Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Life in our little cottage in the country

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Catching Up on a Friday

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Happy Friday, everyone! It is humid here in the Northeast and although I love, love summer, I find myself thinking of crisp fall days with not a trace of humidity in the air. The garden is losing its prettiness and everything is looking just a bit droopy. Bless the impatiens in these tubs. They are dependable; blooming and blooming into the fall.

It is time for a little catching up. I’ve been neglecting to post about some awards I received. Here we go. First up, a thank you to Leeann of The Old Parsonage for this award.


Thank you Leeann!

Another thank you to Julie at Working on a Dream for two awards:



Thank you, Julie!

And, finally, thank you to Bunny of The Creative Hare for this award.


I’ve posted about this award before – thank you Bunny!

I am always so touched when I receive an award and am ever grateful that my fellow bloggers would think to honor me. Bless you. Since I have a well-known problem deciding just who to pass these awards on to (you are all so wonderful), I pass them on to all my creative blogging friends.

I forgot – the other day, Don and I were sitting in the living room and Riley calmly went over to the basket (on the floor) that we keep books in. One of those books is the aforementioned bird book. He put it between his teeth, picked it up and walked away with it. Don, amazed at what he was seeing, yelled “Hey!” – I then proceeded to grab the book and say “NO!” Riley looked hangdog. But then Don said that he thought Riley was picking the book up like a toy – because we have a basket of toys in the den that both dogs use. Duh! Of course! Why should Riley know that one is okay and the other is forbidden? So I gave him lots cuddles and we will just make sure the basket is out of temptation’s way before we leave the house!

Finally – don’t forget the giveaway! If you’ve missed the information for some reason, just scroll down to the previous post. You have until midnight tonight to enter. And you might just be the winner and get your very own blog post signature!

See you tomorrow for Pink Saturday and the giveaway winner!

Decorating the Blog Giveaway (& One More)

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You might have noticed there has been some decorating happening on the blog this week. It all started a few months back when I won Mandy’s giveaway of custom-designed sidebar labels. That experience was so fabulous that I knew I would be back for more. Last week I asked Mandy to design a button for MHC as well as a signature for my blog posts. I sent her some of my favorite photos and she came up with a beautiful design. She also sent me a whole bunch of font styles to choose from and I picked one for the button and another for my signature.

I loved the results.

So…another idea which had been bubbling under the surface of my mind rose up and I bit the bullet. I decided to have Mandy design a new banner for me. Change is always a bit hard for me and I know a lot of you love the old banner with the McCoy Pottery. Nevertheless, I decided to be daring and I am over-the-moon about the results. And…if you miss the other banner just go to the awards button on my sidebar and click. You will be taken to anotherpage with another MHC banner that has my beloved McCoy in it! So we have the best of both worlds here at MHC.


Mandy has a wonderful blog and an Etsy shop. The link for the shop is on my sidebar. She has graciously offered to give one lucky blogger a free signature. I love mine – I think it finishes each post so nicely. Now, there are a couple of things to know: your blog has to be hosted by Blogger/Blogspot. And you have to leave a comment on this post. When you leave your comment, please indicate your blogging platform. I will put all your names in a hat – or a random number generator – and pick a winner. You have until Friday night at midnight EST. The comment has to be on this post. (I was going to add if you become a follower you get two entries, but that always makes me uncomfortable – so I decided not to. If you want to become a follower just because – lovely.)

I’ve written before about my happy experience working with Mandy. She is talented, creative, understanding, patient (I think I might have driven her a little nuts with my tweaking) and a lovely person. You will love working with her.

Oh, one more thing – my pal Elyse is having a giveaway! Stop by her blog. You’ll be glad you did.

Collecting Furniture For The Dollhouse

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Look how happy the birds are about the new arrival at MHC! Oh my gosh, could this cabinet for my dollhouse be any cuter? (Frankly, my husband and I would like a life-sized version for MHC.) My friend Marsha wrote about a cabinet almost exactly like this one that she purchased at a show. The cabinet was made by Dollhouse Land. I fell in love with it and wrote her to ask about the maker and how to contact them. As luck would have it, Marsha was going to another show the next weekend and she volunteered to check out Dollhouse Land’s exhibit and buy one for me. Isn’t she a sweetie? She even emailed a photo of it from her phone!


I love it and can’t wait until it finds a home in the dollhouse. Moving on – the other day I was in an antique store and I saw these:


Now this will show my age, but I remember when these were a big deal. I was a kid – not sure what age – and Ideal Toys came out with a whole line of Petite Princess dolls and furniture. I remember thinking it would be so cool to have a collection of this stuff. My parents, alas, didn’t go along with that idea. The antique shop had several different items from the line in the original boxes.

Of course, I had to buy two of them – they were marked at a very low price. I bought the “Palace Chest” and a wing chair. The palace chest is made of plastic, but I think I could make it work in a Shabby Chic way in the dollhouse.

Do you see what I mean?

The wing chair is pretty flashy and would definitely have to be toned down. After all, my dollhouse isn’t a palace. I will have to perform some kind of magic.
It has potential, don’t you think?

And I finally got my Petite Princess furniture. Shall we say, a ‘number’ of years later?

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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