Playing with a Nice Camera

A friend let me borrow his digital SLR camera today to take a few photos.  I...am greatly enjoying playing with it :)  Click images to see larger.

I think this might be Chimera's final position in our yard.  He looks right at home among the flowers.

The chrysanthemum flowers we planted last year in memoriam of my Uncle who passed away are now in bloom.  

The back yard at twilight.  Just ignore the road cones...construction still goes on.

A little daylily...probably one of the last of the year.

The lens on this camera can take wider angle photos of the rooms than my little digital snapshot camera can.   Here you can see the layout of our room with the window seat a bit better.

You can see the new deer statues on Tom's desk and the photos of person-dressed forest animals taped to the branches of the tree awaiting frames (I'm thinking of making frames for them from canning jar lid rings)

 

The view from the bed. 

In Which I Get What I Wished For

We got him!!!  Tom was sweet enough to run up to Mt Vernon today to pick up some Buckley's Cough Syrup at the closest store that sells it (a half hour away).  Well, that store has discontinued the best cough syrup in the world, but he went on to the greenhouse up there a little further away and picked up the cat gargoyle I so deeply regretted not getting at the Rural Society Antique and Garden Show a few weeks ago.

The first picture is deceptive...the cat gargoyle is actually life-size to Corvin, as you can see in the second picture. . Mr. Catgoyle is not likely to stay in that spot, but we put him there for now until we can get a little yard work done tomorrow (very little, as I'm sick with laryngitis) and experiment with other locations for him.

He also needs a name.  Any suggestions?

In Honor of our Fawns

I was meandering through Hobby Lobby this afternoon, and I saw their holiday items were 40% off.  Tom and I have been eyeing these two stag statues the last couple of times we've been there, and today I couldn't resist them.

They are our homage to our two baby fawns who adopted our neighborhood for about a month earlier this year before moving on to a more forested home.

And since our bedroom is Enchanted Forest - themed, they get to stay out year-round on Tom's dresser.

Rural Society, Autumn Edition

More about life, the universe, and the Rural Society Antique and Garden Show....

First, yes this IS our fence in our yard.  And yes that IS a five foot trench dug right next to it.  Apparently in the original road construction plans, they were going to take down the fence altogether and put the water line there...the road crew is great though, and they very carefully worked together.  It was still tense but fascinating to go out and see this!

This morning when I left for the Antique & Garden Show I saw this lovely Morning Glory on my arbor and thought it was ironic right next to the big machinery parked by our house for the weekend ;)

So you remember the Rural Society Antique and Garden Show I went to with my mom in the spring?  Well this was their fall show.  And of course it was wonderful.

Behold, the item I regret most.  I should have bought this cat gargoyle.  I may still try to contact the greenhouse that owned this booth to see if I can get it.

Sweet antique sock monkeys.

There was a much bigger crowd there this morning, the first morning of the sale, than the other two we've gone to.  It was fascinating to see people scooping up items left and right.  I was sad that an old incubator my friend really wanted was sold when we went back to check for it.

I loved these old reliquary shelves.  If they had been a little less...

Mom pointed out when we were in line just how perfectly indicative of the sale this view out the barn window was.  Rural Ohio, tents with gorgeous displays, and gourds.  Welcome to the sale.

An old Burne-Jones framed print I would have been more tempted by if I had any more room on my walls for large artworks.

A lovely small statue.

A gorgeous piece of carved wood. 

The bubble glass image on the right reminded me of my friend Chris.

When we came home, I made Tom a belated anniversary cherry pie.  :)

Fourth Anniversary

Life still continues apace, but today we took a moment to pause and celebrate our four-year wedding anniversary.  We took a trip to the park where we were married, and enjoyed walking around...we hadn't been there in at least a couple of years.

We stood where we said our vows, and a nice park employee took our picture for us.

We posed with the camera on a timer in the place where Greg took my favorite wedding photo we have framed on our wall.

I climbed a steep hill to get to the tree where Greg shot another photo on the wedding day:

One of our favorite spots in the park, the storytelling garden, where the labyrinthian path has tiles telling the story of the earth's origin according to Native American mythology.

The path ends in a lovely sculpture of Sky Mother surrounded by trees.

 

 
Tom posed for me on the bridge where Greg took his picture.

