Japanese Anemone

I was so excited the last issue of Martha Stewart helped me identify a flower I have had in my yard for years and never knew what it was -- Japanese Anemone. They had a nice story on it. It is a shade perennial that has beautiful, soft, pale flowers and blooms in late summer and fall. The foliage is also interesting and is dark green. I tried to transplant some to my front yard but they failed. If anyone out there knows some tips let me know!

New Illustrations!

I just uploaded a 8 new illustrations to my website. You can see them by clicking here.

I did these for Voyageur Press for a book about snow, but they ended up not using them. I have been meaning to post them for a while now and I finally did it. I am thinking about making them into cards and selling them on Etsy. Enjoy!

Okra Overload!

Last weekend we got okra from our CSA (Hazelfield Farms). I have to admit, it is not my favorite vegetable to eat, but boy is it breathakingly beautiful! The linear ridges and slender curve, the pale green color, the fine hair, and its cute green cap all make Okra irresistable. Why have I never noticed it before!

I had a great time arranging okra. I had so many photos it was hard to narrow it down. Below are some of my favorites. I think you can click on them to see them bigger.

Screen Porch

Below are some photos of our screen porch project. It is finished and we are super excited!

The first photo shows the back of our house before we got this crazy idea.

This is a wonky sketch I did to show the builder and the architect what I was thinking.

And this is the finished porch!

Our architect was Eric Hagenaur and our builder was J.D. Sandipher. Thanks to them, and numerous others, we now have a screened porch.

Of course I have been getting all worked up about decorating ideas. In fact, I am working on a little something that will be blogged about soon. I am so excited about it that I can hardly sit still. In fact, I am going to Hobby Lobby right now to pick up some supplies. Adios chicos!

Bowl O' Tomatoes

I was so excited by this bowl of tomatoes. The way the cute shapes and the orange, yellow, and red colors of the tomatoes mimic those of the birds on the bowl just makes me all giddy!

The bowl was another great find at the Burlington Flea Market. It is vintage Pyrex and is so me! The pattern is called Friendship and this bowl is part of a set of nesting bowls (what a great name!). I just found this cute website called Pyrex Love that gives more info and has some good photos of the other bowls in the set.

FYI - Those tomatoes are heirloom tomatoes from our CSA that George made into a very tasty tomato herb focaccia bread!

Frame Makeover

So I finally finished the framing project for my flea market bird prints. When I originally bought these inexpensive frames at Home Emporium and they were gold I thought, "Oh, I will just spray paint them a different color. It will be easy!" (famous, last words).

It ended up being quite a project. I first tried to paint them with some nice metallic paint I bought at Michaels but it beaded up. It was then that I realized, "Uh oh...this might require more than I thought." It ended up being a five step process:

1. Sand the frames.
2. Spray with grey primer.
3. Spray with satin nickel metallic paint.
4. Hand paint with champagne gold metallic paint.
5. Age it a bit with gunmetal grey metallic paint.

Multiply that by six frames and it ended up taking me a while. Below you can see before and after.