Hippity Hoppity

I can't claim credit for this, but I did see it down the street and I think it's adorable:

Yes, those are bunny ears on headbands!  It is such a great idea.  There are also fake flowers (cheap plastic ones are very appropriate for this open air display).  Finally, the bows are also plastic.  This would be great on a fence or iron door.  Heck, it would be cute on a wreath.  Anywhere you can hide the headband part - it looks just like bunnies sticking their ears up.

Hippity, hoppity, Easter's on its way!

cindy

Flowers of Kauai

You know I love flowers.  I take pictures of them wherever I go.  The flowers in Kauai are gorgeous.  Hibiscus are plentiful and in every color you can imagine.  But enough with the words, enjoy the eye candy:

Yellow hibiscus is the state flower of Hawaii.

Cool presentation, right?

This is ginger.

Watch for this at a Starbucks near you.  It's coffee.

Oops - wrong eye candy.  Actually, this is how we feel when we look at flowers :)  Hope you enjoyed them.

cindy

Flowers

I love flowers.  I love taking pictures of flowers, even if I'm just using my cellphone.  When I lived in the Midwest, I remember being tricked into thinking spring was around the corner by the end of February, only to have winter roar back in March.  These pictures are for you who are still subject to the cruel spring trick:

This is a calla lily from San Juan Capistrano.

Mexican poppies from my backyard (a sure sign of spring in Arizona)

Peace rose from the backyard

Hydrangeas from Mississippi.

Lilies from Louisville

As you can see, flowers give me great joy.  I love to take pictures wherever we go.  I hope today with spring coming, these give you joy too.

cindy

DIY -Crepe Paper Roses

This is a great craft for a Valentine's Day decoration.  I was able to recycle materials I already had in the house.  I like the idea of using what I already have.  It's one of the ways I'm trying to be frugal, which is my New Year's Resolution.  I used some old styrofoam ornaments that I used for a holiday candle craft.

Because these balls are small, I had to put them together to make the larger ball.  I used toothpicks and then reinforced them with glue.

I then used some pink crepe paper I had leftover from this candle project.

Cut (or tear) a strip about 24" long and take one end in your hand, pinching it between your fingers.

Begin winding the crepe paper, continuing to pinch one side.  Wind the entire strip, forming a rose.

Use a little glue to attach the end of the strip to the rest of the flower.  Hot glue guns are the best.  Use the hot glue gun to attach the flower to the balls

Continue gluing the flowers onto the ball, covering all of it.  You can also glue the ends of some ribbon onto the ball, making a loop for hanging.

I'm embarrassed to say I ran out of crepe paper before finishing.  (You will need several packages for this project.)  Because I didn't want this to end up as an other incomplete craft, I'm showing it here.  These could have a number of uses, including hanging or placing it in a bowl.  It could also be used as a flower ball in a wedding for your flower girl or even as a bouquet if you cover the base.  They are so pretty!

cindy

Roses in Winter

I love Arizona.  When we moved into our house, I noticed the previous owner planted about 25 rose bushes.  I'm not as good at maintaining them as I should be, but they are very forgiving.  It's the time of year when the roses come out again and I couldn't resist.  This is Peace:

I wish I could remember the name of all of them:

I do remember this one - it's a Tiffany rose:

God is good!

cindy

Arizona in Autumn (Part 1)

It's 10:00 p.m. and 98 degrees!  Welcome to autumn in Arizona.  While most of the country is unpacking their sweatshirts and warming up the cider, we're thrilled the high temperature next week might be as low as 86 degrees.  We're thinking about putting away the flip flops while other folks are getting out the boots.  Don't get me wrong - I'm really not gloating.  Yes, we are on the verge of the best time of year in Phoenix, but I definitely miss some aspects of autumn.  We have no fall foliage, just the same color scheme we have all year - sandy browns and verde greens.  I would include a photo, but you wouldn't be able to tell the difference between autumn, summer, winter or spring.  Having said that, I did take this picture tonight at sunset (see the moon on the left?)

