Author Archives: cathyboettner

I’m really loving my soup tureen full of flowers, so I did another table with some more thrift finds… I put down a paisley runner with yellow, blue and green and then added the tureen, but I put a curly filbert branch in it and attached some little faux butterflies. Then I added a blue/whiteContinue reading “Another Cute Spring Table…”

I promised a Spring table using the items I teased in the post about the soup tureen I found at the thrift store. I started with a beautifully embroidered pillow cover that used to have a matching coverlet that went with it. Then I added the soup tureen, some white pitchers of daffodils, clear juiceContinue reading “Cute Spring Table with Thrift Store Score”

I love to gather like items into bowls, jars, vases, boxes…and my latest addition is some vintage croquet balls. I just bought them from an online auction and they arrived yesterday. I put them in this fancy repousse silverplate bowl. I love the juxtaposition of the rustic balls and the more refined bowl. Here areContinue reading “I may have a problem….”

We haven’t done anything to the strawberry patch since 2021, and the strawberries had gotten SO thick that you could barely walk through the patch to pick strawberries. Fortunately, the soil is really good in the strawberry patch, and strawberry plants are EASY to separate. We dug up 95% of the strawberries. But believe itContinue reading “Thinning the Strawberries”

It’s been really rainy here for the past several days, so I went thrifting, and found the CUTEST pair of green children’s rain boots, which inspired this table. I started out to get little flowers to put in this bowl for a centerpiece. And I found these little plants (which bloom for a long time)Continue reading “Spring Showers Table”

I had tremendous success with my sweet potatoes last year and so I plan to grow them again this year–we even added another bed along that same fence to grow them. So, I want to start my own sweet potato slips myself. This is definitely going to be a multi-part blog post over time. When I dugContinue reading “Sweet Potato Slips”

Valentine’s Day is in the middle of the week, and on Ash Wednesday. We rarely go out for Valentine’s Day, but we try to do a special meal and hang out together. I found these brass chargers and vintage rose pattern china (Rosenthal Petal Lane) and thought they’d be great for a tablescape. I found most of theContinue reading “Valentine’s Day Table”

This is one of my favorite treats–spicy and creamy and delicious. I used to buy Tazo Tea’s chai latte concentrate, but it’s expensive ($5/container) and transporting that much liquid cross country wastes a lot of fuel. SO, I found some recipes on the internet for how to make it yourself. You’ll need to assemble a bunch ofContinue reading “Iced Chai Latte”

King Cake 1/4 cup butter or margarine 16 oz sour cream 1/3 cup sugar 1 tsp salt 2 envelopes yeast 1 tbsp sugar 1/2 cup warm water (110 degrees) 2 large eggs 6 to 6 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1/2 cup sugar 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon (Penzey’s Spices has the best around) 1/3 cupContinue reading “Mardi Gras–Laissez les bontemps rouler!”