The Gypsy Wagon

I made a beadboard sign for a dear friend of mine, and she posted about it on her blog! Isn’t this the most amazing chicken coop you’ve ever seen?? And it’s CUTE! Who knew chicken coops could be cute??

Thanks, Rachel!

FAMILY TROUBLES !!!! ..........

Things don't always run smoothly in families do they ? All is obviously not well with our grandson.........he is unemployed, sleeps all day and, his mother just tires herself out, feeding him, washing his clothes and pandering to his every whim. The last straw came when our daughter-in-law sent us this photograph of him and said that he has put on his hoodie and is ready to riot ..........

          Just what is happening to the younger generation ?!! 

Link Party No. 67! / Monaluna Fat Quater Bundle Giveaway Winner

Hi everyone, the link party is back! Since my three children are ALL in school full time, I thought I am going to have a set schedule and be able to work on my projects.... well, I am not there yet. Seems like there is always something that needs to be taken care of or places to go. I actually haven't had that much time at home so far.



I am really looking forward to start cleaning and de-clutter the house. Ahh... I am dreaming of clean and organized space. I know once it is all done, I can work more effectively. Right now, all the fabrics are scattered all over the place and it is hard to find the ones that I am looking for. I bought this special display shelf (the kind that spins) at Border’s store closing sale. I am filling it with fabrics and it is so awesome! I am often squealing with joy while I am filling the shelf and spinning it. I am also keep bugging my husband saying; "Look, look, isn't this SO amazing!?"



Of course I know he couldn’t care less, but being a supportive hubby he usually says, "yeah, that is awesome" or "I am glad you found that" but because I bug him so much that the answers have become "u-huh" or just a glance and nod (oh, wait I think I do that to my kids sometimes).



Well, in case you are wondering what I have been up to, that is part of it... (BIG grin on my face)



I have been planning something special for you, yes, my beloved friends!

September 20th is my 3rd blogaversary, and I am going to do a month long giveaway. At the beginning of each week I will post a giveaway item and announce the winner at the end of the week. How does that sound? Isn't it so fun? I am still trying to decide on a few details, but stop by sometime to make sure so you won't miss the giveaways!



As you have been reading this post you might be thinking "when is she going to announce the winner for the giveaway?" Sorry, I dragged enough... the winner is...



jamie (The Pinterest Project)



Congratulations!! Please email me with your shipping info, so I can send you the amazingly pretty Monaluna fabrics to you. Enjoy!



OK, are you ready to link and share your fabulous projects?



1. Please post something YOU made. It doesn't matter if it is crochet, quilt, clothing, anything would be fine. I want to see it! If you use someone's idea or patterns please give them the rightful credit.



2. Link to your specific post, that way it is easier for everybody to find and read it.



3. Please grab the "Tea Rose Home" grab button, and link back from your post. If you can mention the party in your post or place the button on your side bar, that would be great! I want more people to have a chance to come and show off their creation.





<center><a href="http://tearosehome.blogspot.com"><img border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5462799092490427250" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 126px; height: 160px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuoA01dPDcxCv9Ku09VYtszSXA0_T7FXqIzGCrwEgkVFc0iH6Odrctb37Xnb2X1S-la8wBXHBzIAuYLRqt-QdLdVoVbXgOK8JmMJuJJddy66mk2pygB_tIigOtSDA50N0l7LEbzg3Ii-M/s200/GrabButtonLinkParty.jpg" /></a></center>

Restitution

Have you ever screwed up? I mean, really screwed up…on something that didn’t belong to you?

It’s one thing when a project of your own goes south. That’s bound to happen once in a while, and it’s no fun…but what about when it happens on a project that belongs to someone else?

Well, those are the days when you just wish you never got out of bed!

You can see where this is going, right?

All I was supposed to do was a simple refinish job on a table top while my friend was between houses. There weren’t even any legs to worry about. She just wanted to resuscitate her hand-me-down table and give it a few more years until they could afford a new one. Easy enough….so easy, in fact, that I called in one of my handy-dandy short helpers in to do some sanding for me!

