1965 Land Yacht Airstream Trailer

We have had her for awhile, but just never got around to fixing her up and placing her at her new home. She is our little guest house at our home on the Oregon Coast. She is a beauty and we had nothing short of fun getting her ready. She was in pretty good shape for her age, though neglected for a few years and needing a good cleaning and some beach style it took us about two weeks to get her ready for the voyage up north.

Of course I had to add some beachy touches, but comfort and ease of care were top priority in my choices. We tore out the carpet, went down to the wood floors and gave them a good couple coats of paint. No curtains in the front half, sunshine sunshine sunshine. I did add a few removable bamboo shades for when a little privacy and shade are needed. We removed the built in beds/sofa and added a small love seat from IKEA, This was the best way to get a love seat through the door, we built it in inside. It has washable slip covers and a bunch of comfy feather pillows to lounge on. We put down a few easy care sisal rugs and added a few luxury touches to make it comfy.

The back half, which is where the bedroom and bath are located we closed off with a nice drape also from IKEA, easy care, and very natural looking textile... it drapes to and on the floor which looks great, but when we stayed in it our little dog kept getting tangled up in the curtain so....

Shiny, shiny, shiny.... I love the aluminum! She actually could use some elbow grease shining, but I kind of like her aged patina as well.

We had to make one of our famous Spoon Tags for her... the little trailer stamp is so cute... we make these custom for trailer owners, so check us out on our business page Old Soul Studios if you would like us to make you one.

On our way to her new home we took her camping at Patrick's Point State park here in California. We decorated the camp site and her... it was a lot of fun. I like a little Boho too!

And there she is in the woods looking all perfect. I love her! It was such a fun project and one more wonderful part of "Living The Dream". Thanks for coming a long and letting me share... until next time Happy Gardening~ Jacque

Right at the edge of Spring

We are changing the clocks tonight ~ "Spring Forward" they say! The weather has been very mild even for a California winter. We have had very little rain and only a few storms to count. The garden is showing signs of Spring right on time and we have been spending some time in the garden doing Spring maintenance.

Here are a few photos of what we see blooming around the garden today...

Blues and purples seem to be dominant right now, but we also have a nice selection of daffodils, I just didn't capture them in pictures yet.

We are looking forward to Spring, it is a favorite time to garden and the temps stay mild so we can enjoy the garden longer.

Hope you are beginning to see signs of Spring in your garden as well... I will be back soon to show you a new project we are doing in our California garden and also all the changes that are happening at our Oregon garden. ~ with my hands in the dirt ~ Jacque

It's a Merry Christmas Time...

I enjoy including touches of garden in my holiday decorating and rather then solely decorate for Christmas I enjoy decorating for the winter season so I can continue to enjoy them all the way up until spring. The little porch on the front of this little cottage home is usually my first place of interest. We have a few primitive pieces that are always eager to hold the latest seasons decor. I usually just gather new things from around the yard and add a few clippings from the garden.

Most of you have already been introduced to our little chalkboard on the porch, we have fun using to express our selves during each season. For this time of year I just simply wrote the words "Merry & Bright"... just the way we want the house to feel.

My second favorite place to show touches from the garden is in the little garden bay window in the kitchen. It almost always has a collection of flower frogs, watering cans, plants and other treasures from the garden. I relocated one of my favorite concrete angels to watch over things.

Sometimes it is the smallest things that bring us the most joy, I had a page fall from a vintage book I was handling and it floated around the house from here to there for a few days always having the intent to replace it to the book. Somehow it ended up near my holiday stamps and I couldn't help myself! Soon it was folded and stamped with "Merry Christmas" and added to a flower frog on the windows ledge... very small but lots of joy!

Thanks for coming along as I share some of the fun I have been having adding little touches of garden and Christmas to our home. Wishing you all joy and fun as you celebrate this beautiful season of love, may your days be Merry & Bright!

New and exciting things in the works...

Hello everyone, as you may have notice I haven't been around much. Our business Old Soul Studios has grown over the past year and is keeping us very busy. We are excited about the new year which is right around the corner. We would like to invite you back after the first of the year to join us for a new year of adventures. There will be many changes and exciting new things to look forward to as well as all the things we have become known for. Gardening has always been one of our main passions and we are working towards making gardening and all that it entails to be a bigger part of our business and lives. Since the purchase of a home and land last year on the Oregon coast we have now the space and climate to grow in a gardening direction. We are reading lots of books to educate ourselves and considering the possibility of writing our own. Thanks for sticking with us all these years and we hope you continue to come along. Here is wishing all a wonderful holiday season and a beautiful new year!

BEACH TIME...

We love the sea, and the shore... most people that know us well know that we spend as much time a possible at the beach. On a recent trip to accumulate small drift wood sticks to create our popular drift wood trees...

Our trees will be available next month, (if interested visit our Old Soul Studios blog for information on all the places we sell our creations.) We walk many miles on many different beaches all up and down the Oregon and Northern California coast and we always get the joy of seeing beautiful things while on those beaches.

