WWII Week: Wordless Wednesday...

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Wordless Wednesday

From the Niagara Falls series.

Wordless Wednesday

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My Creative Space

I have been working on a new design using a vintage element which is NOT a button or a piece of old jewelry. You will have to wait for the finished product to see what it is. I designed the pattern to be an Art Deco piece, however, I didn't account for the lack of stretch in design with peyote stitch and the design looks a little squashed. I'm not certain if I will finish this piece or not...I may have to go back to the graph paper and re-design it. Oh well, that's what happens from time to time. Not everything in the studio works out as it was planned.

On to other things...

So, I am sitting here...in a suburb of Buffalo, NY....at the beginning of April...and the temperature outside is 77 DEGREES! This time last year, my gardens were buried under two feet of snow still! So, my plans this weekend are to get to my gardens, clean them up and prepare them for planting, moving or seeding! Whoo-Hoo!

This is my Victory garden. The gate broke off over the winter as you can see. I grow peas, radishes, beets (Go, Dwight Shrute!), jalapeno peppers for my son, sweet peppers for me, spinach, onions, shallots and potatoes. On the far right of the garden you see the ground tilled. That's because I put my pea seeds in. I know, a little late, but I had to wait for hubby to till it!

I have to remove dead stuff from my memory garden (this picture only shows half of the garden). A cafe table sits on the brick pad I built. This is the garden that I honor deceased loved ones or put plants that family and friends give me. I am still in the process of painting rocks with the plant name and who it is from (or who it honors).

My frog pond needs to be cleaned out, drained and refilled. I love this pond in the morning because I totally love frogs (since I was a kid!), and every morning, the rocks are loaded with frogs sunning themselves in the early morning sun. This is by far my favorite part of the yard. The brick pad is right next to it on the right and I spend time writing out there because it is so quiet and tranquil!

My pathetic rose garden (they are all cut down for the winter now). I put them in before Black Spot came to America, so they have to all be moved this year as this garden only gets morning and evening sun. It is going to be quite a job, but most of the roses are David Austin roses, so they are worth trying to save. David Austin breeds old, antique rose varieties to repeatedly bloom like modern roses.

And finally to show today is my Woodland Garden. It gets full shade all day (it's on the north side of the house) and looks pretty bare now, but as things start growing, watch out!

I have several more gardens to share, but this post would last forever!

So, what are your plans for the weekend? And hey, let's see your studio space on Fridays, too!

Wordless Wednesday...

Wordless Wednesday

"Fashion Queen"
Artist: AllKindsOfArt
$20

Wordless Wednesday...Well, Kind Of...

Ever feel like this????

This was supposed to be a Wordless Wednesday post and was originally posted as such. However, I could not contain my excitement and had to edit this post to show my gratitude for EntreCard FINALLY fixing the EC Toolbar to work with FireFox 3.6. Just for poops and giggles, I went to the EC blog to try to re-install the toolbar.....Lo and Behold, IT WORKS!

Now I can resume my dropping and blog hopping! I am so happy. I really missed visiting my favorite blogs, but without the toolbar, it was just way too time consuming in my busy schedule.

Cheers for EntreCard!

Bazaar Update!

Dori and Char :)

Yesterday at the bazaar was a lot of fun! It wasn't super stellar with sales or anything - but it was decent, and the most important part, is that I'm having a ton of fun and still feeling pretty good! I had a lot of fun meeting Dori and Char in person, and I look forward to talking to them more today!

Today is day two, and I'm hoping we get a huge influx of people when the three Churches on the corner get out :P But even if we don't, if I even do what I did in sales yesterday, I'll be happy :)

I have a whole bunch of pictures and I'll be posting a much longer blog post either tonight or tomorrow with more pictures and my thoughts about improving my displays and everything :) Although...looking at my pics this morning...I need to give someone the camera and actually get a picture of myself...

Weekend Sale and Cool Morning Pictures...

First the sale info...then scroll for the pictures!

Weekend Sale:

All bracelets in my Etsy Shop are on sale 25% off regular prices
Free shipping for everything else!

Please us coupon code Nov6 in message to seller at checkout to receive a refund. Or, simply convo me to let me know what you wish to purchase and I will revise the listings for you.
Sale ends Sunday midnight EST.

