White Towel and White Napkin Love ~

While doing laundry ~being in the moment~ folding my tenth white washcloth....I realized that I have a serious case of white towel and white napkin love....oh baby, I got it bad. There are sweetly folded white terry cloth washcloths...standing at attention in little baskets hung by the kitchen sink. Under my kitchen island are stacks of hand towels...folded in thirds and piled high ready to mop up a mess, cover the counter when I cook or absorb moisture from drying dishes or more importantly...tears from my daughters eyes. Neighbors with those hand towels is a chubby little basket filled with folded white cotton dinner napkins. We don't use paper napkins in our house...never have....my Mother never did either. In our bathrooms....yep, large white bath towels...one on top of the one before.

What I love about all of these white towels and napkins is ease of care, the way they look...really, really clean...and completly functional and practical. I purchase the washcloths, hand towels and bath towels in bulk at Costco. The quality is very nice and super easy on the pocketbook. I find the cotton dinner napkins at The Home Store....these I love, love. That is a double love for those fat quarters which are so lovingly hemmed. What a silly gal am I.

I must go now....piles of white cotton this and that are patiently waiting to be folded and stacked and used and washed and dried and folded and stacked.......and so on and so forth and then some...Cha~cha~cha. Isn't it wonderful to find your ~happy place~ in the simple things of life?

~Smiles~

Thoughts on Pincushions

It is kind of interesting....I sew, a lot. My Mother taught me to sew when I was 10. I am not kidding. I sewed a full dress at 10 years old. I remember the fabric like I stitched on it yesterday. The first time I put my foot to the throttle.....well I was a goner...you know, irrevocably lost in the land of fabric and thread and scissors and bobbins and patterns and yardage stores and most importantly pincushions. And guess what? I did not want to be found! Not then, not now, not never!

All of us that sew understand the disease of collecting fabric and putting it away to marinate. It is a disease and I figured out years ago how this wonderful disease is passed along....pattern books! Yep....one gal has fabric marination disease and she sits at the pattern book tables....browsing through the pattern books and every time she turns a page she first licks her finger AND then turns the page.....and then along comes Betty Lou fabric shopper to look for her own patterns and turns the page in the book....but first....you guessed it....licks her finger first....and.....there you have it...it is passed along....but the good news is ~ we don't want a cure!

All of this information is, of course, for you to use as you will....consult your own sources if you like.

One of my favorite notions for sewing or just cuz....is the pincushion. I have made some for my Etsy store and they are pure delight to put together. My favorites are the ones made from water bottle caps. Super fun and simple~dimple to make.

The truth be told, when I sew I tend to stick the pins into my shirt. I some times go out and forget to take them out....I get some funny looks....one time I stood in the grocery store line with a tape measure around my neck and my lapel loaded with pins. Goofy gal am I.

You can make a pincushions out of anything. Stitch up square ones, round ones...stuff fabric in a tea cup or a bottle cap, or in an old baby shoe, or a tiny china bowl...let you imagination go wild!

Happy Stitching!

Hickery, dickery, dock...

Clocks are wonderful decorating accessories. I have placed one or two in every, and I mean every room of our home...I always have decorated this way. And, do you want to hear something funny? They are all set at different times and I know how "fast" each clock is.

I don't know who I think I am fooling and when it comes to moving the clocks forward or back I worry that my husband is going to set one of those clocks to the right time and I won't realize it. The only clock in our whole house that is set to the right time is the microwave! The clock above the back door is 7 minutes fast, my watch is 4 minutes fast and the one in our bathroom is 15!!! minutes fast. That one is my favorite. I guess this is may way of always keeping my family guessing...or....I might be a bit of a control freak! Oh my!

I love really large clocks. I have even made some in the past. I was tickled when I found a source for really, really, really large clock hands! Happy clockmaker me! I also LOVE this baby grandfather clock I found years ago at an antique show. Someone had taken the "clock innereds" out of this puppy and put chicken wire on the doors and shelves inside and now it is living out the second part of it's life as a super duper cool book case....total clock love from me to this sweet time piece.

Tick, tock, tick, tock....time to dash....I think....I am not really sure what time it is....Smiles.

Denim Inspiration

Don't you just love Spring? Rebirth, renewal, Spring cleaning....love that one...the reality is that it is often windy, rainy and chilly here in the ol' Northwest. I tend to grab my old Levi denim jacket....why? ~ you ask...because I LOVE my Levi denim jacket. A lot. I do, however, like to add a touch of Spring to this rustic favorite of mine ~ kind of my own apparel juxtaposition, if you will...don't ya just love it? You know me, I love to share...and because we are friends....there is no need to thank me for these pearls of denim inspiration. Pearls! Maybe I should add pearls!

~Smiles~

"...there's no place like home."

"Mid pleasures and palaces

though we may roam,

Be it ever so humble, there's

no place like Home."

~ T. Howard Payne~

Don't you just love the shape of houses? I do....a lot. Whenever I see the familar shape of a house...whether it is a doll house or a birdhouse....that shape comforts me. Good thoughts of warmth, peace, wonderful stories and most of all ~ love fill my heart. You can see why Dorothy clicked her heals together with such passion...because, after all, there really is no place like home ~ click, click, click.

...And the Dish Ran Away With the Spoon.

