Jen Bowles Design

Last {Beach} Day of 2010

After a wild week of weather that featured snow, icy rain and high winds, it was such a treat today to wake up to sunny skies and temperatures warm enough to melt the ice on our driveway.  Well, at least start to melt the ice on our driveway.  We've got quite a bit...

After taking our recyclables to the dump I headed to the beach, empty bucket in hand.

It was lovely.

Beautiful blue skies, calm winds, and low tide with barely any surf to speak of--which left me plenty of room to explore.

One of the things I was curious about was if there was any storm damage to the houses right along the beach.  As you can see, there's not much of a seawall here.  Most of what I saw were decks and lawns full of rocks.   A headache to clean up but not too bad on the scale of things.  This house seemed to have lost a few shingles.  Unfortunate, but a really cool textural pattern left behind.

One thing I didn't notice at the houses along the beach: snow ❆.  We're about a mile away and we have a white, snow covered yard.

I was hopeful that the storm had left behind some interesting beach "debris" to discover.  When I started to fill my bucket it became apparent what I'd be collecting today: shells. 

The first one I picked up was this scallop shell.

Love ♥.

I think I picked up every scallop shell and fragment I saw today.

Along with several oyster shells.  They have such cool layers and shapes.

I was walking along the beach for about an hour and I guess I started feeling a little silly when I left this shell & rock face for someone to find ☺.

Before I turned back to head home, I took a few minutes to sit on the beach to reflect and enjoy the beautiful winter sunshine.

I don't think there's any place more beautiful than a beach on a sunny day ☼.

Whereas my bucket was full, I reluctantly made the turn to walk back.

I couldn't help but keep my eyes cast downward however, you never know what treasures or surprises might be lurking in the sand.

Wishing you many sunny days and happy surprises in 2011!

Happy New Year to all!

 

Merry Christmas to you!

from all of us!

 

Sign of the Times: Merry Christmas

Inspired by a few greeting cards I've seen along the way and the wonderful art of Jenni Horne of Mattie's Social Circle, I painted a Merry Christmas sign.

I'm pretty excited about it.  Unlike the color of our house, which does not excite me and I had on the list to change this year.  Oh well, there's always 2011...

In fact, it's my most favorite wooden sign I've ever made.  Not that I've made a lot of wooden signs.

I started off with a piece of scrap plywood from our garage.  The dimensions were not exactly what I wanted so I enlisted the help of the circular saw.  I used a t-square to help me draw a nice straight line and then proceeded to cut somewhat nearby said line.  Straight lines are not my strong suit.

Next step, priming with black gesso.  Jenni shared on her blog this cool technique along with creating your base drawing with chalk (hello, genius!).  Jenni used this method with elementary school students, so I figured I could do it too ;-).  I first drew my design on the backside of the plywood in pencil.  Then I turned it over to the primed side and drew something completely different--that I liked much better.

Over the next, oh, 2 weeks, I painted a bit here and there when I had a few spare minutes.  The most time consuming part was filling in with the red paint around the white painted words. The white painted (my handwriting) words took a while too.  The rest was pretty straightforward.

Yesterday I decided the sign was done enough and powered up the sander.  Naturally I can't find my Mouse sander, so I had to use the larger circular one we have.  After wiping off the paint dust, I put a bit of Elmer's glue on each of the white polka dots and sprinkled on irridescent glitter.  Finally I coated the whole thing with two coats of matte poly.

This morning I scavenged around the garage and found the last 2 sawtooth hangers we have in inventory.  I attached them and (finally) took my baby sign outside to hang.

Ta-da!

All ready to greet everyone that visits us with a timely & festive message--for the next 4 days anyway.

Next year I'm hanging it the day after Thanksgiving ☺.

 

Mosaic Monday, latest favorites

Mosaic Monday, latest favorites
Originally uploaded by fertree33~Jen Bowles

Just a few more days...

Mosaic Monday

It's beginning to look a lot like...

1. Christmas Cookies, 2. new favorites, 3. Santy Claus, 4. Candy canes, 5. Christmas gift toppers, 6. Felt Trees, 7. Mr. Snowman sure loves winter!, 8. Winter Topiary Garden, 9. handmade christmas card swap

 

Festive Flowers

A recent visit to a local nursery found me surrounded by festive seasonal flowers in their greenhouse.

Looking for a few poinsettias?

No problem, pick a color...

They had red, white, pink and lots of shades in between.

They also had blue poinsettias.  Which was a bit bizarre for me.  But maybe in the right setting, with some winter white and silver, they would be pretty.

Not a poinsettia fan?  How about some cyclamen.

Again, so many lovely colors.

I particularly liked the ruffled edge on this one.

