After the warm welcome of your cottage, I present a few images of my latest quest. Enjoy!

Started out with my toddler drawing random scribbles with a blue pencil on the wallpaper... Now the kids love searching for little creatures on the wall 🐝🐞🦋

There's a lot of fawns near my home since I live in a forest area. I mostly see them in the morning when I drive to work. I was so inspired by them and forest animals in general, that I painted myself a pair of fawn earrings. And then I also got the inspiration to make a painting too - since it's been too long that I've made an actual painting!

I’ve always loved like period pieces and just the overall vibe… I’ve been calling what I’ve been wearing cottage core to anyone that asks but like is it??? Am I doing this right? I’m in love so even if I’m not I’m going to keep it up… what else can I add? I also have a ton of like overalls and on Mondays I wear simple t shirts with jeans (hate Mondays) but I want this to be my entire style… am I right calling it cottage core?

Collected Strawflower and paper moon Scabiosa in my basket today. Both are easy to grow with enough sunshine, and dry beautifully for making garlands and dried bouquets to enjoy indoors year round! And if you let a few go to seed and collect those, you can gleefully toss last year’s garlands in the compost (or hang them in the woods to decompose) and grow a fresh set. Renewable, beautiful cottage decor!

I was already using this dress at home when my parents asked me if I want to come with them to the farm just for a change of scenery for me (because I'm always at the house). I was bored while waiting for them so I just took pictures. It was fun until I got rashes.😂

P.S: I also helped them to plant but they just don't want me to get tired because of my heart issues so I just took pictures.

Found out I got into university to study ecology and conservation, so went for a spot of foraging to celebrate (was going to anyway but it ended up being a celebratory forage instead!).

Lavender, which I decorated my house with half of it (which will end up being dried out to make lavender pouches). I made lavender and lemon syrup to put in lemonade, it is DELICIOUS🤤.

New favourite bit of chunky sea glass! Gorgeous pale blue, and some scallop shells that I've cleaned up. Will be mineral oiling them to rehydrate and then making a hanging out of them soon🥰

Just garden weeds there.

Yuzu and Berry Cream Cake and Chocolate Strawberry Tres Leches

Found her 8 weeks ago. After 4 weeks she started pupating and today I saw that she emerged from her cocoon when I came home from work 🐛

I fed her 4 cherry laurel leafs a day and ~2 days before pupating she started to eat less. She built her cocoon in a tiny space under a piece of tree bark.

Pumpkin cupcakes with a maple buttercream, mini pumpkin pancakes, and pumpkin spice syrup

Made with polymer clay, porcelain plate and chalk pastels

I just love making these little felt figurines. This one I made as a gift for my daughter's teacher.

I’m fairly new with oils & I love landscapes so I’m practicing doing some master studies & have been following an artist on instagram, Juliet Rodriguez, for this sort of style & inspiration.

So, I feel like this is a substyle I’ve seen floating around a lot throughout my life, though maybe that’s just from me being southern. The YouTube channel “Read By Wisteria” used to have an entire series on this (she called it Farm Cottagecore), but she recently took almost all of her videos down without warning, so that’s a dead end.

Basically, take all the core elements of Cottagecore, but swap out the bit that romanticizes the English/French countryside for romanticizing the American countryside.

Think Gingham print of every kind, but especially blue-and-white or red-and-white. Think lace and pearls mixed with leather and denim. Think puffy-sleeve milkmaid shirts paired with cowgirl boots. Think literal apple-bottom jeans—denim jeans, shorts, or skirts that have little red apples embroidered onto the pockets (think embroidered denim of any kind, actually).

Think a handmade wooden rocking chair on the front porch, facing the sunset. Think red-and-white barns, the classic kind you’d see in cartoons. Think a big wooden spoon hanging on the kitchen wall (the kitchen probably has checkerboard tile). Think one of those old-timey oven timers shaped like a chicken.

Think apple pies, baked at home following a decades-old recipe that has no exact measurements. Think a burger and a hot fudge sundae from a retro diner (the kind that may-or-may not have roller skates in the back for employees to use). Think Cherry Coke, or strawberry wine. Think roasting marshmallows over a campfire to make the most perfectly-imperfect s’mores.

Think wildflowers. Think rolling green hills. Think fields of wheat or corn. Think tractor rides sitting on a hay bale. Think dragonflies and the sound of cicadas. Think you and your friends splashing in the lakeshore with all your clothes on, not caring if they get soaked or muddy, because you’re only young once.

Think 80s Strawberry Shortcake, or Applejack from the 80s generation of My Little Pony. Think Grease, think Steel Magnolias. Speaking of Dolly Parton, picture any of her music played on a vinyl record—or, if you haven’t gotten that yet, some Elvis or some Doris Day will do too.

I guess for me, certain elements of cottagecore feel less like nostalgia to me and more like a fantasy, because it involves looking back at a time that no one in my family grew up with. But this? This feels like home to me.

I was hiking in the Pyrenees when I encountered this large, almost magical tree… I stood in awe for several minutes. I wish I wore some traditional linen clothes for this moment !