Mockingbird Hill Cottage

Mockingbird Hill Cottage

The Morning After

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As I sit here this Friday morning, sipping my coffee, looking for new blog posts and finding very few, I thought I should step up to the plate and post something. I realize you are all busy. However, this is my morning ritual. I drink coffee and read and comment on blog posts. Today is no different than any other day for me – yesterday was – but not today. Can you see that I might be going through blog withdrawal? Not a pretty sight.

Oh lordy, did we eat yesterday! The day started off with my fabulous (if I do say so myself) French Toast. Don contributed Fakin’ Bacon – tastes like bacon but isn’t. Then dinner….you can see by the menu that the MHC household ate well. To be frank, we overate. I cannot resist mashed potatoes…or stuffing…or my Grandmother’s biscuit recipe. Or anything on that list, to be honest. You know we are vegetarians, hence the quotation marks around “Swedish Meatballs” – again, not really meat.

Don usually does the daily dinner cooking here because he likes to. I like to bake. It works out nicely. But yesterday was a special occasion and I made the mashed potatoes, green beans, biscuits and pumpkin pie. I also coordinated the timing on everything, a task made more difficult by two dogs who insist on being in the thick of things. And today? Leftovers. Umm-mmm good. We are grateful.

I was out and about the other day and found this sign:

It’s made of very thick cardboard. The gold letters in ‘Lady Duff’ are raised. I’m a sucker for this type of art deco lettering and I had to bring it on home to the studio. At the moment, the sign is living right next to Letitia – she is, after all, wearing undergarments.

I hope your Thanksgiving celebrations were filled with good food and good company, my friends.

Gifts & Giving Thanks

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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?

A Perfect Present

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Thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the wonderful birthday greetings! Between the warm greetings on this blog and on Facebook, my cup of good cheer runneth over.

My birthday was lovely and quiet. Well, not quite so quiet when Don put on some music in the evening and we all danced (and I mean the dogs, as well!) Don and I went to our favorite local tearoom in the afternoon and had some hot chocolate with big old homemade marshmallows. Ummm good! In fact, here was my menu for the afternoon and evening: cheese and crackers, hot chocolate, pancakes and eggs for dinner with apple pie for dessert. A day of comfort food favorites.

Now for my present from Don. I saw this in Heidi’s shop when I was helping her out during her Holiday Open House. In fact, I went by it a few times before the light bulb clicked on in my decorating brain. I was tired of the rolling desk chair I had in the studio. It was from IKEA, wasn’t very sturdy and I was getting tired of the cover which was lovely, but was now seeming a bit too flowery. And since my sewing table is at the top of the stairs, rolling of any kind could result in a quick trip down the stairs, if you know what I mean. I told Heidi I loved the chair, she told Don and now it’s mine!

Isn’t it beautiful? Heidi got it at an auction. It’s as if it was made for this space. The puff is artfully covering up a bit of nail polish spilled by a previous owner. It doesn’t matter to me because the chair will be tucked in most of the time. Some details:

I’m in love. 

There it is in its new home. Dare I say this? I think the studio is finished. I do. In the past 2 months, I’ve added the cabinet, the vintage feedsack shoe bag, my vintage dress form, Letitia, the newly trimmed chalkboard, the rediscovered and newly painted shelf (which you can see in the photo) and now….the chair. And all of it was very inexpensive and in some cases, free. This space was definitely done on a minuscule budget.

It really is a room in itself now. It’s pretty. It inspires me. Don loves it. I love it. C’est fini!

Oh, here’s my pie from the local bakery:

They decorated the pie! That’s a first – what a smile that brought to my face. I always have a birthday pie. It was yummy.

Elyse sent me a little something for my birthday which I will share with you in the next post.

Hope your Monday is a terrific one.

Forgot to add that Margaret B. of The French Bear is the winner of a copy of Outside the Ordinary World. Congratulations, Margaret!

Lambs Like to Party

Lambs Like to Party

A Note

Thanks for visiting! Feel free to browse, read and enjoy. All content is my own; including photos and text. Please do not use anything on this site without permission.

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