A BeauTiful ThaNk-You & CooKies with TeA !

Awhile back I found a lady online who makes beautiful altered art wonders. Her name is Kecia Deveney and she has a natural talent for creating things out of found objects, turning them into delicious shabby fun elegant ( and even Steampunk ) treasures, from necklaces to paintings to dollies with whimsical dressings !

You must, must, must check out her links - 2 fab. shops and 2 blogs:

-Etsy shop
'Lemoncholy's'
-Lovely blog
Lemoncholy's Flight of Fancy ( she's also posted her Facebook link )
-Her fab. shop of gorgeous eye candy for the body and soul
Lemoncholy's Studio
-Her other blog where you can find out about upcoming flea markets and other fun flea market delights:
Flea Market Junkture ( Kecia LOVES flea markets ! )

Kecia also teaches classes. If I were anywhere near her I would be one of the first to sign up !

We are friends on Facebook and I'm always looking forward to reading up on her latest finds and makings.
She had posted a picture of some found beach glass and so I decided to send her some of the beach glass my birth-grandmother had collected over 30 years ! Of course the parcel ended up getting stuffed with other wee fun finds too, couldn't help myself it was so much fun :)

As a thank-you to me, Kecia created a necklace using one of the pieces of beach glass I sent her. When it arrived I was so excited and thrilled at how lovely it was --and how much it means to me to be wearing something my birth-grandmother found with her hands ( she passed last year. I feel very lucky to have had the chance to meet her, if only twice and for a few short hours ).

The necklace came 'packaged' inside a most unique piece of art. It is so much like a mini quilt with wonderful stitching, lace, various fabrics and a sweet image of a child. I just love it and will proudly hang it in my art room, on the wall by my tv, so every time I look up it will always be in my line of sight :)

Thank-you Kecia for your beautiful treasures and for bringing joy to so many.

Isn't this necklace beautifully elegant ?
The child is part of a pocket sewn onto the 'quilt' piece, inside which was the necklace. Love the thoughtful details, such a delight
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After receiving Kecia's treasures I then popped onto Facebook to see any new updates. Another of my FB friends had spent the day baking a load of mouthwatering goodies.

Since it was raining today I too decided to bake something, something in which I could sprinkle some tea leaves !

I have well over 50 varieties of tea, in fact, I have my very own tea cupboard in the kitchen. It's stocked with boxes and bags of tea and all my tea accoutrements.

So, I decided to make whipped shortbread...an easy dough with few ingredients (butter,flour,icing sugar). I then divided the dough and in one portion I mixed the loose tea from 2 bags of Stash's Double Spice Chai & added a wee bit of cinnamon. In the other batch I added 2 bags of Stash's Earl Grey Green tea, some Formosa Jasmine and a handful of leftover milk chocolate chips. Yeh, I was feeling kindof adventurous lol ! Too impatient to let them sit in the fridge, I chose to make them drop cookies instead....

After approx. 13 minutes in the oven, they came out like this:

And after several bites, we decided the Earl Grey Formosa ones were the better tasting. The chai cookies were okay too but they left a wee bit of a bitter aftertaste. Maybe next time I'll bake some with freshly brewed tea leaves ?

That's it for today. Now if you'll excuse me, I have a lovely new treasure to hang on my art room wall ( I'm wearing the necklace, had to put it on asap ! )...and then I'm grabbing a plate of cookies, some tea and my book for a few good minutes of quiet time.

Tracy ♥

Beach glass and other romantic findings

Isn't this glass just gorgeous ! And this is just a 'sample' too ! My grandmother used to be an avid collector of beach glass, wandering the beaches on Dallas Rd. and picking up whatever caught her eye. I was told she has 30 years worth of glass and there are even more bigger buckets at her home !
*Fyi, my grandmother is my birthfathers mom. She carves dolls, does asian and regular painting, a very creative and wonderful person. She's even glued bits of the beach glass to the outside of her 'glitter home' --one of those 1950s homes that have outside walls of little rocks that glitter ( getting more rare to find ).
But now she is in a care home and she does have some of her treasures with her, thank goodness. What I would like to do is fill a plastic jar with some of her beach glass so she can play with it whenever the mood strikes. I may also fill a pretty glass bottle with some too and add water to give the glass a soft effect, something she can put on her window ledge and would look lovely with the light shining through.





My new birth family is full of artistic folk and I'm happy to be one of those artistic types too :) It seems many of us have the magpie syndrome where we just have to collect things, whether from the beach, ground, forest, if it catches our eye then we swoop it up.
Here is a small sampling of some of the treasures I've found over the past years. Much of the larger china pieces and a few larger glass bits were found under the bushes in a dirt pile on a beach just down the road from us. I believe there was once a farmhouse on the cliff and when it was taken down 'they' simply pushed a lot of the leftovers over the edge. Somewhere I also have a few old porcelain spark plugs and more china/glass bits. Over the years the dirt covered it up and every now and again the rain brings some of these lovely treasures back to light.
Last time I was there was last summer, so I've got to get back there soon ! This time I'll wear gloves and bring something proper to dig with ( small trowel ), because sticks don't quite work. It's also great that you're partially hidden so no one else can really see what you're doing :)
The only thing I don't enjoy about finding these treasures: I want to use them in my art and then list in my Etsy shop, but another part of me is reluctant to sell them. Sigh.