FRIDAY FENCE POST #53

I'm posting this late, but they do say, "Better late than never." Hope they're right!

Two fences, and two photos, today:



For better viewing, click on the pictures!

THRIFTY THURSDAY TREASURES

Don't you just love thrift stores, and flea markets, and all the other places where you can gather treasures on the cheap? Here are some of this week's finds.

I got the beautiful box above at the best price ever: FREE. Somebody threw it away, and another person rescued it and passed it along to me! Awesome. And it is a box. Here's the mirrored inside, with metallic gold painted compartments:


Also picked up this beautiful purse, with its shantung "silk" lining, which has a drawstring and forms that lovely "pouf" at the top. It was 40% off $4, which means I got it for about $2.50. The brightly printed tin next to it was $0.99. Don't know what I'll do with it, but for a dollar, it was too pretty to pass up.


Last, this darling little angel, less than three dollars, and the beautiful dish for fifty cents!


The angel is for my bedroom, which already has twenty or so. Or I might give it to Mama, who also has a thing for vintage angels. The dish will, I'm pretty sure, become the base of a Mega Blossom--can hardly wait to get creating with it!

Eeek. Supposed to be somewhere in forty minutes! May all your days contain JOY.

Win Beads! Swap Recipes!

See those earrings? Lori Anderson, over at Pretty Things is giving away a goodie bag full of lucite beads, including the ones you'd need to recreate those lovely earrings. She'll do the drawing on Aug 10, so there's plenty of time to try to win!

Also, if you click on the button in my left sidebar, you can sign up for a recipe swap. It's my favorite kind: No snail mail! Just email your favorite recipe, with maybe a little history/story for background, and Parsley, at Seasons of Mind, will compile all the recipes and create a document, which she will the email out. Isn't that a lovely thing to do?

I got such lovelies at the Fabric Depot outdoor sale today. Maybe tomorrow I'll post photos of my haul. Right now, I will just wish everyone who may drop by here a pleasant goodnight.

FAERIE WORLDS, PART 1

The weekend was wonderful! Sarah and I had a karaoke date after I arrived, Saturday evening, and sang our little heads off, and laughed and giggled and (possibly) drank just a teensy bit (really, just a teensy) too much. There weren't many people there, which meant we got to sing a lot, including two duets.

And. About the time we were getting ready to leave, one of the other patrons, a lovely young blond with a throaty alto voice, asked us if we were sisters! When we told her I was Sarah's mother, she called to her other friends, asking, "Can you believe she's her mother?!" I was a bit worried Sarah would be insulted, but since they seemed to think my 36-year-old was just barely old enough to get into the bar, she was okay with it, lol.

Back home, we talked a bit more, then realized we were both tired, but (we thought) not sleepy, so we went to bed, each of us carrying a novel. Neither one of us read more than a few pages before dozing off, and I found out the next morning Sarah never even made it out of bed to turn out the light in her room. We were so tired, in fact, that instead of having "all morning" to get our costumes fine-tuned we had to rush, but we were only a little late in meeting Sarah's friends to go to Faerie Worlds.

It's about time I showed off some pictures, isn't it? I'll put a few of my favorites here, separately, and then a slide show at the bottom. Otherwise, this post would be about 89 yards long!

Daughter Sarah (left) and her friend Tiffany

Me (left!) and my new satyr friend

You can't see his furry legs or hooves, but this is a young faun

I think this faerie was sprinkled with pixie dust!

Created with flickr slideshow from softsea.
This was such a lot of fun, like a big costume party where you didn't need an invitation and needn't know any of the guests, but something occurred to me later: I dislike the statement, "I believe in fairies." To me, you might as well say, "I believe in chairs," or "I believe in dirt." Those are not things you believe in; they are things that ARE. Same with the fairies. We make up fantasy stuff about them because we don't have much (I do not say we have none) firsthand knowledge of them, and I think most of it is probably wildly inaccurate, to say the least.

But not the fact of fairies. They simply are, but rarely let themselves be seen by the big, clumsy, heavy-footed humans stomping around in the woodland areas they populate.

And now that I've thoroughly weirded you out, I will say, "Good night, and may the little folk be kind."

SHOW ME SOMETHING SATURDAY: THE ACCIDENTAL ARTIST

My daughter calls her six-year-old daughter, "The Accidental Artist". The reason? Meggie seems to have a real eye and bent for art, but most of what Meg creates she is too much the perfectionist to like. Who knew a child who hasn't even entered first grade could even be a perfectionist!

I want to show you some of our Accidental Artist's work. I don't know. Maybe it's because she's my granddaughter, but I think what she's doing is pretty awesome.

Painting and drawing:




Now, I like the first two a lot, but I love the last one, mostly because of the story that goes with it. My daughter, Melody, was enthusiastic in her appreciation of it, and praising it to Megan.

Megan said, "I don't like it. It's not my usual work."

I can almost see Melody's jaw dropping, but knowing her, she tried not to show too much surprise, just saying, "I didn't know you even had a 'usual work'".

Megan looked at her mom and sighed. "I didn't either. Until today."

I'm still shaking my head, and hoping Megan doesn't let that already strong inner critic have to much play in her head.

But now I'd like to show you what happened when this six-year-old was handed a camera for the first time:

Close-up of a pine cone

Now it's your turn! What do you have to show me, this lovely Saturday?

FRIDAY FENCE POST #52

Three shots of one beautiful fence today, spotted as I drove through a familiar neighborhood. Isn't it amazing what we drive by day after day and never actually See?



My creative time this week has been spent largely in putting together my costume for Faerie Worlds this weekend. I'm way beyond thrilled to be going. My daughter and I have been exchanging little FaceBook messages--"Thursday, Friday, Saturday. That doesn't sound so long when you write it out like that. I can do it." "Two more sleeps!" "I'll see you tomorrow!"

I've wanted to go to Faerie Worlds for years, but the combination of fairly spendy tickets and the two hour drive to get to it has deterred me. This year, though, a friend gave me not one, not two, but THREE tickets, and my daughter lives where they're holding it. I'm so excited, I could strap on my new wings and fly there all by myself. There WILL be photos!

HMM, BROWNIES + A TIP

Brownies first, right? These are my "Brownies for Grown-ups", but today I thought I'd top them off with something, and it turned out so yummy I decided to share what I'd done. Since it was spur-of-the-moment cooking, you get a photo of the finished product only, and approximate quantities on the ingredients, but here's what you do:

Bake your brownies as usual. Now get a small bowl and put about half a large package of butterscotch chips in it, with about a teaspoon and a half water. Put it in the microwave and nuke it until it melts. My microwave took about 45 seconds. When you take the bowl out, the chips will be melted, but the oil in them will have separated itself out. No worries. Add one or two teaspoons of chocolate syrup, and stir until the mixture is creamy.

Drizzle the melted mixture over the brownies, and top with chopped nuts. It is Gooooood!

Now the tip.

This is summer. You know, that season with the clothes that won't stay on hangers. Here's a simple way to make a non-slip hanger so your tank tops and scoop-necked tees won't slide right off every time you look at them.

Take two of those big rubber bands they wrap around produce at the grocery store. Wrap them once or twice around each end of your coat hanger.


Hang up your shirt or dress. The rubber bands will keep it in place.


Oh! Almost forgot! 52 Flea has an awesome give-away/give-back going to celebrate her 500th post, but you have to sign up before August 1st, so get yourself over there on the double-quick!