Monarch Post

Fair Trade Friday giveaway! *Jot a Thought Journals*

 

{Fair Trade: "A system of trading promoting more equitable global trade, especially to sellers and producers in poorer areas, but also to the environment."}

Hi there! Today is the last Friday of the month and that means it's time for a giveaway.

I had a tought time deciding on what lovely handcrafted item to feature today-- the more I look, the more wonderful fair trade handmade items I find on the internet!

But I finally decided on these pretty journals-- don't they look like just the thing to take on a summer vacation or write gardening notes in? I thought so too :)

Here's the product description:

Trendy, small sized journals to carry your thoughts. A hard bound, compact book to write notes, reminders, etc. Handmade and hand blocked by artisans in India. Colors and patterns vary.

They're totally tree friendly too-- the "paper pages" are made from recycled cotton rags. How cool is that? They measure 4"X6" and have 48 pages.

Here's the story on how the journals are made:

"Artisans in Jaipur, in the state of Rajasthan, India, make these journals using traditional skills. Fair Trade has opened international markets where these artisans can sell their work and be compensated fairly for it. It encourages the knowledge of making paper by hand to be passed on to the new generations, and provides sustainable jobs to many families."

 I'll leave the giveaway open till Wednesday, June 2nd @ 2:00 pm MST.

Please leave a comment to enter to win-- tell your friends too -K-? 

Happy Memorial day weekend to you, my friends! xoKelly

keeping up appearances

I'm just popping in to let you know the dumb blonde who owns this blog can't seem to find her camera.

Drats.

But do pop round on Friday, will you my dears? It's time again for a another wonderful "Fair Trade Friday". If you haven't hear yet, it's a giveaway featuring something handmade from talented craftswomen from around the world. Global handmade goodness indeed!

Well, off to walk my corgis and go inspect the guards-- have a looovely day! (Do tell Kelly to get her head screwed on straight in the meantime, will you?)

(Fabulous art made from plastic junk titled, "The Queen-- made in China" by UK artist, Jane Perkins. Can you believe this piece. Amazing!)

sweet morning

I went for my favorite walk early this morning. After days and days of rain, it is pure green lushness everywhere in our mountain desert state. I love it when things are this green; it isn't always this way in Utah.

It was a misty morning spring wonderland...and I just have to show you John's garden... John is known as the "candy man" by our kids. John has a big tub of candy in his garage, and it's reserved for the neighborhood kids. There's just one catch-- the kids have to name a flower in his garden to get a piece from the candy tub. The kids love this. Sometimes when we're outside, John drives by and tells the kids his candy jar is too full... they run up the hill and walk with John around his garden.  Mini horticulture lesson exchanged for a tootsie roll. I can't tell you how sweet I think this is.

John and his wife Char's show stopping tulips are over four feet tall. And in every season, his garden is equally spectacular.

Huge!

See?!
  

Around the side of John's house... 
  

and down the rock path to the "ravine". I've blogged about this spot before, but it's my favorite spot of spots... it is so peaceful to me with its arching trees, flowers, and tiny babbling brook :) 
Meadow sweet and periwinkel cover the hillsides.      If there really are fairies; I know they must  live here...

 

Someone has already painted the park bench for summer. 

I like to stop and sit awhile here some mornings; watching the sparkling stream and the white cabbage butterflies dancing along the stream's edge just a few feet away... John's house is just above the hill and bench. And you can hear him whistling as he works in his garden. Just whistling away, and the notes drift down the hillside... it's like listening to the prettiest song of all the prettiest, worbliest song birds. Not something you hear everyday anymore, is it?

One day on my way back up the path, John was heading out the front door... he was dressed in a white shirt, black slacks and a big black bow tie. I told him he was looking awfully sharp. He said he belonged to a barber shop quartet and he just was heading off to the "old folks home" to put on a show for the "old folks" with his singing buddies.... Now John is eighty-years old, mind you, and his hair is as white as the dress shirt he was wearing that day. Oh man, I love  it. 

(I can't carry a tune in a bucket, but I sure do hope I get the chance to be just like John when I'm eighty :) xoKelly

P.S. I'll get back to making something fun to share next week... my family generously shared a virus with me last week, and I'm just getting back on my feet-- sooo busy playing catch up around here.

cure for a monday

"ART MAKES ME FEEL FREE!"

  artwork and quote by Sophey Henderson :D

posy planter

 

While I was prowling the local craft store awhile back, I found this little wooden planter thing. I thought with some dowels tucked into the holes on top it might make a sweet girl's hair clip holder. So I bought it and a sheet of scrapbook paper, went home and made this flower clip planter. (If you're local, I found the wooden planter at Ben Franklin crafts, in Kaysville Ut. I think it was made by Provo Craft, but I didn't look around any other craft stores for this item-- they might be everywhere, I'm just not sure...)

You could also use a clay pot painted up and filled with clay or beans in the bottom, like people do with those pots and flower pens... lots of ideas could come out of this simple project.  Tell me if you can think of any more similiar ideas?!

Here's a very quick how to (this is so simple, I don't want to insult anyone!)

• Sand item.
• Paint with acrylic paints.
• Trace around item and cut out paper. Mod Podge paper onto wood. Coat entire piece with Mod Podge.
• Let dry thoroughly.
• For the sticks I used some shish ka bob sticks I had. I glued them into the pre-drilled holes.