Seals and Sea Lions are often curious about what we are doing and pay us a visit, of course they are always picture worthy. This little guy followed us down the shore line popping his head up now and then to check in.

The sea speaks to me and recharges my soul... I love walking the beach and having my creativity sparked. New ideas often surface when we are on the beach.

James captured this picture of two California Pelicans as they flew over our heads. They look like they are holding hands... Just beautiful! Thanks for dropping by, I would love to hear about the places that inspire you and feed your souls, and maybe our paths will cross on a beach someday ~ Jacque

Camera Settings Can Change The Way We See Things

I have been playing around with my camera settings and the photo options on my computer and it inspires me to continue working towards a new camera and maybe even something more advance like a "photoshop" program. I take a lot of pictures of flowers at both of our gardens, I like doing a photo journal of the gardens and what is blooming when and where. We have a lot of white flowers at both houses and I was just playing around with the pictures. After you see them you may encourage me to stop, ha!, but I think it can be fun to see things from a different view.

This is the Rhododendron in Oregon. It is such a bright white that it glows in the dark. The blooms are the size of a dinner plate and the bush/tree is as tall as the house.

This is a Fuchsia, it is located right outside the front door in Oregon. There are several of them on the property, they thrive in the cool wet climate and grow to be very large bushes.

This is a Snow Ball bush, I don't know its scientific name. We actually have one at each house. This is the one in Oregon. The bush in OR is pretty small and produced a lot of very large blooms. The bush in CA is much larger and produced one bloom, its first in ten years. Needless to say I was very excited to get that one bloom!

My Easter Lilly was in a pot in CA and it bloomed in July, and boy did it bloom! It was so beautiful this year. I am going to plant a bunch of these up in the foresty part of our land and let them grow wild, I have been told the deer will not eat them (?).

And here are my daisies, I love white daisies. These are blooming in Ca... I am pretty sure the deer would love them so there probably will be no daisies in OR :( That's OK I will just have to have vases of them all over the house! Well those are a few of my white flower pictures. I did several things to the pictures to get this look. Sepia is orange to me so I didn't do that, but altering them to look a little older and make the white "pop" was kind of fun. Best part is the altering is not permanent, I can change them back to original any time I want... don't you just love technology.  Happy Gardening ~ Jacque

Summer is Moving Along So Fast...

Hi everyone and welcome back, oh wait, it was me that was gone! Well hello again and thanks for dropping by. Last week was a whirl wind and that momentum seems to be keeping pace. We are busy planning and preparing for our fall schedule of shows and juggling the needs of our two houses. This week will involve putting in another raised bed, long over due, to accommodate our winter garden. Our desire is to expand on the idea of producing most of our own food and the gardens need a boost right now. 

This picture shows one of our raised beds in the early spring, right now they are overtaken by tomato plants! We decided last year to do away with the common wood framed beds and make new ones using concrete. This is a very affordable way to create a bed and they don't rot!

Here is another (spring) picture showing the beds. We are able to create an ample amount of excellent soil to fill the beds so they are able to produce an optimum harvest with very little space. We lined the bottom to control tree roots and weeds from finding their way in, and installed a drip system to water efficiently. The next bed is going to included pipes inserted in the four corners so as to be used to hold garden art, or a trellis in the future.

Sunflowers watch over the garden until fall and the tomatoes have pretty much taken over the entire plot so as summer moves along faster and faster we will be busy putting in the next bed for our winter garden. A  friend (thanks Sherry) just recently lent me the book "The Bucolic Plague" which is about The Beekman Boys, it was inspiring to read about their adventures in gardening. This book is a lot of fun to read, we don't watch television so I was not familiar with them and their show... almost makes me want to get tv! This winter we hope to move one step closer to producing more of our own food. Happy gardening everyone ~ Jacque

What I became in 50 years

Hello everybody just a quick post, I am celebrating my 50th Birthday this week and have decided to take some extra time for myself so this week's blog post are going to be short. I just want to say how grateful I am for my life as I reach this birthday. I am healthy and very happy, have an amazing husband and I have so many wonderful things in my life that I am grateful for. My life is exciting and full of adventure and beautiful things. I am going to celebrate!

This is me 49 years ago on my first birthday

This is me a couple months ago

In 50 years I changed a lot and in 50 years I believe I stayed very much the same. I love my life and I thank God everyday!

We have a lot of flower frogs...

Hi everybody, hope everyone is enjoying summer and getting out in your gardens more then ever. I spent the day sprucing up the garden and pretty much decided that though the garden is plush and green there isn't a lot of new to show right now. Most that know us know we have an accumulation of different garden implements from watering cans, hose reels, vintage sprinklers, and well you get the idea we like to collect. Being in the business of selling makes it easy to justify getting one more, we don't keep them all, we have been known to sell them now and then! One of these collections happens to be these...

