Pretty Place Settings....Pink and Yellow Lemonade

Note: This is my second post for today....be sure to get a sneak of some of Jordan's creations in the post below this one. :)

Hey there, I've got another Pretty Place Setting for you. This one is called Pink and Yellow Lemonade due to the sweet pink and yellow colors on the doily. I could totally keep this one for myself and use it for lunch breaks when the girls go back to school. But alas, one cannot keep everything she buys.....and still have room for more goodies.

The placemat is actually a vintage, creamy linen, probably a little tea towel.

Three yellow cloth napkins(sorry, there wasn't four) are so versatile. Here, I've tucked a folded napkin into a pint sized Mason jar.....and folded another napkin to fit into a half pint sized jar. Tuck in silverware and a few flower sprigs from the garden and you've got instant silverware holders. The candle looks so cute in a zinc lid.

Remember the rule of odd numbers also applies to decorating. The grouping of three items like my jars and candle create a nice visual triangle.

Oh, the pink and yellow doily is so intricate and adorable.
In this Pretty Place Setting package, you'll receive one creamy cotton/linen towel, 3 yellow, floral napkins and one big pink and yellow doily.
All tied up with yellow Wrinkle Ribbon and a tag made with a snippet of burlap, a stapled, distressed tag and a tied button.
Hope you enjoy! And if happen to purchase one of my Pretty Place Settings, I'd love to see what you do with the goodies. Or if you have some clever place settings of your own, link me up with those too.

Remember, even though my place settings may be just enough for one or two......lunch by yourself can be such an enjoyable break. Keep a little basket of goodies handy and break them out at lunch time. Use the good plates...drink from the fancy glasses...use the good silverware. What are you waiting for?

More artwork from Jordy...

After spending several days at Grandma's house, Jordan is finally home.....and she's just like her mama.....itching to craft so she dug right into her goodies.

Up in the Etsy shop is another summery tiki hut framed piece. So cute when hung by the door with cute swimming suits.......or on the porch with paper lanterns.....perfect centerpiece for a summer time party.....or near the pool shed. I love the thatched roof.

And this one makes my heart melt. I've yet to get one of these babies. Lacey, hand stitched and oh so pretty.
I need to pick out the fabrics for her to make me one. I've got just the spot.

Stay tuned for some more Pretty Place Settings coming up too. Have a great day everyone!

Introducing Pretty Place Settings

Hi again friends. I have lots of vintage goodies that I've been collecting. Too many for me to keep for myself. So I'm putting some of my Interior Design degree to work for me and am starting a new line of goodies that I will be selling in my shop. The section will be called Pretty Place Settings.

Let me set the stage for you. From the time when I was younger and first living on my own, I always was purchasing linens and napkins and place mats. I had dreams of pretty parties and lots dinner guests. Those parties usually ended up with pyramids of beer cans, smelly pizza boxes and soggy paper plates. But I still collected my wonderful goodies, even though I never put them to very much use.

Fast forward and I found places like Nell Hill's. Mary Carol, the shop's owner, has a wonderful eye for creating the most beautiful tablescapes.

Like this one with pretty domes, plates and tea towels.

This garden themed place setting with a cute snail garden statue.
Pretty trays with pitchers and napkins.

Fun storage ideas for utensils.

At Nell Hill's, you always walk away with ideas on how to put together those fantastic tablescapes and place settings. The visuals are just so inspiring. That brings me to my Pretty Place Settings. As I've been collecting my vintage linens and goodies, I kept thinking, "Hey, this would look good with that". As my collection grows and the piles are forming, it's time to share a little of the love. I will be creating pretty little place settings and tablescape ideas and then will be selling a few of the wares in my shop. With each little collection, you'll be able to envision some ideas of how to pull together a pretty little place setting or centerpiece of your own.

That brings me to my first Pretty Place Setting. A neutral palette of farm house country style goodies.

Add a little candlelight and a few fresh picked flowers to set an inviting mood.
An ecru doily acts as an accent or could be used under a vase of flowers or tucked into an old Mason jar.
Extra napkins can be tucked inside a Mason jar with a few country flowers for a simple centerpiece or floral arrangement.
Pretty, vintage yellowy-tan napkins rest under old silver pieces.
A small candle or votive looks pretty cute and simple, nestled in a zinc jar lid turned upside down.
White on white with plates is so striking. Here I've paired one of my wedding plates with an old ironstone plate. Mixing the old with the new is totally hip.
Included in this Pretty Place Setting is the off white linen piece that acts as a placemat, four yellowy tan vintage napkins, and one ecru vintage doily.
All tied up with Chocolate Wrinkle Ribbon, a hand dyed tag with vintage button, stapled to a snippet of burlap. There's just enough space to customize the tag with a name if you'd like to use as a gift.
My first Pretty Place Setting will be available in my Etsy shop in just a bit. Better hurry before I change my mind and keep these goodies for myself. ;) These are one of a kind place settings......yes I'll have more but they'll all be different and quirky. I hope you enjoy! I've wanted to do something like this forever so I decided to just dive into it.

