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 ♥

A day in the sun

It's been quite hot here and the last couple of days were spent being rather lazy and useless. So today I had to escape the house !
It took awhile for our son and I to get motivated, the heat really sucks the life out of a person. Even my husband Jacques, who is usually always busy, was stuck to the recliner for a couple of hours.

So we headed to Mystic Vale, a lovely wee sanctuary located next to UVic --University of Victoria. It's also right next to some farm-type land the university uses, and is a fantastic place for bringing dogs ! We had several greetings from quite a variety --boxers, labs, scraggly fluffy ones, a hunting dog. We can't wait for the day when we can finally get a dog !
Then it was on to the vale, a nice place to get away from the heat, even though it was still fairly warm among all the trees.
It wasn't a long walk, enough to get the heart pumping a bit, but we didn't really notice our hearts because we were enjoying the scenery. Here's a small sampling of the place:

Oh, first is a pic. showing what I had for breakfast. Every now and again I like to do some green juicing, today it was a mix of spinach, broccoli coleslaw and a carrot mixed with some apple juice, yum !! Then I had an avacado. Not your typical breakfast but it helped to make me feel more alive.

After our walk we decided to take a drive downtown ( Victoria B.C. ). I took several shots but didn't want to clog up my blog with too many. This shot shows the Empress Hotel , a very popular and well loved hotel looking over the very popular and busy waterfront. Many a busker has entertained many a tourist on that waterfront, it makes for a fun evening wandering the area and taking in all the sounds. Plus there are plenty of wonderful restaurants nearby, along with the wax museum, Parliament buildings ( or legislative buildings is the proper name but has gone by Parliament for so many years ) and Royal B.C. Museum.

After our drive we headed to Dragon Alley in Chinatown for a bubble tea, and then off home. I ended up with a bit of a headache, too much sun maybe ? But right now it's almost 10 p.m. and I'm feeling fine and very relaxed.

Looking forward to tomorrow evening ! We live about a 5 minute drive from the popular Butchart Gardens , and every Sat. eve. in July they put on a fabulous fireworks display with music. Our area is close enough that we will be able to hear the music and possibly see the higher fireworks, woohoo ! It will be our first time enjoying this. Wish I could take pics. for you, I'll try to catch one of the fireworks.

Tracy ♥