A whimsical wonderful artist... Miss Clara!

Hello Everyone,
A fun post today as I am trying to inject a bit more happiness into my life right now.

I have run across this beautiful lady's work as well as her beautiful home on Tumbler and Pinterest.

 I have tried to track her down to learn more about who she is.

She makes the most beautiful and intricate paper sculptors.  Small dolls, clothes, shoes, really all sorts of lovely things.

 I don't speak French but I am able to cobble together some information.

 It appears she illustrates children's books with her art.

 I have her web site on my side bar.  Here is the link. http://lescarnetsdemissclara.blogspot.com/

Her home is as wonderful as her art!

Miss Clara is one of my favorite artists.

She seems like a faerie godmother.

So whimsical and precious.

This video gives you a sense of her creations and her beautiful home.


Just thought I would share something fun and light hearted.

Blessings
Tricia

The road goes ever on and on....

Hello my blog friends,
I wish I could tell you that I have been off creating beautiful weddings and events and that is why I have been absent for so long.  Though I have had a few lovely weddings and photo shoots the real reason is that life changed course on me a little over 3 months ago.

  My husband and I are parting ways after being together as a couple (married and before that) for 18 years.  There really are no words to express the emotions of the last several weeks.  These days have been the hardest of my life.

I know that time will heal my heart and bring me joy again, but right now I am just taking the next indicated step.  These steps have been big ones, I have moved my home and workspace.  It broke my heart to leave behind most of the cats and my glorious home and artist space.  My angles have been taking good care of me though.  I find myself in another beautiful home on this magical ranch.  The garage is now my prop storage area and there is a funky old green house that will become my new artist space after a bit of construction.

We are sharing the cats.  I took a few with me and Mike is staying with the rest in our old home.  I just can't break up the herd by taking too many.  I don't want to cause them any more stress than they are already experiencing.  They have been acting a bit off for a while and I know it is because they have been sensing all the problems and sadness.  I have taken the sweet little misfits that didn't really fit in well with the others and the happy-go-lucky ones that seem to be content no matter what.  I will visit the rest often and of course help with the various duties that caring for so many bring.  Michael is taking on a house mate to help pay the now double rent bill.

 I know all will be OK I just didn't see this coming so I am working hard to adjust and adapt with each day.

 Michael and I have known each other for 28 years and have been friends the entire time.  We are remaining friends even in the face of this rather challenging turn of events.  For that I am grateful.

I am looking at my life now as that I am being given a opportunity to create my world from scratch, start over, not just with my home and workspace but on a personal level as well.   At times it feels like a daunting task but there are infinite choices before me.  I am breathing through it and trying to feel my way to a new sense of myself.

My dearest friend in the world has been a rock for me, there is no way I could have made it through these dark days without her.

I worked with my counselor of many years several times a week as well as a wonderful healer friend.  These ladies along with my friend pulled me through.  I am in awe of friendship and those that are here on this beautiful planet to help others...  They have truly saved my life!

I am also beyond grateful for my spirituality.

If I didn't have my belief in something greater than myself and the amazing wisdom of the Universe, there would have been no way for me to make sense of this.

I am now meditating daily, 

walking like crazy, practicing yoga and actively working with my Spirit helpers

 and various wonderful books 

 to help me grow and learn from this.

I am truly realizing that we are not alone in our walk on this planet.  If we can but see, there are a multitude of helpers, angles, spirit guides and sign posts here to help us.  God is truly in everything and is all that is Love, and gives us so much help if we will see it and reach for it.

I try hard to pay attention to the signs and messengers,

reaching for any divine help that is offered.  Even in the face of this most difficult time I honestly feel more connected to God and my path than ever.

I can't say I did in the first three weeks.  Those days are a black haze 

that I don't really remember too well.  

I think your body in it's infinite wisdom shuts down in times of extreme stress, blurring over the super painful parts.  I am grateful for that.  It allows you to keep moving forward instead of 

curling up and dying.  

I am better now though far from whole and I continue to have waves of sadness and anger, though less frequently.  I am still working and finding joy in other people's unions (however it was very difficult in the beginning).  At the moment I am unable to stay for the ceremony as it fill me with too much sadness and I do not want to bring that energy to such a special day.  I give myself over to the magic of creating beautiful celebrations and working with Nature's glorious flowers.  I still believe in marriage, relationships, and soul mates.  Call me silly, or just a hopeless romantic but I think we are here to be with each other, stretch and grow and remember who we are by being in relationship with others.  

