Farmgirl AND Farm Friend Friday blog hop

It's Farmgirl Friday 

 and Farm Friend Friday at Dandelion House and Verde Farm today! Today is our first co-hosted blog hop and we are looking forward to some fun and " farmy " entries from all of you! Before you link up for your weekly dose of farmgirl soul food. I'd like to share a couple of entries that really wowed me last week!
HOLY COW JODIE! 
 If you didn't get by to see Jodie's Cow Chair take a peak at her blog The Nest Eclectic for all the details. It is farmgirl fantastic! She did all the upholstery herself
( so impressive) AND it was her first time!

Caroline of Boho Farm and Home  has lots of good things going on, right in her backyard! She's hosting her own Farmer/flea Market with music, artists and fresh produce!

Doesn't this look so fun and inviting? It made me think about the possibilities for future gatherings I could host right here in my own back yard... It's just more proof that a girl doesn't have to live on a farm to live a happy, healthy, and creative farm life! How about that cute banner she made?

" Some live on farms, but it's not necessary given farmgirl is a condition of the heart."  ~ Mary Jane Butters 

Now it's your turn to flaunt YOUR farmgirl spirit! 

Here are the rules for the Farmgirl/Farm Friend Friday blog hop:
1.) Show us your farmgirl flair! Include photos of your farm, crafts, art, animals, quilts, thrifty home and garden makins', recipes, farm stories, your backyard garden, hen house, studio or workshop. You get the idea! 
2). Enter the link to your entry post in the Mr. Linky space.
3). Please include the Farmgirl Friday/Farm Friend buttons ( or link back to our blogs ) in your post. 
4). I'll feature a farmgirl or two from the hop every Friday!

Adding more Farm FRIENDS to Farmgirl Friday!

Hi everyone! Exciting news! Farmgirl Friday and Farm Friend Friday have joined our blog hops together adding to the Farm Fun on Fridays! Amy of Verde Farm and I will co-host the hop every Friday and we can't wait to see everyone gathered together tomorrow!

 If you love the farm life, you'll love her blog! Go give her a howdy and be sure to come back tomorrow and enter your farmgirl/farm friend posts!
It's going to be a Farm Frenzy I tell ya!

See you tomorrow!
Deb
PS. Welcome new followers and  email subscribers! Thank you for joining Dandelion House! 

The Cottage Hens

 ( Lacy Lou and Hazel )

It's time to check in on the Cottage Hens! The girls have been waiting patiently for their annual spring cleaning and even though it wasn't the warmest day (28 ) the sun was out so I bundled up and made it happen... I even gussied up the inside of the Hen House but you'll have read to the end to see it!

Lets see if I can make a post about cleaning the Poulet' Chalet'  informative, inspiring and beautiful!

I thought we'd take a look around the Hen House ( cobwebs and all ) so those of you who are thinking about a small flock of your own can see how ours looks and functions. I've mentioned in a previous post that our Hen House is built from salvaged materials including the large window on the front. It's not operable but it allows a steady dose of sun to stream in during the long winter months keeping them nice and snug inside.

Picture Lady Banks yellow roses growing on a trellis here.

My other half built the nesting boxes on the back for easy access to collecting eggs

 and food storage which is separated from the nesting area by a small dividing wall.

 The access door to the run and the door to the coop is just beyond the nesting boxes.

The door is also a " foundling" that my hubby revived with a lot of  sanding and some new wire for the openings between the framed areas.

( before cleaning )

The door to the coop is on the inside of the run. This makes it easy to feed, clean and visit with the girls because they are safe inside. Oh, I would love to let them roam free we but we have too many loose dogs and wild turkeys in the neighborhood that could be a danger. I didn't take a photo of the floor of the coop after I cleaned it out, but it has sheet of linoleum stapled to it. This has worked well both for just a quick sweep out or a hose down which I do once a year usually during summer when I can leave the door open all day and into the early evening to dry out. 

We placed vents on either side of the top and back of the coop. The decorative  iron door strap is from Antique Restoration Hardware. The paint is Behr Barn Red opaque stain. Our coop is just right for 8-10 birds ( we currently have 3 ) with the attached run measuring out at 10 x 15 feet. We've got our spring chicks on order... With ten new babies coming soon we are planning an extension for the run and possibly a smaller " cottage " near by. 

