Thursday, October 28, 2010

pin it

These days they call them inspiration boards, but I call them bulletin boards. I have always had more than one, even when I was in my teenage room and mostly tacking up pictures from Tiger Beat and Seventeen.

Now at the age of 46 (well, 46 next week) I have many in my craft den and one big one in my bedroom. Sometimes I feel odd about that. Like I haven't grown up. But, as much as I love little pieces of paper and design, not to mention souvenirs - how could I not have several boards?

I find even so many beautiful images on the internet. I mean it really is endless, isn't it? When I find something so beautiful or inspiring or stunning I want to save it, but often all I can do is just save the blog post or article.

So, as you can imagine I was pretty happy to find Pinterest. It's an online personal inspiration board and you can create many different boards. If you know how much I love a theme (and I kind of think you do) then you know how much I love that.


You can also follow other people's boards and see what they are pinning. It's pretty great. The only thing that would make it better is if you could see a larger version of the image with just a hover over the pic. Maybe they are working on that.



Above is a screen shot of one of my boards. You can see my boards here and follow me if you want. I don't have too many as I have just started. I really love the boards that my friend Jenny does. Maybe I'll see you on Pinterest. Looking forward to seeing your boards.

Sunday, October 17, 2010

summer to fall

Like many people, I love fall. I wonder if it really is the most popular season or if I just tend to be friends with people who like fall best.

I love the season for the reason most people do, but also because the fall brings a number of celebrations including my birthday and anniversary.

Here are some pictures from the last month. The end of summer to the first few weeks of fall. The days here are still pretty warm, but the nights are getting cold. Unlike the eastern states our tress aren't brilliant yet, but the leaves are changing.

farmersmarketbag

Here's a pic of my bag from the last farmers market of the season. Included inside is: goat cheese from Dee Creek Farms, jam from Packer Orchards and Bakery and kombucha from Oregon Kombucha.

lightsintrees

A pic from a lovely night in a friend's backyard when the nights were still warm- just a couple weeks ago.

bearcard

The anniversary card to my mister (do you see the pumpkin shaped cake in the background?). I got this awesome letterpress bear cut out from Blackbird Letterpress. And then I made the little card to fit inside his paws. The card is one of the most important things to me when it comes to celebrations. I love them. My cards seem to be getting smaller and smaller. I made one that was about 3" x 2" for Valentines Day.


flowersonmantle

Here is what I did with some of the flowers that I got for our anniversary. I got this vase for about 3 dollars at a garage sale I went to a few weeks ago. They had tons of beautiful vintage ceramics. This is from West Coast Pottery of California. I love seeing flowers in it.

The wood hummingbird is new to my house as well. It was something in our house when I was a kid and my mom recently asked if I wanted it. It'd been in storage about 20 years, so it's neat to see it again and have it in my house.

flowerontable

I hope you are enjoying the fall so far. What's your favorite season?

Sunday, October 3, 2010

sand, sea, september

beach

I took such a huge amount of photos on the trip I took last month to the Oregon Coast. I think the volume of them is what made me put off editing them, choosing them, uploading them and making this entry. But, I definitely wanted to because I had a wonderful time and they're so pretty.

I love this one of my friend Chelsea walking out to the beach.

sunsetwalk2

You can see the whole folder full on my flickr page, but here are my faves.

I hadn't spent much time in Rockaway Beach before. It was nice to be on a new beach and in a new town. Rockaway Beach is very typical old style tourist beach town. It's not posh at all. There is a strip with the usual beach shops - fudge, kites, souvenirs, salt water taffy.

shells

I realized on this trip that the reason all beach towns have the same kind of shops is because that is the only time you buy fudge, salt water taffy or fly a kite and so doing things kind of reinforces that you are indeed on vacation. It's a ritual.

otters

And I did it too. I ate fudge, I wrote a couple postcards (even if one was to myself), I got smashed pennies, I went to the souvenir shop and I bought a kite and a cedar box.

cedar boxes

There must be other people besides me who love cedar boxes, especially the souvenir kind. It can't all be 12 year old girls buying them at the tourist shops. I actually haven't bought myself one since I was a kid, but I always think about them and desire them. Why haven't I let myself just get one before this, I have no idea. I do have a few people have given me. The smell sooo good.

70splant

The house my friend and I were staying at had not been changed since the 70s'. It was filled with magazines from the early 80's. The decor was both kooky and cool. This climbing plant was growing through the ceiling and was even coming through in the other room. It was a little creepy. Despite this, we both felt really comfortable there. The super close proximity to the beach was perfect.

porch


One day we went into town and heard a steam engine come though. We went to investigate and found out that it was a scenic train that went from Wheeler to Garibaldi and we could get on if we wanted to.



So, we got our ticket and hopped on. There was a old train car from the 40's, a partially open air train and an all open air train. We rode outdoors and took lots of pictures.

inside-train

trainride

treesgoby




We got one good day of sun and I had a lovely day in the dunes, feet in sand, staring at the clouds, singing songs to myself, playing with grass reeds and flying a kite. It was perfect.

grassandsand

grasswreath3

kiteflying

There was good food (we made it all, Rockaway Beach is not the best for good food - groceries or restaurants), sunsets, walks, sits, exploring relaxing and pretty much all you would want plus a old timey train ride. Pretty nice.

behindkitepartial

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