Patchouli Rose Designs

FRIDAY SHOPPING EVENT - May 7th

2010-05-06T23:16:00.004-05:00

COLOR ME PINK....All of a sudden, it seems that everywhere I look, I see more and more pink. Now, one of my very favorite colors is being used in home décor and accessories of all kinds.

Mixing the various shades of pink can create a feminine and warm feeling in any room. But a single pink piece in an all white room can capture just as much attention.

This week Cozy Cottage is "bringing out the pink" and joining the other participating boutiques at Make Mine Pink for the Friday Shopping Event. We hope you find something to enhance the beauty of your home or office.

"Office Chic" - March 12th - Friday Shopping Event

2010-03-11T13:10:00.005-06:00

We are participating in Make Mine Pink's Friday Shopping Event this week and the theme is one of my favorites - "Office Chic". If you spend hours every day working in your office, it should reflect who you are and what you love to surround yourself with. Last year I redecorated my office in a roses theme. Now everyone who comes in comments on how comfortable and pretty it is. You can do the same thing in your home office, or your office in the workplace. Adding a few pretty touches in the colors that you love will make you feel more relaxed and make you more productive at the same time.

This week Patchouli Rose Designs and Cozy Cottage will be featuring our lovely altered clipboards that are both functional and beautiful. We have several different designs to choose from and hopefully there is one to help make your office very "chic"!

Be sure to stop by all of the other participating boutiques at Make Mine Pink's Friday Shopping Event this week, too.

Happy shopping!

Debbie

Friday Shopping Event - "A Touch of Whimsy"

2010-03-04T22:02:00.005-06:00

Every now and then, it's fun to take a detour from the everyday by adding playful touches to our routines. It doesn't even need to be something outrageous. Sometimes, adding just a "touch o' whimsy" is all it takes to spice things up.

Where could you add a whimsical touch or two to your home?

Please join Cozy Cottage Gifts and Decor and Patchouli Rose Designs as we participate in Make Mine Pink's Friday Shopping Event this week. We will be featuring our altered art clipboards during this special event.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Debbie @ Patchouli Rose Designs

Cozy Cottage Gifts and Decor

Show and Tell Monday

2010-02-28T21:00:00.006-06:00

www.shabbycozycottage.com

It's been a busy past few weeks at Cozy Cottage and Patchouli Rose Designs. We've had our share of bad weather which included snow and ice, and resulted in a water pipe that burst under the kitchen sink at the shop........what a mess! But we are warm and dry now and watching eagerly for Spring to arrive. In spite of bad weather and Niagra Falls in the kitchen, I have found time to create a few new things and I wanted to share them with you.

I hope you have a wonderful week and find a special spot of sunshine to warm you each day!

Debbie

Show and Tell Monday.....pics of the shop

2010-01-18T10:22:00.006-06:00

Hello everyone.....it's been a long, long time since I've blogged and even longer since I've participated in Show and Tell Monday with Make Mine Pink, but I'm trying to get back in the swing of things. Here is a little slide show I made from pics of my Cozy Cottage Gifts and Decor shop and I thought you might enjoying taking a peek. I'm working on "beautiful creations", getting ready for the Argenta Art Market weekends this spring......also working on getting the shop open again regularly.

SLIDE SHOW: http://www.slide.com/r/mKEa8KAGsT8c8ekP2Ao8AxGVS-_5HtKX?previous_view=mscd_embedded_url&view=original

I hope you have a wonderful day (especially if it is a holiday from work like it is for me today)!

Debbie

Friday Shopping Event at Cozy Cottage Gifts and Decor

2009-11-12T18:45:00.007-06:00

Our themed shopping event this Friday, November 13th, is "Comforts of Home". What does this bring to mind for you? Sitting by a crackling fire wrapped in a hand-sewn quilt, sipping hot chocolate from your favorite mug, your favorite candle scenting the air, or maybe it is special bath products after a warm bath or shower. To me, comforts of home means a room decorated so that everyone who comes to visit has a warm, cozy feeling.

Please join Cozy Cottage Gifts and Decor as we participate in Make Mine Pink's Friday Shopping Event on November 13th. Cozy Cottage and all of the other participating boutiques have put out their favorite comforts for you to create the comforts of your own home.

Have a wonderful weekend!
Debbie

A little something for the holidays......

2009-11-01T08:36:00.009-06:00

This vintage wooden tray has been updated for the holidays with vintage greeting cards, lace and pearl trim, and vintage mother-of-pearl button embellishment. I am listing it on Patchouli Rose Designs on my website just in time for someone lucky to add it to their holiday decor.

Inspirations.......

2009-10-16T22:11:00.007-05:00

To me the greatest part of being creative is being inspired......that wonderful feeling you get when you have that aha! moment and think "I want to make a ------" (you fill in the blank). Sometimes inspiration comes from looking through a favorite magazine. Another time it may come from taking a walk outdoors when the weather is perfect and you feel in tune with nature. Many times family and friends unknowingly inspire something creative in you. For me, inspiration sometimes comes when I pick up pieces of this and that at Patchouli Rose Designs and they all seem to work together to create something lovely or fun that I hadn't even thought of in advance. That is my favorite kind of creativity.....the kind that is inspired from within, drawing from your subconscious the beauty you didn't even know you had within you. If that sounds strange to you let me try to explain.

