my Brother from another Mother, a Fairy Princess, and a purple haze

I just found out that my tiara swap partner

and I have the same birthday, 5-5-58!  Now I am curious to find out how close horoscopes actually are. I want to quiz her to see how Taurus-ey we match up.

I wrapped her tiara up like a birthday present with some sparkling tissue and a dangling purple crystal.  And of course a flower, us May girls love flowers–"April showers bring May flowers".  My mother always used to tell me that meant me, I was her May flower.

Barb’s address is 123 Lavender Lollipop Lane, so I made a tag for the package with a hand painted purple lollipop all glittered up and tied with a bow.

I like to mix collage work with hand painting.  I am such a quick painter that it is actually faster for me to paint something than to dither through all the boxes and shelves of papers I collect to decide what to add next.  But, then half the fun of doing any collage work is playing with all that gorgeous paper you collect! 

And of course, the lollipop had to have a crown too.

I painted the lollipop on watercolor paper, cut it out and glued it to the tag that I had attached pretty scrapbook paper to (on sale at Michaels for 10 CENTS a sheet). Then, the crown was cut out of gold holographic mylar paper, that I glittered up and added crystals to.

I wrote the address directly onto the tag and screwed it up (I have notoriously bad handwriting). So I re-wrote it (more carefully this time, I do tend to scribble) onto a snip of matching scrapbook paper and glued it over the screwed up writing and outlined it in marker.  Sometimes, messing up a project makes it better, I like the added layer of the striped paper on the tag.

Next, I glued a border of sparkling trim (used on the tiara)  to the edges and tied a bunch of ribbons to the top. Then of course, the ribbons were in the way when I went to glue down paper to the back of the tag. I do get ahead of myself.

Sugarwings tried on the tiara before she went home after our Father’s Day Extravaganza Brunch.

I should make her a princess crown of her own.  But she’d eat it.

More purple!  A verbena started up between the bricks at my garden entry. Last year, I had planted some in the hanging baskets above the bricks.

Don’t those pavers look like they have been there forever?  Actually, it is just simply bad installation.  I did it myself and they are all settling in and sagging.  I like that look, though.

I accomplished lots of yard work yesterday, was spreading mulch and trimming up. When I went to the garden center for  a few bags of Cyprus, I found this table and chair set for 75% off.

And since my husband shared his big casino jackpot winnings, not only with his son and dad- but with me! I treated myself to something new. I usually just buy garage sale furniture, but couldn’t pass this set up.  It was $79 for all three pieces. Not a bad deal for such a heavy, well made set, and its very Frenchy looking, isn’t it?

(and look- purple in this shot too)