Tinsel Trading Co....

oh how I love you!! All your magical metal trims and sweet laces...makes a girl swoon at the thought of crossing your threshold!

Some of the treasures I was able to bring home with me. These are a beautiful heavy, metal trim.

Can't wait to get busy and use these antiques.

New at the Lazy K House

Wow it feels good to be finally finished with my wholesale orders!! These guys are available at the Lazy K House in Lafayette, Ca.

Check back on Monday for pictures of my trip to NY AND pictures of Tinsel Trading Co. all dressed up for Christmas

New York ~ New York!!

Ok so I am FINALLY getting this post done...way too late but hey...it's the holidays!! So I loaded my pictures in backwards...but instead of trying to move them all around ... we will just go with it.

First of all we had a great trip despite the freezing cold temperatures, the rain, the Broadway writers strike (so much for those 3rd row seats for Spamalot), and Serendipity was closed for the week (who needs frozen hot chocolates anyway). We had amazing weather for the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade though! And we did almost all of our "touristy" things we wanted to do.

Normally, Mike and I sleep in and get moving around 11 when we are in New York. We get dressed and just start walking and where we end up is where we end up. This trip was definately planned out as we grouped things we wanted to do based on where they were located. The boys did a fabulous job maneuvering the subway system with us and they quickly learned to walk on the right side of the sidewalk, don't stop, pay attention to the lights and traffic cuz those taxi cabs are alot bigger than they are!!


As I said, my pictures are backwards so I took this Thanksgiving morning. The lights were finally on the tree and they took the scaffolding down. This tree is so amazingly humongous!! You see it on tv and all but you gotta see it in real life to really appreciate the size of it.

Some pictures from the Macy's parade.

Gotta love Scooby!

Visiting the Hershey's shop in Times Square. If you know Shane you would understand this picture. This is a regular event in my house except the bottle is not quite as big!

With New Yorks finest!

Our carriage ride thru Central Park

This was so much fun...we went to see the parade balloons being blown up the evening before the parade. I would definately recommend doing this. The boys loved seeing the balloons up close. Heck...so did I!

The bigger balloons they cover with netting and then sandbag the edges of the netting to hold the balloon down. You can get an idea of the size with the boys standing in front of Shrek's head. He was huge!

Mr. Potato Head coming to life.

Ice skating in Rockefeller Center

Here is the tree as they were putting the lights on it. See the little guy at the top?

Since we weren't able to see Spamalot we were able to snag tickets to see The Blue Man Group. I wasn't really that interested in seeing them but we heard they were funny and the boys were so disappointed they weren't seeing Spamalot so we took the plunge. It was HILARIOUS!! If you ever have the opportunity to see this show...do it!

Ellis Island

We circled the Statue of Liberty but because it was so windy and cold we decided not to get off. The Statue was locked up tight and you could only tour the grounds. This was the day it was snowing in New Jersey and it was about 30degrees where we were. Oh and did I mention the wind?

Museum of Natural History

M & M store!!

ESPN Zone. I have never seen anything like this. This is a huge framed picture of Babe Ruth and if you look at it you can see the whole picture is made from Baseball cards.

Lunch in Little Italy

Yes, we even did the double deck tour bus ride. We could barely stand the cold up top but we were troopers!

We did do lots of other fun stuff but these are some of the highlights.

Check back on Wednesday for my pictures of Tinsel Trading Co. all decked out for Christmas!!

Have Pillow...Will Travel...

No really...the heading should say...have Pillow...can travel!! I can sleep when it's cold, hot, the bed is hard or soft...as long as I have my pillow. And my pillow isn't anything special...except for the fact that it's mine. So...it was a bit of a hard decision last monday when I realized before my return trip from Silver Bella that my pillow would not fit in my suitcase. I could leave out the vintage papier mache pumpkins I bought...or the tons of fabulous paper or paper cutter...hhhhmmm .... decisions decisions...nope...pillow stays. Phew...good thing I have another one at home!!

