A friend of mine’s birthday was several weeks ago and for once, I was on time to getting a pressie out to her.

Then, just as I was closing in on finishing this market bag made from my FreshAire fabric for StudioE, my machine took an unexpected trip to the sewing machine hospital.  They told me it would be home, humming away, in one week.

Well, FOUR weeks later I was able to finish this pressie…..

….and send it out a month late, thus keeping my record for rarerly acknowledging birthdays on time, safely intact.

Sometimes you just gotta play hooky.  That’s what I did last Friday with my mom and niece.  We went to the bead store and had a couple hours of great fun making some new bling.

Another July, another show.  Just back from the Atlanta Gift Show where I walked my feet off, talked endlessly with everyone from clients, to potential clients, to artist friends and random strangers, obtained maximum sensory overload each and every day, as well as indulged in a few good meals.

This lovely display at Kalalou certainly added to the visual stimulation.  If I owned a store, I would do the majority of my buying right here.

They just had the coolest things…

And aren’t these fun from Occasionally Made?  They’re rain boots!  How clever!

Here’s just a few of my coasters now available at ThirstyStone… Do I look distracted?

If I do, it is because I had just spotted Bryan Batt from Mad Men… I was obviously so star-struck I forgot to remove my lovely reading glasses from my head!  Then again, who’d notice the glasses with that hunk standing next to me?

Now for a bit of lunch with my fellow artists, gal-pals, Joyce Shelton and Carol Eldridge.  Wake up, Joyce, there’s many more floors to see!

One of the nice things about a show is catching up with art friends from all over the country…

Pictured here (L-R) Jane Maday, Terri Conrad, Martha Collins, Joyce Shelton, Phyllis Dobbs, Sue Zipkin, Me (seated) with Carol Eldridge seated next to me.  Also in attendance but somehow missing from the shot are Kathy Weller, Tammy Browning-Smith and Janet Wrenke Frisch. Wow ~ what a lot of talented ladies in one place!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to get back to the mountain of follow up that was generated by all the great meetings I had at the show.  Certainly not my favorite part of it all, but a necessary part of the biz!

Yup. It’s offical ~ it is now a tradition to go there when we’re in Sarasota.  I will admit, I am addicted.  While I didn’t find any treasures to drag home this time (well, none that would fit in my house or budget anyway), I found plenty of inspiration.

Like these giant wings… I mean what a statement these would make on the right wall, eh?

And I loved the sign taped to them…

There was a sold sign on this baby.  Wonder what the new owner will do with it?  I could see it as part of a display in a cool shop…

I wonder where these doors came from?  They were ginormous…

I have to say what inspires me the most here is always the patina of some of the items.  There are some pretty good faux finishers out there, but I don’t think anybody can replicate the job done by Mother Nature and Father Time…

That’s it for this time ~ until my next Sarasota foray…