Fantastic Day

Today, I took the boys out for the morning to get out of Paul's hair.

(In praise of Paul: Thursday, he took off of work so I could spend most of the day at church doing planning for the coming year. How great is my husband?! And, Wednesday was our ninth anniversary, and he surprised me with a stunning gold necklace with pearl drops. Is this man great, or what?! I credit his jewelry shopping ability to genetics: His dad is an expert jewelry shopper!!!)

Anyhoo, back to our day.

The boys and I headed out around 8:45 this morning so Daddy could sleep in. We headed over to Benny's Bagels for breakfast. Yum-O! Mitchell had a Danish, Noah had a Screamerdog (breakfast sausage and cheese wrapped in bagel and baked), and I had an Asiago cheese bagel with chive-and-onion cream cheese topped with spinach and tomato. OMG. I could eat that every day and be a very, very happy woman!

Then, we headed down to the Pearl Farmers Market for some shopping. We scored with beets (never tried 'em - branching out!), carrots, mini yellow squash, peaches, pecans, olive twists from Biga on the Banks plus some sunflower plants. And, the plant guy was so nice he gave me a daylily plant as an added bonus.

The Pearl - quickly growing into a cultural hot spot in San Antonio.

We hung out around the Pearl Brewery and listened to some brewery retirees talk about the old days. Pearl has a special place in my heart: My PawPaw drank Pearl. It was one of the last beers to go to the pop top. The boys were more interested in the water feature and the brewery train (which the guys called "The Trolley") than their stories of a time gone by.

Pearl retirees telling stories of working at the brewery.

I, for one, couldn't think of a better way to spend my Saturday morning than spooking around the brewery, with all its history and its present and future ... all rolled into one today. Next weekend, the grand opening of the River Walk expansion will be held. Guess where it takes you now? The Pearl.

Longhorn artwork at The Pearl.

After we left The Pearl, we headed over to Fiesta on Main, one of my favorite local shops. I picked up some great embroidered shirts plus a skirt. The boys each picked out a little bag.

Inspired by the fantastic flowers at Fiesta, I came home and began working on my own paper flowers.

What a wonderful day!

Now Working: Paper Flowers

Future Gold Medalist

Mitchell goes to gymnastics every Tuesday morning and loves it!

Help with the Back Flip.

Perfecting his hand stand.

Forward roll.

Ta Da!

Viva Fiesta! Barrette

Here's my first completed project using my vintage flower loom. I've decided to call them the Viva Fiesta! Barrettes. They remind me of fun and summmer and, of course, Fiesta!

I made the flower using lime green and hot pink raffia, then attached it to a snap clip. Wrapping the clip in hot pink made for a nice finish, I think. I'm going to make up a few more and add them to my Etsy shop. (I also have turquoise raffia, so I can make a few different combos.)

New Toys: Vintage Flower Looms

They say that everything old is new again, and flower looming is no exception. This craft reached its heyday in the '60s and '70s, and thanks to craftinista Cathy of California, it's back in a big way! Cathy even taught Martha Stewart how to create flowers the other day!

Here's my flower loom kit plus two projects I played with yesterday. I used gift-wrap ribbon (aka, curly ribbon). I can tell you, it's a tedious task to loom a flower. With practice, though, I'm sure it will be lots of fun!

Here's a detail of the two flowers I loomed yesterday with gift-wrap ribbon. The purple one on the left was done on the larger pegs on the large square loom. I wrapped the ribbon 3-5 times around each peg then knotted it off in the middle. Once I removed it from the loom, I split the ribbons down the middle and then cut the loops to make a really pretty chrysanthemum.

The flower on the right was done on the double circular loom. I used lime green for the outside petals and turquoise for the inside. I backstitched around the center, like the instruction manual suggested.

I left long tails of ribbon on both of these so I can use them on gift packages. Bags of goodies have never looked so good!

(BTW: If you'd like a vintage flower loom set of your own, you can purchase it from Cathy's etsy shop.)