Be My Valentine

Happy Valentines Day!

The Valentine card I sent out this year was made using this fun image that heyjupiter21 shared at Flickr. The bird was too fun to pass up! He is backed with part of a pink paper doily and some pink vellum that has been deckle trimmed. Once again I used the magic pen and Stickels to highlight and outline the bird and his rider. The heart in the middle of the daisy is a red glitter-y brad.

Visitor to the Garden

We had a visitor in our garden. It wasn't the neighbor cat that naps under the orange tree.
It wasn't the birds, that get fed daily...and are great entertainment for our house cat.

Our visitor was a little brown bunny...

He (or she...we didn't check) stayed long enought for a photo op... and a snack.

Then left...the same way he/she came in.

Bee Charming

In the past I have posted photos of the birds in the bird bath in our back yard. They hang out in the mornings waiting for breakfast, but now they have competition for the water. It's BEE time at the bird bath. They show up at first light and continue all day long.
It is comical to watch them line up for a drink (I didn't know bees drank...did you know bees drank?) They will fight over the same spot, and some end up in the water doing the backstroke.

The longer I took pictures the braver and closer I got...

We have a symbiotic relationship going on here...

the bees pollinate the "Hope Garden" and we provide a watering hole...

Kids don't try this at home!

Keeping it Cool in Arizona

It's only May and the Valley of the Sun is...hot...Hot...HOT!
I found this guy in the back yard trying to keep cool

the other side of the garden

As a floral designer I work with sunflowers often. They are a nice enough flower, but I wouldn't say they were one of my favorites.

Now having said that, this sunflower is growing in our garden. Not the west side where the "Hope Garden" is located, but way over on the east side. What is special about this particular sunflower is we didn't plant it. A little sprout showed up in a pot a few months ago and because I didn't recognize it as a weed sprout, it didn't get pulled out. I'm going to take a guess that the seed was blown over from the bird feeder or a bird it self dropped it. Which every way it happened, we are now enjoying the flower...just thought I would share.

You noticed when I don't have something exciting to blog about, we go back to the garden...

Wrong Turn

I'm back to blogging about birds. But this time it's a colorful one. In fact this one showed up on Christmas day dressed in a red suit.

My husband saw him through the sun room window. The bird ( I have no idea what kind it is, I guess if we are going to become bird watchers I better get a bird book to identify what kind we are looking at) staked his claim to the bird feeder . He was after the sunflower seeds.

He flew off to sit on the fence for a while.

I think he was waiting for me to leave. ( I was taking pictures thought the window) A friend of his came by to wait with him.

We had another visitor, this one had a black head and a yellow beak. Not your usual Arizona backyard bird.

They must have flown south for the winter. Which was a big joke...it has been freezing here in the Valley of the Sun. The birds must of thought they took a wrong turn.

Shiny Brite

I am hooked on Shiny Brite ornaments. It started out innocently enough.

Every year I would pick up one or two, here and there. Then I discovered the "mother load". There is a shop in Mesa called "Treasures from the Past Antiques".

I don't know why, but they always seem to have a larger selection then most other antique stores in the area. The weekend after Thanksgiving they have a sale.

So of course as long as they're on sale...I have to check out what they have and end up buying. Now I have a collection. What to do with all those ornaments?

Well my other collection is terrariums, so that's how all those Shiny Brites are displayed. This year the grand kids are not at the house all the time so I have a vase full of them on the coffee table.

The pink and green one, and the gold textured 1920's ornament are my latest finds.

I also found the glittery retro birds at the antique store, thought they were kind of cool,

so three of them came home with me.

Back to decorating...

Feeling HOT HOT HOT!

I am a fifth generation Arizonan. While I did spend my early years living in other states, as an Air Force brat, Arizona has always been home. I love it here, I don't understand why someone would move to the "Valley" and be so surprised that in the middle of July it's 120 degrees. We live in a desert for crying out loud! So the Arizona summer got pages in the "Summer Book". The birds (see "Fancy Colorful Birds" blog) got their tribute on these pages also.

Fancy Colorful Birds

Speaking of Gardens...and we were. For Father's Day this past June, our daughter gave her dad a bird feeder. He set it up in the back yard under the Jacaranda tree. Talk about cheap ( get it- "cheep", sad I know, I couldn't resist) entertainment. From the sunroon window we (grand kids and cat too) spent the summer watching the birds. Not your fancy colorful birds, mostly sparrows and 3 types of gray and brown dove. Until a almost white dove showed up for it's share of the bird seed. Of course that called for a picture. I took this one with the zoom, through the window. I have promised the cat that she'll have a the fancy colorful bird to watch this winter.