I’ve been having a great couple of days and this evening was a complete surprise. I was invited by Lelainia to go to a book signing and I met her at a cute little tea shop in Vancouver after work. They had a lovely spread of French bread, cheese and salamis and I met the author of this book called, The Pulse of Mixed Media. Seth was so friendly, it seemed like I’d known him for much longer that the few minutes I spoke with him.

I’m so glad Lalainia invited me, because not only did I meet Seth, I also met a photographer, Vivienne McMaster, and laughed and chatted and totally networked! By accident! And it was most excellent. I picked up a copy of the book and will read it on the bus tomorrow.

Added bonus – Attention Sarah Harris! Seth Apter told me to tell you, Hello! He really did!

ADDED, ADDED BONUS:

The May desktop calendars are ready!

Here’s mine:

Here’s Cynthia’s:

Here’s Scout’s:

Enjoy!

Welcome to this month’s free desktop calendar courtesy of Cynthia and I. Here are my newly named Cheery Blossoms – a happy accident typo.

For those of you in less than spring-like conditions, enjoy these spring flowers. I know I will.

You know what this post needs? A pretty Spring time poem that I didn’t write. How about this?

Mmmm…dreamy. Warm rain. It’s already starting to happen out this way. I’m sure there’s more to come.

*There is an incredible likeness between John Masefield and Napoleon Dynamite’s brother, Kip, don’t you think? AMAZING.

Thanks to Cynthia, we have lovely desktop calendars available for your viewing pleasure. I took the photo above on Burrard Street in Vancouver. Those words and letters were written on the sidewalk and the street by the city of Vancouver for some kind of safety and awareness campaign. Clever! S…..T…..R……..E….E…T….

And here is a beautiful quilt desktop calendar by Cynthia.

Please feel free to download and share to your heart’s content. You just click on the photo, click on the magnifying glass at the top of the photo, click view all sizes and then download the original size. It’s big, but it’s worth it.

I am ready for the weekend. I snored myself awake on the bus this afternoon. Thankfully, the girl sitting next to me had earbuds in and either a) really didn’t hear me (which I’m pretty sure is impossible) or b) was so polite that she didn’t even turn her head when she heard my big snort. I also had a bagel and popcorn for dinner tonight. This is not a balanced dinner. I need to get my act together…chop up some veggies and make some decent meals. Perhaps a meal plan is in order? Just something to get me back on track again.

Happy Friday Eve! And enjoy your March calendars!

And your popcorn dinners.

Welcome 2012! We’re ringing in the New Year with some Chinese lanterns, some beautifully “quainted” poppies by Cynthia – just an aside, she’s featured in the January/February edition of Cloth, Paper, Scissors in their 10 top Artisans of 2012. Shes on page 20-21. Incredible! Congratulations, Cynthia! Also, we have a beautiful sunrise or sunset from Scout. I’m rarely up early enough to know what a sunrise looks like, so I’m only guessing on that front.

Cynthia’s poppies:

Scout’s sunrise OR sunset. Either way, pretty sky! She lives in New Mexico. I’ve heard the sky is very pretty out that way.

Feel free to download these calendars and save then to your desktop for a handy calendar.

Happy downloading!

Happy Halloween month, everyone! If you click on the photo above, you, too, can have a green jack-o-lantern calendar for your desktop. I bought a pile of candy for the sake of this photo, and I’ll be surprised if there will be anything but suckers left for October 31st. We’ve even dug into the molasses kisses candies. They’ve actually done something to them to make them softer – I always remember them being super hard and way too chewy. Or maybe I just ate old ones? I’m not sure. In any event, even molasses candy tastes terrific in anticipation of the big scary day.

If a lower key Halloween is what you’re after, how about these adorable quainted pumpkins Cynthia made?

Impossibly cute. I just love them. Speaking of quaintings (also known as art quilts, or so I learned this week while watching a quilting documentary – a controversial topic [according to the documentary] among some quilters – the ART QUILT. If you can’t snuggle under it, is it really a quilt? Discuss amongst yourselves. I say YES it is. Others say NO. Who’s right? ME! Of course! I love being right. Heh.) What was I talking about again? Oh right, a patch of pumpkins sewn by Cynthia. Feel free to download those little squash to your desktop and look at them all month long.

