Brought to you by the letter P

I just can't get enough of peonies and poppies. Both are in bloom right now, along with the rhododendrons, allium, columbine, clematis, wisteria, irises… the neighborhood is just bursting with color and sweet scents.

The Nichols Arboretum in town has a peony garden with 27 beds of glorious peonies that I'm dying to see — I'm just trying to time it perfectly so I don't miss them!

I just can't seem to capture the red of the poppies. They look so orange-y in my photos, but really they are a much softer, more appealing red.

I will be busy this weekend getting ready for MICE at the Ann Arbor Artisan Market next Sunday… and getting out to see the flowers! Have a wonderful weekend!

New print in the shop!

I just listed this fellow in the shop yesterday. He has a friend, too, that I haven't posted yet, but hope to tomorrow… wait and see!

Cystic Fibrosis fundraiser

This Saturday is the 3rd Annual Art for the Cure of Cystic Fibrosis (ACCF) here in Ann Arbor at Conor O'Neill's starting at 7 p.m. The event includes a silent auction with work from local artists. ACCF was created in honor of a young woman in town who sadly lost her battle with CF in November 2008. You can find out more about the event here. Below is the print I have donated for the auction. If you're in the area, we would love to see you there.

Treasury time!

Posted just this afternoon — you can see it here!

T-shirt in progress…continued

A little while back I wrote about a t-shirt design I was working on for RIPT Apparel. They are a new online tee retailer launching in early June. I thought I would update you on the progress… above is the finished threads design I submitted. However, they were thinking something more along the lines of my flying frog print as seen in my Etsy shop.

So, I've reworked that to have fewer colors for printing:

And then, as it would appear on the tee:
I'll keep you posted as the design continues… and when it will be available!

The start of summer

It was so nice to get away into the woods this weekend. Everything slowed way down and we had plenty of long walks, time around the fire, barbecue and perfect weather! I was on a mission to find morels, but to no avail. It was quite dry, and some people said that they couldn't be found in the area. But that didn't keep me from looking!

I did find these beauties. Luckily there is a mushroom identifying book at the cabin and I learned that these are "false morels" or brain mushroom. Poisonous! I should have known since they were right in the middle of the path. It would have been nice if Sam's grandma could have been there since she is something of a mushroom expert. She even discovered a new species of mushroom (or possibly cucumber, no one was quite sure) in Mexico and so it is named for her. I'm sure she could show me a thing or two in the woods around the cabin. Ah well, I've heard that Bird Hills here in Ann Arbor is a good place to look. Perhaps sometime this week I'll find a morel…