Pink Friday at Make Mine Pink

What could be nicer on a crisp autumn evening than sitting beside the fireplace in your own cozy cottage? Please join Cozy Cottage Gifts and Decor, along with other participating boutiques at Make Mine Pink for "Harvest Home", the theme for this Pink Friday, September 12th.

This beautiful pumpkin teapot is just one of the autumn-inspired lovelies I will be featuring at Cozy Cottage this week. So pour a cup of your favorite coffee or tea, and settle into your favorite comfy chair while you shop from home. Cozy Cottage is only a click away!

Today's the day! 2008 SUMMER GARDEN TOUR

Here are a few pictures from my country garden taken a couple of years ago. Be sure to visit Notes from a Cottage Industry to visit other bloggers participating in the summer tour today. The first picture is a coffee table I made in one of the sitting areas in our yard. It is an old chicken crate topped with a vintage tea kettle full of sweet petunias.





Azaleas, prairie sage and my angel birdfeeder.




Pots of herbs set on an old cast iron woodburning stove.











My angel garden full of pink primroses. The concrete angel was gift from my husband's family when my father passed away. The birdbath is an MIJ umbrella stand with the bowl from an old pitcher and bowl set placed on top. While the idea was good, we soon realized that we could only fill the bowl half full or the water was over the little birdies' heads.




This is part of the stone path we put in the "secret garden" behind our house. In the center is another garden angel among iris and chrysanthemums.




I started this Carolina jasmine from a little sprig and within a year it had covered the fence with its fragrant blossoms and pretty green vine. The flowers are actually bright yellow.





An old red wagon filled with pots of grape petunias and other blooming flowers.






I created this outdoor "picture" with an old window screen, some silk flowers and attached a row of hooks.


Here is my "flower bed". This was fun.....I painted an old cast iron bed and then filled it with iris and wild phlox.




Last of all, a trio of old metal lawn chairs.....perfect for sitting in the evening shade and sipping sweet tea or lemonade.

Coming soon......2008 SUMMER GARDEN TOUR

Tomorrow's the big day......I'm participating in the 2008 Summer Garden Tour that Tracey is hosting on her blog Notes from a Cottage Industry. If it's anything like her Virtual Christmas Home Tour you won't want to miss it! Check out Tracey's blog as well as the participating blogs for some summer garden inspiration. Hope to see you there!

It's summer! and time for a blog giveaway

The four o'clocks are almost three feet tall and blooming at our back door now so it must be summer! Leave me a comment saying what signals summer to you and you will be entered in my blog surprise giveaway. The lucky winner will be chosen next Sunday, June 22nd.

Baby cardinals

I went back to the cottage today and got pictures of the entire cardinal family.....Mama and Papa are being very good parents and staying close by. I really got in trouble for peeking in the nest.....Papa scolded me the whole time!

Look what I did!

Roxie over at Jorabeel's Ink was talking one day about altering a clipboard and I just had to do one myself.....so here is what I came up with.....it's hanging in my newly "pinked" office at the college and I just love it!

HOW I DID IT:

First I found a couple of old clipboards at the thrift store....this one was brown fiberboard, but the other one is clear acrylic so I'm not sure what I'll do with it yet. Anyway, I painted the clipboard with a thick coat of shabby pink latex paint and let it dry really well.

Next, on the front side of the clipboard I painted on a thick coat of matte Modge-Podge and let it get almost dry. Then I painted on a coat of chocolate brown latex paint. This was an experiment because I didn't know how the Modge-Podge would work for crackling. The main thing to remember when "crackling" is to be sure to paint in one direction. After the brown paint dried there was a moderate crackling effect, mostly in a linear pattern.


I used a coarse grade sandpaper and sanded around the edges of the clipboard and then sanded the crackled area to get the effect I wanted. I wiped the board down with a damp cloth and then dried it with a cloth and I was ready to apply my artwork. I chose a floral and butterfly theme with a biblical garden verse for my clipboard. Once the artwork was affixed with more Modge-Podge, I then coated the entire front of the board with another coat of Modge-Podge to seal it. I applied another coat of pink paint to the back of the board and then went to work on the clip part of the piece.

I added a girlie touch with some pretty sparkly, gossamer ribbons glued directly to the clip and a crown of fringed paper garland at the very top. A pretty dangling charm was added to one of the ribbons. I left the clip so that it can be opened to hold photos or anything else I would like to display on my clipboard.


This was a fun and relatively easy project that I recommend for anyone who would like to try their hand at altered art.....happy painting!!!

Springtime comes to Cozy Cottage

Bunnies, bunnies and more bunnies......and they're all having a party at Cozy Cottage this week! I just added new items to my cottage shop and couldn't wait to give you a peek. Almost everything you see in the slide show is for sale and if you are lucky enough to live close to the real live Cozy Cottage Gifts and Decor, please drop by and see us! If it isn't possible for you to drop by but you see something you absolutely just cannot live without please post a comment here and we can discuss how to get in touch so that you can purchase that item online. But best of all, you can just browse the shop and it doesn't cost a dime!

Cozy Cottage wishes you a wonderful Easter and the best Spring ever!

What I did today........

Isn't this the sweetest little chest to hold all of those items that clutter up your dresser or powder room? When I found this it was an ugly little wooden chest in need of some TLC, but it had pretty little ceramic drawers with roses....yes, ROSES! I took it home, filled the cracks, sanded and painted it pink and VOILA! a beautiful swan was created from this ugly duckling!

If you need to add a little pink to your life, just go to Cozy Cottage Gifts and Decor at www.makeminepink.com and make this little chest yours!

The ongoing saga of the "ragged" lap quilt......

At last.....the "ragged" lap quilt is finished....*big smile* ! Once all of the "X"s were sewn on the squares, sewing the squares together went rather quickly...then it was trimming the edges evenly and washing and washing and washing and drying and drying and drying the quilt to get the "ragged" effect. This was a fun project, but probably not one I'll do again. To those of you who make "ragged" quilts on a regular basis....I salute you!

New Slide Show

Hello everyone,

I just added a slide show of my cottage shop to my blog page. You can find it by scrolling way down to the bottom of this page. Enjoy looking and feel free to leave a comment or rating.

Thanks,
Deb

Cottage Renovation

Hi there! I was just thinking tonight that my readers might enjoy reading about how I renovated my cozy little cottage. Just click here http://www.shabbycozycottage.com/articles.php and scroll down a bit and you can read the whole story.

You may notice there are no pictures of the powder room.....ummmm, that' s because it is in a stage of deconstruction....yikes! I started removing the icky green plastic wall tiles and also removed a large part of the wall......so now I've got to enlist my dear, dear husband's help with this project. He tells me I'm on the list....I just need to find a way to move my little powder room project up to the TOP of his list!

The powder room is tiny by today's standards, but remember this is the original bathroom built in the 1930s. It is exactly wide enough to hold a cast iron clawfoot tub (big smile!), the ceiling is 9 feet tall so that gave me plenty of room to hang the romantic pendulum fixture with prisms (okay, so dear, dear husband did that project too!), and has a nice window above the tub. Those are the positives......the negative is that I can't move the tub out of the room to replace the floor covering so that is going to be an adventure all of its own!

When we get started on the powder room renovation I'll show before pics, and pics along the way and finally some pics of the completed project. It is all in my head right now just waiting for dear, dear husband to say "Okay, let's work on the powder room today." I can't wait to get started!