INSPIRATIOIN...

Hello everyone!  I hope you all had a nice weekend.

I finally had the chance to order Mirjana Schnepf's and Bianca Aurich's new book, Belle Blanc.  It is

truly so inspirational... filled with page after page of beautiful images of fabulous decorating ideas.

I wouldn't be a very good blogger friend if I didn't share this wonderful new book with you.

 It inspired me to make this bouquet of roses and hydrangeas.

The flowers and colors compliment each other perfectly.

   

This book is filled with inspiring images of how to decorate with white in the Nordic French

country style. 

  

  

 

The text is in German... they still haven't come out with an English version... but, the pictures alone

are inspiration enough and well worth the extra shipping costs to the U.S.

You can find out more about the authors and their book by clicking here (their giveaway is no longer

going on... it's an old post from January).

Just wanted to share...

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

~ Jo :-)

IMPERFECTLY BEAUTIFUL

Hello friends!

I dried these roses...

ones that I bought from the grocery store before our roses were blooming in our garden.

  

They're no longer perfectly beautiful...

their petals shriveled...

color faded...

scent gone... imperfectly beautiful... at least to me.

I'm not a motivational speaker.  I don't get all philosophical on my blog.  I'm not a great cook,
and I don't travel the world, let alone my own state (very often).  I lead a pretty simple life... happy,
but simple.  My blog is just a place for me to blow off steam and be creative... and to share that
creativity through my pictures.  It's meant purely for enjoyment (for me and hopefully you, too)...
nothing more. 

In other words... I hope I'm not boring you (did I just hear a yawn?).

I wish you all a lovely weekend!

'Til next time... 

~ Jo :-)

MEXICAN PRIMROSE

Hello everyone!  I hope you're all having a great week so far. 

 

I'm linking up to Photo Feature Friday over at Tricia's lovely blog, A Rosy Note.  The theme this

week is flowers, so I brought some Mexican Primrose in from the garden to photograph.

I used one of the vintage letters I have for the shot below.  It's written by an American officer from
WWI who was stationed in France.  I thought it was appropriate, with Memorial Day Weekend coming
up.  I have nine of these letters from this officer to his wife.  Some of them  expressing how lonely he
is...about waking up in the middle of the night, but not fully awake... forgetting where he is and
thinking she's by his side... only to finally realize he's not at home... that he's in France, and she's at
home in the U.S.  They really are so sweet... romantic and sad all in one.

We have a nice long weekend coming up... Memorial Day weekend.  We don't have any major plans...

we'll just play it by ear.

Thanks for visiting, and have a lovely weekend everyone!

'Til next time...

~ Jo :-)

MAY BLOOMS

     

Hello everyone!  I hope you all had a lovely weekend.  Sunday, my husband and I went to the show,
while my mom watched the kids.  We saw Water for Elephants... such a good movie... I definitely
recommend it.

Today, I thought I would share some pictures of the roses in full bloom in my garden. 

I took these pictures of the garden about a week ago.  All of the Scepter'd Isle roses were in full

bloom.  These are absolutely my favorite roses in our garden so far.  They are the roses in my

header picture... the color so soft and pretty.

Once these flowers are spent, I'll prune all of the bushes, and they'll bloom just as beautifully again

and again all the way through to the end of Fall.

   

  

 

 

This garden sure is keeping me busy right now, and I'm enjoying every bit of it... even when my arms

and back are aching from hedging our  "lavender field ", vines, and bushes.  Yes, I also did some
hedging over the weekend... LOTS and LOTS of hedging. ;-)

I hope you all have a wonderful week.  Thanks for visiting!

'Til next time...

~ Jo :-)

COLLECTING...

Hello friends!  I want to thank all of you who commented on my last post.  Your input helped so much

for me to shrug off the old and bring on the new (header and button, that is ;-)).

Anyway, I love visiting all of your blogs to see what beautiful things you love to collect, so today I
thought I'd share with you some of the vintage and antique pieces I love to collect.  These pieces are
just a small portion of all that I collect, but there was already a lot of pictures...so I'll share more in
another post.

I ♥ vintage books...

...I ♥ antique grain sacks, especially with monograms on them...

...I ♥ antique and vintage white ironstone...

...I ♥ vintage bottles, especially with old paper labels...

...I ♥ antique and vintage ephemera...

...and I ♥ so many more things, but as I said... I'll share those with you in another post.

Thanks again for all of your wonderful input on my last post.  I'll be coming around to visit all of

you by the end of this week.  :-)

I haven't linked up to any link parties in quite a while, so I thought I'd join Debra for
Vintage Inspiration Friday over at her lovely blog, Common Ground.  Thanks for hosting this
fun party, Debra! 

Have a great day everyone!

'Til next time...

~ Jo :-)

ROSES and LAVENDER

     

Hello everyone and 'welcome' to my new followers!  I hope you all had a lovely weekend.  We

enjoyed some local fair fun on Saturday.  Our town recently had a new facility built for the

fair, so we definitely wanted to check that out.  We actually had a lot of fun... ran into some 

friends and hung out with them while we were there, and ended up taking an extra kid home with

us for a sleep-over afterwards. ;-)

 Anyway, today I thought I'd share with you some pics I took of some roses I brought in

from the garden (Scepter'd Isle roses).  I put together a little chair vignette for our mudroom

yesterday.  I've finally started working on painting that desk that was in there, so the nook

needed a little something to take up the void until I get the desk finished.  If You haven't

seen the desk I'm working on yet, you can click here... in case you're curious. 

 

 

 

On another note... If you like the vintage tool caddy I have on my dining room table (click
on photo on my sidebar), Donna of Funky Junk Interiors is doing a  "how to build a tool caddy "
tutorial on her blog with a fun link party to follow it up.  Click here and here to check out all
the details.

Now I'm off to go do some blog visiting...  I know you've noticed I haven't been leaving

comments on your lovely blogs anymore, but I'm still out there visiting them.  There has

been a lot of wonderful inspiration lately... thanks for that!

Thanks for visiting, and have a great rest of the week everyone!

~ Jo :-)