A Fanciful Twist

In Search Of...

The heat has arrived as spring switches to summer for us.

We lollygag in the warmth, and make great huge wondrous plans.

(which includes some of you, if you wish, I dare say)

I sew up curtains from favorite nightgowns for tiny windows...

As filtered light glows in the wildflower garden.

Slowly we drift into thoughts of that place.

You know that place.

Dreaming, creating.

Hollyhocks dance in between stairs.

Matty, still trying to get well.

Blues pop up everywhere...

As rabbits make sure to mow down flowers like bears.

Gobbling and munching, wildflower sushi me thinks?

And yet we search.

We hunt.

We long for...

But what?

Can you guess?

What could it be?

When poppies and toadstools grow taller than you and me?

Everywhere you turn...

The land starts to morph...

Passion fruit scent wafting about, like an intoxicating perfume, makes us drunk.

Swaying and giggling, wait, what's that I see?

Between bird's eye and mountain garland...

Did that caterpillar just wink at me?

What are we in search of?

Oh what could it be?

In search of Wonderland?

OH YES YES, that's it!

Planning, and scheming and thinking you see...

About a 2013, Mad Tea Party!!!!

I have tricks up my sleeve.

News to come soon as can be.

Miles is so sleepy from thinking about it so much.

After a good bath, cuddling up is the place to be.

Warm moist air on my shoulder as I draw...

Sweet flowers take us back to that place.

Through the rabbit hole, don'tcha know.

When things get so quiet and slow, in these lazy days where summer meets spring...

Being in search of Wonderland is just the thing.

Now stop snapping my photo, I know what you are up to, says he.

Get out your old fashioned knee length lace knickers and granny's old recipe for punch.

Stack up the teacups, crumpets - get ready to munch!

Let's plan!

The announcement nearer and near.

Another Mad Tea Party for you and me, are you in happy tears?

Planning.

Ooooo, me!

And you!

Under the trees!!

Get ready.

Excited?

Tell me, oh please!

:)

 

Love, V

 

 

 

Trinket Snippets + Thoughts

Today feels very quiet.

Hot tea in hand, roaming around the house.

Looking here and there at little collections of this and that.

Dark skies, cold air, wind today.

Odd, but welcome.

I love weather as such.

I did all my shopping errands and seeded and top soiled before 8:30 a.m.

I just had to get out of the house.

I tossed and turned all night.

Sadness in the world makes me sad and uneasy.

Truth be told.

You too?

I'm just snooping around my own home.

Getting ready to paint.

Wondering if I should tidy up my mood board...

Nah.

Matty had a little relapse so he is back on medicine, and doing better again.

Poor boy.

He is sleeping behind me as I type.

He panics if he can't see me.

Follows me like a mad man.

I like being his mother hen.

I do.

I love being his mother hen.

I wonder what he thinks?

The more you get closer to animals, the more you are so vastly aware at how sensitive they are, and how "animal" doesn't suit them at all.

I think they might even be more sensitive than humans.

More intuitive?

Angels.

On.

Earth.

Perhaps I need a mood board, just for Matty and Miles and Baby?

Like a scrapbook page, on a wall?

I stole lots of little pink roses from the arbor out front.

Wilted lovely things.

By the way, the jar I put them in, is a jar I painted and glittered (along with 11 others), and has been outside in the rain and sun for 2 years with no loss of color or glitter.

I just made an acrylic paint wash (a little paint + a little water), brushed it on the outside of the jam jar, then sprinkled the glitter over the wet paint.

This one has even been buried, watered and dirtied in a garden bed -

Hosed off, and is still painted and glittered.

Majorly durable.

I was using them as candle holders.

(I made lavender, light pink, and light teal ones)

I guess it's safe to say, they are resilient and you should make some :)

I was standing in the studio a minute ago, sipping my tea, peering into this glass box.

Thinking....

Hey, I haven't noticed you in a while.

Do we become immune to our surroundings?

I am desperate for something good to read.

I am not a huge fiction fan, unless it is super good.

Well, I do like fairy tales and stories as such.

But I have a weird relationship with fiction.

Maybe it just depends on my mood?

I do quite enjoy non-fiction.

Have you read anything marvelous lately?

I picked some strawberries last night and this morning.

Firsts.

Wouldn't you know, they taste like real strawberries, in a way you never taste from store bought ones.  Kind of like the tomatoes.  Real flavor.

Well, my paint calls.

I wash paintbrushes ever so often.

All the time.

Washing washing paintbrushes :)

Oh oh, also...

I think I need to take one of my mannequins out of hiding and use her as an earring model.

For the ear jewels in my jewelry shop.

I was trying some of the earrings I make on, and thinking, you have to see them on to really get what they look like, right?

It's too hard for me to take the photos of myself...

But one of my gals has pierced ears, so I'll grab her and a wig, and take some fresh photos for the jewelry shop.

I want to steal these for myself ;)

Well, off I go, back into Wednesdayness.

 

Love, V

 

 

 

ps:  Mister Lovee didn't give me a card for our 12 year celebration.

(he does so many nice things often, it doesn't matter)

I asked him about it 3 times.

Of course he is so nice, who cares about a card.

But I had to hassle him about it, because it's fun.

Anyhow, he just now came in with my "card."

