A pretty little book, and some vintage photos to share...

Good morning to all!

I hope that by now you are not tired of my showing you the little treasures that I find, but I thought you would like to see the little book that I won on eBay and received on Saturday. It was printed in the 1880's, a very small book with beautiful writings and paintings, truly a one-of-a-kind item, and only $5.00. I have some artwork in mind using copies of some of the pages. Be sure to click on the photos to see the beautiful detail in this work of art.

The cover...

A couple of the inside pages...

And here are some old photos that I scanned for you that

I think suit the mood of the book...

What would you do with these?

A study in white...

Happy Sunday, friends. I hope you're having a great day! We had a productive day working in the yard, my husband on the lawn and widening some of the beds, and I putting down some more mulch and actually finding some time for crafting.

Yesterday afternoon I shot a couple of pictures of my Easter Lily, which just came into full bloom, and a white geranium that I purchased this week but am keeping in the guest room until it gets a little warmer outside. After I viewed the photos on my camera I thought they were pretty bad...white flowers with the creamy-colored wall behind them. Boring and with no contrast. But today, when I viewed them on my monitor along with some others I took outside earlier, I realized that the sun streaming in the window yesterday changed the mood of the pictures. I added titles to the photos and here they are. I thought they came out kind of pretty.

In a future post I will share some of the others that I took today. Thanks for stopping by!

Reminder of 100th post giveaway, and some lovely old bird books...

Good morning and greetings from The Perch!

Don't forget the giveaway! You can enter by clicking on the photo at the top of my sidebar, which will take you to the post that you need to comment on.

It promises to be a week of lovely weather in the mid to high 70's, so we're hoping to spend most of it completing the mulching of the garden beds, which is back-breaking work for those of us older than 40, and definitely something you don't want to do in the middle of a HOT southern summer! But, it's so worth it in the end when we end up with practically weed-free gardens.
My husband hung up our new hummingbird feeder the other day, as we had foolishly left the old one out during the winter and it cracked, likely from the cold. That never happened before. Live and learn.

While on the subject of gardening and birds, I must show you a little bit from the bird books that I recently acquired from, where else, but eBay, and one from another source of great old books, Abe Books. If you have never ordered anything from Abe, it's great. Actually, the shipping costs, even the international rates, are much cheaper than those from the sellers on eBay, so I comparison shop for the books I want. Abe connects with booksellers from all over the world so most of the time you can find what you want and have several to choose from in all different price categories. Check it out here.

Below are some glimpses of what's in these books.

The book below is part of

"The Wayside and Woodland Series"

printed in London, this one the 1932 edition.

It has beautiful prints of birds and eggs.

What's not to love about anything from the UK?

And here is a glimpse inside...

The one below is from the US, also with beautiful

prints of birds, this one printed in 1950...

...and a sample of the inside pages.

Another American book, also with beautiful

prints of birds and their eggs,

this one the 1932 edition...

...and a sample of what is within...

Additional pages which I had to share with you,

as these show the nest and picture of a Phoebe,

which is what this blog was named for!

Well, thanks for visiting. Time to go outside, work in the garden, and listen to some REAL birds!! Have a great day!

All about the packaging!

Good morning to all!

Don't you just love it when you receive something in the mail that you ordered and discover that it has been gift-wrapped within the shipping package? Well, yesterday I had this experience with a couple of beautiful old photos that I received from eBay. I knew from dealing with the seller that she was a nice lady when she immediately answered a question that I had regarding combining the shipping costs for the two photos, but I didn't expect

 to find the package arrive looking like this...

...with a lovely note on the back of the tag.

And of course, the beautiful old photos...

I will certainly save the tag, flower, and ribbon for a

future art project.

May beauty find its way to your lives today!

100th Post Giveaway!!!

Hello dear friends.

As I recently hinted, my 100th post was coming up and today is that day. Wow! I can't believe that I have done 100 posts since I started this blog.

I very much appreciate that you take the time to visit me, so I have made a fabric collage as a giveaway. All you have to do is leave one comment on this post. You can do it anytime between now and day's end on April 10th.  (For those of you that may not be familiar with leaving comments, at the end of this post a comment box should appear, but if it doesn't, please just click on the word "comments" and the box should pop up.) The winner will be chosen via a random number generator on April 12th. Please make sure that I have a way to contact you!

Below are some additional photos of the collage. It measures about 8 by 10 inches. I have used a beautiful vintage photo of two young girls with a baby lamb (this is one of my favorite photos). The photo has been printed onto fabric and is embellished with very old lace pieces, vintage pearl buttons, a silk cone flower and ribbons. Most of it is hand-sewn, and the background is burlap.

Can you tell that spring is on my mind?

Detail of the upper portion...

Detail of the center portion...

Another shot of the whole piece...

I hope that you like it, and that you are having a great day! Thanks so much for visiting me.