I will trust to God, my life, my process, my path and carry on.

If I sound miraculously together and well adjusted, believe me when I say I haven't been like this through the whole thing.  I have had moments (long ones) of crying my eyes out in a fetal position questioning everything, and liking nothing!  But even in the worst of it I have sensed a presence, something stronger and wiser than myself.  I am trusting to that and the belief that I will be OK. 

I had no idea what or even if I should post about such a personal issue.  I have thought about what this blog is to me, and what I want to say to the cyber world.  It took me a while to figure this out and that is why I was silent for so long (that and the rather prolonged meltdown I was having).  This blog is a reflection of me, of my loves, my desires, my creations and my life.  To not post about the most important thing in my life would be to end the blog as to continue it without relaying such an important event would be disingenuous.  But I don't really care to share the deepest secrets and details either.  I am also so visual that to just write with out pictures didn't seem me either.  But how do you post pictures of such an emotional, amorphous subject?

  I decided to share my process with you, not so much the details but my experience of it.  I looked to find images that conveyed a feeling, a mood, not a factual representation as that would be impossible. 

 In everything I do I still want to evoke a feeling of beauty, even in the dark times.  There is beauty in everything if one sees God in everything.  I am learning how to do this and I tried with these images and words to show that.

I will post again soon, hopefully with lighter topics though I will still share bits of my process with you.  I will also share photos of my new surroundings.  I found a magical meditation place on a rock next to a stream which  I will show you later...  as well as the many beautiful events I am ever a part of.

For now I end by sending you my heartfelt wishes for joy and peace, and a connection to Spirit.  

(here's to hopefully feeling happy again...)

Please also keep me in your prayers and happy thoughts.  I do believe they work!

Peace, light and love

Tricia

The Steam Punk Faerie wedding!!!!!

Be warned...  TONS of pictures coming up!!!
Finally I have photos of the Steam Punk/Faerie/Victorian wedding to show you!  It was one of the most fun and magical weddings I have had the privilege of being a part of!  The bride found me through the faeries (the faerie wedding that I did) and wrote me the loveliest of emails.  They wanted a beautiful steam punk and faerie wedding and were hoping I would be able to do it.  I had to think about it for...  oh about...  2 seconds!  The groom when asked to described the feel of the wedding said "Imagine if a Zeppelin crashed landed in a faerie forest".  Isn't that great!  I had just decided to do a steam punk photo shoot as the style had been rattling around in my imagination for awhile so I was definitely all in and super excited about it!  The universe really does provide you what you ask for... it was meant to be.  Both the bride and groom are amazing artists and so we collaborated quite a bit with them making many of the things we used.   We had so many fun meetings and back and forth emails.  I actually got depressed after the wedding was over!  Only the bride and groom are supposed to have a post wedding let down!  Not me and especially after I have been doing this for 12 years!!!  I was very attached to this magical wedding!
So now let me give you our lovely couple...

By the way the extremely gorgeous photos are from Braedon Flynn, one of my all time favorite photographers! 

As I said they are both wonderful artists.  The bride actually made her own dress!

Then I wove into her skirt birds nest for a faerie element.

Isn't she beautiful!

Our groom...

Goodness I wish men dressed like this more often.  He just looks so handsome and dapper!

Here is the wedding party.

Here is one of the bride's maids.  

The bride's bouquet had bird's nests tucked in along with old skeleton keys and other found bits. 

 Hanging from it were several vintage spoons that her grandmother had collected along with a key from my grandmother and a few other fun bits.

  Along the ribbon wrapped stems I attached gears and buttons.  

Another lovely bride's maid

The grooms boutonniere as well as all the boutonnieres had fun bits attached such as feathers, keys, mini watch gears, and all were bound with ribbons and shiny copper, brass and silver wire.

The rest of the boutonnieres.

One of the groom's men.

Here is the photographer's co shooter and brother bringing in the bouquets.  Isn't he handsome?! 

All the guests with the exception of maybe 4 people came in costume.

Here is yours truly with Tonya of Soigne Productions the coordinator.  Bet you haven't seen a coordinator like that before?!

Here I am again with my most cool jacket on.

Look at this adorable guest...

The entire guest line up!

The ceremony had quite a bit of faerie touches, much more than steam punk.  That style came in for the reception.  

The vow site was at the base of a 200 year old Sycamore tree.  

