Elizabeth Holcombe ~whimsies and words~

Inspired Friends!

The lovely and just too sweet for her own good Amy at Inspire Co. chose my BFF Suzy and me for her Inspired Friends for the second half of May! How cool is that!?

Take a stroll over to InspireCo this afternoon (and for the rest of May) to see a fun Bio (you'll see how Lucy and Ethel relate to us), two craft projects (one from me, one from Suzy), and lots of one-of-a-kind goodies for sale! A big THANK YOU to Amy for making us her Inspired Friends together!

If Suzy and I were to make clothes from burlap sacks, no doubt they would look like this!~~~XXOO, Beth

What I Did For Mothers Day...

Being with my family is my favorite thing to do on Mother's Day. It doesn't really matter where we are, as long as we're together. During the week there are too many opportunities to keep us apart and doing our own thing: school, work, homework, maintaining my business...the list goes on and on.

Sunday morning found us at the International House of Pancakes, you know, IHOP. I love their Butter Pecan syrup. I'd pour it on everything if it was socially acceptable!

The day was pretty grey and big time rain was predicted for the late afternoon. So, we snuck in an activity that hubby thought was a fun Mothers Day activity...

See the white baseball hat with the pink "W"? That was the give-away. Somehow our family of three ended up with five of these hats. I love our new stadium. The view from up in the $16 seats is great:

Do you know where this brand new stadium is located? Take a look at the upper center of the picture.

Oh, yeah! The Washington Nationals made a home run against the Florida Marlins, but they still lost. The rain came early and we headed home by the 8th innning.

At home I got to admire my pretty flowers and eat some Mothers Day cake! Yummy yum yum! Hope your Mothers Day was a good one!~~~XXOO, Beth

Happy Mother's Day!

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to all blogland mommies out there!

I hope you have a wonderful day! Please let yourself be pampered, and I know your darlings will treat you right, unless...

OK, I admit it. I like "Mommie Dearest." It is a great movie to learn how NOT to be a mother! So please have a wonderful and FUN day, and I hope you don't find any wire hangers!~~~~XXOO, Beth

From Trash to New Deck

A couple of weeks ago I blogged about the metal chairs I coaxed hubby to grab from our neighbor's trash. About a week ago, hubby spent all day saturday building a small ten by ten foot deck in a corner of our backyard to house the outdoor fireplace. He decided, and rightly so, that we needed a better place for entertaining our friends around the fire than the small mulched corner of our backyard. $200 worth of wood, a lot of nails and measuring later, he made a pretty cool square deck! But we needed seating. Hence the "trash chairs" from our neighbors. Here is our story from start to finish in pictures:

After powerwashing the rush and loose paint from the old chairs, hubby set them on a tarp and we painted them with primer.

These chairs took three spray paint cans of primer.

I decided that the chairs shouldn't be boring white, but it would be fun to paint them three different colors. I wanted pink to be one of them, but hubby put his foot down. I chose yellow, pale blue, and lime green which is bright and FUN!

And here are the chairs, all painted, and in position on our fireplace deck. Isn't this a tranquil setting among the shrubs and oak trees? The outdoor fireplace sits on a bed of gravel in the middle of the deck.

I bought cushions for the blue arm-chairs at K-Mart from the Martha Stewart collection. The pale blue matches the chair color perfectly!

I found four matching pillows at a local consignment shop. These pillows are the right size for the smaller metal chairs and feel so good to sit on!

We also have four metal tables from various yard sales. I painted a two of them, but still need to get paint for a couple more. The smaller chairs, as you can see, are sunny yellow and Key lime green. We will add a few cintronella torches too and then our little deck on a budget will be complete!~~~Have a wonderful rest of your week!~~~XXOO, Beth

To All of My California Friends, Please DON'T Laugh!

