Sweet ReTreats: found object souvenirs

My Sweet ReTreats column in the Winter Issue (III) of FOLK Magazine

features a few simple ideas for creating souvenirs... instead of buying them.

I've found that picking up special items and elements of nature while traveling

allows me to keep the memories close by every day -

and since I choose things that express my own style as well as their location,

they look great in my home. 

You can't exactly say that about a snow globe or most souvenir tee shirts. ;0)

I'm a beachcomber - I love the bling, what can I say?!
Collecting seaglass/beachglass is allowed even in protected marine areas.
(It's not organic material!)
I gather and then place it into small glass apothecary jars.
Each jar gets a handwritten tag, with the date and location of my trips.

 I have bottles of sand, shells, and glass from twenty one beaches in the world!
 One I can't wait to get? Ireland. ;0)

  I've always made 'found object nests' on vacation.

As I walk the beach or forest or park,

I grab some grasses, vines, thin branches and twist or weave them into a nest.

Then add in bits of flotsam & jetsam, detritus, things that you can pick up anywhere.

Feathers, corks, shells, rocks, moss, leaves, berries... anything works!

Yes, that IS a rubber ball. 

You'll find more ideas in my column in FOLK magazine 

(I can't give it ALL away here!) 

Coming in March for FOLK's Issue IV - Spring:

Garden-fresh entertaining ideas and more of my gardenhouse refurb!

You can subscribe to FOLK magazine here
And you can follow my FOLK & Deb Kennedy pinboard here

Meanwhile, I really need to finish my column for Issue V - Summer.

Deadline's coming!

And FOLK's going onto NATIONAL news stands in May...That's the Big Time.

Saying Adieu for Awhile

I posted about a month ago that there may be times when I can share what's going on with me on this very strange and demanding journey. And I added that in those times when I simply can't put into words the emotions and situations I am dealing with, I'll share pretty pictures.

I'm kind of in the middle right now....

so I hope you will enjoy these pretty pictures. 

They are of my current living room, in the little Seattle house we moved into in December. While moving off the farm on Camano and out of the house of my dreams was hard, I wanted to create a little haven here in this place - to rest, to recover, to regroup in. 

That's not what's been happening.

Everything you see in these photos has now been sold. Along with almost everything else we own. We have cancelled the antique show we host, closed the business, and are divesting ourselves of 32 years of possessions. A few things will go into storage, and then we are going out of state. My husband's parents need him, and so everything here is coming to an end. I'm saying goodbye to what little is left of my entire life this month, along with two daughters and two little grandsons who live nearby. The financial mess we are in necessitates our selling off possessions to get enough money to pay our bills and then take the trip. It ain't pretty.

I won't be posting here until the move is over and I've had time to rest in our new location... we'll be staying with family indefinitely. I don't know if or when I will ever have a home of my own to live in and love and decorate again, quite honestly. I am giving up on my oh-so-close lifelong dream of having my home appear in a magazine. I know we will not be creating or selling anything or hosting shows in the vintage industry anymore. We will not have our own business anymore. I'm staying off of Pinterest right now, just because it is SO terribly painful to see such beautiful rooms and homes, decor and furnishings, when I am having to let go of all of the beautiful things I have worked hard to surround myself with.

But here's the blessing: many of my sweet friends now own those things, and will give them love and a special place in their homes. That makes me feel really good! 

Everything about my life is changing. Many challenges and decisions face us, face me, in the coming months, and I am praying for grace and strength to make it through the final stretch of this long, long road I have been on for years. I am grateful for your friendship along the way, and that God has never abandoned me... I will see you soon, friends.

May the road rise up to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
May the rains fall soft upon your fields,
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.

-Irish Blessing

february = love

 

During this month devoted to the recognition of love,

I am focusing on the remarkable love that God has for us.

As life changes for me yet again,

I am resting in the knowledge that He's there by my side, 

holding and protecting my heart 

just as He protects tender flower buds in the frost

so they can bloom in the sunshine...

Peaceful

I wish you a peaceful day....

My sweet friend Kim sent me a cd of music, 

including this song.

Kim said in a note that when she hears it, she thinks of me.

And that music touches her profoundly, 

so she thought that it might do the same for me.

She was right.

When we were little girls, Kim and I, and our friend Nancy,

used to sing together at church.