Now, on to the pics....
So, I get home from taking the kids to school, not really paying attention, and this is what I saw....

Don't you love when God paints the sky so beautiful? Love the rainbow, although, we didn't get rain.

Have a great weekend!

A different type of Crafty Work

The last couple days I've been working on a different type of crafty project - I've been working on decorating my apartment! That's right...I'm finally putting my pictures up!

This is what you see to the left when you first walk into my apartment, they aren't hung crooked, I just took a crooked picture :P My cousin painted them as a present for me!

Day one was putting up the clock and a few small pieces. Day 2 (today) was getting the big pictures put up with the help of my evil twin and brother, and a few more small pieces. Tomorrow (Day 3) I plan on doing the rest of the small pieces and working on cleaning. Then, once things are clean, I'll take a bunch of photos! I plan on doing a "virtual tour" of my apartment on my other blog (http://ajedismusings.blogspot.com) so keep your eyes peeled over there.

It's been really nice to get my pictures up! We did get a few pictures up at the last apartment, but we never did get fully settled in there. Here, we are truly settling in, and it looks like we'll be here awhile.

I have been working on my normal crafty stuff as well. I actually didn't get much sleep last night, I woke up at 4:30am for some bizarre reason, and even though I've tried, I haven't been able to nap today! So I've done some knitting (the scarf is 11 inches!), made myself a hemp bracelet (I'll show it in my next ADD post), and started on my piece for the current Etsy Bead Weavers challenge :) The only thing I haven't done is cross-stitch...and I think I'll work on that some after I'm done posting this and checking in with my teams...

Yes, I'm ADD, and an over-achiever...

Foto Friday...

All courtesy of my brother....



So my brother, the lucky duck, had to take a business trip to Germany. Oh, poor baby! He travels the US and abroad training companies to use equipment the company he works for manufactures. Not a bad gig for him, as after the training is done for the day, he leaves his hotel with camera in hand. The cool part for me when he goes on overseas business trips is the pictures he comes back with! He has been in Heidelberg for the last several weeks and is lamenting that he has to hop a plane back home Saturday night Germany time. What luck for him as this is close to the region that our family came from, however, it was closer to the Rhine. Here is a sampling of some of the pictures he has emailed me that he shot after his training sessions.

Now, when he gets back home, he is going to burn them all on a DVD to mail to me...then I can get in the studio and paint, paint, paint!!!

Dew-ey Wednesday

Okay...I admit. I'm having floral envy from all my favorite blogs showing their beautiful florals (thanks, WillOaks and the others!). So, this morning, I took my camera out to my many gardens to capture what is left of summer before it disappears. However, we got a very heavy dew this morning, so I thought I would share that with you. Just think, in another month, that dew will be frost! Above are my blueberries. Wow, what a crop this year! Guess all that northern rain worked out for something in my gardens because my veggies are not very happy!

Dew encrusted clematis. They look like they have coralline on them! I actually have two of these...one on the back patio and one winding up the bird feeder pole in the bird garden.

And, of course, no die-hard Victorian lover would be caught dead without these in thier gardens! My pansy varieties are yellow, purple and blue. This is one of the yellow ones.

Now, who says you can't grow oranges in New York? Okay, so I cheated. Back in 2005, my big brother/best friend who lived in Tampa died of melanoma cancer. He was only 39. He was as passionate about gardening as I am, so on the drive back to New York to make the arrangements for his memorial, I stopped at a gift shop and purchased this Panama Orange tree (it was a small bare root stick with a few leaves on it when I purchased it), and threw it in a pot when I got home. Of course, it winters indoors, but I have it to remember his gorgeous orange trees back behind his house. The first year it didn't do anything, however, this is the third crop of oranges I have gotten from this tree. Simply one of my favorites!

My black hollyhocks. I love hollyhocks, and the black ones ar the only ones I will grow. I got smacked with rust disease this year. I'm supposing from all the rain we have gotten. I lost alot of hollyhock plants despite my fungicide applications, but I had to let a few grow so I could get some more seeds. I have alot of people who get seeds from me. Will have to treat early next year. Maybe one more spraying before things go dormant in the fall.

page at Flickr

I'm setting up a page with my jewelry at Flickr, please feel free to visit me at http://www.flickr.com/photos/marikajewelry/