Ruffled

I've recently started reading Ruffled, a blog about vintage themed weddings.

Many of the ideas featured can be used for any celebration not just weddings and the photos are just lovely.

Recently there was a post about vintage rhinestone bracelets that immediately appealed me. Here's one of the photos from Ruffled to whet your appetite:



Layering of vintage bracelets is not only applicable to weddings but would work for any special occasion. On future stops at thrift and antique markets, I'll be watching for the vintage bracelet brands mentioned here.

Thanks for stopping by!

Simple Spring Pleasures 5

Daffodils planted last fall in bloom the following spring.


These are narcissus 'ice follies':


And these are narcissus 'bell song':

When You Can't Beat Them.....

.....you create another garden!

White grubs damaged a part of our yard that we have always had trouble growing decent grass in.



So we created another garden with ornamental grasses and a couple of daylilies too!

Spiked Pink Lemonade

This is a refreshing summer drink that can be made in advance.




Mix the following:

1(12 ounce) can frozen concentrated lemonade
54 ounces cold water (4.5 lemonade cans full)
18 ounces raspberry vodka
1 cup Chambord raspberry liquor

Serve over ice.
I ended up using Sour Puss Raspberry liquor so I didn't put the full cup in.....it still tasted great!

Simple Spring Pleasures 4

Lilacs in a vintage vase.

Little Red Wagon #82 - Use A Number

This week Joanne challenged us to use a number on our creation.

A couple of weeks ago I hosted a Sweet Sixteen luncheon for my daughter Brittany and created several decorative items with the number 16 that I've been waiting to show until today.

First up the entire table:



I decided the theme was rustic elegance and used silver chargers, silver cutlery,silver napkins, kraft paper, burlap, crystal glasses, canning jars all set on a battenburg lace tablecloth.



I also put tulips in twine decorated canning jars. The canning jars also have rosettes that I made embellished with the number 16. And do you see the silver pinwheels I made mixed in with the tulips?



A closer look at the place setting:



You can't really really tell but the rosette napkin rings also have 16 on them.

And the table favours:



They are little peat pots embellished with silver pipecleaners and silver glitter then filled with little organza bags with a tag featuring the number 16.

On all the 16 embelli's(table favours and napkin rings as well as rosettes on the jars) I embossed the 16 in silver then edged with silver glitter. And they were so fun to make too!

Then I also decorated Brittany's gift bags and card in the same theme:



Kraft coloured bags with doilies and siver numbers.I used the Cricut Storybook cartridge for the lettering and numbers.

I hope you enjoyed this look at Brittany's 16th birthday decorations as much as I enjoyed showing it to you.

And if you can please join us over at Little Red Wagon with your numbered creation.

Simple Spring Pleasures 3

Asparagus fresh from the farm compliments of a friend then oven roasted.



Here's the recipe I use to roast asparagus:
1 lb asparagus
drizzle with olive oil, about 2 T.
sprinkle with a bit of coarse salt and pepper to taste
add a bit of lemon zest
Roast in 350 degree oven until it reaches desired tenderness. These spears were a bit thicker so I kept them in for 12 minutes and they still had a nice crunch.

Simple Spring Pleasures 2

An orange fringe-edged tulip!

Simple Spring Pleasures

Forget-me-nots arranged in a jam jar.

Creative Gift Wrap Ideas

Happy Victoria Day weekend to all my Canadian friends! I hope you have something fun planned. I plan on planting my containers, hopefully we'll get a break from the rain. It's looking nice out there right now!

Today I'm sharing a couple of gift wrap ideas inspired by various sources.

They are both wrapped in a base of kraft paper then embellished.

This gift for my nephew was topped with bright orange ribbon and a pinwheel made from a Quickutz die:


And this gift for a friend was embellished with a doily then a rosette flower and paper curls made from old dictionary pages:


Well, I'm off to pick up some more plants, thanks for stopping by!

Yummy Spring Broccoli Salad

Helloo all! I'm going to try to get back in the habit of blogging more regularly, I've definitely been in a slump lately.

