In the past few days

As many of you may already know, Arizona got a LOT of rain last week.  Even had tornadoes touch down near Flagstaff and destroy a number of homes.  Here is what was going on in my yard last week during one of many downpours that day.

You can see it was really coming down and the wind was blowing.  However, a few seconds before I took this shot, you couldn't see the pink bush in the background at all it was raining that hard.  The drip system for the landscaping will remain off for a couple of weeks.  The ground is pretty wet.

Yesterday my BFF Joy and I took a ride over to 7th Avenue and Indian School in Phoenix to wander through our favorite shops over there.  We first visited Zinnias on Melrose and Hollywood Regency.  The owner of Hollywood Regency recently passed away.  There were several people working in the shop clearing out the inventory.  Everything was 50% off!!  Hollywood Regency was packed full of vintage clothing.  Although it was pretty well picked over, I did manage to grab a few bargains.  Here's one:

That great pony jacket!  How cool!  It is Liz Wear and a size medium.  In beautiful condition!  How cool with a lace skirt and cowgirl boots.  The jacket looks big and it is big on that tiny dress form.  Also wanted you to see the great white petticoats I got at an estate sale several weeks ago and that fur capelet -- it is marked Alaskan Fur.

Next we visited Rust and Roses.  Joy and I love to look through there!  So many wonderful things to see!  As we walked in, here was this great torso form wrapped in some gauzy fabric and sporting a rhinestone heart on a chain!  And, note the owl on the top of the form.  I asked about that gauzy thing and was told it was tea dyed cheesecloth.  I loved it!

So today I visited Wal Mart, bought some cheesecloth and set out dyeing it.  Check out the two colors I did today:

You can see the original color of white in the center.  On the left I used Easter egg dye in red.  Had to be sure I rinsed out some of the color because it was pretty strong even though I used a lot of water to dissolve the dye tablet.  On the right I used tea.  It takes a lot of tea bags to do this nice color.  Think it is time for a trip to the dollar store to see if they sell tea bags!!  Next up is to see if I can get the cheesecloth to look like that wrap in the picture above!!

Lastly I leave you with this pic of great black boots and cloth pumpkins on top of a shabby dresser in Rust and Roses.

Do any of you watch "Teach: Tony Danza" on A&E??  I watched it yesterday and found it very powerful.  I used to teach grade school but would never take on 10th grade like Tony has.  Anyone who tells you teaching is easy has NEVER set foot in a classroom as an adult and tried to teach.  It's a tough job!!  I admire Tony for doing this program and taking the viewers along to see just what a tough job it is.  Especially for someone who cares, like Tony.  Tony's my hero!!