Aaaaaccckkkk!!!

Look what the UPS man just brought from my sister (who says she isn't talented)!!!




She calls it "A Touch of Pink" for the pink Saturday postings, but I'm not waiting.
She told me that she sent me a book of some sort, but I couldn't stop yelling long enough to open it. Plus it was wrapped is such pretty paper that I hated to tear it open. Look at the details in this!!! Oh my gosh!!! She needs to submit her stuff to Somerset, don't you think?? I'll take another picture of it full length so you can see it entirely. For now I have it on a side table where I can see it all the time and it looks nice there. I might end up hanging it on a wall. It's beautiful; the pictures don't do it justice.
Now here's what she said she sent me - I've picked up this book every time I've seen it but wouldn't let myself buy it. And she made the sweetest card. As hard as I try, I just can't make pretty cards like this. It even has a cool stamp on the back of it.



The book was meticulously wrapped in this pretty paper and tied with rafia. It even has a slight scent of lavender; I'm not sure if it's the paper or if it's the scarf but it smells so nice! I'm saving the paper; I can do something with it for sure.

I give nice gifts but am a sloppy wrapper; I was laughing the whole time I was looking at it; she was on the phone with me and must have thought I'd lost my mind.

This really has been the best birthday I've had in years!! Happy day!

oops - I left out something

I also bought this cute little pattern to make small storage boxes. It was designed by Karen West, who works at Thimble Pleasures.

Happy Birthday To Me

I know, I was singing the Twelve Days of Christmas yesterday and now Happy Birthday. Actually, yesterday was my birthday and I had such a fun day. Let me tell you what I did...

After taking care of some fun business, I picked up my friend, Alyce, and she treated me to lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. We both had yummy crab cake sandwiches and fries and were too full for any dessert. Then we headed to Thimble Pleasures, a really great quilt shop. I hadn't been there since before Christmas and was really excited to go back. They have so many fabrics, patterns and books and everything else in this small and quaint space that they've decided to move to a bigger location. BTW - they now offer on-line ordering.

I tend to get overwhelmed when I go into a place that has so many beautiful things to chose from so I took a little list of fabrics that I was looking for. I wanted some pretty tea related fabrics but they had sold all of them and were waiting for the new order to come in. But another item on my list was fun fabrics, and I found plenty of those to chose from. The very first one that I saw, I knew I had to have...so many fun possibilities and I can't wait to work with this one:
This is a coordinate for the bathing suits

These were so fresh and happy and I love most anything with birds or feathers on them


And this one I got specifically to make one of Diane's art quilts with - sorry the pic is a little fuzzy...


And this one caught my eye because it has tiny cherries on it...I don't know why I'm attracted to cherries right now.
After we left the fabric store, we stopped at a cool garden-related home interior shop and I got this; it fits in my home perfectly.


It was late afternoon and we were both ready to go home, so I dropped Alyce off and headed back to meet my daughter, Laura, and Alissa. They had a surprise for me! I love surprises :) Look at the beautiful earrings they gave me:
And last but certainly not least, my older daughter and her hubbie sent me this. Oh boy can I have some fun!

There is a beautiful carousel inside this mall and of course Alissa had to have a ride; she had the whole thing to herself.



After my big day out, I was tired and happy. It was the best birthday I've had in a long time :)