Musing in Color

Yes, I am addicted to photo collages, thank you for asking. :)

As the 3rd project of my English Gardening Course is working out, I thought having a visual picture of some of our ideas would be a good idea. Turned out that I have a more distinct picture of what I want in my head than I thought! And that it's very hard to find someone else's photograph to fit the one in my head.... This collage, for instance, turned out far more rustic than I imagined. Hmm...

Anyway, no one tell Daddy about the bamboo. I'd put it in pots! Promise! :D

From the Archives

1. http://www.punambean.com/blog/?p=355 2.http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?listing_id=21687833 3. Helen G.C. Marsh Lambert (1888-1981) - The Queen of Hearts, 4. Blue Flowers

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

Remember me talking about the overflowing piles of things that I've stuffed into my Google Notebooks? Well, the time has come to pull them out and share one or two with you. I just picked four random pictures (ones that did have direct links - whew! I always seem to lose the credits...)

1) Pretty, pretty wedding - especially the dress. 

2, 3) Don't you just love illustrations like these?? I like the colors and details - Monsieur Hedgehog's wallpaper and the little queen's striped robe. It's perfection!

4) Gorgeous photograph of cornflowers. Cornflowers, yes? They surely look cornflower blue!

WIld Things

I was delighted when an rare opportunity came up to tour a local native plant reserve with my fellow Master Gardeners. And since the tour landed on the very day of my birthday, how could I refuse?

The place was very lovely (the rock work especially). While being a reserve, part of the idea was to demonstrate how native plants can be used in our gardens.

Not that we all live at 5000+ feet.

(I always find myself drawn to the wild bits. Do you?)

Please Excuse My Absence

I've been off turning 21, tromping through un-wild woodlands, filling my head with literature and going to a very happy wedding.

Not a halfway bad way to spend a springtime.

I <3 May

I love the balmy mornings, 

the drowsy hum of bees, 

the soft rain landing 

on freshly unfurled leaves 

with a crisp pit-pat. 

I love the hint, 

the hope, 

the lure of a perfect summer 

whispered by crickets 

in a not-quite-navy dusk. 

I love that bowls of soup 

still grace the table, 

set with a promise 

of walking downtown 

for ice cream later. 

I love that the earth 

smells like poetry in May. 

And that people come alive 

to smell it, 

gardening gloves in hand.

(Being a May baby has nothing to do with it. ;) )

This Weekend

Our Eliza got adopted!!!!

PetSmart had an Adopt-a-Thon event and all the pups from the shelter/fosters got to come. Not a single one left without a home to go to. Not a single one. What a miracle! Several people had prayed for that morning to go well and because of them, it did. Little Miss Eliza has an awesome new family with new doggie siblings (and a kitty!) and I can study in peace. :)

Last Weekend

{Virginia Bluebell by Daddy}

Give me a quiet garret alone

Where I may sit for a few casual callers

And tell them casually, offhandedly

'This is where I dirty paper.'

Thus each poet prays and dreams

The eternal hobe asks for a quiet room

with a little paper he can dirty

with birds who sit where he tells 'em.

Carl Sandburg, Breathing Tokens, 1945

Last weekend, we went for a picnic at Connemara, the poet Carl Sandburg's home, now park. I hadn't been since Laura and I were little girls. I'd forgotten how much I like a little Sandburg in small doses.

A Short Tutorial for a Rainy Day

Is your summer unplanned? Do you need a family calendar to hang in a prominent place so that everyone remembers you're going hiking on the 12th?

Do you have some scrapbook paper lying around? A ribbon? A glue stick? A printer?

Then you can make a Rainy Day Calender!

Here's how:

Hang it on a tack and voila! How easy was that? 

I like the Eprintable calendar because they make it so easy to add a picture and verse/quote. There are loads of others out there to choose from. Just Google "free printable calendar".  There are so many ways that you could spice it up, too! Imagine collage, a touch of stitching...big hand-calligraphed names of the months.... (This plain Jane makes me content enough for now. :)

If you make one, let me know! I'd love to see what you come up with. :D

(Hehe...this is my first tutorial!)

Yay!

100 pages of script, written. 

100 pages of very poor script, written.

1 futuristic world, created.

1 plot, lost.

6 characters fed to dinosaurs, check.

Okay, for my first sci-fi/fantasy, it was fun! In my world, where culture has returned to a Victorian standard, Earth has been devoted entirely to agriculture (a new mega-power), while humankind has been relocated to the planets. Karaoke is illegal and wine ages ten times as fast on the faster-than-the-speed-of-light interplant highways.  :)

Miss Eliza Jane Dolittle

I posted about our latest foster puppy over at SunnySpot Inn, if you want to read a little  about her! 

(We've been beefing her up and giving her beauty treatments to get over a skin condition. Question: do you think she's cute enough to go to an Adopt-a-Thon this weekend? LOL...she looks so uncharacteristically serious here!)

{photo - my fantastic sis, ActuallyLaura}

Fashion Love

Playing with Polyvore can be dangerous.

