Used Books AND Free Shipping

I found out about Betterworld.com, a cool site to look for used books that has free shipping--they have new books too (usually priced a little higher than Amazon). Betterworld.com gets its used books from libraries mostly so it is for reading copies of older books not anything collectible. I was able to find a used Cath Kidston book, Vintage Style, Christmas in France by Corinne Ross, The Doll House by Rumer Godden and three Patricia Wentworth mysteries that are out of print all for about $22.00. Ya just can't beat that! :-) The free shipping part is for a 4-14 day arrival time, however you can pay to have it arrive sooner. I was especially thrilled to find the Wentworth books because they are just such "cozy" mysteries and kind of hard to find.

You can also feel good because Betterworld.com funds world literacy with its profits--find out more from their website.

Postcard from a valley

How about a hike through the woods? Feels good when the weather cools off, with the crunch of all those leaves underfoot and woodsmoke from a nearby home is caught in the air. I love this little valley with its rock shelters, hemlocks and even a stump left from old growth forests of long ago.

I've gotten a lot of my Christmas stuff out now and I need to spend some quality time in the basement stowing the autumn/Halloween decorations--so much for the hike idea. :-) I will have to get out and enjoy the sunny skies tho--so bright blue today. Have a good one.

Beautiful crisp evening

Snapped this picture outside last night! Gorgeous isn't it? You can see that my neighbors have begun putting their Christmas lights up--very cheery. We had a beautiful sunrise this morning, all pink--it even turned our back patio concrete pink, but the two pictures I took came out blurry, so there you go. Must have been me shivering in my slippers that shook the camera.

Have a fine day everyone, we are in for a WINDY one here. :-)

Colorful embroidery--Hungarian style!

OK, here is what I found....at least a tiny bit of beautiful Hungarian embroidery. My favorite is above--a pillow cover of black linen and embroidered with colorful flowers, green leaves and dots.

I started googling just the words folk art and Hungary and found some interesting stuff. There seem to be two major areas of design influence in Hungary, one in the Kalocsa area and one in Matyo (Mezokovesd). I used both of these words to look up images from Google and found websites that way as well. One great site I found, which most of the pictures in this post are from, is here. The products for sale are a pretty reasonable price, too. Of course, for me it was important that the site was in English. :-) If you want to embroider your own doily there is a pattern similar to these pictures in the library of Piecework Magazine here.

Thank you Sweet P for leaving me a comment. :-)

Folk art for Christmas

I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving weekend! Mine was super, lots of family, lots of laughs and hugs, just what I needed, not to mention the food--thank you Mom, Dad and all. :-)

I have been wanting to post about the December Country Home for a week or so but waited until after Thanksgiving. I do love the cover with its soft green, faded reds and the stripy "fabric" along the binding. In the middle and back of the magazine I am attracted by the cloth ornaments but especially the felt work on the star in this picture and the felt decorated stocking below that is in the food section. I looked up the source here and spotted this little embroidered box at the same site.

Looks like the Christmas ornaments from Martha Stewart Everyday. The appliqued stocking is called a Siofok stocking from Hungary........hmmmmm I googled about Hungarian folk art and my next post is about what I found.

A little plum pudding

My pictures are a little dark--sorry--but I whipped these babies up to tie onto Christmas packages along with a paper tag with a picture from Mrs. Beeton's cookbook showing a plum pudding. I used a wool/acrylic felt that got kinda wrinkly and shrunk when I washed it. Made a nice texture for the pudding. :-) Yummy plum pudding!

I can't forget to thank Laura at Cupcakes for Clara for inspiration to make up my own puddings.

From my nest to yours.....

The weather pushing through is a rain and snow mix and we are heading home to Ohio for Thanksgiving with family--yeah!!! We are so lucky to be able to travel home this year.

Here's to a safe trip for everyone traveling this holiday and a wonderful Thanksgiving for all! :-)

Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium

The girls and I went to see this film yesterday and it is charming. There is a young actor, Zach Mills, who plays Eric who just is so sweet. He nails the part of a young boy/child so well, earnest and trusting. I liked it much better than Willie Wonka which I thought was too weird and kind of scarey for young kids. (I do like Johnnie Depp--just not as Wonka) I loved the mostly unexplained Bellini, a circus? character who lives in the basement and writes the story of Mr. Magorium's life in books from which pages are shown during the film. The pictures/sketches are wonderful.