Remember this guy with the mischievous smile?

Turns out he could have used a little more supervision on the sanding process, ‘cause this is what we ended up with:

Let’s look a little more closely, shall we??

Yep. All those arrows point to spots where he sanded right through the veneer into the plywood base. Ack!

We all know it wasn’t a great piece of furniture...

…but it wasn’t MY furniture to wreck!

It wasn’t fun for my boy or me to confess our mutual misdeed to my friend, although you couldn’t have asked for a more understanding listener. Since these weren’t the types of flaws one can hide on a stained table-top, I could only feel better about offering to replace the table. Strictly to ease my conscience (and trust me, it was a battle), my friend agreed to accept this table that I had waiting in my garage “in trade.”

It’s solid oak, and I liked the legs! Plus, it has a leaf.

(You can see I already had sanded the table top in this picture.)

After looking at some pictures of other tables I have refinished, my friend chose a lightly-distressed black base and a dark stained top (like this one).

Her new house has dark, reddish-brown wood floors, so I tried to give the wood top that tone, by using alternating layers of English Chestnut and Antique Walnut stain—two each.

I finished the table with four coats of Varathane, to keep up with her young family.

So that’s the story behind the table “Resitution.”

It went to its new home last night!

And now my conscience can rest!

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Linking up here!

Blog Swap/ Some What Simple

A few month ago, I was contacted by Tara from Dating Divas (their blog is full of ideas of how to strengthen marriages in many different ways. Also, they love to incorporate some crafty ideas to bring romance into marriages, how fun is that!).



She wanted to host a blog swap among some bloggers from now through December. I was paired up with Stephanie from Some What Simplethis month. Her blog is filled with fun and fresh ideas, if you haven't visited her blog in the past; please do so. She is here today to share One of her fun ideas!

Hi everyone! I’m Stephanie from Somewhat Simple and I am excited to be here today to share with you a fun date idea as part of the huge blog swap organized by The Dating Divas.

 

In 2008 my husband and I were HORRIBLE at making time to spend together just the 2 of us, so I came up with the idea to pre-plan a date night for every month in 2009. I chose dates we probably would not have chosen to do had we decided on the fly to go out, which is usually what we did. Things like going to a comedy club or miniature golfing- all fun activities, but not something we ever made plans to do.

 

I wrote a cute little poem for each date idea and assigned each idea to one month out of the year. Then I made this gift into a book, 1 page for each month, and I gave it to my husband for Christmas.

 

Feel free to copy any or all of these and give them to your special someone this year for Christmas. Maybe it will spark your creativity enough for you to come up with some of your own as well!

 

Enjoy!

Thank you Stephanie for visiting us, it was so nice to have you!

First Blackberry Harvest

We enjoyed our first blackberries from the berry garden this past weekend. 

To say that I was ecstatic would be an understatement.

My sweet Graham joined me for this festive occasion, although we only picked a few berries together before he started grabbing fistfuls of vines and leaves (with a readied open mouth).

His fingers touched their first blackberry and it was a marvelous wonder to watch. xo

There were enough ripe berries that morning to serve with our breakfast -

mmm mmm, so sweet.

I also picked the very last of our blueberries. 

A colander of sweet summer berries made my heart sing.

We enjoyed our fresh picked berries over whole wheat pancakes. It has become our weekend tradition for Mike to make us pancakes on both Saturday and Sunday mornings. 

He makes them mostly for me, I'll admit it. Although I do know that he enjoys them, it is mostly I who think it's perfectly acceptable to have them two mornings in a row... 

Although sometimes, I go out on a limb and request french toast...I know, I'm unpredictable. 

Pure organic maple syrup completes our weekend breakfast tradition.

xo 

Hey, I Thought I will Let You Know

I had an opportunity to get together with a bunch of wonderful women this weekend (and it was an overnighter!). After a very nice meal, we sat around and talked for a long time, it was really fun and liberating at the same time.



