Miss Madison Turns One!

* Warning* If you do not love fur babies you might want to skip this post and join me Sunday

Today is Miss Madison's First Birthday!

I thought I'd share a few of the pictures I've taken of her over the past year.

She has really grown up :)

She is all Westie - attitude, confidence and spunk!

Here she is the day we brought her home.

Happy Birthday Madison!

(She got a delightful bath with

Pure Grace soap by Philosphy as her present)

I am joining Show and Tell Friday & My Favorite Things Saturdays.

A Stroll Thru the Yard

Won't you grab a glass of iced tea and join me today as we take a stroll thru the yard to see what's happening?

This bush out by the back patio was another inheritance from the

previous owners. It blooms only for a few weeks each June.

I think it's very unusual looking. Any ideas?

In some of my containers this year I planted this

mini-daisy looking trailer.

It's doing a great job of spreading around the pots

and climbing down.

I like it with the yellow marigolds since it has

a yellow center.

Today I'm joining White Wednesday and Outdoor Wednesday.

Summer Dreamin'

Recently Mr. B and I went on a summer drive to one of our favorite "if I won the powerball" neighborhoods. He insisted I take a photo of the garage.

There are only about 8 houses in this neighborhood.

Each is on a large lot, probably 2 acres or more.

This is my favorite.

You can see the construction going on in the lot next door.

Amazingly most of these have sold signs or are already occupied.
We can all dream -right!

Compote Creation

I've been thinking I wanted a compote to put seashells in for the summertime, but had not come across any that fit my budget.

So I got this from my local hardware store.

And this and this from my Dollar Tree.

And glued them together to make a compote.

I added seashells and think it looks great!

If you didn't know better you would

think that it was always one piece.

My hint on this project is that less is more when using

the glue compound.

Even though it dries clear, I think I used too much.

I'm thinking about making more of these to sell at

the booth this summer & wrap the

sea shells up in white tulle for display.

I'm joining Its So Very Creative and Metamorphosis Monday.

Beeutiful tablescape

Madison wants you to join us for dinner on the porch.

Okay Mr. B wanted Madison up on the table, see her reaching

for a treat from him, we really don't let our pets on the table.

Tonight I featured black and cream along with my wonderful

Mary Lake Thompson bee napkins!

Here's the placesetting totalled layered with the lace cream plate on top.

Underneath is the green ceramic plate.

Followed by a black charger and a black rattan placemat.

Here's a bird's eye view.


And a closer picture of the napkin feature.

Guess we're having sandwiches because

apparently I forgot the silverware!

In the center I placed some yellow day lilies

getting ready to burst into bloom.

The candles are cucumber tea lights on star of david coasters.

The green wine glasses look lighter than they are in person.

They are really a Forrest green.

Hope you enjoyed this table setting.

Thanks for stopping by to visit!

Please join Susan over at Between Naps on the Porch

for more beeutiful posts :)

Mary Lake Thompson

A few posts ago I mentioned I had placed my first "wholesale" order for the booth of Mary Lake Thompson items. Today I thought I'd give a little more of her background before I post a tablescape with her items tonight.

From her website marylakethompson.com: "Mary is the designer and vision behind all of the products Mary Lake-Thompson Ltd has to offer. She oversees everything from initial design concept to the end product. Mary started drawing and painting from the time she was a young child and never looked back. Growing up, she bounced around from Colorado, to Connecticut, and then back to Colorado where she attended the University of Colorado as an art student. After 2 years there, she decided she could not resist the lively state of California, and moved to San Francisco in 1970. She attended the San Francisco Art Institute where she majored in Photography. Mary met her husband, Richard Thompson, not long after arriving in the west and they married in 1974. After graduating, Mary and Richard grew tired of the city life and chose to move to the quiet town of Oroville, located about 45 minutes north of Sacramento. It is in Oroville that Mary really began her career as a commercial artist. Soon after moving to Oroville, she had 2 daughters, Sara in 1977, and Abby in 1979. Her beautiful children served well as inspiration in her first paintings. She often used them in illustrations, along with her many beloved animals and gardens where she lived in picturesque Northern California. In the early 80’s, Mary was lucky enough to land an art show at a gallery called The Nut Tree, also located in Northern California. It was here that she sold 60 paintings and was the true start to her career. She began to sell prints to local galleries and went door to door, up and down California, selling these prints out of the trunk of her car. After the prints proved to be successful, she began a greeting card company, using her own artwork on the cards. Along with Richard, she began attending the New York Stationary show where she picked up licensing contracts, one of which was C.R. Gibson. She designed baby books, address books, diaries, paper napkins etc. Eddie Bauer was the next to approach her to design and produce gift baskets for them, which included soaps and lotion. It was after this order, that Mary got the idea to turn her designing skills into doing packaging of her own. From this point her company has designed and produced soaps, towels, aprons, bath products, drawer liners, sachets and most recently, napkins and hats. Mary has been able to use her own unique designs on all of these products as well as using reproductions of handpicked vintage art. Mary Lake-Thompson Ltd is now a large small company, sometimes employing more than 40 people at high times of the season. Mary and Richard still reside in Oroville, where they own 2 buildings in the downtown area. One is actually a historic landmark building, where Mary runs her own retail store and has a design studio in the back. The other building, otherwise known as “The Factory”, is exactly that. It is in the factory that all of the products are hand made by very capable employees. It is important to Mary that all of her products remain made in the USA. This is also where all orders are shipped out and all storage is kept. "

My new friend Kim at alchemistdreams shared this post she recently did of Mary's local store, which is divine!! Kim's blog is great be sure to visit her too!