Tea Towels & rosy woes

I'm a bad blog mama, that's for sure.

I think about making a post daily...but then I get distracted by pretty things, like my roses here!

Unfortunately, that Easter Freeze wiped out the blooms from my large rose bed in the front. Usually we would have hundreds of hot pink blooms right now, and I really mean hundreds, cars slow down in front of the house during the first bloom, people come to a sudden stop when walking by and ask about the type of rose bush.

A portion of the rose bed from last year in the first blush

But now, there are only a few little blooms. The bushes are not dead, and for that I am grateful, but oh how I miss the blooms.

When I'm not cursing Jack Frost, a whole lotta needle threading has been going on.

I adore travel tea towels, but I need something more absorbent in the kitchen for drying hands after washing. So I took these mint vintage towels, then I cut up some of my older terry cloth bath towels that had a few worn spots and smacked them together.

Well, maybe I didn't actually "smack" them, but I sewed them together like a pillow case and then did an extra stitch around the edge after turning them right side out so they won't warp in the wash.

So now I have pretty towels for drying my hands than I have been obsessively washing.

It's all about the pretty. And maybe the washing.

All of my efforts to give love to my kitchen didn't prevent me from dropping one of my favorite bowls last weekend. Later that same day I dropped one of my Smurf glasses too, but luckily that one didn't break.

Oh, the horrors if a Smurf glass breaks.

You understand, right? Right?

Smurfs!

Dover with love

Did you know that if you sign up at dover publications they will send you free clip art every week?

Everything from vintage luggage labels to holiday art from their famous clip art books.

Dover has been a constant in my life, and I love how they still sell the same coloring books that I had as a child. I'm looking forward to getting new copies of my old favorites for my munchkins.

A beautiful sight...we're happy tonight

Hans brought an entire bunch of these gorgeous Thistle blooms home,

and I'm so in love with them.

Such a darling man to bring flowers to me...and to know me so well that he brings thistles instead of something too sweet and fluffy.

Also loving my mail lady this week! A huge new batch of baker's twine for Lumpling tags and a vintage crafting book make life a wee bit kinder this holiday season.

Today I've been making bunches of Snickerdoodle cookies to give to our neighbors so the house smells just like a home should; cinnamon and sugar!

Tonight, we will go door to door with cookies and the handmade scarves for the neighborhood children. When we get back home there will be a gingerbread house to decorate and hot chocolate for all.

And after all of that wonderful, almost too perfect, holiday love I will lock myself in a room and get frantic with wrapping paper and gifts. Hans has wrapped my gifts and nestled them under the tree which has caused Ella to cry and look pitiful because she wants her gifts under the tree too.

She doesn't quite understand that Mama is lazy and hasn't wrapped them yet. One day I'm sure she will understand, but at age three it doesn't click.