A Vintage French Chicken Feeder, Apples, & Tiny Tapers.....An Autumn Centerpiece... Grain Sack Dog Beds, and more....

Hello!

I hope you had a great week....

Just a warning this is a very random post.... 

I recently found this vintage french chicken feeder....

It will make it's way to the shop sometime next week : (

I knew I wanted to create fall centerpiece with it using apple votives when I found it....

I have shown on my blog two different ways to use apple votives for fall.....

This ended up looking a little different then I intended, when the kids and I got started making these we realized we didn't have tealight candles.... So we used tiny tapers....

All we did was set the candle on the apple to figure out the diameter of the base of the apple....

We used a Martha Stewart Craft Knife and cut some of the apple out from the core of the apple...

We made sure to keep the hole the same diameter as the candle or your candle will not stay in place.

We made our holes about one inch and a half deep....

My favorite candles to use during this time of year are Williams and Sonoma's tiny tapers....

Next week I will share images of how I have used these tiny tapers in the past along with images of 

different ways to use apple votives....

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I wanted to share a few images I recently shot of our dog beds/floor pillows that my sister Liz designed and made last spring..... 

We will be offering these in the shop the first week of November.....

I think they are so cute, and I love the way my sister designed them....

The dog beds are machine washable : )

The grain sacks are made from hemp linen, which is a very forgiving fabric to use around the house....

They clean up really nice.....

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I am sponsoring a giveaway over at My Sweet Savannah's blog..... 

I am giving away....

1 vintage french linen sheet....

Two stand pillow cases made with vintage french linen....

The winner also gets to choose a market basket from our shop.....

I wanted to share a few ways I use the vintage french linens.....

I use them to cover our comforters in our home, instead of duvets.....

I also use them to cover our white couches....

It makes it easier to just throw the sheets in the wash vs. the slipcovers....

I have also become obsessed with using the sheets for making our standard pillow slips....

They are so nice to sleep on....

Here I used a vintage french sheet to recover this ottoman....

(I had this done I do no know how to recover furniture myself)

My mom made this lampshade using a portion of a vintage french linen sheet....

I loved the monogram on this particular sheet and sent my mom the scraps to use to make a lampshade....

These are examples of the market baskets we have in the shop.....

French Market Basket with short handles

French market basket with double handles......

I have one of these at each door to catch all the shoes : )

I should say some of the shoes....

To enter the giveaway you can visit

My Sweet Savannah's blog here.....

Thank you Melaine!

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I recently was lucky enough to get to photograph this sweet little girl picking vegetables in their beautiful garden.....

The Nicolazzi's are from Italy and live on a horse ranch in Grass Valley, they train reining and working cow horses....

They have created a beautiful place to live.....

I can't wait to share more images from this shoot with you.....

I will also be adding this market basket that Aurora is holding to my shop next week.....

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The kids and I are headed to Burbank tomorrow to watch my husband compete in a 

National Reining Horse Association Horse Show this weekend....

I thought I would share a few images I shot of my husband showing horses this summer....

My husband is one of those people that truly has a gift with training horses.....

Thad grew up on a cattle ranch in Montana, we lived only 20 minutes from each other and went to the same school....

He has a special touch with animals and is very humble about his God given talents.....

He even worked on training our pet bison to ride : )

(Unfortunately we no longer have Leonard.....)

We won't be back until Monday, so I won't be able to ship out any shop orders until Tuesday, I am sorry for the inconvenience.....

I have so many fun french farmhouse products to list in the shop.....

I can't wait to share them with you....

I will be listing everything the first week of November.....

Have a wonderful week!

Take Care,

Maria 

Dreamy Whites Shop

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French Farmhouse Fall Decorating......

Hello Everyone....

I wanted to share a few images (actually a lot of images) I shot yesterday.....

Almost two years ago, I shared an image of a vintage french zinc bucket filled with branches....

I thought it would be okay to show again....

Filling a bucket with branches is one of my favorite things to do for fall....

Sometimes that is the only thing I will do for fall decorating along with scattering a few pumpkins around the house.

I also love to set pears around the house, sometimes scattered or displayed in an ironstone dish.....

They add so much color to your home, and you get to eat your decorations.....

