Something new

I've been trying my hand at making some jewelry the past few days and this is a pair I finished yesterday. I think I had more fun embossing the tag, though. I think that just proves I really am a "paper girl".

In Memory of Bobo

This was my mother's cousin who was shot down over the English Channel near Beachy Head, Sussex, England on May 19, 1942. He joined the RCAF and then later the RAF in the 133rd Eagle Squadron.

My mother still talks about him and although I never knew him, he still seems like such a part of our family. I guess it's true that as long as there are people who remember you, you never really die.

So this is just a little tribute to Robert Lewis Pewitt,22 years old, shot down in his Spitfire, 66 years ago this month. A real hero, only "a thousand times better"!

Bag of Goodies

This is what I was talking about: lots of little scraps of stuff, in this case, ribbon. I don't really remember how I came to have so many pieces of ribbon. In some cases I just cut a piece and I either changed my mind, or it turned out to be the wrong length, or it just didn't look right with the floral or display I was working on...who knows? I still have rolls and rolls of fabulous ribbon that I will be incorporating into some of my work over the next few months. If you see a ribbon or some lace that you would like to buy lengths of, email me and I'll sell you some. In almost all cases I have more on a roll. In some rare cases, what you see on a tag or other work is all I have. I have bought vintage ribbon here and there over the years that was just a little piece to start with.

The plucky little overnight case you see all the ribbon stashed in was a yard sale find once upon a time. Too bad the mirror in the lid was missing but I inserted an altered notebook in there so it didn't look so bare.

I don't know what I am going to do when we finally finish our remodeling project. Over the past few months we have re-textured the ceiling and painted the walls in my studio. We also replaced the light fixture and the window. Tomorrow we are finally, finally getting the new plantation shutters installed. Every stage of the way, I have had to get in there and clean everything up! A big nuisance at the time, but it keeps me from getting buried. So that is what I have been doing today: cleaning off the desk (Oh, the humanity!!) so it can be moved to make room for the installer to work tomorrow.

After the shutters go up we can go ahead and order the new carpet. Once that is in, we're done! And then I'll have to resort to discipline to periodically clean up the mountain of stuff that accumulates on my desk.

More flowers

Obviously, I'm reveling in all my flowers right now. I'm just so thankful that these survived. The dogwood was planted about 5 years before we moved away and was so small then it barely put out a blossom at all as I recall. Such pleasure seeing the tree laden with blooms.

And then there is this wonderful white lilac. My husband and I dug the start for this at his grandmother's house back in 1983. We never thought it would survive the 50 miles trip back to our house from hers. It hardly had a root system and was so dry and wilted by the time we got back with it. But I watered, watered, and watered some more. It didn't look like much all summer and to my eternal surprise it leafed out the next spring. I think it was four of five years before it bore blossoms. It still doesn't have a lot, but the bush itself is easily 8 or 9 feet tall. So I'm planning on feeding it a lot all this growing season and maybe next spring we'll have even more blooms.

Ah, and the smell.....as good as the big purple blooms, only "a thousand times better"!!!

First Blush

This is the collosal lilac that grows just off my upper deck. I dug this as a shoot from my neighbor's bush years and years ago. This photo really doesn't give an indication of how big the clusters of florettes really are, but they are huge. Some of them measure almost a foot in length. I just liked this pair and the one little one that had the strength to burst out first. And the smell of these is so fine!

My own flowers.

It was interesting as spring unfolded this year to see what had survived in the eight years I had been away from my house. That is a story in itself, but let it suffice to say that most of our tenants had no interest in gardening. When we moved back in last September the lawn was trash; lots of bare spots, tons of weeds, volunteer trees, etc. In spite of that I was surprised to see that most of the rose bushes had not only survived, but they are doing remarkably well. Just a little TLC and they seem to be thriving this spring.

This is just a little McCoy vase I have that I filled with some grape hyacinths and periwinkle a number of weeks ago. I thought it looked kind of pretty against my new kitchen window and the greening grass of the back yard.

April, May and June are my favorite months of the year so I'm pretty happy right now.

One of my new tags.

I've been on a jag lately making tags and incorporating a bunch of old scraps of ribbon, lace, fabric flowers, beads and whatever else I have within arm's reach at the moment. I have stewed a lot about how to make use of all this stuff and finally it came to me.

At my last place of employment the facilities department was cleaning out a building that had been sold and they had piled a couple of boxes of tags onto the heap of stuff that was going to be hauled to the garbage dump. I saw them and asked the project manager if I could have them and he said, "Help yourself". Although I was happy to have them, I had no idea how I would ever use 1000 or so tags. But I just couldn't stand the thought of them going out in the garbage.

Now the story on the ribbons and stuff, well, that is a very long story. But in a capsule, I used to own a gift shop and my good friend Heather designed floral arrangements for me and I bought a lot of ribbon. Most of it was really good ribbon like Midori and when I closed the shop to move to California I had a lot of ribbon left. I couldn't bear to part with it but again, had no idea how I would ever use it all.

So here we are after I had my big epiphany. I plan to open an Etsy store soon and I'll be listing a number of these tags and maybe some other things, too. My husband and I are in the throes of remodeling our house and I also planted a garden this year. We're going to my mother's the end of June for her 85th birthday celebration and family reunion. Then in July my two sisters and I are going to go visit my Dad and his wife Ruth in Calgary. Always fun times when we all get together. So the Etsy shop may be awhile.

As a caveat to my blog's name I just want it known that in no way am I presuming to be "A Thousand Times Better" than anyone.....this is just one of my little sayings. I'm always making comparisons such as, "This margarita is just like the ones at Aqui (my favorite eatery in Willow Glen), only it's a thousand times better." It just means I'm really enthused about whatever I'm going on about. Okay, we got that out of the way. Wait, I have to add one more thing! No way could a margarita anywhere be better than the ones at Aqui. I just used that as an example.

I'm going to try to get a banner up one of these days, too. I have an idea of what I want to use but just can't find the right image yet.