We girls need girl time, don't you agree? Mr. Tea Rose Home and I have a very close relationship and we talk to each other all the time. (well...sometimes we both want to talk so much that we might need to learn to be better listeners), but some how I still need to talk to other women. I read it somewhere that women say an average of 20,000 words a day and men only 7,000. I kind of believe that. :)



I guess as women, most of us love to talk, exchange ideas, connect and support each other. I am not a super social person, but I still like to get together with friends every now and then when my schedule allows. Also blogging is a perfect outlet for that too. growing up, well, after I was all grown too, I try to keep a journal. Every once in a while I will start a new one, and never go past three weeks. Although, I am happy to say that it has been almost THREE YEARS since I have started blogging.



I think the secret is I feel like I am talking to someone through blogging. I will receive comments and feedback, and they motivate me to keep posting.



The "Dear diary..." doesn't cut it for me. The diary doesn't talk back to me.



So, friends, I thought I would tell you... THANK YOU for coming back to visit me often. I really appreciate it.



I had a really busy day, and I don't have pictures to share or anything, but I wanted to tell you that before I drag myself off to bed. :)



I will see you soon in my next post.



Note: Don't forget to enter Monaluna's giveaway, the contest ends soon!

Happy Birthday to ME! (and a giveaway for YOU!)

That’s right! On this day, 38 years ago, a 10-pound baby girl was born, and she turned out to be…ME!

This morning my six children awakened me by singing “Happy Birthday,” delivering this to my bed:

(Sorry…I kind of started eating before I thought to take a picture!)

The flowers are from our neighbor’s yard (she said we could)…the bubble bread was made by my oldest daughter…she’s also the one who figured out how to fold the napkin from a YouTube video…my second son made the eggs with cheese and ham…and they all sang!

The only fly in my ointment is that I still don’t feel well. I’m sick of being sick. I don’t get sick very often…but on my birthday? That’s kind of lousy!

But you know what will make me feel better? I want to share the love a little bit. So I’m giving away another custom beadboard sign to one lucky reader.

The last winner chose this sign:

Or you can choose something like one of these:

Or you can choose something out of your imagination! You can choose the saying, the colors, distressed or not, vertical or horizontal…I’m flexible!

To enter this giveaway, just leave a comment telling me one of your favorite birthday memories.

Winner will be selected at random on Saturday, September 3.

Please leave an e-mail address if you don’t have one attached to your profile. Better yet…please attach an e-mail address to your profile!

I will not be responding to every comment...but I will read them all!

Thanks for sharing your memories with me!

Plugging away

It may seem as if my furniture projects have ground to a halt lately, but that’s not exactly true! There are actually a few I’ve been working on, but for various reasons they aren’t quite ready to show off yet. I have slowed down, though—while most of the summer has been unusually mild, the last couple of weeks have been unseasonably HOT! Blechh. I don’t like to sweat! Then I managed to catch a summer cold (that’s got to be an oxymoron), so I’m moving slowly.

One project that went home to a new owner this week was this little table. I’m not certain when this finish was wildly popular, but it wasn’t that long ago!

The owner wanted the dark-top-white-bottom look instead, and I was happy to oblige.

The top was stained with Minwax Antique Walnut stain (3 coats). The base is Behr Ultra paint (color-matched to Sherwin-Williams Creamy), and it is glazed with Minwax Jacobean stain mixed with Martha Stewart glaze.

I really did intend to “stage” the table and take prettier pictures! It turned out getting my hair highlighted (a first for me) took much longer than I anticipated, so there wasn’t time before the owner came to get the table!

So just a couple of shots in my mostly-bare front room.

Thank you

to all of you who have offered constructive ideas for what to do with that bare room! I do think I’m going to attempt the “library-feel” one more time. It probably wasn’t clear that my front door really does open directly into this room—there’s no entry way, and no way to section it off, so a craft room or game room is not an option for me. And I’m afraid knocking out the wall between the front room and our main living area is out of the question—it’s a load-bearing wall, and my construction-minded friends tell me I don’t want to go there!

