My Cottage Garden Is Buzzing Again

I love, adore, cherish, prize, and treasure spring at Sweet Bee Cottage!

Not only that...

  I am crazy about it, 

 nuts about it, 

 mad for it,

 smitten with it,

 sweet on it,

 stuck on it,

 think the world of it,

 delight in it,

 dig it, 

(whoa - that felt like a Brady Bunch reference)

 dote on it,

 fall for it, 

(now that's punny)

flip for it,  

go for it,  

have a soft spot for it, 

 a yearning for it,

enamored of it,  

and cherish it.

Wouldn't you?

Buzzingly,

All synonyms courtesy of thesaurus.com and me!

Linking up to
Show and Tell
at
My Romantic Home!

What Are You Buzzing About?

Wanna' see what I'm currently buzzing about?

I was poking around the internet and I landed on the J C Penney website.  I've been reading about them in the news lately.

  (I have to say, I'm kind of sad they fired their CEO because I was loving where Penney's was going with their new offerings - so fresh and bright and stylish and fun - and I loved the fair price deal, but apparently I might have been the only person in the country who felt that way.) 

Well, not only have I read about their CEO, but I also read that they were at last going to be able to sell the Martha Stewart line they had developed.  Now who doesn't love Martha?  I know I love her style.

There is a Martha Decor line, a Martha Create line, and the one I'm the most excited about.....Martha Celebrate!  It's filled with beautifully designed party supplies - paper plates, napkins, balloons, invitations, candy, and more.  And, of course, they come in the most gorgeous colors!

 Turquoise - 

Indigo - 

Apple Green - 

Plus yellow, red, black, and pink!

I'm not sure if it is in the stores yet, but you can see it all for yourself by going to Martha Celebrations!

Thanks for buzzing along with me!

Yummmmmm.....Chocolate Cinnamon Bread!

So, you might already know I am quite the Starbucks gal.  Some day I'll have to show you my personalized license plates for my car.  Well I've recently discovered a most delightful scrumptious treat during my occasional frequent  visits to Starbucks and it's called Chocolate Cinnamon Bread.  

It's got a nice dark chocolate flavor and it's not overly sweet.

Starbucks version!

Well I decided I needed to find a recipe for this tasty morsel and, lo and behold, the actual recipe is on the Starbucks website.  I got to buzzing in the kitchen immediately and whipped out two of these delicious loaves.  Oh so yummy! 

Sweet Bee Cottage version!

Can you tell which one is the professionally baked one?  

Oh well, mine might have looked pretty pathetic, but the flavor was phenomenal!

Want me to save a little for you?

  

Estate Sale Finds for Etsy and Something Just for Me

I went to an estate sale this weekend.  I love this particular estate sale company because on the second day everything is half price!  

Look at what I found for you!  

Look at all those Shiny Brites!  All those wonderfully vintage glass ornaments!  Love the original price tags too.  Now one day I'm just going to have to find some of those pokey inny ones.  

Like these –

source

I didn't find this time but one day......one day......

And there were also some great vintage non-Shiny Brites. See the cute little ones?

And then I found this pair of cute canisters.  

Condition is NOT excellent, but how can you resist that chicken wire?

I think these would be so adorable on a potting bench.  Cute, hunh?

Made in the USA of course!

 And then I found this cute teddy bear jar.

 I've never seen one like it before.  It had a KRAFT lid.  Do any of you remember jars like these from when you were a kid?

 Now this would be so charming in a child's room.

And I found a twin to one of my favorite milk glass pieces. 

It's serving bowl size.

 And I found all these sweet little jello molds. 

I haven't counted all of them, but there are a ton of hearts.

And then I found something for me!

 Do you know what this is?

 I do!  

I've often wanted one, but have never wanted to pay the price for a set like this.

I particularly loved that this piece was made in California.  

All three pieces are marked.

I searched a bit on etsy and ebay and google for similar sets and couldn't find any.  

Do you know what it is?

Now I'm going to have to have a little party to celebrate finding one of these.

Will you come?

Thanks for buzzing in! 

A Spot for Outdoor Dining

A couple of years ago I spruced up our outdoor dining set.

I painted our wooden chairs and bench black and I loved how it looked.

