Love this...Watch this

Pause the music playlist before clicking here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boEDMVNAPk4 then go to: http://www.rainforestsos.org/

Strawberry Days Coming Soon!!!

Our annual Strawberry Days is coming up quickly-the end of the month. We have lots of folks who have signed up for spaces that day-it's going to be huge plus we'll still have our usual yummy strawberry dishes like years past. We raised something like $1500 for ACS; we try to break our record each year, looking good even before the event. See you there!

THE BIG REVEAL

Well it seems that painting my front door has become an annual event. Three years makes a tradition, right? So I'm revealing the new color and toys along with The Big Deal Purchase I Made at Round Top. Oh boy, hold on......so Paul asks when he gets home if it's pink or coral. Coral, where did he get that? Osmosis I presume. I said coral of course and it has more orange in it than it looks here. And I'd never painted the antique glass door before so this was a big move. Sooooooooooo, when I was at the shop last night, I spied this bike. Nene and I had just been looking at bikes week before last and I had been jonesing for one ever since. I'd had a really wild idea about where I wanted to put it in the house but since it's faded red...coral, if you will...it is too perfect out front. See Chloe Dog peeking out the door window? I was trying to wait for a sunny day...I don't want to sound at all negative...but I don't think we will ever see the sun again. Ever. I believe I mentioned in the last post that we're back to rain and 50's. I don't want to sound negative-there are so many worse things that can happen in the world-like a bad hair day.

Just a little rearranging on the other side, sprucing. I love our porch and love perking it up each year at this time.

I was pickled tink when I was lucky last week that Jody brought this great old, rusty mop bucket into...all together now...The Pink Cabbage. That may be the only up shot of not having a shop there-saving money. But along with that is the really down side of missing out on these things I don't even realize I can't live without until I see them.

Drum roll, here's the coup de gras that I purchased at Round Top. I received it a couple of weeks ago but just got the courage and pet boundary product to put it out today. Mac Kenzie-Childs! It was some kind of clearance or something because I paid probably what a platter usually costs from them. I've never priced either a platter or a rug from them but have always admired their art; see the tickled part? And the icing...

...the one I just happened to pick is signed by them!!! I would not have chosen this particular one just for that reason but it just made it that much better.

Do you ever wonder how far I can push all these guys I live with? I don't try, really I don't. I just had to have her-she's a stinking Tidy Widy for gosh sakes. I lost the one I had as a child in one of the many moves I made years ago and never recovered. I'm in recovery now. Don't call anyone, please don't narc me out to Nurse Rachet. I bought the dress from Karen at...all together now...The Pink Cabbage. Then today, Linda at TPC had the perfect hat to go with. Nene said she would not be so creepy if she had a task so I gave her a hand towel to help with. Nene and I got a little carried away...laughing so hard we were in tears...and decided she was the bathroom attendant and thought we should put out a little tip jar, etc. It went on far too long. She and I could share a padded room, not that there's anything wrong with that. So all has been revealed, wadayathink? Glad I kept the bike idea to myself...

Been hittin' tha bottle

Well, last week I gave notice at The Pink Cabbage that I would be moving out at the end of May. I'd been thinking about doing it for a while hoping some sign would tell me to stay but the signs have kept saying to go. I have pushing this boulder up a mountain for eight years now and I think it's time to take a break. Oh no way will I stop doing art...I'll have a website or online store of some type...either way I'll be making art-I can't help it. So, since I've given notice, among other panicky things to think about, one is all the s...tuff I've been collecting over eight years that I'm trying to put together and get in the shop for an opportunity to sell them. I also had a few pieces in the garage that I'm finally getting to in our small breaks between rain and still cool weather. Yes-we were in the 90's weekend before last but then it turned right back to 50's and rain...not that I'm complaining-ha! So, as you can hear, I could be completely justified in hitting the beer bottles, but, instead I'm hitting the art bottles-it's actually way more fun and I'll still feel good tomorrow.

Late edition addition: It's almost 11 p.m. and I'm just back from the shop staging my new items and other things I took in to sell. Here they are in their, hopefully, temporary home. The bottles en masse. New mantle vignette. New top 'o bookcase vignette. A little moving around hoping folks will see some things they didn't notice before so they can take them home instead of me. I don't want to be greedy! My new jewels on display. I got a little lump in my throat taking these photos; I need a break but I know I'll miss all the aspects dearly...well...maybe not packing up after the DC Big Flea following a not-so-great show...everything and everyone else though. Gulp. My mom and I have always mused that if there was a real accounting of good taste that we so would be rich; so I'm a starving artist not, of course, by my own doing but there are so few of us who have this kind of fabulous taste-at least here in Mary Land...Round Top?...it's a whole nother world!

Since then...

...I've been getting back to life here. You saw that I had played with my Round Top toys and I'm still playing with them but also I had some commitments like the shop and a "drop show" with Hillary from Chicks Picks. Here are two photos she took of my art for her home show and put on her...

...email advert. I'd lost...no...I always say that something's not lost, I just can't find it at the moment...couldn't find at the moment the order Hillary had placed with me while I was at the DC Big Flea for this show so I winged it. I remembered the candles of which I made many more and I knew which of my things she had liked so I made more of those and pulled the ones I had that she'd admired. Anyway, I was up 'til the wee hours of the morning that I was to deliver said items but I got 'er done. I "drug" Nene along so we could stop in at Out On A Whim and Lucketts on the way home. Oh yeah, we had fun and picked up a few fun things...later on that.

And instead of doing laundry and cooking, as I said, I've been playing with my Round Top toys. I got the tin toy on eBay because this was one of the ideas I'd had in mind when I got the "Hoova" and scuba diver...to have the scuba diver "coming out of the water" and some kind of worldly fun thing on top.

Close up of the inside of my head, you think that's scary-I still haven't shared the latest in my powder room with you. Gently I show you.

Also, I've been playing with the shelf in my bedroom. Here I have new items from Hillary, Luckett's, and The Vintage Shoppes on Main Street in Ellicott City. And I missed signing up for Silver Bella this year! They moved the sign up time a couple of months earlier than in past years and by the time I found out it was open it was shut. Zennnnn...I've already been to Texas, a.k.a. heaven, twice this year and am planning another for the end of school so no complaining-truly.