So many happy memories.

Thank you, sweet friend, for your love.

Music has always been a part of our friendship...

touching our hearts, and others.

I hope this song reaches your heart, 

if you are in need of comfort and encouragement right now...

{Kim has a great blog, too... pop over for a visit!}

The Master Artist

Once in awhile, God reminds me that He is the ultimate artist...

On days like today, when the snow falls softly and silently from above,

dusting spindly bare branches with glitter

 and covering the Earth in a fuzzy felted blanket,

 He touches everything with His brush and transforms it

using only one color.

I shared my winter garden images over on the FOLK magazine blog, too....

My Best Junk Project of 2011: Funky Junk's Linky Party!

  So, Miss Donna over at Funky Junk Interiors is hosting a linky party... 

featuring Your Best Junk Project of 2011.

REALLY? Well..... ok.... I can do this.....

Donna throws down a gauntlet, Deb's gotta' take it up!

My best junk find of last year was discovered when we moved in December. 

It was sitting in the middle of my new (rented) backyard.

A little gardenhouse, built from reclaimed materials by the home's owner,

has been rather neglected over the past few years. 

So, me being me, I made it my project and rehabbed it.

In a weekend. ;0)

And then I filled it with a ton of my existing vintage & junk finds.

It started out like this:

Kind of forlorn and overwhelmed with stuff. 

(wow, that sounds like where I was at during the move... ok, enough of that...)

I emptied it, swept it out, and then commenced with the prettifying.

 First came a whitewash. All over everything! 

Walls, beams, doors, floor.

Then I culled through a bunch of stuff ('Cause I have  BUNCH of STUFF, people)

I did not buy ANYTHING NEW for this project, girls! I already had it ALL.

I decided what was going inside to make this a workable 

garden house/photo studio/writers' retreat for me.

The enamel sink I've been haulin' all over for years was a no-brainer. Finding one large and two medium crates to hold it up wasn't hard, either. A pegrack made from old wood and some ceramic insulator knobs (for electric fences) hangs over it and holds buckets. Eventually, I'll hook up a hose bib for running water to the sink, and it will drain into the pail below.

The folding white chair is a prop that I uncovered in a huge dumpster at Molbak's Garden + Home when I worked there as a display stylist years ago., I've used that poor broken baby in more displays than I can remember... and now, she holds my plethora of pots quite charmingly. I used a vintage commercial bread pan on the floor to hold rows of small pots, and a vintage commercial muffin top tin up on the chair arms to hold more pots.

Then I hauled in an old enamel-top table. Perfect working surface for potting plants, making wreaths, and works FABulously in photo setups. Behind the table is a loooooong wooden bench - that was already here in the gardenhouse. Over the window is another pegrack (today I hung a huge lace tablecloth on that to block the ugly view into the neighbor's yard).

 I hung a vintage metal cabinet and an old metal light fixture. 

 Then I hung my sweet vintage floral chandelier up high. 

I also added a heater. It's freakin' FREEZING here in Seattle right now!!!

 Then I foofed and primped and fussed, and when it was all done, I was just thrilled.  

I did a photo shoot out there this week for 

my Sweet ReTreats column  in the Spring issue of FOLK Magazine, 

and I am utterly beside myself with the way light bounces through this space. O JOY!

Dare I say it's even BETTER than the light was in my old dining room? ;0)

It's going to be a really fun 'lab' where I can play and try out 

all kinds of seasonal decorating ideas for my designs and articles.

I just have to add:

Wow. Thanks, Lord! I am awestruck by this.

In the midst of losing everything, God gave me this gift...

something I've wanted for a really long time. <3

So, there you have it.... my Best Junk Find of 2011: My Gardenhouse. 

Thank you ever so much for stopping by my crazy lil' blog!

Come back any time!

GROW!

OK, I originally wrote this post way back in 2010. 

Discovered it tonight and thought 'YEP, that's SO true'.

So, I'm sharing this one again ;0)

Sometime last spring.... May, I think... the rain subsided and the weeds they began to GROW. It was rather frightening how fast some areas were overtaken by them. So Bob got out his trusty weedeater and edger, and hacked them to bits. Then he doused the areas with heavy-duty weed killer (I know, I know.....) to keep them from coming back. They didn't.

Well.... except this ONE.

