Cold All Over the World Pink Saturday

It seems as if all my blog buddies and FaceBook friends are suffering the ill effects of a very cold winter.  Jack Frost brought along a cold hearted hag who has long since worn out her welcome. Don’t get me wrong, I’m always the first to welcome fall and I look forward to making our first batch of simmering chili. We love kettles of steaming soup and I’m a huge fan of hot cocoa. Within moderation! We reached the “all right already” stage three cold fronts back.

I can’t hurry spring no mater how many seed catalogs and planting guides I look at, but what I can do is surround myself with PINK!!!

 

A PINK tree in the dining room is all decked out for Valentine’s Day. It adds such a warm, happy glow to the house that I’m shaking off some of the cold weather “blahs” that have had me by the big toe. I’m still looking forward to warmer weather, but the PINK hearts and cherubs have put a smile on my face…

Vintage looking fans are nestled among the branches…

Now, isn’t that better? No wonder we all love PINK! Beverly is a genius for inventing this weekly celebration!!

Then my collection of handmade Valentines was scattered on a lighted lace draped display cabinet.

Look at the beautiful details and all the PINK! Many were made by Pink Saturday ladies who spent a year creating pages for each other in our Circle of Friends Journals.

We can spend the day with our favorite hot tea visiting everyone who is posting this weekend. Thanks for stopping by and thanks again, Beverly  .http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/pink-saturday/

I’m in a much better mood now.

Ready for a New Year…Welcome 2014

Well, the Elf on the Shelf group has been packed up and put away for another year…

The lighted Dickens Village is off the counter…

and back in the boxes…  Christmas 2013 is over, done, finished. But after all those colors and lights and all that shimmer, I have a hard time letting it all go. I could wait for take down until Epiphany like my mother used to do. But that’s just putting off the inevitable for a week. the house will seem so bland and plain. I could jump the gun and put out Vallentine’s Day and my card collection, but I’ve come up with an interim  holiday that suits my purposes…Chinese New Year!!!. It’s celebrated on January 31 this year so that will be perfect…

The vintage ornament tree in the dining room is transformed…I got a dozen of these cute silk little Oriental monks from my sister-in-law many years ago. They go on first.

I add some sparkle grass and

a few estate sale finds…

And some dragons from Chinatown in Vancouver…

And cute little shoes…

And an ornament or two from Kohl’s

They may not have a story, but they were probably made in China. Now I won’t go into total sparkle withdrawal and I’ll only have the one little tree to put away at the end of the month.

Then on  January 31st when we usher in the Year of the Horse…more specifically, The Year of the Green Horse, I’ll probably be way tired of trying to remember to turn it off every time I leave the house.

I’ve been away from Pink Saturday for a bit and this is my first post trying to use phone pictures…not too keen on the format…even with the improved camera, they just don’t have the same qualities as a real camera.

It’s time for me to visit Beverly and the ladies of Pink Saturday to see who is posting pretty seasonal things. Hope Beverly is warm and toasty this weekend.http://howsweetthesound.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Pink Saturday Back to School…Old School

It’s time for our little ones to head to school…the Tuesday after Labor Day had been the traditional starting day for generations, but not any more. Texas schools open anywhere from mid-August to late August…by September, everyone already has a couple of weeks of classes behind them. I was listing  books for my Etsy shop when I found one titled, My School.  For Pink Saturday I’m sharing a children’s book from 1958 that reminds us of school days before standardized test became the focus and the measure of success. 

Look at those happy pink cheeks and that sweet smile… Now let’s look at his first day of school.

A sit-down breakfast…then car pool.

And when he gets to school…

They PLAY! In fact the entire book is about playing!

Not one picture of learning to count or read, or spell.

In fact, the only appearance of the teacher is at the end when the caption reads, “Cookies and fruit juice, we have every day. the teachers all tell us, “It’s hard work to play!”

And when he heads home to his June Cleaver mom in her crisp shirtwaist dress, what does he say?

“I’ll be back tomorrow ‘cause school is such fun!”

I hope all our children still think School is Such Fun!

I hope they still can take lots of time to play!

We all certainly recognize the value of play as we visit our Pink Saturday playmates. Beverly has the group all rounded up at How Sweet the Sound so swing back ther to see the list of who is playing today.  Hope your week is Pink and your Labor Day holiday is restful.

Sparkly Pink Scales from a Captured Mermaid…

I’ve been a member of a Facebook group that began years ago as a Flickr group…the Itty Bitty Book Club…and that’s exactly what we do. We make Itty Bitty Books! Our hostess, usually Mary Ann, posts an idea for a theme and invites us to create pages for a little book, usually about 3 inches by 3 and half inches. We send our pages, one for each person who is participating. Then the hostess collates and binds them.  So if 14 people are participating, we each make 14 pages. One of the projects for this summer is a Mermaid book with shaped pages rather than our usual rectangles. Sixteen people joined the fun for the Mermaid book. When I was working on ideas, I remembered that I  had a little box of iridescent shell-shaped “scales” from a mermaid’s tail!

She had become entangled in a fisherman’s net and as she made her escape, these scales from her sparkly tail were left behind… I used them to tell her tale. As I said, the pages are shaped…Mary Ann sent us each a die cut shell template and we cut our pages… 

For each page I added a  piece of the net, a few sea shells, and shiny beads and the beautiful mermaid. These are some of the most embellished pages I have done. Each of the 16 pages for this swap is about the same with only slight differences..

They were packaged up and sent to be bound with the creations of the 15 other Mermaid Book makers.

Mary Ann will create  Covers and a Table of Contents to include as she binds the pages together. And in a couple of weeks, a fat little book will arrive in the mail.  I usually wait until after supper to open mine. My friend Nancy of My Crafty little Page fame is often a fellow IBB participant. When the books arrive, I pour myself a glass of wine and then I call her and we go through the book oooh-ing and aaah-ing over each page and looking at techniques and unusual embellishments. It’s a fun way to connect and visit as we enjoy the talents of our creative group.

There are lots of pink iridescent scales that put me in the mood for more Pink…so I’ll head to the Pink Saturday crowd at Beverly’s How Sweet the Sound . You have yourself a Pink Week.

Recycled and Upcycled TOMS for Pink Saturday

My favorite old brown TOMS had seen better days…they were “water the lawn” shoes for sure…

But I saw some pictures on Pinterest  of darling make-overs that had transformed shoes with fabric scraps and buttons…I had nothing to lose so I dragged out the scrap basket. First I picked colors…greens, browns, blues and Pinks, of course.

  

Fabric glue held the squares in place…I used permanent washable glue hoping that the repairs will last through the summer. My friend, Lally, had just finished a couple of quilts and pieces of her fabrics found themselves in the first layer.  Next I added vintage tiny velvet flowers, lace, and buttons. The second layer was sewn down with dental floss since that seems really strong and easy to sew with. Oops, a sentence ending with a preposition…oh, well, it’s summer…I tried to keep similar colors and sizes on both sides so they would still look like a pair.

How’s that for reclaimed TOMS ready for the trash can? My nieces just saw them and they were a hit! Now I’m wearing a pair of  resurrected shoes out in public instead of kicking them off at the back door.

We’ll see how long they last, but hey, I have lots more glue and scads of buttons for the next layer…I hope the edges fray and soften a bit as time goes by. Well, that’s what I did on my summer vacation. Let’s head over to check in with Beverly at How Sweet the Sound to check out how here Pink Summer is going.