A Day With Friends

It's always a treat to spend a day with friends...and that's just what I got to do a couple weeks ago. Patricia and I headed up to Pennsylvania to spend the day with Tisha.  They took me out to lunch for my birthday.  We did a little shopping as well...stopping at a few antique shops and also Brown's Orchards and Farm Market.  The weather was amazing...and the fellowship with my dear friends was as wonderful as always!!  Plus I got some presents too!

I just had to take a picture of this "bossy" sign that we saw on the way to Pennsylvania.

One of the cute little shops we visited.

I love this pretty scene...there's something about red and green. It's my favorite two color combo!

My friends....Patricia and Tisha.

This photo (all were taken with my phone) doesn't do this scene justice. 

Tisha and Patricia were very intrigued by the Honey Bees at Brown's.

I was happy to stand back and just snap a few photos.

Patricia has started her own bee hive at her home. She's hoping for honey next year.

Isn't this a sweet little statue?!

Brown's had some beautiful window boxes on display.  This one was my favorite.

But this one....

...and this one were very pretty too!

It was a really, really nice day! 

Here's one of presents...this braided mat is from Tisha. I love the colors!
She also got me a really wonderful red, metal box, and some other little treasures!

Patricia gave me presents too...including this awesome old typewriter!
Such a fuzzy phone photo!  

Spending time with these two women is one of my very favorite things to do!!  
(I'd say that even if no presents were involved!!)

Williamsburg ~ Here We Come

Let the fun begin.....we're FINALLY on our way. And no snow to stop us.

I picked Patricia up at 5:45AM on Saturday and drove the two of us to Tisha's house. We got into Tisha's car, with Patricia driving, and we were on the road by 6:15AM.

Our first stop was Cracker Barrel ~ all three of us enjoyed a yummy pancake breakfast. We also collected a bunch of syrup bottles ~ at least a dozen of them. There are so many creative things to make with them. This trip was about being together, eating and shopping! Our first stop for shopping was The Williamsburg Pottery.

This place is huge! There are multiple buildings ~ I think our favorites were these two.

Home decorations and craft supplies.

Tons of ferns and pottery. Tisha found a beautiful orchid to take home.

I have so much fun when I'm with Tisha and Patricia.

They have fun when they're with me too!

Our next stop was the Tea Room at The Williamsburg Antique Center.

The owner was quite a character. She entertained us with all kinds of stories. We drank some lovely tea and had a wonderful lunch.

I forgot to take pictures of the food ~ I was too busy chewing! We all agreed ~ it was very good!

We didn't have a lot of time to shop before the antique mall closed but we each managed to find one treasure to take home with us. Afterwards we headed to The Embassy Suites to check into our room. We got there just in time for the manager's reception and enjoyed complimentary drinks, deep fried mushrooms, veggies and popcorn. Interesting combination for sure!

We got our luggage into our room and then headed off to The Prime Time Outlets ~ we spent most of our time at Children's Place ~ in fact they had to chase us out at closing. There were some great grandbaby bargains and all three of us took advantage of the sales. We went to Chili's for dinner (I told you this trip was all about food & shopping!) and then back to our hotel for some visiting and a good nights sleep........because we had another busy day planned for Sunday.

Complimentary (made to order) breakfasts started our day....omelets, bacon, waffles, coffee and juice....Yum!

Then we headed to the largest Yankee Candle store I have ever seen!


I'll share more photos from this great place another time ~ this post is already long and it isn't done yet.

We spent about three hours walking around Colonial Williamsburg. it was pretty chilly but so sun shiney! Just a beautiful day! i was able to take some wonderful photos.
This is one of my very favorites.

Take a look ~ they're having a "cloche party" in the garden!

The building behind Tisha and Patricia had a sweet little gift shop in it. We found a lot of special treasures there.

Take a look at our trunk full of special treasures!

Looks like we got plenty of goodies ~ but we weren't quite finished. We stopped at a yarn shop (more about that in a future post) and managed to find a few more things.

In fact we added three of these bags to the pile already in the trunk!

This one is mine, obviously not in the trunk ~ but I wanted to make sure and share ALL our shopping bags. I'll share peeks at what's inside another time.

After the yarn shop we headed to Red, Hot & Blue for dinner. Then we started our journey back home. Our get-away weekend was over. We had a FAN-TAB-U-LOUS time!

Every bit of it was a blessing!

Craft Show

I have some talented friends.....Patricia, Tisha, Joann and Allison are their names.  We recently combined our creations and held a three day "arts & crafts" show in Patricia's new home studio.  I thought I'd share some pictures from the show.

"Owls on a Branch" by Patricia.  I bought this little family of four. It's a gift for Johanna...it's okay to tell because she picked them out!



 A beautiful scarf knitted by Tisha - it was my favorite of the knitted pieces she brought for the show.

Lots of beautiful florals by Allison. A sweet wreath on a stand came home with me.

A mannequin full of jewelry by Joann.  She shared some wonderful display pieces for the show.

Patricia, Joann and Tisha.....I never did get a picture of Allison! 

The show took place on the 17th, 18th and 19th of November.  My father-in-law passed away on the 17th so the whole weekend was pretty much a blur.  I didn't help at the show as much as I would have liked to...but I have great friends and they all understood.  For a "first annual" arts & crafts show I'd say it was a success.  Patricia's studio was the perfect setting for a wonderful show. More photos to come.....

Gifts from Friends

My friends, Tisha & Patricia, are very talented.  Both of them paint.  Tisha does watercolors...here's some of her work.  Patricia does china painting...you can see some of her work here and here.

 

They also create with wool roving and yarn.  A little bit of Knitting and some Felting too.

Here are a couple gifts I received from them.

 

Tisha knitted and then felted these sweet little bowls...in red, because she knows it's my favorite color!

 

She also knit this adorable owl beanbag...love the little tufts on his head!

And she made a pretty hotpad for me...but I'm using it at work for a coaster.

 

This is a HON, and she was "felted" by Patricia. 
In part, her little tag says: "Needle felting is a time-consuming sculptural technique whereby the artist pokes dry wool roving with a special barbed needle until the desired effect is achieved. This little "HON" took many, many hours to create."

Don't you love her little glasses!

 

How about her "beady" legs and hand-sculpted high heels?

 

A "Hon" wouldn't be complete without her "beehive" hairdo.
 

 

I am so lucky to have such talented friends...and blessed to receive some of their creations for my very own!!