You might fall in love with cute clothes that are just your style - a mix of vintage, artsy and classic - but the company is in Korea. Is that why I've never heard of YesStyle before? I'm in love with their sweet and feminine photoshoots!

Will definitely, no bones about it, be copying some of these ideas for my own. Grrr....if I could only sew!

Okay, you can tell me to stop right-click saving now.

By the by...if you find yourself in need of a pretty picnic dress or Swanki hat to go with your outfit, check out the giveaways at www.grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com!  (I'm crossing my fingers for the hat.)

Spring at the Arboretum

Solomon's Seal

Columbine unfurling.

I'm in love with this so-very-fragrant viburnum.

One of the coolest things about Master Gardeners is the field trips, even just around town. Last week, we went to the Arboretum in Asheville, this week to the parks downtown. Rainy both times, but that's the loveliest time in a garden....

Happy Spring

It's a soft rainy spring day here in the neighborhood and baby kisses rock.

Why don't we celebrate by entering Grograin's Pleated Petal Tank Anthropolofication Giveaway? (Pictured above.)

Confession:

{from absolutelybeautifulthings.blogspot.com}

I have 418, er, 419 notes in my Google Notebook's inspiration folder! 

(That's where I stash all my favorite pics & ideas from blogs on gardens, crafting, fashion, home decor....)

I'd say someone needs to clean house!

Where do you keep your online goodies? How do you keep the credits straight?

Another World

We went letterboxing this weekend. I love letterboxing - it's always an adventure. You never know what you'll find. Sunstruck layers of age-old granite...

Mossy trunks tucked in with mossy stones laid in shambles.... 

Cascades of galax, still tinged with purple from the cold...

The hike was more than we bargained for. (Muddy 45* slopes, anyone?) 

But the waterfalls made it well worthwhile. Their grandeur dwarfed the evergreens - it was like we had suddenly stepped into Colorado or Wyoming, but no, this beauty is our neighbor! Gorged on a weeks worth of rain water, the noise was enormous, reverberating Psalms in my soul. "Deep calling unto deep."  "...the waters clapped their hands in praise."

Then after all that, we didn't find our letterbox. Oh well. We'll try again later - when the rhododendron is in bloom. 

And this time we'll wear boots.

A New Lump

Our family keeps Passover...

Not because we were born to it...

(Unless by being adopted in).

 

Some people become confused...

... saying it isn't Christian.

But could anything be more so?

And he took bread, and gave thanks, and brake it, and gave unto them, saying, 

This is my body, which is given for you: 

this do in remembrance of me.

- Luke 22:19

Everything is a Process

Try your hardest 

to furnish your FAITH with 

GOODNESS,

goodness with 

KNOWLEDGE,

knowledge with 

SELF-CONTROL,

self-control with 

PERSEVERANCE,

perseverance with 

GODLINESS,

godliness with 

BROTHERLY AFFECTION,

and brotherly affection with 

LOVE. 

2 PETER 1:5

(I'm working on making a little 'plaque' of this verse for my room. It is always an encouragement!)

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

Wait, that's the wrong season! Nope. It's April in the Carolinas. How does there always happen to be a big freeze, just as the second flush of green comes up? It's snowing now, just a light constant flurry that I hope doesn't get to my baby forsythia. 

However I may despise the crushing of wisteria buds by frost, this weather is making me feel less guilty. My green thumbs (that really lean more towards violet) have been cowering in shame over the scramble of empty pots and lonely soil outside. I must have been subconsciously prepared for this winter-esqe weather, yes. Of course yes.

Now I find myself in a giddy readiness to be decorating inside and out. Ideas have settled in my head and seem positively possible.

Join with me, procrastinators! Raise your trowel, your brush, your unbelievably delicious flower catalogs and toast to the possible!

Image from CountryLiving - this article, which I am dying to replicate. How dare the latest issue be so good!

In The Shop

I should be posting. 

But I should also be fixing dinner.

Dinner wins.

Have I showed you what's in the shop these days? They've been up for a while...working on some new paperdolls this weekend reminded me.

One is a really cute retro/indie top pattern that I got in an estate sale  box, but alas, is the wrong size for me! Embroidery and embellishments on blouses always get to me. It's from the Marlo Thomas collection, which kind of tickles my funny bone.  I wish it were xxsmall - Laura is such a That Girl! 

The puppy card was a pet project of mine.  I really expected someone to take it home by now! It was lots of fun to make. :)

REMEMBER: There's nothing I like more than custom orders. Right now I'm on a pet portrait streak. Anyone need their very own pup in watercolor? Send me a photo!

Wah!

(This was taken back when he was still in shelter-shock and his dad-beagle was doing all the talking.)

My life has been taken over by a 14ish pound puppy who decided to get some morals at 4 in the morning (then he decides that maybe being crate-trained is a good thing after all!) and is now squirming in my arms, making typing quite a chore, let alone sane posting. He's been fed three times already today - what now?

Cash Puppy: Play with meeeeee!
Sara Slave: Okay, puppy.

(Hehe! There -I've written a script!)