Wordless Wednesday: relaxed ‘black friday’

Thanksgiving tea…

we had our heads in the clouds for Thanksgiving this year…

lucky to live less than a couple hours drive from Shenandoah National Park and beautiful Skyline Drive here in Virginia…

when our boys were young we went up each year at Thanksgiving…

but for many years after that we crossed the Potomac River and headed to Omi’s house for what was usually a small but much anticipated gathering…

my Mutti was definitely the heart of every celebration…

with her passing this February we felt at odds and decided during the summer to make reservations to stay in a cabin and have our buffet style Thanksgiving meal at the lodge…

the rolling hills and valley vistas welcomed us…

the trees full of character worn and weathered with time…

it is the 75th anniversary of the Shenadoah National Park…

the deer hardly flinch when you pass them on the drive (speed limit 35 mph) it is not uncommon to see cars pulled over snapping photos…

and if you’re really lucky you may spot a black bear or two…

Mother Nature set a perfect tea table for our traveling tea cup…

it just so happens that the cup and saucer are from the set my Mom always used at Thanksgiving…

blessed with lovely weather we took several Thanksgiving day hikes…

here’s wishing you a really lovely T Tuesday…

“All walking is discovery.  On foot we take the time to see things whole.” ~Hal Borland

*footnote*

somehow I managed to post my T Tuesday post on Monday…no idea how that happened…I’ll blame it on my excitement to spend the day with my BFF Carol who was visiting from Florida…it’s been awhile since we’ve been face to face…thank you for a wonderful time sweet Carol OXO

…memory of the heart…

thank you all for your precious Thanksgiving wishes and I hope that everyone that celebrated had a lovely holiday…

I will share a little of our holiday escape to the mountains in my upcoming Tea Tuesday post…

today I wanted to show you a couple of pages I have been working on for a little while now…

after the spring nesting season earlier this year I ended up with a broken Robin’s egg collection…

I tucked them into a tiny bowl with plans to use those pretty shades of “blue” in a collage some day…

my small fragile Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia/Art Journal pages

(each page measures 4×6″)

had a couple of pages gessoed and ready for more attention with a piece of film stapled on the left…

too bad I didn’t take photos of my pages all along the way…

but you know how it goes when you get busy playing…

the camera is in another location and you just keep working away and before you know it…

well here are my finished pages…

I brushed on some thick gel medium and crushed the shells in place liking that some of the book page was left exposed on the top right…

that image was way too nice to cover up…

a piece of my Citra Solv paper where I included rubber stamping and rub ons added a nice layer as well…

I wrote Love with a white Sharpie Water Based poster pen outlined in fine black marker…

I really like the black and white image of the amazing artist Albrecht Dürer who just happened to be handy on my work table…

more eggshells on the left side along with tissue tape and a scrap piece of paper used to protect my work table…I left the strip of film loose at the bottom and made a list of some of the things I am grateful for underneath…

this page was intentionally left a bit open with room for all the unknown blessings already on their way with more to be grateful for…

“Gratitude is the memory of the heart.” ~Jean Baptiste Massieu, translated from French

Gratitude for Thanksgiving and Always…

“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.

It turns what we have into enough,

and more.

It turns denial into acceptance,

chaos to order,

confusion to clarity.

It can turn a meal into a feast,

a house into a home,

a stranger into a friend.

Gratitude makes sense of our past,

brings peace for today,

and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~ Melody Beattie

wishing you days filled with gratitude and thanksgiving always…

I am very grateful for each of you OXO

*credit for the embroidered “Thankful” piece goes to The Cottage…not sure who created it exactly…all other photos are mine some framed with the help of Big Huge Labs*

still traveling tea…

traveling in my head at least on this rainy Virginia day…

we found The American Riviera® as Santa Barbara, California is called…

  a most captivating and beautiful place…

and enjoyed being there for Halloween…

this little policeman cruising State Street with his parents took the costume prize…

we almost felt like we were transported to another country…

with the Spanish Revival architecture…

clean inviting streets…

and colorful courtyards…

it is a town of less than 425,000 population perfect for walking or there is a trolley style bus that you can ride one way for twenty five cents too if you wish…

we were smitten even before we set foot in the Villa Rosa Inn…

Room Fifteen had a sweet little balcony looking out onto the magical gardens and pool…

it was a succulent (sedum) paradise…

the resident gardener really puts her heart and soul into her work…

and as the Villa Rosa Inn brochure states it is just 84 steps to the beach…

some times I will read a description of a place and then feel surprised when I see it in person…

the only surprise here was that it was even more wonderful than it sounded…

we enjoyed the fresh air and water…

with very low humidity and sunshine what’s not to Love…

we were drawn to Pacific Crepes two separate times and had THE best crepes and delicious cappuccinos too…

this is definitely a place we would enjoy visiting again…

life is a garden,
not a road
we enter and exit
through the same gate
wandering,
where we go matters less
than what we notice ~ BOKONON

wishing each of you a very Happy Tea Tuesday however you enjoy it

Surprise…Surprise!!!

