Basic Black

I used up the last of my black milk paint--time to order more! Here is what I got done...



I was lucky to get to go to Anamosa for a Gatherings fix, found some great dough bowls and the primmest gourd eggs, plus a new Simple Life. My husband bought cast iron urns for my porch at the Wren and Friends--so pretty. The cute little angel came from Alice's Wonderland in Mt. Vernon. Her shop is looking its best ever, she has these wonderful cubby shelves filled with wonderful surprises like paper straws and scrapbooking fun things, not to mention interesting little antiques like apothecary bottles and spools and old bibles--we had a great time, can't wait for July 4th and all the shows!

Here are my urns and angel and another photo of the downright lush flowers all this rain is bringing.

The Little Laundry

I just finished up this mini laundry group--too cute!

The Clarinda Cleanup

I had car trouble that nipped my travel and curtain washing plans in the bud, but I was able to go through the piles of antiques I have always saved for my Clarinda shows, time to send them off to ebay, where the living is good... The first photo is the north side of the Clarinda square, the tiniest building, the white and blue one is mine, someday to be home to a virtual Catspaw Primitives. Since it currently has no plumbing or even floors, that day is quite a ways off.

Just Slightly Ahead of Myself

I couldn't resist doing a few Christmas things on the so far hottest day of the year....

Some Summertime Goods

I'm finishing up a few odds and ends before I head off to a week in Clarinda. The Glenn Miller festival is next week and I'll be spending the week cleaning a house that hasn't been cleaned in about a year, including taking down the curtains from the thirty or so 9 foot tall windows and washing those--that is a monumental task, I must tell you. Hopefully, I'll have a pretty clean house to show off after a few days...

Iowa City Home Tour

Grace and I spent Sunday at the Iowa City Parade of Homes, which is where the builders showcase new homes they have just built and they stage the interiors and it is a lot of fun to tour them. If I had my way, I'd live in the old neighborhoods, so few of them left in Iowa City, as the university students need housing, so they either turned the old houses into hovels to rent or tore them down to build apartments. Here is one neighborhood left, our favorite walking place. The first house was Grant Wood's home when he lived in Iowa City (now putting on my art teacher hat--Grant Wood most famous for his painting American Gothic, portrait of a depression era farm couple in front of a small farmhouse with a Gothic window--interesting that the house is now a rental, last I heard, a young woman living there is getting famous selling pies...---if you are ever in Iowa, be sure to visit the library at Iowa State U in Ames, Wood's murals are some of my favorite art in the world.) The other Victorians are around Summit St., and the little stone cottages are Mott homes built for workers at a local factory so many years ago--we call them the Snow White houses.

Garden Walk

I live in a new subdivision, it has a lovely biking and walking trail nearby and the neighborhood is great, but the trees are only about 5 to 10 years old, so not much shade when you go for a walk. We have started driving downtown to the old neighborhoods where the 100 year old trees do their job so well. There are some real gardeners in Iowa City and I love these kind of wild overgrown front gardens--I do not have the gardening touch, I have to do everything in pots as I just am not good at taking care of things after they go into the ground. In the meantime, I do so enjoy everyone else's labors!