This blog has moved

This blog is now located at http://istanbuldesigns.blogspot.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://istanbuldesigns.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default.

A Berry Special Birthday

Yesterday we had a birthday party for one very important little girl.

With Strawberry Shortcake bouncy castle,

sandbox and play set,

cake and strawberry trifle,

and all our berry best friends.

Yipee for turning 3!

Huzzah for gorgeous weather!

Yay for amazing friends who made the celebration perfectly complete :)
We love you.



and after our guests left...
parents and grandparents went a little bouncy hog wild:

boingy bing

springy sproing

jiggity jig

hovering horizontally?

me and my dad

up up and away!

Wheeee!

Happy Birthday, Sweetpea  

(even though it's not really until this Thursday).

What a day to remember.

:)

What we've been up to...

Hay guys.  Please excuse my absence from the blogosphere. 

It's because I've been busy doing this:

Planting a garden.

Working on the home.

Making art with my little girl.

I don't know where the time goes.  

But the weather is nice. Summertime is here in Atlanta. We just skipped over spring and went right to summer.

I'm hardly in the studio these days at all.

Little climber girl.

By the way, check out the cherry blossoms, would ya. I think the pink trees in the front yard that were in bloom a couple weeks ago were peach trees (and not cherry, like I had thought).  These fat bulby ones are cherries.

They are GORGEOUS.

My parents flew in from Toronto yesterday, and I'm so happy to have them here.

Tomorrow we celebrate SweetPea's 3rd birthday (her actual b-day is the 15th).

We will have no less than 65 people at our house for a Strawberry Shortcake themed party tomorrow. There is one very excited SweetPea down there who's been asking me every day for the past week if it's her birthday yet.

Almost, my little one...

Well,

I'm off to Whole Foods and Trader Joe's to get the ingredients for that 

strawberry trifle I'm making for tomorrow.

Have a FANTASTIC weekend, you guys.

I'll try to post more soon.

xoxo,

Alice :)

What I did last night...

Last night we went to a show.

The Indigo came to town.

Tribal Fusion Belly Dance at it's finest.

Mesmerizing.

Electrifying.

Awe-inspiring.

Here, see for yourself, some clips I pulled from YouTube for you:

Zoe Jakes

Rachel Brice

Click here and here for more.

Seeing them perform live and 8' away from you is pretty indescribable.

Makes me want to:

run out and finally get some tattoos

and make huge jewelry

and start belly dancing again

I think I'll do all of the above...

Old friends, Good times.

One of my oldest friends from Toronto popped by for a couple of quick visits on her drive to and from Florida this Spring Break. 

Elda and me 2 weeks ago.

She and I go way back to 9th grade.

That's almost 22 years  (holy crrrackers, does that ever make me feel old).

After high school we lost touch, as most friends do.

But thanks to facebook, we've reconnected.

It's like we never skipped a beat.

We two have lots in common: 

we have the same new Liberty of London shirt dresses from Target, 

we're both Italian girls from Toronto (although I'm also half Armenian), 

we're characteristic Scorpios to the power of infinity, 

and we both have a mandatory sunhat requirement 

as directed by our respective dermatologists. 

Yesterday.

I love my friend Elda.

A beautiful and sweet person from the inside out.

She is sunny sunshine.

There's no such thing as bad weather when you're with her.

 

Makes me grateful that real friendships are bound by neither time nor distance.

A happy rest of the weekend to you.

:)