sweet, sweet bedding

If there is one thing I am really passionate about when it comes to decorating, it just might be bedding. Believe it or not, one of the very first things I ever sewed was a duvet. Brian and I were first married and he helped hold the sides so I could sew straight lines... kind of funny to think back to that. I have clearly passed on that love of bedding to all my kids. When we all go to the beach together, they joke about emptying out their suitcases and stealing away all the bedding from the room. Its one of those little things that makes their stay all the more amazing.

I feel like we should have that feeling all the time, however. After working hard all day, what could feel better than a nice shower and crawling into an amazing bed. I think we all deserve that. After all, think of the amount of time in life you spend in your bed.

You know when your favorite sheets are on your bed its like that breadth of fresh air in the room. They are pretty and they feel so wonderful. And if you're anything like me, you have that one sheet still in rotation, the one that crinkles when you crawl into bed and all you can think is "ugh... I have to sleep on this tonight..." I think its time to throw that sheet into the sewing pile and treat yourself right.

When someone comes to the store looking for new bedding my heart almost skips a beat. I jump at the opportunity to show them all the amazing different textiles and simply love helping people come up with the perfect bed for them. It makes me so very happy. To start with Bella Notte or Matteo (Have I gone on enough about Matteo yet? There is a reason all the top designers use only this... it is a.ma.zing. Trust me. Come see for yourself.), then add a couple fun pillows and you're done. I get giddy even just thinking about it. Come on, couldn't you just crawl right into this bed...

A little peek into my own bedroom...

And, yet I am already a little jealous of that bed at the store...

Call us or come visit the Willows for more information on all the amazing bedding we carry!

The "Other" Blooms in June

The last day of June 2010 brings an end to twenty-one straight days of temperatures in excess of 90°F. I don't have accurate information on the number of days over 100° or the days where the heat index was in the triple digits. During those twenty-one days, the rainfall went north, south, east and west of my garden. Finally, in the middle of the night, I heard the rain. Relief.

Now, I can reflect on all the beautiful flowers in the garden, captured in photos but unable to fully enjoy in the unbearable heat.

The "other" blooms in my garden often take a backseat to grand-stand performances of agastache, bee balm, coneflowers, coreopsis, nepeta and salvia. While the blooms of these "other" plants are more limited, they fill significant niches in my garden.

The "Emerald Isle" (photo below) beside my stone walk is still a work in progress. The ground covering hardy ice plant (delopserma cooperii) is a good match for the mounding betony (stachys hummelo).

Over the last four years, the two perennials have been filling in the space between the stone walk and the dry stream, beneath the high canopy of a crepe myrtle 'Tuscarora'. In spite of the tree, this spot receives a pounding by the sun on the southwest side of the house. Zones 5-9 can grow the ice plant in xeric conditions; Zones 4-8 can grow the betony; full sun. Both are deer and rabbit resistant, although there is the occasional sampling of a betony bloom.

Balloon flower (platycodon grandiflorus; photo below) is an edger along a section of cottage garden path,  adding color when the azaleas fade. I've long lost the label for the exact variety of the perennial balloon flower! This is an "out of sight, out of mind" perennial that has been under-appreciated until recently. I am determined to collect seeds this year to sow with shasta daisies, so I've not deadheaded for rebloom. Zones 3-8; part sun; doesn't like to be transplanted after established.

The balloon flower (second photo below) mingles well with rose campion (far right pink), perennial heliotrope 'Azure Skies' (ground cover at bridge), garden phlox (pink bloom in middle). 

I have a love-hate relationship with the unknown variety of chaste tree (vitex agnus-castus; photo below was shot in the evening light, making the blooms appear more blue).

I love the flowers, color, form factor and the fact that bees and butterflies are drawn to it. Therefore, I will not be without this tree. The chaste tree grows in my butterfly garden with St. John's Wort 'Sun Pat' (hypericum), bee balm 'Jacob Cline' (monarda didyma) lantana 'Miss Huff', bronze fennel, milkweed (asclepias tuberosa and incarnata), agastache, salvia, verbena and coreopsis.

What I hate are the hundreds of seedlings that sprout below since I can no longer reach the top to deadhead or cut back the tree. I also planted a 'Shoal's Creek' variety in my meadow above the butterfly garden. This variety has an even more lovely bloom and I've not had a seedling problem. However, that one isn't planted in rich garden soil!

