Very Fruity - New *Giggle* Beads

This fresh batch of Giggle beads, with apples, blueberries and watermelon, came out very fruity indeed, and quite unintentionally. I know the Watermelon Bears are a little out of season, but here in California it's still so warm and I'm taking time to adjust to the end of summer.

Apple Girls Polymer Clay *Giggle* Beads

Blueberry Girls Polymer Clay *Giggle* Beads


Watermelon Bears Polymer Clay *Giggle* Beads

Mint Choc Chip Fairies - New *Giggle* Beads

I love fairies and cupcakes and mint choc-chip, so here they are all together in a minty sweet set...

Mint Choc-Chip Fairy *Giggle* Beads

Alviso

While it's still Friday, before the next weekend comes and goes and I have new activities to report on, (hopefully...there is a chance the next two days could be taken up with Trader Joe's, Costco, Safeway...groan...), I'm going to be efficient and post updates from last weekend so that I'm not always running weeks behind.

Alviso marshes - doorway across the bay.

Our main objective was to find somewhere interesting for picture taking, preferably nearby as we had errands to run and our weekends are just never long enough. So my husband, always coming up with great ideas, suggested Alviso, a very unique settlement, so close to us and we must have driven past the exit so many times and yet I never would have guessed it existed so near us, as it's so unlike all our neighbouring cities.

Capture of the Alviso marshes - a fantastic open expanse of wetland.

Alviso is the only spot in San Jose that touches the shores of the San Francisco Bay, and so we found ourselves wandering across the marshes, along boardwalks, in the setting sun. The wind was gusting in and I had to fight against camera shake in every shot.

Boardwalks across the Alviso marshes.

Perhaps it was a bit late for the wildlife to make an appearance as I only noted a few seagulls, whereas the wetlands around Shoreline Park in Mountain View are usually very alive with a great variety of birds. But Alviso is well worth visiting just for its uniqueness within the Bay Area and for the sense of wide, open expanse across the marshes and bay.

Alviso shoreline at sunset.

July 4th - Sunol Regional Wilderness

Always looking for new places to hike, we grabbed the opportunity of a one day holiday, and set off along the windy Calaveras Rd for the Sunol Regional Wilderness. Described by many as among their favourite places to hike, we thought we would be in for a treat, and braved the searing 100+ deg. temperatures. For anyone traveling from the SW as we were, don't be fooled by the seemingly shorter route along Calaveras. The road is very windy and though it does provide a pleasant view of the San Francisco Water District Land, I don't think it's really worth the car sickness which can be avoided by taking the highway.

A thistle husk, captured in the late afternoon sun at Sunol Regional Wilderness.

Of course it was already late afternoon by the time we arrived, but in this case was by design rather than an inability to get ourselves together any earlier - it just would have been far too hot if we'd arrived an hour or two before we did. Even as it was we were sweating profusely by the time we had crossed the parking lot, which, given the holiday, was empty save for one other vehicle and it seemed as we were hiking we had the park completely to ourselves.
I suspect we took the wrong trail. The park, like most around here, have tracks laid out rather like a rabbit warren and even with a map it took us a little while to work out where we were going. I think our mistake lay in arriving via the Geary Rd entrance rather than turning off onto Welch Creek Rd which would have taken us around the 'Maguire Peaks Loop Trail'. Then again, it may have been just as dreary as the track we did take, the 'Indian Joe Creek Trail', coming back on the Hayfield Rd, described in the provided pamphlet as including a 'wooded canyon with cave rocks'.

Dried summer grasses along Hayfield Rd at Sunol Regional Wilderness.

Actually, it really wasn't so bad. In fact it was exactly as described I suppose. It was so wooded that it didn't afford any views and there were cave rocks, probably just not the sort of cave rocks I was expecting to see.
My husband was a little horrified when we stumbled into a herd of cattle, but they seemed pretty content to avoid us at all costs, sabotaging my attempts for some nice cow captures.

Merrell Chameleons. My husband and Bear Grylls never leave home without them.

So, would I go again? Yes, but I would definitely take the 'Maguire Peaks Loop Trail', described as having 'excellent views of San Antonio Reservoir and Mt Diablo'. My husband, however, says he isn't keen to return, (perhaps the cows are a little responsible for this?), so it may be awhile before I can give my opinion on the Mt. Diablo views.

