Hold Dear

bella pals and a special studio tour...

Hello Sweet Things! I think I got out of order with my posts because last Thursday, before Andrea's charm swap, I got to meet up for a day of fun with some VERY special pals! Natalie, Lonnie,Stacy and Colleen were in town to take a couple of classes withLisa Kaus. When I heard they were going to be in PDX, I insisted that they let me tag along with them if they were going to do any shopping/running around. I'm happy to report that they did!

We went to a few fun shops in the morning and then went to Paragon in the Pearl District for a fabulous lunch! This is the gorgonzola cheesecake appetizer. It was fantastic!

 

I had the grilled cheese and tomato soup combo for lunch. That sandwich was every bit as tasty as it looks! Needless to say, I could only eat half of it!

 

Another fun treat was the ever charming Sally Jean came to join us for lunch.  

 

Here we are...Lonnie, Natalie, Stacy, me, Colleen and Sally. After a crazy good lunch with very tasty drinks, we went to Sally's studio for a tour. Oh my goodness her studio is absolutely enchanting! She was very gracious and allowed us to take pictures to our heart's content. Here are some things that caught my eye and/or made me swoon!

 

 

 

Yes oh yes, don't we all dream of having so many gloriously old books that we can organize them by color? Oh my gravy, this delights me so much!!!

 

THIS makes me nuts! LOVE it beyond the ends of the Universe!

 

 

 

Just SO much flippin' goodness...and SO inspiring. Thank you, again, Sally, for letting come in and lookie lou to our heart's content!
 

 

And thank you Lonnie for arranging the tour, for lunch, and to all of you for letting me join your super fun day!!!

gone fishin'...

Well, not really "fishing" but I will be away for the computer for a couple of weeks.

As you read this, Glen and I are in California...first to join Dede Warren for a Judy Wilkenfeld class she is hosting. OH MY I'm so excited! Tonight there's also going to be a visit to Gilding the Lily where I will get to see some VERY special friends, Cheryl, Kim, Holly and also get to meet another gal named Cynthia. And this is even on top of meeting all the gals that will be in Judy's class! Yep, it's gonna be magic.

We will also be going to see Pageant of the Masters on Saturday night with a cousin of Glen's. Wow! That was a last minute addition to this amazing vacation itinerary so I am just jazzed jazzed jazzed about this!

Then, finally, on Monday we will finally start the journey north to spend some much quality needed time with my family. Oh I can't tell you how much I love my family. My heart is just high as a kite with the anticipation of seeing them and filling my well with their love in person!

After visiting with my mom, Glen and I will then be heading to San Francisco to spend a few days with my sister. Another event that has my heart flying is that my two sisters and their respective partners/impending spouses (smile), will all be going together to a Giants/Dodgers baseball game.

Oh and about mid-way through our trip, Miranda will be flying down to join the whole-fam-damily so she can get in some quality time with everyone! Dang, I'm happy! :-)

So with all this going on, even though both my mom and my sisters have computers, I won't be on them much. The plan is to be with my family...and not their computers!

The only stresser to our whole vacation is leaving the cats! But we have several rounds of housesitters/neighbor kids bribed by a freezer full of otter pops coming through to take care of those fuzz balls so I'm settling down. :-)

Lots and lots of love to you all...and see in in two! 

charms...

Hello there...it's me again...I have a couple of more posts to do that to catch you up with all the wonderfulness that's been going on with me lately. Then after that, I'm going to be taking a bloggy break while I go on vacation! Glen and I will be on an adventure to California! Can't wait...I'll be taking a class and then we are going to catching up with a long lost relative of Glen's that he's reconnected with and then I'll be going to visit my mom and sisters! The whole trip is just shaping up to be amazing and I can foresee some once in a lifetime memories! 

Last week, I joined my fun pal, Andrea, at her house, along with 10 of her friends for a face to face charm swap! What fun! There were actually 16 ladies total in the swap but not all were able to attend. All of the very talented and lovely ladies in the swap work together and I got invited to join since I am, well, lucky enough to be friends with the hostess!. And what a hostess she was!!!

Andrea had the best drinks and some over-the-top delicious food. Just look at this spread...

 

 

Andrea even prepared a "charm buffet." Each person laid out her charms and then we went through and picked one of each, buffet style. How marvelous!

 

I haven't put my bracelet together yet...some of the gals came prepared and assembled their bracelets right on the spot! Dude!

So here is my charm. Apparently there was a theme to this swap...summertime. I missed that detail and just soldered up some dominoes. That can sort of be "summertime" since sitting around playing dominoes and something I love to do when we go camping. Don't cha think??? :-)

I also brought along my collection of charm bracelet from previous swaps for show and tell.

 

This vision right here, with all the charms all tossed together like a charm bracelet salad just makes me so happy!

 

And then after we were all filled up with food, beverage, and charms, we had our picture taken. One of the gals had left already.