A couple of you reminded me of the beautiful tiny library space at Maillardville Manor:

…sigh…

I love it. I think this is the kind of look I want to create! I envision the low bookcases and two comfortable chairs on the wall opposite the front door. Next to the front door is the one and only window in the room, and I think a squashy loveseat would be nice there, facing the chairs.

So to begin with, I am scouring the classifieds for a loveseat and chairs! Wish me luck!

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Linking up here.

New Patio Table and Chairs

We have been enjoying our new patio table and chairs this summer, which provide much-needed space and are extra comfortable as well.

Here's the story of our dining patio.

My search began in early spring. Since I couldn't really get out to shop very easily with the babies, I was limited to online resources. 

I wanted the table and chairs to match the style of our house but wasn't able to find a set that was old-fashioned and had character. So I decided to mix and match. 

For the table, I ended up ordering a maple base kit that Mike assembled (the company recommended maple for outdoor use). The table seats six. All that remained was to add some simple cedar planks (cedar is most weather resistant) to complete the surface of the table. We stained the table with a platinum gray solid-body exterior stain from Benjamin Moore. Although the paint itself is different, we used the same platinum gray color on our wraparound porch floor.

It was a challenge to find white outdoor wicker chairs (in our price range). I looked online until my eyes were crossed and then my lovely friend Joan (For the Love of a House) suggested these chairs from Pier 1 Imports. They were exactly what I was looking for - not too bulky, nice lines, weather resistant, and affordable. I bought six. 

For the cushions (another lengthy search), I found these at Home Decorators Club.  I chose the color cilantro. 

We also added some new plantings to the patio. To complement the Limelight hydrangea, we replaced the lavender plants that were next to the stairs with these Little Lime hydrangea. It is a new variety of Limelight that I found at the nursery last spring. 

They offer a nice, compact version of the larger Limelight variety.

The regular Limelight blossoms can get as large as footballs. These larger blossoms are in the sunniest area of the patio.

We have one bowl of blueberries left to be picked in our berry garden, which is next to the picket fence. It has been nice to have fresh berries just a few steps off the patio. I asked our dog Lucy to look after the blackberries we planted at the end of the fence line to prevent any future raids from our local deer. ; ) 

In addition to the last of the blueberries, we have these to enjoy. 

I picked up 20 pounds of organic peaches last week, the latest summer treat in the County.

Monaluna Fat Quarter Bundle Giveaway!

Yeap, you read it right, I am hosting a giveaway for monaluna today!! Not only that, she agreed to do an interview with me for my readers. I know she is one busy person, thank you so much for your generosity Jennifer!



Before we start, let me tell you a little bit about her and her design...



Back in May I was at an International Quilt Market and met so many designers that I admire... Can you picture me being so happy and overwhelmed at the same time? Anyways, back in to the main subject... all of them that I talk to are so nice. One of the people that left an impression on me is Jennifer.





She is the talented designer and owner of monaluna. After the market we did some emailing back and forth and she has been so nice and sweet, I have this feeling anyone who meets her will want to become friends with her.



Her design is modern and fresh. I love her color pallet and hint of nature in the design. My favorite collections are;

marin



and monaco





I wish I had a little baby boy at home, so I can use fabrics from Monaco to make a special quilt for him. They are just so adorable!



Are you ready to get to know Jennifer? Here is the fun part!



1. Have you been sewing and designing for a long time? When did you decide to become a textile designer?



I have been sewing for a long time, though I had a bit of a rough start with it. I loved hand sewing as a kid, but my first few attempts at machine sewing were really frustrating and I swore off it for years. Then, I decided to sew some pillows for my apartment, and I fell in love with being able to create unique designs for myself. After that, I tried all kinds of things, with varying levels of success. A couple years ago, I even sewed my own wedding dress, using 26 yards of dupioni silk – quite a project!