Today at 1:30 I was in my basement office/sewing studio working on my latest batch of pin cushions. I had the window open. The dog was sleeping in her bed. It is a very lovely and balmy day. All of a sudden, I heard this very loud rumbling like thunder or an explosion. It lasted about 20 seconds. The dog raced upstairs barking. The house vibrated just a little, but it was enough for me to freeze and summon up a terrible memory. I was sitting in the same place on Sept. 11th, with the window open, when I heard the plane hit The Pentagon. I didn't know what that loud boom was until later on that terrible day.

I was scared something horrible like Sept. 11th had happened again, and my imagination went riot. I surfed through all of the news channels and saw nothing more important than Britney Spears going to court yet again. My breathing settled and I went back to work. Later, as I was on the phone with Suzy, hubby broke in on call-waiting to tell me that a 1.8 magnitude earthquake had hit with the epicenter very near our house (less than a mile)! Well, earthquakes are not something we usually get in Northern Virginia.

See that little blue square? That is less than a mile from our house! OK, now I don't want my California blogland friends to laugh at me! But I know you are, I hear you snickering out there! But as you can see from my little story, an earthquake was a bit of relief, even though it scared the wits out of me!~~~Now back to sewing...if I can keep my hands from shaking!~~~XXOO, Beth

Yard Sale Season in Our Neighborhood

On Saturday our neighborhood hosted its annual neighborhood yard sale. The weather couldn't have been more beautiful. Sitting outside was bliss and we had a steady stream of customers, friends, and neighbors from about 7:30 to 1.

We had things on either end of our driveway. Hubby set up our "cabana" roof to keep the sun out, but it was pretty shady most of the morning. Our son brought out his laptop and kept me company.

I sold a bunch of old games. The collectors snatched them up at a dollar each!

My collection of finger puppets went into the sale. Sometimes you just have to let go. I did keep two of my favorites. When I clean out, I am ruthless!

Sheila stopped barking after she realized she wasn't allowed at the sale. She kept watch on us from the back yard.

 

Our neighbors had lots of Barbies. Here is what was left after a few hours into the sale.

Here is Josh wanting to sell the rest of those Barbies!

Our neighbor, Maggie, sold a bunch of these fabric Halloween masks!

This is Magnum, and he had a fun time crusing the sales!

One of our neighbors had some lovely glass she was de-stashing from her collection.

And look at this lovely Fiestaware!

Neighbors had a lovely day just out and about strolling around and talking. Later during the sale, you heard shouts up and down the street of "how much did you make?", or "make your first million yet?"

Wanda has lived in our neighborhood since the houses wewre built in the mid-50's. She and her daughter brought out some things to sell, including a pig collection!

My first rule of yard sales is "nothing goes back into the house." However, our son spied Gizmo and said he didn't want to let him go. So we conceeded and let Gizmo back in the house. We gave all of the kids (and some parents too) who stopped by a couple of candies.

I hope you all had a great weekend and found some fun yard sales too! Let's hear from you!~~~XXOO, Beth

Sweetie, Cutie, Pretty, Cardy

I took a break today and visited one of my favorite thrift stores. I found four boxes of vintage greeting cards "from the Coronation Collection." Have you see these boxed cards? My grandmother used to get these at Woolworths, GC Murphys, or K-Mart. The cards usually had art work in soft colors with wide-eyed animals, sweet girls, and lush painterly flowers. They are always very sweet and saccharine cute. I love them and now have a collection. I'll use the cards but keep the boxes. They are very nice and perfect for storing all sorts of little things.

I couldn't find anything about the Coronation Card Company to share with you. If any of you ephemera buffs out there know anything please let me know! Here are my cards and boxes:

Can you say just "too stinkin' cute?"

Look at these wide-eyed sweeties. These artworks remind me of the fun vintage/kitschy images collected by the Charles Anderson Design Company and found in their Pop Ink publications and products. I have two of their books with the coolest titles around: Happy Kitty Bunny Pony and Fluffy Humpy Poopy Puppy.

Now, these floral (and the little girl) images are just as too sweet and pretty. The pastel color combinations are so lovely.