 

Thanks again to Andrea for hosting this exceptionally fun swap and I sure hope I get to join your talented group's next foray into swap land! It was charming!!!

hello pals...

Oh my sweety pie friends! You are just the nicest! Thank you all so much for all your compliments about my craft room. I truly appreciate that you would take the time to leave a comment. I have only made it to a few studio tours...this week has been nuts! And I completely intended to reply to each of you who left me a note but now that's gotten away from me! We leave for vacation on Friday and I've been working hard to get the house prepared for our vacancy as well as finish up few projects. Also, I have been working hard to get supplies together for the class I'll be taking on our trip. I'll be joining Dede Warren, along with some pretty other fabulous gals for the Judy Wilkenfeld class that she is hosting. Can't wait! Also, while I'm in SoCal, I will get to visit with Cheryl! SO looking forward to that!

I do have lots to share with you before we leave for our trip. For now though I have a few pictures to share for the family. :-) I just got back from going out with Miranda and her friend, Trevor. It was Trevor's birthday so I treated them to a trip to the Bins and then to Vincente's for some pizza and greek salad. It was a fun evening but it would have been nicer if it hadn't been friggin' 107 degrees! At one point my car thermometer read 113 degrees! Crap! That's like Death Valley hot!!!

Here are a couple of pictures of Miranda and Trevor as well as a few others I took at a Beaver's baseball game we went to a few weeks ago. These two are so funny together.

 

 

 

 

Take care...and thanks again for all the love!!! See ya soon!

where bloggers create...

Hi there...

I have been SOOO looking forward to today! Karen of My Desert Cottage is hosting a "Where Bloggers Create" party! Whoo-hoo! I SO love looking into other artists studios and creative spaces!

There are SO many fabulous bloggers joining in so I, for one, am planning on taking tons of virtuals tours!

I'm joining in the fun so I have a few pictures from around my studio. This room is one of the bedrooms in our house and I'm getting kinda itchy to redo it with all new furniture. My tastes and needs have changed since my fabulous husband put it together for me. But I still love love love being be in this room.

 

...and there are lots of spots that make me happy.

 

The desk is a door blank. Glen mounted it on top of two industrial shelving units and then he gave it a huge flat drawer. When I used to make a lot of books, it was storage for large sheets of paper. These days it holds letterpress trays filled with treats!

 

On one of the shelves above my desk, I have my collection of fatbooks! I LOVE how they look on end and I thought I was brilliant to put them right where I can see them when I sit at my desk. This just makes me deliriously happy! :-)

 

 

I'll just let you look around now. Feel free to open up any jars or drawers and poke around. I'll be sure to show you a few of my favorite little spots. :-)

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Do you spy the glass Sparklett's water jug filled with buttons??

  

 

 

Okay...so now I'm cheating. This next picture is actually not in my studio but in our daughter's now vacant former bedroom. The room is all cleaned out now and Glen just shampooed the carpet. The intention is to turn it into a guest room but since I'm kinda outgrowing my studio, I've been slowly moving some of my sewing stuff into the room and calling it the guest room slash sewing room. I think it's working, girls! :-)

  

Check out that gorgeous mirror!!! Picked that baby up at Goodwill for cheap! Absolute could NOT not buy it! And it's an old one too!

Oh and also...this is my apron for Silver Bella!!! So excited! Especially since yesterday I spent an incredible day hanging out with Natalie, Lonnie, Stacy, and Colleen. Oh how I adore these girls! I had so much fun! Plus we had lunch and a lovely visit with this sweet gal. LOTS of pictures to share with you from that studio visit, let me tell you!

Okay...well that's just about it. I hope you enjoyed this little tour of the room where I try to make pretty things. I sure hope you joined Karen's party so I can come visit you now. :-)

barn house, baby!

Last Saturday, I had one of the funnest days EVER! I met up with Jill and Emily at 7:00 am and we headed to Battle Ground, Washington for some Barn House Flea Market action!!!

I'd heard of this amazing event before and saw pictures of it around blogland from previous years but never in my life could I have imagined all the wonderful, dreamy, glorious vintage treasures! Everything was perfection! 

SOOOO fun...I'm just gonna share the experience with pictures. To see more pictures, go here, here, and here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Coconut cake perfection!

 

 

 

 

After the Barn House, we meandered our way back to Portland, stopping at various garage sales, Goodwill Outlets and another event called VIntage Gathering. It was just a fun, fun day with lots of new treasures brought home.

Jill drove us and after a day of shopping fun, this is a view of the back of her truck. Let me tell you, this girl has some crazy mad skills with it comes to maximizing every square inch of space! Her truck was STUFFED!

 

I'll get around to showing you some pix of my new trinkets and treasures. Thanks again to Emily and Jill for letting me tag along. It was a BLAST, wrong turns and all!!! :-)

And I'm SOOO excited...tomorrow is a very special day...some of my favorite Bellas, Natalie, Lonnie and Stacy, are gonna be in town and I get to meet up with them for a day of shopping, lunch, and general fun! Can't wait!

where bloggers create...

