Beautiful Things At Beautiful Things

Diane has great taste and wonderful images at Beautiful Things, Musings on the Little Embroideries of Life.

Flower Power

Flower Power applet that made me smile.

Casey Reas

Sometimes I giggle in delight when I see some of these little animations, like this one, D-Cell by Casey Reas at singlecell.org.
And these tissue prints are lovely. Casey Reas gallery of work at bitforms.com, I like this seed formation print.

Thrift Store Fun

I drove past then turned around to go back. I have not been in a thrift store in quite a while. But today, on my vacation, with hours all my own, I decided to hop in - have a peek. I had so much fun, that it should be illegal. Found some good stuff, good prices, stuff I don’t need and I spent hours looking for it. Sound familiar, then you are a thrift-store-addict too! I piece together a very cute tea set, gold striped sauces, with gold floral cups, and one gold rimmed plate for cookies, with old tea tin - $5.00. Found more glasses (50 cents each), like the others I have. Four more white damask napkins, 50 cents each. Four very sweet blue dotted small plates for my friend who love those little things (50 cents each). Found lots of games for 25 cents - Monopoly, the coolest Bingo box (with game parts) for 25 cents, Boggle, Flinch - letter, words and numbers for the assemblages I am going to do. I found 25 cent patterns, and lots of books on needlepoint. The coolest thing I found were two books from the Famous Artist Courses from 1950, at home art lessons, 2 for $5.00. Well, those were a must! My thrift store expenditures for today, $35.00 -- worth every penny in sheer fun.













And from the antique store yesterday, found an autograph book. Beautiful passages written ‘To Edith’ in 1893. A colorful Indian coaster for my husband. Popper Word game, with the coolest little discolored tags with different words on them.
Okay, I really need to go back to work and quit shopping!

Self-Portrait Tuesday

It is my vacation, so no makeup, no combing of hair. Visit red current links for more self-portraits or Self Portrait Tuesday Flickr group. Thanks Kath for organizing all of this.

The Center Of The Hydrangea Wallpapers

For Amanda at FrenchToastCake, I made a couple of wallpapers of the hydrangeas. They are all hosted at ImageShack, and I have many wallpapers there. Take a look at my stash.

These are all 1280x1240. There are also 1240x800 on ImageShack.

Illustration Friday - Tranquility

This week's Illustration Friday is Tranquility.

Into The West

I have been watching 'Into The West' mini-series on TNT. It is painful but well worth watching. It makes me even more interested in of my own Choctaw Nation heritage.

My husband has a love of Edward Curtis photography. Poignant portraits documenting history. Writings of E.S. Curtis, Excerpts from "The North American Indian". There is also a digital library of Edward S. Curtis's The North American Indian at American Memory section of The Library of Congress.

Looking Into The Center

As much as I want to do some art and sew, I just keep taking macro pictures and cleaning house. To look at this tiny center of the hydrangea, no larger than a pin head, see it open and all the wonders spill out. Well, how can I not document that!? Flickr slide show if you want to see more.

Bowling Ball Walkway

Tara and I hit the road early this morning searching out garage sale treasures. Along the way, we found this Bowling Ball Walkway someone had created.



Tara found an original lithograph for $1 and I bought a French poster (will be a present for my friend frequently vacationing in France) for $5.00. We found lots of jewelry, $1.00 a necklace. I know the beads alone are worth more than that! We found fabric and sewing notions. I bought three pattern-making books and lots of buttons.





Reproduction clown bank - free! Bags and bags of shells, beach glass, and other rocks - $1.00. Tara found these great paper mache bunny basket-things (for a $1.00) and we decided they would be a wonderful display for her collection of eggs for Easter. I found many St. Christophers, hung on a small, old rusty safety pins, 7 for $3.00. So all in all, we had a very fun, exhausting day full of cheap thrills.

Take Your Pet To Blog

Pica and Scooter.

Chinese New Year Live Performance

My friend Ruth sent me this beautiful video on-line. It is about six minutes in length, plays on Windows Media Player or Winamp. And is a 15MB file. It's well worth the time to watch it!!! Dancers performing a celebration of the Chinese New Year. I only wish I could see it larger, in better detail. It is amazing. And the added amazing fact, the dancers are deaf.

Topiary In The Making

Duane has posted the Topiary Man progress on flickr. It is filled with moss so with a little rain or watering, it should keep growing.

Moon Beauty

I wish I could capture it as it looks right now!

Illustration Friday - Karma

This week's Illustration Friday is Karma. I am hoping we all have good karma today!

