Garden Show & Newsletter

I am doing the Zilker Garden Festival this weekend. I had to set up my tent this afternoon. Here's hoping it doesn't blow away! The forecast says that the winds could get up to 25 mph tonight during the thunderstorm. I anchored the tent really well with my homemade weights and tables. It is supposed to be rainy in the morning but should clear up by the afternoon and Sunday is supposed to be sunny and gorgeous. I am excited about the festival. From the looks of it this afternoon there are going to be tons of great plants for sale. Maybe I can do some shopping for my backyard!

Today I sent my newsletter out through a new mail service. Hope it came through alright for everyone. This service is so cool! Before this I was having to send them out 10 at a time and it was taking me forever. I love it. Now I will have more time to make jewelry!

I feel like I have a cold or something. A few days ago, I did a major dusting in our house, including the lanterns in the living room. I thought maybe I was having an allergic reaction to the dust but today I keep sneezing and I feel that stuffy, confused feeling in my head. No, no, no! I hate getting sick!

I heart blogs!

Ornamental Things was mentioned in two blogs this month. Vinty reviewed this one:

What a fun blog. It's all things vintage. Kelly has gathered some great websites and designers who are working with vintage pieces. I am going to have to bookmark this one!

The other blog mention was on Pretty Crafty Thing. Shelly wrote about several of my coin necklaces, including this one:

This necklace is one of my favorites. The coins are from India and are dated in the 1940's. Pretty Crafty Thing is a new blog and from the looks of it, there may be a store coming soon. Can't wait to see that!

Home from San Francisco

San Francisco was such a great trip! The show was on Saturday. I spent most of the day doing that. Sold some pieces and met lots of new people. Made friends with all the designers at neighboring tables. It was a lot of fun. I was so tired after the show. I wanted to go out for dinner and maybe see a play but I was afraid I would fall asleep! I looked up a neat restaurant but unfortunately they were all booked when I got there so I just walked around and took pictures.

On Sunday, one of my neighbors at the show, Jennifer, had invited me to join her and some friends to go see the Vivienne Westwood exhibit at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. That was so much fun. I didn't know much about Vivienne Westwood before but, wow, what an amazing woman. The show was super inspiring with tons of great clothing, footwear and videos of her fashion shows. It was neat to hang out with Jennifer and her friends, Sandra and Amelia. Jennifer has a store in the Mission area called Porcelynne. She has her living quarters and studio in the back which was really cool. She makes lingerie! It was fun getting to ride around in the back of Sandra's car, seeing the city.

After the show we had lunch at a neat little cafe and then I had to catch my plane home. It was such a nice trip, made even better by the making of new friends.

My poor pup is not feeling well. He started limping last week so I took him to the vet before my trip. The vet gave him some medicine for arthritis which didn't sit well on his stomach. This morning I woke up to some rather disturbing business on the floor so having cleaned that all up and completely disinfected the area, we are going back to the vet! Poor thing!

If you would like to see more pictures of my trip to San Francisco, please visit my flickr page: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dewdropfalling/ and feel free to comment!

These new necklaces are so money.

Last week I got out all the coins I collected on my vacation and made necklaces out of them. I was quite proud of the results! I am on the look out for more small coins like on the necklace above. I love when they are wispy and worn down. I got these little three pence coins from the Bermondsey market in London. The woman who sold them to me had written on the bag "for the Christmas pudding." She told me they put a little coin in the pudding for children. What a neat tradition. The three pence coins date from the mid 1800's through about 1917.

I also made necklaces with the francs that I bought in the St. Quen flea market in Paris. I heard this interesting story on the radio a while back that in some small towns in France, they are still trading francs because they don't want to use the new money.

I had a really good creative day yesterday. I worked on new jewelry designs from 9 in the morning until midnight when I collapsed into bed, exhausted! I made necklaces and new earrings using a bunch of the beads I purchased in London and combining them with odd little vintage things from all different places. Earrings are fun to make. They are kind of a challenge because you have to make something that involves all these different parts but they have to be small and light enough for someone to wear. It was a very good day.

I am starting to look forward to the Spring Round Top flea market! I am getting a plan together to go with some friends. I will probably be making more than one trip. My mom also wants to go. I went twice in the Fall and it was awesome!