Your Weekend

Chattahoochee River/Columbus, GA

My friends, what are your plans this weekend? Getting into anything fun? Josh and I will be going and doing our Saturday market in Columbus, GA and hopefully getting in a nice relaxing bike ride on the river walk after we finish. I'm so excited to relax for a moment, it doesn't seem like I get much of that these days!

Whatever you may get into I hope you have a blast and a nice relaxing weekend. Don't forget to join me next week as I unveil our new website!

(Image via here)

A Tiny Victorian Cottage

Tiny Victorian Cottage [via The New York Times "Home&Garden"]

 How perfect is this lil' cottage? It just looks like the most perfect place to take a nap, read, relax or just to collect yourself for a moment.

Sandra Foster turned this hunting cabin into the romantic cottage she had always wanted, doing everything herself, down to the carpentry work. It's only accessible by crossing stones over a little stream. How inspiring!

Glasses Trend

howhipsterofyou.com

They say ( who 'they' are is still unknown) that tan glasses are the new big thing and the dark rimmed glasses like these are out. What do you say? A fan of the newest glasses trend or still trying to get used to the oversized nerdy glasses as a whole?

Just do me a favor and skip the horn-rimmed glasses with your evening dress ( like this). Yuck.

Wants.

This pretty mirror.

Tea towel (Etsy.com)

Fox Ring (Etsy.com)

Want. Want them bad. 

P.S. Head on over to Amy's blog (found HERE) for a chance to win one of my prints! Contest ends July 29th.

One more teaser {why not, right?}

I know you're supposed to wait until everything is ready to start sharing, but I've never been one for patience. I'm just so exicited I want to scream it to the world!

So for today's post I just I thought I'd share another newly photographed painting. Okay, now MUST stop or you're not going to be surprised anymore :)

New painting {a teaser!}

I'm thisclose to having my new website done and can't WAIT to show it off! Just wanted to give you a little teaser of one of my newest paintings titled Veracruz.

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Our mined sapphires {wanna see?}

I was finally able to sit still enough to get some good pics of the sapphires that we mined a few months ago. How pretty are these babies?! We found around 100 carats and have many more that we can get cut. I wanted to see the lapidary's work before I got the rest done (see the leftover rough sapphires in the background of the top pic). As I thought, they turned out AH-MAZING! They're all around .5 carats and two of the oval cuts are about .75 carats.

If you are ever in the Franklin, NC area, I suggest going to Mason's Sapphire and Ruby Mine. I PROMISE that you will NOT be disappointed! The staff is very knowledgeable and helpful and you WILL leave with stones that you can have cut yourself. The area mainly produces pink and purple sapphires, which I just think are beautiful. We had the Cowee Valley Lapidary cut them; they know exactly how to handle these types of sapphires and know how to cut them to perfection.

I'm so excited to show these off and to be able to say WE found them!

Travel wish

Instead of going to work today, I'm wishing I was swimming with the manatees in a beautiful foreign country. Oh how I wish! :)

Remember me telling you about Josh and my trip to mine gemstones? I just got six of them back that I had cut and I can't wait to show you, they're GORGEOUS! I'll be sure to post pics next week.

Happy Friday friends!

(image via here)

I Married Adventure

I Married Adventure, The Perfume (oprah.com)

I saw the book, I Married Adventure by Osa Johnson, popping up in almost every interior design blog and magazine a few years ago. Mesmerized by the couples amazing love story and the beautiful vintage zebra cover, I knew I had to have one. I was finally able to track down the original 1940's version at a bookstore in North Carolina that was going out of business for a mere $8. I love this book so much, in fact, that I've decided to use it in my vignettes for my paintings on the new website.

Oprah has featured it in her June 2010 issue and since then there has been a Kate Spade purse, a perfume and even a movie coming out! It's so funny to me how things like this come about, I bet Martin and Osa would be so happy about their books new-found cult following!

Splash of summer color

Nordstrom.com

Isn't this dress just to die for? I'm loving the thick brushstroke pattern. It reminds me of some of the paintings I've been working on lately.

What are your plans this weekend? Josh and I are going camping at the river where he teaches kayaking classes for Auburn University. I'm excited to get out from behind the computer where I've been for the past month.

I hope you have a fun-filled weekend everyone!