I know I know...so much going on and I still have pics from Barn House to show you but I wanted to let you know about a party this Friday!

 

Karen Valentine from  My Desert Cottage  Is having a party.  She has invited bloggers to show off their creative spaces.  Click on her link and see who will be joining the party sharing their creative spaces for us to enjoy and to be inspired. I will be participating so I hope you'll come by and visit.  It's been awhile since I've shown pictures from my ever changing studio.

The party starts Friday July 24th so I hope you come on over and join the fun!

token charms...

Hello there! Oh I sure hope you had a wonderful weekend! I sure did. Just so much good stuff. Glen, Miranda, her friend Trevor, and I went to a Beavers baseball game on Friday night and then yesterday, I joined two awesome girls, Jill and Emily, for a trip to the Barn House Flea Market. Oh girls and boys...it was all just so FANTASTIC! I have some pictures to share but I'm still sorting through them but I promise to get those up this week!

I do have a few quick pix to share of the most another charm swap I was in. I went for quite awhile not doing these but then all of a sudden, there were ones I just couldn't pass up! This was one hosted by the lovely Maureen Baranov and the theme was "Tokens!" She always inspires and challenges our little Charmsters group with the most delightful themes! I joined this swap thinking I would alter some old poker chips to be the tokens but then I was came across my stash of old Monopoly tokens and houses so I used those!

Here's the charms...

 

 

And then all packaged up...

 

I have some other charms I'll also be working on this week. My super fun friend, Andrea, is hosting a charm swap with some local girls and we're all going to meet at her house next Saturday for the exchange! There was no theme and so I took this opportunity to do some more soldering and I'm using some super cute mini dominoes I got on eBay. Can't wait to see what everyone comes up with!!! And maybe hosting this swap will motivate Andrea to do some ding ol' dang bloggin'! :-)

Take care...and hope you have an awesome week!

mosaic project...

I have a very sweet friend named Grace. She's the one with the cutest dog in the world, Angus. Remember Angus? :-)

When Grace realized that I did artsy craftsy things, she showed me some of her mosaic work and said she would show me how to make something. I was stoked because this is one of those crafts that I had never tried but always wanted to!

I went over to Gracie's house this past Wednesday evening and in the course of three hours, just about completed a piece. On the way over, I stopped in at Goodwill and found a couple of plates with some patterns I liked. Sweet Grace provided an object for me to mosaic...an IKEA mirror she found at Goodwill some time ago. 

 

The fun part...taking a hammer to the plates! OPA!

 

The time passed quickly as I happily chipped and glued pieces of broken plates and tiles (that Grace generously shared) on to the mirror...

 

Here is what it looks like with all the plate and tile glued on. I still have to apply the grout but since the glue needed to set overnight, I couldn't get it all done in one evening.

 

The picture looks funny with the ceiling light smack dab in the center! Plus this lighting is horrible! Sorry about that.

Once I get the grout applied, I'll be sure to show a picture of it in natural light. I was anticipating doing that tomorrow (Saturday) but my plans have changed! I've decided to join Emily and Jill and go to the Barnhouse Flea Market! Eeeek! I'm so excited! Not only to go to a flea market, but to hang out with Emily and Jill? What a treatly treat! I ADORE these girls!!!

Okay...so back to the mosaic... Overall, I'd say am pretty happy with how my first one turned out. Grace said the grout only makes it look better! Wowie!

I won't say this craft is easy but it was very straight forward. The challenge is the design component. I took the easy way out and just glued down the pieces of plate and tile randomly. Maybe next time I'll take on the challenge and try to create a pattern or ...gulp...a picture! All I know is I will definitely be doing more of these!

Oh and since I was at Gracie's, I could NOT leave without taking a current picture of Angus for you.

  

What a squirrelly little character!

 

Grace had to crate him for awhile while I was there because he would not leave the backs of my ankles alone! If he was nipping at them, he was licking them! If he wasn't so doggone cute, I would have been scared! :-)

Okay...hope you have a wonderful weekend...I'll be back soon! Lots going on!!!

bella kindness...

Hi there!

So the other day, I received the sweetest little package in the post! It was from one of the ladies that will also be attending Silver Bella in November, Catherine Aguilera.

Is this just not the cutest...?!

 

Be sure to click on the pic to enlarge...

 

Catherine filled a beautiful glassine envelope full of little sweety treats! Such kindness! I was just overwhelmed by the oh so lovely items in the envelope including the clever (and so very true!) card that says "Oh What Fun We Had in Omaha, Neb." I just love it!

I will be sure to keep the love going and send a little package of Bella Kindness off to a Sister Bella or two.

Thank you so much for the fun, Catherine, and thank you for thinking of me!