Early Christmas Project...Painted Gourds

Hi Everyone and hope you are having a great Sunday!
I want to show you an early Christmas Project I am working on.....Painted Gourds.

No, I did not grow the gourds....I bought them! However I have grown some in Florida, but they are hard to dry here, and they usually mildew badly, so I purchased these nice and clean ones.

Our church is having a Holiday Bazaar on November 19, and I will be renting a table, showing my paintings, but thought I would add some whimsical stuff to tempt the buyers!









The shape of this gourd meant that I just had to make an elf out of it!



















This snowman doesn't have a big round head, but he is cute anyway! I fashioned the nose from "Sculpey" the clay that you form and bake in the oven. His hat is a child's sock with a big bell on the end!

This gourd was just a round one, so I did the Santa face. He seems a little worried...maybe too much to do? Don't we all!

And this one, I just left the top stem on his head and gave him no hat. He seems quite jolly without a head covering!

Wordless Wednesday...Focus on Fall

Have a great day!

A Mini Vacation

Hi everyone and welcome to Ten Gables, I have just returned from a little weekend mini vacation in Micanopy, Florida which is in north central Florida about 15 miles from Gainesville.
It is a historic town, very small and quaint. We stayed at the Herlong Mansion B and B pictured below. It is said to be haunted, but I saw no ghosts and had a lovely time there altogether!
















This is a photo of our little private porch.

The bedroom was named the Azalea room, maybe because if you looked out the windows, you saw the beautiful gardens full of Azalea.
This beautiful house was built in the 1800's and restored to the way it was then.

The front porch of the house, showing the beautiful huge columns.

There was an 1800's Festival in McIntosh, Florida, just a few miles south of Micanopy and we went there on Saturday. I love taking photos of all the old property there. Most of the houses in McIntosh were built in the 1800s and are restored. Most of them have barns in their yards, because in the 1800s they had horses and carriages.

Here is one of the old barns.

This is the house that has the above barn in the yard!

This house has the original slate roof still from the 1800s!

Don't you just love old Victorian houses?

This one is called "Merrily" and is a B and B in McIntosh. Both these towns have a web site, if you are interested. Just search by their names. Both are lovely towns and fun to visit.

How to make a felt glass case or cell phone holder....

Hi everyone, I hope you have had a wonderful Sunday! This morning was sunny, but after church it clouded up and I have been creating some cute little Fall gifts for friends. They are easy and fun to make. I love working with felt because you don't have to worry about raveling edges! So first cut a piece of felt about 7 inches wide and 6 and 1/2 inches long. Fold in half, making it longer than wide. The top will be left open so you can slide your cell or glasses inside.

I put a pin in the middle and then go around the edges with a blanket stitch and 3 strains of embroidery thread in a contrasting color. If you don't know how to do a blanket stitch, just whip stitch edges together. One side is the folded side, so you don't need to sew there.

When finished sewing the edges of the case, set aside and make felt flowers. I just cut the felt free hand into 5 scallops as shown. Now, take a needle threaded with regular sewing thread and do a gathering stitch across the bottom of the scallop piece. Pull up the thread and secure it....you now have a pretty little flower!

Felt flower. You can use a button as center. Or a bead, or make a little felt center. Be creative here!



Here are some flower varieties.

Decorate your holder with flowers You can also do some embellishment with embroidery or cut little felt leaves to apply. You can glue the flowers or or sew them. I have done both.

Well, here they are! My afternoon's project, which was so much fun and I think these will make cute little gifts for some of my friends.

Wordless Wednesday....A Garden Walk

Pure Country...A tiny Mum and blue Granite Ware

Hi from Ten Gables,
Finally we are having cooler nights and a teeny tiny bit cooler days....in the 80's instead of the 90's. I planted cabbage and some lettuce and the cabbage died promptly last week of heat exhaustion! I am replanting (this time I bought red cabbage plants which seem a bit more hardy) and I thought I might shade them a little with something until they become established. Maybe a palm frond stuck in the ground by each plant would work. I will let you know!



I also bought this tiny little baby mum plant. It is so cute and I thought I might put it in a painting still lilfe. Here it is sticking out of a granite ware coffee pot. How country is that?








Have a sunny day!

What shall I paint next?

Hi everyone,
I'm looking around my studio, trying to decide what to paint today! I thought I would set up a still life, so I began looking at objects I might put into it....like this old granite ware.

baskets......

pitchers.......

eggs in an egg basket