some mail days really outshine others…

our mailbox was pretty darn amazing yesterday…

thanks to my sweet friend Linda in Texas for some really special surprises……

AND to Stampington and Company for publishing one of my fabric pieces in the Gallery section of their Winter 2012 issue of SEW Somerset…

as I pulled the plastic wrap off the magazine I wondered what  it might be…

then I saw this…

WHAT…

oh my gosh how exciting…

but I had absolutely no clue what it might be…

often I will look at magazines beginning at the back…

not this time…

I started carefully at the front…

at one point thinking ‘oh my this must be a mistake’…

finally on the very last page of the GALLERY section…

page 139…

there she was…

my “Cherry Pie”  sweet Paper Whimsy girl fabric and paper creation (the PW credit along with a couple of other sentences were edited out of my description)…

did I mention that I was opening the mail in the car while Mr Magpie was in the coffee shop getting fuel for our day…

we were headed over to Maryland to spend a Hobby Lobby gift card that I won…my first time ever setting foot in a Hobby Lobby…

next stop since we were in the neighborhood was to visit Patti Euler’s amazing store in Savage Mill, Maryland…

The Queen’s Ink AND she just happened to have some hot off the press SEW Somerset’s on her extensive magazine rack…

more on the amazing new toy I bought there in another post…

everything has a story…doesn’t it

after a little checking when we got back home I found that I had sent this piece to Somerset back in January of this year…

no wonder I forgot about her…

a lot has happened since then…

featured in this issue are three very talented and special blog friends of mine each with full articles in the magazine…

Belinda in Luxembourg…

Giovanna in Italy…

and Caterina in Michigan…

 lots of gorgeous creativity…

it really is a very nice issue if I say so myself…

wait I’ve already said that haha…

check back soon as I will be giving away a copy of the magazine to celebrate…

and again I must thank the sweet and talented Estivalia in Chile for helping me get the new Published Widget on my sidebar…what a doll she is always!!!

just a peek …

here is a sneak peek at a little something I made out of wool using some of the fabrics I dyed recently…

with BIG thanks to Fran and Leiann in our local altered arts group for bringing in their die cutting machines and some of their fab die collection to share with the group…

almost makes me think I NEED one of those machines but I am trying to resist temptation…

wish now that I had cut out more pieces…

when all of the ornaments reach the Queen Bees I can show you more…

before November leaves us…I also wanted to share this month’s quote from my “Angel Spirits” The Art of Sulamith Wulfing 2011 Calendar:

“The world and its peoples are blessed with infinite diversity, infinite manifestations of wisdom and spirit.  Open to my teachings, expand your vision and your comprehension of the sacred.  When you keep an open heart and mind, there is no limit to your understanding.” ~Angel of Understanding, November 2011

~* Happy Weekend All *~

türkis*turquesa*turchese*turkus*turkoois*turkos*turkis

however you say it…

for some time now I have been drawn to turquoise…

the color and the stone…

back in my hooker days…

RUG hooking that is…

my Mom and I collected loads of good quality second hand wool skirts…

I ripped them apart and dyed the wool for hooking …

I hooked this pumpkin mat some years ago and have also used lots of my wool in various applique projects…

in the process I amassed quite a nice dye selection which has been waiting patiently in a box while my creativity has taken me in lots of other directions…

most of the dye packets are in alphabetical order…

that was back in my more organized days when life seemed a little simpler…

when I came upon some little white trees on sale recently it struck me “wouldn’t these be great in turquoise“...

last year this twinkly turquoise tinsel tree (try saying that five times quickly)…

jumped into my shopping cart and quickly became my favorite holiday deco…

our son was greatly amused each time he came into the kitchen which is fairly often for a young strapping fellow …

there I was throwing another piece of white doily or

linen into the tofu bucket…

I found that pure white fibers with the turquoise dye gave a better color than with off white or natural fabrics

note the unbleached muslin pieces on the bottom two rows of the drying rack…

white silk ribbon that I’ve had for some time now was beautifully transformed…

I used up every last drop of that dye batch…

another batch would surely be a little different since I got excited and didn’t measure anything…

amazing what starting out playing with some white trees led to…

Love my Turquoise forest even without the added touches I still have in mind…

don’t hold still too long or I may think you’d look good in turquoise too  oxo

Happy World Philosophy Day

SLO Tea

thought I’d take you traveling for tea today since my thoughts seem to keep going back to our recent getaway…