 

Here's the backside with the flower hair clips attached. Those are super easy to make to with a few alligator clips from the beauty supply store, 3/8" wide ribbon, E6000 glue, and silk flowers. 

~Just a quick share for you!

Have a great weekend. xoKelly
 

saucy and wild

Another one of my Mother's Day gifts from Mike... look at this tote bag! I LOVE it! (The word attempt is scratched out. Even more perfection.)

Yesterday, I drove to my favorite bakery and picked up my favorite bread (only available on Tuesday mornings) and then I headed over to join up with ladies who love needlework at our new church. They call themselves "The Saucy Stitchers". Perfect name. Great stories. Everyone brings something to add to the lunch table, and one lady is the official joke teller-- she came with a printout of jokes. 

After a few minutes of introductions, one stitcher said there was a table of fabrics she brought to give away. She looked at me in my spring green sweater with my yellow rose-covered blouse underneath, my wild tote bag filled with wild yarn colors, and my wild earrings; she walked over to the table and said "I think there's a big yellow piece of fabric that looks like you on the table." I followed her to see it...

she had me nailed in under ten minutes... I picked up the vintage '60s fabric and said, " ya got that one right." I admitted to being a bit of a wild child at times-- especially in the fabric, clothing, music, and politics department- (we won't go there.) And I told her to  look out when I showed up in church wearing that yellow fabric made into a dress! ;) (I maybe only half-kidding here... hmm, what to make out of it? Such a delicious question, almost as yummy as that fabric and fresh bread.)

 
Got off to a good start stitching with the stitchers yesterday.I finished several rows on an afghan for our living room. It's going to have magenta, mustard yellow, dark red, and cream stripes also.... gotta be who you are, right? But shouldn't you be, if you are traveling along your own path? Gotta uncover, discover, dig and dig, take all the parts you find of yourself and stitch them together... because even if they don't look like they're going to match, they will. And it will be unique, and beautiful, and so very you... I remember in a conversation years ago with a former minister, blurting out the words-- I want my life to be seamless! I mean from out ot the blue I blurted that line... (I am a great blurter at times) but you know, I do still want my life to be seamless. And the funny thing is, that was years ago, in the middle of babies, and long before I had started sewing and crocheting again. Your heart knows the way, doesn't it?

So anyway, I looked at my new bag again this morning, and I couldn't quite remember the rest of the quote to follow your bliss. I looked it up: 

Follow your bliss.

if you do follow your bliss,

you put yourself on a kind of track

that has been there all the while waiting fo you,

and the life you ought to be living

is the one you are living.

When you can see that,

you begin to meet people

who are in the field of your bliss,

and they open the doors to you.

I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid,

and doors will open

where you didn't know they were going to be.

If you follow your bliss,

doors will open for you that wouldn't have opened for anyone else.

   

~Joseph Campbell

 

And then I found this quote too:

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the Universe,

to match your nature with Nature.

~Joseph Campbell.

That one gave me goosebumps when I read it... 

  

Thanks for the tote bag, honey. What a great line to put on a bag for the journey. You and Jo are so wise;)

xoKelly 

sunny day

 
I hope your weekend was filled with goodness. And if you celebrated Mother's Day, I hope it was filled with everything and everyone you love most. 

My Mother's Day request was a bucket of KFC and a picnic at the zoo. The weather was absolutely perfect. We had so much fun watching all the animals antics. And I came home to lovely cards, gifts, and a wonderful surprise-- Mike bought me my very own old-lady, aqua blue, beach cruiser bike. Complete with a basket on the handlebars. (I've been eyeing the bike aisle for the last couple years.) It was late by the time he gave it to me, so no photos yet, but I managed to remember how to ride it, and it's true-- you never forget how to ride a bike :-)

What did you do last weekend?

xoKelly

P.S. petunia and hand-painted pot by Jesse Ryan Henderson

where inspiration took me this week...

 
 




 
...outside with a camera, and then back into my studio. Mother Nature gave me so much to work with, again this week. Brilliant magenta tulips, just unfurled tree leaves, and apple blossoms galore. Thanks.

Personally, my week left me questioning... I have been puzzled, perplexed, and left wondering about several people (not my immediate family, thankfully) in general... In my early morning quiet prayer and meditation time, I talked over my days. Out of the blue came the most clear and surprising answer in my mind: Don't put your self-esteem in anyone else's hands; they simply do not know what to do with it. And also the direction to go look up a quote I had read a long time ago... Read it and think on it this week, I heard too. Thought I'd pass it along... it certainly helped me to get grounded.

"Do It Anyway"

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

~Mother Teresa

xoKelly

"Fair Trade Friday" winner

Time to announce our "Fair Trade Friday" giveaway for April. This month's winner is HeidiBears! Unfortunately, Heidi doesn't have a blog for me to send you to. But Heidi mentioned she lives in another country in her comment, so as soon as I hear back from her, I'll edit this post, and tell you more!

Stay tuned, the next "Fair Trade Friday" will be May 29th. Please feel free to spread the word. This is a small way to help spread the news that simply by the way we shop, we can help create fairer markets, economic justice,  and employment for those who are the poorest and most marginalized in our world.  And heck if you enter, you might even win something unique, handmade, and way cool. Can't beat that!

Talk soon. xoKelly