Random Beauty

You know that saying, "practice random acts of kindness?" Well, this is my version for beauty in life. The other day we went blueberry picking and afterwards we were just on our way home and there on the side of the road was the most beautiful sunflower garden. My Mom immediately pulled the car over and started to turn around. me: "Where are you going?" mom: " Back to that garden, you know you want to take pictures of that!" I just laughed. She knows me well. Believe it or not, it was the local water payment office. It's this tiny little office with the most beautiful garden of sunflowers up the walkway and zinnias and flowers around the entire fence. What a nice place to pay the water payment! It actually inspired me to plant my own sunflower garden. I usually have some, but this year I was focusing on my vegetable garden. As soon as I have sunflowers, I'll show them to you as well. See something beautiful? I hope you'll be inspired to stop and enjoy it and remember to practice "random acts of beauty". It makes you smile.

Happy Father's Day!

I love my sweet Daddy so much. I'm so thankful for him and what a huge part of my life that he is. He's a pastor, but always puts us first. He is a very funny man and is always making me laugh. We have very similar sense of humor and can laugh about anything. He is one of the happiest people I know. He truly loves the Lord and I respect and admire him so much. He's my hero! We call him the big "G" (genius) because he can fix anything. He works hard. He loves my Mom. He's the best man I know (besides my own sweetie). He has a heart of gold. I'm so thankful for you Dad! Happy Father's Day!

Love and kisses,
Lori
p.s. we need a good new picture of us!

Pretty nifty...

I found out how to make glass glob magnets from my friend, Sarah, at Vintage Lily and I'm hooked! I made several before I got my "ding" (lightbulb going off) moment. I have been looking for a long time for a free gift to add in each person's jewelry order. I wanted it to be something they would actually like and something beautiful. Well, I think I also found a way to do all of that as well as a friendly reminder to come visit me again. If you print your website out very small on your computer, it actually gets magnified under the glass. So..... I added my website to the magnet and I am very happy with my free gift now. I wanted it to match my personality and not all be cookie cutter gifts. Now, my daughter and I scour magazines, papers, cards, you name it for that perfect look to make our designer magnets. It's also a quick and easy and fun craft project to do with kids. My daughter picked out her very favorite sunshine flower and made her personalized magnet for the fridge. To make them, you need glass globs with at least one flat side, modpodge glue and magnets, all of which can be found at wal-mart. Just decoupage the picture you want to the back of the glass and then super glue the magnet on. Oila!
Oh! another cool tip: If you have metal trays, you can mount them to the wall and have a message center with them. I showed you my vintage pink lace metal tray to display mine on and I thought about how cool it would be on the wall. So thanks,Sarah!! You are my inspiration!
Happy Friday!!

Happy Tuesday!

I am still working to get some better pictures of some of my new designs, but I'm adding a few here til then. I'm working on some new photo jewelery that has a scalloped edge border, broken china jewelery, and some photos of new custom collage designs. The collages will not be for sale, but will be as examples. There is now an order button on the website for custom collage. It is $40.00. You can give me up to 5 themes and I will design a custom collage based on those items. For example, on this French piano collage, she wanted music, a piano theme and fleur de lis. I took the customers favorites and designed a pendant exclusively for her. These make beautiful gifts because they are so customized to what they love. Also, you cannot buy it anywhere else.
I hope you all had a lovely week so far. I'm still busy trying to get caught up and make some new french themed collages. I will add those as soon as I get them done. Don't forget to pop over to my tea blog, The Ivy Leaf Tea to answer the trivia question to be entered in the weekly drawing!

Blessings~
Lori