From my Family...

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

We are very blessed to live in South Carolina. I absolutely love it here. Our church is right next to the Catawba Indian Reservation and so we are closely linked with these good people. We attended a festival honoring them and their craftsmanship. This is the Chief with my 2 cuties.

The art was amazing and touching.

Catawban's are known for their pottery that is smoothed with stones and no glaze is ever used.

Most potters sun-dry their pots before firing them outdoors in a pit or open fireplace, which--depending on how and where wood is placed on or in it during the process--produces a unique mottled pattern of black, tan, orange, and/or or brown that makes the smooth but unglazed final product so distinctive.

This was my sons favorite part of course ;) the arrowheads!

These are the pieces I bought. A little duck and this pitcher.

See this beautiful candle holder below? Well, one of the men we go to church with saw us at the festival. He was there selling his pottery. He was so honored that we would come all the way down there and teach our children about their heritage. We feel blessed to associate with them and learn from their heritage. He told us to wait and came back with this sweet candle holder. All clay and hand crafted. He placed it in my husbands hands and told him to have it and know that we are loved by the Catawba Nation and him. It was so touching. It is so beautiful and sits on my mantle. Each night I light the candle and warmth quickly fills the room because of the love we have for this area and the Catawba people.

So on this day of Thanksgiving, thank you to all my friends in the Blogosphere. Thank you for coming to read what I have to say and see what I think is beautiful. Thanks for your kind words and support. Have a lovely day and enjoy your extended family no matter how crazy they may be. I would give anything to be with all of our family today. Most are in England and scattered around the U.S. and to say I miss them, would be such an understatement.

Laugh, eat, and love today.
Aren't we a lucky group of people to take a day and reflect on the good in life?
Thanksgiving is the best!

xoxo Emily

For the love of...

Books. I was tagged by Elizabeth at Blue Birds and Bubbles . Thank you! What a fun way to be tagged for the first time. I can talk about books. I love old books.

I have to name 7 random and/or weird book facts about myself.

The rules are:

1. Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog.

2. Share seven random and/or weird BOOK facts about yourself.
3. Tag seven random people at the end of your post, and include links to their blogs.

4. Let each person know that they've been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I love old books. I like the smell.

I like the look of them too. I love the Anne of Green Gables books and when I found this book I squealed.

I love looking inside to find if people wrote in them. Look at this one. It was a Christmas gift in 1911. Ahh- so sweet Harry.

This book has the coolest cover. And inside it has the coolest drawings and illustrations.

I also LOVE looking through books for old treasures stashed inside. I am a stasher. I always stuff things in my books. I am so afraid when I move and have to get rid of books that I will have stashed something away, never to be seen again. It takes me ages to go through each page before I let it go.

I found this in one of my books. It is so cute. Someone must have used it as a book mark I guess.

I love those little guys trying to remind you to give CORRECT info.

I also found this little sweet treasure. See- someone else was a stasher too. Look at that sweet baby.

I also sometimes buy old magazines or ads. This orange one was a children's publication. The artwork is fantastic. So art deco and unique. And the other is a playbill from The Winter Garden.

What cracks me up about the playbill is the ads. There are so many ads for bras, cigarettes and alcohol. Oh and cars. And that is about it. I guess we know what they thought was important back then..haha.

Look at these people partying away :)

Just look at their happy faces. They all have their own reason...lol.

Plus I use old torn up books in my artwork a lot. I love the patina and color of some pages. I love to read bits and pieces when I walk by them now and then.

The pages make a wonderful tree trunk don'tcha think?

In this painting called "Times gone by", I used the pages from an old cotton book. Some man had kept his accounting of how much he had sold during the 30's and 40's of seed and then the cotton. I though it honored him and the area I live in. Plus it looks cool as the petals in my roses.

So- there you go. I now tag...

Ravenhill
Alyson
Crash
Vanessa
Heather
Shelle
Kristina

AND anyone else who wants to participate. Just put your link in my comment box if you do.

And I forgot to say that the beautiful Alyson gave me this awesome award. I now pass it on to Heather at Audrey Eclectic because she is a wicked awesome artist.

Whew- if you are still with me after that long post then give yourself a pat on the back ;)

xoxo Emily

Smell-o-blogging

I wish you could smell these! They smell divine. We had a sweet couple from our church go up to the mountains and buy 120 bushels of apples. Bless their hearts. We got 2 bushels and they are sitting in my garage. When I go out there it is amazing. The smell of the apples just invade every inch of my once not so nice smelling garage.

I have buckets and buckets of apples. Though they are the nicest apples I have ever, ever tasted. There is no way my family can get through all of them. I am going to make applesauce, apple pie filling, and can them. That is where all the work is though.
So I had a dream last night...

I dreamt last night that all the apples had been peeled and cored, cooked, and canned and placed in nice, straight rows on my food storage shelves. Yeah- it was just a dream :(

I wish I could have gone up to pick the apples with them. What fun that would have been. It reminded me of one of the new paintings I have in my shop. The first one is called "Dream". It's the one pictured above (obviously :) It has Swarovski crystals embedded into it. They look like little stars when the light catches them just right.

The other is called the "Tree of Life". All the leaves are colorful and different. Just like in life, we have a variety of experiences that color our life and perceptions. The roots are exposed. It shows that is is a strongly rooted tree. That no matter how hard the wind will blow, it will stand strong.

I wish I could share these delicious, juicy apples with all of you. I guess pictures will have to do.
Remember that from now until Thanksgiving I am offering 20% of everything in my shop. If you have any Christmas shopping to do for a special someone, get on over there!

xoxo Emily

Made with and finishing with LOVE

Isn't she beautiful? OK- I know it is a quilt, but since she is so pretty she becomes female..lol. This is a feed sack quilt from the late 1920's or possibly early 1930's. The person I bought it from couldn't pin down a year, but that is OK. She was far too marvelous to leave behind no matter what year she was started.



For those of you who are like "what the heck is a feed sack quilt"? Well, during the great depression, flour and grains were packaged in cotton feed sacks. The women used their ingenuity and started using the cotton material for quilts and clothes when money didn't allow for anything but the bare necessities.

Click here if you want to learn more. It is quite amazing to learn about.




I am fascinated and drawn to anything with a "story" behind it and this quilt was such a beautiful example. Well, it isn't a quilt yet. Right now it is a topper. It hasn't been finished and that is where I come in. I am going to to finish the work of some woman almost 80 years later. How cool is that? I love the colors and the little pieces, all hand sewn with such love and detail. I find it ironic that I am going to finish this quilt in a time just like it was started. The economy is down and out, the country is in a fearful time. I wonder who this quilt was being made for. Was it a present, a needed blanket? Why was it not finished?

I hope that we do not have days like the maker of this quilt had, or like my grandmother had. I remember hearing about the depression soup that my Grandma ate as a child. I think it was just rice and tomatoes. Such scary times to live in. Then and now.



I am going to stay positive through these dark days and pour love and time into something that was set down so many years ago, never to be finished. I hope I can do it justice. I think it will hang in my girls room and it will be a constant reminder of many things, and many lessons. Isn't it funny how a piece of fabric can do that. Isn't it funny how fabric has woven 2 strangers, so many generations apart, together?

I JUST CAN'T GET ENOUGH!

Who wants an 80's flashback with this post??? I do!!! Gotta love Depeche Mode. This is exactly how I feel about this season.

Below are a few shots of when we lived in Utah. Breathtaking beauty is all round that state, especially in Autumn.

I JUST CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF FALL