Born To Be In The Wild

Kenai River, Alaska

In 2009 I thought for sure we were going to have the big “Princesses and Banditos Part Deux” blowout birthday party like we had for my 40th. I even blogged about it in "Born to Be Wild."  As it turned out I just wasn’t up for the cleanup, set up or post throw up hang-over. I chose to spend my big FIVE-OH day with my family on the river FISHING! That's not to say I didn't celebrate and my sweet Daddy-O didn't keep my little red drink cup filled! It was the perfect way to spend the Labor Day birthday weekend –including waking up to fresh, French Press Kaladi Brothers Coffee and a Fire Island Bakery birthday cake that my sweetie surprised me with on the dock for breakfast –all while my line was in the water!! What a good way to roll into 50. 

 My fishing boys. Thanks for a GREAT birthday, family! 

xox

Olive Dog wasn't too happy to have to be tethered to the cleaning table... whenever we had a fish on or there was a SPLASHING COMMOTION she wanted to DIVE into the river and bring the fish out herself!

HOW ABOUT SOME ART MAKING TIME!

 For my latest Art Cloth pieces I’ve been experimenting with using different art papers and various types of glues, transfers and fiber paints. Each of these pieces of cloth are 14” x 14”.  The fabric is 100% cotton batiks from The Quilted Raven and The Quilt Tree. The higher the quality of fabric the better results I have. These fabrics are beautiful to work with.

 For this blue fabric piece I hand tore the white art paper and painted Mod Podge on top of the paper directly to the fabric and let it air dry. I'll sew it into a mini-art quilt wall piece.

 This piece has several layers of art papers. The first layer of the woven art paper I actually used a zig zag stitch and stitched it to the fabric. The birds are artist transfer paper and then hand colored with acrylic fabric paints and colored pencils.

Macy’s Great American Elf Adventure

Many of you know I have a not so secret dream to be a cake decorator… well, I’ve had my chance –sort of. Macy’s department store is sponsoring a contest to design the newest Elf balloon for the 2011 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in the Macy's Great American Elf Adventure. The best part is the PRIZE is a trip for four to NYC to watch the parade AND see the winning Elf design made into a huge parade balloon! Anchorage was one of the cities selected to participate even though we do not have a Macy’s physical store, though I’m sure Alaskan’s on-line purchases make up for it. KD /PR hosted a special event to give away 150 of these little guys FREE to anyone who wanted to decorate an Elf and enter the contest… and who could resist?!

My idea was to design and decorate a “Birthday Cake Elf” because it will be the 85^th birthday of the Thanksgiving Day Parade and I LOVE birthday cakes. I had all sorts of fun doing the research and learning more about the history of the parade and all that goes into the historic balloons –FASCINATING stuff! Keep your fingers crossed, everyone who entered will find out on August 30 if they are one of the LUCKY 85 finalists that will then let fans vote on their favorite Elf balloon design. Though, wouldn’t a BIRTHDAY CAKE ELF BALLOON be the best?!

Speaking of birthdays… Daddy-O turned the big Five-Oh today! (and no, we don't have any snow YET but it's one of my favorite pictures of Derek) Happy birthday to my hunky husband –we all know you’d rather be skiing than eating birthday cake!