Flying Flowers!

One of the pure delight's of gardening orgainically is visitations by a huge array of amazingly beautiful creatures! Two days ago I was lucky enough to enjoy the company of this glorious Swallow Tail! He had an wonderfully long meal tasting all of the delights offered by my perrenial Verbena.

I love this plant!! I am not sure that it is a True Perrenial but I am sure that it reseeds itself prolifically. If you are not careful you will have it sprouting up everywhere!! It will behoocve you to learn what the seedling looks like so you can control where it grows. It is simply unbeatable for attracting hummingbirds and butterflys to the garden and I love it for bouquets. the stature and airiness of the plant gives it almost the feel of Baby's Breathe in a bouquet!!


I am off to a Dyeing Workshop at Artistic Artifacts!! I hope that you all enjoy an Art-errific Day!!!

The Celebration is ON !!!!!

The Pink Aritist Celebration for Breast Cancer Research, that is!!!!!!

This amazing project, bringing together wonderful artists from all over the world is happening again and YOU are being invited to join in to help us celebrate and fight cancer at the same time!!!

This Heart Quiltie is my contribution to the Prize Wheel of prizes that will be awarded to the participants.

For each $10.00 donation your name will be entered in the drawing TWICE!!!
What is the Grand Prize, you ask?? Well behold, the Pink Artist Quilt below and see more pictures in amazing detail here.

After teh Grand Prize has been awarded, the drawings begin for the prizes on the Prize Wheel!
This is where my Heart Quiltie comes in!! The drawings will continue till all of the Prizes on the Wheel have been awarded. So what are you waiting for ?????? You can check out the Prize Wheel here and make a donation to be entered here!!!

Remember a simple $10.00 donation gets your name entered into the drawing for this amazing collection of art TWICE!!!!!!

The DRAWING takes place on October 15!!!

Welcome to the Sisterhood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S As You Stop By These Links, Be Sure to Leave the Amazingly Talented and Delightful Monica Magness, The POWERHOUSE ARTISTE behind this amazing project,

A HUGE THANK YOU HUG !!!!

Seaside Summer Sampler

Since returning from our beach trip and recovering from being sick, I have been feverishly creating jewelry and Muse Birds to restock the Emporium at Liberty Town in Fredericksburg. You have seen it all before so I won't bore you with too many pictures. However I thought that you might enjoy some of my better photographic work from my trip. ( At least I like the pictures and I have not included a bunch of family shots as those are more just for family)

First glimpse of the Ocean after traversing the dune from the parking lot! Isn't it glorious??????

Her reason for being THERE!!!!!!

One of my Reasons for being there!!!!
We call these wonderful rocks "Lucky Stones". THey have a stripe of a different kind of rock wrapped completely around them. they fascinate me and with each one I find I wonder how it was created and when!! Some of them are quite intricate with stripes going in several different directions. A metaphor for life ,Perhaps? Definately one of my positive talismans!!
I have piles of these specail stones in little shrines throughout my garden. As I visit my garden spaces I come upon little reminders of my travels and glory in the small wonders that surround me.

An ancient inhabitant of the Bayside. We came across this crusty Horse Shoe Crab at low tide on the inside curve of the Cape. Although this is not the largest Horse Shoe crab i have ever seen, he may be one of the oldest!! The barnacles and Lady Slippers that he has hitched to his shell give hints to his age. Oh I wish I could hear the stories that he must have to tell!!! The beaches there are on the bay are totally different, with no surf and very dramatic tide changes. A fabulous treat for any interested in sea life and a wonderful exploratorium for children and adults alike. A wonderful counterpoint to the surf and drama of the Ocean Side of the Cape.

Robin's hydrangeas are simply stunning! I have never seen one with frilled petal edges and the colors of purple were wonderful. i must find out what variety this is as I would love to add one or two of this type to my collection. Hydrangeas thrive on Cpae Cod with all of the salt spray and misty foggy weather.

This home in Chatham must be the scene of many photo shooots!! I pulled over to take several shots of this stunning Hydrangea walk and three other vehicles pulled in behind me!!!

A trip to the Ice Cream shop ws the way that we topped off most of our days!! My girl is motivated by the tumbling surf and great chocolate ice cream!!!

I leave you with a lovely fresh bouquet from a road side flower stand, to decorate your day!!!