My Talented Friend's Topiary Birdman

If I did not have such talented friends, honestly, I would have nothing to blog about. You might remember my fellow designer at work from his wonderful paper mache dogs he made earlier this year. He also made me the most adorable Halloween fellow out of paper mache. (I thought I blogged it, but can not find it - must take pictures!) Well, he is at it again. He wanted a fun project for him and his daughter to make together and he came up with this topiary for the backyard. All I can say is - I want one!

Splendid Sunday Start To My Vacation

Wonderful Sunday, beginning with brunch for my friend Chi, hosted by her friend and former landlord, Michelle. Chi is radiant, expecting her first baby. Michelle, lawyer, former judge, art collector - kept me visually entertained with her amazing collection - not to mentioned well fed. I loved this very large painting of Red Horses. And she had a little mobile of two jesters. Here is one.





Then, armed with the knowledge I hate today's fashions, I went shopping. I love Bryn Walker's clothes and stopped to see their summer offerings. Unfortunately, it seems Bryn Walker does not have a strong web presence (duh, Bryn, get with it) so can't show too many examples. Cotton flood pants, I have several Scholars Robes, a long sleeve version of the Zen Vest, I also have the long Zen Vest. Nice linen selections, in a Flax-kind-of style, with an hint of Asian. I almost bought this shorter version, but honestly, have just gained too much weight to carry this off.

In the next store I found this wonderful silk, URU jacket with madarin collar. I bought it, thinking I might return it. But I really like it. Also bought my mom a wonderful sage green linen overalls and a couple of skimpy cotton T-shirts to send her in HOT Texas for a birthday present.



I have many big silver rings that coud double as weapons in a pinch. So I found this wonderful blue stone ring at a street fair the other day and had to have it ($50.00). It looks great with a bunch of other silver bands.



My husband gave me three bands made by an New Mexico artist (can't remember her name, but have her card somewhere) for my engagement rings. These are my favorite jewelry pieces, but they need to be resized. It is on my vacation-stuff-to-do-list. He has always known my taste.

Dog With Big Tail

I saw this dog in the parking garage the other day.

Issey Miyake

I can't remember if I blogged this very neat way that Issey Miyake site uses to display a fashion show. Place you arrow key to the bottom right of the video and it speeds up in the middle of the screen slows it down for detail viewing.
Walking through a department store, looking at today's fashions the other day, thinking, I hate everything I see. I mean, not one thing appeals to me right now. I want something flowing, something with interest! Something that looks interesting. I love the "bouncy dress' below look by Issey Miyake! I would love to own this vintage Issey Miyake rare cape/jacket.



Beautiful coat at SF MoMa



Bouncing dress a 1992 - Pleated and twisted polyester.

Sunset Drive

The Olympics, Puget Sound and beyond at dusk.

Google Earth

The internet is amazing daily trip and just keeps getting more interesting. Besides the live streaming video from Live 8 Live, Google Earth is the next coolest thing I have ever seen in cyberspace. It is a large application for the PC only, not for Macs. Sorry. I traveled all over the world today looking at places I have lived. Click on images for larger file.

This was my best friend's house during our Jr. High, High Schools days, and next to it, her dad's vet clinic in Ranch Estates, Denton.



This is where I lived in Flower Mound, Texas when my dad was training horses for Cecil Pearson. The big building is a barn. It looks like the house is gone, but there are several tanks we used to fish in. It is nice to see a huge piece of land unclaimed by Blockbuster Video, concrete and Starbuck. This area was all once just green horse pastures and it was beautiful.



And this is my house now. I also found the apartments in Oak Cliff where I lived when I was 8 years old.

Sell Something

I am pretty sure I have seen this on other blogs. Want to sell something for free on the Etsy Beta site. I like this tag search option.

Ask Away

I am not sure I enjoyed to answers to what I thought was a sensitive environmental question. But if you want to waste some time having anonymous people calling you a 'dirty hippy' then go here, answer a question and ask a question.

Good Days Off

What a wonderful time off. I feel relieved because everything I needed to do, is done. I almost feel like I was on vacation today! No pressure. Marathon blogging, IF, photography. But back to work in the morning. Take my mom to the airport at 5 a.m. headed for Texas, lots of work before my two weeks off. So probably not much blogging this week. Today I shot more macro flowers at Sky Nursery. I swear I find myself giggling because I have seen a little hairs that I would not have seen if I had not been shooting. Or almost crying because looking so closely at something so beautiful is so miraculous. I think the people also at Sky Nursery probably thought I was a little off.
So my new macro flower set is on flickr if you want to take a look.

Self-Portrait Tuesday

I see everyone do this Self-Portrait Tuesday and wanted to do it. Although, I think next time I will wash my hair and put on a little makeup before I point and shoot.