Friday Featured Etsy Seller: Keep Calm Posters

Did you watch the royal wedding? Spectacular! I know this has gotten really trendy, but I love the "Keep Calm and Carry On" poster from 1939. The Etsy shop Keep Calm Posters offers the image in every color imaginable.

Thursday Text: Jane Eyre

I finally read a book by one of the Brontes. Last week I finished Jane Eyre. I thought I should read it before going to see the new film version. I really liked it. Have you read it? Or seen the movie?

Diana: a celebration

While we were in Missouri, we visited the Diana exhibit at the Union Station in Kansas City. It was a fascinating exhibit about the life of Princess Diana and included dozens of her dresses, including her wedding dress with its 25-foot train. Photography was not allowed in the exhibit, but at the end I snapped the replica of her wedding cake and this beautiful photographic portrait.

Maggie Bonanomi

We were in Missouri over Easter, and I had a chance to visit White Horse Antiques in Rocheport. It was fun to catch up with Marcia (one of the owners) and her dog, Sam. I was excited to find this book: With These Hands, by Maggie Bonanomi. Maggie lives in Lexington, Missouri, and is an incredible crafter. This book outlines primitive projects that she's created - emphasizing rug hooking and similar crafts.

Beaded Flowers

Here's my latest attempt at a project from Martha's Encyclopedia of Crafts. I'm working on these beaded flowers for Mother's Day brooches. The one on the left is a daffodil. The others are pink and white dogwood blossoms.

Friday Featured Art: Temple Square at Sunset

I love that the online store at LDS.org offers fine art prints of religious subjects - especially Church history. Temple Square at Sunset, by Christian Eisele is one beautiful example.

Thursday Tunes: Halcyon Days

We've been listening to some Bruce Hornsby again lately, and I really like the title track from Halcyon Days.

Bright light streaming in, through my window pane
Think I'll stare at the shapes it makes
on the floor and then stare again
You've got your curtains drawn,
anything I can do?
Maybe a rose or a pillow or a picture or a funny joke just for you
To carry you away
Let me bring you, some tokens of esteem
Close the door on the world, make it our own beautiful scene
There's a darkness visible, maybe only to me
Maybe just a dream, a time-slowing-down dream,
a hole you're sinking down deep
Comes loose at the seams, make the dream leave

Some rise by wrong
And some by virtue fall
And those convicting may be the guiltiest of all
Wash it away
I'd love to bring you, on a silver tray,
some halcyon days

Feel a strong gravitational pull, holding you down
And the air feels thick, having a hard time
moving through, moving round
I'm hoping you may let me, help to pull you through
You're here so you might as well let me see
If I can do that for you
Carry you away
Feeling so helpless, mostly I'm a clown
Every now and then gotten so even
up can feel like down
In the hour of my reflection, I've had enough of disaffection
Like a starless sky, no light in our eyes
Maybe change this tonight, some brighter times, some lovely rhymes

Some rise by wrong
And some by virtue fall
And those in judgment could be guiltiest of all
Wash it away
I'd love to bring you, on a silver tray,
some halcyon days

Maybe just a dream, some ever-present dream, evanescent scenes
It could seem so for me, this is for me

Some rise by wrong
And some by virtue fall
And those in judgment could be guiltiest of all
Wash it away
I'd love to bring you, on a silver tray,
some halcyon days

Cosmo Cricket

I was introduced to some really cute paper by Cosmo Cricket the last time I was at Archiver's. It's their new Circa 1934 line, and I really love it. So cute.

Little Shop Around the Corner

When we were in St. Louis a couple of weeks ago, we visited the Little Shop Around the Corner. It's part of the Missouri Botanical Garden - people donate items for them to sell, and the proceeds go to the Garden. I bought this little glass box. And then I put some cute paper in the bottom.

Friday Featured Art: Dutch Landscapes

There's a new exhibit of Dutch Landscapes opening at Buckingham Palace today. The Royal Collection is pretty fabulous, and the exhibit includes these great pieces by van Ruisdael and Hobbema.

Thursday Text: Home Thoughts, from Abroad

I've been thinking of this Robert Browning poem lately: Home Thoughts, from Abroad.

O, to be in England
Now that April 's there,
And whoever wakes in England
Sees, some morning, unaware,
That the lowest boughs and the brushwood sheaf
Round the elm-tree bole are in tiny leaf,
While the chaffinch sings on the orchard bough
In England—now!

And after April, when May follows,
And the whitethroat builds, and all the swallows!
Hark, where my blossom'd pear-tree in the hedge
Leans to the field and scatters on the clover
Blossoms and dewdrops—at the bent spray's edge—
That 's the wise thrush; he sings each song twice over,
Lest you should think he never could recapture
The first fine careless rapture!
And though the fields look rough with hoary dew,
All will be gay when noontide wakes anew
The buttercups, the little children's dower
—Far brighter than this gaudy melon-flower!

Mirror Project

I found a fancy-looking mirror at TJ Maxx for $4, but I didn't like the finish. I should have taken a before picture - it was kind of a bronze-gold with black. So I bought a small can of gold spray paint and took it outside. I like how it turned out, and for a total cost of $7, that's not too bad!

Gwyneth Paltrow

Do you ever watch Who Do You Think You Are? on NBC? It's a great genealogy show. The stories are so fascinating. The latest episode had Gwyneth Paltrow tracing her roots. I was especially interested in her beautiful wedding ring. Here she is telling her mother, Blythe Danner, about what she discovered. (I borrowed the other picture from a Google search.)

Making soap

I tried my hand at soap making last week. I just used a clear glycerin base and added things from the kitchen. The first is honey and oatmeal. The second is an orange spice herbal tea - I also used a little food coloring to make it orange instead of brown. Then I used a cookie cutter to cut smaller pieces. The third one is blueberry - I used a little too much. I used the bottom of a soda bottle for the mold, which was interesting, but the recycle symbol and other numbers showed up... The last has bits of the peel of a clementine, and it smells really good.

Friday Featured Art: News from Nowhere

I've been reading News from Nowhere by William Morris. It's been interesting - it outlines Morris's political ideals in novel form. What I love about it, though, is the frontispiece from the original edition, printed by the Kelmscott Press. This woodcut depicts Morris's country home - Kelmscott Manor. We visited Kelmscott in 2009, and I bought a card with this design. It's so beautiful.

Thursday Text: Romans 12:2

There is a quote on the wall of the Divinity School at Duke University that comes from Romans 12:2. It says "be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind." We really liked that. Here's the full scripture:

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Touch of Europe

Here's a great source from Martha: Touch of Europe. She used some of these great decoupage papers in an egg project. I love these butterflies - they go with the last post I made. And the bottom image is a fantastic map of London. They also sell vintage linens and all sorts of things. Check it out.

Butterfly House

We were in St. Louis this weekend, and we visited the Butterfly House for the first time. It's a part of the Missouri Botanical Garden, and it's fantastic. There is a conservatory that you can walk through with hundreds of butterflies fluttering about. It was very beautiful and summery.

Friday Featured Art: Wood Gatherer

I really love the Wood Gatherer painting by Jules Bastien-Lepage at the Milwaukee Art Museum. Of course it makes me think of my dad, who goes up into the foothills to gather firewood every fall. He also always has a daughter or granddaughter somewhere nearby. And I just like Bastien-Lepage.