Flower frogs are one of those things that have been made in a variety of ways. Research shows that there are more patents done on flower frogs then just about any other item ever produced. Back when I owned my shop one of the services I offered was to speak on interesting subjects to groups at there social meetings. I would be hired to speak and teach about a subject of interest and one of those subjects was flower frogs. I educated myself on them and collected a variety of styles to show.

I tend to like the ones that are all metal and have little color. These are some of my more simple styles... I have many unusual ones as well but we will save that for another time.

Many of them were painted green or left unpainted

showing the different shapes though these are all a similar style

Frogs can be used for arranging flowers but they are just fun to look at too. I have a few sitting around the house and have used them for other purposes as well... I know a lot of you probably have too! They have been listed as one of the top 10 collectibles in some popular magazines the past few years so maybe that is why I am not picking them up as often, or maybe enough is enough Ha!

These wire ones with the green patina are some of my favorite

These all had green paint on them at one time

These little pointy ones below are great for holding paper things, they also come in a variety of shapes and sizes. It is fun to read about the history of them and there are actually entire books written about frogs and all the different styles and their values.

Well, I just thought it would be fun to share about one of the collections around here... I also collect vintage concrete bunnies... but that's another post. Happy gardening all and be sure to drop by Fishtail Cottage I am linking up with "Flora Thursday", it is a great way to find fun new blogs and friends, Happy Gardening ~Jacque

Organic Gardening... live and let live

We try to garden organically as much as possible, for our own well being and for the other visitors to our garden. We have many "good" bugs and other critters in our garden that we enjoy watching. Birds, butterflies, frogs, small wild life and a variety of bugs and spiders can be seen among the plants and flowers in our garden.

If you click on my pictures they get pretty big and you can really see the great detail

I am not sure what this guy is but he enjoyed having his pictures taken. It was like he was looking at the camera and wondering what it was... could it be that bugs are actually more intelligent then we think?

We know these guys are very intelligent when it comes to getting into the food... the can of peanuts had a lid at one time! We actually learned and stopped feeding the squirrels, we were starting to get too many and one chewed a hole in our back screen door trying to get in the house for food. We still have plenty of them around to entertain us and annoy the dog.

Hummingbirds frequently visit the garden, we do not have out feeders but we do have plenty of their favorites blooming all year long. I have always loved this picture, so often these little guys are buzzing around so fast I enjoyed seeing him just content and still.

This little caterpillar friend was actually spotted in our other garden at our house on the Oregon coast. We haven't had the home for long so we are still discovering all the critters and bugs that visit there. The plants and climate are different so we suspect to have a whole new experience in that garden. The one thing for sure is there are Big Banana Slugs there and we haven't got those in our California garden!

These are two of my favorite pictures of beauty passing through the garden. We get large butterflies passing through every day and the bees seem to be happy with the feast we provide. We believe all this life makes for a healthy happy garden.

Mantis are one of our favorite visitors, we get many babies every year. We know when they start hatching because we have to check our clothes before coming in the house, they seem to like to catch a ride when they are little. We are able to watch them grow throughout the season and often by fall we see the females leaving their eggs for next year. They really are beautiful and seem to have funny little personalities. If you take the time to see the beauty and character of these things it is amazing, and it opens your eyes to what an amazing world we live in. Happy Gardening ~ Jacque

I am linking up with this beautiful place "Fishtail Cottage" for Flora Thursday's, it has been a fun way to meet new bloggers and see some great post!

The Pinks Of Summer

While touring the garden today I noticed that there was more pinks blooming in my garden then I was aware of. We had been having some pretty warm weather, I say had because today was just perfect, in the low 80s with a cool breeze and the next few days look to be a repeat. I don't spend much time in the garden when it warms up so I hadn't notice how some plants had burst into bloom showing some beautiful pinks.

Lavatera shrub in my front garden

The bees have been busy in our garden, we have several different kinds of bees working all the flowers. I love watching the big black bumble bees that seem to come out in the evenings. I haven't captured a photo of them yet, but this little guy was very photogenic. 

Cone Flower with Honey Bee

Holly Hocks do not mind the heat and seem to need very little water. They are good at producing an abundance of seeds for the next season. Isn't this just a beautiful pink?

Pink Double Ruffle Holly Hocks

I had to get some cleaning done around the house today and as I walked in and out of the bedroom I kept noticing how the Rose of Sharon was peaking into the window. I had to stop and take a photo from the inside out. I love waking up in the morning to the sun shining in the window and these pretty pink flowers swaying in the breeze.

Double Rose Of Sharon Bush

Thanks you for visiting and taking a look at the pinks of my summer garden. I think it is so amazing that we can see and enjoy all these beautiful colors in our gardens... I take none of it for granted, I am so grateful ~ Happy Gardening ~ Jacque

I have joined up with Fishtail Cottage for Cottage Flora Thursdays, check it out for a lot of wonderful garden related post.