Then we went to lunch at Olive Garden and grinned like madpeople.

Oh and of course Tom's gift to me was brilliant and romantic.  Fourth anniversary is traditionally fruit, flowers, or silk.  He got me this, a William Morris floral silk scarf from The Met Store.  It hits everything...the Pre-Raphaelites I love, flowers, and silk.  I'm utterly impressed and smitten :)

Beddy Bye

So in lieu of showing you how depressingly torn-up our yard and street are, here are pictures of our new comforter. 

We've had our old comforter, "The Velvet Fog" for ages now.  Probably about ten years?

But I thought maybe it would be nice to lighten up the bedroom a little bit.  The Velvet Fog still lays at the bottom of the bed for cold nights.

I think the light comforter cheers the room.  And you can see the tree design on the bed better.

Okay, I can't resist...I have to show you one picture of our swamp-people yard. 

See those metal plates down on the mud?  Yeah...that's our "yard" actually.  The stone in the front corner was originally on the corner to keep people from cutting the corner....about 4-5 feet further out into the corner.  It's really hard to remind myself "think of how nice the road will look when it's done. :(

Creepy-Corner Cottage Year II

Welcome one and all to the second year of Creepy-Corner Cottage, the time of year every autumn when our normally fairy tale abode gets a dark twist in preparation for All Hallows Eve.

This year we chose to go with a bit more eerie and spooky, and a bit less colorful, version of decorating than last year. 

But our best Halloween decoration stays out year round....the eponymous black cat of the cottage, Corvin:

In the entry, we liberally scattered the paper bats that were in our dining room last year.  Our Art Nouveau house spirit even got her own mask above the doorway.

Our entry table set up included a lovely new pashmina Tom's parents bought me in autumn colors.

The bust on the table got a little felt mask made for her, and an elegant Halloween topper.

The decorations on here are simple this year, a couple of pieces of Coleus with roots growing, perhaps for next year, and a crow on a pumpkin.

We saved the oomph in the entry for this eerie lovely mini-mirror.  I've wanted to try this craft ever since I read about it on Epbot last year, and the mirror spray was my biggest splurge in Halloween decorating money.

I just did a write-up on Domythic Bliss about making one of these, although it's pretty self-explanatory.  I really love how it turned out...elegantly eerie, just as I like.

More bats in the entry, with some pumpkins on the floor.

Thanks to Pinterest I had a few new ideas for our mantle this year. 

And I'm really happy with how they turned out.

A miniature skeleton from the dollar store sits on a bed of moss and displays a scroll that proclaims "R.I.P."

I buy these Seven-Day candles from the Dollar Tree on a regular basis year round anyway since they give you so much candle power bang for your (literal) buck.  But I loved the idea of adding the letters for simple Halloween messages.  Thanks, Pinterest. 

Here you can also see the glow in the dark snakes I added to a bit of creepy spanish moss in an apothecary jar.

The other side has a pale mouse in pale moss, and another candle message:

A crow, again from the dollar store, has a scroll that proclaims "Nevermore"

These pictures really don't do the mantle justice...with all of the candles lit at night, it looks haunting.

Witches fly in silhouette around our lampshade:

The black cat hidden in ivy and La Ghirlandata both get masks.

A crow perches on one of the plants on the table in the bay window.

We found this vintage Halloween bunting at a local antique shop, and couldn't resist it. 

(Eventually we're getting two side chairs for either side of this space...just waiting to find the perfect pair)

I mean, how can you resist this?

Above the television this year, our seasonal set of pictures are eerie portraits I found from Facebook.

In our foresty-muralled dining room, I added bundles of spanish moss to the tree twig candelabras, and perched three crows on the display.  Again, simple and hopefully eerie.

The front porch has a sheaf of corn, a blackened twig wreath with dancing skeletons, a half-dead and hostile plant, and a Creepy-Corner Cottage sign.

We found this magnolia branch on a forest walk in June, and I thought the soft "thorns" on it looked deliciously hostile.  Pointing toward the guest walking onto our porch, it's a clear sign that danger is ahead.  The handpainted Creepy-Corner Cottage sign proclaims that all black cats are welcome.

Night time is when the letters in the window really turn magical.

So there you have it!  Creepy-Corner Cottage 2012!  Have you decorated yet?