www.dandelionwishes-mimi.blogspot.com/. On the back it states “ fun friend”.

Two fun vintage game cards with my initials, a big bunch of fun tickets and of course, a Mary E. paperclip! So Fun!!!!!!

We then had a bite of lunch and went to my favorite store in downtown Mesa, Mystic Paper ( http://www.mysticpaper.com/). Poor Barb doesn’t have any independent scrapbooking store where she lives, so she went a little crazy! But the store has just been stocked with a lot of new things they had seen at CHA….Joyce did her fair share of damage too! :)

Me??? I did OK…..LOL

This little guy was a gift from another wonderful person, and you know who you are! Thank you so much!!!! He is on my shelf over my desk. :)

The 5 hours we were together just went flying by, I wish we could have had another whole week! Maybe next time! Thanks Joyce and Barb, you are so special to me. And Barb, take a crack at the blogging, I know you can do this! I was right where you are about two years ago. And if I can do it, anyone can! LOL

And the Winner is.......

OK everybody, I used Tara Frey's Random Number Generator and this is what it said:

Calling all peeps who blog for bliss and host crazy cool giveaways...
Feel free to use this form to generate a random number.
Enter the numbers between which a random number is to be created.
Lowest Number: 1 Highest Number: 59 Result : 15

Comment Number 15 was from Laura at SAHM I Am!.

This is what she said:

Laura said...
So bright! So pretty! So happy! Oohhh! I love it!

Congratulations Laura, please email me your address so I can get you your goodies!

Thank you EVERYBODY who added a comment and made this so fun!

Rednesday is here again!

It is once again time for us to show you the things we love in our homes that are red with Sue over at It’s A Very Cherry World.

This is one of those Home Interiors mirror from the 80’s. Found it at Goodwill and gave it a coat of red spray paint. The Hall tree used to be golden oak when my husband won it in a contest about 27 years ago…it really needed a change!

Above my kitchen cupboards a few of my red items I enjoy.

Love my Range set, I bought it without decals and purchased the decals on Ebay years ago. I don’t have room for it on my counter. The Lemonade Jug was from Gooseberry Patch, back when they had wonderful vintage inspired items.

This is kind of a funky photo, I have this little quilt up on the wall in my entry way, haven’t figured out yet how I will hang it but I wanted to see it up on the wall. I have a set of quilt hangers that are white….they are probably my best bet.

And last but not least a fun planter out on my patio, my flowers are just loving all of the rain we are getting! But thank goodness today is a sunny day!

Don’t forget to sign up for my Cath Kidston giveaway….it is in the post underneath this one! Have a great Rednesday!

Cath Kidston Envy and a Giveaway!

I am trying out a new way to do posts with Windows Live. I would really like my photos to be a little bigger than Blogger allows. So here goes…..

I have vowed that if I am ever lucky enough to get to England, my first stop will be a Cath Kidston store! Her things just scream “cottage”!. And cottage and the 1940’s are a perfect meld.

Look at these photos of one of her shops…..

This is just beyond words!!!!

When I was cleaning out my stuff to get organized, I found a lot of her stationery items I had bought, many were duplicates.

So…..I am having a Cath Kidston GIVEAWAY!!!!!!

Here are the items I am parting with:

Cath Kidston Labels and Stickers, a journal with a lot of fun pages, and a lovely box of stationery…..So here is what you need to do to win this fun group of lovelies:

Now this is really difficult so listen up!

Leave a comment on this post about why you love Cath Kidston!

That was hard, huh????? I will pull the lucky winner on Saturday February 27th. at 6:00 PM my time. Please pass it on and make this a lot of fun!

Thanks for stopping by!

So What Do You Think?????

First of all, I want to thank all of you that supported and encouraged this project! It was daunting at times to be sure.... but it was a lesson in patience for me, that is for sure!

I am real pleased with how it came out. There are still places that need a little tweaking and a few more things on one wall, but I am ready to go for it! Meri, did you hear that???? :)

I needed a place where things could be unseen....and Wayne and I looked on Craig's List and Goodwills for a piece of furniture that would work. Then, Wayne realized we had the perfect components in our closet! We had been given these cubes by good friends who were moving, and they have come in handy more than once. So, this is how we configured them in the room:



I went to Hobby Lobby and got a bunch of fun colorful ceramic knobs ( 50% off of 2.99) and put all different ones on the drawers, it brought in a little color. We also took the door off of my hutch...it opened the area up a bunch!

