Tea with LaVera

Friday, August 30, 2013

Fairies Dance in My Garden Free Clip Art

I found these Fairy cards in a cute antique shop in Massachusetts. They're perfect for a summer clip art project.

The little diamond box says:

Novelty

Beauty and Fashion

Maison Demorest

agencies everywhere

reliable patterns

in sizes

Illustrated and Described

He Loves Me A Great Deal

He Loves Me

He Loves Me A Little

He Loves Me Not At All

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Make a Quick and Easy Balloon Arbor

The sweet young couple next door were getting married so my neighbor Mary Marie, my Mom and I decided to make a fun entry for them when they came home and this is what we came up with. It's not perfect but it's sweet.

We started with a piece of ribbon staked to the ground. Then we tied each balloon separately to it.

We cut out hearts and wrote loving words on them then we tied them to the string.

We curled the excess ribbon. Then we moved to their yard,

and put in tall stakes because it was a windy day

and we didn't want the balloons to hit the ground and pop.

Buy extra balloons because I popped a few which left me a bit short.

I wanted the arbor to look a little fuller.

We tied the strings to the top of the stakes.

We decorated the stakes with white and pink tissue flowers.

We made these by cutting out circles stapling several of them together in the middle then pulling them up and molding them to look like flowers.

The finished project was cheerful and welcoming and we had fun doing it.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Marrowstone Music Festival 2013 Music in My Garden

For the last two years I’ve hosted in my garden musicians from the Marrowstone Music camp. What a great experience it has been. The students come from all over the country and learn from leading professional musicians in a two week intensive performance and study session.

The students are wonderful musicians. They are also kind and so polite it’s truly a pleasure to host them.

A Musical Bouquet

This year I thought it would be fun to add a few musical details in honor of how hard they work.

I decided to use all white hydrangeas and white table cloths (to represent the paper music is written on) and then I added notes cut from black paper to the bouquets.

A Musical Tea Party

Other details were in the cookies I made fudge shaped as whole notes and cookies shaped as different notes and then I placed them on paper with five lines across it so it would look like a musical score.

Music in the Garden

On iced sugar cookies I used food coloring pens and drew musical notes on them.

Musical Cookies

I set the tables with tea cut and plates. Then wait for my guests to arrive.

A Musical Tea
Photo by Polly Miller Tisdall

Music in the Garden

The weather was perfect warm and a little cloudy the fragrance of flowers accented the atmosphere.

Marrowstone Music Festival 2013 In The Garden

The house and yard filled with young musicians bring with them the excitement of a performance.

Guests were seated everywhere on the porch and in the garden. I even ran out of chairs so I threw blankets on the ground.

Marrowstone Music Festival in the Garden
Photo by Polly Miller Tisdall

Marrowstone Musical Festival 2013 In My Garden
Photo by Polly Miller Tisdall

Beautiful music began to fill the air as musicians began to stroll through the garden. Then each subsequent performance was placed in a different area and enhanced the one before it.

Marrowstone Music Festival in the Garden
Photo by Leslie Katz

Cookies filled the plates and smiles were found on every face making for a great memory.

Marrowstone Musical Festival 2013 In My Garden

To learn more about the camp or Festival click on the link below.

http://marrowstone.syso.org/ms/index.html

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Craft: Make Great Designer Sunglasses in Minutes

Dolce and Gabbana Sunglasses

While looking through the latest fashion magazines I found these great designer sunglasses. By Dolce and Gabbana, and Karlsson they’re sold at Bergdorf’s. Who can afford that? So let’s make them.

Anna-Karin Karlsson Sunglasses

You’ll need:

A pair of sunglasses (I found mine at Forever 21 for $5.80 each)

Now you’ll need decorations:

You can fine these anywhere I found a pair of earrings for the pink glasses at a garage sale.

The roses for the red glasses I found at Michaels Craft store

Plumbing Epoxy Putty I bought at the hardware store (you only need a little)

I needed wire cutters to cut apart my earrings

1) Prepare your decorations I cut my earrings apart for the pink glasses

and peeled the paper off of the back of the red roses for the black glasses.

Decorate Your Own Sunglasses to Look Like the Latest Designer Sunglasses

2) Now glue them on using the instructions from the putty.

Decorate Your Own Sunglasses to Look Like the Latest Designer Sunglasses

That’s it and you saved $660 dollars! LOL!

Enjoy the sun

Friday, August 16, 2013

The Night Watch by: Rembrant

Before watching this fun video look closely at Rembrandt's "The Night Watch".

Have a great day!

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

A Summer Tea

On warm summer days I like to invite friends over to have tea on the porch. I love to use different things in my house or yard to decorate my table. This time I used my sweet porcelain pieces to make a fun center piece.

Friday, August 9, 2013

All Dolled Up a Disturbing New Trend

Anastasiya Shpagina and Valeria Lukyanova

While reading through my Marie Claire June 2013 magazine I found this article that you see below. At first the photo in the article made me feel a bit queasy and then really sad. I couldn’t believe the dolls in the photo were real living women.

This is definitely the dark side of fashion. It makes a corset look like nothing. Why would anyone feel the need to turn themselves into living dolls? What does this generation see as beauty? The human dolls have thousands of followers on their social media pages. They're also getting lots of modeling jobs mostly in Japan.

I've included pictures and links to the stories about each of the girls I have featured. It is a shocking new trend in Eastern Europe but it is also showing up in the US and England.