Comfort Cottage

A Haddonfield Christmas

Today, since I don't have my latest journal entries done yet, I wanted to share a few photos from my day in New Jersey.  My sister and I had originally thought of going to Pitman, but we ended up in Haddonfield.  We were blessed with a beautiful day. 

 

 

We wandered into a shop called Patricia of Mullica Hill.  It was a cross between an antique store and a home decor shop. 

 

 

I love the wool-applique pillow on the sofa.

 

 

Isn't the quilt wonderful?

 

 

Don't they look cozy?

 

 

A splash of berries and greens.

 

 

I just love their cute little faces and bright red sweaters!

 

 

A country Christmas tree.

 

 

This cute kitty is the perfect way to salvage what's left of an old, threadbare quilt.  Isn't that a gorgeous piece of furniture?

 

 

 

The lovely painting makes me want to run for the paint brushes!

 

 

 

A colorful choir.

 

 

I love the way the left side of this cabinet angles back. 

 

 

We eventually made it to the tea shop, where I finally found this year's new ornament for our tree.   Lorrie and I had lunch at a new sandwich shop.  While we were there, the middle school let out.  This particular shop seemed to be their destination.  I really love middle-school age kids.  They always make me smile.  They were actually all quite polite, and their cheerful, noisy presence added to the holiday mood...and I'd forgotten just how much they can eat!

 

Until next time,

 

 

 

Pink Saturday Treasures

Is it that time already?  Where did the week go?  Happy Pink Saturday!  I'm happy to be participating in our pink party.  Thank you to Beverly at How Sweet the Sound for being our hostess today!  If you would like to visit the other participants, just click on the Pink Saturday icon in my right sidebar.

 

I visited Annie at Plum Siena for the first time this week.  Please stop by and check out her gorgeous photography of the most scrumptious cherry blossoms!

 

Just a reminder about my Pink Saturday Giveaway.  You can enter until June 2, when you sign up to subscribe to Comfort Cottage.  To subscribe, use the Subscribe box in my left sidebar.  Don't forget to check your email (and your spam folder).  After you sign up, you have to click on the link in that email to activate your subscription.  You can check out the details here. 

 

Phew!  Finally we get to the pink!  I found this pedestal dish at the local thrift store.

 

 

I love the pink roses!

 

 

Is that too cute, or what?

 

 

The bowl is hand painted.

 

 

I love pitcher and bowl sets-especially with pink roses.

 

I hope all of you have a safe and blessed weekend.  God bless you!

 

Until next time,

 

 

 

 

 

A Pink Saturday Giveaway

 

Happy Pink Saturday!  I hope you are all well and enjoying the beautiful spring weather.  I want to thank Beverly at How Sweet the Sound for graciously hosting our pink party every week.  If you would like to visit all of the wonderful Pink Saturday participants, just click on the Pink Saturday icon in my right sidebar.

This week, I made my first visit to The Enchanted Oven.  Lisa is incredibly creative, and has made some very yummy-looking works of art.  Please pay her a visit, and I'm sure you'll love it as much as I did!

And now, as I promised you last week, photos of my Pink Saturday giveaway:

 

I've assembled a few things that I thought might be fun to use in one of your creative projects:

1.)  A bouquet of lovely, crinkly pink rosebuds.  You can separate them and use them individually.

2.)  A large, vintage feed sack.

3.)  A vintage hand-embroidered doily with a crocheted edge.  This might be lovely on a pillow.

4.) A 1 1/2 yard length of antique pleated trim.

5.)  A pink and white striped apron, designed and hand made by me.  The overskirt is trimmed in a vintage pink floral trim.

 

 

 

I've also be busy working on a new painting.  I was able to order some artist grade watercolors for my birthday last week  Playing with color is so much fun!  I've been reading a book called Confident Color, by Nita Leland to learn more about how to use color successfully.  She has you do all kinds of excercises with your paints in order to get to know how they will perform.  She then has you record the results in a sketch book journal for future reference.

 

I practiced mixing colors before I started my painting.  I was amazed at the difference between artist grade paints and student grade paints.  The artist grade is saturated with pigment, and the color fairly explodes on the page!

 

 

I worked out a drawing on my computer.

 

 

I transfer the drawing to watercolor paper with graphite paper.

 

 

I used one of my photos from Longwood Gardens as my inspiration photo.

 

 

Can you tell that I love vibrant color?

 

Thank you so much for sharing Pink Saturday with me.  I'm thrilled when you come to visit!

 

God bless you!

Until next time,

 

Quilts! Quilts! Quilts!

