Handmade Victorian Tussy Mussy's

I thought I would share mom's newest Tussy Mussy's for Valentine's Day or Shabby Chic Cottage Decor.  Mom's beautiful paper cone Tussie Mussie's are filled with silk flowers, tulle and paper images of angels, little girls, Victorian ladies, kitties and more:

Aren't these beautiful?  I just love mom's work.  She really has a knack for these!

And my latest contribution is a Shamrock Bonnet Lady Lavender Sachet:

This little Potpourri sachet is the first of my St. Patrick's Day additions to our Handmade Shabby Chic Boutique!

Crazy Quilting - Marie Antoinette Crazy Quilt Block #5 Continued

I thought I'd give you a quick progress report on my Crazy Quilt featuring Marie Antoinette.  I did quite a bit of stitching on this block yesterday and this morning:

I'm going to turn the computer off now and stitch the rest of the day.  I have left over homemade soup and bread for dinner.  And I might make Scott heat it all up!!!

Embroidered Shabby Chic Pillows

During the month of the December, Mom & I decided to keep our crafting simple.  We pulled out my boxes of Vintage Iron-On Embroidery Transfer Patterns.  We traced a bunch of things so we had some easy projects to Stitch on during the holiday chaos activities.  We both completed a few projects:

First is mom's Shabby Chic Candlewick Pillow:

And then Mom made this lovely Blue Floral Door Knob Hanger:

I've been stitching on some Baby Pillows.  Here is my Pink Baby Door Hanger:

All are available in my Shabby Chic Boutique at Etsy.

I have more Baby Pillows that I'll share tomorrow.  The camera battery needs to be charged!

I spent my morning working on some Valentine's Day Decorations.  I'll have photos of those soon! 

In other news, as per my Dr.'s consent, I started to decrease my dosage of Zoloft again.  I'm alternating 50 milligrams one day and then 37 1/2 milligrams the next day.  I have to go back & forth on that to help keep the withdrawals down to a tolerable level.

The side effects of the Zoloft have gotten bad again.  Screwy weirdo dreams all night long, horrible sweating and back pain that is indescribable!  I'm hoping to notice some improvements in the next few weeks.

Well, I'll be back tomorrow with more of my Embroidered Cottage Style Baby Pillows!

Autumn Decor

First, I would like to take a moment to say thank you to my sweet friend, Allison Aller for being my guest blogger yesterday.  I hope everyone enjoyed meeting Allie and seeing her gorgeous Place Quilts.  Allie is the queen of landscape crazy quilting and I so much appreciate her willingness to be my guest.

I've been quite busy with my projects lately.  I tend to start a bunch of different things in a bunch of different mediums, both here at my house as well as at Mom's!  So for today, I'll share my latest in Autumn Decor!

This is my Crow On A Pumpkin centerpiece:

And my Harvest Cornucopia centerpiece for Thanksgiving:

I've been experimenting with soft, muted and understated colors.  I love the bright colors of Autumn but am finding that soft colors are more soothing to me.  Definitely cottage in style and tone!

Kathi has been playing with her collection of roving and other needle-felting supplies.  We've been to 2 fiber shows this Summer and are going to another on Saturday.  Here are her latest Autumn Home Decor projects:

Check out her hand-felted leaves!  Those are gorgeous!!!!  And I love how she added a tiny black spider to them.  I have a 3rd one here but haven't done the photos yet.

My Autumn Cuff Bracelets are done so I'll try to have photos of those for you tomorrow.  I'm so pleased with how they came out!  I used elastic in them so not buttons or other fasteners to mess with!  Stop back to see them.

I'll leave you with a photo of a tiny visitor to my home last night.  I went out on the front porch for a few minutes before I went to bed and found this precious little creature sitting on my window frame:

If you've never seen one before, this is a Praying Mantis.  They're totally harmless and usually rather elusive.  I was so thrilled to see one that I had to grab my camera and capture his visit!

Lady With Roses Framed Crazy Quilt

First, I would like to say a special thank you to Debi Huntsman for being my Guest Blogger yesterday.  And I'd like to thank everyone who left comments for us and who entered Debi's drawing.  I will continue to accept entries until tomorrow morning (Sept. 3).  I'll do the drawing before I go to mom's and post the winner's name here.

I emailed everyone who left a comment to let them know that their entry for Debi's drawing is in.  If you didn't receive an email confirmation from me, it's only because I don't have your email address.  Please know that if you left a comment your entry is in!

I'm having some trouble's with my blog button.  Is there anyone out there who can help me get it straightened out?  I've done pretty good with my blog on my own but I can't figure out what the problem is with my button.

In other news, my Lady With Roses Framed Crazy Quilt piece is done and available in my Etsy shop:

Please hop over and take a peek!  We have so many beautiful things in the shop and I'll be adding more of Kathi's work and mom's work as I can.

Finally, for now, I'm working on my next Creatively Coping with Depression & Anxiety article.  This one is about dealing with specific symptoms.  I confess, it's hard for me to write these articles because I have to go back to the depths of hell to remember what I did to get myself through it.  I so much want to help others cope so I just take my time and write as I can.  I'll have it available soon.

Girl With A Kitten Crazy Quilt Framed

Instead of writing one big long blog post today, because I have loads of things to share, I thought I would do a couple of short posts.  Simple and sweet!!!

So for now, I thought I would share photos of my Girl With A Kitten Crazy Quilt piece:

I've started another crazy quilt project and will have photos soon.  For now, enjoy the eye-candy!

Shabby Chic Home Decor

Do ya'll remember the beautiful birdcage that Bubba bought me for Valentine's Day this year?  It was green:



He painted it white for me and now it looks like this:



It still needs 1 more mini rose garland.  I bought this one at Hobby Lobby so I just have to wait until I go there again and then I'll pick up another one.  I added a string of white lights (thank you for the idea Pat Winter) and I found 2 bunches of beautiful roses, with the tags still on them, at a garage sale for 25 cents each!  I just cut the stems off, put a few on the bottom of the inside of the birdcage and then added a couple here and there on the outside.  I found the bird at Michael's.  It was on sale for $2.50!  Talk about decorating on a budget!  Decorating this birdcage cost less than $10.00!

I have it sitting on the top of my antique school desk on an antique doily.  I'll get a photo of the school desk soon. 

I never have been one for things to all match.  I much prefer a collection of mis-matched do-dads that hold meaning for me.  I love old things.  Always have.  My sister always says, "oh you and that moldy/oldy stuff!"  She teases me about it but I truly do love my flea market and garage sale treasures.  Some of my very most special things are do-dads that I didn't pay much for at all.  I think I'll start going through my house and photographing some of my treasures to share here with you.

In other news, I have decided to invite a "Guest Blogger" to blog here twice a month.  I've met so many gifted and interesting bloggers over the years and lately as well.  I think it will be fun to introduce my readers to them.  There's just so much talent out there!  So many pretty things to see and so many new ideas!  I hope you'll enjoy this new addition to my blog.

I'm finishing up on Part 2 of my Art Quilting 101 Tutorial.  I've been so busy with my Etsy shop, I got a little behind on things but it's almost ready and will have it posted here for you soon.  Part 3 will be on how to finish an Art Quilt.

Finally for today, I'll leave you with our newest pretties:









More photos can be found here.

Oh, I almost forgot!  I changed my Avatar again!  I know I just it the other day but it needed to be more pink!  So here is my new one:



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