celebrate a life well lived

Meet Karla Kretzschmer and her darling daughter Kristina.  Even though she lives right in Farmington Hills, Michigan – I met Karla at my recent art adventure in Alpena.

At any rate, after chatting with Karla (who happens to be a catching fireflies fan) during lunch, I found out that she creates these wonderful celebration collages.

A Celebration Collage^™ helps people produce unique mixed-media art keepsakes to capture the essence of special events, milestones, memories, people, or places. This is a participative process– input and special objects are sought from friends, family, teammates, co-workers, more. Favorite sayings and colors, photos, tiny toys, figures, newspaper clippings, birth/adoption documents, and achievement certificates are just a few examples of the type of materials that can be included. The Celebration Collage expert will transform this input into a glorious, truly personalized gift for display at home or at work. A Celebrations Collage can also serve as a loving, life-affirming memorial.

Another great feature of these pretties is the clever back pocket.  This is where people who know the person being celebrated can write down special memories or stories on tags.  And all the tags nicely fit behind the one-of-a-kind canvas.

What a wonderful way to remember or simply celebrate a life!

a expedition to hammond bay

 

On one of the evenings of our up-north art adventure, Aly & I headed a little further north to Roger’s City to dine with my friend, Mary Pritchard of Domaci Gallery.

I knew Aly and Mary would hit it off since they’re both artists, have their own stores in historic buildings and love treasure hunting at estate & garage sales.

Plus they both carry my line of goodies at their galleries too!

Here’s an example of Mary & Tim’s handiwork.

Plus I just love her jewelry line.  We carry some of her select pieces at our Rochester and Berkley catching fireflies locations.

After dinner we headed up to Mary’s home on Hammond Bay (which basically means there is a beautiful beach in her back yard).  Her furry family of five greeted us with excitement.

Mary and her husband, Tim did all the tile work in their kitchen and bathroom.

I love the simplicity of the plain copper pipe.

It’s always fun to see other artist’s living spaces and galleries.  It was a wonderful addition to our art adventure itinerary.

win ‘best of detroit’ party tickets

 

We’re so excited about being voted BEST GIFT SHOP by Hour Detroit two years in a row, we’re giving away a pair of tickets to the Best of Detroit Party on Thursday, June 26, 2008 ($150 value)

The catching fireflies gals (and Steve) went last year and we all had a grand time… so now you can too – compliments of catching fireflies!

All you have to do is click that little purple comments link at the bottom of this post and tell us: Why you think catching fireflies is the best gift shop?

We’ll randomly select 1 comment on June 12, 2008 and will make arrangements for the lucky winner to pick up their tickets for this festive event.

Hour Detroit – Best Gift Shop 2008

Voted best gift shop in Metro Detroit two years in a row!

Thank you Hour Detroit and all our loyal firefly fans for voting for us. We couldn’t do it without you!

more fun with miss hellmuth

The last day of the workshop we continued working on our collage projects.  Here’s a shot of the fun ladies at our table and cute Claudine.

At lunch time, we got the opportunity to dine with Claudine and her mom.   They’re both just delightful.

These pretties are Catherine’s creations.

And Aly’s sweet guys.

My second piece was in honor of Samson.  The edge of the canvas reads, "Samsonville: the land of car rides, ice cream cones, neighborhood walks, tug toys and love."

I also went home with a signed copy of Claudine’s latest book.

And one of her pieces of art that reads, "do the dishes or go shopping?"  It has a perfect home on my kitchen window sill (right above my sink:)

On the way home we drove by these colorful characters and I couldn’t resist snapping a photo. It almost looks like they could be part of a quirky collage.

… for more whimsical fun, check out this super silly ‘love’ e-card from Claudine’s website.  (it just cracks me up)

a weekend with claudine hellmuth

Thursday afternoon my two friends (Aly & Catherine) and I headed up to Art in the Loft in Alpena, MI to take a lovely little workshop from the talented Claudine Hellmuth.

This is an example of one of her whimsical collage works.

The first day we learned how to create any color we want by mixing the appropriate amounts of primary colors and black & white paint.

Then each gal at our table chose a color combination of their liking and we created cool collage tags.

Isn’t that a fun apron?  One of the gals at our table makes them!

I made the kitty divine cover and the 4 other tags were made by my table mates.

It was fun to see all the other color stories.

Day 2 we learned how to make textured backgrounds and create balanced compositions.

One of the background techniques was gluing down paper, then peeling back a layer and then glazing with paint.

Here’s one of Aly’s compositions in the works. That’s her adorable little boy, Jack.

… and Catherine’s four legged friends.

And here is my first collage creation. That’s our lovely Berkley manager, Danielle and our store cat, Piper.  The stamping around the edge reads, "The gift wrappin’ gals love to practice perching on pretty presents."

Tomorrow… more delightful creations!

the national stationery show

Believe it or not, I actually worked while I was in New York.  Here is our a.i. paper design booth where stores can see our full line and order our items.

We had fun neighbors like… Fish Lips Paper Design who creates stylish 100% recycled gift wrap printed with soy inks.  (the story of her business name is really cute)

And Denise Cope of Hung on Words (who happened to grow up in Birmingham, MI – what a small world)

And a few of the evenings I worked on my bran-spankin’ new lap top.  Not too bad of a view from our hotel room, huh?

art installations… oh – I mean anthropologie windows

I can’t visit nyc without perusing the Anthropologie windows near Rockefeller Center.

Each of the days are represented by white apples… some chewed – some not.

This gigantic bee hive is created from newspaper pages.  It’s quite funny with all the b’s buzzing around it.

All these random items have lovely wings.  Who knew fruit bowls could fly?

Cup of t anyone?

… until August my pretties!

a saturday in the city

Whenever Steve & I have a trade show in New York, we always make sure we schedule in a day of exploring.  Here’s a glimpse of some of our sites during our walk on Broadway from 35th all the way to Battery Park.

The farmers market in Union Square.

Aerial view of the market from the Filene’s Basement women’s department.

ABC Home entrance

This is just a glimpse of inside this amazing store.  That whole wall is covered in silk dandelion-like flowers.

An international dance parade… only in NYC

A little piano music in Washington Square.

Many of the streets in Soho had a unique variety of handmade goods for sale.

One guy was selling screen plays of all kind… haven’t you always wanted to know the dialog of Raging Bull?

I love the look and colors of these little sleeves of cotton candy.

Ending our journey on a park bench with Miss Liberty.

simple-to-make pretty paper posies

Memorial day is just around the corner and before you know it, the kiddies will be strolling around the house looking for things to do.  If you need some crafty inspiration, look no further than this snazzy site that has loads of creative projects for kids of all ages.

I love all these pretty posy projects!

We love discovering simple ideas that make us smile… what – you too?  Then don’t delay and sign up to receive these hip blog posts in your email inbox today!