One more bag

This is a bag that I made last month. When I made it I attached the handles to the lining before I put the lining into the outer shell. I liked how that worked out--more finished looking. I used a little square of the lining fabric--red ticking--and embroidered a motif similar to the upholstery fabric on the outer shell before stitching the square to the outside for decoration.

So many bags

All of these yummy bags are from the Japanese store Curly Collection with a website here. Even though it is all in Japanese, the pictures are fun to look through. I love the take they have on the matryoshka's--all sparkly.

Another mail delivery

This time the mailman brought two books that my sister sent me. They are volumes 1 & 2 of Fun and Thought for Little Folk, published in 1912. They have some of the cutest illustrations. Thank you so much Sis!!! :-)

I want a house like this!

Love and puppies in passing

Lukey, my sister's big-stick lovin' dog has left us and we will miss him. We remember him for his deep, deep brown eyes, romps in the woods and caring for my sister so well.

Carry a big stick always Luke! :-)

This picture shows some of Luke's offspring. Meg was only 7 or 8 when these pups were little. We had a wonderful time helping out with this litter. Those pups were all over the place. We set them outside in the sun to play and each pup took off in a different direction--it was a riot.

Mister owl and his little mousie

I saw all the gorgeous owls over at moonstitches for the first time today and seeing as I had some down-time today with Em home from school ill, I made an owl of my own. (Thank you Alex for the pattern) I carved the little mouse stamp as a little friend for mister owl. The mousie got stamped onto fabric and ironed on with a bit of stitch-witch stuff. I threaded a little floss at the back of the head so I can hang him.......somewhere. :-)

The mailman stopped by....

Can you guess what the mailman brought today?? What is inside these two bubble-wrapped bundles? Let's just see......

These two Joli dolls arrived and they make me feel jolly. :-) My sister had one of these Joli dolls when we were growing up. I remember it with a little red dress and blond braids. They were made in Poland and weren't very expensive at the time. But, the cute factor is right up there!

Here the two new dollies meet their Joli cousins who welcome them with open arms.

My Favorites

The miniatures show yesterday was fun and the display area was inspiring. I especially liked the Christmas Market stand and the Village Bakery. I was amazed at all of the different scales that people are working in....the smallest I think was 1:144. There were rooms or should I say a scene all done within a small teacup. The Mary Engelbreit house above was all handmade except for the bathroom equipment and it is all sooooo small.

When we looked around the sales area I got all confused by the different scales. Teeny tiny furniture next to much larger versions, yikes! It was good to see variations like the Egyptian miniatures and even tiny Hopi Kachinas.

Redwork quilt pattern

Here is another block from the baby quilt. I like the french knot flowers in this one.

As before--personal use only--Thanks! :-)

Miniatures

Going to a miniatures show and sale near the Chicago airport this weekend. It is put on by the Wee C miniature club. Looking over the pictures from last year's show at their website is tantilizing--lots of dollhouses and box rooms. The picture above is from one of my favorite paperdolls--I have the outside cover but the dolls and clothes have gotten lost. :-(

Anyway, I think if you right click and save the picture you can print it out to dollhouse scale for personal use in a dollhouse toyroom or store.

The girls and I are working on a dollhouse for Christmastime. I guess this is just the busiest time of year but we got all inspired over at turkeyfeathers with their yummy dollhouse bakery and so we are off our own adventure. Our dollhouse kit came last week and we have started to sand and pry the pieces out from the surrounding plywood. One of the plywood sheets of pieces is not cut all the way thru so we are having a hard time removing the kit pieces from it. Oy! UPDATE: I called the 1-800 number listed on the instructions and the very nice representative is sending me another sheet # 5--so I don't have to struggle with getting the pieces out. :-)

Pictures will be posted when there is something to look at. :-)

Unabashed fan of big-box stores

On the hunt for Christmas decorations--I was just telling my husband that I want to decorate early this year--I checked out K-Mart and Target's offerings this morning. WOW!! I had forgotten about Martha at K-Mart until I read about Hilary at weewonderful's finds. I am loving the folky stuffed heart the most which is from K-Mart. The sunflower push-up toy in a polka-dot pot and the jaunty top-hatted cardinal are from Target as are the oval gift box and the cushy throw underneath everything. The wrapping paper, ribbon, and other ornaments are all K-Mart. Woo-eee! Tis the season! :-)

Oh, and remember to check out the Martha kitchen and bath stuff before you leave K-Mart. I got some bandanna-printed kitchen towels and sherbet-colored checked kitchen towels that have rickrack sewn along the bottom.