Surprise for me!!

Oh my goodness! I received the sweetest surprise today from a wonderful blogging friend, Kathleen of Yesteryear Embroideries . I picked up yesterday's mail and among the bills and cards, I found a little package for me. I know I should have taken a picture of it to share, but I was so excited to have received it, that I just ripped it open. Inside, I found two sweet linens tied up with gold and red ribbon, a beautiful note, and the nicest Christmas card ever!

The doily is hand embroidered by Kathleen and features a wonderful little basket overflowing with yummy spring flowers: daisies, lavender, tulips and the cutest pansy right in the middle. Notice the edges? All hand finished. I love pansies because they look like such happy little flowers. They always make me smile when I see them whether they're in my garden, on a post card, or a beautiful hand embroidered linen (like this one)!

This darling tea towel is also made by Kathleen and is hand embroidered with two yummy roses, floating flowers and the cutest little blue butterfly. It's hand hemmed and then blanket stitched with a matching floss all the way around the edges. Talk about work! I can't imagine doing all that.

She does "hand embroidery for all occasions in all varieties of stitch and style." So if you need custom work, please contact her. Imagine having pillowcases or guest towels personalized with a hand embroidered monogram or your favorite flower/colors. You'll enjoy her blog and get to see some of her work, too. Drop by and tell her I said, "hi!"

Thanks, Kathleen!!

Blessing to all this Christmas season,

Patricia :o)

Yeah! We have a winner and then some...

The winner of my give away is Sunday Girl from The Crafty Corner. I used a random number generator to pick the winner. But I had so much fun meeting new ladies and everyone left such sweet comments, that I had to have a 2nd and 3rd prize.

So I used the RNG again and got Jan at Jan and Tom's Place who won this lovely hand embroidered vintage pillowcase,

and Lea of Farmhouse Blessings who won this pretty hand embroidered vintage table runner.

This truly was so much fun! I met the nicest people and visited the most beautiful blogs, and found some new friends along the way! I'll have to do it again, soon. Thank you to everyone who participated.

Blessings,

Patricia :o)

Add your name to my GIVE AWAY!!

Because give aways can be so much fun, I thought it was time to do another one starting this month. You can add your name to the "hat" all the way up until December 7th. I'll be drawing a name on the 8th. The rules are super easy.

1. Visit my eBay store (From the Treasure Box) or Web store (Vintage Linen Treasures) then come back and leave me a comment on which linen you like the best. You can get your name added one more time by linking your blog to mine. Be sure you tell me if you do, so that I know to add your name in twice.

2. Make sure I have a way to contact you if you win. Either an email or blog will do great.

3. That's it...No third step!

Here's what you get if you win:

A lovely vintage pillowcase hand embroidered with sweet pink daisies and minty greenery. It's finished with a lovely, white hand crocheted trim all along the bottom edge. It's 100% cotton and will fit a standard size pillow. Very sweet and chic.

You also get a sweet little heart made from an old vintage pillowcase. It is hand embroidered with pretty flowers and I added a pink ribbon bow just below them. The trim is vintage hand crocheted lace, and the back is a soft pink fabric. I also added organza ribbon so you can hang it on a door or in your closet because it has french lavender tucked away inside. It smells wonderful!

This sweet Hanky Angels is hand made by a lovely lady. I purchased several from her and am including one in this give away. If you'd like to see more of her angels, please visit her at her blog.

Thanks for stopping by!

Blessings,

Patricia :o)

Lost Maples Canyon

This weekend we took a short (1 hour) drive to Vanderpool, a town about 70 miles from San Antonio. We hear that there are beautiful trees that are turning color in a state park called Los Maples Canyon. We love trees, so we took a drive. Here are some of the beautiful leaves and trees we saw.

We've lived in Texas for a little over a year now, and this was the first time we saw a live armadillo. It was so much bigger than I thought they were! He stuck around for a long time rooting around for grubs, but he wouldn't turn and face us. So all we got pictures of was his tail end.

This is my hubby and I. My two kids came with us, too, and we had tons of fun. Lots of laughing and being silly. It was such a great day, and a beautiful place to visit. We'll be back for sure!