And if you like the creepy crawlies, you must download Scout’s spiderweb…

I see spiderweb bokeh in there. Lovely. Scout sure does get it right with her focus. I love her photos.

Happy downloading, everybody! Enjoy the candy and/or the pumpkins and/or the spiderweb.

The calendars are up and ready for tomorrow. It seems a little weird that it’s already back to school time. It feels like we just celebrated New Years. Oh no! I’m talking like an old lady now! Why it just seems like yesterday…someone help me! Jeez.

Anyway, since it’s not Fall officially until September 23rd, I thought it would be okay to have a kid on the beach for this month. However, October is one of my favourite months, and I’ll be creating a spooky desktop calendar for that.

Sticking with the summer theme, how about one of Cynthia‘s roses calendar?

If I’m not mistaken, that was one of her Nan’s favourite types of roses – that pinky-peach colour.

And Scout‘s photo calendar is beautiful any time of the year.

Feel free to download and enjoy all month long! These are the lazy last days of summer, so enjoy!

Happy first day of August! I hope you’re having a lovely long weekend if that’s happening where you are. For your viewing pleasure this month, you can enjoy some of the lovely jam my mom, sister and I made a couple weeks ago. Speaking of which, it’s passed the 2 week sitting mark, so it should be good to eat. I think I’ll make some toast right now.

If you’d prefer to look at some daisies – like maybe when you’re at the office…during the summer…and you can’t see anything but cement or maybe some nearby windows with a touch of blue sky…why not download Cynthia‘s calendar?

and if cement is what you like to look at, get Scout‘s calendar this month!

Cute! I love this heart in cement!

They’re free, so please download and enjoy in between summer days OR if you’re in Australia, it’s winter, so enjoy in between the chilly days down by the beach.

Our free downloads are ready for your desktops first thing tomorrow. Here’s mine.

A little summer bike ride for the month of July, if that’s what you like. If you’d rather have some beautiful flowers instead, here are some for you.

Cynthia’s:

And Scout’s echinacea flower:

Happy first long weekend of the summer! Let’s hope we get some sun and hot weather. I’m not sure where you live, but we’ve had plenty of overcast and cloudy days around these parts.

Cynthia has been a busy bee! Our calendars are ready to go and free for the taking. Feel free to download them and share them with your buddies. For this month, I present the blurry, but very mid-summer night’s dreamy (that’s Cynthia’s description. I love it.) stars and bokeh photo for you.

If you like to “put a bird on it” and love Cynthia’s quaintings and super cool crafty style, you can enjoy the golden egg calendar all month long…

I love the way she combines her illustrations, her sewing prowess and her painting in one amazing craft.

If you’re totally ready for summer, Scout’s pool photo is pretty awesome – very cool and soothing.

We’re all set for the month of June now. And dare I say summer? For some of us, we’ve not quite hit spring, but we’re working on it.

The first two weeks of June will be focused on the Canucks winning the Stanley Cup, so I’ll be busy tonight getting Mike’s and my Canucks jerseys ready for work tomorrow. Yup. We’re sporting our jerseys on the same day. We’ve never done this before, but this is a special occasion. We’ll be twinsies.

Photos to follow…:-)

May calendars! Free desktop calendars for you. May I suggest some of that pink, kinda stale, but still delicious pink popcorn? You know the stuff – it’s chewy circus popcorn.

or, if you’re the crafty type and you’re going to be at Got Craft on Mother’s Day in Vancouver, you probably want want to download Cynthia’s pretty hexagon mug rugs. Adorable! Look at the heart stitching in the middle.

Just FYI – these mug rugs will be on sale at that craft fair. Cynthia’s been sewing and sewing and sewing for weeks getting ready for this craft fair.

Or, if you’ve got a little hankering for a giant ball of water, choose Scout’s calendar.

Please download and enjoy all month long!