It's Wednesday! Midweek hooray!

 Hats for sale! Hats for sale! My sister makes lots of hats for little ones and hasn't any outlet for them. She sent a dozen to our grandgirl, who looks so cute in them. Now she's sent me a bunch which I'll put into my Etsy shop at some point. However, if you need a last minute gift for a baby, let me know, I've got hats galore.

Here are a pair of my mitts keeping Bad Girl Art's Keithley's hands warm. They're made from cotton and linen blend yarn. Oh, look, they kind of match her puppy!

 Chilly weather here, so tea time is anytime during the day. N gave me a lovely gift of a Tardis tea "ball." How cool. It's big enough to fill with tea for a pot but also works in a big mug with a smaller measure of tea. I love it! And that's my nice breakfast blend tea from Carytown Teas.

#349

I'm coming into the final stretch of my 365 project - can't believe it. A relief in so many ways, but hopefully my practice is well established and I'll carry on daily in my studio.

#350

In this series, I'm using old postage stamps to create scenes. Above, a landscape of a city with a bridge, airplanes overhead, and a bus headed for the bridge. In the one on the right, a family takes a walk in a city, visiting the sites.

#351

I'm totally not religious but what does one do with sooo many Madonna and Child stamps! Look, a Mary Cassatt painting in the center. I like this theme, it works so well. What do you think?

Oh My it's almost Friday!!

 These first two pieces of mail art were done earlier this week. I wove strips from an old map of London, Ontario, Canada, that my friend Alexis sent me. I'd started weaving maps back in 2002 and hadn't done it for awhile.  They needed a dark background to make them the focus.

 The butterfly stickers, also, came from Alexis. They're quite old as they aren't self-adhesive. They have to be moistened! Old school stickers. I tied things together with some Washi tape. Yes, the tape unites, not divides. That's my visual take on it.

 In these next two woven map pieces, I decided to create a line by sewing. In the first, I used a pale blue thread then went to black thread. Definitely, the black works better, appearing to be a pencil line.

 Don't you love this tea bag wrapper? I got a box of Live Forever tea for my birthday and just opened the box. I like these wrapprers a lot. I'll use them in collages some time soon.

 Here's my honey standing under a tree that had fallen behind a neighbor's house on the next block. There are two cars under it. It pulled down the electricity lines (for those of you in other countries, our electric lines are above ground.) There appears to be some quibbling about who takes care of what and our neighbors have been without power way long.

Here are the leaves from the huge tree that came down in Paradise Park. The one with the seed cluster that I showed previously. I still don't know what the tree is but someone out there might be able to identify it from the leaf structure. By the way, that tree is still down across someone's back garden. It's not been cut up or pulled out of the way yet. It appears that the storm is still causing trouble for people.   Any ideas about the tree?

Happy Mail Box

 Someone sent me this wonderful tube of paper tape! I don't know who gifted me with it but I can't wait to do something with it.

 My dear friend Andrea in the U.K. surprised me with this packet of Peppermint tea, which I love and I loved receiving this. Thank you so much.

 Another of my dear friends, Katerina, in Thessaloniki, sent me mail art AND a copy of her son's book. The text is by a woman, but don't read Greek, so don't know how to translate her name. The photos are by Petros Nikoltsou. The book is about Los Angeles. See the Title? Now you can read some Greek.The photos are just perfect for the subject.

A new friend of mine, whom I hope to meet someday, here or in San Francisco, sent me a ravioli box full of goodies. All Asian, of the kind we do not see here in RVA, plus a CD of a local band. An amazing box of goodies.


I am overwhelmed and humbled by the generosity of my friends.

This past week.....

This is an image of my little teapot, which has been in use non-stop all week. I've been drinking herbal teas for bronchial health, green tea, white tea, black tea, with honey all week. I'm hoping that this new week will find me cough free. It's been a week of coughing ever since I returned from Los Angeles. The good thing about this is that I decided to stay in, except for an occasional walk around the block with the dog, and one run to the grocery store. Not only has this helped me to heal, but it's allowed me to blog, get my photos on Flickr, and finish some knitting and get the new items on Etsy. So tomorrow, I'll get up early, get to the post office, visit my shut-in friend, buy more groceries, mindful of not doing too much and have a set back. It's a plan.

