A Little Prim in my Home

I've been reluctant to post pics of my home because it's nothing like some of the primitive homes that I just adore. So here goes. The house we live in was my hubbies grandparents home which was built by them in the 1930's. One really cool thing, is that only family have lived in this house. We are the 5th family to do so. And another is when I was a kid, I used to draw pictures all the time of a house that looks very much like ours with a curvy sidewalk that runs from the house to the street. Every house I drew...curvy sidewalk was a must. Almost like I knew what house I was going to live in when I grew up. I know...I'm weird. LOL

The kitchen. I just took a loaf of bread out of the bread machine. hehe

Dining Area. Love the built in corner cabinets on either side of door. You can't see the one on the left.

Secretary Bookcase with curved glass door.

Big oak card catalog file. Got this many years ago at a flea market. Note the none prim lamp. :)

More Crocks

Parquet wooden floor in the entryway my father in law made. He cut each tiny piece of wood himself. And installed it like a puzzle. I treasure this the most in our house. He came from a family of wood craftsmen from Germany.

So that's a little bit of prim in my home. Hope you enjoyed it!

Fall Color Is Starting

Lately I've gotten addicted to a site called Pinterest. Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. Pinterest allows you to organize and share all the beautiful things you find on the web.

You can browse pinboards created by other people to discover new things and get inspiration from people who share your interests.

While looking around there you can find some amazing photos and ideas to decorate your home. I happened upon a photo which had a link to Country Living website on how to make crow silhouettes that you can print out on your printer! Loved the idea, so I thought I would give it a try. Click on this link--->Bird Silhouettes for the tutorial. The directions call for you to use static cling decal sheets that you get at Office Depot, which you can only get if you go to their store. Can't get them online. I tried to find them. So I ended up buying something similar to print the crows out on. I used a product called Clear Decals For Windows by Avery. And the only way I could find this was by ordering it through Amazon.com. These decals are a little different from the static cling ones. They are a little tacky on the back but they can be peeled off and stuck back on. The crow on the bottom left was a little large for this window. I just wanted to show you the three different crows you can print. I was amazed at how well they turned out!!

Just noticed yesterday that the leaves are turning here in NW Illinois. In about 2 or 3 weeks they will be at their peak. I have several mum plants and one is in full bloom right now.

And I harvested my so called "Apple Gourds" What a disappointment they turned out to be. I contacted the farm that I bought the apple gourd from last fall about what happened to them. I sent them photos and they seem to think that the seeds that I planted, from the apple gourd that I dried over this last winter, had been cross pollinated with a snake gourd when it was growing. The lengths of these gourds were 22", 20", 17" and 13". I have no idea what to do with these giants. Let me know if you have any ideas. So I will be trying again next year. Not sure what kind of gourds I will be growing then. I have all winter to think about that.

So that is what I've been up to lately beside orders. I've been trying to keep up. I really need to start saying no to some people. I don't have time to work on new projects! And I will get absolutely nothing done when my daughter comes back home for her 10 year high school class reunion with my 2 grandchildren the end of this week!

Make your own Fall Corn Husk Wreath

This is a little something that kept me busy today. I saw this idea on one of my favorite blogs, from Suzanne of Chickens in the Road Blog.

My wreath turned out looking a little different then hers. I made mine basically the same way as my twig wreath that I made a year ago.



Here are the things you need to get started.

Dried corn husks
heavy gauge wire or a wire coat hanger
twine
scissors

First you have to have dried corn husks. About a month ago after eating sweet corn, I saved the husks and dried them outside in the sun. That took a couple of weeks. This wreath was made with a dozen ears of corn husks. It probably could have used a few more husks, but that was all I had. This wreath is around 14" wide.

Gather up a few husks at a time and wrap your twinge around them a couple of times, pulling really tight. I tried to overlap the bottom end of the husks to cover up the tied section of the husk before that one.

Just keep overlaping as you go.

Finished! 

I just tied some rusty wire on the back and hung on my back door.

 I found this single black oil sunflower growing in my big pot that I have my prickly pear cactus growing in the other day. Those pesky chipmunks must have buried some seeds in there from my birdfeeders. They are always doing this in my potted plants. 

2012 New Nature Photo Calendar is Here!!!

For the last month I've been working on creating a calendar with all my nature photos. And I received my copy in the mail today, and have to say I'm very happy with the company that made it for me!! In the photo below is a shot I took of October which is my favortie of all the months.

If you would like to purchase a copy for yourself, just click on the grey colored link button at the top of my right hand colum that says, Buy Now Lulu <----Click here. The cost is $15.00 plus $3.99 shipping. Once you order it you will receive it in the mail within 4 or 5 working days.

Im getting ready for the Early Work Mercantile update for tonight!!! So be sure to stop back later at Early Work Mercantile to see what I have new for sale!!

Fall is Creeping Closer

Wow...Here it is September already. I'm a little sad. I'm never ready for the cold weather. Still working on orders and Halloween goodies! I finished up my bat garland banner yesterday and listed it in my etsy shop last night. I don't know about you but I think bats are so cute!

And I've also been working on little barn wood Halloween wall hangings. This is a newer one that I listed last week.

I'm still keeping busy with raising my Monarchs. I let my 3rd one go on Saturday. But he didn't make it. It emerged on Saturday morning. I tried to let it go early afternoon but he didn't seem ready to fly away because he flew into the side of the house. So I put him back in his jar and thought I would wait till later. Well... later it started raining pretty hard and it didn't let up before it got dark so I put him outside under one of my hosta's out of the rain. That was a bad idea. The next morning I checked and all that was left of him was one wing. Some little critter got him for sure.

