We’ve been away for the last few days. We traveled a few hours north and were greeted immediately by snow, which promptly melted early the next day.   One day later it was warm, sunny and quite lovely.

We went to the park and I spied this wonderful quilt, which reminds me of ones that my grandmother used to make.

The hubby and I enjoyed dinner alone with a bit of wine. So, nice.

We  made a quick stop in Phoenix to visit Ikea.  Really quick, because we only had one hour of Smaland child care to take advantage of. Sadly, my super-E is 1 inch short of being too tall to be able to play there.

Now we are home and I have plans to sew very soon.  Lots of new patterns in hand~ Yay!!

I’ve been playing with little wood plaques that I found in my stash, and trying to do the same techniques that I did on my magnets.  A little collage, some paint and a bit of wax on top. I like the effect, but I’m still working on it.

This one is for a friend whose son is getting married soon. She wanted to give his soon-to-be- wife, something wedding/lovey like. This is what I could come up with. I was originally going to make a few tea wallets for the bride and her sister, but my sewing machine and I are not getting along very well.

And guess what, after all that talk about nice weather, it was actually hailing tonight!! Hailing! My poor little plants and tortoise are so confused right now.

Some links:

*check out these sweet little elephants. One of mine is in this collection.

*In the spirit of Earth Day, we watched the Story of Stuff again, but this time with my 8 year old.  He is very interested in recycling and saving energy & water. The video is so very well done. If you haven’t seen it yet, you must!

* My boys played with this raindrop music maker for almost an hour today! Found via How about Orange. Good fun.

This is an awesome time of the year for us south-westerners. It’s getting warm, but not too warm. No mosquitoes, yet. Lots of sunshine. It’s been so great. It’s hard to not want to be outside. We’ve been eating all our dinners outside, planting new flowers and herbs.

I saw this inverted tomato planter and went out and bought the supplies immediately. I would LOVE to have some yummy sweet cherry tomatoes.  On the top is oregano, lemon thyme and rosemary.

I also planted some sweet basil, pineapple sage and cinnamon basil.  They smell divine.

I got the paints out once again so that I could write Rocky’s name on his home archway.  I think he likes it.

Hope you are enjoying some nice weather too.

When we moved in this house, almost 3 years ago, there was an old bird bath in the yard. Concrete, painted white with a squirrel, it’s not something I would have picked out, but we would clean it and put water in it frequently for the birds.

Over the weekend we bought some native flower and grass seed mix for Rocky and spent a good amount of time pulling weeds, trimming the roses and looking at this awful bird bath.  Then I got to thinking about changing it.  I didn’t like it already so what was the worst that could happen.

I cleaned it and got out my crafting acrylic paints, probably not the best paint for an outdoor piece, but it didn’t matter.  First I was just going to paint yellow petals on the bowl, but then I got out the green, the red, the blue and well, I just got a little carried away. Then, the hubby suggested that I make the squirrel into a lizard. I scoffed and said that it couldn’t be done.  Then he chipped away the squirrel’s ears, making it look a little more lizard like which gave me no other choice then to go with it.

I think it’s fun and colorful, the kids love it, the birds love it and our back yard is better for it.  It goes nicely with the rose blooms and hopefully soon, some native grass and flowers.

I decided to paint our pantry door with chalk board paint.  The hubby was skeptical, but he’s learned to trust my home decor ideas.

I used chalk board paint to cover our very old and shabby white door. I think it looks so much better now.

I have regular chalk and I bought some chalk ink markers that are WAY cool.  They wipe away only with water or cleaning wipes.  We are using the regular chalk to make daily changes to our board and the markers for the more permanent stuff.  So fun and a great idea for an organized family!!

Check out all of the great chalk board ideas on google..WOW!!

Have a great weekend~

I love, love, love my roses.  They are in full bloom right now and they are so pretty.

I just had to share them with you (and a bit of chai tea too)!

front

I saw one of these covers at artfest and knew I had to try to make one, especially because I have all these little pieces of art that I want to keep safe.  They fit perfectly inside.

inside 1

inside 2

inside 3

Inside, is a new piece of art to go along with my growing little stack of 6×8 art.

back

There is a online journal that teaches how to make it and a gorgeous journal. I’ve seen it in person, and it’s pretty amazing.  I’d love to take the course, but I need be more frugal these days–specially after my little artfest adventure.

she waited…

Here are my latest two pieces.  I made them using some of the techniques I learned at artfest.

what am i waiting for?

These (as well as my others) are 6 x 8 inches. I love working small and the 300 lb watercolor paper I’ve been using is so lovely to work on. It holds up to layer after layer of paper and paint.  Plus, the weight feels good in your hand.  I bought a new, big sheet a few days ago. I’m going to cut it up into different sized pieces, so I’ll have lots to play with.

Graham crackers.

*They are super tasty.
*I didn’t have any barley flour so I used buckwheat, which I had in the pantry.
*They are veganized (with earth balance & almond milk).
*It was easier than I thought it would be. Fun too, since my little guy helped.
*The texture was really good and they were perfectly sweetened.
*The kids devoured them and now they are gone.