Brenda Baker Productions

Bethany, Carrie and I had a blast on our most recent girls' road trip. Once again, we hit the "antiquing road" and searched for sweet vintage treasures, met interesting people, scoured as many craft stores as possible and enjoyed lots of laughs. Lots of laughs. This year we returned to a favorite antiquing event in Yakima known as "American Primitives at Clayson Farm." We made this trip last year, too, and had a ball. Check out the fun we had this year! From our pictures you'll see that it's not all about the quest for "stuff" but we take great delight in the displays, the colors, the shapes, the creativity of each vendor. And the friendship is the icing on the cake! Nothing says "vacation" like really cute luggage. But that handle would be a real pain walking through Heathrow. Two words: Super. Glue. Love this fruit platter and the gorgeous blue of this baking powder tin. I'm not a big fan of "blue" but the whit...

Entirely possible. You see I keep my marbles in a golden-hued wooden bowl. They are so cool together. It's hard not to want to plunge your hand into them and search for your "favorite." And if I am losing my marbles, I guess no one is really willing to mention the "elephant in the room." I love this old girl. I remember when I bought her at a garage sale, my best friend Carrie truly did think I was losing it. Isn't she cute? I'm actually more messy than she is. You're welcome to enjoy my blog posts as long as you don't think I'm strange. My hope is you'll be inspired to surround yourself with the things that make you happy, things of beauty or sentiment, things you've made all by yourself. It's just so important to love your surroundings. And, well, if people think you're losing it when you bring home a beat-up wooden elephant, then so be it.

I've just been itching to share this photo. It's so yummy. My sister asked me to make her a banner and these are the delicious fabrics she chose. (What? No "pixy stix" pattern?!) She has a great eye for color and pattern. She's a quilter, too. I also loved how this other fabric banner I made looked when I clipped it to her shelf (WITH "pixy stix" fabric!). A girl can never have too many party banners.

I love quilts. Fabulous fabrics are a treat for the senses. Secondly, put those fabulous fabrics together in intriguing patterns and, well, that's just sublime. My lantern quilt is a favorite. There's something I love about my star quilt, too. The stars are nice and big and bold. I'm always drawn to quilts with a little orange, pink, or black worked in. Although it's more simple than most of my favorite quilts, this basket pattern is sweet. It also has a tag on the back corner revealing that it was once part of a Washington state centennial quilt project. Not sure what that means exactly, but it sounds neat. I don't mind machine-stitched quilts at all. I'm impressed with the devotion and skill it takes to create ANY quilt. But I also really appreciate the quality of a hand-stitched quilt. Imagine the hours and hours of work required by this hand-stitched wedding ring quilt. It was crafted by my husband's grandmother years and years ago. I c...

Meet Gladiola. She's my birthday flower. You know, kind of like your birthstone...but a flower. And I love her. Glads (her nickname) is showy and tall and looks gorgeous in a tall vintage vase. She's fancy, but not fussy. She comes in all colors of the rainbow. I love it when she's chartreuse. Another thing I love about summer is my Endless Summer Hydrangea. She had a rocky start and I didn't think she was going to make it. I had to transplant her and now she's tickled blue. Yeah, my flowerbeds are going a little wild right now. I do love these crazy lilies that were evidently planted years before we bought the house. At first I didn't care for them, but they've grown on me. Just before sunset they light up like they're fluorescent. Like someone just flipped a switch. And what is summer without ice cream? Actually, this was a mid-June arrangement. The peonies, foxglove, and weigela give it away. And speaking of vintage ice cream cartons, check...

It seems like everybody loves pie. Except for me. But I do love this photo of pie. Especially because it's marked with a "B." I think the "B" stands for berry, but I like to think it stands for Brenda. Serving pie makes me happy because--as I said--almost everyone seems to love pie. As for me, I'm a total cake girl. In fact, I just baked six dozen cupcakes last night for the little dancers at Johansen's Olympia Dance Center. They've been working hard this week during their "Sleeping Beauty" Creative Dance Camp. Today they performed for family and friends--showing off all that they learned. And then they celebrated with cupcakes. The ONLY way to celebrate. I love cake so much that I bought myself a Mother's Day cake. And, yes, I ate a little bit for breakfast. I thought it was cute. Eat cake. For goodness sake.

I love making invitations. The other night I created these invites for my daughter's birthday. She's been away at dance camp for five weeks but we'll celebrate when she gets home. I'm loving the aqua and orange together. Even the supplies were pretty together. She also asked me to make her a cloth party banner for her dorm room. I love these fabrics--especially the Pixy Stix fabric. A great calorie-free treat for the eyes...especially for someone with a competition sweet tooth like me! Looking forward to celebrating with our girl! And happy birthday to everyone else who was born on July 24!