Cardsignings across the USA!!

Cardsignings across the USA!!

Swarovski Crystals is partnering with CFH for the next couple weeks to get 30,000 cards signed! They're gorgeous cards with a little crystal bling added to them . . . and about 150 cards are at each of their store locations til July 4th to be signed by customers. (Some of the stores have a sweet deal offering a free tshirt with purchase, check and see if yours does!) The signing is free—so please take your friends and family with you. Email them about it too!

Wow, that's exciting. How wonderful for Swarovski Crystals to show their support to our American soldiers. Here's a chance for you to show some support yourself, click the link below to find a location near you, and go write thank you to a brave soldier on a card that will be sent for you! Win win.

http://www.swarovski.com/Web_US/en/boutiquefinder?origin=landing

First look, first touch, or a feeling?

http://www.1000markets.com/users/jewelfiredesigns/products

I ask myself...where does it all begin...

An obsession, a compulsion, a collection, an interest? Is it the first look, or the first touch, or a feeling you get? Is it something in the air, or on the wind?

Will someone call Dr. Phil, here's my latest.

I have a huge admiration for vintage antique buttons from pre 1900. The more I read the more fascinated I become.

Ah, the lure and lore of buttons.

http://www.1000markets.com/users/jewelfiredesigns/products

Quote: Victorian picture buttons
By Kathleen Vocelle http://www.beadandbutton.com)

"Pictures of every imaginable subject have traditionally appeared on buttons made of many materials. Metal picture buttons for women's and children's clothing reached the height of popularity during the Victorian age, around 1880, and retained their popularity right through the Edwardian era.

The enormous number of subjects shown on picture buttons reflects, in part, the new popular awareness of art and literature in the late 19th century. New plays, operas, novels, poems, and paintings challenged the die-makers to create new button designs. People showed their approval for a new work of art by wearing buttons derived from it on a shirtwaist, coat, or cloak.

http://www.1000markets.com/users/jewelfiredesigns/products

Themes from storybooks and nursery rhymes were very popular and highlighted the late Victorian devotion to the child.Designs that illustrate a drama, fable, or nursery rhyme are called story buttons and are named for the work depicted. The Victorian fascination with natural history accounts for the vast number of buttons featuring birds, insects, and other animals, as well as flowers and other plant life." (End quote.)

Article in entirety found, http://www.beadandbutton.com/bnb/default.aspx?c=a&id=3687

http://www.1000markets.com/users/jewelfiredesigns/products

The more I see of the creations that people make from these heirloom treasures, the deeper my interest grows. I am fortunate enough to be the proud owner of two such button art pieces, and I was able to chat with their creator Katy of Jewel Fire Designs. http://www.1000markets.com/users/jewelfiredesigns/products.

The buttons used in my beautiful lovelies come from England!

http://www.1000markets.com/users/jewelfiredesigns/products

Katy said, "I have a friend who lives in England and she goes to the street stalls and looks for interesting buttons for me. I think both of the ones you picked are from there. I also am always on the lookout for fun buttons. What is interesting sometimes I come across the same button in the US as my friend sent me from England.

http://www.1000markets.com/users/jewelfiredesigns/products

My love of old buttons comes from my Grandmother as she had a huge collection of buttons that were just saved buttons from clothing and such that was started by her Mother so they go back to the 1800's. Anyway when she passed away I got the buttons and I still dig in them for projects 25 years later."

Wow. What a treasure to have passed down to the girls in your family. The stories those buttons would tell are of times of a gentler age, where people took pride and delight in life and showed it right down to the buttons on their clothing.

I was so struck by the detailed beading she used to frame these, and asked Katy what was the technique used, did it have a special name? she replied: The beading around the buttons is just called bead weaving and it's several techniques I have learned over the years. One of the fun things I love to do is when someone brings me a special button and asks me to make it into a brooch. It's amazing how many people have buttons from grandma that are special because so many of us played with their button box when we were little :o)

I love to use scarves in the winter time for warmth at the neck, so I do have a plan and a purpose for my latest little divinities, it's not just my latest thing. I'm lucky, it's not winter yet, and I can be the recipient of their charm as I go back to the jewelry box for another look.

I think these humble buttons deserve this attention as a piece of our collective past to be remembered. Many thanks to Katy for her creations.

All of the vintage button creations used in this article are from: http://www.1000markets.com/users/jewelfiredesigns/products . Katy gives some interesting background with each of them, she has a very fun shop with lots of other lovelies.

Well, I know I've been waxing poetic for a couple of blog posts about my garden but it's time for me to confess, we have a love/hate relationship. You know how it is, you pull weeds, you perspire, you dig holes, you perspire, you plant the holes that you just dug, you perspire, a little water (?...maybe sweat)...and then....you wait.

But patience does work wonders, and the wonder of it all is why we keep coming back for more year after year.

I am currently in the love love stage of my affair right now, and I'm even going to share some of my love's secrets!

Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky.
When we think of the sky, we tend to look up,
but the sky actually begins at the earth.
- Diane Ackerman


Connection with gardens, even small ones, even potted plants, can
become windows to the inner life. The simple act of stopping and
looking at the beauty around us can be prayer.
- Patricia R. Barrett, The Sacred Garden


A person who undertakes to grow a garden at home,

by practices that will preserve rather than exploit the economy of the soil,

has his mind precisely against what is wrong with us....

What I am saying is that if we apply our minds directly and competently to the needs of the earth, then we will have begun to make fundamental and necessary changes in our minds.

We will begin to understand and to mistrust and to change our wasteful economy, which markets not just the produce of the earth, but also the earth's ability to produce.

- Wendell Berry, 1970

I have come to terms with the future. From this day onward I will
walk easy on the earth. Plant trees. Kill no living things. Live in
harmony with all creatures. I will restore the earth where I am.
Use no more of its resources than I need. And listen, listen to
what it is telling me.
- M. J. Slim Hooey

In my household, we have adopted that attitude to 'restore the earth where I am'. We recycle everything. We are lucky to live in a comunity who believes in and offers the opportunity to recycle as part of trash pickup, and we do our part.

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