Sadly, the chairs and bench were about 12-13 years old and they just started to fall apart, especially moving them back and forth for sitting at the table.

Well, when my mom downsized a couple of summers ago, I scooped up (or I should say hauled home) her picnic table.  I loved it's chippy look!

And, as I mentioned, we needed to replace the wood chairs and bench....

so.......

still lovin' the chippiness

we replaced the metal table with the picnic table and I found some very comfortable stacking chairs at Home Depot.  Those chairs will definitely stand up to movement.

Found these little votive cups at Dollar Tree a few summers ago. 

We need a few pops of color!  

I think a few potted plants here would be an excellent way to do that.  

Oh no!  Our umbrella broke in a windstorm the other day.  

 It might be time to make this little dining area a bit more permanent.  

 I am thinking about a pea gravel patio area.  

(Not sure if Worker Bee is thinking about it yet, or even at all, but I'm the dreamer so hopefully I can convince him.)

Have any of you ever made one?  Was it easy?

Sam approves of all our changes!

And here is the rusty old wheelbarrow I planted with geraniums last year.  Don't they look great?  I tried planting this before and everything died so I'm thrilled to see them thriving.

Thanks for buzzing in and for visiting!  

So nice to see you've stopped by!

I'll keep you posted on any changes for this cozy spot.

It's Never Too Late for an Easter Post, Right?

Life.  It sure does get in the way of blogging!  I sure am looking forward to summer break so I can hang out here more.  Ahhh well.  

Thought you might enjoy seeing my tables from our Easter celebration.  (And do please appreciate them because Worker Bee hand washed all those dishes and glassware and flatware himself.  See, they were all a bit dusty from being in storage.)

Not much was blooming in the garden yet, but the azaleas were so we clipped a few branches of them and I also picked some lavender and put it in one of my favorite milk glass vases for a center piece.  I had these cute little egg picks I think I picked up from the dollar store and I just popped those in too.  

I set this table with my Easter plates.  We usually have our family Easter at our house.  And one year Target had beautiful pastel sets of dishes.  So I bought a set of 4 light green plates, 4 pink plates, and 4 blue plates (I didn't use the blue ones this year).  I use them every Easter.

I didn't have a tablecloth big enough for this table, however I did have this nice length of springy colorful fabric.  So with no time to sew (and I don't sew very well) I just ironed over the selvage edges and – don't be horrified please – I left the raw edges on the end.  I love how it looked with the dishes, although I will confess I probably should have ironed the middle of the fabric better.  It was one of those, "That's good enough" moments.

 I used my everyday stainless flatware and some lovely wine glasses I bought a while back at Home Goods.  (Speaking of Home Goods, we now have TWO to choose from in the big city!  Isn't that exciting!  Went there during spring break but didn't find a thing I couldn't live without.  I'm sure I will find something next time.)

You can see the sun shining brightly outside.  We frequently set everything up outside, but we had the biggest lightning and thunderstorm the night before so everything was wet and soggy so all was inside. Which brings me to our next table.

We set this one up in our library.  But since our library is really not very big and you have to walk through it to get to the sunroom, we waited and sat this one up at the last minute.

I used some lovely Wedgwood plates I picked up at the thrift store for $0.75 each.  (I know this because the price was still written on the back of some of them.)  The pattern is called Hedge Rose.  

I used this cute bunny and cart as a centerpiece on this table.  

Want to hear the back story on that?  Worker Bee and I got married in 1990 (our 23rd anniversary is tomorrow) and that was a wedding gift. It was filled with dried flowers and I loved it, back then.  Well tastes change and dried flowers get yucky, but I couldn't quite let it go so I added to our Easter decorations and I always fill him with pretty little eggs.  And now – you know the rest of the story.

(If you look closely you can see a bit of my new rug.  I LOVE it!)

The flatware was this wonderful silver plate (you can read about that here) that has turned into a fun find.

The stemware were from TAG a few years ago.  I love TAG but their items are so expensive.  Luckily I got these on clearance.

I also had to use my ginormous red chalkboard too!  

Don't look too closely because I think I drew the purple draping backwards, but you won't tell on me will you?

He is risen, He is risen indeed.

And I would like to thank you for buzzing along with me. I appreciate you taking time from your day to come by for a visit.