Eazy Peazy, Pinkeeps Pleaze Me

I am addicted, totally and inexorably addicted. Andrea Ferguson, better known as Andie of Brown Bee Designs, makes pinkeeps. Pinkeeps guaranteed to take you to another place and time. My latest score, lol, arrived safe and sound with lots of goodies (extras, woohoo) all tied up in torquoise tissue with brown ribbon. Those are Andies company colors so to speak, and she combines them well. Anyhoo, they are handstitched, whipstitched, blindstitched, cross stitched, I mean these little beauties are stitched. I guess you might call them primitive, but they really shatter the time barrier and come right to the future with amazing alacrity (don't you just love Merriam Webster, words are our friends). My present pinkeep purchase as shown says "Promise Little", and is plump and aged just like me, lol. I quickly wrote Andie and asked for another that says "Deliver Much" or "Give Much", but she was way ahead of me and already has one on the drawing board. So, I am poised to beat all of you to the punch and get to it first when it arrives on her little Pink Boutique.

Here is my first pinkeep purchase. It is a sampler signed Elsa Taylor with the date of 1850. Well, Miss Andie is certainly a time traveler because I can just imagine a young Elsa having newly arrived after enduring steerage class. It was her treasure, and now it is aged and stained, and definitely my treasure. You may visit Andie at her blog, or visit her boutique"Brown Bee Designs" at Make Mine Pink. Just click on her name anywhere in this post and you will go right to her blog. Well, I asked Miss Andie if I might have the honor of using her pretty pinkeeps as backdrops for some new altered art pendants I am working on. In her best southern accent, (well, I imagined the accent, she is a southerner), she told me to go right ahead, y'all. So following please find a new series of pendants I am working on for Cottage Violets. The first pictures shows a little vignette with the pinkeeps and a crystal candy jar with "It's Good to be Queen" pendant hung on the knob, looking quite regal I might add.

Don't Andie's little beauties make wonderful backdrops for pins, pendants, maybe a shadowbox or on a crystal serving tray with tchotchkes of your choosing.......

Tonight, I will doubtlessly be reading my Canon photobook 101, and trying to figure how to get good close-ups. I haven't figured it out yet. When I do, these pendants along with a new series I am calling "Girl Guides" will be on Cottage Violets, and on Lollishops when that gets up and running. All the pendants are 1"X3" and are little collages sandwiched in between glass slides and held in a silvertone frame. They can be used as necklaces, brooches, tree ornaments, or bottle charms. They are moderately priced at $9.95 plus shipping. And bonus round on the back I included one of my favorite sayings, "It is never to late to be what you might have been". I will include a ribbon, key chain, and stick on pin backing with each piece. A leather strip is also available, and comes standard with all Girl Guide pendants (not shown here). The pictures don't do these pieces justice, even if I am tooting my own horn, lol.

Please visit Andie at Brown Bee Designs, she has way more than the one proverbial string in her bow. In fact, she is a bower of creativity, (do you like my word connections, I do, lol). Plus the girl is funny, rip roaring, knee slapping funny. In fact, I have met a lot of looney ladies at all the E-Malls. Tons of fun, and creating an American made legacy to boot. Now I'll give myself the boot, and say :

Good night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite,

But if they do, hit them with a shoe,

Then they'll have to quit botherin' you.

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God Bless You More Abundantly Than You Could Ever Think Or Ask,

Theresa

Shoe-lee Goodness and Mercy Shall Follow Me

Every once in a while, a Shop Owner comes along. Maybe I should say Artiste, Purveyor of Dreams, Handcrafter Extraordinaire, Forward Thinker. Perhaps, I should just say "Dorkwad"(for we often call each other that without offense taken or given). If you have peeked at the pictures you will already know I am describing Michelle at Raspberry Rabbits. She has a gift, and feel for the art she brings into existence. First, I present the shipping box wrapped in white and festooned with flowers. A happy package that probably caught the notice of every postman lucky enough to handle it.


And then my treasure, a beautiful little quilt (she named it "Mail Art") encased in a clear plastic box. The photos don't do it justice, so use your inner eye to picture the beauty of it. The symmetry is perfect. A square within a square, within a boundary, within a square. Oh my, I really meant to say, It is set together with an artist's perfection or rather perception. When I wrote Michelle to tell her of its arrival, I commented that pictures did not do this piece justice. It is true. It is a perfect little melange of perfection, eye candy.Can you tell I like it A LOT.


And her branding was great! An engraved pen in splendiferous pinkness, lol. A little Raspberry Rabbits Pouch with Raspberry Tea, and a Raspberry Chocolate. Which reminds me, my cousin, Miss Sweetpea Pitty-pat was over and we opened my treasure together. She ended up with the Raspberry Tea (alas, my chocolate addiction must needs be fed, lol). And then the "Thank You" card. I don't know if you can see, but it is her logo , and a beauty right down to the deckle edge on the bottom of the card. Sweet, sweet, sweet.

To the right is a close up of the shoe, just because I wanted to see it again, lol. Miss Sweetpea Pitty-pat loved the lace coming out of the shoe. I loved it all.........

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And one more attempt at getting a true picture of this work of art. Do you remember when we used beautiful words like "soutache" to describe the braided trim on the edge of this piece. If you will take a moment to stare at this piece, the remarkable texture, the clever use of layers, the whole package really, you will see what I saw, perfection in a small package. Someone's love of creation explained in one picture.


Now for a little silliness, which will take that saccharine sweet taste out of your mouth, which I must say I could not describe my treasure without. It needed all the sweetness I could muster to do it complete and perfect justice.

Here is a little song I wrote for my girls group on a lazy afternoon back in 1979 or so (long ago). It can be sung to the tune of "The Girl From Ipanema". I have no excuse for this silly ditty, except that the natives were restless, and needed a slight distraction from the labors of the day.

So here we go, it is the reworking of the Nursery Rhyme, The Little Old Lady Who Lived In The Shoe:

Short and stout, and bent and sturdy,

Oh living in a shoe can be dirty,

And when she passes

Each one she passes

Goes ewwwwwww,

~

(Chorus)

Oh, but what can she do,

She spent her whole life

In a shoe,

Oh, what if this happened to you.

~

She has kids, ten more than a dozen,

A nephew, a neice, and one chubby cousin,

And when they pass,

Each one they pass

Goes ewwwww,

~

(Chorus)

Oh, but what can they do,

They spent their whole life

In a shoe,

Oh, what if this happened to you.

What if this happened to you!

The girls liked it, and God didn't make me repent, so I guess He was okay with it. I must say God has a great sense of humor, because He passed so much of it on to all of us. And Michelle at The Raspberry Rabbits has much more than should be her rightful share. Please visit her at http://www.theraspberryrabbits.com/ for a wonderland of delights. And don't miss her pictures of Chunky Bunny and the rest. Chunky Bunny is currently on the Iron Man circuit to lose a few pounds bless his heart.

And remember Proverbs in the Bible says, " A merry heart doeth good like a medicine".

Dorkwads Unite!!!!

Bless You,

Theresa