Well, sorry Girls, I have bad news: I just read that this wonderful little Kitchen Garden book is now going for $900.00 on Amazon ~ I think I have to keep it.

HAHAHAHA April Fools! (I’m not keeping it, but the $900 is, unfortunately, not a joke!) MUSICA . . . 

Vanna, (our “almost real” “random number generator”) as many of you know, is Irish to the tips of her little green-polished toes (this is the “almost real part.”) She went out last night, didn’t get in until after dawn (faith and begorrah, Girlfriend!), so we will go forth without her and save our drawing for last. This way everyone stays a winner for another ten minutes!  Yay!

For lots of us, Spring arrives on the inside our houses MUCH sooner than it does on the outside.  Our sanity requires we look beyond reality to a better world, a future world. Intrepid pioneers of the seasons that we are, we forge on, strengthened by our three sweaters and two pairs of socks.

Despite the way it looks outside my kitchen door . . .

Inside, it looks like this.

You know I love to decorate the shelf on top of my stove, it’s my first go-to place to mess with when the seasons change.

I change it every season, never with an actual plan, just whatever is hanging around that says “spring” and “cheerfulness” to me, I grab it and put it on top of the stove

This was one of the perkier entries in my stovetop hall of fame.

This was last year . . . lambs R Us.

Here’s this year’s version, seem to be leaning a bit more “bunny.”

I don’t usually stop with the stove . . .

I made the fireplace mantle ready for a spring tea party

I decorated with lambs and bunnies and sheep . . .

More sheep more bunnies. . .

 The tea party was small because it was a Baby Snuggle for one of my girlfriends (Margot) whose daughter Scarlett just had her first child . . . a darling three-week-old 8½ pound girl named Georgette .  (I’m still waiting for permission to put a photo of Georgie on the blog, but not holding my breath, not everyone “believes” in blogs. I can only tell you this:  Margot is magic: she gave birth to an elf, which would be Scarlett, and Scarlett, in turn, has given the world a gnome.)  There were six of us, we’d all known Scarlet since she was born, so we were the lucky ones to have our own private viewing and cooing party.♥ I can’t tell you how adorable this child was, head bouncing with big wide eyes looking right at you, a rosebud mouth with little pink tongue.  Fingers that went in all directions.   

I almost made a Lamb Cake.  But I decided to save it for Easter.  which is just around the corner . . . so, just in case, here’s the RECIPE for YOU.♥

Here’s our tea party. You can just make out the gnome legs in the very left of this photo, wrapped in red wool with white stripes. The rest of her was even cuter.

And we had milk-milk-milk Cake . . . bathed in more milk.

And here’s the RECIPE for that, just in case you’re a new kid on the block and haven’t had a chance to try this luscious old-fashioned thing.

For tea, the girls had a choice of this, or . . . 

. . .this.  Can you smell the bergamot, the lavender and rose petals . . . they took this.

I do hear Vanna stirring, have faith Girlfriends.  She came in after I got up, so she needs her beauty sleep bad.  In the meantime . . .

As you know, this $900 book is illustrated by Tasha Tudor . . . (although I do have to say, the author is wonderful, Mary Mason Campbell fits Tasha Tudor’s work to a Tee).

Some of the drawings are in color. . .

But there are also lots of black and white line drawings . . .

Like this one . . . when I see something like this, I always think “wouldn’t that be fun to color in?”

Or this one . . .?

Or this . . . the little pots, the shirt, the hat, fun, right?

There are many wonderful line drawings in vintage books . . . Like this one in The Twin Lambs, illustrated by Marjorie Flack.

And this one, illustrated by Lois Lenski from Once on Christmas . . . (I’m thinking green dress, red hair, yellow book♥)

And this one, a print of one of the original children’s letters by Beatrix Potter from one of my favorites, The Tale of Beatrix Potter by Margaret Lane.

I play coloring book sometimes with line drawings like these ~ and whoever wins the Kitchen Gardens book, or for any of you who’ve maybe wanted to give it a try in one of your own vintage books ~ it’s a fun way to learn a little about watercoloring while being perfectly thrilled with the outcome of your first try.  

See that ↑  Now see that . . .↓ ♥

I watercolored this one and got to feel a little bit Potterish while I did it. Speaking of that, I got my Beatrix Potter online Newsletter today; it’s called Pottering About, Here’s a link if you’d like to see it, or get it automatically sent to your email box.

Its hard to stop! The littlest palest color makes such a difference.  (Course dried flowers help too.)

This is the one that got me started . . . many years ago I found these pages in an antique store.  It used to be a book, but the cover and the binding were gone ~ what was left was a few pages,  all line drawings, and all in black and white. Until they came home to my house.

I had a wonderful time painting these.  If you ever enjoyed coloring books, I think you would like this!

The pages came from a book that was published in 1901 called The Story of Live Dolls.  The author is Josephine Scribner Gates. On the title page it says:

The Story of the Live Dolls

Being an account of how, on a certain June morning, all of the Dolls in the Village of Cloverdale Came Alive.

It’s a charming fairytale about girls and their dolls.

The drawings were done by Mabel Rogers.  I love her art, and was surprised to see nothing on Wikipedia about her, and really nothing for Google Images either.  But we’re remembering her . . .

Over a hundred years later. ♥

I thought I would frame them and hang them all in a line around the top of the wainscoting in the guest bedroom.  Which I never did.  I still have them.

So you can see the before and after, this was the last page I painted, and I took photos while I did it:

You get to choose the colors . . .

And fill between the lines . . . and if you go outside?  Just part of the charm.

And use your three-haired brush to exacting perfection.

 OK Girls, I’ve held you prisoner long enough . . . Vanna has rallied, she came out just a few moments ago wearing a fish costume.  (Don’t ask.)   It’s covered with shiny green scalloped scales, she is wearing three inch yellow patent leather slip-on heels, and a shiny yellow bathing cap.  She looks FABULOUS.   She is almost ready to do her famous high dive into the vat with our almost 3,000 Girlfriend’s names.  She will swim to the bottom as if she is a corkscrew, thereby mixing and twirling the little slips in a swirling mad vortex. She will then come streaming to the top, winning slip in hand, her work for today will be done.

Wish her luck.  Good Luck Vanna!

A r e   w e   r e a d y  ?

On your mark, get set:  You go girl!

She’s down!  The green toes were the last things I saw . . . There’s swirling, more swirling, bits of paper flying through the air, I’m waiting, we’re waiting, still waiting . . . she’s coming, she’s coming . . . I see her, I see her ~ ~ I think . . . yes, I think, BOOM, she’s UP, she’s GOT one!!!!  

Please give it to me Vanna, take a bow, you may go back to bed with all our gratitude for a job well done. ♥  

It wouldn’t be the same without you Vanna.  Know that.

Sooooooo, let’s see, what does this say?

The winner of the Loovly little boook is

K A T H Y    T O W E R S

 Every one of you . . .

Congratulations, Kathy!  This was a big one and you made it! Look for an email in your box, please send me your address, I’ll sign your little book and it will go off to you asap. 

And for everyone else . . . in a nutshell:

 LOOK, what we have to look forward too!

 Fun, Girlfriends, Thank you. ♥ We have to keep meeting like this! XOXOXO