Fall Beauty

I love fall roses!  Overblown and soft!  Celebrating the sunshine and warmth before the frosty weather sets in.  I should have added some red leaves from our sweet gum tree.   An idea for the next mantel floral arrangement.

Enjoy these golden days!  And remember to keep a thankful heart for all this goodness!

Before and After Blog photos

This is my potting table as seen in normal, daily life.....real, authentic and messy!

Now this is my potting table after I prettied it up for my blog photo!

I love to look at blogs for daily doses of beauty and inspiration and I hope blog friends will find my musings pleasant too!  But we all know real life is often messy and uninspiring.  I want to share the more beautiful parts of my life at Grace Cottage with my friends, but know that there are lots of homely little spots....dying grass, cobwebs, stained carpet and yes...even chicken poop here and there!  (but not in the house!)

Annette Funicello said, "Life doesn't have to be perfect to be wonderful."  I love this quote!  It is truth!  

As I keep my nest, I want it to be pretty and cozy and I will do my best to make it that way, but I don't want the imperfections to bring me down!  

By the way, you may have noticed that I have not beautified under my potting table!  That's another fun project for another day!

Embrace the beauty around you and smile kindly at the imperfections...this is life!

Fairy Garden

Miniature worlds are fascinating!  

Inspired by Pinterest, I decided to try creating a fairy garden....one my sweet grandsons would enjoy playing in!  Well....maybe Nana too!

1. I used a large clay saucer as the container and added Irish moss, oregano, violas and alyssum .  Then the fun part begin....adding rocks, miniature doll accessories and mushrooms ( made with painted rocks we found in the garden).

This mother hen had two baby chicks, but i think my chickens ate them!  Maybe they thought they were corn kernels!  They were extremely tiny!  Too bad they cost $2 each at a very wonderful, but expensive miniature store!

     

When the boys were introduced to the fairy garden, they seemed to enjoy it for a few seconds and then were off on new adventures!  Oh well!  I think the garden was way too small!  We shall now make a monster truck garden under the sweet gum tree!  There will be much more room for play there!

But Nana is still having fun with the fairy garden!  I just planted a cutting of a scented geranium that I hope will turn into a magnificent fairy tree!

Enjoying the first few warm days of March

     Spring may officially be days away, but today was delightfully warm and fragrant with Scotch Broom and the first white blossoms of Pink Jasmine!  I spent some very happy hours mixing up my new raised bed in the vegetable garden and planting wild flower seeds along the garden fence.  I even brought our sweet little dove out in the vegetable garden with me, so it could soak up some sunshine!  This little dove appears to be lame and doesn't fly or move very well.  This just makes me love it all the more!





I've picked some Swiss chard, spinach, parsley and garlic chives to fix a pasta dish for dinner tonight.  It will probably turn out green... just perfect for St. Patrick's day!

I love this time of the year and feel so thankful for God's beautiful blessings all around!

May you enjoy your fresh days of spring too!