A Card Given and a Card Received

Happy Monday! I hope that your week has gotten off to a nice start.

I recently made a card for a friend of mine who is celebrating a birthday this week. Since I had a lot of supplies already out, I decided to fashion it off the piece that I created for my "500 posts" write-up the other day. I really love these beachy gals and thought that she would too.

Once again, I used some BasicGrey papers

and some corrugated cardboard,

along with ribbon and punch-out letters...

This will be on the inside.

I don't glue these down until I stamp on them or

 I write on them.

In case I make a mistake,

it affords me the luxury of making another one.

You know how that goes!...

But my biggest excitement was when I received

this beautiful card from my dear blog friend,

Nancy Maxwell James at Sugar Lump Studios.

She is such an awesome artist,

with a blog to match,

and you can find her here.

Thank you Nancy. I love it!!

Have a lovely rest of the week!

Sewing Mends the Soul: Artwork by an Amazing Artist

Good morning. I hope that you had a great weekend.

This post is rather late in coming, but prior to the holidays I purchased a beautiful fabric collage from an amazing textile artist whose work I greatly admire. I have followed her blog for a long time now and finally decided to make one of her creations my own. It now hangs on the vanity mirror above my sewing station, and you will see why I put it there.

Suzy is from Australia, and her blog appears on my sidebar along with other blogs that I love to read. If you haven't yet spent some time with her, you can also visit her here. You will love Suziqu's Threadworks! Also be sure to check out her Etsy shop.

I took some photos of her creation.

It came beautifully wrapped in tissue

pattern paper, 

with a vintage doily,

and this lovely tag...

Pardon this bad photo, 

but I wanted to show you where I hung it.

It was hard to get a good picture because of

the reflection in the mirror...

so I took some closeups.

There is a lovely tag...

... which sits in a gorgeous lace pocket...

It has a vintage wire hanger...

...and many beautiful embellishments.

Her name for this piece shows below...

Now can you see why I hung it where I did?

Thanks, Suzy!

It's so nice to have this piece in my studio 

where I can think of you every time I sit down to sew!

Here's to beautiful artwork and their fine creators.

We are so lucky to have them.

Along comes a blog, and something to share...

Greetings from The Perch, and a very cold one at that!! It was 17 degrees outside this morning, and that's very cold for NC. I hope that if you live in a "real" winter climate you are not much worse off than we are. We are actually supposed to get a little snow again today. :~(

I have been reading blogs for about five years now. I knew that some day I would want to have one myself, so about a year ago I started to pay more attention to what kind of blog I would want to "call my own". I knew that it would try to convey a positive tone and hopefully not have any "uppity" airs about it. I never desired to make political or religious statements, as we all have our own views on both of those subjects, and I did not want to speak of controversial matters. I wanted to keep it simple and light, and I hope I come across that way. Likewise, I tend to gravitate to other blogs that incorporate a vintage feel for home, art, and everything else. But every once in a while, along comes a blog that is so special that you want to go back and read every post written since the blogger started posting. Even if that blog is very different from yours, and perhaps because it is.

When I receive a comment on this blog, I make it a point to see where it came from, and if that person has a blog of their own, I try to spend some time reading it. Recently, a wonderful introduction came to me from a comment placed by Sherry Smyth on one of my posts. While most bloggers appeal to their audience through the use of more pictures than words, Sherry writes beautiful narratives that always have something special to say, and usually uses just one beautiful photo to support the subject of the day. She is not afraid to share how she feels about subjects that are important to her, and also provides some of the most incredible videos. Sherry also sees such beauty in everyday things. Please take some time to read a few of her posts, and I guarantee that you will be richer for having done it. Especially read today's ("One More Day"), and be sure to view the video. Sherry is a beautiful writer, and the only question I have is: "Sherry, when are you going to write a novel for us?" You can find her blog here.
Well, not being Sherry, I did not have a beautiful photo to post today, so in keeping with the temperature outside, here are a couple of scanned old photos for you to play with.

Stay warm!!