Fellow bloggers — Page 13

What’s in a Name?

January 5, 2011 at 11:33 am by Claudia

My name has never been one that is easily found emblazoned on mugs or pins or pencils or any of those sorts of things. You know, those racks where you see something with ‘Megan’ on it or ‘Sarah’ or ‘Amy’ or whatever names are popular at the moment. When I was a kid, this upset me. It seemed as if everyone else could find some souvenir with their name on it. Me? Never. Don’t get me wrong, I love my name. I’m very pleased that my Mom and Dad chose it for me. It suits me. But it wasn’t the sort of name that was on the ‘popular’ list.

Not long after I first started blogging, almost 3 years ago, a woman named Donna saw a comment I had made on another blog and asked me if she could send me something. I was shocked that anyone would want to send me anything – I hadn’t yet encountered the generosity of this blogging world. The package arrived, beautifully wrapped, with a note from Donna. This was inside the wrapping:

Donna wrote that she had held onto the hanky for a long time and was just waiting to give it to someone named Claudia. And when she saw my name in that comment, she chose me. Amazing, isn’t it? One person reaching out to another; our only connection being that we were readers of the same blog. To say I was touched is an understatement.

Recently, I couldn’t find the hanky. I looked everywhere. Over the course of several months, the thought that I might have lost it hovered in the back of my mind. I didn’t want to contemplate that possibility. It represents so much about the blogging world to me – the generosity, kindness and priceless connections made. One day, I was reorganizing our linen cupboard and there it was. Now it lives on my yellow dresser where I can see it every day.

I have one other treasure with my name on it. My dear friend Lynne, who lives in Canada, gave me this silver napkin ring:

She found it in a shop somewhere and couldn’t get it out of her mind. So she went back and bought it. I’m very grateful she did. In a home where the table setting included engraved silver napkin rings, a Claudia called this one her own. It found its way to another Claudia. That seems right.

Speaking of words, I’ve noticed a lot of bloggers are choosing a word for 2011. I’m incapable of narrowing down my choices to one word, so here are mine:

Gifts & Giving Thanks

November 24, 2010 at 10:30 am by Claudia

Thanksgiving always brings a flurry of activity, doesn’t it? Around MHC, we stay low key. We try to be thankful every day – of course, it’s easier to be thankful when everything is going well. We’ve had our share of adversity here this year. The challenge is in staying thankful despite the stress, loss and worry. Since we don’t eat turkey or meat, our dinner will be side dishes. They’re always my favorites. Mashed potatoes and biscuits and yams and green beans and cranberries – yum!

Elyse sent me a box full of goodies for my birthday. I thought I’d share a few photos with you.

This is what I saw when I opened the box. Definitely my colors!

These pretties were inside the pretty pink flowered box.

And I opened this sweetly wrapped package to find these:

I can’t wait to play with everything. Thank you, Elyse!

A few weeks back, I sent a little gift to Elyse as a thank you for her friendship and constant support of my writing and this blog. I made another Boite de Vignette, inspired by a comment Elyse made on one of my posts. She liked one of my figurines and I realized it looked rather like her gnome-like tinkerer.

Now, I know I’m a rank amateur at all this. I’m learning….very slowly.

So be kind.

This is the outside of the box. I wanted it to look like a door into Elyse’s tinkered world.

This is what you see when the box is opened. I used the background on E’s blog, some ribbon, the tinkerer and lots of glitter. My first foray into the world of glitter, by the way. Martha Stewart glitter.

I would love to make more of these in the future: creating little worlds inside a box that are specific to each giftee. I don’t know…maybe that’s silly. This form of creating is new to me and I am sometimes so intimidated by what I see my fellow bloggers create. The talent in blogland is amazing and humbling.

But you never know what you can do until you try, right?

Monday Morning Musings

November 8, 2010 at 11:23 am by Claudia

Thank you so much for all of the wonderful comments on Don’s singing. (If you haven’t yet seen the video, scroll down to the previous post.) He’s read them all and is very touched. In answer to your questions, yes, he does sing around the house and he has indeed written songs for me. Love songs. They make my heart go pitter-patter. Allow me to brag a bit: Don writes and sings his own songs and is currently working on 2 different CDs of his music. He is a wonderful entertainer and a songwriter who writes from his heart. He’s also one of the best actors I have ever known. Maybe you’ll get to hear him sing someday!

The movie was filmed 2 years ago in New Orleans. We haven’t seen it yet. It has been shown at some film festivals, but truth be told, I don’t think it got very good reviews. It has been released in France (the director is Olivier Dahan who directed La Vie en Rose.) It may go straight to DVD here. Bob Dylan did the music for the movie. Bob Dylan heard my husband sing his song! So far, there isn’t a recording of the soundtrack….but you can bet Dylan fans are clamoring for one. Oh, and the beard was fake, by the way. They built it around Don’s goatee. The goatee whose absence I didn’t notice when Don shaved it off a few weeks ago.

Okay. On to other things. I want to share a photo of this vintage shoe bag made from a feed sack that I bought on Etsy. (The usual problem with shooting in this corner of my studio applies. It’s narrow and dark.)

It’s hanging between my cabinet and the mini-design wall. It will eventually be filled with treasured notes from blogging friends and fun things for creating. Here’s a close-up of the fabric design:

Love, love this cheery fabric. I had some creative time in the studio on the weekend. I’m working on a couple of gifts and thinking up some new projects. And doing things like hanging my Mockingbird Hill Cottage badge on the cabinet door.

I really have grown to love the cabinet as is. Since so much of my little space is pink, aqua and white, I’ve decided a little less matchy-matchy is in order.

I know many of you have been published several times, but me? Just once. It’s still new to me. So I went ahead and did what I’ve wanted to do all along. I framed the cover of Romantic Homes with my mention in “Setting the Sites.” The frame is vintage. I kind of like seeing it on display in my little work area. Ignore the ugly duster – I always seem to miss something when I take a photo. Don is an enabler, by the way. Now he’s urging me to hang things on the doors. He truly doesn’t mind me taking over this space. As far as he’s concerned, the more creativity on display at MHC, the better.

My friend, Beth Leintz of Gathering Dust, wrote me after seeing photos of my afghan-in-progress and offered to send me some yarn she found at an estate sale. She thought it would fit perfectly with the color palette I’m using.

It does! She also sent along one of her beautiful tags with a sweet note on the back. Thank you, Beth!

It’s a very cold and windy day here in the Hudson Valley. My potted plants on the porch bit the dust last week when we had two hard frosts in a row. Winter is on the way. Not sure how I feel about that, but then again, winter doesn’t care.

What’s in a Name?

Gifts & Giving Thanks

Monday Morning Musings

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

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