~The Handmade Quilt: Win This Quilt

Click on the link below for a chance to win a gorgeous quilt. Abbie made this quilt for a neighbor who donated her bone marrow for a total stranger. It's a wonderful story and very touching to see how people reach out to one another. Be sure to visit Abbie's blog, you'll be glad you did.

~The Handmade Quilt-er~: Win This Quilt (My Giveaway)

Yea! Some fun treasures!

It's always fun to go treasure hunting, but when there's lots of treasures to be found, it can be better than chocolate!! My hubby and I drove around in our neighborhood for the annual community yard sale. We didn't find too much here because it's a fairly new development, but we did pick up some great silk flowers and that gorgeous Victorian lady and child wall art.

Then we went to a very small swap meet were we found tiny, hand made refrigerator and sink, an English teapot, water color painting, beautiful hand sewn quilt top, a gorgeous rug and lots of other goodies.

These are hand made of wood. Aren't they cute?

I'm going to paint the butterflies white and maybe paint pink roses on their bodies.

This child's toy dresser is my favorite find today. It has its original vintage pink color and has a scarecrow and darling bunny transfers on the drawers. Notice the cute little pig on top? It's a vintage potpourri porcelain sachet, and is hand painted with darling pink roses. It's adorable!

The drawers are a little stained and drawn on so I lined them with some vintage wrapping paper. I can't believe I happened to have paper that would match so well. It's hard to tell in the photo, but the background color of the paper is a lighter version of the paint on the dresser.

This was a cool find. It's an all hand made, vintage under the bed storage box. All I had to do was wipe it down and it was ready for use. It's already under my bed and it fits perfectly. Now all I have to do is fill it with treasures (but hubby wants to put his hockey cards and sports memorabilia....)

Check out the key. I've never seen anything like that. Very cool!

Most of these things I bought to sell, but they're so cute, that I'm having a hard time wanting to do it. Does this happen to anybody else? I only buy things I like, which makes it really tough to give up.

Blessings,

Patricia :o)

EBay & Web Store Listings for this week

I love sharing pictures of my linens. Mostly, I post pictures of the ones I'm going to keep. Here are a few that are for sale this week in my eBay and Web stores. Even if a person is not interested in buying them, I think it's always fun to look and admire the work from ladies long (and sometimes not so long ago).


These first two items are listed this week in eBay. You can click on the pictures to get there and see the details.

This blue bird runner is so sweet. It doesn't show in this picture but there's a blue crocheted trim that goes all the way around it. So much work!

The handsome couple of a rooster and chicken is hand appliqued using black and white ginham fabric with hand embroidered details. This lovely dish towel would look adorable in almost anyone's kitchen.

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These next two items are listed in Vintage Linen Treasures.com. The first is a beautiful pair of vintage pillowcases hand embroidered with pink and lavender tulips. So pretty!

The pillowcase case below is a beautiful pink rose with red detailing. It's so cottage chic and feminine! Roses are one of my favorite embroidered designs, (blue birds are a very close second).

Pretty lady, Cute puppy

Isn't this a lovely lady? I found her recently and got a great deal on her. This is an older piece from about the 1920's, but I think it was relatively recently that it was made into a heart shape pillow. I have her on my guest bed next to another '20's pillow that I found for only $6.00!! Both have beautiful old lace as part of the design. So pretty.

These adorable puppies are hand embroidered on an old clothespin bag. The needlework is very nicely done, but I just love the subject matter of this linen. These puppies are just too cute and I couldn't resist keeping this one for myself.

Someday, this will have a prominent spot in my laundry room. I have to do a few more things in there before I can start decorating. (Like add a sink, and put in cabinets...we'll see if that can get done in 2009)

Check out the Gasoline Prices

I was running some errands the other day and saw the gasoline price around our neighborhood. It was so shocking (in a very good way) to see them so low, that I had to take pictures. And it wasn't just these couple of stations, almost all the gas stations around here are below $2.50/gal. I never thought I'd see THAT again.

Up date since I took these pictures:

A couple of days ago I filled up for $2.28/gal. And today, I saw several places that showed, believe it or not, $2.19/gal!! This is sure going to help our budget. I hope this lower-prices trend continues!