Can you guess what the subject of today's post is?  My sister Lorrie and I took another trip out to Intercourse, PA last week.  I don't need to tell you what we did there...you can fill in the blanks!  Needless to say, it involved fabric.  We made the rounds.  We hit four fabric shops that day!

 

After a marathon shopping spree and a delicious lunch featuring cranberry chicken salad and homemade bread, we ended up at my favorite spot, The Old Country Store.  After finding some wonderful fabric, we went upstairs to visit the Quilt Museum and the museum shop.    I took lots of photos, so you could join me on a tour.  Are you ready? 

 

They regularly change the quilt that's hanging behind the cashier.  They are always hand quilted.

 

 

 

Cathedral Windows

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 I love all of the miniature quilts.

 

 

 

 

 

This is a whole-cloth quilt.  The ornamentation is in the intricately stitched quilting patterns.

 

 These boxes all held sewing kits.  They nested inside of each other and when you removed each lid, the sides fell open like petals on a flower.  Each layer held more sewing items.  They were crafted by a local artisan.

 

 

 

 

 

Primitive hand made Santas.

 

 

 

 

Both of the Noah's Ark sets were hand-carved and painted by a local artist.

 

 

 

The Old Country Store is  a wonderland of hand-made treasures.  If you're in Lancaster County, PA, a visit here will be a treat.  If you would like to see the fabric shop, pantry quilt room and main area, you can click here.  I hope you had fun!

 

 

Until next time,

 

Hangin' With The Girls

I'm working on some projects in the studio, but I took time out to have some fun with Photoshop.  This is a combination of hands on art and digital art.  I did the background on canvas board in the studio.  I scanned it, and completed the collage in Photoshop.

 

 

The second one I have for you is one of my "urban decay" pieces.   For some reason, I'm fascinated with broken down buildings...maybe I identify with them LOL. 

 

 

This one started with a photo of a cave and then took on a life of its own.  If you're into Photoshop, try adding gradient overlays to your photos.  You won't believe some of the weird stuff you'll come up with.    Have a great day!

 

Until next time,

 

Nature Study

I spent today at the sewing machine, finishing the nature study spread for my Victorian quilt book.  I wanted it to be more rustic to fit the outdoor theme.

 

I began by stamping a piece of linen with a leaf design.  The bird is a gel medium transfer.   He's mounted to another gel medium transfer of antique field notes.  The bees were printed onto a transparency and then attached to a coffee-stained tag.  The ferns and the dragonfly are also transparencies.   The nest sticker is by Cavalini.

 

 

The large floral print is from the book Florals and Nature by Sterling Publishing.  There's a whole series of these books called Memories of a Lifetime.  They are very reasonably priced, and each comes with a CD of all of the images.

 

This spread is from an ongoing project.  I'm taking a quilt book workshop from a wonderful and accomplished artist, Lenna Young Andrews.  If you would like to see the rest of the book, you can find the photos on my Flicker site, or in recent posts here at Comfort Cottage.

The last thing I wanted to share with you is an art quilt that I did using the fabric from a vintage dress as a background.  I hand embroidered the edge and crocheted the flower.  The antique photo was printed onto a transparency.  The illustration is from an antique children's reader.  I scanned it, colored it with crayons, and heat set it.  I love old children's books.  They represent a carefree innocence to me.  

 

I'm not sure how it is where you are, but Spring finally arrived here in Pennsylvania-at least for a day!  I opened the windows and actually breathed fresh air.  It's amazing what a little nice weather does for your disposition.

Well, that's all for now.  Please pray for the citizens of Japan.  

Until next time,

 

 

A Pink Wedding

Happy Pink Saturday!  I didn't think I'd ever get this page spread done!  This is the latest installment in my mini quilt workshop book.   As I shared with you last week, this is my project for a wonderful online workshop by my new friend Lenna at Creative Lenna.  If you are interested in a wonderful workshop on art quilting, be sure to check out the Mini Quilt Book Workshop at A Little Creative Space.  I promise, you'll learn a lot and you'll have fun doing it!

 

I began this spread with a wonderful antique marriage certificate.  I created a gel medium transfer with it and gave it a page of its own.  I was lucky enough to find a 40 yard roll of cream tulle at the thrift shop, and I put it to good use.

 

The background lace is from a three yard piece of hand made antique lace.  All the other trims are vintage as well.  I had to use a tweezers to handle all of the little beads.  The old fingers aren't what they used to be!

 

I devoted the other side of the spread to the bride.  Isn't her gown amazing?  I printed a copy of the antique photograph onto a transparency and sewed it to creme velvet.  I got to use more of my tulle and I attached the little rhinestones with tiny dots of glue.  The miniature roses are paper and the rhinestone ring is from a pair of vintage earrings.  I printed the vintage music onto canvas and sewed it to the background.

