WHO DOESN'T LOVE A PORCH?

I'm joining JILL at GYPSY BROCANTE
for her first meeting of THE PORCH CLUB. If you haven't heard about it yet just click HERE or on her button on my sidebar. I had the pleasure of meeting JILL in the fall at the blogger party during Antiques Week in Texas. She is one cool junkin' chick and has fabulous style!

Love ya Jill!

So on to the porch meeting. Don't we all love a porch? Big, small and everywhere in between there's nothing better than whiling away the hours with a cup of tea or a glass of wine and a good friend to share a little chit chat.

Today I am sharing the petite porch on the front of my garden cottage.











Elements like old porch posts and architectural brackets give it sweet chippy charm.

Click HERE to see the inside of the cottage.

Please be sure and stop by JILL'S and visit all of the other beautiful porches!

GO STEELERS!

SEARCH AND RESCUE

All is not lost on my faux pas of yesterday...

I sent out a couple of emails in search of tips and lifelines after stupidly deleting MANY comments on some recent posts. In case you missed it...

I love love love crossing stuff off lists, cleaning clutter from closets, emptying my inbox...

Soooo I was poking around in my blog (note to self, stop poking around in my blog) and I had opened my dashboard. And so there in comments are all the comments I have ever received. I thought why do I need all these, they are on the posts on my blog right? So I started deleting them 25 at a time...

Gasp.

Thank goodness I stopped out of boredom and distraction. Can you imagine if I had powered through all three thousand and some comments and deleted all of them???

Fast forward to today.

I found a link on google. What did we do before google? A kind techno savvy person explained how to undo this mess I made. To a point. I was able to recover the comments still in my email account and repost them one by one.

It was so worth it.

I didn't recover all I lost and sadly there are two posts with no comments on them at all. One is my day spent with LAURA from 52 FLEA and her sis LYNN and SUSIE from FROM MY HOME TO YOURS. Well I have the pics and the memories. That's what I get for being such a cleaner upper.

I promise this is my last post beating myself up over this. Thanks to everyone who tried to help and who offered their thoughts.

Spilt milk right?

BLOGGING FOR DUMMIES

HAS ANYONE ELSE DONE THIS OR AM I THE LONE DUMMY?

Thinking I was cleaning up the "inbox" for comments, as I am completely anal about, I started deleting comments left by all of you in the comments section on my dashboard. Little did I know I was deleting the actual comments on actual posts!!!

Can you begin to know how stupid I feel?

Is there any way to retrieve them?

So if you see that previous posts have ZERO comments this is why. I am so sorry to have deleted your precious comments.

If you feel so inclined to go back to older posts and leave another comment I would be ever so grateful...

GOOD GRIEF CHARLIE BROWN!

MARBURGER PREVIEW

As promised here's a sneak peek at some of the fabulosities that will be yours for the taking in my booth at MARBURGER FARMS. Opening day is March 29th!

Adorable white tole patio table with glass top, a fabulous chippy shabby tole sconce and two of four old cast iron claw foot tub feet in the most delicious patina you will ever lay eyes on.





Wonderful flower biz sign in chippy black and white.



This old metal basket is HUGE and would look wonderful full of old grain sacks or white fluffy towels in the bath.



This fabulous M&S Farms entrance piece is rusty crusty yummy! It barely fit in my Expedition! Picture it on a long wall with some great industrial pieces.



As the show gets closer and we work on getting ready, I will show hints of more goods we'll be offering. Stay tuned...

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THIS AND THAT

Don't you love to go to the mailbox and find something you've been anxiously waiting for?



Look closely at the attention to every detail. CAROLE at MAYNARD GREENHOUSE blew me away with the presentation and artistry that she applied to my copy of JEANNE d' ARC LIVING magazine purchased from her. Merci Carole!

And then there are these...



IKEA had a HUGE bin of paper napkins in these gorgeous blue and white patterns. Do they scream summer picnic or what?

And just wondering if any of you have been to POTTERY BARN lately? I'm lucky enough to live near one and popped in over the weekend. GORGEOUS! Lots of pretty blues and greens added to their already stunning palette.

I found these on a sale rack, 20% off! Beautiful french plates in four different clock face patterns! Perfect for a salad or an afternoon snack.





Even the box is cute!



Still finishing up their odds and ends of Christmas as well. I snagged these fabulous frenchy ornaments for a little over two dollars each!





As I was checking out I noticed these cute little complimentary paint chip booklets of all their gorgeous spring and summer paint colors by Benjamin Moore. There is a color called Sparrow that has a definite future here at the house of SWEET PEA!



Tomorrow I'll be shooting some sneak peeks of my Marburger Farms goods!

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REALITY CHECK

Thirty years ago today I became a mama for the second time. My baby is THIRTY...

WOW.

I was twenty one and a half years old with a 14 month old, a newborn and two c~sections in 14 months.