These two sets of cards (above and below) are little more current in their design approach. Probably from the 1980's. But they are still cute!

This tiger box has its orginal K-Mart sticker which I don't want to remove. I don't have the cards in this box--used them up. It was the first one in my Coronation Cards box collection.

The side of the tiger box is very cute! Like a toy chest with a pink rope handle.

Here are the sides and titles on the boxes. I think "Waggies" is really funny and the "Soft Set" is very 60's-70's.~~Hope you all have a lovely, happy, thrifty, arty day!~~~XXOO, Beth

Centerpieces and A Basket Full Of Fun!

I spent this weekend in the company of wonderful and talented fellow romance writers. We held our annual writer's retreat in a lovely, idyllic place that used to be a convent!

My task at the retreat is to put centerpieces on the tables in the dining room. I made 14 totes which were stuffed with books and other goodies supplied by my fellow writers. In addition to the totes, my dear friend Debbie Buchanan, generously donated the, oh so appropriate, "Dear Friends" boxes designed by Nicol Sayre.

In addition to the centerpieces, I contributed a pretty and BIG box full of wonderful donations and things purchased from Bayberry Cove. "Celebrate the Seasons" was one of over 50 themed baskets donated by the authors for a wonderful raffle. All proceeds go to literacy causes and women's shelters.

"Celebrate The Seasons" got a generous amount of tickets!

Here is friend and award-winning author Donna Kauffman trying to decide which basket she wants. This is just a quarter of the baskets donated!

Now that I am back home, it's back to writing and more sewing! I'll be listing MORE things in my etsy shop on MONDAY!~~I hope you all had as lovely a weekend and I did!~~~XXOO, Beth

A Shameless Plug

I finally got a chance to list some new pin cushions on ebay today. So please forgive the shameless plug. I thought you might want to see the new creations for this week:

Is this kitty trying to be scary or sweet? I love his little paws in the air!

I love this sweet little Japanese girl figurine! I think the fancy vintage rhinestone earring suits this pin cushion well in color and organic shape.

This lovely Occupied Japan lady caught my eye the last time is was in our local antique mall. I just had to put her on a cottage rose pin cushion with a lot of love--hence the big pewter-tone heart charm!

I thought this perky skunk needed a high perch on which to stand. Although I'm not sure what his intentions are with that raised tail--hold your nose!~~~XXOO, Beth

Ah Spring!

Ah, Spring! It had arrived in full here in the Washington, DC area. It was  sunny 80 degrees today. I took a few minutes to stroll the yard which is getting greener by the day!

The usual supsects came out to stroll with me...

Sheila was not happy to be behind the fence. She refused to pose for this picture! So I came in the back yard with her, and she ran around too happy to sit still for a better picture.

Big kitty, Gyro, kept to the deck and blissfully rubbed the furniture.

I just adore the wonderful texture of these English daisies I picked up the local garden center!

To keep the bunnies from chewing on the lettuce, I put the plants in their own pots and up on these vintage stands I got at a flea market years ago.

I love this kitschy deer planter. It holds a happy bunch of hens and chicks. The planter is imported...from New Jersey!

This herd of flamigos lost thier little stick legs a while ago when Sheila pulled them from the ground and ripped their legs off! So now they just perch in the ivy trying to imtimidate Sheila when she walks by.

We made this little birdhouse years ago and it is still in pretty good rustic condition. The little bird in the background is from IKEA.

And speaking of rustic...hubby grabbed these metal folding chairs from our neighbor's trash yesterday! Aren't they awesome! He'll powerwash the chunks of rust off and then we'll paint them a pale green!

I love these happy little violas!

I love strange-looking plants and I picked this one up at the garden center, but I forgot what it's called. I'll just call him "Harry." Although I bet my master gardener BFF Suzy will let me know what this is. I like to plant things and keep them watered and fed. I just forget what they are :)~~~~HAPPY SPRING, everyone!~~~XXOO, Beth