Flower photos from Seth

I thought I would share some of Seth's photography as I'm on his computer at the moment. Mine is busy right now. So enjoy.

Seth's sunflowers. I caught the wild parrots eating the seeds just this evening. I didn't realize they were out there and I started them away. So I didn't get a picture.

:-(

One of our roses

Seth's prolific daisies
we're fortunate to have an Indian rock bowl. kitties like to drink out of it.

This dahlia is actually red. For some reason this photo looks magenta.

More sunflowers. Seth loves growing them.

One of the pinkest hollyhocks I've even seen.

These are all returns from last year either from seed or bulb. Don't you just love that? Freebies.

These zinnias are huge. They should be called dinner plate zinnias. I've never seen zinnias get this big around.

Same zinnias in different color and different angle.

Hey how did this little cutie get in here? The only way to photograph him is while he's asleep. Right now he's got one ear standing up and one still waiting to stand up. He looks lopsided. Corgis ears are always standing up.
I know how that little pipsqueak got in there, you're always taking pictures of him and not me anymore. When is this little upstart leaving?
I would really like it if he left too. Is he coming my way? Should I run now?
Hope everyone in the U.S.A. has a great 4th of July. Safe and happy journeys to those of you who are traveling.

Hugs, Amanda

Nationals Again and End of Year Quilts

This is one of the winning entries for nationals in Las Vegas next month. Seth and Steven are going again. Some of you who have been visitors for a long time know that Seth and Steven went to nationals (national woodworking that is) 2 years ago with a hutch. This time they did a table and it's pretty amazing. We'll cross our fingers and hope to take top spot this time. Even if we don't it's a good time for Seth and the wood shop gang to have fun.

For the second part of the post I thought I would share our end of year quilts. Every year for the past several years Kelly (BFF) and I pick students that we feel are special to us and who we think deserve something to take with them from us as they leave our school to go to high school. We love these students and want only the best for them. We hope these quilts will inspire them and help them remember they are someone special. Kelly always does super duper labels for the back with great sayings. Of course I neglected to get pictures of those. Hopefully she didn't. We did four quilts this year. We try to pick colors we know they like and try to match the quilt to the student. Most of these students have never had someone make them something. One student thought we had bought them and then was astounded when we told her we made it just for her. They're basic quilts because we usually wait until the last minute and we try to make as many as we can. Here they are. Everyone have a great weekend.

New member at MGC

We have a new member here at Morning Glory Cottage. Did you guess it would be a cute new puppy? Well it is. His name is Trigger and he's a Welsh Corgi. We got him Monday. I've wanted a tri color corgi for quite awhile. Rascal nor Ms. Kitty nor Cocoa are very impressed with him. They're all getting older and he thinks they would love to play but they don't. So he'll just have to play with Ms. Tina.

Cute as can be
Cuddle bug
Love at first sight
All tuckered out

Have a great week.

Oh we've passed our 100th post. Not sure what I'll do for it yet, but it is certainly a milestone we'll have to celebrate. So check back.

Hallway closet update

So while we're on the subjects of updates you've probably been wondering what has happened with the hall linen closet. Well it now has a door and molding. It's waiting for paint and shelving. We've been distracted by all the other things happening around here. So here it is. Another work in progress. I'm sure none of you have any of those right? or that you have too many projects going and not enough hours in your day?



Seth and Neil at work.

Completed enough for senior project finals. That's all that mattered anyway.

view looking down the hall to the Carpenter's room and the bathroom.

view looking down the hall into our room and Tina's room.

Painting the house update

I just couldn't wait to show you updates of the painting job. Don't you think it looks better?
The color is Woodrow Wilson Linen. I just love Valspar's historic paint color collection. Some day I hope to visit all the places that I've painted in my home. :-)
Side door still needs the hardware cleaned and reinstalled. We don't want to purchase new hardware yet because hopefully sometime this fall we'll be adding a new side door.
Kitchen window. They're smaller than the others and you can just see the top of my teacup stacker sitting in the window.
Miss Kitty up to her usual inspection of the work.

Now it's on to this side! Then just the front side. Then we'll tackle the eaves. I love windows just not painting them!

Backyard update

Our backyard has been a work in progress for the last several years. Ever since we put in the guest house to be precise. The flower beds are coming along but the ground still needs to be leveled and grass allowed to grow back in. Maybe this fall we'll get to that as we're spending the summer painting the house. I'll post updated pictures of that tomorrow. So here we go, our own little piece of the desert.

