Honored

Image courtesy of Little Pink Studio

Isn't she adorable? This is one of the new rubber stamps that Cerri is selling in her Little Pink Studio Boutique and guess what she named this little cutie? ~ Little Jeanne Jumps Rope. I love it! Cerri didn't know this, but my childhood friend Nancy and I used to jump rope on the sidewalk for hours at a time. We would make up our own silly songs to jump rope to as well as jumping to all the classics.

I have received the Arte y pico Award from Joanna at An Altered Fairy Tale. Thank you Joanna for this wonderful honor! This award was designed to be given to bloggers who inspire others creatively. You can read more about the award here. One of the requirements after receiving this award is to pass the honor on to five bloggers that contribute creativity, design, and interesting material to the art blog community. Now that is a very difficult task if you ask me. How does one choose just 5, when there are hundreds of blogs that deserve the honor? Well, I decided to randomly select five blogs to share with you from my VERY long list of favorites I have bookmarked on my computer. Here they are:

1. Karin, of Creative Chaos, who always manages to crack me up with her hilarious stories of her family, as well as blow me away with her beautiful creations. Karin, you really should write a book!

2. Paige, of Simple Thoughts, who I think I may have bestowed a similar award to more than a year ago. Paige has a huge heart and she takes the most beautiful photographs of everyday life with her gorgeous family.

3. Lilli, of Make Mine Blissful, is my New Earth reading buddy and one of my oldest (by time, not age) blogging friends. I feel as though I have grown and learned so much from our email exchanges as well as from her artistic talents.

4. Julie, of The Adventures of Blue Girl XO, is a blog I discovered through the pages of one of the many Stampington publications. I adore the attention she pays to detail as well as the simplicity of her fabulous creations.

5. Aina, of Modern Country, makes me want to live inside every one of the photographs in her blog posts. She manages to combine clean lines and lots of white to create a vintage-contemporary style that is fresh and inviting.

Fit For A Princess

My daughter and I spent the afternoon together having lunch and going to pick up her wedding gown. We ordered it months ago and now to see it in real life is quite a reality check for dear old mom! She looks amazingly beautiful in it ~ the champagne color is exquisite on her. But wow ~ I couldn't believe how heavy it is! I debated about posting a picture of the dress here and ultimately decided against it. I am old-fashioned and a bit superstitious and I would hate for the groom to happen upon it and ruin the surprise for the Big Day. So instead I will show you the veil and tiara she selected. I can't believe my little princess is going to wear a tiara. She was a bit hesitant about it at first, but when she put it on with the dress, we both knew she had to have it. Now we just have to find a place to store the dress for the next 3 months ~ and in a house with not much closet space, that is going to be a real challenge!

A Little Shopping

One of my all-time favorite shops is called Viva La Cottage. It's a darling little place and the owner, Angie has such a talent for setting up cozy and wonderful displays.

I mean, who wouldn't want to spend a restful afternoon napping on this hanging bed?

There are new items inter-mixed with antiques and flea market finds, cleverly used in the displays. Something as simple as a few mother of pearl buttons scattered across a vintage doily or as unique as an antique iron crib attached to the wall and used for shelves ~ I always go away with ideas on how to use my own pieces at home. And the linens she has are to die for! Crisply starched white pyjamas or blouses or hankies or table linens all hanging or laying out as they would in your very own home.

This is what I purchase on this trip ~ a lovely salt & pepper shaker set which I plan to fill with German glass glitter and a vintage French Language course book.

Surrounding the shop are beautiful gardens that include everything AND the kitchen sink (well, I guess it's actually a bathroom sink!)

Low tea* is served outside under this natural arbor.

*Did you ever wonder what the difference is between High Tea and Low tea? Brenda Hyde From Old Fashioned Living explains it this way:

High tea sounds elegant and brings to mind lavish tea desserts, scones and dainty sandwiches. Often high tea is described as a more lavish version of afternoon tea. However, this has never been true, and is a misuse of the term. High tea was actually a working man's hearty tea and supper after a long, hard day of manual labor. It is actually the combination of afternoon tea and the evening meal. The working person, whether male or female, would work until late afternoon, often missing lunch and certainly afternoon tea. They would return home in the early evening and high tea would be served at the main table or "high table" rather than in the parlor or sitting room. High tea would include tea, bread and cheese.

Afternoon tea on the other hand, would often be served at smaller, lower tables with dainty desserts and fine china. This was often referred to as low tea. While this does not sound elegant, it was the tea preferred by the upper class. In the 1800's the practice of inviting friends to tea became popular, especially among the rich. This will vary too depending on if it's formal or informal, but almost always includes:sandwiches and/or savories, scones, toast, crumpets or muffins, cookies, plain cakes, quick breads and sometimes an elegant cake to finish the tea. Afternoon tea is generally served between lunch and a later dinner; anywhere from 3:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Swap Sharing

I had a wonderful surprise in my mailbox yesterday. Heather of Speckled Egg organized a swap called Jewels of the Sea where each participant had to make 6 pendants and receive 6 others in exchange. Well they all arrived yesterday and here they are: This first one is from Tammy of Little Junk Shop. It is so sweet and very tiny ~ maybe only 1"x 1/2" in size. And I adore her presentation tag, colors and all!

