"Springing" in the Rain!

More Rainy Days

And a Spring Tag Swap

Another Tropical Storm came for a visit! This was TS Debby -  took days to make up her mind which way she wanted to go! At one point they feared a direct hit on New Orleans, but then Debby switched and moved over to Florida instead.

Lots of flooding and lots of rain across the state until Debby suddenly picked up and swiftly moved on across and out into the Atlantic Ocean. Just a couple of days ago, the forecast was for us to be continuously inundated until "2 a.m. Friday", but then she started moving and bid us  farewell. 

Photo "borrowed" from a friend - flooding in her neighborhood

Today we woke up to sunshine once again, but there was lots of flooding and many roads were closed for a day or two. No flooding at our house, but plenty of rain.  Someone said we had 24 inches of rain, but I'm not sure what part of town. Jacksonville encompasses over 600 square miles, so some areas probably received more rain than others.

I read that, in spite of all the rain from two tropical storms, we're still in drought!  Hope we've had our share of storms now for this year, at least.  It seems strange that TS Beryl came directly here from the Atlantic, and then TS Debby came straight here from the Gulf - hit from both directions in less than a month!

Just wish we could've sent some of this rain out West to help put out the fires!

Found these lovely tags while sorting out some boxes during all the rain!

April Showers Bring May Flowers Tag Swap

2010

Connie - Marian - Jeanne

Tammy - Natalea - Vivian

Grace - Wendy - Kimberly

Linda - Geralyn

Kathy

Jane - Wanda

Sunshine and Blue Skies again!

Rain Flowers and Sew Many More

Rain Flowers?

No complaints after months of drought, but we have had an unusual amount of rain lately, even for June, the traditional rainy month.  So when I noticed all the mushrooms or toadstools (no idea which!), I decided they must be our Rain Flowers!

Doesn't this one look like a little fairy home? So cute!

Different shades and different shapes 

Even the underside is interesting!

Sadly, no beautiful peonies or roses to show here - just these funny little "Rain Flowers"!  

BUT

A wonderful package of flowery goodness arrived a few days ago!

ArtJoyStuff's Sew Many Flowers ATC Swap

Our terrific swap hostess, Kimberly, always has a creative way of packaging the swaps.  This time she used actual pattern envelopes and pattern directions for packaging the Sew Many Flowers ATCs. What fun to receive this package!

Here's Amy's "Carefree" 

Love this little girl in the very pale blue dress!

Karla's  "Omas Buttons" 

Georgeous buttons - and so much detail. I thought the stick pin was real until I felt it (the jewel is real but the pin's part of the collage)

And Liz's  lacy floral beauty. Can hardly see the dainty fern background, but it's perfect.

Kimberly included this lovely tag for each of us. This was a 3/3 swap, so lots of fun! If you'd like to see my ATCs, take a peek here,  a post or two ago.  Thank you all so much! I love my new ATCs! And thank you, Kimberly, for once again being such a wonderful swap hostess!

It might not be too late to join this month's Mermaid ATC Swap. Check it out here! Can hardly wait to see all the mermaids!

Rainy Day Fun

Rain?  Did We Say We Needed Rain?

Yes, we did! 

Birthday Bee Basket

It does seem a little excessive, though, to have SO MUCH rain all in the same week!  However, it's much better than drought, so I am not complaining.  In fact, I've been busy as a bee.......

I had to buy this cute leftover Easter basket when they were marked down. Knew just what to do with it!

Love this cute birthday tissue paper - doesn't have anything to do with bees, but all these birthday cakes are lovely.

At least one of the little gifts is bee-themed: cute little memo pad!

Doll Ornament  from The Small Object as shown on Kiddley.com

Along with a gift certificate for afternoon tea, there's another "little person" to add to a special garland I made for the Birthday Girl's important birthday a couple of year's ago. 

She still has the garland hanging up and asks for another one to add each year.  This little paper doll is a bit more dressed up than some because she's celebrating the Queen's Jubilee, complete with flag! She's right in style with her 'fascinator', but I think I put her earrings just a little too far up. Maybe she wears them at the tops of her ears rather than on the earlobes! 

The cute frame I used for her portrait came in Michelle's wonderful "stash" swap from my partner, Leann, of The Old Parsonage. Still finding new things to do with all the goodies she sent!

And what does this have to do with the Birthday Bee Basket? Well,  I think it's stopped raining now, so that'll have to wait!

What Do You Do While Waiting For a Tropical Storm?

Stormy Weather and Swaps

www.artjoystuff.blogspot.com

Living in Florida, we know the "Hurricane Season" lasts almost half the year, June - November.  As June approaches we start collecting our supplies: bottled water, non-perishable foods, batteries. Time to check all the flashlights, portable radios, portable generators, etc!

What's this? Work in progress ....

A few years ago after a week with no electricity, constant rain, mosquitoes,  high winds, and fallen trees, I was so jealous of one of my co-workers.  When we finally got back to school and started comparing stories, he said he'd spent the week watching movies on his battery-operated dvd player! 

Note the $.49 price sticker! Many beads left over from the original satin and lace project!

Now there's so much wireless technology available - a big help!  After that storm our local power company put all the electrical cables underground.  Before that we could lose our power any time, just by a small branch falling on one of the lines.

Last weekend we experienced our first 2012 storm - Tropical Storm Beryl - before the official start of the season!  

Jacksonville has been extremely fortunate - blessed - for many, many years by not having any direct hurricane hits, but TS Beryl came straight across our city last Sunday and Monday.  While not a hurricane, TS Beryl had pretty high winds at her peak (up to 70 mph - has to be 74mph for a hurricane).  Lots of rain and wind, but not nearly as bad as it could have been!  

The Mayor and other leaders cancelled quite a bit of the Jacksonville Jazz Festival and all of the Memorial Day activities. That was sad because the Jazz Festival is very popular and we had many visitors here for the US v Scotland Soccer  game too!  

Since Monday was Memorial Day the schools, government offices and many businesses were closed.  Everyone was advised to stay inside and "hunker down", after spending Friday and Saturday gathering supplies and preparing for the storm.

Sewing beads on bits of satin and lace carefully saved from  both my daughters' wedding gown fabrics saved me from just sitting here worrying while watching the treetops wave around in between torrential downpours.

Was it just a week or so ago that we were so thrilled to have some rain after months of drought? Between that week of rain and TS Beryl, everything's looking pretty green around here at the moment!  Best of all,  while there were plenty of downed trees and branches, no deaths or serious injuries were reported. Several dried up lakes a bit further west were filled up as Beryl passed by.

Now that it's June and officially "Hurricane Season" who knows what will come next?  The only good thing I can say about hurricanes, which have destroyed so much in many of the coastal areas of our country and others, is that we do get the warnings ahead of time.

Both my daughters asked me to make their wedding gowns. What wonderful summers those were! Precious memories!  As I collected the fabrics and pearls for these ATCs,  I realized that almost every one of the stores that carried wedding fabrics and lace at that time has since closed. That makes me so sad.

For the Sew Many Flowers ATC Swap, Kimberly asked us to make only three instead of the usual six.  I made an extra one for Kimberly and kept the first one for myself. I almost always make a few changes after the first one for any swap. I forgot that the Post Office would be closed Monday, so had to race out to mail them Tuesday morning - the drop-deadline day!

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else did with this theme. Thanks to Kimberly of ArtJoyStuff for hosting this lovely swap!