 

 

Here's the spread together:

 

 

That's it for the pink!  Thank you so much, Beverly, for hosting Pink Saturday for us.  If you would like to see all of today's pink offerings, click on the Pink Saturday badge in my right sidebar.  It will take you to all the links to pink.  Have a wonderful weekend, and God bless you.

 

Until next time,

 

In Celebration of Needlework

I finished the latest for my quilt book workshop project.  In this spread, I celebrate the timelessness of needlework. 

 I was inspired by this wonderful old photo that I found in my archive of public domain images.  I printed it onto a transparency and then sewed it to the muslin.  The cute metal doodads are from Karen Foster.  I honestly forgot I had them until I started going through my stash.   The laces and buttons are from my vintage collection.  I used to cringe at the thought of ripping fabric, but since I started taking Lenna's workshop, I rip fabric with abandon!  It adds a textured, tattered feel to the work.

 

I printed the antique ad card ephemera onto canvas.  The pink background fabric on this page is a print from England.  I was lucky enough to find about four yards of the stuff at the thrift store!

 

 

Here's what they look like together.  I think they'll fit in nicely with the theme of my book. 

 

What have you been up to?  I'd love to hear from you.  I'll be continuing with this project this week.  If you check back, I'll have more to show you.  See you next time!

 

Pink Saturday and Sweethearts

Happy Pink Saturday!  I'm doing something a little different this week.   Beverly encouraged me to share my project from the quilt book workshop I'm currently taking from Lenna Young Andrews.  This post has the links to the two other posts that make up my Pink Saturday offering.  It's a series of pages for a Victorian quilted book.  The other two posts are directly before this one.  I hope you enjoy it!  I'd like to thank Beverly for hosting Pink Saturday for us.  If you click on the Pink Saturday icon to the right, it will take you to her site and a whole lot of links to more pink.  Have fun!

 

My sewing machine got a workout today (not to mention the glue bottle)!  I have two more pages for Lenna's Quilt Book Workshop to share with you.  My book is Victorian in style, and the theme is Remembrances of a Young Woman.  If you'd like to learn how to make a mini art quilt book of your own, just click on the link and it will take you right to Lenna's education site.  I promise, you'll be glad you did!

 

Okay, now for the latest.  The left side of the spread is our young woman.  This one was fun to create.  The rolled up letter is a gel medium transfer onto muslin.  I had the perfect tattered paper rose to tie together with it.  I found the rhinestone clip at a local antique store in one of my weekend hunts.  There are many sites that you can download free photos and ephemera, such as The Graphics Fairy,  Art-E-Zine, and The Vintage Moth.  Dawn, over at The Feathered Nest also generously offers tons of vintage grahics, free for use in your artwork.

 

 

 

This is my favorite part.

 

 

For our young man, I wanted the page to be simpler and more masculine.  The photo is another gel medium transfer.  Isn't he a fox?  I printed the quote onto twill tape with my printer.  The fabrics came from our local thrift store, as did the vintage laces.

 

 

The buttons were antique store finds, and the postcard, calling card and ticket were free downloads that I shrunk down to fit my page.

 

 

Aren't they cute together?  In their day, they would have never been allowed to be in a room alone together.  That just wouldn't have been proper.  What a shame!  Of course, at some point, I'll have to create a wedding page.

 

You can see all the other pages from my book by clicking here and here.

Thanks for visiting!  Come back and see me soon.  I'll have plenty more to show you. 

 

Until next time,

Victorian Charm

I've been working hard at Lenna's quilt book workshop all week.  I finally learned to do a few things that I've never done before.  If you read my previous post, I shared a little about the workshop and included links to Lenna Young Andrew's blog and education page.  Here are the next pages for my quilt book!

 

This one has my first-ever  successful gel medium transfer.   I love the effect.  It looks more natural than direct printing.  I finally found a place to use one of the grungy old millinery flowers I pulled off an old hat.

 

 

Crazy quilts were a phenomenon of the Victorian era.  I just couldn't make a quilt book without one.  I printed the image onto cotton poplin.  The fabrics are all thrift store finds!

 

 

The last one I have to show you today is my favorite, so far.  It's a subject close to my heart...sisters.  I used plenty of vintage lace and buttons on this one!

 

 

This workshop has been the start of something wonderful for me.  It's caused me to make art in a more disciplined and purposeful way, and it has been loads of fun.  If you're looking for a way to connect with another artist who can help you draw out your creative muse, I enthusiasticly recommend acquainting yourself with Lenna.  Check out her blog and her classes.  I'm sure you'll enjoy them!  Take care until next time, and God bless you!