Friendship...as sweet as any fragrance from the garden.

 If you have been blogging for very long, more than likely you have placed  Aiken House and Gardens as one of your favorite garden blogs to visit.   With her welcoming photographs, since 2008, Carolyn Aiken has been setting a perfect cup of tea for her readers,  inviting us into her beautiful home and gardens.  Each visit to her blog, is met with fresh flowers so beautiful you can almost smell them.    Her gardens have graced several magazines with 10 enchanting acres that have had the tender care of this very lovely, humble and talented lady.   With her own two hands and most certainly the help of her loving husband they have created what was first breathed into Eden itself.   

 I recently had the privilege of meeting Carolyn for an afternoon visit at the Barn in Lake Alfred and then off to Lavender and Lace for wonderful lunch and tea.    Lucky for me, her family chose Florida to be their vacation destination this year with the need to see green after the long winter on her Prince Edward Island, where springtime comes a bit slow. From what she told me, PEI did not want her to leave, almost capturing the taxi cab driver in the snow laden drive the morning they were ready to leave for the airport.

 I use to get nervous when I would go meet fellow bloggers for  the first time.  I now find that this rarely happens.  After spending time reading of their lives and hobbies, their pictures usually reveal their spirit and with that there is just something so natural and easy about the visit.   It's like spending time with a dear old friend.  No matter how much distance may separate you, the meeting is like picking up  where you left off.   

With Carolyn it was so and I felt as though I was certainly meeting with a dear old friend.

After walking the property of the Shabby Old House and finding her blog, I am sure that my first comment to her back in 2008   must have read, "  The Shabby Old House needs your touch Carolyn!" Most certainly I have dreamed of having gardens around my home like hers.  So for years I have studied her home and gardens and dreamed of the day when the inside of our house would be complete and the landscape outside would start.  Each dreaming experience on Carolyn's blog would also add to my pleasure the experience of getting to know the loving caretaker of Aiken Gardens.  

 As we spoke of her garden's her face lit up with her anxious anticipation of returning to a glorious display of spring daffodils around her property on PEI, it made me realize what a connection gardeners and plant lovers all have.  Whether it be glorious acres of splendor, a very small garden patch,  or even fresh cut flowers in a vase, the beauty stirs us with the ability to stir others as well.   Nature moves us deep within to smiles on discovery of plants bursting forth with buds and blossoms.    It's as though they remind us to bloom where we are planted and leave a sweet fragrance behind and encourage others along the way.  Each of us have a seed inside with the ability to bring forth beauty.  It's God's gift to us all.  

Our purpose is to plant and  share as much beauty in this lifetime as we can and for those of us who blog we know that the encouraging comments of others is the precious water poured over our seed. Encouragement is as necessary as the seed!

So to you my sweet friend Carolyn.  I just want you to know....

You have certainly shared beauty and been the kind words of encouragement to me and so many others.  Meeting you was such a pleasure and  I think of a quote I saw written on a garden stake that read,

 "If friends were flowers,   I'd pick you."
Consider yourself picked my friend!
God Bless you and your family as you return to your beautiful Aiken House and Gardens.

If you want to read more about Carolyn's garden's, her story is currently in this month's issue of Romantic Homes. 

It all begins with a SPROUT

Spring has sprung and if you are like me you are cleaning off your porch and hoping to create that perfect little bit of outdoor heaven.  Where do you go for ideas?

 I go to my favorite Secret Garden which is Sprout

located in the outside garden area of Relic a wonderful boutique in Tampa. 

 I never come away empty handed or uninspired and always with a smile because of the friends that I have made here.

 When I saw this piece I think my heart skipped a beat.

Is this not beautiful?

 This row of creatively placed flowers had me thinking Sweet Home Alabama!

 Such vibrant colors have me rethinking some old iron in my yard.

 And if you are not so brave this classic set of black iron is perfect too.

 But nothing makes my heart sing quite like the white iron.  It's like lace mixed with flowers to me.

 What a fun lawn bird.  I remember one year a friend's yard got flocked for their 40th birthday with pink flamingos.  Wouldn't these be fabulous?

 I'm loving the red iron too.

 This is probably the only armadillo that I want in my yard.   I wonder if he would scare off the critter that has been digging up my flowerbeds.

 Did you enjoy your visit as much as I did today?

Just wait until you see my friend Amy's touch on the inside of Relic where her talent and the girls of Relic join in to create an amazing shopping experience you just don't want to miss.

But that will have to be for another post but here is just a little teaser until then.

Happy Spring everybody!

Getting Ready for Pilgrimage

 It's been called, " The prettiest little town in the South," and at Pilgrimage time each year in Eufaula, AL one could never argue that fact.   The Shabby Old House got a fresh coat of paint and some new flowers for the pots.

 Each evening hubby had to scrub off layers of paint from his hands and feet.  Yes, I did say feet.  lol

 And because of scheduling conflicts for so many years in a row we had to once again pass on a chance to paint our door the color of the rockers.   All homes in the historical district must have an approval before any changes get made.  Perhaps next year we will make it before the approval committee.

 But until then these are the only changes we can make and I must say I loved how the color livened up our front porch,

 to welcome our out of town guests for the 47th Annual Pilgrimage.

