A Life of Simplicity

Back when my girls were young, and the three boys hadn't even entered into our family's equation, we took a trip to Pennsylvania. We had driven all the way to Philadelphia with my husband's parents and our two girls to visit Aunt Rita and cousin Rosie. We toured the city of brotherly love, checking out the steps of the Art Museum and giving it our best "Rocky" pose. We saw the cracked Liberty Bell and Betsy Ross's house. And we ate Philly Cheese steaks from Pat's. One day we left the city proper and drove out to the Amish country to see a life that was quite different from ours. And this was before cell phones and the internet. Yep...once upon a time there was no internet! Al Gore had yet to invent it. Hahaha!

It was an intriguing lifestyle. No cars, no electricity, no telephones or modern conveniences. Horses pulled the plow. Clothes were old fashioned and fastened with pins. I guess you don't miss what you've never had. It was a life of simplicity. On this page are two photos from that day in the country, scrapped with Scraptastic's Nostalgic Summer kit:

I used some of the more muted colors (b-sides) of the kit papers for this page, and kept with a few simple embellishments as well, tucking a piece of burlap underneath my cluster of journaling blocks and tags. After adding a couple of paper flowers, I then tried my hand at a homemade twine flower.

This Twine Flower Tutorial  is the best I've found. She shows you step by step how to create your flower, even changing colors midway to more easily illustrate the method used to recreate these rustic beauties. The flower on this page is my first attempt. My only variation was to only go around the loom once so my petals are not doubled. I think it came out fairly well all things considered! Next I hope to create a few flowers in various colors, using twine from my stash. If you try it yourself, please share your creations with me. I'd love to see what you make!