It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

You may or may not know that right now happens to be one of my favorite times of year. The sun is finally peaking its head back out from where it hid all winter long, the birds are twittering and beginning to burst forth in song, and the flowers are in bloom!


My favorite flower, which deigns us with its presence for such a precious short time, is the Sakura, more commonly known in the US as the Cherry Blossom.

My own love affair with this flower dates back to my high school years when there was a Cherry Tree in our schoolyard (which, sad to say, has been since chopped down and replaced with concrete). On May 1st of 1995 or 1996, a sweet boy crowned me the Queen of May and presented to me a bouquet of Cherry Blossoms. I have since loved that flower! The blossoms are exquisite, and as they mature, their petals paper the earth in a type of confetti.

The Japanese practice "hanami," which is the culture of enjoying the flowers, namely the Cherry Blossom. Each year in Japan the weather bureau announces the blossom forecast, and the people closely watch for the blooming of the Sakura. When the time is right, thousands of people gather under the Cherry Trees in parks and pass the day and night away in celebration.

I lived opposite the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens in New York City for several years and always celebrated Hanami as well as the Sakura Matsuri, which is their annual rite of Spring. I would spend my Saturdays strolling amongst the flowers. After the Cherry Blossoms started to wilt at the beginning of May, the heavenly-scented lilacs would come into bloom followed by the roses in June.

If you're fortunate to live near public parks or gardens, don't miss this opportunity to view some of nature's finest offerings. Celebrate Hanami!

Here are some pictures from the Flickr set called
Hanami: Cherry Blossom Viewing at Brooklyn Botanic Garden

Couples Canopy by CocteauBoy

Planet Cherry by David Reeves

Waiting Spring by Catching Flies

XOXO,

Birdcage Vintage Shop Update

The beautiful frames come courtesy of Grunhild

You might have noticed that I was MIA this past weekend. On Thursday, I made a quick dash to NYC for a casting with Target, and then on Friday, Erin (my sis) and I headed down to Laurel, Delaware to pass the weekend. We hit up thrift stores along the way (it's about two hours south of where my parents live), and did some more thrifting on Saturday.

On Saturday afternoon we shot about two hundred pictures or so of me in dresses and shirts that we had thrifted. The end goal is to put them in our new Etsy store that we are so excited about. It's so fun to have a hobby, and even better since I get to work with my sis who also happens to be my best friend.

By Sunday evening, when I had returned home, we had already made three sales! What beginner's luck! I have some more posting to do to the store, so keep checking back.

In other (related) news, Erin has devoted herself to all things digital scrapbooking. She's lucky enough to have the programs Fireworks and Photoshop Elements, which means she can play around with images and do some pretty cool things. She's already made our shop look a lot cooler by creating a new header and avatar. Check it out:



I'm just jealous because I don't have the software to do such things. (Does anyone else find it strange that Macs come loaded with movie editing software and music editing software, but not a true photo editing software? I mean, am I wrong in assuming that the photo editing software would be the most useful of the three?) Oh, and my Flickr Pro account expired today. Boo hoo.

XOXO,

Meet the Internet

I'm quite proud of myself these days: Firstly, I started my own blog on blogger (I also have two travel blogs here), and have actually managed to stick with it since March.  Secondly, I've now gotten the hang of adding pictures, utilizing programs such as Flickr, to add some panache to my pages, and, as of a couple of days ago, I've learned how to imbed videos into my pages.  Add to that the use of Google's web tools such as Google Analytics, and even some tinkering around on Blogrolling, Feedblitz, and Feedburner, and I'm pretty proud of myself for figuring these things out.  For today's trick, I'd like to upload my first Picasa web album-- I made it last night as a web portfolio of my modeling pictures to send to potential agencies when looking for representation.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is me with a lotta makeup on, retouching, and good lighting.  Oh yeah, let's not forget photographers that know what they're doing.

Without further ado, I present my first Picasa Web Album:  (Yeah!)

And, while I'm on the subject of cool websites, my niece turned me on to this one: Picnik.  It's a free online picture editing website-- great for those of us who like to play with our pictures but don't have ready access to Photoshop.  Definitely check it out!