A mirror and a holiday wreath

Hello Everyone!

I hope you all had a great weekend!

I have to tell you Bethany had a lot of fun reading the comments you left about her giraffe.....

Thank you for making her day!

I wanted to share a few sneak pictures with you of one of my mirrors...

I actually traded this mirror for one of my pillows.

I am not sure how old it is.

I love the color of the frame.....

I love the patina on the mirror...

I will show you what I am doing with this mirror next week.

On another note.....

I am teaming up with Wintersteen Farms next week, we will be doing a fun holiday giveaway together...  We will be combining a few holiday items from my (soon to open) shop and a Wintersteen Wreath!

I know the owners of Wintersteen Farms, personally.

Jeff is my cousin, and I know first hand how talented he is.  He built my parents a beautiful new home, after the house I grew up in sadly burned down.  It was an emotional time for all of us, as we couldn't imagine not being able to come home to the house we grew up in.  After all my dad had built our house...How do you replace that....

Jeff built my parents a beautiful house....and I know my parents love their home!

Thank you Jeff and Kelly!

Jeff and Kelly sent me a little write up on how Wintersteen Farms was born.

Jeff has been a "Boutique Builder" for over 10 years.  He has built high-end homes that are very unique,  Each home Jeff has always brought in vintage pieces and designed them into the homes to make them look like they have been there for years.  His mom Sonya is a realtor and has always loved showing Jeff's spec homes, because people get so excited when they go from room to room.  From the light fixtures to the corbels on the fireplace to hardware on the doors and cabinets....each home is unique- one of a kind.  

Now that the building industry has slowed, Jeff has found himself still in construction, mostly doing remodels.  We have always been people who try to see outside the box and in regards to Wintersteen Farms, the box was right outside our window.  We have lived on a 36 acre tree farm for over 12 years and have sold wreath material on a small scale for many of the 12 years.  With the building industry slowing we decided to make this more than a hobby.  Our property has 36 acres of beautiful noble and douglas trees and we have decided to take our business to the next level of not just selling wreath material, but making them ourselves and as in the homes that Jeff has built, paying that special attention to detail.  Each wreath is hand-crafted and placed in a crystal clear bag, next placed in our signature brown box with tissue and raffia ribbon.  We want people to remember Wintersteen Farms for years to come.  From the moment they open the box and smell the fresh scent of the Northwest, we want them to remember that each wreath is a gift, whether it is bought for yourself or for that someone special, it's a gift.  Start a new tradition with Wintersteen Farms, you will not be disappointed.

Thank you Jeff and Kelly!

I hope you get a chance to visit Wintersteen Farms.

They are located in Oregon.
They have a beautiful family too.

Shop News

I also wanted to let you know that I am hoping to open my online shop the beginning of December.

The talented

Sara from Sadie Olive 

is designing my site, and will also be giving my blog a bit of a makeover!

I can hardly wait!

Have a great week!

Take Care,

Maria

A Pumpkin Bird Feeder Project and a craft book for the kids

Hello Everyone!

I hope you are all having a great weekend!

I wanted to share my favorite kid's craft book with all of you today.

I bought this book, What Shall We do Today, at Lowe's last year for my kids.

It is one of those books that is filled with fun seasonal projects for the kids to do, and doesn't require you to have to run to the Craft Store for every project...

I wanted to share one of the pumpkin projects from the book with you.

All you need is a pumpkin, twine, bird seed, and a few pumpkin carving tools.

Cut the pumpkin in half and scrape out all of the seeds.

Fill it with bird seed....

We left this one sitting out on the table.

We hung this one in the tree.

The girls braided 3 pieces of twine together.

You tie two strands of braided twine around the tree and then add half of a pumpkin.

Fill it with bird seed.

And then you have a bird feeder.

This is a picture of last years bird feeder.

It really is a fun simple project to do with the kids.

The book is great for kids who love to be creative....

My daughter Bethany would love to do craft projects all day long...

I wanted to share another project my daughter Bethany just finished.

She recently saw the giraffe ornament at Anthropogie, and decided she wanted to

try and make her own.

Bethany formed a giraffe out of modeling clay,

and then glued strips of paper onto the mold.

She tore some pages out of a vintage book and then cut the pages into strips.

I thought it turned out so cute.

Bethany even made a collar for our corgi out of grain sack scraps the other day.

She sewed a large pearl button onto the collar to keep it fastened around her neck.

It is too cute.

I'll take a picture of it soon and share it with you.

Hope you all enjoy your weekend!

Take Care,

Maria

A Fall Table and a winner~

Hello Everyone!

I hope you are all having a great week!

