Ready for Fall Weather! How about You?

Hello everyone!

I am getting excited because this weekend, we are supposed to have super nice weather. It has been hot and humid, and it is supposed to drop several degrees by Saturday. I am hoping it will feel like fall outside!

How is the weather where all of you are at?

This weekend should be perfect for completing some projects as well as taking pictures with my new camera. I purchased my first ever DSLR camera last week and have fallen in love. I am still learning how to use it, and it is coming along slowly but surely. Here are some shots I have gotten so far!

Like I said, still learning how to use this thing. :) 

As for Blue Cottage Creations, I worked on several farmhouse hand towels for the fall season coming up this past weekend. 

& my husband came up with this idea and brought it to life all by himself (Proud wife moment!)

I just love this shelf so much, I am tempted to keep it for myself. It can be a floating shelf or a sitting shelf! 

I know that this has been a fairly picture heavy post, so I hope you enjoyed! Hopefully I will be getting some projects accomplished this weekend and can share them with you all!

Happy Wednesday!

I am Back!

I know that it is very likely that I have lost the few readers that I worked so hard to gain when I first started my blog... I am aware that in order to maintain and grow your blog you have to be consistent, and I have been far far from consistent... in fact, I have been MIA for a while. I never intended to leave my blog and readers hanging for this long, but life got very busy, and very crazy, very fast!

Going back to around the time of my last blog entry, we had started our "Blue Cottage Creation" business. Which took off quickly. We got so busy, I was staying up late working on custom orders plus preparing for the big spring market.

The spring market was a great success for us.

After the spring market, we set up a weekend or two later at a farmers market and had decent success there as well. Blue Cottage Creations kept us busy. But what else kept us busy?

A new puppy.

A what?

Yes, you heard us right.

We are officially crazy dog people.

We now have three dogs.

What is that long, chubby, short legged, big eared, cute little thing? 

Yes, you guessed it... 

it is a Corgi. 

My husband convinced me to agree to get another dog to be "Jack's" (Our lab) friend, since my Shih tzu is not Jack's biggest fan. We both knew we wanted a herding breed, but I wanted something small-medium sized, nothing too big... and fell in love with this little thing here! We named her Kaya (Pronounced "Ky-yah", not "Kay-Ya"). 

She is the sweetest, happiest, spunkiest, most energetic, funniest little thing I ever did see. When we first brought her home, Payslie (My Shih Tzu) was extremely jealous. Now they are the best of friends! 

After we got Kaya, we kind of slowed down our business a little bit. Back in May, my pawpaw passed away unexpectedly, which took a big toll on my family, so we decided to take a break from Blue Cottage Creations. We are just now starting to pick back up on Blue Cottage Creations again.

Since I have taken my time to grieve the passing of my sweet pawpaw, and also get through this busy time in life, I am back for good now and I do not plan on taking any more breaks from the blogging life. I hope maybe a few of my readers that I gained will possibly come and read this post. Please comment and let me know if you did stop by!

I hope you have all had a great summer so far. I am super excited for the upcoming fall season. Fall is my favorite! 

Blessings,

I haven't forgotten about blogging!

I know, I know... it has been two weeks since I have blogged.

Shame on me.

In my defense, we have had a lot going on.

Part of what has been going on involves some exciting news... 

Are you ready to hear it?

Are you sure???

Ok... here goes...

I have been accepted into a local craft show/Spring Market in April, I believe it will get a lot of traffic and I have been busy working on some items that I will have set up there!

Yes, super exciting! My husband is actually excited as well and has been helping me get ready for it. 

We are going to call our little craft "store" Blue Cottage Creations. :) 

My hubby made these signs for the craft fair...

Aren't they the cutest?!

I also made these flour sack hand towels for the fair as well..

& these Mason Jar Lid Coasters...

As well as this chalk board made out of an old tray..

Those are some of the items we will have set up so far. I will share more as the weeks go on!

Also, some of you may have noticed or even clicked on the link at the top of my blog that says "Farm Blog". I finally submitted our first post today and would love it if you have a moment to go check it out. :) Click HERE to read it.

I promise that it will not be another two weeks before I submit my next post. I have a few projects I will be working on this weekend and will be sharing them hopefully over the weekend or early next week... also have another surprise to share with you guys on Saturday! 

Blessings! 

Getting Spring Fever

I'm not sure how the weather has been where you are at... but where I am at, it has been amazing these past few days! It has given me crazy spring fever. I have slowly started to decorate the house for spring. I went to Hobby Lobby last week and stocked up on some spring floral. 

One of my favorite things to decorate and change up would have to be my farm table's center pieces. I had an old Pepsi crate that I have been trying to decide what to do with. I think I finally figured out the perfect use for it!