I have trained the unknown chaste tree so that there is a trimmed-up trunk, but it can also be treated like butterfly bush with a late winter shaping. Zones 6-9; full sun; drought-tolerant and can be used for xeriscapes; deer resistant.

Last, but not least, are my daylilies. Once upon a time, I had quite a daylily (hemerocallis) collection at a previous home. Here, with limited space inside the cottage garden fence, I grow two re-blooming varieties, the lovely yellow 'Happy Returns' and the pale yellow-white 'Joan Senior'.

I had grouped these daylilies together for a yellow garden bed. However, hot summer droughts were parching the foliage. I am in the process of moving the daylilies to another location with more moisture and less sun.

The yellow blooms look great with perennial heliotrope 'Azure Skies' and the cobalt blue blooms of Brazilian sage.

Daylily foliage is eaten by rabbits in early spring and the blooms are eaten by deer in the summer. So, I won't invest the money or the effort in growing any exotic varieties. Zones 4-10; sun to partial shade.

Although these plants haven't been given much attention, I would be hard-pressed to garden without their presence.

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. Deer and rabbit resistance varies based upon the animal population and availability of food. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks, copyrights, or patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

Aqua Beauties!

While traveling in upstate NY last week, we did a little antiquing.  I found these beauties...

and these....

and these...

and these...

I bought enough for you too!  If you want some, they are available for purchase at Lavender Hill Studio .

Welcome Home,

Penny

new wrap

We've been playing around with new wrapping ideas for all our gifts at the Willows. I am really loving corrugated cardboard right now... plus a little twill tape and a smidge of burlap and I am oh, so very happy. what do you think?

Rosanne, who won our Sea Bags' wine bag, sent us the sweetest little note about how much she loved the new wrap that came all tied up around her prize...

She loved it so much, she just had to keep it around...

Don't forget about our t-shirt giveaway! You know you would love to have this cozy shirt as your very own! (For those interested in ordering their own shirt, please call the store for details! (602)334-1345).

Anyone who wants to join our email list, please feel free to email the store at willowsdesign@gmail.com, we would love to add you!

And for any of you lovely folks who are plugged into all things social media, become a follower of the Willows on facebook, too! We would love you a little extra if you did... :)

Oh, and we're even on twitter... in case you were interested!

t-shirt giveaway!

So, we have these fabulous burnout shirts in the store that read, "girls just want to have wine" and they are literally flying off the shelves. We had to reorder them, they went so fast. And now that they are back by popular demand, we thought we would offer one up to one of our lucky readers! This is the perfect beach shirt, the perfect shirt to layer with your favorite Michael Stars, the very best shirt to cozy up in on your couch, perfect to throw in your bag when you go to the movies and they crank up the a.c. and you wonder why you are freezing in Phoenix in the middle of the summer, perfect to wear right on into fall and throw on during the holidays when you are up late wrapping presents... basically, its just generally perfect. And our customers seem to think so to, as we can't seem to keep them in stock for long.

All you have to do to be entered to win this No. 1 shirt is leave a comment on this post. That's it? Yup, that easy. And, just for fun (only if you are feeling like it), tell us what it would read if you had to fill-in-the-blank, "girls just want to have..." Cross your fingers and we will announce the winner next Monday afternoon! (Please post your comment before Saturday, July 3 to be entered!). Good luck!

If you can't wait to see if you win and absolutely must have this shirt before they are gone again, come to the Willows and buy yours today!

And, as a side note, have you noticed all the chunky vintage jewelry that is being worn (and reproduced) everywhere lately? Well, we noticed and we absolutely love it, so we thought we needed to bring in a few vintage pieces of our very own. We only have a handful and when their gone, their gone, so hurry in! Any one of these lovelies would look amazing with our "girls just want to have wine" shirt, don't you think? Which one is your favorite?

Don't forget to tell all your friends about our fun little summer giveaway!

Hello from Barcelona!