3 scoops, chocolate dipped

3 scoops, chocolate dipped - double churned, extra creamy! That's the title of my Etsy treasury, themed on, well, ice cream, of course.
If you'd asked me what an Etsy treasury was a couple of weeks ago I wouldn't have had a clue, but then all of a sudden having one seemed almost like a necessity.
So, what is the Etsy treasury exactly? It's a feature of Etsy that allows members to showcase 12 items from Etsy, that have appealed to them in some way, like because they fitted the ice cream theme in my case, in their own treasury 'list'. This list can then be viewed by Etsy buyers, sellers as well as the general public, amongst the other lists in the treasury, 222 at any given time, all of which expire after a couple of days to be replaced by new ones.
Anyway, browsing through Etsy I had seen lots of fun items that would fit the ice cream theme, so I made a note of them on the off chance I might find myself with my own treasury. And here's the result -

Snapshot of my "3 scoops" Etsy treasury.

New *Giggle Beads* on Etsy

About a year ago I stumbled across Etsy, "your place to buy and sell all things handmade". Back then it was just a year old and still small but looked as if it had potential, so I signed up and listed a few things very sporadically and never promoted my store. Not because I didn't think there was any hope of a sale, I did in fact sell a couple of things, but because I had a ready market on Ebay and hopes that I would find the time to build my own site for *Giggle Beads* sales, at which time I would make a smooth transition from one to the other. However, my site is still under construction and my patience with Ebay ran out after they changed their 'selling' interface and it could no longer read my html without a lot of time spent puddling about with each listing. With that final straw I decided to check Etsy out again, and finding it to have grown considerably in a year, thought that it may provide a better intermediary site for sales until the launch of my own site for Giggle Jelly.

Flower fairy *Giggle Beads* available at my etsy store.

So, over the last couple of weeks I've been slowly building up my store inventory, listing regularly rather than all at once to get a bit more exposure. If you check out my left column, <--------, you'll find my rather cool 'Mini Etsy', with some of what I have available at the moment and links through to what you see.

Marigold 1/2 inch Needle Felted *Giggle Beads* available in my etsy store.

The 'Mini Etsy' is found under 'Your Etsy' and took me a bit of stumbling about to find. It generates a neat bit of code that you can add to your blog, just as you see. In fact Etsy has lots of nice touches like that and they give the site much more of a quality feel than somewhere like Ebay, and the consistency of the site design and 'all handmade' listings is very appealing. But, alas, as great as it is, it just isn't gigglejelly.com, so I shall really have to put some more effort into mortaring together pieces of code.

Summer honey bees *Giggle Beads* available at my etsy store.

Heritage Roses

It's a gorgeous summer's afternoon here in Silicon Valley, not suffocatingly hot as it was late last week, but just pleasant with clear skies and long, long afternoons. The sort of summer's day that makes me think of afternoon tea in an English garden full of summer roses, with freshly baked scones served with strawberry jam and cream and tea scented with rose petals and orange blossoms. The sort of day where blackbirds twitter and fossick for food and white daisies, the kind perfect for daisy chains, cover the lawn and a dandelion, here and there, is blown hither and thither on a gentle breeze.

On the last day of our Memorial Day weekend holiday we were left once again, having arisen rather later than is good for a long journey or full day outing, pondering what we should do with the hours of daylight we had left at our disposal. I had a desire to stroll through a well-kept garden rather than hiking through the hills, alive rattle snakes, so we settled on the San Jose Heritage Rose Gardens, in the Guadalupe River Park and Gardens, boasting a collection of almost 5,000 plants from 3,500 varieties of miniature, modern and heritage roses.

A beautiful pink rose captured at the San Jose Heritage Rose Gardens.

Another beautiful bloom, this one a soft, creamy yellow, from the San Jose Heritage Rose Gardens.

The roses were in fact numerous, but at that point in the season where they were past their prime and the bushes in need of some upkeep. My husband described it as 'depressing' and like 'wandering through a retirement village', but I thought what was left of the season was beautiful and is on my list of gardens to visit next Spring. I did manage to capture a few nice macro shots in the soft light of sunset, (you can take a look at the rest in my photo album), but I wish I had made a note of the varieties as there were some amazing heritage roses dating back to the 18th century and perhaps earlier, and it is heritage roses that interest me most, so I was delighted to come across such blooms as could have stepped out of a Redoute painting.

I'm sure that anyone with a love of old roses will have, at some point, come across the beauty of Pierre-Joseph Redoute's works, and if not, most definitely should. The illustrations through this entry are an example of his work and the most comprehensive site of his art and of heritage roses in general is A Picture of Roses. Not only is there a wealth of information on his life and the roses he painted but also an amazing collection of free rose clipart, and yup, that's where the gorgeous little roses scattered throughout this post come from. And if you're into cross stitch, their sister site Epic Stitch has a fantatstic collection of patterns featuring Redoute's illustrations, including these three free patterns!