My Craft Room

 Meet my old friends that keep me company when i'm working in my studio...........

Al my cockatiel, 18 yrs old

Corky the Quacker, 15 years.

And Chico the African Grey is 15 yrs old.

 

Maggie is our watchdog.
              She's on a break right now!  

I'm making my little ornaments with clay heads and cotton bodies.
Right now I'm working on Halloween ornaments.

Breaks over!

                Get em Maggie!

                          Good Girl!

               

Cottage Garden Party

 My dear Goosenecks I left them at my other home or so I thought.
13 years later and they just keep popping up all over the garden!

  My blue Delphiniums.

 Cobalt blue pots on my back patio.

Thanks for stopping by!
                              Mary 

My New Project

My daughter found this old china doll in an antique shop last weekend. She has her original slip and pantaloons and she is about 12 inches tall. Her body is filled with sawdust. 

I have quite a few pieces of Victorian lace and fabric that I used to collect, so I'm going to pick out some pieces and make her a long dress. Since she's an antique, she's going to have a real antique dress. 

I've got some nice vintage hats with little flowers, so maybe I'll put some of these little flowers on her dress too.

  Meet Betty and Billy Goat...................

I just finished these little spun cotton ornaments. They measure 4 3/4" tall.
I embroidered tiny flowers around her skirt. They will be hanging on my feather tree this year.

I sure missed visiting my blog friends!
But i've been having reoccuring back problems and at times its just too painful to do anything!
I hope everyones doing well!
Mary

Some of my Aqua Pieces

 I just purchased these 2 old aqua bottles yesterday at the antique shop.

 These two bowls are very heavy and are about 6 1/2" tall. I purchased them at my favorite antique shop a few years ago.

 The tallest piece measures 9 1/2"
And the bottle on the left is a vintage Avon bottle.
I bought the little Hobnail vase for 50 cents.

 This glass tray is from around 1900.
My mother made the shoe some years ago, and the figurine in this picture and the one in the other picture I also have in pink. I bought them at an estate sale last year.

 I just love this creamer and sugar bowl from the 30's or 40's
Another pretty piece I bought a few years back from my favorite antique shop.

 Cute little salt and pepper shaker.

And my little couple.

 


 Christmas book written in 1898.
Its a nice size about 11" tall and lots of pages.
This christmas book is tattered but has some nice pictures and stories, and of course has lots of aqua color on it.
I found some of these tickets inside.
Would anyone know anything about them?

 I went down the road to an estate sale earlier today and this is what I brought home. An old silver tinsel christmas tree, 2  vintage storks, the large stork is 10 1/2" tall.
And 3 old santa ornaments.

 And from The Christmas Tree Shop I bought brownies to make for halloween with their very own grave stones to print the guests names on.

 An owl spoon rest

 And some spooky towels!

 And I ordered these from QVC  not long ago for the fall, I like that they have timers so they go on and off at the same time every evening. 

Fall Gardening Tips

I'd like to share with you some of the things I do in my garden in the fall.  When I clean out my flower pots I remove the Geraniums, shake off the dirt, tie them with string loosely and hang them upside down in the garage or ( basement if you have one).  Or you can also put them in a cardboard box and place them in the garage too. The Geraniums hold water so they will stay dorment thru the winter.  When I get them out in the spring to replant them most of them have already started to grow.
I don't normally cut the branches off,  except this one is going in my studio so I cut it up.

In the spring I repot them and voila! Here's one of them this summer.

Now onto my Zinnias. My favorite is the State Fair mix, they grow very tall.

Through out the summer when the flowers look dried out and before the petals fall off, I cut the dead heads off and throw them into a paper bag. I leave the bag on a shelf in the garage and in the spring when its warm enough to work outside, I loosen the soil and smash the dried flowers in my fingers and they fall into the soil and reseed themselves. The seeds are attached at the end of the dry petals. They grow fast.

My Bachelor Buttons Grow over 2ft tall. They are a perennial.When they start to bloom out in the middle of summer, I take my hedge clippers and cut them almost to the ground. They come right back as a new plant and they are in beautiful bloom right now.

Now for the snapdragons, I never pull out the plants at the end of the growing year. These are annuals but they almost always come back the following spring.  Same goes for marigolds.

Can you see the difference in the color of the pictures of my morning glories? I keep the seeds and replant them every year, but this year they are alot darker blue than they have been. So i'll collect the seeds soon and I wonder what color they will be next summer, Navy blue?