I love the smell of fresh shavings! To me it's sort of the same kind of wonderful as fresh cut grass or a horse barn. I sweep the old shavings into the run and rake them over the damp ground so they can compost for a while.  I'll go back in later in the season to shovel off the top layer of the run adding it to my garden for a boost! 

While I cleaned the girls told me they wanted to do a little decorating too! They thought it would be nice to hang a family photo or two and some pictures of the garden. I went rummaging in my stash to see what I could come up with...

Low and behold, I had saved an old calendar just for a day like this! I tore out the pages the girls liked and tacked them up on the inside with upholstery tacks. We were having so much fun that I decided to use up some wall paper samples for back grounds behind some other favored pictures too.

Family Portraits

Garden Photos 

Outside looking in

Chestnut says she likes it! 

What ever you're spring cleaning I hope you're inspired to add your special touches along the way! 

You'll just feel better, I promise! 

Cluck... Cluck.. Cluck...

I'm sharing this post with Our Little Coop's~ Coop Hop

and the Chicken Chick's Clever Chic Hop! 

Saturday Scenes with BOZ

" Looking Back "
A Saturday Scene for your enjoyment~

Thanks for looking! Have a wonderful weekend!
Boz

Farmgirl Friday blog hop # 2

Welcome to Farmgirl Friday blog hop #2 !

We had a great time last week topping out at 12 entries for the first week! We learned how to build a Potato Condo made from wooden pallets and nourish our winter weary bodies with a natural remedy drink from Corn in my Coffee Pot. Pamela from Backwoods Cottage featured her beautiful brilliant blue delphinium's and Tilly's Nest gave us a sneak peak of her spring chicks and Happy Mama shared the blessings of her garden. We enjoyed Mary Beth's fresh baked bread, and got an eye full of some pretty and cute aprons thanks to Amy of Homestead Revival and Grammies Heirlooms! Marcia's Hafflingers, and Hopscotch Dandelions Palomino stole my heart.

Thank you to everyone who entered and clicked the follow button too! I really enjoyed making the rounds to see everyone!

 It was hard to choose who to feature this week mostly because I loved each and every entry and I just hate to leave anyone out! Drum roll please.... Here are the featured farmgirls for this week!

Farmgirl Faith over at Crochet by the Sea creates crochet treasures that remind me a lot of those my mom and Grandmother used to make. It's so nice to see that this handi- craft is still being expressed today and Faith does it so beautifully.

 Did you make it by to meet Taso of the Y Not Homestead ? Her entry was titled " A Different Solar Life" and since we spend part of each summer in a solar powered beach cottage I was happy to meet this ambitious family homesteading in Arizona. Coming from the dry arid west myself ( Northern Nevada) I could relate to some of their gardening challenges, and also the dream of having a high desert homestead off-grid.

They are doing an amazing job of making their dream a living reality!  How would you like to call this the road home?

Now it's time to flaunt your farmgirl spirit!  

Farmgirls love anything to do with making things with their hands, keeping chicken's, embroidering, sewing, knitting, spinning, quilting, natural home remedies for health care and cleaning, horses, goats, cows, organic gardening and cooking, caring for their loved ones and friends and are community minded. Re-purposing and UP-cycling are high on their list of " fun things to do too"! They are enterprising and creative! Many of us love being part of the amazing MJF farmgirl sisterhood, earning merit badges, and chatting on the farmgirl forum too!

" Some live on farms, but it's not necessary given farmgirl is a condition of the heart."  ~ Mary Jane Butters

Here are the rules for the Farmgirl Friday blog hop:

1.) Show us your farmgirl flare! Include photos of your farm, crafts, art, animals, quilts, thrifty home and garden makins', your backyard garden, hen house, studio or workshop. You get the idea!
2). Enter the link to your entry post in the Mr. Linky space.
3). Please include the farmgirl Friday button ( or link back here ) in your post.
4). I'll feature a farmgirl or two from the hop every Friday!

* Everyone is welcome to join in!
It's that easy! Link up every Friday for your weekly dose of farmgirl soul-food!