This beautiful pendant is from Michele of Life On This Good Day. She took a tiny scalloped seashell and filled it with pearls and jewels. She positioned it on the card so that it looks like the girl is holding it in her hand. Oh and she also put some of those teensy-weensy glass micro-beads in the bag to simulate water. Great touch Michele!

Jenny of Fated Follies Studio made this darling little pendant of glass beads in seashore colors. But the box is just as beautiful as the pendant. Jenny's attention to detail really blew me away.

Heidi of Everyday Cookies made this soldered pendant using a vintage bathing beauty image. We must have been on the same page when we were dreaming up our designs because ours are very similar. (You can see my pendant here.) Heidi's packaging was so cute, I just had to share it with you. I am a detail person so I am always just as interested in how things are packaged as I am with the actual swap item!

This altered domino pendant was made by Julie of Cupcakedd. It's an image of a man fishing with a mermaid by his side and he's caught a jeweled heart on his fishing pole. How romantic!Inside the bag is grains of sand, shells and a fish charm.

As an added bonus, our sweet hostess Heather tucked in this special little goody bag filled with "sea-inspired" trinkets. This was a fabulous swap and I will cherish each of these handmade treasures. And here is the next swap I am participating in.....the deadline is coming up very soon, so I'd better get a move on.

Relax and Sit a Spell

Photo courtesy of April Cornell

Haven't done much of anything during the past couple of days. My sister-in-law was in town and we had fun visiting with her. She left for home this morning, but no time to start any big projects because our good friends are coming up from Florida on Wednesday. It seems as though this entire month will be spent traveling and visiting with friends and family. It seems odd to be taking so much time for rest and recuperation, especially since there are a million and one things I should be doing. But I guess that is what summer is all about. . .sitting back and taking it easy. Wouldn't you just love to do that in a pair of old rockers like these?

Home Again

We're home again, for a week anyway. We left behind beautiful sunsets like this to come home to thunderstorms and 90 degree weather. Ugh! But in a week we will return up north along with our best friends from Florida. They will be our first visitors up at the cottage. I am a bit nervous about it, as I hope they will love the area as much as we do. We've been thinking about what sights to take them to - there are many. Lately we haven't had time to enjoy any of them because there is always work to be done and so little time to finish it. That is the down-side to having a second home. As romantic and dreamy as it all seems, it is another place that needs attention, just like the one back at home. But the cottage is easier to maintain because when we had it built we selected as many maintenance-free features as possible. Also, there isn't as much accumulated "stuff" up there - and hopefully there never will be. And there is less square footage to keep clean. But it's the outside that is taking up most of our time right now. All the landscaping takes time to do, especially when my husband's busiest time of the year is the spring. We finally were able to plant the wildflower seeds in the front on this last trip, which took several prior visits to prepare for this so-called low-maintenance planting. We don't want a lawn to have to mow, so we are trying the wildflowers. It will be interesting to see what comes up and how it looks in the end.

Summertime Journal

I promised that I would show you my completed summer art journal I made for the Write Place Write Now E-Zine, so here it is. This was a perfect assignment for me because I love all the colors of summer, sand and water. Summertime makes me think of aqua blue water dotted with sail boats, green pistachio ice cream cones, ice cold glasses of yellow lemonade and pale pink sunset skies. Ahhhh....I can practically feel the sand between my toes from just writing those words. OK, I've got to go slip into my flip-flops and fix myself some chicken salad in a tomato cup right now! What makes you think of summertime?

Happy 4th of July

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Jewels of the Sea Swap

Heather over at Speckled Egg recently hosted a fun swap called "Jewels of the Sea." Each participant was to make 6 pendants in a vintage seaside theme and we get 6 different pendants in return. The darling images I used on both the pendant and the card above were purchased from Vintage Image Madness. To coordinate with the pastel shades of the images, I used copper tape, wire, beads and findings along with a tiny aqua crystal bead at the very top. I also made a discovery when I pulled out my squares of glass and realized that all I had was frosted glass. I remember hearing a long time ago if you want to change frosted glass into clear glass apply a coat of Diamond Glaze to the frosted surface. I was kind of doubtful, but figured I didn't have anything to lose and if it worked it would save me another trip to the craft store. So I gave it a try and sure enough, it worked! I just spread it around the glass with my finger, not worrying too much about getting it perfectly smooth, so it sort of has the appearance of wavy antique glass. Perfect! I can't wait to see what everyone else's pendants look like!