Under a Blue Moon

I have an online friend that I've known for several years.  Karen and I met on a message board because of a shared interest.  We would chat on the board and eventually one of us emailed the other and what do you know?  We adore each other. 

We email daily and she makes me laugh like no one else can.  She also is constantly sending me great stuff.  I try to reciprocate but she is just naturally more generous than I am.

She says I'm craftier than she is but I don't know about that. 

We were talking/fantasizing about how it would be fun to meet in person.  She is way the heck over on the other side of the continent, battling palmetto bugs and hurricanes so it's not like we can just hop in our cars and meet for lunch.

We thought it might be fun to plan a weekend trip – somewhere we would both like to go and meet up for a long weekend.   If we get along as fabulously in person as we do virtually then we could make it an annual event.

From this a crafty idea was born.  We are both going to come up with our top ten places we'd like to go.  I am taking it one step further, because I'm craftier and all, and make a scrapbook of my top ten.

My first page is on New Orleans.  I'm still trying to talk Karen into it and I think she is warming up to the idea.  She's still mad at how the whole Katrina thing was handled and I can only think about Beignets and Jambalaya.  

Seriously Karen – beignets and cafe au lait in the French Quarter?  Can you think of anything that sounds better than that? 

So back to the scrapbook/wishbook.  I will make a page for each place, made up of images and objects that represent the location.

The scrapbook came from Kelly – The perfect starting point.  It comes apart easily so I can take out the pages and work on them individually. 

Each component of my New Orleans page is very specifically related to New Orleans in some way.  Can you figure them out?  Some are easy – the other a little more obscure.

So what page should I do next?  I haven't actually figured out all the top ten but I do know that Paris, Maine, Savannah and Charleston are on the list. 

Quick post – I went to an antique store today on the search for some clear buttons and I found this bag of glass bead trim.  Yards and yards and yards of it.  It looks like it was cut off of the palest blue chiffon.  The chiffon is so old it is rotting but the beads are gorgeous.  It's a huge tangled mess but I'll figure out something to do with it. 

I'm envisioning beaded table runners.  Sara got me all hooked on the idea of sparkly accents on table runners after I saw the beautiful one she made.  She sprinkled clear glass buttons along the borders. 

So now I'm on the hunt for clear buttons.  I have small collection.  The glass ones can be kind of pricey.  I'm not opposed to plastic ones but they do have a tendency to yellow – at least the old ones do. 

These are the ones I found today.  All of them glass:

When I was checking out the woman in the antique store said she had a big glass button if I was interested in seeing it.  Ummm – Yeah.   It was locked up in a case.   And it cost about the same as the rest combined but it is especially pretty.  

Sara – sorry I stole your idea and now I'm buying up all the clear glass buttons in Northern California.  I'll share some of my vintage bead trim with you, if you like.

Sweethome Style

I used to like camping.  Then my back got older and it wasn't so much fun anymore.  The dirt, cooking over a finicky fire, the bugs, the setting up and tearing down of the camp.  The hauling of the blender to the community laundry room to make margaritas…

Oh yes.  I have done that.  On more than one occasion.  If I'm going to sleep on the ground then I'm going to be anesthetized when doing so. 

Singita

These pictures make me want to rethink camping.  There is even a term for this type of camping – it's called Glamping.  Isn't that the dumbest word you have ever heard?  I refuse to call it that.  I think it's just camping the way it was intended to be.

Singita

Actually the first time I talked Rick into camping I set up the most luxurious campsite I could.  I borrowed a big canvas tent from my sister and I set up a queen sized blow up mattress with satin sheets and fluffy down comforters.  I had two 'bed side tables' (cardboard boxes covered with pieces of lace) for our lanterns.  I even had a big thermos of frozen strawberry daiquiris (before I figured out the blender in the laundry room trick).  It would have been quite the romantic camping trip if not for the troop of Cub Scouts in the next campsite.

Singita

My parents went on an Abercrombie and Kent African Safari back in the early 90's and their accommodations were very similar to the pictures here.  My mother said that they would travel to a new spot every day and their tent would be set up for them and they would be served an incredibly gourmet dinner.  She even marveled that about a week out they served ice cream for dessert.  Out on the African plains, in the middle of no where, eating ice cream.

Governor's Camp

When I was ten or eleven I went to Summer camp and shared a big tent with three other girls.  We slept on wooden cots and would roll up the walls of the tent every day to air out the place.  It was a big canvas tent that was set up on a wooden platform.  Sort of like the first picture in this post but without the Rachel Ashwell-esque bedding. 

The morning of the last day we were all laying on our cots, too cold to get out of bed yet, when I noticed something dark on the roof of the tent above my head.  I asked my tent-mate to hand me her flashlight and I shined it up and there were about 50 ginormous spiders just hanging out above us.  You never saw four girls fly out of their sleeping bags faster.  I'm just thankful I discovered it the LAST day otherwise none of us would have slept in there.

Come to think of it – camping still may not be for me.

Governor's Camp