 I love this time of year.   I get to dress up!

This is the Petry-Honan house on Cherry St where I have volunteered for the last two years.

I hope that if you ever get the chance that you will come for a visit.

We just may open our home for the Christmas tour of homes.  That is,  if I can get the Shabby Old House ready in time.  

A Little Before and After

 I guess everything will be painted turquoise until the paint is gone.  

 I love the transformation of this armoire.   

 I thought about painting it white.   For a few seconds that is.

But the carved detail and original hardware made me choose the bold color.

I love it.

Off to the shop it goes.

1/2 can left...what will be next?

Texas Inspiration

 Don't you just love it when amazing opportunities present themselves to you and you find yourself waking up in a town you have always dreamed of visiting.  Last year my husband's job took us to Austin and I just now found my camera card from that trip and I realized from the pictures that I pulled up just how much that visit had influenced me.    

 I fell in love with the color turquoise.  From just this visit alone my paint brush has made the happy transition from white and creams.  Although whites and creams are still a very popular color choice for many of the furniture finds that I have put in the shop, turquoise seems to fly out of the door these days. 

 This bed was amazing.  I don't think any colors speak of the West like turquoise and silver and rich earthy tans and browns.

 This shop, located in Fredricksburg TX,  was one of the finest examples of Texas style I have seen.

And this was one of my favorite Texas inspired pieces.  It was hard to say goodbye.  
How has Texas inspired you?

Redcarpet 2012 It's All About The Dress

 Facebook was buzzing Sunday night with posts from friends in anticipation to see the gowns that Hollywood's favorites would wear.    It appeared that white was the favorite choice of the Red Carpet that evening, moving Gwyneth Paltrow to the top of the Best Dressed List,  in her stunning Tom Ford gown with cape.   I think her dress looked like something you might see royalty wear with its classic simple elegance while critics likened it to something you might see on a Super Hero

but that is their job and gratefully not mine.   

 I found the dress on Kristen Wiig to be one of my favorites.  For me personally this has been the year of the ruffle and layers of soft ruffles have found their way into my closet,  my curtains, my bedding, and all the way down to the leggings and socks on my feet.   So this gown got my pick as well as Camron Diaz's beautiful Gucci Premier gown. 

 From the simplicity of the top to the cascading flow of the soft ruffled skirt I found this dress to possess the feminine beauty that I would love to own. 

 I think that when choosing a dress, that dress should definitely allow it's wearer to look as beautiful coming in as she does leaving.   This gown too, made the Best Dressed list with it's ability to do both of these qualities.  Of course having a beautiful frame for such a gown works to that advantage.

And although you can hardly liken  the coming of the Pilgrimage to the Academy awards you can liken the feeling I have with those of any girl choosing a gown for any special event.     I find myself wishing I had friends with Louis Vuitton, or Gucci  with their availability to beautiful fabrics and patterns and talented seamstresses and the finances of any of the stars above for I believe that this would be the dress I would choose for the day.  

I don't believe that the entrance of the Petry-Honan House has a red carpet but if it did and all of the above were mine, this would be my dress.

Would it make a Best Dressed List?   In my mind it certainly would.   Would it in the mind of critics?  Who cares?   For this is my little dream and they are not invited to it.

Victorian Elegance

 Oh, to have lived in the years of Queen Victoria's reign.  What girl wouldn't love to dress from head to toe in such elegance?

I have been dreaming of this time over the last couple of month, studying fashion and hair and everything Victorian.  

 Like just about everybody I know, I have  also become addicted to Pinterest. Each visit does not disappoint, but rather leaves me with one glorious idea after another and boards full of beautiful photos from the time I spend there. 

 These are just a few of the dresses that I have tried on over and over again...in my mind that is.

I can almost hear the swish of the fabric on the floor.  Why all the Victorian era dreaming?  It's soon to be that time again in Eufaula, Alabama when the town dresses up to greet all the guests that will arrive to tour the homes and learn of it's amazing history.  Pilgrimage 2012 is just around the corner and  this will be my second year of volunteering at the Petry- Honan House.  I love that they ask their volunteers to dress in period fashions and for a few short days I get to step back in this beautiful time in history. 

Stop back to visit as I will share pictures of the day or better yet come to Eufaula and take a little trip back in time for yourself.

We've Only Just Begun

 It all started with a little white Christmas Tree in a Thrift Store window.   I really don't need another Christmas Tree but after changing my bedroom to Ruffles and soft blues and whites,  I couldn't resist.   I thought I was being rather frugal.   Ha....I needed ribbon, bulbs and more mercury bulbs and hearts of course. It is after all a bedroom tree.   Grand total....well, I must keep that a secret lest my hubby band the thrift store shopping.

 But the beauty of the little tree is the first thing I see when I get up and the last thing before I fall to sleep.  

 I love the mercury glass bulbs.  

 I love the ruffles too.   I got these curtains from my friend Debbie who owns a beautiful shop in St. Cloud, FL called Vintage Soul.   The curtains were meant to have the ruffles on the bottom but they seemed to get lost behind my furniture so I turned them upside down for now.  I am actually thinking of making them like roman shades.   

Everything is becoming merry and bright as we begin the joys of decorating and so I am off to finish the bedroom as I have only just begun.