Lemon Tree Tales

There's no place like home ...

Yippee, I'm back home! My MIL and I got to the airport with a little time to spare on Tuesday so we decided that we should get these t-shirts. Isn't it a cute design? Well, all in all our trip was a success. We helped my SIL go to five different locations and finally decided on one. We also spoke to some DJs and secured one of those as well. We didn't finalize a caterer, but we did meet with some so that she and my BIL now have a better understanding of what the base prices are. All that's left is to tweak the guest list and I think they're set for next year. Well, now the hard part is on my niece's shoulders - to study her torah portion all this next year.

There were quite a few thunderstorms while we were in Kansas. They startled me a little so I didn't sleep as well as I should have. (Okay, I'll admit it, they scared me a bit. But to be fair, being a native Californian, I'm just not used to them. It's also a little different knowing that you are in a state where tornadoes do happen - remember Dorothy?) Luckily all was well, just a bit of humidity. I'm so glad to be back home. I missed Steve ... it's good to get away for a bit, but sometimes a week is too long. Nice to know that I was equally missed. Now that I'm back I'll take a few days to catch up on household chores and then figure out what the next project on my list will be. Hmmm, my friend's little boy is due to make his debut any week now. Guess I better get cracking on that baby quilt.

Kansas City

I'll be away for a week. I'm in Olathe, KS near Kansas City helping my MIL and SIL plan my niece's bat mitzvah next year. I can't believe she's getting so grown already! I'll be back sometime next week - enjoy the last week of August.

Saturday Drive

Sometimes it's nice to just hop in the car and take a drive without too much planning. That's what Steve and I did yesterday. We drove down 101 to 68 towards Pebble Beach in Carmel. Along the way we saw:

- Itsyville (as pictured above.) They're little treehouses that were carved out of redwood stumps. They make me happy everytime I see them on this drive.
- Bugatti Veyron (wow, you just don't see those everyday, it's a little over a $1 million price tag)
- more supercars than you'd normally see in a year: Ford GT, Lamborghini Gallardo Spider and the McLaren Mercedes SLR  to name just a few.

Seriously, we probably saw easily $3 million dollars worth of automotive power driving along the road. Turns out that this is the weekend that the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance is being held. We also heard that one of the 2006 Toyota F1 cars was running at Laguna Seca Speedway ... we drove with the windows down to catch a little bit of that incredible racing sound.

(I enjoy watching the Formula 1 races with my hubby. It's good to be able to share something together like that. Of course, he's the one that's totally into it and follows all of the F1 gossip and info. I just like to watch the fast cars and root for my favorite drivers. How cool was it that Jenson Button finally won a race!)

After that we continued through Carmel along PCH just driving along looking at the beautiful cliffs and beaches until we passed Big Sur and the Bixby Bridge. Absolutely gorgeous scenery along this route. All in all, just a relaxing drive taking in the wonders of the California coast.

Silicon Chip Wristlet

Carrie just received her package today so I'm able to post the pictures of the completed wristlets. The idea was to make a wristlet that would represent where you live - city, county, state, etc. Sunnyvale, CA is officially the "heart" of Silicon Valley - or at least that's what the Chamber of Commerce says. We do have major internet companies based here such as Yahoo! and Palm. And of course my sweet husband is one of the internet revolutionaries (as he likes to call himself) as are most of our friends who work at places like TiVo, Google and ebay. This meant only one thing - that I had to incorporate the silicon chip into the design. I used embroidery floss, sequins and beads to make a "circuit board" for Carrie. Purple and green are her favorite colors so I searched for something that would work. This beautiful batik fabric pulled the two colors together nicely.

The second little wristlet is for Carrie's "little sister" that she's mentoring - known as Miss "M". That's such a sweet thing to do, and Miss "M" seems like such a adorable little girl that she needed one too. I wasn't too sure whether she'd like the green mixed with purple so I stayed safe with purple and lilac - very girlie colors.  Here's a detail shot of the embroideries:

Go and take a look at all of the beautiful wristlets that some very talented ladies from around the globe created for the It's a Wristlet World Swap. Lots of creativity!

Creative Chaos

I've been reading this book lately, trying to figure out how I can organize my own mess of an office/craft room - see here. So far the only thing I've been able to accomplish is to get everything off the floor and into the closet. But it's not organized in there - oh no! It's just thrown in willy-nilly, and in lots of plastic bags to boot. I've decided that I really must get things under control.  This has been an enormous inspiration as well.  And this room is spectacular! So no more projects or swaps (I finally finished the wristlet swap and will post pics once Carrie has received it) until I have some sort of handle on this chaos. I will definitely have to purge lots of stuff (okay, to be fair, a whole bunch of stuff sitting under the desk needs to be sold on ebay for my mom.) So my next step is to figure out what needs to go, what needs to stay and how I'd like to organize it.

Any other suggestions or links to organized craft spaces would be greatly appreciated. How have you solved this problem?