I thought I would share a few ways to add a bit of fall to your table setting....

I love fall,  it is actually one of my favorite seasons...

I promise I only have a couple more fall posts to share with you....

Actually three more...

I bought the apple juice at Whole Foods, and it had an ugly tag on the outside.

So I wrapped the jugs in antique hemp linen towels.  I just secured the towels with the twine and added a  pressed maple leaf.

 I love decorating with fruit.... especially during the fall months.

I wanted to do something fun with the apples and the vintage french pots....

So we cut out a portion of the top of the apple and added a votive candle.

To prevent the apple from turning brown you can add lemon juice to the edges of the apple.

I added a few figs to the table for color.

I used a variety of  pressed leaves. 

I scattered a few pots around the table and added some dried lavender to a few of my vintage green bottles.

I tried to keep it really simple...

How do you like to add a bit of fall to your dinner table?

On another note....

I want to thank all of you for entering my giveaway.

The winner of the  Starfish Jewelry Design giveaway is Holly, from the blog Holly Rollercoaster!

Congratulations Holly!
Holly said she loved the Audrey...
I know that Holly will love her new necklace.

Thank you Amber, for sponsoring such a generous giveaway!

Don't forget if you buy something from Starfish Jewelry Design today..... 

You can get 20% off your purchase by entering the word dreamywhites 

The promotion ends tonight (the 10th).

Thank you Amber!

Have a great week!

Thank you for stopping by!
Take Care,

Maria

My Fall Mantle

Hello everyone!

I hope you are all having a great Monday.

I finally was able to upload more pictures to my blogger.

I have a number of fall ideas to share with you this week... I feel like I should have shared them

in October, not November, as I think everyone is now thinking about Christmas.

Sorry about that!  Maybe next year I will be a little more with the program. 

I thought I would share my fall mantle with you anyway....

For my fall mantle I basically just added some vintage french clay pots and some antique books, I was trying to make it feel like fall by adding some warmer colors to my mantle.  I actually have a large quantity of these clay pots, and you will probably be sick of them by the end of the week, because I used them in every fall decorating post.

I think they help add a little bit of warmth to the mantle.

I piled a few of them on top of my french compote dish (a flea market find).

I like to mix something delicate with something rustic.

I filled one of them with some little letters.

I grabbed some hydrangeas from the garden.

This little antique lamp remained on the mantle.

I am not sure where it was made, but it has the sweetest delicate painted porcelain flowers climbing up the little pole.

The W was already on the mantle.

It is a french zinc letter that is coated in porcelain.  

I chose that letter because it wasn't in perfect condition.

The bottles on the right are milk glass perfume bottles that say G. W. Laird Perfumer New York.

I actually found another pair of those at a flea market, and now regret passing them up.

The purple books are a grouping of french books that have been tied together with twine.

I used those to add a little bit color....

I used to have a green bucket sitting where the ironstone pitcher is.

If you look closely my kids spelled out the word Love with my little letters.

Try not to notice how crooked the #2 is on my clock : )

I found a bunch of these letters made out of plaster at a flea market.

They are so much fun to use around the house.

I threw them inside my little clay pots for fun....

I think numbers and letters help give a modern feel to a room...

I could be wrong though...

I added this set of vintage books to the mantle, I chose this set  because of the pink page with the pretty monogram...

I was really hoping that they would have a grouping of french books, but they didn't.

So I found a bunch of antique french books at a used book store that I will be doing this to very soon.

Marian, from Miss Mustard, not so very long ago shared a fun tutorial on how to make vintage books look antique. 

You can view it by clicking here~

I piled a few of my favorite red grain sacks on a bistro chair....

I should have used one of my white bistro chairs.... kind of a Christmas color combination... not fall...

topped with a rustic bar of soap and a few clay pots.

You can double click on images to see the full picture....My blog isn't set up yet to take extra large pictures...

so the right side is always partly cut off on the extra large pictures..... 

I just wanted to share a few paint colors with readers who are new to my blog....

The wall color of my living room is called Gray Pearl, a Martha Stewart color, from Lowe's....

Lowe's doesn't sell Martha Stewart colors anymore, but they should still have the formulas stored in their system.

I always use the Valspar Signature Paints, when I purchase paint from Lowe's.

Just a warning about this color... It can look more taupe then gray when painted in a room that doesn't have a lot of natural light coming into the room....

I painted my mantle a Benjamin Moore color, called wedding veil... I used a satin finish.

Hope you all have a great week!

Thank you for stopping by...

Take Care,

Maria

P.S.

You still have a chance to enter my giveaway...

It ends November 9th...

You can enter by clicking here~