So...packing the bags and once again I'm leavin' on a jet plane...remember that song??? Oh my I'm probably dating myself.

Headed to NY for a week of touristy stuff. Taking the whole gang and we are really looking forward to it.

Keep your fingers crossed that they settle the stage hands strike...we have theatre tickets for Sunday night!!

Funny thing tonight... I really realized the weather difference between East Coast and West Coast. While packing my 9 year old I say to him...pull out a nice long sleeve shirt. So he rummages thru everything hanging in his closet and he says to me "I have this fuzzy one"....hhhhm I think...I turn and he has pulled out a sweater!! Poor kid didn't even know what a sweater was. It's shorts 11 months out of the year here. Jacket??? Don't own one...we had to go buy them.

Can't wait to experience some cold weather!!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!

my ~ O ~ my

What a weekend!! Silver Bella is just a memory now ...but one I will never~ ever forget. I had so much fun!!!! I made new friends that I absolutely adore. I made glittery art that I will hang in my house to remind me of our times. I made so many wonderful memories...

Here are just a few

Shopping our first night in Omaha at Second Chance Antiques. Every nook and cranny in this place was filled with treasures. Old photos, clothing, hats, laces, buttons, jewelry...you name it...they had it!

Spending free time shopping in downtown Old Town. Beautiful old brick buildings, sweet little shops on every corner and this gorgeous horse drawn carriage making its way thru the streets.

And yes...my favorite part of this trip...sitting in the bar each evening, making new friends and getting to know existing ones even better. We shared stories and art, we brought Joel in as one of us and we laughed until we cried. Did you know that cows make goat cheese???

Amy, Lonnie, Iva, me, Joel and Pink Lorraine

A kit for one of the classes that I took. So many goodies all packaged together beautifully.

My little project in the works.

Iva, Lonnie and myself. Lonnie is our new BFF. She's an amazing gal from Tillamook Oregon. She's 41 (can I write that?), has 6 kids, owns a dairy farm, a clothing store, a mail order cheese business and her daughter owns a restaurant...and she is an artist...yet I'm not quite sure when she finds the time!! Whew...makes me tired just writing it all!

Iva, Jennifer Paganelli, myself and Lonnie. Lonnie, Iva and I took a class from Jennifer. Jennifer is such a lovely, down to earth, wonderful soul. I liked her immediately and later that day I was so lucky to have my vendor table right next to hers. I got to chat with her all evening. I wish she didn't live so far away.

Our work table in Charlotte Lyon's collage class.

Myself, Iva and Charlotte.

Lonnie, Jenny & Aaron and myself. Jenny and Aaron arrived at Silver Bella late due to a little airport mishap. They had to rent a car in Detroit and they DROVE all the way too Omaha. Eleven hours later...they were tired!! They finally woke up and joined the Silver Bella girls at the luncheon. Everyone was so happy to see them!

Country Living joined Silver Bella!! These gals answered questions during our luncheon. Bella's asked questions like...what does Country Living represent? How do they pick story lines? How many people read Country Living, etc.

And the magical Teresa McFayden. Teresa IS Silver Bella. She is the brains and the braun behind the whole production. This was a flawless weekend and I cannot even begin to imagine how many hours she put into making it so great.

The fabulous Kerry Lynn Yeary!! We met her on the plane on the way to Omaha! Love that skirt!!

This work stopped me in my tracks at vendor night. Sooooo whimsical and different. You can see more of her work at Julie Haymaker.

How fun is this?!?

Iva, Lonnie and myself at vendor night. The theme for dress was Junk Gypsy and some gals had some really great outfits...we kinda tamed it down a bit...

So here are some of my offerings at vendor night. Thanks to everyone who stopped by...

I came home with a couple of leftovers. Go to my Pieces Available site to see!

For more Silver Bella pictures...hop on over to these blogs...

Jillybean, Kim Kwan, jessi, artsy mamma, cindy

Till next year...