As for textile design, that happened almost by accident. I had worked in various aspects of design, including surface design for children’s clothing, and I’d also done a fair amount of artwork for print houses, which supply the artwork for apparel and accessories companies. In 2007 I was working as a freelance designer when things really started to slow down. With time on my hands and a number of sewing projects in my head, I started to think about using some of my prints for textiles. I got in touch with a number of fabric companies, and was able to license a number of my designs to Robert Kaufman Fabrics.



After designing several successful collections for Robert Kaufman, I felt determined to pursue my long-time goal of printing my designs on organic cotton. I had missed being involved in the whole product development process, and after a lot of thought and consideration, I decided to branch out on my own and start my organic fabric business.



2. Work and family life, how do you manage them all? Is there any secret you would like to share?



Ah, it’s a constant struggle! Some days, it doesn’t seem like I’m managing at all. My first collection of fabrics arrived about 3 weeks after my daughter was born, so the last year has been full of some steep learning curves. There was this beautiful time until she was 7 months old where she wasn’t moving around much, and I actually felt like I could really work and watch her at the same time. Now that she’s crawling and walking, all bets are off. It’s probably time to get childcare and really focus on the business, but I’ve been enjoying getting to spend this time with her. If there’s one secret, I would say it’s to do work that you really enjoy. That way, you resent it less when you’re up at midnight finishing something you didn’t get to that afternoon. I almost always look forward to my work, and that’s a wonderful feeling.



3. Where do you get inspirations for your design?



All over! I feel most inspired by nature, and my favorite way of inspiring myself is to go for a long walk or hike and really LOOK at things. There’s so much that we don’t see in our everyday life, and I like to be able to really focus and notice the patterns and beauty around me. One of the best ways for me to do this is to travel to new places. When I’m out of my usual environment, whether it’s another country, another city or just a new hiking trail, I notice my surroundings more keenly and clearly than I do at home. Even the smells and the light and sounds of a new place are clearer and special.



4. What is the most exciting thing that has happened to you since you started your company?



Well, it’s always very exciting when new shipments of fabric come in, but I think my favorite thing is seeing how the fabric is used by other designers and sewists. I love seeing the things that etsy designers have made, or when people send me photos of things they’ve sewn with the fabric. I also really love shipping it out to other countries. Last Friday, I shipped fabric to Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK and Australia, and I prepared fabric swatches to send to Chile. If I can’t travel to those places right now, at least my fabric can!



5. Where do you think you and your business will be 10 years from now?



That’s a very good question! The usual idea is that you want to grow and expand, but I really love the size of my business right now. I am able to have a connection with my customers, and it feels really personal. I know it needs to grow, but I think it will be gradual. I would love to use my prints on different products, like stationery or wall art, but for now I’m still getting the hang of fabric. It will be very interesting to see where the organic market is in 10 years – I hope by that time it’s more the norm than the exception!



6. What are your favorite activities when you have any free time (if you have any at all!)?



Lately, I haven’t had much of what I think of as “free time”, but when I’m not working, I’ve been landscaping the yard of the 100-year-old house that my husband and I bought a year and a half ago. I love to garden, and have always wanted a big yard to work on, but now I’m realizing just how much work it can be! I’m hoping to build a chicken coop in the next couple of weeks – I’ve been wanting to get chickens for years, and now I finally can! I also really love to hike, dance, cook, entertain… but admittedly haven’t been doing as much of that as I’d like this past year.



7. Do you have a favorite quote to live by?



I have a friend who uses the Gandhi quote “You must be the change you wish to see in this world” as her signature. This one always rings true to me, and I really like the sentiment.



As I read the interview answers, I became a bigger fan of her and her creations. Again, thank you so much for your inspirations Jennifer. I hope you enjoy the interview too. :)



Here are the giveaway rules;



1. Visit her shop first and come back here to let me know which one was your most favorite collection. (1st entry)



2. Become a follower on my main page. (2nd entry)



3. Blog about this giveaway, tweet, become fan on Facebook. (3rd entry)



I will run the giveaway until midnight of the 30th and post the winner on 31st.

Good luck!