While I may be a little wistful about autumn in colder climates, I do love some aspects about fall in the desert.  In many ways it's like spring in other places.  We buy lots of flowers to plant, cut back the heat whipped roses so they can bloom on Thanksgiving and reseed our lawns to have a different kind of grass for the winter.  We do eventually break out the sweatshirts and jeans.  In fact, we are so excited about wearing "winter" clothes that we put them on when the weather is in the 60s.

By now many of you are cursing me and thinking this entire post is a joke.  Not true.  I love autumn, whether it's in Arizona or the Midwest.  I love them for different reasons.  Right now I'm looking forward to cooler temperatures and planting flowers.  I'm looking forward to taking my dog for a walk during daylight hours.

Stay tuned - autumn's just getting started.

cindy

Lilies in Indiana

Last month when we attended a conference in Louisville, Kentucky, we spent an evening on the other side of the Ohio River in Clarksville, Indiana. There we visited Falls of the Ohio, a lovely state park.  Thanks to the wonderful ladies of Clarksville's Daylily Club, I saw a garden full of different kinds of daylilies.

I love daylilies from years of living in Illinois.  Unfortunately, they don't grow well in Arizona, so I really miss them.  I used my cell phone to take these pictures and because many of the plants were already spent, I took the pictures close-up.

Aren't they gorgeous? 

I couldn't stop taking pictures of each variety, so many that I won't be able to post them all here.  I had planned to write an entry about these lilies, but never got around to it.

When I heard about the tragedy at the Indiana State Fair this past week, it made me think about our trip and these beautiful lilies from Clarksville.

I thought it might be appropriate to remember the people who lost their lives and were injured last weekend.  Lilies are a sign of resurrection and I'm praying those who died as well as those who are still suffering might find renewal in God's creation.

Isn't that why God gives us beauty in this life?  To remind us there is more than just existing?

May God grant them peace.

cindy

DIY - Scrappy Flowers

I hate waste.  I love bright, bold colors.  That pretty much sums up this crochet throw.  I haven't worked much with flowers/circles, but I wanted to give it a try.

I loved everything about making this blanket.  Everytime I picked out another yarn, I thought of the original project for which it was used.  Combining the colors without the constraints of a pattern was a bit liberating for me.  (I'm a bit of a Garanimals person, needing "matching" colors.)  It was also easy to do a little at a time because you make each "flower" separately and piece them together at the end.

It makes me so happy to use up leftover yarn and make something bright and cheery in the process!  Isn't that why we love making things?  Creating beautiful things, especially from ordinary things, brings me joy.  

Hope you have some joy creating today!

cindy

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Arizona in July

Summer in Arizona is harsh, yet starkly beautiful.  Not too many people visit in the summer, but during the last month most of the world has seen some of our summer phenomena.  Forest fires of epic proportions, triple digits every day during July and this week, a haboub.  What's a haboub?  It's pronounced "ha-boob" and it's a sand storm.  If you want to see lots of video, you can easily find it on YouTube, but these are pictures from my backyard:

To the east - the bank of rolling sand

To the south - see the lighter swirling sand

To the west - extending nearly 60 miles

The haboub looked like a large, slow moving cloud that rolled over us in a blanket of dust and turned dusk to pitch black in less than five minutes.  I've seen these sand storms before, but never like this.  We now have a layer of dust on everything outside.  This is "monsoon season," when Arizona experiences weather just by the addition of a little more humidity.  Little changes make for big events in Arizona.

Even though the world now thinks it has seen summer in Arizona, there's still so much they are missing:  monsoon storms that suddenly spring up from the east in towering thunderheads at dusk;  the smell of rain in the form of creosote on the desert floor; or a shade of green you can't find in places where it rains more than 8 inches a year.  My kids were born in Arizona and will stop whatever they are doing to run out and watch the rain.  We sat outside tonight in the hot blowing wind, waiting for the rain and marveling at the fireworks display in the lightning.  Tomorrow after the rain we'll awake to purple Texas sage and the most alluring flowers on inhospitable plants with needles and thorns.  

Yes, monsoon season (when the "dry heat" isn't so dry) can be brutal to endure, but for someone who is deeply in love with the desert, it's just another example of the enigmatic beauty of the southwest.

cindy