The Musselman Institute & Tea House

Today, Agnese took us to the Musselman Institute, which is connected to the Paris Mosque. It was a fairly short walk over to it, but with the chilly weather it seemed to take longer. We went into the building and found ourselves outside in a beautiful courtyard, and then we passed through a corridor into another courtyard. It was beautiful with lots of tile work on the walls and the floor of the small courtyard. It must be really amazing in warmer weather as there are fountains and pools of water. As you enter the tea house, you see a case of mouth watering (okay, I had to make that cliche because it's true) pastries. We went from there into indoor seating area. Lots of copper tray tables, a waiter bringing glasses of tea to everyone. Chuck went out and chose and assortment of pastries for us. There were little birds in the room that came down to the tables to clear up the crumbs. Oh, yes, I discovered why I was extremely cold walking over. I'd forgotten to add my wool layer of clothing, I'd left the sweater lying on the bed. Brrrrr!

Toile-la-la purse for change

I had some of that cute toile print fabric left from the purse I made so I made a purse for change. I just posted it and a couple other new ones in Fritzi, my Etsy shop. I just love toile!! What is it about this type of print and me? Check out my shop and see what's new. I had a private sale yesterday when my friend J came by to do some shopping for gifts. It was fun to show her all of my totes and purses and get her reaction, which I must say was, POSITIVE! yay! An afternoon of sharing, drinking tea, eating banana bread, how perfect.

Tea Time - a Mail Art call

This is a reminder that I've posted a mail art call .
Check it out and participate. It's free, it's fun, it's Mail Art.

We're doing a mail art show at Carytown Teas in March 2008. I'm hoping that lots of people will participate and make this a really big show, or a small interesting show.

More Dublin

We're back home, finally getting adjusted to the time change, sort of...so I'm going to post some catch up photos of our weekend in Ireland and our last days in Paris.

Here's a fuzzy image of the pub we stopped in on our arrival in Dublin. I had my first cup of Irish tea here, no really, hot tea! We did a lot of walking, dodging rain drops, and ended up at the Irish Film Institute to meet our friend M.

We were settling down to have a cup of coffee when a person called out our names..it was Noah's friend Jenna, thanks for permission to post your photo. What a shock! We had no idea she was studying film in Dublin. We had a nice time chatting with her and her friends, D. and A., until M. arrived. Though Jenna had to leave to go to the library, her friends were great company. Ha ha, Jenna, we'll find you no matter where you go!


We took the DART with M. to their house in Killiney. Here are some great views from their kitchen, a Martello tower (to keep Napoleon away) a view towards the bay, a garden angel. See, we did have some sunny time in Ireland.

Making art, taking walks & more

Even with all of the time we've spent out and about town, I've managed to work on a new series for the art-o-mat. I'd cut up lots of substrate to work on and am using found paper from here for the collages. (7cm x 5cm/3" x 2")





















Yesterday, we went over to rue de Seine to check out some galleries. On the way, we saw the Kusmi tea shop. I bought a sampler box to enjoy while we're here. Even chuck is drinking tea in the afternoon.







Further down the street, in a courtyard entrance, I saw these dogs. I thought they were cute.
















The reverse "alas, poor Yorick..." is a poster we spotted 0n our evening walk. It's for the Eurostar train, which has changed it's station in London to St. Pancras. it made me laugh, and immediately start the speech from Hamlet.

A morning walk...

Amazingly, I was able to get up early today (first time) and meet N. to go for a walk. We bought some clementines at Monoprix (yummy sweet) and some special tea at Mariage Freres, a limited only in the fall tea. We looked at lots of stuff and chatted as we headed to check out BHV Homme ...the new men's store. Chuck and I had been there on Saturday when it was SO crowded we couldn't see anything. Today, it was empty. Amazing men's wear and accessories. D. met up with us, just by chance, after a few bises, I headed off to see if our friends, S and W had arrived at their hotel. No, they hadn't so I left a note for them. Stopping at the bakery I like for a baguette, I hurried "home." More on this in the next post. But, here are two images I wanted to share from yesterday. A photo of the map that Chuck took , showing us where the punk squat was located. and part of a tomb at Pere Lachaise. I hope you can see the guys are wearing diving suits.