Right now I am working on a series of altered art pieces called the "Harold" series. Harold, so named by me, is a crow......his inspiration comes from an old, old storybook. I walked into my workroom one afternoon and the storybook was lying out on the table. I flipped through it casually, enjoying the children's story, and an idea just took hold. Before long, I had a plastered a small canvas with putty and colored it with an ink pad, and I began selecting pictures for the first of the Harold series. I won't give away my Harold theme here, but I will say that it inspired four pieces that I will offer as a set at the Spring art market.

What inspires you to be creative? Please leave a comment and share your creative inspiration with our readers here.

I wish for you.....days filled with inspiration!

Our new look......

2009-10-14T01:51:00.006-05:00

Hi everyone.....if you are a previous visitor to the Patchouli Rose blog then you were probably surpried to see that it has changed. I decided to .use Patchouli Rose to talk about the handcrafted items I create in the Cozy Cottage studio. I do a lot of repurposing which I really like because that means I am thinking "green". I love working with paper and paint, and also enjoy sewing and other types of crafting so you may see me post about all sorts of projects here. In the meantime, if you want to see what I've been up to just go to my Cozy Cottage Gifts and Decor website and click on the Patchouli Rose Designs category.

I hope you will be back here to visit again soon!

Debbie

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!

2009-03-17T23:45:00.001-05:00

2009-02-13T23:37:00.003-06:00

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

An easy slipcovering lesson.........

2009-02-12T19:55:00.012-06:00

One of my recent projects (just this week) was to make a slipcover for my daughter's ottoman. The process had been in my mind for quite a while but I hadn't had the time to do the creating. Since she and her roommate were planning a little pre-Valentine's/housewarming event this weekend in their new home I put other things aside and got started on the project.

Here is a picture of the ottoman......I think you can see why she wanted a slipcover!

I am trying to do better about reduce/reuse/recycle, so I wanted to use repurposed items rather than new. I went through my "stash" and found a satin pillow sham in earthy colors and a pale gold velvet bedskirt that coordinated perfectly. The sham was cut to fit the top of the ottoman and the ruffle from the bedskirt was measured and cut to fit around all four sides of the ottoman.''

Once the length of bedskirt was pinned to the cut-to-fit pillow sham, it was just a matter of stitching them together, turning them right-side out and voila! the ottoman had a whole new boho-style look. There was even enough of the pillow sham left to make a matching pillow for my daughter's sofa!

This project was simple enough that anyone with basic skills on the sewing machine could do it.

The ongoing saga of the fainting sofa......

2009-01-17T21:50:00.008-06:00

Hello friends......The Saga of the Fainting Sofa continues. Have you ever had a Magnificent Plan...one that you visualized completely in your mind and knew it just had to happen? Well, such was The Saga of the Fainting Sofa.

As you may recall from previous posts I was busy clothing the fainting sofa in all kinds of velvet, lace and brocades. This was all in preparation for its debut in The Parlor I planned to create in my cottage shop. Well, so clear was my vision of The Parlor, with the fainting sofa and Victorian mantel and fireplace as the main characters, that I cleared the room of everything and began the transformation. The fireplace and mantel went right in.....along came a shabby writing desk and pretty Eastlake style armchair. An old Victrola that I snatched from my mom's garage over Christmas came along too, soon to be painted and shabbied up. And now it was finally time for the Grand Entrance of the Fainting Sofa! TA-DA!!! Did I mention it had been waiting right inside the front door in the living room all this time? And did I mention that it would have to make a 45 degree turn through a 3x4 foot hallway to enter The Parlor? And did I also fail to mention that all of the interior doorways in the 1920s cottage measure 30 inches wide and the fainting sofa which measured 29 inches on one end measured 37 inches on the other end? Well......you guessed it, there was no way on earth that fainting sofa was going through the doorway or turning in that hallway. I was crushed.....as crushed as My Big Plan which just wasn't going to happen, at least not with the fainting sofa. So the moral to this story is this.....next time you have a Big Plan, take a tape measure along with you!

Stay tuned for upcoming pictures of Plan B.......executing My Big Plan without the fainting sofa.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

2008-12-31T18:19:00.004-06:00

May the New Year bring you good health, good friends and much happiness!

Debbie @ Patchouli Rose

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

2008-12-25T11:54:00.002-06:00

Wishing you a Merry Christmas and all the best in the New Year!

Debbie

Show and Tell Monday......Lovin' my fainting sofa.......

2008-12-20T22:28:00.009-06:00

I was shopping the thrift stores a couple of days ago and found this fabulous fainting sofa.....I tried to be strong and resist its call but the next morning I was there when the shop opened and bought it for a whopping $29. I already had several ideas for what I want to do with it....first of all, slipcover it in an elegant bohemian manner and then put it in one of the bedrooms at my local shop, Cozy Cottage Gifts and Decor.

So Saturday while I had the shop open and no one was shopping because it is cold and dreary and they were all in one of the big towns an hour away buying Christmas gifts, I got to play with the fainting sofa. I'm trying all sorts of fabric combinations until I get just the right look.......then out come the scissors and sewing machine and I'll make a fabulous elegant bohemian slipcover. Here's a photo of what I ended up with today but I'm not happy with the brown lace on the sitting area so it will go and I think I'll try some velvet next....what do you think?

The Epitome of Bohemian Elegance

2008-12-19T22:59:00.008-06:00

If you haven't heard of Magnolia Pearl you are in for a real treat! Robin "Pearl" Brown has brought bohemian style to the heights of elegance. This video tells about the beginnings of her wonderful Magnolia Pearl style.