"We are allowed to be multifaceted"

I have been lax in my blogging and online presence of late, and am catching up this week.  Life has been tumultuous for me these past six months, and I have had some personal hurdles that needed clearing. I am happy to say that resolutions have been achieved, and I am ready and eager to move into the transition of fall (my favorite season and time of year).  I wanted to share some pictures though of the summer that are evocative of happy moments. The above photo is of a green sea turtle that I took at the Monterey Bay Aquarium on a family outing.  If you haven't been to this aquarium mark in on your list of places to see, the facility is amazing, and so devoted to research and conservation of all marine life.  I have a special relationship with this aquarium since I have been visiting it for over 32 years now, I have been here through class field trips in elementary school, have attended weddings here, and private parties.  It is one of those nostalgic places for me that never fails to incite wonder.

So I have been enjoying Instagram immensely, the picture above is of some appetizers that were a prelude to an incredible lunch I had recently.  Blue point oysters and hand crafted artisan cheese.  I love cheese platters, and am a consummate foodie. 

As mentioned before my daughter has a love of all things Asian, and for her birthday party theme she wanted a Japanese tea party.  Coming up with the decorations and ideas for this was a fun challenge.  Here is a photo of the candy sushi my fiance and I prepared.  I used rice crispy treats as the base for the candy sashimi and rolls, the inside of the rolls were wrapped with sour gummy worms, and the sashimi was comprised of Swedish fish, and softened Airheads wrapped with thin slices of green fruit roll ups resembling kelp.  Also I made about 100 tiny cupcake mice with pearl noses, candy wafer ears, and tiny red licorice tails.  

A close up of her centerpiece, finding elements for this theme wasn't easy since the local party store doesn't have "Asian tea party" stocked and available.  The paper Japanese kokeshi are actually gift bags from Cost Plus that I weighted internally with candles, I found white eyelet paper lanterns on sale by Martha Stewart, and the parasol is a gift from my mom to my daughter from a local open air market.

HUGE tissue paper pom poms, I had so much fun making these things, they are still up in my house actually.

Moon dark

So the title quote "we are allowed to be multifaceted" is from fancifuldevices, I wrote to her recently about some new projects I was working on and wanted her opinion on whether I should create a separate space for them or showcase them all in Corvid.  She wisely advised me to just list them and reminded me to do whatever I wanted to, and not worry about shop themes or cohesiveness.  How we are not multinational conglomerates that need to worry about marketing visions, but are allowed to explore all of our interests. 

Pink lemonade

So here are some hair clips that I've made and are a surprise I know.  One of my best friends has been encouraging me to make hair accessories for a long time, (my daughter and I have so much fun with ribbons and bows).  I have been reticent up until now about listing these, but enjoy the process and end result so much that I can't be stopped.  

Nocturne butterflies

I had a vision of Louise Brooks when putting these together... I love the romance of midnight sparkle.