The kindness of strangers

A really nice thing happened when I went shopping for this little bistro set the other day. After looking around at different stores I realized that most, if not all, the patio equipment had been removed to make room for back-to-school supplies. Finally at Lowe's I saw this little table and one chair. It was so adorable and clearance marked down in price. How great was that! I asked the sales lady to see if there was another chair available. She came back and said no, that all they had were more tables in the shelves. How disappointing. I was all set to continue my hunt when another shopper came to my aid. It turns out that she had one chair in her shopping cart. She told me that she had bought six of these chairs the other week and wanted to get some extras. She said that I could have it instead so that I could have a complete set. I couldn't thank her enough. That really made my day - I was humming merrily all day long. Sure, part of it was that I had finally found a bistro set that I liked, but the main reason was that spirit of generosity from a complete stranger.

ATC Swap: Get Smart Girls

I signed up for my third swap a month or so ago, but this time for ATCs. (Organized by Laine of While you were sleeping... and Carlene) I've never tried making them before, but I figured that I'd approach it the same way that I used for making fabric postcards. I used a heavyweight interfacing and fused fabric to it. What was throwing me for a loop was the theme. It was supposed to be all about the E-Z Bake Oven, Barbie, etc era from when you were a kid - and the title was called Get Smart Girls. Well that kept making me think of the old tv show Get Smart, but somehow I don't think that's what was intended. The other thing that I thought of was the color pink. Ah, now that I could do since I have lots of pink swatches in my scrap bag. The little faces are more practice using Patti Culea's technique. (Please note that Patti now has a blog! Check it out here.)

These next two (we had to make five) aren't so much pink, but I thought they were interesting. I used some "hair" from prints that I had and left two with flower petal "hair".

So what do you think? What should I try next time? As you can see, all of the faces turned out different eventhough they were all made using the same fabric and colors.

Doll Faces

Here's one of the doll heads that I made in Patti Culea's faces class this past Monday. Wow, Patti's such a great teacher! I was able to improve how I approach drawing faces with just a few extra circles in the preliminary grid work. The above face was made using Micron pens and Prisma Colored pencils - that's it! The trick was to blend in the colors using a piece of scrap fabric.  There's just a bit of sculpting to the nose to give it added dimension. Next we learned how to attach fake eyelashes and a separate upper eyelid. (If you click on the picture you'll be able to see this detail more clearly.) And if you're wondering, the above head came from her Radical Rachel pattern - the same one that I've made in the past, shown here.

This head is a flat pancake construction using the Micron pens again, but this time with watercolor pencils. I may have been a bit too aggressive with my shadowing. It does show where to place them, but next time I think that I'll try to be more soft. The regular colored pencils are my favorite, but the watercolor pencils do make a more dramatic blush. No one says that you can't blend the two media. Oh, and finally Patti suggests using Createx Textile Medium to protect the faces.

Patti brought in many of her dolls that she's featured in her three books. You think that the dolls are amazing from the photographs, but to see and touch them in person was a different story. The colors are vibrant and the textile manipulation and beading are fabulous. What a treat to see. Lots of inspiration and motivation to complete more doll projects.

The class was such a fun experience that I'd highly recommend it to anyone who wants to improve their face drawing skills. And I was such a dweeb that I brought in my copy of Patti's book, Creative Cloth Doll Faces, and asked her to sign it for me. She was so sweet and complied. So I guess that makes me a doll groupie now?

Wristlet Swap Goodies

I signed up for AfricanKelli's It's a Wristlet World Swap back in June because Jessica of FunkyFinds was kind enough to tell me about it. I'm making one for Carrie (still in the works, but it'll be greens and purples because those are her favorite colors) and Raesha made the beautiful wristlets featured above for me. Aren't they great?! The green one on the right is representative of Albuquerque, New Mexico and the one on the left was just because she's sweet. (If you look at her site you'll see that she's made a mini moopy doll from the colorful black ground paisley - too cute!) And she was also so generous and sent me some fat quarters, quilt labels and some chai tea. Next week I'll have the pics of the wristlet that I'll be sending to Carrie. So far I'd have to say that I've been having a lot of fun participating in swaps. Well, okay, this is only my second one so far, but still it's been fun!

Kanga Orange Paws

These are called Kangaroo Paws. I've never seen these flowers before, but aren't they different? Yesterday I met with Landscaper Guy to go over the last bit of our backyard. This project has been taking a looooong time. Some problems were unavoidable, such as the massive amount of rain immediately after contracting for the work back in March. Others were not our fault, such as LG's employee's problems ranging from death in the family to resignations. Then of course there were my delays, putting off the installation of the sod while I was down in LA during my dad's surgery and our trip to Ireland.

We finally were able to meet at the nursery yesterday to select the plants --- ooooh, that was the fun part. I had done some research - pulled tear sheets and photographed the flower beds in front of The Fish Market restaurant. The final colors are primarily lavender/purples with deep burnt orange as an accent. There's a few different foliage colors ranging from bright greens to a burgundy leaf that will compliment the new flowering plum tree.

Of course now LG is going on vacation for two weeks and then I have to go to Kansas City for a week, so this means that we won't be able to see all this until September. That's okay though. It'll give me some time to plan what goes in the rock garden section. I'm thinking potted rose trees with cascading flowers (and figuring out a drip system for them.) I've also been admiring Liquid Sky Art's beautiful patio set that she painted in a bright sky blue. I love this idea! But I think that I would have to go with more of a cobalt blue and less ornate furniture. Maybe an umbrella in the center of the table for shade ... oooh, and with some little lanterns for light at night.