All posts filed under: Life

Hearts abound at Handmade Happy Hour Sweetheart Edition.

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Hearts hearts everywhere and lots indeed to wear! I have been a busy bee making lots of new jewelry which will be debuting at the fabulous Handmade Happy Hour Sweetheart Edition.  I will be with a wonderful assortment of  handmade vendors at Home Wine Kitchen in Maplewood on Friday Feb 1st from 5pm-9pm. Come along, get dinner and peruse some lovely local artist’s hard work. Bring along boyfriends, husbands, wives, girlfriends and be sure to get beautiful gifts for your beautiful people this Valentine’s Day.

Art Dharling

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A trip out with friends is always a joy, just us, no kids. We went to Laumeier Sculpture Park not far from us in St Louis. There are lots of great places to visit here and most are free, Laumeier is one of them. The sculptures are all striking and the place was empty, so I got lots of snaps with no extra people in them! The day started cloudy and of course I have to take a ton of photos and I prefer a blue sky.  Never fear,  as we got there,  the sun came out and I couldn’t have asked for a prettier sky.  A chilly day with a magnificent blue sky, just what I like!  I prefer the cold to the heat, a scarf in the winter sunshine is ideal.  St Louis summers are a hot humid sweaty affair which I would like to avoid.  At least the houseplants like the summer on the porch I suppose. Do you like day trips?  Where do you go?  Any recommendations?  Do you prefer Summer …

Dye dye dye!

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I am dying my hair today, but it has only been a couple of months since the last attack of chemicals on my ever strengthening army of grey. But dye it I must as I have an expanding band of glowing oldness across my head. Did you ever say that you would go grey gracefully, let nature take it’s course with your hair? Ha. I did. Never never never. I would look about one hundred and ten if my hair grew out naturally. Not to mention the twangy hideous wiry hair. So to the box of dye I go. I get to play hair stylist and smack on some bleach based paste with a little mascara brush. Ta dah! I have different colours in there! It usually works ok, I haven’t had green hair yet. I would get slapped around my grey rooted head by every hair stylist I know if I dared call my attempts at hair colour ‘highlights’. So I won’t. ‘Variations in colour’ is a better description I think. What can go …

Oh, I say!

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Well well well, looks like I got me an award!  Whoop! I have been nominated by the lovely http://www.blueribbonfair.wordpress.com for The Very Inspiring Blogger Award and shock, gasp  The Versatile Blogger Award I must (no really, I must, it is in the rules) nominate others for the same awards and it has been an easy and joyous task picking these blogs out! I have to confess when I saw that I had to find 15 deserving blogs, I thought I might have to start digging about.  Absolutely not, all of the blogs I have listed I have read and I enjoy reading them and the photos,  stories,  photographs,  crafts, recipes and general fabulousness contained within each. Some of these bloggers I have met and started to read through participating in the JustB blog school headed up by Pip Lincolne of Meet Me At Mikes.  Without the blog school I am almost certain that I would be posting once a month at the most and my blog would be a wandering mess.  As it is, I …

Ten on the 10th. January 2013

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I didn’t think I had a snowball’s chance of getting 10 photos today, unless you fancied a wonderland view of rain, damp, then fog and back to rain, then dark. Fear not! I started off with stuff I am reading and stuff I am making, I snapped the melting giant snowball in the back garden and off I went on a photo extravaganza! Here are January’s ten on the 10th. The last of the snow, in a convenient ball. Itsy Bitsy wire hearts all going to grow into earrings. In a vintage Ponds cream jar we found in the woods last year. Check out my Etsy store for the finished product. Bodhi and I are reading ‘Mr Stink’ and I love it as much as he does! I am listening to ‘State of Wonder’ by Ann Pratchett at the minute, ‘The End of your Life Bookclub’ is jostling for next in line with ‘Grace’ by Grace Coddington. I’m reading ‘Mr Penumbra’s 24 hour bookstore’ and enjoying it no end. Good stuff. My Instagram prints stored …

2012 in review.