WOW.

How did I do it?

I can't remember...

YOUTH ROCKS.

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RAINY DAYS AND MONDAYS...

It's a gloomy, stormy day here in Florida and I am coming off of a Sunday spent flat on my back with some weird stomach thing. Don't know if it was really a virus or something I ate. Anyway, Friday and Saturday were spent doing something much more fun...

SHOPPING FOR FABULOSITIES FOR MARBURGER which is fast aproaching! I scored some really great stuff and will show you a hint of it in the days to come. It's really my habit of keeping my Marburger goods under wraps, but I will show a bit of what I will be taking and what can be YOURS for the taking if you are lucky enough to be going!

So back to the couch for me to finish my recuperation. It's a great time to catch up on some stuff on the dvr list, right?

I wanted to leave you with a couple of images that brighten an otherwise dreary day here. The first is reality, as in it is actually here and the second is a memory.

Remember my day with LAURA from 52 FLEA and her sister LYNN? Well they came bearing gifts and along with an AMERICAN PICKER dvd they brought the sweetest pink and white orchid nestled among vintage hankies in an old ironstone dish. Gorgeous!



The fabulous peonies in this pic are but a memory now but I love to look at them here. I found them right before Christmas at Whole Foods.



That's all for now, but please check back for a sneak peek at my haul from the weekend!

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WHAT A GREAT DAY...

Today was the day that LAURA from 52 FLEA and I met face to face. I have been looking forward to it since last year when we made plans to get together when she was down visiting her parents on the west coast. Her sister LYNN came along and I was so happy to meet her as well. I got the idea to include my friend SUSIE whose blog FROM MY HOME TO YOURS many of you know and love.

MR. SWEET PEA joined in the fun too!


We had salad made from lettuce I grew myself...



I set the table using old platters for the salad and rested a bowl on top for the hearty soup I made from scratch.





I used an old mirror as the centerpiece and topped it with pretty fresh flowers in a glass vase. I picked up the lime green from the vintage tablecloth in the flowers and then added votives and scattered watch faces about the mirror. I secured botanical themed postcards in old flower frogs.





Everyone took home a handmade favor I made from peat pots and seam binding filled with a personalized treasure. Susie got a wasp nest, and an "S" made from chipboard. Lynn's favor featured an old millinery rose and an "L" and Laura received what else? Vintage metal stencils for the number 52.



I made place cards from sheet music then spelled everyone's names using these cute typewriter key press ons. I clipped the place cards to antique linen napkins with a glittered clothespin.











Left to right: Lynn, Susie, Laura and moi.


Lynn, Susie, Mr. Sweet Pea and Laura.


And just as she said she would, Laura left me a note on my chalkboard wall.



After lunch we headed to a local antique shop and did some browsing and then over to Susie's. Now it's time to sit back, prop up my feet and bask in the glow of a fabulous day with friends, new and old. Thanks for your company and for the sweet hostess gifts bestowed on me. Let's do it again real soon ok?

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PINCH ME...SURPRISE NUMBER TWO

It's been difficult to keep this one to myself. I did confide in a couple of very close friends that I knew could keep a secret...

It all started one morning last summer. A very average morning. I got out of bed, turned on my computer, made some tea and sat down to check my email. Same as every morning. This one was different...

There it was. An email from FIFI O'NEILL.

I stared at it.

Really?

She had seen the post I had done about my garden cottage that my sweet friend CAROL from RAISED IN COTTON had contacted her about. She wanted pics of my house for a potential magazine feature.

Really?

Fast forward to a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving. She was sending a "friend" to do some test shots. Okay, I thought, I can handle that...

And then I found out who the friend was... KIMBERLY MCCOLE from DEAR DAISY COTTAGE. Widely published Kimberly McCole... Panic mode set in. For a week and a half I primped and pimped my home. I wanted it to be as near perfection as I could get it.



Kim and I spent the better part of a day together doing the shoot, had a great lunch, and by the time she left I felt as though I had known her my entire life. She's cool like that... And uber talented...

It wasn't long, maybe a couple of weeks, and I got another email from Fifi. This one said that an Italian design magazine wanted the story for the Dec/Jan issue and could I please complete the interview she had emailed immediately? Well...yeah!

Just like that a dream came true. I received my copy today and wanted to share it with you right away. It's been a crazy start to 2011. First to be selected as January 2011 COTTAGE OF THE MONTH AT THE OLD PAINTED COTTAGE and now to be featured in an Italian design magazine. Whooda thunk it?

Also pretty proud that I was considered the stylist for the pics and that everything with the exception of the styling for the fireplace shots is exactly how we live. I'm also happy that you get to see the garden cottage as well as the house.

Without further adeu, here is my feature in L'IDEA SHABBY CHIC.

THANK YOU FIFI AND KIM!























CLICK ON EACH PIC TO ENLARGE!

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