SLO stands for San Luis Obispo…

I did a Silent Sunday post that showed a few photos of this neat town here…

we had a lay over in San Francisco and boarded a small 30 seat propeller plane to continue our journey a little further down the California coast…

there was plenty of time on our stopover to get a loaf of our favorite Boudin’s sour dough bread…

landing at San Luis Obispo airport helped trim about four hours of driving time which was most welcome after traveling the skies all day from Virginia…

we found their one baggage claim carousel a pleasant surprise…

SLO was cited as one of this country’s happiest places by the Oprah Winfrey Show…

home of Cal Poly…

we began and ended our California getaway there…

a fun little college town with nice shops and a creek running through it…

we stumbled quite by chance on gum alley…

very interesting…

we did a walk by and kept our distance with no urge to actually walk down the alley…

if I haven’t grossed you out too much let’s keep walking and visit Kreuzberg’s Coffeehouse and Books…

I had a nice refreshing Kombucha and Mr Magpie had a cappucino…

Loved the lamps hung upside down from the ceiling and the perfect coffee house atmosphere…

We write our epitaphs on walls with gum,
And though it may be meaningless to some,
We have a symbol of our gummy youth,
Whose walls may not tell some glorious truth,
But eloquently speak of better times,
Of cruising, shopping sprees, and nursery rhymes.
If gum is all you see upon our wall,
Your mind is closed, your spirit shrunk and small,
Though memories of youth may never last,
Gum Alley is our present to our past.” ~”M”, Arroyo Grande

well alrighty then…

wishing you all a very Happy T Tuesday…

I am still finding reentry back into “real” life pretty challenging on several fronts…sigh

Silent Sunday: San Luis Obispo, California

L*VE

working last minute on this little canvas to take along to California may have been why I forgot to pack the traveling tea cup…

still wondering HOW we missed that…

oh well!

there was a point when I did not think the canvas would materialize in time to take on our trip…

you really can’t force creativity…

can you…

it either happens or it doesn’t…

I rescued some sweet smelling pink roses that were decoration around our niece’s wedding cake last October and pressed them with thoughts of making a first anniversary card for them which turned into this canvas instead…

I wrapped it in wax paper tied with baker’s twine just in case as it took lots of layers of gel medium to embed the roses and leaves…

hoping it holds up over time…

“You are an artist of the spirit.  Find yourself and express yourself in your own particular way.  Express your love openly. Life is nothing but a dream, and if you create your life with love, your dream becomes a masterpiece of art.” ~Don Miguel Ruiz

Wordless Wednesday: Paso Robles Wedding

traveling tea…

back in Virginia now after a wonderful getaway to the west coast…

California certainly is a most agreeable place to visit…

it is easy to entertain thoughts of moving there…

before our trip I received a lovely surprise from the sweet and thoughtful Jan in the UK…

when the mailman delivered this smooshed box to our door all I could think was oh oh…

looks a bit like an elephant sat on it…

but what to my wondering eyes …

there were three perfect pieces of Jan’s Mum’s English Bone China each carefully wrapped in bubble wrap tucked in with pretty linens and fancy paper napkins…

surely Jan must have waved a magic wand over the parcel before it made it’s journey from the UK to Virginia…

sipping a cup of the delicious vanilla and honey tea with heartfelt thanks to Jan…

still pondering our recent travels and how to find balance in this life…

travel is one of my all time favorite things…

it is such a free feeling with small demands like “what would we like to see today” or “where should we eat”…

now I am trying to get back in the swing of things with cooking and other household tasks calling me along with trying to make some time to play and catch up in blogland too of course…

a big part of me is still on the central California coast…

quite by accident my traveling tea cup and saucer did not make it into our suitcase…

I didn’t realize it until a couple of days into our travels…

nice to be back and wishing each of you a happy T Tuesday

Elbows Down…Pinkies Up Tea

now for a little something different with greetings from our California travels…

still in Halloween mode…

welcome to the tea party (nothing political whatsoever!)…

please excuse any ads before the actual video…

here is the THE link just in case my embedded video link did not work…

I almost submitted this music for the Tea and Sympathy’s call for music to drink tea by …

hope you are having a Happy T Tuesday pinkies up or not…

I look forward to checking in with you all upon my return