I'll be making the rounds to see friends and meet new ones too!

Have fun and don't forget to stop and say howdy along the way!

Deborah Jean

Powered by Linky Tools
Click here to enter your link and view this Linky Tools list...

Antique Letter Desk ~ say what?

" Please write again soon. Though my own life is filled with activity, letters encourage momentary escape into others lives and I come back to my own with greater contentment."-Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey

There's nothing quite like the warmth of a handwritten letter or note in a hand~made card or one selected just for you. ( I hand painted this card using a stencil, red craft paint and a gold leaf pen).

With today's fast way of communicating via the Internet you might wonder why anyone would even consider having such a thing as an Antique Letter Desk around the house. Even though much of our daily communications happen as fast as a satellite signal can transport them, I believe there is still a need for the hand written letter or note inside a lovely card don't you?

During one of our flea market trips my mom came across a wonderful Antique Letter Desk and she just had to have it! It was probably constructed in the mid 1800's to early 1900's. In it's prior life, it was stained a dark walnut and was without any additional embellishments or decorations on it.
That was then....

She gave it a good priming then painted the desk with a top coat of soft green latex paint in and eggshell finish. The stenciled words on the outside of the lid declare this piece a modern day Letter Desk.

Today, it looks nothing like it did when she brought it home!

She worked her magic and brought this old time, out dated workhorse back to life. She added such charming details as wooden ball feet and a hobnail detail across the bottom of the desk and decorated the inside of the desk with cheery RED fabric for a touch or warmth and romance.

If that wasn't enough, she created a memo board on the inside of the lid for holding special cards, notes or photos.

It even has a handy place to store pretty boxes of cards or luxurious writing paper!

Maybe you'll be inspired to put your pen to paper a little more often.

Give it a try, you'll just feel better, I promise!

Fool the eye FAUX headboards

Today I'm sharing a fun, budget friendly way to decorate your bedrooms with some hand painted whimsy!

These fool the eye hand painted headboards were a temporary fix for rooms I knew we would be changing as our daughter grew up and the need for a den/school/music room  finally over ruled the guest room! Both headboards are painted in a loose free hand style. I used a real bed post to outline the posts ( with a pencil ) on the red bed above. I used acrylic craft paint in red and antique gold for the accents and " pretend shadowing ".
When my mother came to visit, she said she used to try and grab the rails to help her out of bed, but there was nothing to grab on to!

I was inspired by a children's book illustration for the shape and size of this headboard. I used the colors and patterns from our daughters quilt for the designs.

* These two headboards cost under 15.00 to create. The only thing I had to purchase was craft paint and a few new brushes! 

I'm linking up to Whassup Wedneday with Elements Interiors and Wow us Wednesday over at Southern Savvy Style!

Dandelion House has a NEW LOOK!

Happy Spring friends!

In honor of Springs arrival, I decided to give Dandelion House a complete makeover! I've had a vision of what I wanted for some time now that I couldn't seem to attain with my limited computer knowledge and even more limited graphic design skills. I knew I wanted these pages to radiate warmth and good cheer ( in my favorite color pallet) with a touch of whimsy just for fun!  As much as I love fiddling around with different backgrounds and header photos I really want to spend my time creating enriching content to inspire you. With that in mind, I knew there was only one person who could help me. Karen Valentine of Valentine Design.

She's getting to be quite the household name in blog land. She authors the charming and popular home and garden blog My Desert Cottage . She also hosted the brilliant first and second annual Where Bloggers Create parties as well as being featured in Where Women Create and Summerset Studio magazines. But that's not all... She's been asked to speak at this years Creative Connection. She builds beautiful blogs from her online web business Valentine Design and if that weren't enough she has just launched her new book Building Beautiful Blogs for the beginner blogger ( and anyone else who still thinks they could learn more about blogger) .

I'll admit, the artist in me was hesitant, even a bit anxious to relinquish " creative control " over my blog design but I'm so glad I did.  Karen was wonderful to work with, reasonably priced and professional.

In her words, " You DESERVE a beautiful blog " .

I couldn't agree more ! I LOVE my new look and I hope you do too!