Painted Lady

This week it was reported in the UK that we are being invaded by a beautiful butterfly called Painted Lady.

The Painted Lady is a long-distance migrant, which causes the most spectacular butterfly migrations observed in Britain and Ireland.

Each year, it spreads northwards from the desert fringes of North Africa, the Middle East, and central Asia, across mainland Europe and reaching Britain and Ireland. In some years it is an abundant butterfly, frequenting gardens and other flowery places in late summer.  Well, this year, for whatever reason they have decided to come in their droves!  We even had one visit us whilst we were sitting in our conservatory reading the Sunday papers.  Luckily, we were able to release it back into our garden so that it could fly away to join its mates.  Apparently, they thrive on the common Thistle plant which grows in abundance everywhere.

In honour of this beautiful migrant I thought I would search the Design Style Guide team for further examples of butterflies.  Here is what I found!

Butterfly Garden Original Oil Painting

by

Loves2paint

 

 

 

Blue Butterfly on Bevel Suncatcher

by

Sundance Reflections

 

 

Colorful Butterfly Window Cling Suncatcher with Stained Glass Effects

by

Clinging Images

 

 

Butterfly Pillowcases

by

The Closet and Curio Shop

 

Embroidered Clock, Floral Garden and Butterflies

by
Satin Stitchery

 

 

You can tell I like butterflies, can’t you?

Spring is in the air!

An Etsy team called Boomers and Beyond or BBEST for short, are having a new swap challenge this month is to create an ACEO with the theme entitled….. Spring! 

I love sitting back to see what comes out of the woodwork.  Truly inspirational pieces are being created in all manner of mediums.  The excitement is always that each person who contributed is given a name of their swapee but they do not know who will be sending them an ACEO.  To remind readers, an ACEO has only one rule.  That is, it has to measure 3.5” x 2.5”.  It can be created in any medium.  You will note there are glass based ones, fabric, painted ones.  The list is endless.

What did I create?  Well, under the name of Precious Quilts I decided to create an ACEO depicting Spring in the form of the sun shining down on some pretty flowers made with cute little buttons I had in my stash.  For the centres of the flowers I added some seed beads to enhance the image.

Oh yes!  I love butterflies and have one in my avatar  on Etsy so, of course, I had to include a pretty pink one to complete my picture composition!

Now, I urge you to follow this link to see the other ACEOs offered for the March BBEST swap.

Hard to choose my favourite and even harder is the waiting and wondering which ACEO I will be lucky enough to receive!

Christmas comes but once a year - or does it?

The saying does say, Christmas comes but once a year! However, today Tuesday 7 October it was Christmas for me!! Our Postman could not believe it and wondered if it was my birthday?

Last month my favourite team, Boomers and Beyond Etsy Street Team (BBEST for short) had a swap. The theme as that of butterflies. The reason being that my avatar is that of a butterfly and I stood down last month from being the group's leader. With the team now 300 strong I decided that to continue on my own was taking up too much of my time. So, I have handed the leader's baton over to three lovely ladies, Chauncey, Sixsisters and Joonie. It was their idea to base the theme on my avie as a thank you! To make the swap even more interesting it was decided to put a twist at the end. That twist was revealed on the last day of the swap and meant everyone was told which member to send their swap to!

My lucky swap came from Dayna from Scottieacres in the form of a lovely mauve sweatshirt with an amazing decoration consisting of a Christmas tree collage adorned with different coloured butterflies along with colourful jewels with the tree being topped by a bright yellow star. An awful lot of work went into this gem! I have tried to take a close up photograph to show you all the lovely butterflies.

Thank you so much Dayna!!!!

The swap I made went to another member who I cannot name yet nor can I show you what it was - I will as soon as I know they have received it safely! Otherwise it won't be a secret or a surprise anymore so that will be another post.

Meanwhile, for me there was another twist! Our three new leaders chatted amongst themselves and decided to show their swaps at the last moment. However, their twist was that their items were not for swapping but were being sent as a gift to me!!!!!! That was such a generous idea and today I received not only Dayna's sweatshirt but also a wonderful plaque from Chaunce.

First of all Chaunce, apologies for the lowsy picture but this is gorgeous!!!!! At the top are the words... Thanks PQ. You're the bbest! Underneath a basket of beautiful hydrangeas with some butterflies hovering. It came with a very handy stand.

Thank you Chaunce!

Then I opened the next package! Again, the camera has not really done the painting proper justice. This most beautiful butterfly came from Six and will find itself being framed and hung on my wall.

Thank you Six!

Now I had to ask Terry to take a picture of me wearing and holding my wonderful pressies, didn't I! Hopefully the pressies will detract from my scruffy appearance, no make up, messy hair, yukky!!!

For good measure, and I know you will be able to laugh with me here.......

I asked Terry to take a picture of me holding my new treasures in our new shower!!! We haven't actually used it yet since we want to wait until the whole shower is totally complete before doing so. But I just couldn't resist a picture in the shower, so check this out and have a giggle!

I also received another present but I want to thank the sender before I mention anything about that in this blog post. Gosh, another post to look forward to!!!! The excitement must be overwhelming.

However, my team..... and especially those mentioned above... You are simply the BBEST!