Miniature food art!

Our friends at "Cupcakes Take the Cake" posted about a talented miniature food artist in Paris. You will not believe the level of detail that Stephanie can do with this wearable and/or collectible art! She's posted pictures on Flicker, has a shop on Etsy, and a blog. Enjoy and bon appetit!

Summertime in Northern Arizona

Many people from the Phoenix area gravitate to Northern Arizona throughout the summer, or as we call it, "Up North." We love the towns of Payson, ShowLow, and Flagstaff, and the White Mountains area. The elevation is higher, so the temperature is typically 20F cooler, and there are pine trees and mountains. Arizona is very arid (dry) with low humidity, as are many Western states, like New Mexico, Colorado and Utah. Many people escape the desert region and the heat by going up for day trips or camping. It's anywhere from two to four hours by car.I am surrounded by sunflowers at an area called Mormon Lake, Arizona.
Mormon Lake, Arizona. The yellow is a sea of sunflowers and lots of elk hang out in this area in the summer.

Nesto and I have gone fishing several times this year, even taking one trip on the motorcycle. We purchased the collapsible fishing rods and packed a small tackle box and lunch on the back of the bike! We had one great fishing day, and caught several rainbow trout, as you can see from my "Fish-in-a-bag."
I like taking short hikes and enjoying the wildflowers and wildlife. Here are some Columbine flowers, which is actually the Colorado State flower.We have seen deer, skunk, elk, bald eagles, lizards, red cardinals, blue jays, duck and chipmunks that will eat from your hands! The bald eagle is the national emblem of the United States and it's always exciting to see them in the wild. We saw some swoop and dive down to the lake at Woods Canyon and catch a fish for lunch. They fly so fast I could never get a picture, so I found one photographed by Bob Paty.

If you love letters...

I found a neat website called:

http://www.allthisismine.com/

Sugene has a unique selection of stationery and also a cool "pen pal pack" that has an assortment of cool stickers and envelopes. I have never read a "zine" before (which is an inexpensively produced, self-published, underground publication) but the issue #12, "The Letter Writing Issue" seemed intriguing, so I received it today and read it cover to cover. It's like it was written just for me! Anecdotes, envelope-decorating, fountain pens, letter folding, and some great vintage information from correspondence from years ago. You should check it out.

Mail Call

Keeping the U.S. postal service, particularly in South Chandler, very busy...
Incoming (over the past couple of weeks):Look at the Mail Art! Octo-Queen Mum on the left, a 3-D envelope from England, and an original art postcard with Queen Elizabeth!My postcrossing account says that I would love to receive purple or lavender postcards. Ask and ye shall receive!Here are stamps from Japan (note that some are purple!) and a Hello Kitty!
Beautiful stamps from Russia:
Always awesome stamps from Finland. The middle stamp is a "Moomin," a very popular cartoon art character.
I took a picture of (and then somehow lost) my outgoing mail pile, which was a book, a small parcel to Japan, thank you card for a work colleague, numerous postcrossing postcards, letter to my Great Aunt and letter to my friends in Colorado. It was quite a huge pile of outgoing. Check your mailbox because something may be coming your way!

Monday Cuteday

During my daily blog reading, I stumbled upon a website of a brilliant artist in New Zealand. I looked at all of her illustrations and they made me smile! I think you will enjoy the ones I am posting here, from:

www.nutandbee.com

Candysaurus and Crustaceanpost are my favorites!

Sweet Fruits of Summer

Ahh, there's nothing like eating ripe summer fruit on a hot Arizona day! I made a delicious fruit salad today and included the following:

Apricots
Gala Apples
Kiwi
Nectarines
Peaches
Plums
Raspberries
Topped with some Rainier and Bing cherries!

I drizzled some agave nectar on it to add a touch of sweetness. Agave nectar is from the blue agave plant in Mexico and is similar to honey, but thinner and sweeter. Here in Arizona, we get so much delicious and seasonal fruit ~ what's not grown locally mostly comes in from Mexico and California. Helps beat the heat since there's no cooking!

Postcrossing

So I've joined this postcard exchange club-of-sorts called POSTCROSSING. The goal of the Postcrossing project is to allow people to receive postcards from all over the world. The main idea is that: if you send a postcard, you will receive at least one back from a random Postcrosser from somewhere in the world. Why? Because there are lots of people (like me) who like to receive real mail. Most people write a profile of what they like and it's fun to try and find a special card that you know they will like, based on their preferences.

http://www.postcrossing.com

My user ID is chandlerguera. Actually I have a second account for my niece, so she can receive postcards, too (ID is Emmalani). Here are a few more of my favorite postcards; some I've sent, some I've received and some I just saw on the website.Here are a couple of postcards that I made! One for someone in Finland who loves frogs and the other for a gal in Brazil that likes jokers.
I've also sent pictures that I've taken, as a postcard. You can put a special sticker on the back so you can write on it, fill out the address and postage, etc. I sent some cemetary postcards to a girl in Puerto Rico who has an interest in that. These pictures were taken in Hawaii.I also sent a picture of Ernesto and I on his motorcycle to a Finnish Postcrosser, since motorcycle postcards are hard to find!
"Gemelas" by artist PeachyCreek:I'm starting to have a lot of postcards on hand to send and it's been great shopping fun to find new and unique postcards, including art cards, Dia de Los Muertos, Black & White, celebrity, and I found vintage motorcycle photo postcards at the Harley Davidson store in San Francisco! This is an interesting and inexpensive hobby and it's nice to get something in the post.