He says it's a card anyways, ha!

12 times love, he says.

Spray painted on my usable card.

What the heck?

Haha!

On a container, that I can fill with some of my junk.

Something useable he says.

Can the man get any more practical?

 Umm, thanks Lovee.

:)

 

 

Spring Thoughts...

There are certain moments that I prepare for as growing things spring forth...

Mostly, collecting.

It's the spring/summer collecting that helps makes winter tolerable, me thinks.

I like to collect all the roses I can, to hang dry.

Plus herbs.

Flowers that won't hang dry, or keep as such, get pressed into thick books.

Ever so many books filled with pressed petals around here.

They are so thin and exquisitely ghostly, those dried pressed blooms...

Memories from the garden, from glorious warm days.

Delicate sheets of paper feathers are what they seem like.

Leaves too.

I love checking up on them months later...

Perfect little smashed treasures.

Blues turn purple, between dictionary pages.

But every so often, a little blue remains.

The colors of nature.

Unreal.

If you find a big old encyclopedia, or any thick sturdy book really, pick it up.

That would be perfect for such collecting.

It's a great thing, pressing flowers.

You can also date your pages.

I also collect dry flowers to put in big glass jars.

It's so uplifting to see great big jars of dried flowers hanging around all year.

I love foraging around for things to dry.

This winter, it was so lovely to have basil, lavender, rosemary, oregano, mint and more hanging around.

Just as I am about to run out of dried herbs, here comes spring with gifts.

Hooray!

If you don't have a pot rack, or other contraption to hang herbs and flowers from, you can do what I did here.

Sorta make your own lightweight version.

Take 4 branches (I used dry apricot tree branches), 2 short (same size) and 2 long (same size).  Then tie them together with twine, short pieces as ends, long pieces as sides, and voila...

A perfect place to hang herbs and flowers.

I saw some basil sprout the other day.

I am sooo excited!!

The climbing roses have more and more buds coming, and things are getting so pretty out there.

I just want to stand under them, and absorb.

But I find that, I have a hard time fully absorbing wonderful moments.

The excitement gets me, or something?

I could stand there for hours, and still want more.

You?

 

Well, off I go.

Oh...

I spotted the first big rose.

I tell you, I can't think of anything that makes me happier.

The last few years I added more rose bushes to the garden.

They look soooo good this year so far.

We pruned the 30+ year old rose bushes to my height or less, and one is taller than the house with all the new leaves now.

I can hardly wait for the rose explosion.

I am giddy and spastic about the whole thing.

The rose colors we have are...

Coral, red, hot pink, candy pink, purple, lavender, white, nectarine, peach, orange, maybe yellow.

One root I bought and planted in fall didn't make it, and I don't know yet if it was the yellow.

Little makes me more excited than spring.

I hope you cold areas are warming up.

Are ya?

 

 

ps:  Relistening to the new CocoRosie single...

 

 

Stevie...

I am an intense music fan, you?

I love all sorts of music, all sorts of sounds.

With two music makers in the house, there are lots of strings and keys talking all the time.

One thing...

I have always been a huge Stevie Nicks fan.

So many songs from Fleetwood Mac, to solo albums, have marked different points in my life...

(for you too, if you are a fan, I am certain)

From driving out here to the country house to visit Mister Lovee 11+ years ago...

Sara and Dreams blaring in my convertible, hair in the wind.

(Rumours is still the most incredible album ever)

To twirling to Stand Back like a wild woman, feeling crazy young and free.

And of course, lots of great moments with every song in between.

Don't forget Edge of Seventeen.

So many amazing tunes.

Just such great moods and times evoked in so many songs.

I was just reading an article last month (can't remember where?), where Stevie talked about the hardships in her life in her 40's.  And how she felt like she missed them (her 40's).

I don't want to miss mine, too many friends talk about them as the best time of their lives.

You don't realize these things, until you read it, and you say wow?!

She talks about how she never goes anywhere alone.

Lives a cloistered life, wildly private.

Makes sense.

I thought it was interesting, how she let her driver's license expire in the 70's and never renewed it.

That voice has often been the background to my life events.

Thanks Stevie!!

Do you have any Stevie stories, or fave tunes?

Of course, Fleetwood Mac was unreal.

I also love Lindsey Buckingham's Big Love, you?

A friend recently gave me a cd of Stevie and Lindsey before Fleetwood Mac.

Lovin' it.

I can't wait to see her new documentary, In Your Dreams.

If you live in California, "In Your Dreams" screens April 2 at the Embarcadero Center Cinema in S.F. and the Piedmont Theatre in Oakland (www.landmarktheatres.com).

There will actually be a nationwide screening on that April 2nd date.  I need to find out if it will happen anywhere near me too.

 Here's the trailer.

Anyhow, I have refound this tune below (in a mass hundreds of CD's organizing moment) and have been intertwined inside of it on repeat for about a month.  I had forgotten about it.

I get obsessive like that, when I refind something I love.

Oops, oven timer is ringing.

I am making those homemade twix bars for Mister Lovee.

See you sooooon!

 

Love, V

 

 

 

ps:  I think that big 80's hair should come back.  Honestly, it would be so fun!!

I never thought I would say that.

But, I'm serious.

Teasing and mass hairspray has been gone for way too long.