I had several Asian carpets both at the altar and down the aisle.  I made this huge organic branch chandelier that was embellished with flowers and crystals.  Also in the tree branches over the guests heads we hung lots of vintage stained glass windows.

Here you can see the candles hanging off the chandelier.

One of the stain glass windows.

More...

We staked into the ground an old barn door and then draped it with vintage lace.  Of course I had to hang a set of faerie wings up too.  And definitely lots of flowers.

Here is one of her bride's maids getting all choked up.  By the way, this lady was super cool, yet another artist!  Everybody was just really fun!

Here is the bride's dad walking her down the aisle.  Doesn't that make you tear up.  Her parents were just precious.  I want to adopt them... or vise versa.  Just loved them!

We also hung flower filled bird cages in the trees.

The entrance to the aisle had a fun wooden program-sign the bride made.

On the other side of the aisle entrance I placed another flower filled bird cage and the bride's faerie dolls.

The aisle decorations were a fun eclectic combination of bits of lace, fringe trim, tassels, and crystal chains all woven into dried honey suckle vine.  Where it attached to the pews and hay bales I added vintage silver, nests and moss baskets all filled with flowers.

A vintage purse filled with flowers.

Here you can see the aisle garland.

My BFF Nancy Little Moon was the most awesome officiant and quickly reduced me to tears with the story of their love, quotes from Tolkien, and the sound track to The Princess Bride.

The ring bearer's "pillow" was a steam punked, faerie nest.

I wove in bits of lace, watch gears and old keys.

One of the bridesmaids with the groom's men just after the ceremony.

The receptions was very steam punk.  I learned how to solder copper pipes and then made the copy of one of Leonardo De Vinci's wings to hang from the rafters.

Here is a closer view.

The bride and groom and I came up with the idea of large old fashioned clock faces to 

hang on the back wall.

The entrance to the barn was set up with all kinds of cool period decor.

The bride drew caricatures of departed family members and had a central sign that said "Wish you were here"  These drawings were amazing.  I understand from her mother that she just "banged" them out...  Wow!

The tables were named after authors either from the Victorian era or contemporary Gothic/fantasy writers or film people.  The cards that the guest's table assignments were written on were created by the bride and groom and then I hung them on an old wine bottle drying rack.

There were fun touches like the pens to sign the "guest book" were quills or beautiful Italian glass with vintage ink wells.

Some beautiful old English riding boots filled with flowers.

Some of the centerpieces and the table names.

The author of one of my favorite stories...  Stardust

A vintage ladies hat box filled with flowers.

Another hat box.

Glass cloche covered flowers.

Vintage silver containers.

Antique oil lamps

The head table had a wonderful mixture of items.  I had soldered together copper pipe "candelabras" and then laced flowers all through them.

They also had a Dia de Los Muertos kind of thing going on with a skeleton bride and groom.

We had white Peacock feathers.

Up close of my copper "candelabras"

The napkin rings were pieces of copper pipe (yes I did get a bit obsessed with pipes )

with assorted bits like watch parts, gears, broaches, etc glued on.  I also ordered from a wonderful etsy artist, gear "chargers" which I placed under each plate.

We had tons of details all over the barn like black "Victorian" faerie wings

I didn't get a great picture of this feature but it was so cool.  I made an Edison light bulb fixture that had descending hanging bulbs with the top of the cords sandwiched between two old pieces of barn wood.  This framed the entrance area of barn from the inside.

Statues dressed for the occasion...  well partially dressed that is.

Rather punked out statues.

One of the lounges complete with vintage parlor furniture and steamer trunks.

We had a great mad scientist-steam punk bar which my husband and I built.  We had Absinth

 among other lethal drinks.

The bride and groom and her parents have dogs which became the subject of a couple of paintings that the groom did.  He is an astounding artist!

Here is Abby who became "Abby-sinth" for the night.

And Mortimer became "Mor-tini"

We had a beautiful candy bar in apothecary jars

An antique clock among the sweets.

We also had Enjoy Cupcakes show up with their vintage trailer and set up a beautiful spread of the most luscious cupcakes.

Some of which I put on antique tire rims.

Here I pulled my 67 British Morris Minor up to the cupcake trailer just for giggles.

We even had a pool table by the bar!

Isn't this a GREAT picture!

The barn in full party mode.

All in all it was a great "steamy" party!!!

Thank you for hanging in to the bitter end.  I know there were lots of pics but I just couldn't eliminate any!  Believe it or not you still haven't seen all the details...  there were just so many!

Blessing to all!

Tricia