You can see a couple of my Fall decorating posts using pears  here and here......

The kids and I found these branches at a flower market in San Francisco....

I was so excited to find branches....
I usually just cut my own branches however the leaves haven't changed color here yet....
We are still waiting for cold weather : )

(At the bottom of the post you will see what other fall foliage we found at the market as well)

The porcelain topped canning jars are a favorite of mine....

I hope I never get sick of these....

I have a few of these available in the shop....

I try to buy these whenever I find one, and I don't find them very often....

This vintage french zinc bucket will make it's way in the shop soon.....

I hung these branches with berries from the door....

We also found these at the flower market.

I haven't ever seen these before, I was told they come from the East Coast, and are Bittersweet branches, thank you Lara : )

(Lara has a beautiful blog called Air Kissed)

On another note.....

I wanted to show you an easy way to disguise an apple cider label....

I had also shown this two years ago on my blog, I thought it would be fun to photograph it again...

I just wrap a vintage french linen towel around the jug and tie some jute twine around the towel to hold it in place....

My favorite apple cider is 365 Organic Apple Juice...

I use it to make hot apple cider.....

You can find the recipe here.......

Then just tuck in some of your favorite fall foliage......

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I  also wanted to share an image from my phone of the variety of fall foliage the kids and I found at the flower market in San Francisco....

They had so much beautiful fall foliage we definitely didn't leave empty handed....

How do you like to decorate for fall?

On a final note....

If you are in Santa Barbara County area this weekend,

you should be sure and check out the Remnants of the Past Show.....

So many wonderful vendors are there.....

and everyone decorates so beautifully for fall and you will not leave the show empty handed : ) ....

Judy Watkins has made it so you can now shop Friday night at the show....

You can visit Judy's website for more information.....

Remnants of the Past

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Take Care,

Maria

Dreamy Whites Shop

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Canning for the First Time..... The Art of Preserving Cookbook

Hello!

The kids and I decided we wanted to learn how to can....

The last time I canned something was when I was in Home Ec (almost 20 years ago)

and for some reason I have always been terrified of canning...

 I bought 

a Williams & Sonoma preserving cookbook called

 The Art of Preserving....

It is a very informative cookbook and I am eager to try out some of the recipes....

I also ordered the Blue Chair Jam Cookbook, recommended by Heather Bullard...

We plan to do some canning this weekend, and then we are headed back up to Apple Hill next week to do some more apple picking.... 

I can't wait.

I purchased some Kilner canning jars along with a quite a few different sizes of 

the weck canning jars (they have lots of canning information on their site)....

The kids are excited about it and so is my husband....

My mother in law, Marilyn has always put in a big garden and has her own fruit trees, she does all kinds of canning each year....

If only she didn't live in Montana.... I would have her come over and teach me how to can...

 On another note....

I forgot to choose a winner for the Creatively Made Home e-course giveaway.....

The winner is Lori B, countryicon@hotmail.com.

Lori please contact Kimberly Taylor at kimberlytaylorimages@gmail.com.

Congratulations Lori!

If you haven't already signed up  for the e-course it isn't too late...

The course starts October 22nd.

You can visit Kimberly Taylor's blog here, to sign up and or find out more about the class....

I hope you all have a great weekend!

I had planned to post some fall decorating last weekend, however I wasn't able to find the time to blog, I will show you some images from the past few years in the near future.

Take Care,

Maria

Dreamy Whites Shop

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Apple Picking in an orchard along Apple Hill, a New French Market Basket

Hello!

We recently went apple picking in an orchard that is located on Apple Hill.....

It was just the girls and I that went....

We are all going to go back next week, I want to take pictures of the boys in the orchard as well.....

I also shot images of the new french styled market basket we now carrying in the shop.....

It is a nice large basket that works great for taking to the market....

I have a few of these set around the house that are used specifically for throwing shoes in.....

We managed to pick a lot of apples....

We have some fun projects planned to do with these apples....

I will share some images of what we did in the near future....

This weekend I will share a few fall projects from the past that we have done with apples....

I just love the autumn season....

We are hoping to get some cooler weather, so it starts to feel like fall : )

Enjoy the rest of your day!

Take Care,

Maria

Dreamy Whites Shop

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