I found it unfurling underneath the raised metal firepit about a month ago, just a scraggly little vine starting to wind around one of the legs. Two days later it was ginormous. It was then that I realized that it wasn't a weed at all, but a Clematis 'Evergreen' vine - a hardy vining plant that tends to do quite well here in the Northwest. We had never seen it there before, not even last summer when we first found our house. I dug the rootball up (it was really huge), split it down, and transplanted the thing into my rear patio windowbox. The window is in the laundry room and overlooks the back deck, and gets morning & afternoon sun. I thought it would be a perfect place to watch her grow.

It's been growing like gangbusters for the past month and looks so pretty there. A few days ago, this amazing blossom appeared. White. Ok, I have to tell you that it's pretty much a miracle plant because of it's story, but that white flower is the cherry on top. Nothing planted on this property is white. Nothing. It's all garish orange day lilies and bright red roses and pink & yellow blooming trees and purple heather. All SO not what I would choose. No white, no where, no how. And Deb does love white flowers.... so the appearance of this beauty really made me smile.

And then I started to think about this little plant...I was meant to find her. 

She was meant to survive. 

And suddenly, it became about more than a plant....

It's OK if we go unnoticed, and if we aren't located in the best, most spectacular place. 

It's OK if we get hacked down, and then doused with hard stuff that tries to kill us off, 

or at least keep us from getting where we are trying to go. 

It's OK if we spend a long time developing deep roots to support us, 

and it's OK if the visible parts of us are nothing special.
Really. It's OK.
Because we are survivors. 

One grand day, the sun is gonna' shine on us, and we are going to grow leaps and bounds and start spreading out all over the place. And we're going to get noticed. And we'll end up in a location with a spotlight on us, right up at eye level, where our vision and destiny and worth will be evident. TO US. And in that setting, in that perfect place, we will blossom. And time will stand still while our blossom unfurls and spreads beauty to all who encounter it. And our story will encourage and inspire others to just.hang.in.there. until the sun does shine.

(I really love that 'sun shining' part!)

I don't know where you are right now. I know where I am. I've been hanging in there, and the sun is beginning to break through the clouds. It's almost time. Look at that photo of the blossom, and know that your time is coming - you are about to bloom into the fullness of all that you are meant to be. Wiggle your toes in that dirt and throw your leaves open wide, and get ready to soak it all in. And grow into everything that you have been destined to become since you were a tiny little seed, struggling just to exist. 

We can do this. We're Survivors.

Disney Dizzy

 Today I saw the commercial for Disney's Beauty and the Beast 3-D film,
and as I looked at the Animated Belle,
I realized that there is a real-life actress that looks a LOT like her.

And now I have this BIZARRE thing running through my head:

If central casting were looking for real starlets to play the Princesses in 2012, 

who would they choose???

Here's who I  would choose...

some are just really obvious to me. 

One is spot-on, drop-dead PERFECT

(and ABC knows it)

One isn't really a starlet, but what the heck.

And one... well... forgive me.

I couldn't HELP myself.

What can I say, I'm weird.

{And if I could BE a Disney Princess, it'd be Cinderella.

My sister almost WAS Cinderella at Disneyland, lucky girl!}

Which Disney Princess would YOU be?

Or who do you think makes a better Princess than my choices?

Remarkable

I finally have my Word for the Year

I've been considering a few, mulling them over, waiting to see which one really resonated with my soul.

As I shared a status update about that today on facebook, saying that I've recently had some rather remarkable revelations, I was still considering those words. When a friend commented that she couldn't wait to see all of the remarkable things I'd do in 2012, a little light bulb went on over my head and the thought came to me that perhaps REMARKABLE was my word.

I think it chose ME.

2012 will be Remarkable because I am here to see it unfold.

2012 will be Remarkable because of the endings, beginnings, 

and continuations of good things in my life. 

2012 will be Remarkable because I expect it to be!

I am looking forward to the Remarkable opportunities and possibilities that I can't even see yet.

To dreams I haven't even dreamed yet.

I am looking forward to the Remarkable things I will learn, experience, and become this year.

To see how life can be so different than I had planned, and had thought it would be...

and to see how GOOD that can be when I let God handle it all.

That's pretty Remarkable.

Do you have a Word for the Year?

How did you choose it - or, did IT choose YOU?