Handbags Back In Business!!!

It's been a very busy summer, that I haven't had any time to post on my blog. But now that things have slowed down some,

I thought I'd say Hello!!!

Also, that I am back into sewing my bags again.

I hope things start to pick up again.
I'm now posting on Instagram as well, under @mycasabella where

people can order my bags.

Those who live in the UK or Australia I do a reserve order on Etsy for them, it's cheaper to mail the purses that way as to doing it on my own.

Plenty of fabrics to choose from as well:

Vintage Teapots and Coffee Pots with complimentary fabric

Browns: On the two left scenes of Italy and two right fun fabric

Browns and blues- two left together and two right together

Black and whites

Cottage gingham and floral toile

Eiffel Tower and polka dots

Purple and white Tulips and stripes

Black and white gingham with toile

Vintage Tea pots or coffee pots

Black with pink, green and white swirls

Black and White Polka Dots

Purple and White tulips and stripes

Black and white Eiffel tower

Cottage/French Country Bag

Fun Peacock like fabric, soft corduroy

 

Lots of fun fabrics, different colors and styles. Each made to order, You pick the handles and ribbon or trim. Four pockets inside each bag.

If interested leave me a comment!!



Trees, Trees, and More Trees, OH MY!!!!

So this is where we live.

In a very wooded area, just outside of Washington D.C., believe it or not.

This County we live in do not believe in cutting down trees unless you have a very good reason for doing so.

And in this community, not sure if it's a County Law, but in this community we live in, you cut a tree down on your property you have to replace it with another.

Because as you can see we're lacking in trees.

Now don't get me wrong, I love trees, I love how it keeps us cooler in the summer here.

We have lovely views from our deck and windows

 

Trees:

 

Trees:

 

And more trees:

 

And it's beautiful.

But when a storm comes through, and not just rain, a severe storm it scares me half to death because a lot of these trees are very tall and old.

They built this community in the middle of the woods here.

So when it storms and you see these large trees swaying side to side it makes you sick because you're just waiting to hear or see a tree going down.

And it has happened. We've been here two years and so far we've been OK

BUT NOT LAST NIGHT!!!

Storm suddenly came, winds picked up, rain coming down so hard you could hardly see out, the trees were bending way too much for me not to be frightened, then the lights went out!

Suddenly I see this black shadow go past our living room windows and I just braced myself to see what that was and where was it going

Then a loud crashing sound and this is what we saw

 

 

Believe it or not, it's not a tree, it's a tree limb, that's how large these trees are.

It shattered our table, crushed a chair and broke another chair.

Split our pine tree and it's hanging over the fence.

The fence seems to be OK.

Hmmm, will the Insurance cover a new table and chairs?

We'll see.

But all is OK, we're fine, the house is fine, it could of been a lot worse.

UGH, these storms are getting really scary and violent.

 

 

 

 



Herbs de Provence

I've been playing with paints and stamps and it was so much fun!

I got this idea from www.goodideasforyou.com saw it on Pinterest and loved the idea.

I've seen painted Terra cotta pots but I liked how hers turned out.

Now I didn't have the transfer image papers on hand so I thought I'd use stamps, which I have plenty of.

It wasn't easy to stamp them, so it's not perfect, plus perfect wouldn't be real right?

So I started with plain pots

And I had some sample paints that I purchased for our bedroom, although I won't be using those colors for the room, I thought they'd look nice on these pots

I painted the first coat in green, which I watered down a little

Then put one coat on, not too heavy since I like the Terra cotta color as well and wanted it to show through a little

Let them dry then added the cream color on top of that, I watered that paint down a bit more than the green and used a sponge brush then used a paper towel and rubbed off any excess

Loved how it turned out, then had to let that dry before stamping

Not perfect but that's OK with me.

But I learned a critical thing, the stamp ink takes quite awhile to dry and I thought they were dry enough and started to rub a brown paint that I watered down a bit, over the stamped areas and it smudged some of the ink after that was done, I then waited till they were completely dry to them spray seal them

It was so much fun that I think I'm addicted now.

I planted English Thyme and Rosemary and hope I can grow them indoors with no problem.

OK, so my window is pretty full I know, but I love it!

If you'd like the paint color's just post your message and I'll let you know, I forgot to look and it's downstairs and I don't feel like going back down there AGAIN....

 

 



Cake Pedestals into Plant Pedestal

I've been searching for cake stands for some time now, since we moved into this home.

We have this large greenhouse window, I've always wanted one and living in a Community if we replaced any thing on the exterior it had to be of the same style which meant we had to replace the old greenhouse window with a new one.

(I say we had to because it was a very old window and not efficient)

Thankfully we got it for a decent price, about half of what we would of paid, it still was not cheap but I

LOVE

this window and I have lots of plants to show it.

So as I was saying, I was trying to find cake stands so I can use them to put smaller plants on, give some height as well, but I was not going to pay more than $10 for a plate, even went to Marshall's and TJ Maxx, still nothing that was reasonable enough for me.

So I went to Target and saw these

 



Plates were a Dollar each and candlesticks were $4.00 each, so $5.00 per "cake stand".

Pulled out my trusty glue gun and started gluing, and I had to be quick, as soon as the glue hit that candlestick it wanted to harden fast.

They turned out cute, I may find something I like better down the road but for now it does just fine.

Yes I have a lot of plants and I bought two more today,

I purchased herbs to grow indoors over the winter, now I need to figure out where to place them in that window.

Oh well, not a big problem to have.

Hope you have a great weekend!