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This was so hard, choosing one, single photo per month to cover 2012.  I love the ones I have found and remembered all the great stuff we did through the year.  Thank goodness for the daily diary I keep, otherwise I would never had remembered half the  dates and events.  It has also made me realise how time zips by!  I am taking part in my first link-up ever and it is with Farewell Stranger which I came across as I was reading Writing Wishing blog. January starts top left and the months follow downwards.  I made a collage of the photos and I like to see them together like this. January we found these wicker huts in Clayton.  They are still there and I still don’t know why.  Are they art?  Does someone live there? Or are they just because?  Jan 4th-update-the huts are called Double or Nothing and are by an artist called Patrick Dougherty who makes these wicker installations all over the world.  Thanks to Pip Lincolne of Meet Me At Mikes for the …

December 2012 photo a day

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Every day I take a photo using the prompts from Fat Mum Slim‘s creative brain.  I am looking forward to having a whole year of them in 2013.  I started doing it late this year, but it is a great daily creative challenge. Day 1. 8 o clock. Opening the advent calendar. Day 2. Peace Day 3. Something you held. Found these gorgeous antique postcards at the weekend. I love to look through them, they are all Italian, British and other European sights. Mainly cathedrals. Day 4. Black and white Day 5. Looking up Day 6. From where you live. I walk through these woods nearly every day from where I live. Day 7. Stars. Trader Joes cookies! Day 8. Someone you love. My boys in a plane, at the Historic Aircraft Restoration Museum at Creve Coeur Airport, St Louis. Day 9. Out and about. I spotted this rain drenched thistle on the way home from the dreaded Walmart! Day 10. Under.  I walked under this decorated but bare tree. Day 11. Sweet. Candy cane …

HNY!

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H.N.Y…… Ha, who do I think I am? A teenager?! What I mean is Happy new year and let’s make it a good one! The last one was a good one and I want another, no, I want one better. Resolutions?  Made any?  Do you keep them, or do you make them with a flourish, write them down and then ignore them until next year when you dig them out or turn back to the beginning of the diary (yes, this is me) and make various noises of recognition, surprise and snorts of derision at all of your first day of a new year wishes desires and motivations? Exercise, that will be on my list I am sure. Do more, different, more regularly, more weight loss specific. Of course another staple – loose some weight, muffin top, spare tire whichever inanimate object you no longer require around your mid section – be gone. Eat healthily. Come on, that’s on your list for sure. Are you a cut out all sugar, fat, flour, chocolate, coffee, booze, …

December A-Z

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I did my first ‘a month of’ creative prompts supplied by Justb Australia this month. A letter a day, gives us the last week to figure out our own ideas!  Here are mine. Advent calendar/ Birdcage/ Christmas card/ Doll head/ Eccles cakes/ Flying / Gift/ Hat/ Indian food Jewelry/Kisses/L/Making pom poms/Nest/Outdoors/Power ball/Quality Street/Rosemary syrup Sewing a Stocking/Two bears/Underneath the ice/Vintage mystery (still don’t know what this is…)/White bear/ Xciting parcel/Yellow book cover postcards/Zommmmbie!

R is for Rosemary Syrup

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I love this rosemary syrup in my coffee with a spot of frothed up milk. I am sadly missing my Bodum milk frother as I broke the glass part last week. Yes I know, I am a clumsy klutz, but washing up liquid makes stuff slippy and easily dropped…. On a brighter note, here is the Rosemary syrup recipe to share. I have Kaldi’s to thank for the idea! Their rosemary and brown sugar latte is divine! Rosemary Syrup In a pan, add 1 cup water, 1 cup brown sugar, a dash of vanilla extract and about 5 sprigs of fresh rosemary. Simmer to dissolve the sugar and heat gently for about 10 minutes. Leave in the pan for about 15 minutes once the heat is off. Store in a jar you have emptied of jam or something else which leaves a pretty jar to refill. No point in buying jars when we can recycle a few. Hopefully my rosemary plants will soldier through the winter inside, looking out the back window into the garden. …