deirdre friebely

Off to Warwick...

John and Betty are looking forward to seeing you in Warwick, NY this weekend at the heART of Winter show! (Check the link over on the left there for the details...)

Lost and Found

This little guy showed up on our porch last week. He was so sweet, we knew someone had to be missing him! We cleaned him up, and hung up posters around the neighborhood. On Monday he was reunited with his family. We were sad to see him go because he was SO much fun...but very happy he found his way home. His name was MoMo. Awww....

Secrets

Here is an interesting thing I came across in my travels recently...an ongoing art project called PostSecret. People share secrets anonymously by mailing them in on one side of a homemade postcard. Check out the site at PostSecret.com.

Letterpress Heaven

Look at these tiny and wonderful things I found in a store called Oblation in Portland. They did their own letterpress cards and invitations in the back half of the shop, and had a great collection of stationery and other little gifts and decorations up front. All wonderfully displayed and all irrisistable! They sold ribbons on a little card, as shown below, which they hung from an a oversized wooden, circular display. It was a nearly edible rainbow of fuscia and gold silk, hand-dyed orange and red raw-edged cotton, and earthy satins.

Seattle

We both really enjoyed Seattle. It had a friendly and unique vibe, great shops, good food. Here are a few shots I captured in between trying to thaw out my frozen little fingers.

Pike Place Public Market...

An ode to Star Trek..the exterior of the Sci Fi Museum near the Space Needle.

Elliot Bay Books...a visual feast of brick, woods floors and an overabundance of new and used books. The children's books section was my favorite...

Portland

Portland is definitely a feast for those with an eye for design...great contrast and appreciation of old and new. I snapped more photos here, mainly because the weather was a little more friendly...

There was an abundance of super signage in both Portland and Seattle...

Flora worth sharing...Bamboo. It's perfect and I love it!

Check out this awesome plant...or at least a small portion of it! The entire house was dwarfed by this massive tree.

From Washington Park and the Japanese Gardens...
To old to be silly? I think not.

One of the many cool stores we came across through the week...this warehouse of asian imports was a colorful hodgepodge of antiques, paper lanterns, furniture.....

Marcus at Rogue Brewery. So many choices...so little time!

I thought this was a funny view from Rogue...

Speaking of breweries...this lunch was worth taking a picture of. Pumpkin soup and crabcakes at the Bridgetown Brewery. Ahh! So good after walking around though the chilly morning!

Home...AGAIN!

So, we are back from our Portland/Seattle trip. It was great fun to get away and spend 24/7 goofing off together. We did a ton of walking, coffee drinking and restaurant sampling...and made a lot of brewery stops. We stayed in Seattle for 3 days and Portland for 4. In both cities we crashed at the Ace Hotel. Both locations were great and were a designer's paradise. I snapped some less than great photos of the one in Portland...so check out the link to their site below...which is also well done. The Ace in Portland also had a fantastic restaurant called Clyde Common...YUM.

Ace Hotel
Clyde Common

Here's the two of us having a quiet moment in Washington Park, Portland

Past Projects

I thought these would be fun to share. I made the cat a few years ago for fun. I wasn't really happy with him at the time, but having not seen him in a while he made me chuckle...which is usually my goal when I am making anything.

The windchime was made by my Aunt Brenda. She is an avid collector of, well, anything...and for a while she was collecting silver serving pieces and making them into chimes. This one is my favorite though...it doesn't have any silver, but old nails, house numbers, a piece of what I think was a planter...PERFECTION!

Up, Up and Away! Again!

Off to Seattle and Portland today. If it sounds strange that we are going to all of these cold and wet places...it isn't...at least to me. I am not used to a full year of sun and warm weather...and hope I never am! I need my winter fix.

Photos when I return!

A Tourist at Home

After Christmas...but before New Year's Eve...we managed to make it back to Maine to visit friends and some of our old haunts. I guess I just like to see first hand that things are still there. They are. We did a quick (very quick) drive around York. By my old shop, down the icy beach, and out and around Nubble Light. I felt like a tourist for the first time! Driving around in a truck with Florida tags, we even got our picture taken in front of the Nubble to seal the deal!

Here is ONE of my favorite houses on York Beach...it makes me think of The Ghost and Mrs. Muir...

The feast we brought back to the farm...I never thought I would crave lobster. The joke's on me.