My Kind of Town . . .

Last weekend, we spent some spring break time with my brother, Kahn, and his wife, Kavi, in Chicago. I love that town.

They live in Lincoln Park, a super cool part of the city that's packed with interesting buildings and homes that are narrow, but long.

Although we spent a lot of time just hanging out at home relaxing (ahhhh . . .), we did get out some.

We hit the Lincoln Park Zoo, a free zoo right in the heart of downtown. It's great to be at a zoo looking at animals with the backdrop of huge skyscrapers looming in the distance.

It was a really quality zoo and I wish we would have had more time to explore, but what we did see was wonderful.

Another place we checked out was the Chicago Music Exchange.

They have rows and rows of guitars that you can pluck off the wall and play. Brendan loves it here.

I love the style of this place. Big chandeliers and fluffy couches with the instruments as the artistic centerpieces.

I especially enjoyed this room.

This was really funny.

This is now.

And this was then. Kahn was about 17 in this picture. Brendan was about 3 weeks old. 15 years has flown by.

Another great thing about Chicago is that you can walk to all these wonderful places. We love this breakfast place called Wishbone. Very fun decor.

Another section of Wishbone.

The weather was perfect while we were there, sunny and nearly 60 degrees. What a super spring break! I'm glad we got to get away because now it's time to get to work. We're packing up our house in preparation for a move to a bigger place. Yeah!!!!!!

What a Day for a Parade

Last Saturday, Jason, Dash and I went to the Brookside parade. What a great day with highs in the 60's and lots of sun. Brookside is a terrific neighborhood and the parade is wonderful. Very family oriented and sans a bunch of drunk idiots.

This parade draws quite a crowd. Lots of kids and dogs with hair painted green.

I love guys in drag.

I think the Lucky Charms float was my favorite.

These guys were fun playing guitars and rocking out on their float. They were having a great time.

The old cars were terrific. After the parade, we went to Govenor Stumpy's at 71st and Oak to eat. All the old cars and corvettes from the parade were there but the best part were the two bagpipers that walked into the restaraunt and started playing. It was a great day for a parade and with a maiden name like Dulohery, I didn't even have to be wearing green to get into the spirit of it all.

The Finished Product

Claudia and Amber came over yesterday to grout their pieces. Look back a few posts to see the mosaic partay beginnings last weekend.


Claudia did a frame for her husband and included all kinds of references. He's going to love it.

He likes to bird watch, so Claudia included this cardinal.

She used these old Anagram letters I love and the angel is cute.

The red roses were popped off of a vase.

Amber's zen-like box is for her mom. It was very gutsy for her to choose a box her first time out. They have lots of surface area, are tricky to grout, and take hours of finishing when you paper the bottom, back, and paint the inside like Amber did.

Amber's mom gave her the frog she put on the top of the box. It will be fun for it to come back to her like this.

I had this cameo for a long time and it looks perfect in this box. Especially the way Amber applied the antiquing glaze.

I had so much fun getting together with friends to create art that I'm already plotting my next mosaic partay. One of my friends, Dawn, is a collage artist and I think she would really enjoy doing her own mosaic. Dawn, are you up for it?!

Thrift Store Goodness

I hit a couple of thrift stores on Wornall on my lunch hour and witnessed the coolest thing at DAV. I was in line and there was this older gentleman near the register trying on these shoes. This man LOVED these shoes. He went on about how they were so comfortable. He said he couldn't even take them off; he was going to wear them out of the store. I told him that those shoes had some awesome soles and that he looked quite dapper in them. You could guess that this man may not have much. Meanwhile, this man in front of me was checking out. When he went to pay, he told the cashier very quietly that he'd like to buy the filing cabinet he had brought to the register and the shoes for the older gentleman. He paid quickly without looking around and jetted on out of the store and was gone. The older gentleman got in line behind me and I was there to see the cashier tell him that the man in front of me had paid for his shoes. This man was so happy, excited, and grateful and said he felt truly blessed. That just made my day.

I Heart Punk Rock Boys

I've finally had time to work on some mosaics.

I featured pics of this box on the previous post, but here are some close-ups of the final product. I found the "I heart punk rock boys" pin at the Arizona Trading Company on Westport Road in KC - a very cool store.

I found some of the fun buttons at a flea market in Paola, KS on a recent shopping trip with Dawn.

And some came from the Jessie James Antique Mall. Like I said in the last post, I was going for smoking jacket cool here and I think Marilyn and the black and white color scheme got me what I wanted. Lori - I can't wait to hear what Ben thinks of his box!!!

I haven't done a cupcake in awhile. I've probably done a total of five or six and although they're big sellers at Stuff, they're time consuming and expensive to make because I haven't yet perfected a way to do the base. This one is cherry chocolate.

I finished a couple of single switch plates and the other one didn't photograph well, so I'll include that on another post. For now, here's the one with the domino. I don't have anything else started right now, but next on my list are a couple of chalkboards and a picture frame with a super cute clown figurine I got at Urban Mining a few weeks ago. Stay tuned!!!

Mosaic Partay

I had some girls over last weekend for some mosaic action. Claudia, Randie, and Amber are friends from Helzberg Diamonds.

It was fun to see what everyone chose to mosaic on and what themes they did for their pieces.

The sangria added to the fun. There's a lot going on at this work station.

I worked on a box for Lori's friend Ben, in LA. I was going for smoking jacket coolness with the Marilyn Monroe, reds and black.

No box would be complete without a big ass button.

Amber did a zen-like box for her mom. I can hardly wait to see this one grouted.

Randie did a spring break frame with a Vegas theme for her daughter's sorority auction.

This frame fits Claudia's personality perfectly. All kinds of action, never a dull moment, bling, glitz, you get the idea.

Her husband Jeff loves birds and this frame is for him. It's packed with references. Love it.

Randie needed her frame by the weekend, so she came over tonight to grout. The girls were skeptical, but I kept explaining that the grout pulls everything together and their pieces were going to look fa-bu-lous. Randie's frame turned out awesome and yes, she had to tell me I was right -- she loved it, too. Yeah!!!!!

She incorporated a lot of fun Vegas-themed stuff since some of the girls in the sorority are going there on spring break.

More Vegas style goodness. I will post pics of Claudia and Amber's pieces once they are grouted. We had a blast doing these mosaics and I can't wait until the next partay. And after Randie's smashing success with her frame, she's contemplating picking up some dishes to break on her own. Who says I'm not a good influence?