Hi everyone! I´m having an amazing time on my 9 week European tour so far. We´ve been to Galicia, the Picos de Europe in Astoria, Santiago de Compestela, San Sebastian, Bilbao, and now we are in Barcelona (All in Spain). Tomorrow night we are leaving to travel Italy for two weeks. I promise I´ll try and upload photos at one point! But luckily for now the awesome Coco from Cococozy had written an awesome guest post!

COCOCOZY'S FIVE FLEA MARKET TRENDS!

Hi Decorology devotees. I'm Coco from COCOCOZY here on guest duty. I want to thank Ashley for having me guest blog while she is on her fabulous journey abroad. I live in Los Angeles (in the Hollywood Hills) to be exact, am not a professional designer but after over two years of blogging about interior design 3-6 times a week, I might be what would be considered a "designaholic" (Can you do that? Just add "aholic" to any word to indicate someone is obsessed with something? Hmmm...please let me know...)

Anyhoooooo...onto my post...here goes.



Was at the Rosebowl Flea Market in Pasadena, CA a few weekends back. Hadn't been to this flea market in about 10 years. It was time. My plan was to get up at 6:00a on Sunday, be at the market by 7:00a, get all of the design scoop with my Cococozy camera and find some great items all by 9a. By 10a, the plan was that I would be home to take dog for a walk (I never take dog for a walk so don't know how this got into the planned schedule but it was) and perhaps be at a breakfast with some friends in Los Angeles by 11:30a. Well...I made it to the flea market by 9:45a...so much for keeping to schedule.

The Rose Bowl Flea Market was packed. Throngs of people trying to find the most interesting items possible. So much to see...so many interesting finds...

With thousands and thousands of items on display, one might think it would be hard to make sense of things...but if you can believe it, in all of that, I did notice a few recurring trends.

TREND 1 - ORANGE



Love these orange wire nesting tables. They were my favorite of the day! I could so see them in my house. Too bad they were at the beginning of our journey through the flea market so I never got back to them.

Orange...whether originally orange or painted orange...orange has been an "it" color for the last few years in decor...and it is certainly a hit color at the flea market.




For no reason at all, I also coveted this orange metal coffee pot from a vendor from Sweden. He wanted $30 for it...I wanted to pay $10. He said "30", I said "10"...he said "Okay $30" and I said "I can pay "10"...and it went on and on. Clearly the deal never worked out!

TREND 2 - COLORED GLASS PENDANT LIGHTS



Lots of these amber, blue or green colored pendant lights. They were reasonably priced. Couldn't seem to get out of the vendors whether they were newly made or recycled pieces. I think they are newly made though to look like 70's kitsch. I had an eye on the small amber one on the left. Thought it would look good in a hallway (not my hallway...but some hallway). The vendor wanted $75...I would have paid $35. Again, no deal.

TREND 3 - CRANES




Lots of bronze crane statues. Don't know what this was about but I saw at least 4 vendors selling tall bronze statues of these birds. One vendor said he got them from the furniture sale of a Las Vegas hotel that was closing. These particular ones were going for $125 each.

TREND 4 - VINTAGE LANTERNS



Saw a million and half vintage Dietz lanterns (kerosene lanterns and railroad lanterns). Cleaned up they could be great at an outdoor living space or if really shined up, even inside in a bay window. I wanted to pay $4...the lady wanted to sell three of them for $20 (they were marked $28 each). No deal there either. Hmmmm....note to self...need to work on negotiating skills.

TREND 5 - VINYL 1950's DINING CHAIRS




We ran into so many metal and vinyl chairs. They looked like they were ripped right out of the 1950's and placed at the flea market in 2010.



I particularly liked the light yellow set of chairs. I can't remember how much these were...but since my price point was at about $10, I knew I wouldn't be able to afford.

Well that is it from my day of trend sight seeing at the Rose Bowl Flea Market. I definitely regret not getting the orange nesting tables...but other than that, I am happy with how the day went. I left pretty much empty handed with only a dish and four glasses that altogether cost me a total of $18. I enjoyed the day...browsing, dickering and flea market trendspotting.

Ashley, hope you have a great rest of your vacation. Decorology readers please stop by COCOCOZY for more fun design finds!

Thanks Coco, and thanks so much to everyone for stopping by even though my posting has been so spuradic!

For the Love of Lavender

I love to buy lavender soap and bouquets of dried lavender at French markets. 

