New Year Wishes

Wishing you Joy, Peace, and Good Health in the New Year.  Thank you for stopping by for a cup of tea with me in 2016 while Bentley and I shared with you my joy for painting, gardening, flea marketing, and my new love for teaching art at the beautiful Sherman Library and Gardens.  I sincerely appreciate you visits, comments, e-mails and those following my blog.  

Wishing you and your family a very Happy New Year.  Blessings,  Erin

Bentley found some winter Stock to share with you one more time before year end.

                                    And we will have one last cup of tea before 2017.

                                                  "Sing to Him a new song."  Psalm 33:3

Christmas Cottage

Welcome to our Christmas Cottage.  My gate is always open for you to come in and sit and relax with a cup of tea for a few minutes during this busy time of year.  We are so thankful to have rain in Southern California that is helping with our terrible 4 year drought.  We are also having cold nights and beautiful but chilly days.  


Bentley, my Studio Assistant, is waiting to bring you in the house for tea as it is getting chilly outside.

My theme for decorating this year ended up "red and white check" both indoors and outdoors.

              Let's go inside where it is warm and Bentley is waiting to show you around. Opps our tour guide decided to take a short nap on the stair landing.

The guest bedroom is ready for guests with greens, sea shells, vintage stockings and a little tree.

The dining room is festive with more greens, sea shells and red and white check.

                           I use my sea shell collection as part of our Christmas decorations and use this delicate vintage table cloth each year for Christmas.

We love using the red and white china for the Christmas holidays - normally the shelf is filled with blue and white china.

                                    Let's stop in the kitchen to have a cup of tea.

We don't have a lot of rain in Southern California and when we do get rain we get giddy and get out our garden boots to splash around in!

I already have red and white indoor/outdoor pillows and found the darling reindeer check pillow at Ross for $10.00 to add to my collection.  The shore birds are also wearing red gingham ribbons .

My home is decorated in coastal cottage style with my coastal cottage art  and I love using my seashell collection as part of our Christmas decorations.

The vintage flower stand used to be in the garden - now it resides in the living room in front of a sunny window and is perfect for plants and display for shells and bird nests!

Decorations are kept very simple with lots of greens, flowers and sea shells.

 My living room has lots of light and outdoor plants thrive indoors during the winter.

                                          Our tour guide finally woke up from his nap!

                                                    More sea shells used in decorating.

Thank you for stopping by.  I sincerely appreciate you visits, comments, e-mails and those following my blog this year.

Wishing you and your family a Joyful and very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

I will be back with a new post the first week in 
January 2017.  Blessings,  Erin

                 "When they saw the star they rejoiced with exceeding joy."  Matthew 2:10

Christmas Cottage Garden

Welcome.  I am so happy that you stopped by.  My garden gate is always open for you to come in and sit and relax for a few minutes and enjoy a cup of tea.  We are so thankful to have had rain and cool weather here in Southern California and our winter flowers are thriving.

Let's join Bentley, my Studio Assistant, to see what is growing in the garden.

So far we have not had freezing weather at night and some of the white Impatients are still blooming.

                                                 The Poinsettias love the cooler weather.

The ferns on the front porch are protected from frost and so far are doing well.

                         I plant Paper Whites so they are spaced out to bloom through January.

I love red and white check for Christmas and Summer and it is always fun to get the pillows out for Christmas - they are indoor/outdoor and have lasted very well over the past 10 years.

                      I made some of the Christmas ornaments last year with my art group.

                                We will have out tea in this little corner of the garden.

Blossom our vintage dress form is all dressed up for the holidays - can you tell she is wearing socks for mittens and has on a mini Christmas tree skirt around her waist! She is a fashionista and shops exclusively at the Goodwill Stores!

                               Another favorite spot for morning tea is the kitchen garden.

Thank you for stopping by.  I sincerely appreciate your visits, comments, e-mails and those following my blog.

Have a lovely week.  Blessings,  Erin

                             " May mercy, peace, and love be yours in abundance."  Jude 1:2

Christmas at Sherman Library and Gardens

Welcome.  I am so happy that you stopped by. I am taking you with me to the beautiful Sherman Library and Gardens in Newport Beach, CA to enjoy the Christmas flowers and have tea in the tea garden.  The garden is very seasonal and I recently shared with you their Art In the Garden series where I teach flower painting classes. Today I want to share with you the garden decorated for Christmas and the inspirations for our last flower painting class of the year.

The red geranium flowers beds are surrounded with parsley plants and the bright green is so festive.

The garden is located on 2.2 acres just blocks from the Pacific Ocean and is a horticultural retreat filled with seasonal flowers and plants, cactus and succulent gardens, fountains, walkways, a fabulous research library with over 25,000 books on the Pacific Southwest, gift shop, tea garden and fabulous Cafe Jardin featuring french cuisine pared with California wines.     


                             The tea garden is decorated with white Poinsettias this year.

                     We leave the tea garden and meander down the shade path to the turtle pond.

                                                           Past the succulent gardens.

Through the greenhouse.  

                                     The garden also sells plants in their gift shop.

                           Can you tell which Christmas flower the class painted?

Past the bench in the kitchen garden and into lovely room in the Cafe Jardin set up for my last "art in the garden" class where we painted Poinsettias on gift boxes and gift tags.

This was the last class for the year and I am so blessed to have the garden invite me back to teach seasonal flower painting classes open to painters and non painters throughout 2017.


Thank you for stopping by. I sincerely appreciate your visits, comments, e-mails and those following my blog.

Have a lovely week.  Blessings,  Erin
                    
                      "The meditation of my heart shall be understanding."  Psalm  49:3