Vashon Wheels

Ya gotta love someone who embellishes her car thusly:

Perfect Pairs: Red, Yellow, Green

Bamboo and weeds growing through utility valves

Tulips in a garden

Perfect Pairs: Petals!

Single flower

Mass of flowers

Perfect Pairs: Pink Punch

Flowering tree in Kirkland

Abandoned car in Georgetown

Perfect Pairs: Faux Monet

Single flower in a park

View from a small bridge on a campus

Artsy Flowers

Bellevue Botanical Garden, Part 2

Extreme aerial views

A trick question?

Colorful rows of eye candy...can you spot at least 3 things they both have in common? Take your time; this could be a trick question.

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Flowers sprouting from the very walls...

Maxine created what may be the coolest wall embellishments on the entire planet. On her pink wall, just as you walk into her shop, she painted abstract flower patterns and then glued beautiful vintage silk flowers on top. I'm pretty sure one day, probably right in the middle of something I'm supposed to be doing, I will grab some paint and try emulating this effect on my stairwell with the robin's egg blue walls...

More Marvelous Maxine's

I met my friend Julie at Maxine's Pickety Patch the other day to scope out ideas for wedding decorations for her upcoming nuptials. (I believe that may be the very first time I've written the word "nuptials"...it looks mighty funny on my computer screen).

Anyway, if you haven't had the pleasure of experiencing Maxine's floral and gift shop, RUN (don't walk) to it as soon as possible to soak in its delightful sights, sounds and aromas. It’s a heady vortex of fantastically colorful flowers, peeping-cheeping real life birds and sparkly eye candy, mixed with the earthy scents of fresh flowers and abundant greenery.

For more photos of Maxine's shop, check out a post from last year...and stay tuned for more optical goodness later this week. This is just a smattering of the wonderfulness that IS Maxine:

Maxine offers classes in how to make these huge crepe paper flowers. You can't tell from this picture but each one is at least 12" wide! I took it last year with a friend and it was a delightful, pampering creative experience.

My art studio

Here are a few shots from my art room...huge silk flowers in a old "BEST Fancy Oranges" tin on top of the shelves that hold my jewelry supplies:
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This is a funky little storage unit I made. I cut the lids off 3 cigar boxes to create the "drawers" and then embellished the fronts. Then I found cardboard boxes or cigar boxes that were slightly bigger than each "drawer", cut off the front panels and then covered them with decorative paper. After stacking them, I tied a ridiculously long zipper around the whole thing to keep them together and then glued little spools of pink thread on the bottom as feet.

The "cupcake" in the background was a birthday present from my good friend, Julie Sotomura; she made it as part of her "Knitted Nonsense" line. The "A" and "I" blocks represent "Artgirl Island".
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This is a simple wire basket filled with random vintage papers and journal makings and a small painting I found at a thrift store:
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And this little embellished trellis purchased at a dollar store covers the door:

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Signs of Spring

One of the things I love about living in the Pacific Northwest is how early the signs of spring appear. It's only mid-February and goodness knows half the country is still recovering from horrible snowstorms, and we've got tons of plants in bloom already. During a quick walk at lunchtime I found these on the ground.

I'm no plant expert but I believe these are camellia blossoms.

Paging Lisa H! Paging Lisa H!

I need these petals identified STAT!

Watch those lips!

This binder of volunteer information was so bland I decided to bling it up with some crazy collage. I cut flowers out of old wallpaper, glued egg images onto a paint strip, outlined parts with funky red tape and used my nifty Sigmo white pen to doodle. Ahhhhhh, MUCH better....

Except, I get that the woman in the June Cleaver pearls and blouse really loves her bird, but each time I look at her, I fear for her lips.

Embroidered Flora & Fauna

Oooooh, I just got the coolest book from the library...Embroidered Flora & Fauna. Imagine pages and pages of sumptuous photographs of 3-dimensional textured embroidery like this:

I want to be sitting in a comfy lounge chair, under an old shade tree, tall glass of iced mint tea next to me, embroidering pomegranates. Yes, gentle readers, you heard me correctly...pomegranates. Like so...

Check out the little birds and rabbits and flowers and leaves and grapes...I can SO feel a new obsession starting...