Monarch #3

I have Monarch #4 in the chrysalis stage right now. It should be coming out in a few days. I also have a two eggs that will be hatching into caterpillars within the next couple of days.

This is just a shot I took riding in the car other day. I love clouds!

Ok...well that's about it for now folks. Need to get back to the old sewing machine.

New Primitive Goodies!

Gonna make this short tonight. I'm beat! Took advantage of the beautiful weather we had today and worked in my flower gardens and mowed the yard! I certainly got my exercise today! I used to mow all the time. I'm really out of shape. Then I finished up a couple of wall hangings that I made out of old barn wood a friend of mine gave me. Melanie was so nice to give me the wood when they were tearing down one of the barns on her farm. At the time I didn't know what I was going to do with it. I knew I could think of something. I just listed this two cute hangers in my etsy shop!

Then the last couple of days I've been getting some amazing shots of the hummers!

So darn cute!!!!!!!!

This one I just love! He was stretching and puffing up after he got soaked from a rainstorm we had earlier that day.

Oh and almost forgot! My Monarch butterfly came out of its chrysalis on Sunday!!! It was so neat to see it take its first flight. I was kind of sad and happy at the same time.

Here it is drying its wings

Another shot just before it took off. I wonder how it's doing out there in the big world.

I will have more butterflies emerging in about a week or so. I have 2 chrysalis's and 2 caterpillar's right now. Nature is a beautiful thing.

New Items on Early Work Mercantile!!

Can you believe that August is half way through already! Please.... Summer slow down. I'm getting ready to list some new fall goodies on Early Work Mercantile! Thought I would show you a little preview here! I will be listing these awesome pumpkins I made with a pattern by Tickled Primitive. Great fun to make!

The pattern comes with three different sizes. I only made the medium and small one. They are a pretty good size pumpkin.

Next I will be listing my favorite little ghost make do's, made with my own pattern.

And last item is this Witch Pumpkin and little spider friend make do that I just made up.

And I'm working on another Witch Moon Make Do to have finished, to list tomorrow night in my etsy shop.

So I've been busy making these items along with several orders. And taking care of my flower gardens and raising monarch butterflies from caterpillars that I find on my milkweed plants. I have one caterpillar that just turned into a chrysalis on Friday. So it will be 2 weeks before it transforms into a butterfly.

Here is the Mama

Here's the caterpillar right after I found it. It was about a half inch long.

And this is it 5 days later!!! Amazing isn't it!

And here it is 4 days after the last picture! It's in it's chrysalis stage. It will stay like that for 2 weeks before the butterfly emerges!

 Isn't it gorgeous! You should see it in person. The metallic gold on it is amazing! It's hanging from the inside of a big glass antique jar that I have. I took the lid off to take a picture. I also have another jar with another caterpillar that is about a 1/2" right now. So I have to feed it everyday with fresh milkweed leaves.

And I got some amazingly funny pics the other day of a couple of young squirrels playing around in our backyard. I just started snapping pictures as they played and got some crazy pics of them!

They look like they are dancing!

And this one really cracks me up! Looks like he is laying back and laughing!

And this one is "Tag Your It!"

They played none stop for quite awhile. So fun to watch!

And the goldfinches are loving my Zinnia's right along with all the butterflies and bees.

And every morning this baby robin and it's parents are out when I am watering my flowers.

Well I believe that's about it for now. Have a wonderful Sunday evening!

The Great Outdoors

August already!! Where has the summer gone. I am not looking forward to winter. I think we are finally going to get a little cooler weather soon. Yesterday was just terrible. It was in the 90's with heat index, I think of 112º. The humidity was so bad it seemed like it was hard to breath. I'm really trying to get my orders done. I worked on one all day today, should have it done tonight. Also made a turtle for a fundraiser we are going to next week. I used a pattern by Crows Roost Prims. I just love the way my turtle turned out. 

I don't know if any of you heard about a guy that goes up and down the Mississippi river cleaning up all the garbage that people throw in the river. His name is Chad Pregracke and he is from our area. He has been on the national news several times. He started cleaning up the river when he was just a kid and now it's this huge non profit organization.  Once a year they have a big barge party where they serve up a Fish Fry and Shrimp Boil Dinner along with live music and a art auction. So I'm donating my sea turtle. Should be lots of fun!

I had someone on facebook suggest I make a calendar with all my wonderful flower and bird photos. So I have that in the works right now. It's going to take me awhile to gather up and edit my pictures. So watch for my calendar sometime in the late fall. I'll post on here, where and how to buy it! I'm really excited!

So with that here are a few photos from this week that may be in my calendar!!!

New Guinea Impatiens

Swallowtail Butterfly on my Zinnia's

Swallowtail

Mr. Bumble Bee loving the Zinnia's

Another shot of a Swallowtail.

Monarch Butterfly that I got a shot of on Sunday. It was flying around my milkweed plants laying eggs.

And then today I found this newly hatched monarch caterpillar while I was pulling weeds around my milkweed plants!!! I'm so excited! I could not believe how tiny he was. He was about a 1/2" long. I'm going to try to keep track of him. Can't decide if I should bring him in and watch him transform. My daughter did that one year in high school, for her science class and it was the most amazing thing to watch it turn in to a beautiful butterfly.

And here is a sweet hummer that I was able to get a shot of this morning!

That's all for now folks.