Dreaming of carousel horses and the wind in my hair

An excited kid sitting atop a carousel horse

With the wind in my hair...

It was my steed

And we were racing bravely 

Through the wild fields

Of places far away

Snip and snails and... dragonfly tails. That's what little boys are made of (and some girls too)

I was sitting on my brother's couch when my 11-year-old nephew sidled up beside me. Calmly he said, "I found something really cool floating in the swimming pool... but you may not think it's cool..." his voice trailed off a bit.

"Really?" I asked with all sincerity. He had my full attention. Rarely does he deem anything as "cool" let alone "really cool", and I know if he does, it almost always involves some sort of wildlife (a boy after my own heart).

"What is it?" I asked inquisitively.

"I found a dragonfly floating in the deep end of the pool. It's this big," he indicated with his fingers a large find.

"Is it still alive?" I asked.

"Maybe... I don't know... probably not..." he replied.

"What color is it?" I was thoroughly intrigued both in the dragonfly he had found and the fact that this normally unassuming, quiet, and cerebral boy had initiated the conversation with me instead of the other way around.

"He's kinda brown," his eyes twinkled with the delight of a boy who has found someone who loves bugs as much as he does.

"Where is it? Your dragonfly is going to be the first thing I photography with something new I got!" I was already headed to my tote bag in the hall and talking over my shoulder.

It was he who was intrigued now. He followed me to my bag as I extracted my latest fun acquisition still in the unopened package. I had thrown it in "just in case" and, at this moment, I was so glad I did.

I showed him as I unpackaged it (dropping my iPhone in the process--good thing it was in a case) and explained, "This is an Olloclip. It clips onto my iPhone so I can take close-up macro photos of things that are small. I want to try it out on the dragonfly you found!"

I clipped the lens onto the corner of my iPhone over the top of the built-in lens, and he led me to the dragonfly that had been carefully and lovingly laid out on a paper towel by his mom (my sister) in a shoebox to make a safe journey home with them later in the day.

He stood and watched as I gingerly dragged the paper towel to get the perfect indirect light from the kitchen window and began shooting. I was amazed at the details I was catching--details my eyes couldn't see. We both ooo'ed and aah'ed with each capture. Pretty soon we had an audience as other family members wanted to know what all the excitement by the kitchen sink was about.

After I felt like I'd captured every angle, the dragonfly was placed reverently back into its shoebox. Neither he nor I were happy about the dragonfly's demise. We never said it, but we both knew the other was thinking it. Also unspoken, was the sentiment that somehow by appreciating the beauty of this fascinating creature and honoring it through careful study, it's untimely death wouldn't have been in vain.

We stood afterwards and carefully reviewed on the iPhone what the macro lens had seen that we could not--the tiny perfect serration on each wing-edge and the luminescent panes of gossamer film. It is moments like this that remind me to strive to always see the world the way a child sees it.

I am not affiliated with the company that produces the Olloclip or Apple that produces the iPhone. 
I was not compensated for anything written in this post in products, services or monetary funds.
I simply wrote about them because they are cool.

There's the idea of the magic of a white Christmas and then there's the reality

I will readily admit it. When it comes to snow I'm a total wimp. I hate it. No... loathe would be a better word. 

Snow sounds very good in theory. The thought of a white Christmas seems so magical. Maybe if I could have snow on just Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (snow that didn't kill all my sub-tropical plants in the garden), I'd like it. But once Christmas was done, I'd want someone to come and roll it all up and take it away, giving me back the mild climate I've grown to love here in the San Francisco Bay Area.

If I really want to see snow, I only have to drive about 3 hours and I'll be in the winter wonderland of the high Sierra Nevada mountains where snow bunnies and snowboarders flock to ski slopes throughout the colder half of the year. Sometimes, even our own mountain and hills are capped in lovely white so that when I crest the hill on the road that takes me out of our little niche, I see a majestic white peak dominating the panoramic scene before me.

But I don't want snow anywhere near me or my garden.

I tell people that I did my time.

Years of my childhood were spent in the harsh cold that envelopes the Rocky Mountains. At well above a mile high in elevation (almost 8,500 ft to be exact) snow could come as early as September and as late as June. I walked to and from the school bus stop in it for a half mile every school day as a little girl. I spent several Easter Sundays hunkered down inside as a blizzard raged outside keeping our family home from church. I spent many nights with my family huddled around a fireplace burning kerosene lanterns because the power was out from downed power lines due to heavy snow. As a little girl I read Laura Ingalls' book "Little House in the Big Woods" for the first time and could relate very well. Snow was real. It wasn't magical. It was a harsh reality for 9 months out of the year.

Yes... I did my time in the snow. I am not wistful for the proverbial white Christmas. I'll take the foggy Christmases of the Bay Area any day.

The history of my love of greeting cards and stationery

Did you know that I have birthday cards from my first birthday? No kidding. I've loved them all these mumble-ty-mumble years. I have my birthday cards from just about every childhood birthday. They are all neatly mounted in a scrapbook on my shelf here in the studio. I take them out periodically to look at them.

Sounds weird? It's par for the course with me. Let me explain...

My parents got a super 8mm movie camera a few months before I was born, so all my first milestones (as well as my siblings firsts) were recorded on film. My mom painstakingly went through and spliced together our films along the way so we had long reels to watch whenever us kids could get her to drag out the projector for family night.

One of those home movies shows me on my first Christmas when I could open presents myself. The scene goes like this... I open a card that's attached to a present and am mesmerized by it. I can't read, but I pretend I can. I turn it over and over in my hands looking at every side of the folded card. From off camera, my mom steps in and coaxes me to open the still wrapped present sitting next to me on the floor. I open the gift, discover a beautiful handmade terry cloth robe with shiny satin turquoise trim. I throw the robe aside on the floor. I dig around in the tissue paper to see what else is there. Then I rummage around in the pile of wrapping paper, tissue paper and clothing box to find my greeting card again and resume "reading" it as I was doing before I was so "rudely" interrupted by the mundane task of opening presents. *harumph*

See?!?! I've always loved greeting cards! Any stationery really.

I eventually warmed up to the robe...

... See! I'm wearing it as I'm delirious
with excitement over drawing
with colored pencils (okay...
I just blinked, that's all)

My Grammy used to handwrite letters to me from the time I was toddler. She had a wonderful assortment of kiddy-friendly stationery she wrote on. I loved those stationery designs. As soon as I could write, I wanted my own assortment of stationery so I could write letters too. Sometimes I loved the art on the stationery so much that it made me ache inside to write on it and send it away.

Yeah, I'm a dyed-in-the-wool stationery lover.

I guess it stands to reason that I would end up designing stationery as an adult. You're probably thinking, "Yeah! That would be no brainer!" But it took me a while to come to that conclusion on my own. Now that I have, I feel like I've come "home".

I launched my new Etsy shop this last week, Rosehaven Cottage Stationers Fine Printables at www.RosehavenCottagePrintables.com. I've launched a line of professionally personalized print-your-own invitations (and other stationery). If you want to read how it works click here.

I've been having so much fun adding new designs. Some I've had in the back of my head for a while, but others are inspired by people that ask about a specific type of design they've been looking for. I LOVE when people give me special requests. That's all I need to get a creative spark and I'm off and creating! Keep those suggestions coming!

The new watermark I designed for www.RosehavenCottagePrintables.com