I wanted the floral to look as real and natural as possible. Of course, I stocked up when stems were half off. 😊

I stuck some fake lavender stems inside of this tin milk jug. I'm obsessed with anything lavender right now. The color, the smell, how it can be used to decorate with....

Also scored these cuties from Habitat for $12 for all of them!

& what did I decide to stick in them?

Lavender of course:)

Not only did I score some fake lavender this week, but I stopped by Lowe's today and got some real lavender. They had many herbal plants in stock and I wanted to get more, but I decided to only get some lavender for now. 

Next on the list was to get some pots to plant them in.

I needed to find pots with holes in the bottom for my lavender plants. Surprisingly, all I could find were these boring ole' clay pots... so I grabbed them up and brought them home with me.

I decided to give them a makeover. I took some off-white paint that I had leftover from a previous painting project and painting away I went.

They still needed something...

but what?

I couldn't just stop there!

I added some twine around the top and tied a cute bow!

I am just loving these!

Now off to plant my lavender in them!

Have a great week!

Old Macdonald Had a Farm...

*Warning*This is a very long and picture heavy post!

In my previous post, I promised you all an introduction to our farm animals.

We have 2 dogs, 2 potbelly pigs, 5 goats, and one horse.

We are currently in the process of building a chicken coop so we can get a few chickens on the farm!

Let's start with the dogs.

When I was a kid, my parents raised Shih Tzus. I have always loved Shih Tzus. I think they are so cute and such good little dogs. Plus, they do not shed. Okay, I know what you're thinking: "I thought she said this post was about farm animals?" Who says a Shih Tzu can't make a great little farm dog?

Fine, fine. She really is spoiled, rotten, and does not like to go outside when it's raining.

She just had her 4th birthday, I got her when she was 10 weeks old. At the time, I was living with my mom. She was so mad at me for bringing a puppy home. She fought me tooth and nail. Yes, I probably should have listened to her... I was never usually the type to rebel against her.

Eventually, she grew to love and spoil my puppy. Now that I am married and have moved out, I swear... she misses this dog more than she misses me!

Everyone... meet Payslie!

She is my little diva, and she bosses the next pup around that I am going to introduce you to.

My husband got him around the same time I got Payslie, he is a lab mix. He went on a diet as soon as we get married back in October because he had a little extra fluff. :)

He is very energetic, it took me some time to get used to having a big energetic dog around when Matt & I got married and moved in together. However, he has given us nonstop entertainment.

Meet Jack.

On Christmas morning we gave both of our dogs new chew toys. This was the result we had after a total of 5 minutes....

Look at those guilty faces...

Moving on. Meet the goats.

This is Mina and her kid, Opal. Opal was born 2 weeks before our wedding in October!

This is Betsy and her kid, Ellie. Ellie was probably born some time in August, we got her and her mom in September and she was not very old at the time! These two are our escape artists. No matter what we do they seem to always find a way out of our fence, but they never go too far. :)

This is Dolly. She is the sweetest little thing. :)

If you're wondering why we have a goat in the house, we were snowed in last month for about 4 days and we got extremely bored. 😊

Now, moving onto the pigs!

We have two Potbelly piggies. I asked my hubby if I could get them and he reluctantly said yes. I think he is already regretting it because they are also our escape artists, You wouldn't believe how small of spaces these pigs can squeeze through!

This is Petunia.

This is Talulah, the mischievous one. She loves nose and belly rubs. Petunia is still getting warmed up to being petted.

We got them about 2 months ago. When we brought them home they fought... a lot. We had to keep them separated for a time. Eventually they grew to love each other.

These two are very entertaining. I will let them out of their pig pen during the afternoon when I get home from work most days and they just roam around in our pasture and in our yard. Both dogs are extremely fascinated by them. They haven't quite figured them out yet. The pigs pay them no mind. :)

Lastly, meet Sissy... the Quarter Horse.

Sissy is 12 years old and my husband has had her for about 6 years. She is very sweet and a great little trail horse.

That concludes the introductions to all of our farm animals. When we do finally get chickens, I will share pictures of them and of the coop my husband builds!

I hope everyone has had a lovely Valentines Day today! My sweet husband had these beautiful flowers sent to my job. I was very surprised!

I woke up extra early to bake him some muffins for breakfast. They were cinnamon roll muffins and oh so delicious. :)

He also surprised me by bringing home dinner from my favorite local restaurant, lit some candles and pulled out our glasses from our wedding to drink out of. He made me feel very special today. I am so lucky to be married to him! The Lord has surely blessed me with a wonderful husband. 

This week I have been working on several different projects, I just have not 100% completed any of them. I guess that is what happens when you start too many at once? Most of the projects are for a sale I will be setting up at in a couple of months. I will share more about that later.

I know that I had said in my previous post that my goal is to blog 2x a week, and I definitely failed at that this week. I am shooting to have a completed project to share with you all by this weekend. 

Happy Valentines Day!

XOXO