...the cow jumped ooooover the moon...smile. I was trying to think of a fun title for my thoughts on decorating with plates and this favorite nursery rhyme popped into my ol' noggin. Don't know why...it just did. Having said that, do you want to add great detail to your decor....hang a plate or in my case...hang a dozen. You can find plate hangers at the dollar store for...well....a dollar! Then come home and go to your cupboard and choose a plate or two or twelve and hang ' em.

Even your everyday dishes will look great hung around your home. I also love to display them on little easels. Craft stores sell those in all sizes. TJ Maxx, Marshall's and The Home Store are great sources for picking up a cute plate or two. Also....check the sale table at larger department stores....you can buy one plate from an incomplete set....bring that home and hang it up and ENJOY!

Now I have talked about the unexpected before....so this should come as no surprise to you...I love to hang plates in the bathroom, a group of three on the outside of the house along the deck...I have even taken broken plates and stuck them halfway down in a planter...just cuz. Instant Unexpectedness Realized!

Get used to it folks ~ plates are not just for eating ~ Anymore! Cha~cha~cha!

Have a wonderful rest of the week.....it is actually going to snow here in Beaverton, Oregon this weekend in April......gotta love it...good thing that I love socks....they keep my toes warm while I go around hanging plates all over town. Smile.

I Heart Chairs

Oh don't 'cha know it. I really do heart chairs. Especially little ones..little ones for children or even smaller...the ones for dolls ~ I can hardly resist them. My favorite doll-sized chair is one I bought at the Magic of Oregon show a million or so years ago that is upholstered in an old quilt. Totally cool! I purchased it early at the show and carried it around for the rest of the day....and probably could have resold it for double the price that I had paid. But resell it....no-can-do...I fell in love with it the minute I saw it. It is probably right up there with the large rooster in my love, love, love it catagory.

Big chairs are great too. I took our old dining room chairs that looked tired and sad and I crackle painted them puppies and reupholstered the seats....fell back in love with those bad boys right then and there.

Now some may think it wrong to love chairs and roosters and words on walls as much as I do....but if it is wrong, well then, I don't wanna be right. And, don't be swift to judge me until you have heard about my obsession with benches, ladders and clocks...then it will be safe to say....I am a sick decorating chick~ola....I just love good design....now is that so wrong?

Ciao!

...This Little Piggy Stayed Home....

I love pigs....almost as much as roosters. I especially love large cement pigs that are for ornamentation in the yard....here's what I do....I stick 'em in the house....you know, the "unexpected". I love the unexpected a lot too...but we will chat about that in a future blog entry.

Pigs are great...they seem so happy to me. I have one that dangles from a bracket over the laundry room door....he looks kinda happy....but the chubby one in our yard, all mossy and damp...lying on his back....big belly and all...well, he seems the happiest of all. I always think of the pigs in our house as having male personas. I do not know why this is....it just is. They also seem like they are either standing guard or hiding under the kitchen island or hanging high above our noodles like cute little pig angels.

Some other thoughts on pigs ~ they are charming and gentle, those three pigs really knew how to take care of each other...you know, they had each other's backs....which brings me to my favorite way to ride... piggyback... and like the five toes on your feet pretending to be little piggys....sooner or later we all go wee, wee, wee, wee all the way home.

Have a cheery good day ~ Ramona

Boxwoods on the Brain

I love boxwoods! I love them a lot. When I think about moving to a smaller house someday, I always see myself at Home Depot buying lots and lots of little boxwoods to plant in my new garden. So....here are some great things about this particular plant.

One.

Ya can't kill 'em...unless ya wanna.

Two.

Easy to plant.

Three.

Always green.

Four.

They look fantastic outlining a path.

Five.

They make great clippings.

Six.

Cheap.

Seven.

Transplant easily.

Eight.

They come in different varieties.

Nine.

They look really cute in a pot.

Ten.

They die, I mean, dry beautifully.

I once did have two boxwoods die in a clay pot over the summer when I was pregnant with our last child because I forgot to water those poor sweet plants. I thought that they looked so cool that I brought them in the house and painted and decoupaged the pots with those "dried" boxwoods in them....I loved it! It is really kind of funny....those two "dried" boxwoods are probably two of my most favorite things in the house....second to that large rooster in the aforementioned entry...of course.

August Henry ~ A.K.A. The Coolest Dog Ever!

August Henry, born April 1, 1995...our lovable Gus! Beagle extrodinaire! I am sure that you heard....a beagle won Best in Show this year. And as you all know, the totally rad "Snoopy"...a beagle too! Yep, our Gus turned 13 yesterday. He is an old man...snores like one too. He is beloved in our family. He is even loved by our cats. His stride is much, much slower and I am sure uncomfortable these days, but he has a look in his eyes that tells me that in his mind he is a puppy. He still chases those cats...so he can steal their food...he was here first and no cat in this town is gonna forget it! Arf!

If you know anything about beagles, then you know that they howl....you know, a long doleful cry whenever we come home....like he thought that we would never return....but how could we not...Gus is the best dog we have ever owned. He can be a major pain in the rump~ola from time to time and time again...BUT, that face, that howl....well I ask you...what is not to forgive?

George Carlin said once..."...your life is a series of dogs...", well so far, our dear Gus has been the best in our series! Bow~Wow and Happy Birthday o' Boy!