Of course with all the various 4 legged members of our household, all I could do was admire these blooms from afar.

And take a few pictures.

Wishing you a wonderfully festive weekend!

 

Holiday Window Shopping

Last year during December I was lucky enough to take a birthday trip to NYC with my mom (read about it here).  We were dazzled and delighted by all of the wonderful holiday window displays.  This year there will be a trip on my birthday, just not to NYC...However, New York isn't the only place to see holiday windows.  Turns out there are plenty of holiday windows right in my own backyard.

Not literally.  Actually there are a lot of trees in my backyard...

Back to the windows.  And the shops.

First stop:  Scituate Harbor.

I love this charming shop with an equally charming name, Joye.  The exterior of the shop has the perfect color scheme for the holidays.      

Inside is chocked full of delightful gifts, many of which are handmade by local artists (yay to that!).  Also inside at Joye is my birthday present, patiently waiting to be purchased (hint, hint Bobby Law).

Next door to Joye is the Quarterdeck--where I bought the vintage postcards I showed off last week.  They have some quirky stuff outside the shop there including this cast iron bathtub.

A few days later I found myself in downtown Hingham.  The merchants were gearing up for the annual Christmas in the Square event later that day, so everyone was looking their best.

I think I found the inspiration for my new kitchen colors in the window display at Notable Occasions.  Complete with polka dots.  I see lots of painting in my future in 2011 (which in no different than any other year, really).

Speaking of holiday trees, they had several in the windows at La Petite Maison.   After browsing around in there I was wishing for an entire forest of vintage silver and/or white bottle brush trees for my own petite maison.

My final stop was a new (to me) shop, Lexilu Designs. This shop is bursting with color and full of delightful & varied goods.  I bought a few things for Ebby's stocking and really wanted to buy this fair trade giraffe hand puppet from Nepal but couldn't  think of who to give it to. Maybe next time ☺ The shop is lovely (more color inspiration!) and the owner very generously shared with me the paint colors on the walls and doors.  Hello Barely Teal kitchen...

Holiday window shopping: so lovely, so inspiring.  So tempting!

 

 

Mosaic Monday: Whimsical Animals

1. Will work for Peanuts..., 2. Queen Bee, 3. Cock-A-Doodle-Rompot, 4. rabbits!, 5. Balloon magnet, 6. Raining Cats & Dogs Fridge Flair Magnets, 7. Heart Felt Owl Doll, 8. two birds blue, 9. rusty robo dog

Happy Monday!

Local/Handmade: Dasken Designs

I realized yesterday that I've been making an unconscious (or maybe conscious) effort to shop local and/or handmade this holiday season.  To that end, I've attend two Holiday Marketplace events in the last few weeks.  #3 is on the list for this afternoon.  I'm heading out today specifically to see Liza Abelson, the artist and designer behind Dasken Designs.

I first discovered Dasken Designs at a show in Duxbury, MA.  For me, it was adoration at first sight.  Her booth was full of whimsical, colorful stained glass creations:  mermaids, starfish, earrings, business card holders, the list goes on. 

Why don't we just take a peek...    

         

Oh swoon, I think I've found something new to collect.  Fortunately Liza accepts credit cards ☺.

{Be sure to check out Liza's website & shop at Dasken Designs.  You can also read a great interview with Liza at sue b. do biz buzz }

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{My} Tuesday Treasure: Vintage Postcards

Yesterday (Tuesday) I found myself in downtown Scituate at a quirky little shop called The Quarterdeck. After I browsed through the impressive selection of reasonably priced starfish, I stumbled upon their huge collection of vintage postcards.  There were, literally, thousands of postcards housed in several long cardboard boxes.  They were well organized by town or region and each postcard was individually priced.  $3.  $4.  Eek, too rich for my blood.

Never one to give up on finding a bargain, I wandered around the rest of the store and came upon my prize:  two boxes of mixed-up, well-worn vintage postcards.  The price?  35¢ each or 3 for $1.  Yeeeees!

Here's a peek at my treasures from Tuesday... {click on image to enlarge & view fully, really wish I could figure out the column widths better on Typepad...}

From a local car dealership (postmarked 1957)    

I love the message on this one (postmarked December 1924)    

Can't decide which side I like more on this one  from Brünig, Switzerland (postmarked 1905)      

This one cracks me up! (unused, undated)

Love this little dude's bathing suit (unused, undated)

The handwritten script on this Greater Tampa postcard booklet is so lovely

Maybe this is what I should be using on my hair... (late 19th century advertising trading card)   

And finally, my favorite find of the day (postmarked July 1905)    

Great stories, great artwork--what's not to love about vintage postcards??

Wishing you luck on your treasure hunting!