A sweet chubby bird &a great magazine find!

I have had this little bird on my mind for the longest time! I've wanted to draw out a pattern and try it and this is what I ended up with!! It's not perfect but I'm loving the chubbiness of it and what's so cool is that I added a river stone to the inside before sewing the opening closed so he's a bit weighted. I placed a little pin about where his eye will be but I'm thinking of decorating him now....maybe with a little vintage lace? I need to change the pattern just a little bit here and there but he does look like what I had envisioned ~ plus drop cloth fabric isn't perfect for EVERY project, it frays pretty easily and that's not good when working with small pattern pieces.

I wanted to share with you a really neat magazine I found today. Now, I'm not a big Martha fan as her look is a little to stark and mod for me as I love more of a romantic/cluttered :) look but this magazine is chock full of ideas for Christmas gifts! I bought it especially because of the lamb pattern! I love lambs and am thinking this one would be so precious for the grandbaby!! Oh and we find out in only TWO weeks if we're having a boy or a girl!

I hope I showed you enough to give you an idea of all that's inside. And to be honest, I don't even remember there being any ads in it at all!

Sharing neat magazines with your friends?

It's a good thing! :)

I hope you have a great Saturday,

xxoo, Dawn

Sweet friends ~

I scanned a couple of pages of the bird journal that my sweet friend Karin of One Perfect Little Miracle gave me when she came for lunch the other day. I love the precious handwriting and the care the sweet woman took to create her journal. What an honor to be able to look at it ~ Thank you so much Karin for entrusting me with it.

Feel free to save these for your artwork . . .

Look at this little sweetie that arrived in the mail Thursday! The tiniest little bird figurine from Relyn at Come Sit by My Fire gifted this to me just as a "thank you" for her winning my last giveaway ~ Thank you so much Relyn, I just love it!! I happened to have another one a little larger that looks like his moma so they look sweet together under the cloche on my buffet ~ Relyn has a beautiful post today about caring for one another...

Our minds are such a powerful tool. We can think negatively and exude those feelings or we can think positively and reflect that attitude as well. It's our choice each and every morning we rise from our beds. Sometimes when my mind wanders in that negative direction .... I stop and tell myself, "don't even go there..." Funny how "The Secret" has been around for such a long time and we just didn't realize it, just read these words...

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things.

Phillipians 4:8

Thank you all so very much for your sweet words on my last post. Don't worry, I'm fine. I love blogging. I love my friends here. I love the inspiration I gain from visiting you and from your feedback. I love being a sunny spot in anyone's day that may stop by to see me ~

Wishing you a great Friday dear friends!

xxoo, Dawn

These are a few of my favorite things ~

Wednesday I did a few things around the house and started writing an article that's due Friday...eeek! It's progressing nicely but doesn't leave much time for creating new goodies. I strolled through my photographs to find some of my treasures to share with you.

You may remember some of these or maybe not, no matter...seeing these beautiful treasures again even inspires me by just looking at them!!

A gathering ~

Fairies ~

Rhinestones and lace ~

Antique papers and images ~

Old tattered books, antique buttons and keys ~

More antique lace ~

Birds, nests and speckled eggs ~

More tattered old books ~

More antique buttons on their original store card!

Uh, more old buttons, sorry, I'm a little obsessed here ~

Vintage baby dresses and doll clothes ~

Old sheet music ~

Wonderful old baby shoes ~

Antique embroidered linens and again, surprisingly...old lace!

Just looking at what I love to collect inspires me!! Pull those collections out, group them on a side table or hang them as a valance, drape them on your lampshades or sew them on your ready-made pillows, stack them by a lamp or nestle them onto your shelves....just so you can SEE these wonderful things that inspire you each and every day!

Wishing you a wonderful, inspired Thursday!

xxoo, Dawn

Still changing things around ~

We have a big eat-in kitchen, no formal dining room but I still like to treat it like one. Who says you can't have your china hutch, a chandelier and buffet crammed into your eat-in kitchen?? Everyday beauty, it's what makes me smile.

We live in a three bedroom ranch with a bonus over the garage and now my 21 yr old son has also converted the garage to his living space as he starts back to college the first of the year. (I'll have to show you his amazing space) So we make what we have work for our family.

I don't know if you've looked back in my blog and were able to see the sheers that I had on this bay window but I've decided to try something else for the winter months.....do you want to take a guess at what that window treatment might be :) ?

You guessed it, drop cloths! I'd saved the panels that I put together for my room at The Plum Tree and thought they'd look really neat on these windows. I love combining the elegant with the rustic ~ hopefully tomorrow I'll take a new photo for you to see them hanging and you can let me know what you think!

I'm so sorry for the dark photos, I took them at night but I love the soft glow of the lamps ~

I thought I'd group a lot of the bird things on the buffet, next to the window ~ Don't you just love this top half of an antique bird cage, placed on an old mirrored plateau, placed on a newer but slightly tarnished (yes, I love tarnish) cake plateau. And what is in the cage? a sweet nest left behind from the cardinals this past spring ~

Wishing you a wonderful Tuesday ~

Surround yourself with things you love, things that make you smile!

xxoo, Dawn

P.S. As a courtesy to Heather of Speckled Egg,
I've changed the name of my tutorial store to
Lessons from the Nest
. . . it's really a better fit, don't you think?

I just love chubby little birds ~

I found this illustration in neat old children's book and loved this little bird ~ my plan was to make a pattern out of him, maybe stitch him onto some fabric to have that redwork look . . . wouldn't he be adorable stitched on something for our little grandbaby?

A sweet old photo for you to use in your artwork ~ can you believe how young these sweethearts look?

I'm so excited, I ordered the soon-to-be-released-this-coming-Monday new version of Photoshop Elements!! I guess the next thing I should buy is one of those "dummies" how-to books . . . I used Photoshop several years back while working as a graphic designer but was much better at text and just started learning about photographs and color correcting. So we'll see what will come of this new software. If you know of a easy-to-understand book I should buy to help me learn it, I'd love to know what it is!!

I hope your Saturday is great one!

xxoo, Dawn

Wonderful treasures given & found ~

What a sweetheart you are Diane!!! Diane Knott of Diane's Musings gifted me one of her beautiful lavender sachet pins thanking me for her giveaway prize! Diane won the little nest baby in a jar and has it displayed with the most precious collection of baby shoes. Thank you so very much Diane, the card, the pin and the tag are all beautiful!!

I just couldn't wait to show you what my girlfriend Dawn gave me Friday, her "vintage" wedding dress!!!!! It's circa 1982 (not really vintage:) and I just LOVE all of the lace and plan on using it for future projects. Remember the Christmas ornament that said "Wish" a few posts back that was in one of the Advent Calendar pockets? Well, this is the same type lace . . . it's just gorgeous!!

I found these beautiful old books on Etsy and just loved the illustrations. I'm sure that you've figured out by now that I collect old books with bird or children's illustrations. The stories in both books are lovely too ~ I'll scan some of these for you soon too!!!

How in the world could anyone discard this beautiful book? Oh well, it was meant for me to love ~ I've been working on a few more orders and then I'm going to start on a new tutorial ~ a nature journal!

Have a great Saturday!

xxoo, Dawn