A Little Birdie Told Me

Today is a lovely summer morning in San Diego, a little warm and a little humid, but beautiful nonetheless.  As I sit at my computer the birds are singing in the background, welcoming this new day.  My house is close to a lake and it is amazing how many birds come into our yard!  I've seen bright yellow birds, sparrows, robins and so many more.  Every morning the mourning doves arrive and stay most of the day.  My hubby is a huge bird lover, and fills two bird feeders and two hummingbird feeders every week.  It's so much fun to watch the little hummingbirds fight over the feeder.  Did you know that a dominant hummingbird actually "claims" the feeder and fights the other hummingbirds off?

I love to include birds and bird cages into my artwork.  This book is an altered memo book that I created for a swap.  I find the Tim Holtz bird cage die to be fabulous when glittered.  Isn't everything better with a little glitter?  And the cover also includes two of my faves of the moment:  festooning and pom poms.  Really, with glitter and festooning and pom poms, what could go wrong?

I hope you all are enjoying your summer, and that you can enjoy the birds every morning. If I think of sounds that make me happy, bird songs are right there at the top with the sounds of waves at the beach.  I just love summer! 

Happy Pink Saturday to my pinkies.

Paper Soiree at Paper Tales

Last month marked the first get together of a new monthly class called Paper Soiree at Paper Tales in San Diego.  Eight lovely ladies signed up to swap an altered compo-
sition book and partici-pate in a short make and take.  This month we are swapping decorated cones, and here is the cone that I decorated to swap.  The theme of the group is French, shabby chic, which encompasses all of the things that I love working with!  It is so fun to find other ladies close by that like the same style of paper arts, and Paper Tales has such wonderful supplies that fit right in to the theme. Michelle, the owner, is a fellow Francofile so I always love to see what new French items she has.  Merci Michelle. J'aime votre boutique petit papier!

Happy Pink Saturday to all the pinkies, thanks so much for visiting my blog!

Marie Antoinette Coin Envelope Tag Book

This past month I have had a number of swap opportunities come my way that I haven't been able to pass up.  I love it when I find swaps that challenge me to do something I haven't done before, and this was one of those. This little book was created for a swap in my Marie Antoinette Mail Art Group.  The challenge was to create a little book using coin envelopes as the inside, and to create tags for each envelope. 

I found some fabulous little pink envelopes at Paper Source.  I sent them through the cuttlebug embosser and scraped my ink pad across the raised portions.  I glimmer misted them for a little added pizzaz.  The envelopes are then glued together to create the inside of the book.  The cover of the book is created by using your envelope inside to decide on the size and wrapping them with scored chipboard.  The chipboard is then covered with papers and decorated. 

My outside is decorated with a vintage french perfume label and a Marie image.  My new fave embellishment is festooning, so I added a row of pink.  A few flowers and a dove complete the look.  Their are 10 tags inside, which I created on top  of a business card that was from Paper Source and was designed to go inside the envelope.  I added a tab and images of Marie and my book was done! 

I loved this little challenge, and I can't wait to make more books.  This one is already in the hands of Jody Jara, and I am looking forward to seeing what she creates!

Happy Pink Saturday to my  pink blogging girlfriends!

Happy Birthday Matchbox Swap

What a fun theme for a swap:  Happy Birthday!  And since this is my birthday month I couldn't wait to participate.  The challenge was to design a matchbox with a birthday theme and fill it with goodies.  I love little cakeboxes, and knew this would be perfect if designed in scale for the top of the matchbox.  I decorated the cake slice with pretty papers, festooning, tulle, netting, seam binding robbon and flowers.  I couldn't resist making a birthday crown to send with my matchbox.  I have recieved both of my swap boxes from my partners Marsha and Sheila but haven't opened them yet because I thought it would be so fun to wait for my birthday!

Happy Pink Saturday to visitors from Beverly's fabulous link party.

A Cute Gift Idea

Here is a cute hostess gift idea - decorated bar soaps!

I read about this in a magazine somewhere and it left an impression on me. In typical fashion I have then been obsessed with finding inexpensive bars of soap.  I happened up these at Ross.  They are scented with lavender and vanilla and smell so wonderful!  The package of three was only five dollars.  They were already wrapped in paper, so I left that on as protection and wrapped them again in vintage music paper.  I wrapped the burlap ribbon around the bar of soap and glued the ends of the ribbon together so that it can slide on and off the bar and could possibly be saved for another use when the recipient uses the soap.  I then created flowers out of strips of burlap and glued them on the ribbon, and embellished it with some netting and tulle and some additional small flowers.  Voila!  A perfect hostess gift and it took me very little time to create all three.

A very Happy Pink Saturday to my link party friends.  And a Happy Father's Day to all!

California Coastal Trip - More Carmel

The Tuck Box - such a quaint little restaurant.

Gardens in front of a shop

What has always called to me the most in downtown Carmel are the wonderful little cottages, with their shingled roofs and wonderful gardens. The sweetest shops and restaurants can be found in the cottages close to the main street, Ocean Avenue. Above is the Tuck Box, one of my mother's favorite places to go. And below are photos one of the newest shops that Mary and I fell in love with. French themed of course, because anyone who know me knows what a Francofile I am! (Mary too!) The name of the store is Souvenir.

California Coastal Trip - Carmel

 Sunset over Carmel Beach

My heart will always be in the Monterey Bay area of California. This is where I grew up, and I still feel it is one of the most beautiful places on earth. A few weeks back I was lucky enough to visit this gorgeous area once again, this time with my girlfriend Mary. I drove up from San Diego, and Mary flew down from Portland, and we met up in Carmel - the beginning destination for our driving trip down the coast of California. We were fortunate, the weather was great - a rarity for Carmel in May! Today I will share with you this first stop, and I hope to add photos of the additional stops we made throughout this week. Carmel is such a quaint and beautiful place. The little shops beckon, they are filled with unique treasures. And the choices in dining are abundant. Carmel beach is truly one of the loveliest beaches I have ever visited, the sand is so white and the water is so blue, and the cypress trees add drama to the spectacular sunsets.

 Point Lobos State Park

 Our wonderful room at The Vagabond House Inn

The Carmel Mission