The carpenter put up new lattice to grow morning glories on. The old bench just gave up the ghost.
Seth has some awesome sunflowers growing again this year.
More of the flower beds. This one runs along the back of the house and by the patio.
Same bed just further along.
morning glory: heavenly blue
This is the carpenter's latest project. Yep, a new arbor for the grape. We'll train it this fall after we prune it back. He'll be putting on the cross members this weekend. I am so excited.
You can almost see the other project he's been working on, a raised bed behind the detached patio. All the cement work was done before we moved in.
Close up of the sunflower. The local wild parrot colonies have been eyeing his sunflowers. Watching to see when they're ready I suppose.
more pretty flowers
birdbath and better shot of the flower bed.

Well hope you all have a great day and that you enjoyed the pictures of the backyard. We keep working on it. Slowly but surely.

Shelf Happiness

Just a little post before bedtime. I just couldn't wait to share with everyone what happened with the shelf. It turned out pretty cute if I do say so myself. What do you think?

I painted it white and added scrapbook papers to the back to hide the heart cutouts. Without the cuties it doesn't look that great but once you add

the cuties it looks much better. I've agonized for years what to do with this shelf. I do mean years like about 13 probably a little longer and I could never figure out what to do with that smaller little shelf. Then it hit me while I was cleaning all the cuties on the oak shelf in the sitting room. My little pitcher collection would look great there with a blue background.

Next I need to paint the little bookcase the carpenter made me. The same white but I think I'll paint the back blue this time. The little quilt was a class I taught quite a few years ago. I'm thinking a blue and white quilt would look pretty good. Maybe it's time to raid the stash. :-) Hope you enjoyed my little project. Just goes to show you that it's never too late to finish a project or finally get inspiration for one.

Busy as a Bee

Well we've been as busy as the bees around the morning glories here at our cottage. The last 2 weeks have been cram packed with projects. I'm sure that hubby really enjoyed his two week vacation doing things around the house. NOT!!! He would rather have been at the beach or at the cabin or anywhere else than home scrapping, sanding, priming and painting. Finally Morning Glory Cottage is getting a much needed paint job. She's been sorely neglected in that department I'm sorry to admit. Finally hubs couldn't deny it any longer. Fortunately the weather has cooperated and given us pleasant 70-80 degree days. Unheard of for June in our area. I'm sure we'll pay for it later with extra long triple digit days. UGH!!! So here's the pics of what we've been doing. We decided to tackle the south side of the cottage first because there is no shade and these pleasant days were just perfect for that area. We'll gradually work around to the north side where we'll have plenty of shade for those hotter summer days. We're only painting trim and eaves.

Our kitchen door is on the south side

We finally got smart and used the saw horses for scaffolding after hubby fell off the ladder that basically folded underneath him. Mind you he's not a very big man, just very tall. He only skinned his elbow and bruised the back side of his knee. I would have broken a million bones and had to been airlifted to the hospital during which flight I would have had a heart attack because I hate to fly. So fortunately he fell off the ladder and not me. Just kidding.
This beautiful paladin window faces east and will take much work. A lot of the window glazing is missing as well so we'll be doing that too.
south side with some primer.
This is a little project that I couldn't resist finally tackling. I've only had this shelf for about 13 years give or take. I just finally decided what I would do with it. I always went back and forth should I paint it or should I stain it or what? I got an epiphany and you'll have to come back to see the finished results. I've also been very busy in our room. All school year long I would give it a little attention and then it would be right back to really messy. So I finally broke down and spent one whole day cleaning and fluffing our room. I'm so glad I did. I let hubby choose our bedroom colors a few years ago when we moved back into the master bedroom. He chose blue and yellow but he didn't specify which blue or yellow. So I took it from there.
Ignore the candles I know they don't go. I just keep forgetting to get blue ones while I'm out shopping. I like versatile pieces that I can use all over the house.
Can you spot the next project needing a paint brush in this room?
We have this really long narrow window above our bed and I've never known what to do with it, so I avoid it. This is the other side of the bed.
You probably recognize this painting from the front room. I've moved some things around in that room and needed a spot for the painting for awhile. I'll post pics of the front room after while.
This is the shelf in it's natural spot before the face lift. Pictures coming soon. I hope you've enjoyed a tour of the room and the face lift that the cottage is getting. I don't think I've shown this room before. Have a great weekend everyone! Oh I almost forgot. The carpenter has been busy with his own projects too. It involves the backyard.

Smiles, Amanda