Getting my Art Groove Back- S-L-O-W-L-Y

It seems like a long time since my last post, for me and my habits, I suppose it HAS been a long time. Upon our return from Cape Cod I was taken out of my game by a really nasty sinus infection. Actually both Tom and I have been down and out of it for the past 4 days!! Yes the inmates have been in charge of the Asylum!!! Actually the dogs pretty much run the show anyway!!! (Not Really!!!!) I gave in a went to the Dr. once I started running a fever as I was concerned about Flu and with Tom being oversea's next week, I could just imagine him getting quarantined somewhere..... not a pretty thing!!! So Off to the Dr. I went. No flu- thank goodness, but Dr. suggested antibiotics as she suspected a sinus infection . Well I hate taking antibiotics for a whole miriade of reasons, the least of which being the havoc that is wrecked on the body!! well, I stocked up on yogurt and fruit on the way home and here we find ourselves at Friday.!!! YIKES!!!

Had to cancel my Beading Workshop- great way to launch a set of classes but better this than sharing my sinus infection with a group of new students!!! SIGH!!!!

I did manage to finish off a set of charms for the Think Pink Charm Exchange!! Amber Dawn of the Inventive Soul is taking on this project once again this year, in conjuntion with the Think Pink Block Party!

The amazing Monica Magness is at it again!! You may all remember the Think Pink Art Doll for which over 180 artists created two inch square art quilt squares?? Well Monica created a glorious doll, Love Squared, that was raffled off to raise money for Susan G. Komen Organization for Breast Cancer Research. Over $3000 $$ was raised in this effort!!!! There were some left over squares from Love Sqared's gown and these left overs have been used to create Quilt Blocks that have become a wonderful wall hanging. All is revealed here today!!!!! July 31st!!! Please go and take a look at this amazing project!!! Click HERE!

As happened last year anyone who makes a donation to get a raffle ticket is also entered in a drawing for many other wonderful prizes donated by many wonderful artists. Amoung the prizes will be one of my large Muse Birds that has been Blinged up in extra special wonderful ways just for this project!!!

Here are the charms that I have created for this years Charm exchnge. These charms will join many other's to become charm bracelets that will be auctioned off to raise money for Susan G. Komen.

I created these using squares of fulled electir pink wool sweatering, vintage MOP buttons and seed beads.


On the backs of each I stitched a snippet of pink fabric paper held on with a flower sequin with a seed bead center.

Now I am off to visit Monica's Blog again to take in more of the pictures of the Block Art Quilt!!!

Please join me there!!!!

We're Back from the Beach!

But alas, we could not bring it home with us! There is a bit of extra sand in the foot wells of my van, however!! I also managed to bring back quite a few beach treasures, including wonderful bits of sea glass and the odd bit of sea washed wood. Becca upgraded her Boogie Board and had a wonderful time in the waves. The water ranged form 58 - 62 degree's F- temps rather unusual for July but we were not complaining!!

Now we are trying to return to some sort of a routine. I am the one struggling a bit with getting back into my art. My immediate task is working downstairs to make it hospitable for students who will arrive tomoorow for Beaded Cuff Classes.
Hence this post is SHORT. I will post again soon! I missed all of you in Blogland and I am spending some time catching up on everyone else's blogs and your wonderful artwork!

Art On!!

Time for the Annual All Girls Road Trip!!!

This will be a very quick not e to let you know that Becca and I will be on our way to the Outer Beaches of Cape cod on July 11th. We will be on our way home on July 22 so I will not be blogging for awhile. Please please send all sorts of positive thoughts that the weather for the eastern seaboard will WARM UP!!! Regardless I will be the one huddled in blankets on the beach while theWild Child boogie boards her days away in the surf!!!
!!! (I'M NOT KIDDING!!!)

So I will leave you with some shots of what is currently happening in my garden!! My roses are blooming again and the daylilies are glorious!!


These lilies look totally tropical and they smell soooo good!!



The white Phlox are amazing!!



Belinda's Dream is enjoying the company of Flutterby daylily!




Flutterby is blooming her fool head off!!!



"SO Many flowers! MUST REST!!"


The Shasta daisies are starting to come on strong!! The white sets off the riot of color so well!! It gives the eye a place to rest!!!



DID I mention how much I LOVE MY DAYLILIES???

I hope that everyone has a wonderful couple of weeks! I'll be posting as soon as I get back from the BEACH!!!!

Do You Know.......

about the wonderful gals and great artistic resource of Two Creative Studios????? The pictures above are from their Class Projects list and give you a wonderful idea of the fabulous quality of the instruction that these two very talented ladies offer!!! I have known Terri and Sue through various on-line groups for quite awhile. They are two incredibly talented and generous women who have teamed up to teach awesome on line classes and they offer free instruction sheets for many of their wonderful projects!! The latest instruction sheet that I am most excited about is "how to get started with Soy Wax Batik' You can find it here. I have added this project as a starred project on my To DO List!!!

Sue and Terri provide a great monthly newsletter (you can sign up here) and they have just announced a great giveaway for free classes! Go on by for a visit! I know that you will be glad that you did!!!