We then had another friend come put up the shelves. We had the brackets from our previous house, don't ask why we brought them, but they worked out perfect! The shelves were laminated MDF, but on the thin side, so I use some ME borders that teachers use on cork board. I can change it anytime I want and it is 2.99 a package! Great decorating idea, if I do say so myself! :) BEFORE

AFTER

The sweet little "vintage" fence in between the shelves is my Inspiration Board....my SIL Jo got this for me for Christmas two years ago...

A special place for Sissy!

And Angus too!

And My bluebirds from Elizabeth....my Valentine from her is on my Inspiration Board!


I also wanted a piece of pegboard to hang up some misc. things and so I painted it the color of the room and again, used the cork board border to finish it off. I just love it! So easy to do.... I even found hooks with red tips on them! ( Wal-Mart)

A few more shots of different things in the room:

My printer table and my kitchen cart:

The 12X12 bins that I keep a multitude of things in: again easy to move and reconfigure if I need to. Again, got them at Wal-Mart.

So.....that is it! What do you think? I love this room, and I love being in it! I have the best husband in the world! I am going to get busy now making things for the craft fair that a few of us here in AZ are going to have.....thanks again!

P.S. Check out Meri's blog ImagiMeri's for info on the craft fair! It is in April and we need Arizona crafters to come join us!

Rednesday is Back at 521 Lake Street!

It is Rednesday at Sue's It' a Very Cherry World. It feels good to kind of be back in the flow of things...I will be taking photos of my finished room in the next few days.....I just love it!



But for now, I thought I would show you some of my favorite red things in my kitchen.

This is one of my favorite ceramic trays I have, and the towel is a reproduction hand towel that I can't bear to use!

My "new" vintage kitchen stool.

A new fun crocheted potholder I found on Ebay. ( sorry it is so bright, the flash was acting up)

I had this sweet vintage rooster for years, it didn't have the spoons. Last spring I found the measuring spoons at a place in Minnesota for $2.00 brand new!

Oh, for those of you who follow my blog, look what I found at the dollar store!

Have a great Wednesday!!!!!!

Happy Valentines Day!

Today is Joan's Vintage Card Party on her blog at Anything Goes Here. It is also Dolly's party at From My Cherry Heart.



The first part of this post took on a life of it's own last night when I received a scrapbook I had bought on Ebay. It was for a girl born in September of 1954 in Chicago, Illinois. It was for the first three years of her life. Baby, First Birthday, Christmas, Easter, and Valentines Day Cards, letters her Mom and Dad received, etc. I paid a good amount of money for this book, but I wanted to scan the cards and put them on my CD I want to make to sell.



So, anyway....I opened it up, and immediately the genealogist in me started screaming! She is 55 years old, there is a good chance she is still out there! The woman who I bought it from, knew nothing about the girl.



So, I said a small prayer and went to Ancestry.com. I went to Public Trees, put in all of the info on her folks and believe it or not, there were two trees with her parents and her listed as a living child! I could hardly write the emails to the tree owners....I was shaking so hard! I just pray they can help me get this book back where it belongs.



These are the Valentines cards that were in this sweet book:








These little strips of black are part of the book itself....




As you can see, the scrapbook itself is just falling apart, I am afraid it won't handle another trip, but I am going to try my darnedest to keep it together.....


I really hope I can get this to the woman if she is still alive.....I am sure this would mean a lot to her. I know what it would mean to me. I just wonder why she doesn't already have this?


I will keep you appraised of the results!







Dolly had a Wonderful Valentine Swap and she asked us to post about the box of goodies we got from our swap partner. I actually had two partners, Claudia lives in New Mexico but use to live in Arizona. She sent me a sweet box of all kinds of goodies!



The cute fluffy white item is a sweet little dog, Maya saw it and had to have it...it lasted a whole week before she had it torn apart!

There were sweet cards, and a valentine cupcake soap, and a cute pair of lips pin, pens and lip gloss and candy a wonderful vintage doily( hand embroidered) ...it went on and on! Thank you so much Claudia!

I also have another partner names Fitty, she lives in Malaysia and her box seems to have gotten on a slow boat....so I hope it arrives soon! I am also anticipating her box real soon....

So....Have a wonderful day and be sure to go to Dolly and Jean's blogs to see all of the other wonderful posts today!

As always..... thanks for stopping by!