i am mad with joy

spring is here {almost}. and as lara(in dr. zhivago) would say with that inflextion in her voice: "i am mad with joy!"

 you will find me outside

 under the eaves

 feeding the birds

 honouring nature's bounty

 after the dormant months

 even my dabbles in creativity center around nature

 for example, this altered peat container

filled with spring-related watercolor tags and seeds
yes, "i am mad with joy".

tag tuesday

 

when i was a little girl, every weekend my father would take us to our beach house on the coast of chile just so we could wake up at the crack of dawn to go bird watching. his favorites were pelicans although at home we settled for a parrot named clotilde. so my love of birds began at a very early age.

i never became an ornithologist like my father but developed my own personal love of birds through poetry and art. as a matter of fact, my favorite quote is from a poem by pablo neruda and i have used it repeatedly over the years in many of my creations and even at the heading of my ebay listings years ago.

i had purchased this quite expensive enameled button of a bird quite a while ago and didn't know what to use it for until carolyn's challenge. since it is so dainty, i opted for a fabric tag. it is rather long and skinny and i love how it turned out with all the different fabric elements i found for it.

....and here is an old picture of me at the beach house observing clotilde as we often took her out of her cage to converse with.

a blessing in disguise

it's not all bad this being semi incapacitated. it has given me the opportunity to finally get to work on the prayer flags for the prayer flag project. i had some many bits and pieces half finished over the last few months and decided to incorporate them into the flags and then embroider the prayers. i ventured outside the bedroom, enjoying the backlight on one of the sofas which seemed ever more comfy for my back.

so being bedridden has been a blessing in disguise as so often blessings are.

 i'm also going to give a fabric bundle a try

filled with organic matter and soaked in water every other day until the sun does its thing.

bet you didn't know i love to cook

homemade quiche cheesy-baconey-fluffy-deliciousness

5 eggs whipped and whipped until fluffy

one and 1/4 cups of heavy whipping cream whipped into the eggs for more fluffiness

lots of grated gruyere cheese, the thinner the better

bacon fried and dried and cut into small squares with scissors

nutmeg, salt and pepper

the bacon and cheesse mixed together inside the pie crust

the eggs and cream mix poured over the bacon and cheese

into the oven at 350 degrees for approximately 45 minutes.  make sure the center is still shaking a bit since this will add to the fluffiness.  note the word fluffy used repeatedly.  you will notbe disappointed.  i make the best quiche or so they tell me. more like a souffle, promise.  and so easy.

i like to serve it with fresh sliced tomatoes.

i must be getting better one small step at a time.

the things that blew me away

it couldn't have happened at a worse time. just when i'm full of vim & vigor my back gives out on me. only once in my life has my back failed me when moving a huge potted plant. this time it was the silliest of silliest moves, a totally unexpected wrong bend while putting something away in a low cabinet. so here i am, bedridden and in pain. and dependent.
what do i do? well, read a lot, sew a bit, make lists of what to do when fit again and a lot of fooling around with the laptop. a click or two on ebay, a few more on etsy, dick blick and joggles, hotmail, flickr and the all-absorbing pinterest. i am reminded of marcela's post last friday. 
so here is a medley of the beauty i've come across while fictiously being out there in the world. 
first of all, a couple of quotes:
"If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?
alice in wonderland

"The miracle is this: the more we share, the more we have."

Leonard Nimoy

shadowbox by guriana on flickr

miniature book by justi on flickr





sense of sight, swynnerton





they just don't make them like that anymore
photo by corey amaro

  

door covered in leather belts

photo of kote by maria cecilia lorca

hat by nattyboho

reliquiary on ebay
i'm mad about religious art

fabric collage book

vignette by vintage dragonfly on flickr

steampunk altered watch part

mannequin display

princess grace in wedding dress

vintage prayer book i purchased on ebay

hand collection vignette

fiona and twig blog banner

hotel chelsea, new york

self portrait by susan tuttle

custom handsewn wedding dress by gibbousfashions on flickr

oliver jeffers

handmade dolls by sweet bestiary

garland by pink pomegrante on flickr

o sweet spontaneous

o sweet spontaneous
earth how often have
the
doting
fingers of
prurient philosophers pinched
and
poked thee,
has the naughty thumb
of science prodded
thy beauty.
how
often have religions taken
thee upon their scraggy knees
squeezing and
buffeting thee that thou mightest conceive
gods
(but
true
to the incomparable
couch of death thy
rhythmic
lover
thou answerest
them only with
spring)
e.e. cummings

dish by lucia of eralamaga made entirely from veggies from her huerto

i hope i have entertained you as i have entertained myself.