walking and loving

i am back, safe & sound, exhausted, drained and in love with london all over again. the first time i visited this amazing city was in my early 20's. i was there for 5 weeks and visited every tourist spot in existence. this time around, i really wanted to experience the city by walking and getting lost. looking with my eyes, not necessarily through a camera lens. my plan turned out better than i thought when one of my traveling partners discovered her camera was broken. jessica is the face behind peachtree photography and i was all too happy to lend her my camera - her beautiful visions on my memory card, it couldn't get any better.

graffiti off the beaten path of brick lane. this eclectic area was by far my favorite experience of the trip. basement antique/thrift stores, vintage clothing, craft vendor stalls. a little bit of my home abroad.

art everywhere.

lovely house in notting hill. within the city limits, there is very little personal green space. the small garden vignettes you pass by are so amazingly beautiful, and make you realize that you don't need a lot to have beauty. as americans, we are constantly being drilled with the notion that bigger is better. when you travel abroad, you realize how completely misled this thinking is.

glass goblets that i fell in love with.

a bit strange taking photos of someones knickers, i know, but this was such a completely european moment, we couldn't pass it by.

gorgeous chandeliers at portobello market. and yes, it was very difficult for me not to pack every one of these up and buy a return flight home for them!

british royal academy.

macaroons at a fancy corner bakery by the royal academy.

pocket watches in notting hill.

installation artwork outside the waterloo station (i think). made of paper shipping cartons.

jessica and i on the millenium bridge on our last day.
(thanks to the nice guy taking our photo, much appreciated!)

atlanta to london and back again

i'm headed off on a much anticipated mini vacation or should i say holiday! i'll be in london for a few days which means this blog will be hibernating. i will make sure to come back loaded with lots of photos and stories. see you soon :)

any thoughts on the first tourist attraction i am going to hit?

come and gone

that's me at the 32nd? annual shakerag festival. definitely a little soggier than when i started thanks to a downpour that lasted the entire first day. living in atlanta, you can usually count on rain only lasting for a few short hours. just about the time you get into comfortable clothes and settle into a good rainy day movie, the sun is back out again. this was however not the case for saturday. when i say it rained, IT POURED. we donned poncho/tarps and waited out the sun which never came. thankfully some people were still out shopping which made the day not a total wash. the weather sunday morning promised more of the same, but thankfully it cleared up mid morning and the sun finally started shining. which meant i could finally lower the rain flaps on my tent that you can see in the bottom of the photo above. even though sales were so-so, i had a great time hanging out with old friends and new.
jennifer was there from The Funky Shack. she does amazing wire work and is a must see if you have an upcoming wedding.
although not the best photo, my gals jessica (sorry for the cut off shot :) from Peachtree Photography and jodie from Jodie Mo Bags were on hand with gorgeous pillowcase dresses and various handmade bags.
i discovered a new friend in the fabulous Jenni Horne. her artwork and style are stunning and i knew we would be fast friends when she confided in me that she matched her outfit to her booth on festival days. this is a little thing that i have done from the beginning, but have never spoken out loud for fear of being made fun of!
kerri from Two Bee Kisses had the booth across from mine. this was her debut show and she did wonderfully. her custom frames are beautiful and very creative.
and last but not least, my partner in festival crime, JoyaJewelry. i realized when i got home that i never took a photo of joy in her booth. but it really wasn't my fault, her booth is grand central station at this show and i didn't want to disrupt the crowds!

so that is how my weekend was spent. what about yours? did you do anything creative?

festivals and shakerag

it's festival time again! i will be at the shakerag arts and crafts festival in peachtree city, ga this weekend, booth - 138, right in the middle of all the action. i did this show for the first time last year and loved it. it is set amongst trees and has such wonderful artists. which usually means that i spend a lot of my profits! hopefully this year, the ponies will not be located directly behind me and i won't be sneezing up a storm (don't ask!)

if you are looking for something to do with the whole family, you should definitely stop by. can you say funnel cake!

names and history

i often get asked "where does the name of your company come from". so if you have ever wondered, here's the story...

i have always had an entrepreneurial crafting spirit in me, the problem is that i am never focused on one particular craft for very long. about 6 years ago, i embarked on a children's stationery company which specialized in party invitations, baby shower invites, etc. i wrote down any and every name for a business i could conjure up in my head, but nothing stuck. every name was either too cutesy, too hard to spell, or too specific to stationery. if you haven't ever had to do so, know that naming a company is probably one of the hardest things to do. EVER.

then one day, i was paying bills and looked down at my return address and it hit me to name my company after the street i lived on. 1729 Linwood Avenue was the first house my husband and i purchased together. it was built in 1924 and we put our blood sweat and tears into renovating it. it housed us during the birth of our marriage and the birth of our two boys, so why not have the birth of my business centered around it.

even though my products have grown from custom stationery to lamps and other items, one thing sticks - what i create is for your home, which makes Linwood Avenue the perfect "umbrella" company name. plus, from day one i have thought the words/logo would make a perfect store masthead. (on my day dream wish list, owning a store to showcase my creations is pretty much on the top of the list. although i don't want to work on saturdays. something tells me i might have a problem there!)

linwood avenue and savannah

i'm back! not just on the internet, but mentally as well. i feel like i have traveled more this summer than i have for the past 10 years and it has been so rejuvenating. for the holiday weekend, we packed up the kids and drove to savannah, georgia for one last summer hurrah. i have been here many times before and the city never loses its charm. it seems like time passes more slowly by the water and that was something i needed - just a few days to relax and soak the sun in.

whenever i am in savannah, i visit one particular antique store which i can never remember the name of, but it is on the far left side on top of river street. 10 years ago, i saw a glass hand glove mold i loved, but for some reason i didn't buy it. so when i went back 5 years ago, they still had it and now it is in my possession. during that visit, i ran across old street signs and even though there was one that said Linwood Avenue, i passed it up. so, on this visit, i went directly to the section that housed the signs and lucky me, they still had the Linwood Avenue one. i mean, how could i pass it up again, it is my company name after all! i guess it is lucky for me that the store doesn't move their inventory very quickly :)

now off to hang the sign on my office door!