(Antibes, France; May 2010)

I love to use lavender as a centerpiece to fill the air with fragrance. 

(Antibes, France; May 2010)

I love to see lavender growing in fields. 

(Sunshine Lavender Farm, North Carolina; June 2010)

I love to learn about lavender planting from Annie Greer Baggett. 

(Sunshine Lavender Farm; June 2010)

I love to eat lavender ice cream made by Maple View Farm. 

(Sunshine Lavender Farm)

I love to bake lavender scones at home. 

(home kitchen, Chapel Hill, North Carolina; December 2008)

Most of all, I love to grow lavender for the wonderful honey bees.

Our neighborhood lost two wild bee hives over the winter. One hive is being rebuilt. 

My garden is far too quiet this year without all of the honey bees. 

(home garden, Chapel Hill; April 2009)

Words and photos by Freda Cameron, Defining Your Home, Garden and Travel. All company or product or patented names mentioned are registered trademarks, copyrights, or patents owned by those respective companies or persons.

oh, what a sale!

Wow. Our store was practically cleaned out over the weekend. All our shoppers went home with bundles of amazing little (and big!) prizes and amazing pieces for their homes. From bedding to apparel; big, stunning pieces to little accent pieces, everyone seemed to find just what they were looking for (and, at quite the price, I might add...). We even had to say goodbye to some of our very favorite pieces in the store, but we were happy to see them off to wonderful new homes. A few of the steals you may wish you hadn't missed...

like these chairs...

or this couch...

or this hutch...

or this buffet...

I apologize to anyone who didn't know of the sale earlier. Sometimes when I get into blogland, I don't remember every store detail... whoops on my part! If you want to be the first to know about anything and everything going on with the Willows, the best thing to do is get on our email list. (You can email or call the store, or even just add your email here and we will add you to our list). I promise I will try to be more on top of always mentioning things like this in the future, but just in case, our email list might be the way to go, as Jen never forgets to keep our email readers completely in the know.

And, don't forget, if you see something in our store that you must absolutely have as your very own, but you aren't local... just give us a call! We can ship anything and we would love to help you in any way we can!

If you made it in this week, I hope you are enjoying your goodies and we certainly missed you if you didn't make it!

Is anyone still reading way down here? For those of you who are, what do you think about another giveaway? Perhaps just a little one this time to squeeze it in before the 4th of July? Sound good? Oh, good, I am so glad you agree... Check back in tomorrow afternoon and see what cute little prize we have in store!

Swedish and French

On the way home from our recent trip to NY we drove through Pittsburgh and saw an IKEA store.  So we took a driving break and went inside to look around.

I found these wonderful flour sack dish towels for the low price of 49 cents each.  That's right!  Forty. Nine. Cents.

They look a little Swedish and a little French don't they?  They could be used as a kitchen valance.  As pillow covers.  As a place mat.  You could make shrugs for the backs of your kitchen chairs.  Or, use them as they were meant....drying dishes!

Changing the subject now.  A week ago I won a giveaway that Darla from Bay side to Mountains blog had.  She hand knit some cute dish clothes and gave one away.  I won it!

Besides knitting, Darla also creates these wonderful Sketchy Ladies, and she included one with a little note on the back.  Don't you just love both of these?  If you don't know Darla, stop in a visit her.  Her blog is filled with the outdoors, book reviews, art and more.

Welcome Home,

Penny

Cutting Garden

Next to my potager (kitchen garden), I have a cutting garden.  Right now it has tall (6') sunflowers in the back row, not yet in bloom, zinnias in the middle and short sunflowers in the front (not in bloom).

Mr. Comforts of Home is expanding it.  I want to incorporate perennial flowers too.

Short sunflower in front, getting ready to bloom!

Do you have any suggestions for flowers for my cutting garden?

See the plant below?

This is growing on my hill side.  Do you know what kind of flower it is?

Here is the plant before flowering in  the picture below...it has a leaf similar to irises.

So I would love suggestions for my cutting garden and I would also love to know what kind of flower I have growing on my hill side...any help would be wonderful!

(p.s. I don't have any wedding pictures from the post below....:-(  My battery died after taking the first picture along the river on the way to the wedding.)

Welcome Home,

Penny