Wren's Nest

Good Eats

Hope everyone enjoyed their 4th of July! We've been having a big eating fest here over the last few days!

On Thursday night we had Clams and Sausage (from Cooking Light's July issue) - it's a great dish - you grill the clams, which makes it super easy (you use one of those disposable aluminum pans - though I just made my own foil pan and grill them covered for 5 minutes and uncovered for 5 minutes). We used chorizo sausage - I wanted to use linguica, but they didn't have any at the store (the recipe calls for spicy chicken sausage) - I'd imagine you can use whatever you like. The chorizo was pretty spicy in it. I'm half Portugese, so I like me the linguica! Anyway - even my kids liked it - we just ate it with crusty bread - YUM! Now that I feel more comfortable with clams - I can't wait to try this!!

Yesterday we just hung out and BBQ'd flank steak and I made this yummy dessert (sorry the lighting is not great). It's also from the July issues of Cooking Light - I just substituted peaches for the blueberries. Really good and pretty easy!
  Enjoy your weekend!

Sweet

I am not very good at tooting my own horn, which is sort of a problem when you make little things to sell ...I have had an etsy shop for quite a long time now and it has sat empty for quite a long time too. I've been usure of what I'm doing with it, but decided to just put little items in as they get made - nothing big - just for fun. Here's one...
It's a sweet little pincushion made of wool and some beautiful Japanese fabric that I love!! Topped off with some pretty little millenery flowers. Pretty summery, huh??

Before and After

Inspired by this amazing image found online when I was searching for Madonna crowns (the image is from an "O Home" article), I wanted to create a similar look. I ordered a cherub from Vintageweave, which is where these lovelies are from and also realized I had one hanging in my daughter's room (she didn't want it anymore), so - done! I had a crown to use, a bucket to spray paint and a $12 bag of shells from Michaels. Now this one had those amazing shell balls and pieces of coral, which are amazing (but not sitting around my house). So I made my own "look" and am pretty happy with the results!

Inspiration:

The bucket before:
After:
Now my other cherub should arrive tomorrow, so we'll have to fit him in someplace (he'll have to wait for his crown, though). Enjoy your Sunday!

Drum roll, please....

I want to thank each of you for your kind comments on my blog-iversary - I so appreciate them and I will eventually respond to everyone!! The great thing is having "met" some lovely new ladies!!

The names...
The winner...
Congratulations, Oona - please contact me with your info and your little nest will be on its way!! Have a great weekend everyone!

Red and Blue

This cutie pillow is from Teresa Sheeley, a very talented lady who has a wonderful blog called French Poppy. What with the new crown obsession, when I saw this on her blog, I had to have it and it couldn't be sweeter!! It's on my front porch in one of our wicker chairs there and visible to anyone coming up the driveway and walkway. Such a fun touch!

For Shades of Inspiration - it's blue week!! So, here's some blue for you...these were all taken around the house.

Two Years and Counting...

I can't believe that it's been two years (and 4 days, but who's counting) since I started this little adventure - two years and ALMOST 200 posts (with this one, I'm at 195 I believe). It all started after I found several wonderful blogs through some online boutiques and then I kept finding more...and more. Then I decided out of nowhere to start my own. I didn't have too much to say back them ~ not sure I have much more to say now, but it's been a great ride. Thanks for all of the friendships (espcially those I've met in person), the inspiration and kind words- it all means a great deal to me.

So, to celebrate and thank you all for continuing to tune in, even though I can be fairly unreliable and have taken some LONG breaks - I'll be giving a way a little Wren's Nest Pincushion - a little nest. It'll probably be this one, but if you are the winner, we can talk about maybe doing different colors if you prefer.

Please leave a comment between now and Friday, June 27th and I'll pick a name out of a hat or do a random number generator or something and pick a winner!!

I hope you'll play! Good luck!

Feeling Stitchy Banner Contest

Just in case you hadn't heard...there is a contest to stitch a new banner over at Feeling Stitchy. There is one more week, so get stitching and you could win some great prizes, plus have your stitched banner on the blog. It's such a fun blog with so much information if you're a stitcher, or just like to look at beautiful embroidery. I'm over there guest blogging every Tuesday with mosaics of wonderful embroideries from Flickr. So, show off your design and stitching talent and join in!!

I am so lucky

to live around some really great shops! I've talked before about my new obsession with religious iconography and I've been fortunate to find some beautiful things in shops around me (and online). Now, don't get me wrong, the religious items have nothing really to do with religion for me right now (though I was raised Catholic and have a sort of on again/off again relationship with the church) - I just think they're amazingly cool. My husband is teasing me that our house is going to look like something out of The Tudors soon.

This is hanging in our family room - it's a cool architectural piece from a store here in Walnut Creek called Filthy Gorgeous. The giant wood bead rosary is from there too. My husband surprised me with it. He just got back from Rome and I asked him to bring me a cool wood bead rosary from there - what he brought me was like prayer beads or something (it's little) - he's not Catholic, so he had no real idea what he was looking for, but I had mentioned this cool rosary at Filthy Gorgeous on more than one occasion, so he got it for me.

The next piece is a Santos (she's an angel) with a cool tin skirt and wings. She's wearing an ex voto and she's from American Harvest in Pleasanton. I had a great talk with Sharon, the owner about ex votos and crowns and all those cool things when I was there. Very fun to find someone else who finds all this fascinating!

Then there are the crowns - wow - these are fun to collect!! The big one is from a shop in Lafayette called Queen Bee (they don't have a website)- it weighs a ton! The little one is from The Present Past (online) and I love it! Heather has a new one in her online shop and I'm thinking about it...

A Little Nestie

A little nestie I made - it's a pincushion. I've made lots of nests with eggs, but these I beaded with little pearl beads. I kind of like the "new" look. It's also part of the Shades of Inspiration Cream and White theme this week.

Ivy

I love ivy (though I usually kill it soon after getting it). I got this ivy and cute container at a great little shop near me called "The Store" - it has great gifty stuff and I always get in trouble there (spending-wise).

This is the last day of the green week in Shades of Inspiration - next week on to cream and white!

I hope all the dads out there have a great Father's Day. My husband will be getting home VERY late tonight (just in time, in fact for Father's Day). He's been in Rome since Wednesday and has been stuck in Washington DC for hours this afternoon. He's FINALLY on his way...I can't wait!! It's been a long week!