Today I'm sharing a yummy salad recipe I first had at Memories Manor in March then I made it for Easter dinner.




And it's so easy too, enjoy!


12 slices bacon
2 heads fresh broccoli, florets only
1 C chopped celery
½ C chopped green onions
1 C seedless green grapes
1 C seedless red grapes
½ C candied cashews
1 C mayonnaise
2 T white wine vinegar
¼ C white sugar

Place bacon in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Drain, crumble and set aside. In a large salad bowl, toss together the bacon, broccoli, celery, green onions, green grapes, red grapes, and cashews. Whisk together the mayonnaise, vinegar and sugar. Pour dressing over salad and toss to coat. Refrigerate until ready to serve

Happy 16th Birthday Brittany!

Little Red Wagon #81 - Trees

Hello everyone!

It's time for another Little Red Wagon challenge and this week Avril is challenging us to use trees on our creation.

Once I started looking through my stamps I found I had a surprising number of trees but settled on a palm tree from one of my Unity stamp sets to create this card:




As always we'd love it if you would join us over at Little Red Wagon with your tree inspired creation.


Thanks for stopping by!

Georgetown Doors

Happy Monday all!

I found this unpublished post of some door photos from our Washington trip last summer that I thought I'd share now.








Have a great day! Thanks for stopping by.

Little Red Wagon Challenge #80 - Houses!

Good morning!

This week it's my turn to set the Little Red Wagon challenge and I decided I would like to see houses on our creations this week.

Using Cosmo Cricket's Earth Love paper and following Card Patterns Sketch 114 I pieced together a house and created this card:




As always we'd love it if you would join us over at Little Red Wagon with your house inspired creation.


Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to my Mom, Grandma, Sister, Aunt and all my friends!

Little Red Wagon Challenge # 79 - Bicycles!

It's Wednesday again and time for another Little Red Wagon challenge. This week Regan challenged us to use bicycles and all I can think of are the following song lyrics:

"Bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle bicycle bicycle
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride my bike
I want to ride my bicycle
I want to ride it where I like"

Can you name that tune and artist?

Anyway back to Little Red Wagon, I created a card using some new Jillybean Soup paper called Blossom and Everyday Button Bits stamp set by Papertrey:




I added some Flowersoft for fun too.

So can you ride you bike over to your wagon and create something with a bicycle this week? We'd love to see what you create, please link it up at Little Red Wagon.

Pinterest and Catalog Living

Happy Saturday! We're enjoying a sunny day here after days of rain which is nice.

I've been meaning to post about these sites for awhile and am now finally getting to it.

First is Pinterest. No doubt like me you browse the internet finding all kinds of great inspiration but then forget where you saw a certain idea. You can file links but even then that takes some sorting through to find what you are looking for. With Pinterest, you create an account with 'boards' then as you are browsing you can 'pin' the picture to your board. The great thing about this is then all you do to go back to the site you found the item on is by clicking on the 'pinned' picture. And you can also follow people whose boards you like. Click here to start pinning!

Second is Catalog Living. This is a blog by a comedian who bases comments on the various catalog layouts in terms of the people who live in the catalog. The humour is subtle but amusing, here's an example:

It only took one beer to get Gary to try the old “hat full of apples” gag he was so fond of pulling on Elaine.

Catalogs used include Pottery Barn,Restoration Hardware, West Elm and others.

Well, that's it for today, let me know if you sign up for Pinterest and if you like Catalog Living.

Thanks for stopping by.

Little Red Wagon Challenge #78 - For Mom!

I think I say this every Wednesday but really how can it be time for another Little Red Wagon challenge already?

This week Avril is challenging us to create something for Mom.


I dug out my Papertrey Lily of the Valley stamp set(that had not yet seen ink) to create this card:



And I followed this week's sketch 112 at Card Patterns. Not sure it you can tell that I've coloured the flowers in a white glaze pen. Then I layered it up with my favourite October Afternoon Thrift Shop paper.

Please join us over at Little Red Wagon with your creation for Mom, we love to see what you create.