11.29.2011

Native Bees

When we attended the Best of Missouri Market at the Missouri Botanical Garden in October, we learned about native bees. You can provide a habitat for them without doing full-blown beekeeping. All they need is a house like these ones and some blooming plants with lots of pollen. Learn more here.

11.28.2011

Persuasion

I just finished reading Jane Austen's Persuasion for my class. I really love the book. It was even better the second time around. Have you seen the latest BBC production? It's the version that we'll be watching in my class. Yea!

11.25.2011

Friday Featured Art: Hugh Thomson

Don't you love this cover art for Pride and Prejudice by Hugh Thomson? It's from the 1890s, and it's fantastic.

11.24.2011

Happy Thanksgiving!

Have a wonderful holiday! Here are some pretty place cards from Martha.

11.23.2011

The Key of A

When we went to the Best of Missouri Market this year, we found a vendor called The Key of A. Most of their jewelry and accessories were made from old typewriter keys. Check out these great cufflinks made from Midwest Transit railway tokens.

11.22.2011

Eddington Cake Stand

Here's a beautiful cake stand that I saw in the British edition of Country Living. It's from John Lewis.

11.21.2011

Cross-Stitch Family Portrait

Did you see this fun project from Martha? The pattern includes 19 different pictures, so you can customize a cross-stitch to resemble your family. Fun!

11.18.2011

Friday Featured Etsy Seller: Dutch Door Press

I featured Dutch Door Press three years ago, but it's time to talk about them again. Their Etsy shop now has prints featuring state birds and flowers. They are so beautiful. I like the North Carolina one with a cardinal and dogwood. And, of course, the Utah version is fantastic. I really enjoy symbols of my pioneer heritage.


11.17.2011

Thursday Text: Ode to Autumn

Here's a poem for the season: Ode to Autumn by John Keats.

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?
Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find
Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,
Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;
Or on a half-reaped furrow sound asleep,
Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook
Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers;
And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep
Steady thy laden head across a brook;
Or by a cider-press, with patient look,
Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?
Think not of them, thou hast thy music too, -
While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day
And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;
Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn
Among the river sallows, borne aloft
Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;
And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;
Hedge-crickets sing, and now with treble soft
The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft;
And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

11.16.2011

Home Made Cookie Stamp

Here's something cute that I saw in the pages of the British edition of Country Living Magazine. It's a cookie stamp that says HOME MADE. Isn't that a great idea? It comes from Velvet Brown.