Tranquil Pond

I mentioned in my last post that we just put in a pond. This is something we've always wanted to do, but never had the space for in California. I wish we could have had a professional install it, but that was WAY out of the budge (by thousands of dollars!) So we decided to try it ourselves.

Here are Floyd (my hubby) and Cody (one of my doggies) outlining the shape, size and location of the pond. The ground here in my part of Texas is mostly rocks and rock slabs. So we decided to build the pond up rather than digging down.

We built a rock "retaining" wall up using stones we found, bought and dug up from the ground. Filled in the sides with purchased dirt, and laid the liner.

After we laid the liner, skimmer and water fall, we got a truck load of more rocks! It's amazing to me that with all the rocks around us, we had to buy more.

The preparation for the pond took many week-ends, but we built the liner, rocks and put in the water in one weekend. After about a week, we added plants and fish.

Finally finished! It was waaaaay hard to do. It was so labor intensive that I was only happy that we were done. I wasn't happy with the pond at all! However, that quickly changed now that the memory of the hard work is getting farther and farther away.

I've only had the pond for a short time, but we've already had so many stories revolving around it. I sit at the edge almost every day after my morning walk and do nothing except for feed the fish, watch the birds and spend quiet time with God.

Lots of easy to care for plants line the edges between the pond and the retaining wall.
Planted inside the pond and along the water's edge are calla lilies, miniature cat-tails and water lilies.

This is the back view of the rock wall on the path side. It's dry stacked and amazingly stable and strong with the dirt holding everything in place.

I almost forgot to include a photo of my fishies! We bought 14 little gold fish and two little koi thinking that most of them would not survive the "new" water. Not only did they all live, but they're growing fast! The two white ones are the koi that are named Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumb.

I hope you enjoyed my pond-building adventure. There's still so much to tell you about our little bird, frog and snake friends who come around for a visit. But that will wait until later.

Blessings!

Patricia :o)

Back from a Break

It's seems like such a long time since I've been able to do some blogging! Time just seems to slip through my fingers like there's no tomorrow. Yet "tomorrow" comes and goes so fast that I sometimes feel that I can't keep up. I presently fall under that little saying that says, "I'm so far behind that I'm ahead!"

I'm also back to selling on eBay after five months off. I didn't mean to be out that long, but I was just enjoying life. Here are a few things that are being listed within the next few days. It was so nice to start pulling out my linens and working with them again. I really do enjoy these beautiful pieces of art.

(click on any of the photos to go to my eBay store)






Two of the biggest things that have been taking up some of my time are the pond we installed in the backyard, and a little corner that I'm renting in a local antique shop. Both are/were new adventures for me. Though I have to admit that the pond is so much more fun and sit, watch and enjoy.

Time management will be my biggest challenge since I'll be working my eBay store, my web store, my real store, and family/home. I enjoy doing it all now we'll see if I can. Wish me luck!!

So exciting!

I'm so honored and excited that Pearl, of A StoryBook Life, just featured my shabby linen closet. She has a wonderful blog full of beautiful living ideas. She is incredibly creative as you will see by her gorgeous posts and photos. Be sure you have a few minutes to read through her blog, because once you start you won't want to stop! Thank you, Pearl!

Batting Zero at the Thrift Stores

This weekend I went to several thrift stores and Goodwill stores. I was so excited to be out on the hunt for new places to shop. But all I found was junky and surprisingly expensive items! I'm so disappointed to have come home empty handed. Since I don't have any new finds to share with you, I thought I'd go through some linens and post pictures of some lovely vintage pillowcases!

Aren't these absolutely gorgeous!? I had planned on selling these, but the pink is just so perfectly cottage chic and the workmanship is amazing so they're staying with me. These are keepers for sure.
This pair of pink rose pillowcases are done with bright pinks and hunter greens. I love the pink hand crocheted trim that goes all around the openings. I can't even imagine how much time these must have taken to make. They're just beautiful!
My favorite color combination is pink and blue. This sweet pair of pillowcases are done with happy little tulips and tiny daisies. They're so perfect for the guest room. These are the kind of linens that definitely get noticed and always get happy comments from guests.

This is a simple but lovely design, and the workmanship is very well done, too. The stitches are so tiny! I just love vintage linens and never get tired of looking at them. Hope you enjoyed looking at these pretties!