Dreams taking flight (and other thoughts)

My friend Yvonne, a gifted textile artist, handed me the piece of art you see below and said "I made this for your studio". I think my jaw dropped open. It is so beautiful and SO perfect! And it just makes me feel so loved and encouraged! (Just like all the other pieces I've received.)

As I sat there staring it, I thought "it looks like my dreams taking flight". A moment later, Yvonne said "it's called 'dreams taking flight' and I thought it was perfect for what you're working on." Oh yes, it's perfect! The photo doesn't really do it justice. Yvonne hand-died all of the colourful bits of fabric. She truly is amazing and should be doing this for a living, don't you think?






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Remember the generous stranger who poured coffee on my Wreck this Journal, at the encouragement of my friend Jo-Anne? Well... this is a delightful story... she left a comment on my blog! Turns out she's a friend of my cousin Bev who's been following me on Twitter and came across the video. She says she loved being part of it! (I'm so glad she's not annoyed with me for posting the video of her online!) Now I want to meet her again to thank her - I had a feeling when she joined the fun that she was a kindred spirit.

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My decoupaged desk looks lovely! I'm quite fond of it and I've started to cast my eye on other flat surfaces in the house that might be decoupage-worthy. Marcel asked me to paint a dresser for him this week, and he gave me that suspicious look when I said "don't you think plain white is a little boring?"




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Things are going remarkably well for my new website. If all goes as planned, I think I'll be ready to launch it on Thursday. I've always had it in my mind that I'd launch by September, but since I'm ahead of schedule, I thought it would be fun to launch it while I'm still on vacation.

I'm so excited about the launch that I'm contemplating throwing a big party for all of the locally-based friends, family, and blog-readers that might be interested on Thursday night. The only problem is that I've concentrated so much of my energy on the creative stuff, that I'm not sure I can get my house looking presentable enough for a party. Stay tuned if you live close by - I'll keep you posted.

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When I emerged from my studio one morning last night, I found the girls and Marcel all outside tearing the badly neglected, rotting deck apart. There's something about seeing my girls with work gloves on, with hammers and power tools in hand, that just makes me smile.






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And speaking of my girls, they all have some colourful, funky new footwear for back to school.












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And I leave you with this picture, taken this morning on a lovely photo walk by the river.





(There really is no way to properly line photos up with words on blogger!)