Teacup Thank You Cards

Hey friends, hot enough for ya? Today I have some cute teacup cards to show you. I used the same concept as in yesterday's post and used some October Afternoon stickers as little teacup coasters. As I was making the cards I took a little break to read some blog comments.....Heather was just asking if I had any ideas for the teacups. :) I've got a few more ideas brewing for teapot and teacups....will try to post soon.
Patterned paper and stickers are from October Afternoon. The teacups are from Tea for Two Additions, along with the coordinating tea cup die. Oh my, I do love the dies. Teacups and stickers are resting on a Fillable Frames #5 stamped label which was die cut with the coordinating die. I colored my teacups with Copic Sketch markers from the Aqua Mist trio.
Heart and leaf image, and the cute flower images on the teacups are from Just For You. Such a cute little set. Ribbon is Harvest Gold. Base cardstock is Rustic Cream. Enjoy!
Hope you have a great start to the week. I made some new zucchini recipes on Sunday so I'll be sharing those soon if anyone's interested.....a casserole and a dessert bar recipe.

Chairs on sticker labels

I love it when something really nifty happens in my ArTsy StuDio. As I was gathering up patterned papers that would work with my cute little colored chairs, I started rummaging through my beautiful stash of October Afternoon papers. I cam across a sheet of October Afternoon Thrift Shop label stickers and BAM...the crafty vision floated down upon me. Look how dang cute the colored chairs look on the label stickers! The labels end up looking like little area rugs for the chairs to rest on. Love. My friend Cindy Lou Who will hook you up with all sorts of October Afternoon goodies at her Star Lit Studio shop. Oh, and I hope Pine has some oval shaped Fillable Frames in the line up. I will have to inquire. But then, of course, I couldn't spill the beans. But then I would know and then you'd see my big smiley face. So mean. Mean girl, I am.
It wasn't enough that the label find was awesome....the adorable chairs from On my Couch are quite addicting to create. The new chair die makes for easy work on cutting out the images. Just die cut the chair and then stamp the outline chair image. Easy peasy. I colored my images with the Copic markers shown below. If you're looking to purchase Copics, I highly suggest buying them in sets of three. Papertrey has done a lot of the leg work for you.....simply pick the Papertrey color you like and there's a trio of colorss (light, medium, dark) for you to choose. (Please note: I know a lot of the marker sets are sold out....PTI has tried really, really hard to get them back in stock). I usually start out by coloring the image first in the lightest color....then add the medium color for shading.....and then add the darkest color for deeper shadows. Use the light or medium color to go back over the darkest color to blend.
Here's my finished cards. Oh how sweet, I am hooked on this delicious color combination.
I used the sentiment from On my Couch Additons, it's one of my favorite Papertrey sentiments. I cut little notched pieces of paper to go under the rectangle sentiment portion to make little banners. Love. Ribbon is Satin Luxe Melon Berry. Background papers are from Green Tea Leaves, Pretty Pastels and Library Ledger.
So much dimension and fun goodies to look at. The colors make me of a granny parlor, complete with floral wallpaper and old area rugs.
Hope you enjoy! The hubster just hollered in that we have cucumbers on the vines. Ohhh, come to mama, it must have been the 3" of rain we got the other day. Tomatoes are ripening up too. BLT's here we come. We've been enjoy cucumbers from my brother's garden.....but it just doesn't compare to ones you've grown yourself. I love pickin' cucumbers. The girls hop from vine to vine to see how many they can find. Gardening is one of those things that just warms my heart. See my family all working and sweatin' in the spring to til and plant seeds.....to the hot summer time when we enjoy the beautiful bounties. It's a good thing.

Note on the photo above: My mom always had a big bowl of cucumbers made up just like these. Sliced, with the edges decorated with a fork. Lots of onions and vinegar. Salt and freshly ground pepper. Ohhhh yes.

Vintage Finds

Hey friends. Hope you're enjoying this Saturday evening post. ;) I just updated the shop with some new cards so be sure to hop over there too.

