snowdrops!

Every year, along about the time it seems winter will last forever, when you think blue skies are only a distant memory, there's a breath of hope. It's almost a ritual with me now. As the end of January approaches I make it a point to wander past the drive to Scarlett's house. Right where the garden fence meets the aged cottonwood tree, there's a protected patch of magic.

Scarlett's snowdrops bloom weeks before mine. So when the delicate green tips of mine began to poke through the mulch last week I knew it was time.

Yesterday I clipped Penny's leash on and we ventured down the road for a sight to gladden my heart. Snowdrops!






The color of the foliage is the precise shade of springtime. Their fragrance is that of hope, of good things ahead.

If I were a flower, I think I'd like to be a snowdrop, that quintessential encourager. Spring is coming, and blue skies are ahead.

I dashed home inspired, Penny's tail bobbing alongside me.

Atlanta Gift Show

What a whirlwind! The Atlanta Gift Show was as busy as usual. Several of my new collections were released. Here's a Christmas decor collection from Demdaco, a company I love working with. What fun to see trees in the lobby & the showroom decorated with the ornaments I made by hand last year. There are other pieces as well- tree skirts & stockings, votives, hurricanes, a bowl, and sweet mugs for boys and girls with a surprise at the bottom of the mug to greet the children when they drink their cocoa or milk to the bottom.

Here I am with Yuki, from the Hong Kong office. I worked on this side with the design team and Yuki is the one who followed through on the China end of things, making sure it all turned out perfectly in production. Thank you, Yuki!

I thought you might like more peeks inside my studio and this seems like just the right time, since I'm about to begin another late night work fest. If you were here, you'd see sprinkles of black glitter and big flakes of mica glitter on one table, with bits of black and cream paper littering the floor below.

The big old door which serves as a table in the back room is covered with pumpkin colored segments and panes of glass and a nice papercut chandelier which I'm about to slice into three sections and frame for my next book.


Here is my well loved printing press, which I've blogged about a bit before.


This is my favorite little table. The legs are from two different tables, the mirror was a stray, the top is a salvaged piece of linoleum flooring. And best of all it has a little drawer that came out of a local dairy. It's home this week to my grandad's typewriter.




The type cases hold font after font in their slim little drawers. One of these days I'll snap a photo so you can see the letters reclining in their dusty cubbyholes, shoulder to shoulder.