Raised In Cotton

Spring 2008 Texas Style

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Texas Antique Week Countdown

In a few days I will be flying down to Texas with Deb and shopping all of the wonderful Antique Shows that are taking place around Round Top.  I simply love all of the excitement surrounding these shows and not to mention the incredible inspiration you find at every turn of your head.   This is a photo from Judy Hill's booth I took last year at the Marburger Show. I have heard she will be set up again and right next to Linda and Ludmil of Willow Nest, how lucky is that? I plan on taking a ton of photos to share with you! Leave me a comment if you will be attending so I can say "Howdy."

Spring Hello

 

Need a little Spring Hello? How about using a $2.00 Thrift Store basket, vintage bottles, handmade wool egg and top it off with the color purple for a table top greeting.

Or make a simple Easter basket placing the handmade egg on top of a nest of pretty violets to hang on your door.

Fresh flower toppers are one of my favorite ways to display my vintage bottles. 

Don’t you love Spring time?

Sweet Day

Last Saturday I met some of the other Miss Frenchie girls at the Barn to finalize plans for our next show scheduled in April.  Dynamo Karla brought treats packaged in the coolest idea ever .   Karla took a brand new stiff bandana, bleached most of the color out leaving the faded fabric with a wonderful vintage look.  Check out the directions on Karla’s blog and the reason my new name is “Kerrill Spanskey”.    After meeting at the Barn, Karla, Julie and I took a trip to visit a pastry shop that will be one of the new vendors at the show in April. Natasha’s Mulberry and Mott is located in a suburb of KC and features scrumptious melt in your mouth delights.  Trained at the French Culinary Institute in New York, Natasha along with her Mom opened this beautiful bake shop to showcase their incredible edible arts.  I took a few pictures to share with you. What a sweet way to spend the afternoon don’t you think?       

 *Speaking of Sweet, Thank you so much for the wonderful comments regarding the feature I did last time on Minna and her lovely Swedish life. More to come:)

  

 

 

  

Presenting Blomsterverkstad

Let me introduce you to another one of my favorite Scandinavian escapes; for the last two years I have been visiting Minna Mercke Schmidt’s inspiring blog Blomsterverkstad which means “Flower Work Shop” in English. I was immediately mesmerized by Minna’s shear talent of combining natural elements into beautiful fresh works of art which has always been dear to my heart. 

Minna, please tell us a little something about your life and where you live: I'm Finnish, moved to Sweden when I was 20 to study (media and communications), got married, had kids, Emil 14, Ellen 12, got divorced, got lost in Norwegian woods, and was rescued by a Danish prince whom I later married. We have a son 1 1/2 years old. We live on a farm in southern Sweden; have dogs, ducks and mice!  I started my career as promotion manager in a record company, moved to advertising, tried IT and was finally swept away by flowers and photographing. For living I sell articles and images to magazines around the world, give inspirational lectures about flower decorating and work with a couple secret projects :) Living on the country gives me the opportunity to follow the seasons and live close to the material I use in my work.

 

 

Your flower design business is truly beautiful, where do you get your inspiration from: Nature! Walk slowly when outside and look around - there are so many beautiful shapes and colors around!!!

    

What is your favorite flower or plant to work with? Can't name one really, every season has couple favorites. In the spring - muscari and snowdrops. Ivy is a favorite all year around!

 

Can you share a few tips on doing our own flower arrangements: Forget all rules and musts! Dare to use new materials from your garden and nature nearby. You soon learn how different flowers and leaves work in decorations and how long they keep fresh. Working with wet oasis when making arrangements is fun - and easier than you think. Low arrangements require less material.

Any future plans you can share with us for yourself and business: I'll try to keep finding the beauty in my everyday life - in my children & husband, flowers, friends, rain, old things... And realizing an old dream. I'm heading to France for the first time in April to meet a blog friend Laeriss. The French countryside makes me weak and I'm probably going to take a million photos when I get there :)))

Thank You Minna:)

 

* All photos courtesy of Minna Mercke Schmidt

* Google Reader is a great tool to keep up with your favorite blogs and you can translate the feed setting so you can read all those wonderful international blogs! Try it.

Good Junk Seal Of Approval

I am honored to be the featured blog for this weeks “ Good Junk Seal of Approval” award  at Junk Revolution .  Ki Nassauer of Country Home Magazine fame and the co author of Decorating JunkMarket Style and Junk Beautiful; appearances on HGTV’s "Country Style" series and the "TODAY" show is behind the new Junk Revolution “grassroots movement” as she calls it.  The interactive site features a community of Junk lovers who share some wonderful ideas and projects plus much more.  Go check out Junk Revolution and tell Ki how much you love her new venture.

I am working on my interview with a beautiful Scandinavian blogger that should be posted on Friday:)