Thought you might like to see some of my recent vintage finds. Lots of linens.
And a whole stack of doilies. Oh boy, did someone do a lot of work.
How about these fancy schmancy ones with the delicious colors?
Snippets of fabric remnants. These pink ones are a surprise for Jordan. She wants to thank you guys for giving her artwork a glance in my Etsy shop. She's hard at work again so stay tuned for more goodies from her.

I can't pass these potholders up anymore. Someone needs to love these. Just wait til you see what I have up my sleeve for these. Except for the little dress. That is another surprise for Jordan.

And when the weather turns like 120 degrees here in Kansas, it makes me think of cooler Fall temperatures. Love the summer....but it's a bit much right now. I can't wait to show you my thoughts for these. I can't decide if I want to keep them or put them up in the shop. We'll see. ;)
More fall colors and prints. So dainty and pretty. Love.
Okay, I'm off to enjoy my little family. All the little chicks have arrived back to the nest.

I have been doing a lot of shopping and have found some GREAT finds over the summer. It's a busy, busy time.....but this Fall I'm hoping to have lots of shop updates and something new. Good evening, friends.

Doodle Collage Card

Hey friends. Today I have another card to show you that uses Copic markers in a way other than coloring images.

I made a collage tag using square and rectangular elements which were all outlined with a Copic Sketch marker and a Copic Multiliner SP marker. Just a fun, doodly way to add a little variety to your projects.
On my Medium Manila Parcel Tag I layered patterned papers from Papertrey and October Afternoon along with a Cotton Candy Pink Carnival Ticket, a Tiny Tag, Vintage Tied Buttons and a small crocheted flower.
The top of the Tag was tied with some new Harvest Gold Bitty Dots ribbon and a snippet of Wrinkle Ribbon. *Homemade* sentiment is from Friendship Jar. Background papers for the card base are all from Papertrey Ink. Card base is Rustic Cream. Background is lace is from my vintage stock of goodies.
Hope you enjoy!

Copic Plaid on Parcel Tags

Oh, come to mama. Look what I found on the news stand at Walmart. Country Home is back in publication. Be still my heart. Look at the lovely colors on the magazine cover. I was so tickled to see these colors. I had just gotten all my PTI projects done for the month and then saw this magazine. It's using the same colors.

Lately I have been inspired by the shabby colors of Aqua Mist, Chartreuse, Melon Berry and the new Harvest Gold (Papertrey Colors). The peachy pink/salmon color is going to be hot so you better shop your stash! I pulled color combos from these colors for almost all of my Papertrey projects this month. You can see them in the Papertrey gallery and I'll be posting those projects here too over the course of the month.

I purchased some spray paint in a few of these yummy colors. Stay tuned for some new Etsy shop items using these colors soon. :)

For today though, I have a fun collage card to show you. I saw a similar card layout featuring a giant shipping tag on the Crate Paper website. I had to dig out a Large Manila Parcel Tag and try out my own version.
This week, I want to show you a few ways that you can use your Copic Sketch markers in applications other than just coloring a stamped image. Today I took three colors and a made a whimsical plaid design on my parcel tag. I used both ends of the marker colors, not worrying if my lines were straight or not. This plaid tag became the base for a collage of embellishments. Check out the top of my card. I used a scrap of negative die cut felt with a Vintage Button in the center for a quirky embellishment. Felt is another hot item. Did you see Pine's post for today? Go ahead....buy the felt. You know you want to.
For the rest of my tag, I added Vintage Buttons tied with Chocolate Baker's Twine. I was SOO, so0 happy when Nichole took me up on the idea of adding twine to the Papertrey shop. It's another hot item. Love. Thanks Nichole!!

For the sentiment on the card front, I used the *hey there* sentiment from Pine's new Fillable Frames #6 stamp set, introduced this month. Love. These little sets are just gems that you need to add to your collections along with the dies. Go ahead and put 'em on your list. Another of Mishie's faves.

By the way, did you see my new avatar? I thought you might like to be able to recognize me if you are at CHA. :)

The background piece underneath the tag is fun too. I used the Sunshine Impression Plate on Rustic Cream cardstock. Love the circles. Heck, go ahead and add that to your list too.
The rest of my card is filled up with all kinds of Papertrey goodies....like the Polka Dot stamped background, and Green Tea Leaves patterned paper. There's some Wrinkle Ribbon from my Etsy shop and a homemade doodad that was cluttering up my stamp table too. Hope you enjoy!

I was up with Eric this morning at 5:30. Decided to get up and get the day going before we totally melt away this afternoon. I'm headed off to dump some goodies into my new compost bin. Wait til you see it, you will love the story. I know, I know. Only I could be interested in piles of leftovers. It's a good thing. I'll save that story for another day.