sand castles and mermaids...

I'm really looking forward to our little trip to Virginia Beach this weekend. I love the beach. I would go to any beach, anytime, no matter the weather and and love it. It has nothing to do with swimming for me, although if it's warm, I'll swim. I just love the natural beauty of it and the crashing waves and the little treasures to be found in the sand. Lakes are good, but the ocean is the best. When we lived in New York we used to go to Lake Ontario a lot. Very rocky, but I always came home with a pile of rocks and sea glass. And the water was freezing, but the sunsets were the best. When I was a teenager, my aunt took my sister and I to Cape Cod several times and once I took my hubby there in October. That was the best fall trip ever - with the beautiful leaves and the deserted beaches. Now that we live in the south, we have visited Myrtle Beach and Virginia Beach and a few Florida beaches. Also, in Florida we visited some natural springs, with crystal clear, cool water. Three Sisters Springs felt like it was right out of some romantic movie - we had to swim through a narrow, spooky channel that opened into a beautiful lagoon. Our honeymoon was in Hawaii and I would say those were the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen. But really, I've never met a beach I didn't like. I have a little fantasy about living on a beach someday. In a nice little cottage, nothing fancy. But for now, I will just visit as many as I can.

i love doilies...

The picture above is a view of my studio the other morning. I thought the way the light cast shadows was kind of cool. I am still working on my studio re-do. It's all painted and I have shelves hung, as you can see, but I'm still in the process of organizing and figuring out where I want things. That all takes time. The other day was rainy and kind of dreary, the perfect kind of day for visiting a favorite antique shop. I found this gorgeous crocheted doily in shades of ivory and ecru. Love it. It inspired me to play with some other doilies that I have. I'm making some new journals for my shop with doilies inset into the cover. Also took a trip to the Goodwill for some "wumpy sweaters" - nice, scratchy wool sweaters to shrink and make some wumpies or other fun creatures. More on that later.

neglectful...

I've been such a neglectful blogger lately. I've been busy entertaining my broken little boy. We had a fun time with shrinky dinks the other day. Jake made a robot and a cow and I made some little wumpies. Been doing some shopping...for sensible shoes... did I tell you Jake had on really old crocs when he broke his arm, no tread left on them...also, some cute "flirty" skirts for myself...I haven't worn a skirt in years, but I picked these up at one of my favorite shops - the Goodwill - and I'm finding them to be so comfy and fun to wear. Can't beat the price - $3.50 each! Also a shot of the book I made for our family reunion gift exchange, which involved bidding for each others treasures and ended up being a lot of fun. I showed you the mysterious package a few posts back. Mark's Aunt Kathy won the book and she wasn't giving it up! The temperatures here have hit 100 the past couple of days. Really thankful for our air conditioning and planning a trip to the beach next weekend.

my broken boy...

At least he waited until after vacation. Jacob took a tumble the other night and broke his arm. He's got a pretty cool blue cast and the best part is, it's waterproof (sort of), which means he still gets to go swimming. The sort of part of waterproof is the hour long drying process afterwards. But it's all worth it. A kid can't be missing out on summertime fun after all.

vacation fun...

Vacation is over already... It really went by fast, as do all fun things. It was nice to visit with family at the family reunion. My husband's family is so big! We've been married for nearly 20 years and I still haven't met everybody. Our day at the Magic Kingdom was...well...magical. We all agreed that the best part was the fireworks at the end. So awesome. We spent our last day relaxing at Daytona beach. Such a beautiful beach. I love the ocean and I really didn't want to leave, but I am making plans to visit Virginia beach before summer is over. I took a lot of pictures, but after we got home and looked at them all, I realized that there is just no way to capture it on film. But I know that the best parts of our trip will be in our memories forever.

monsters and mysterious packages...

I've been working on various monsters this week - the one above is named Eeny and can be found in my etsy shop. There may eventually be a Meeny, Miny and a Mo. Speaking of monsters, you should check out this blog . My wumpy monsters were featured on one of their first posts. A couple more journal pages, nothing amazing really, I was messing around with my Portfolio water soluble oil pastels (which I've had for months and haven't even cracked open the box). I really like them. The package above is for a gift exchange that will be taking place at my hubby's family reunion. I thought it would be more fun to make it look kind of mysterious. I won't reveal the contents until later - don't want to spoil any surprises, but it's good. We will be heading to Orlando later in the week for the family reunion and I'm pretty excited that we're taking the kids to Disney. I should have some good pictures when I get back. It's really hot today - supposed to maybe hit 100, so it's off to the pool for the day. Hope it's nice where you are...