Feliz Navidad from Napa Valley. Beautiful. I awoke in the bed that was my mother's as a child in the house of my grandmother. We looked through old pictures of my great grandmother and her mother and her mother's mother... Lovely. My laptop was abandonded in the IE so I offer you a secret picture from my papa's desktop. He's researching industrial hemp oil as a source for biodiesel... something with engines... Love.

Had a lovely time last night in Santa Monica at the LA Craft Fair. Ashley wore the skirt I made her and looked phenomenal! Dee-lish food. We met the proprietors of some great blogs...
B-E-A-ewe-tiful evening!

Making acorns into Christmas ornaments is my current passion. Thanks to all my friends for sharing in it with me last night. Merry Christmas. I am overwhelmed with what beautiful people I have in my life.

Name ideas...

I've been sporting my bustles quite a bit lately and I've realized something- people really like them. I've decided to start a small online store.
I'm trying to think of a name. I want to name my "line" after Pierre who I call pear. So I would like the name to have the word pear in it. The ______ pear or _____ pear. Ideas? Please share.

This beauty was inspired by the necessity to use my new grommet punch that I purchased at Hancock's notion sale a few weeks back. One of my favorites to date.

The main barrier to making new posts is a combination of the following:
-Difficulty getting pictures of new projects off my camera
-Being super annoyed at not being able to get my format to wide screen. Help please!
-School
Okay, so since I have no new pictures on my computer (I'm in class). I'm sharing this one. This picture was taken on a recent trip to LA with Ash and Ken. I was trying to touch my feet to the ceiling by bouncing on my back. It looked uh-mazing and I did it! I plan on quitting my day job and pursuing a career in back bouncing as soon as I have a day job.

Justin modeling my first attempt at men's wear.

Congrats Liz and Jeff! You get the award I invented for the most stylish wedding. Love you!

I love love love this poem and post it for Michael and those who dissect poems with an emotionless scalpel.

Introduction to Poetry

Billy Collins

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

This is a collage from the time I spend with David and Cerise in California. Beautiful people and beautiful places. The nighttime photographs at Joshua Tree were probably the best part.

Justin found the instructions online and showed them to me. We mixed two sets of directions and ended up covering our body forms in plaster of Paris. Justin and Adam will soon be making stands for them. A very fun project. Thank you Diana.

Rushing time... rush, rush, rushing...

On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me fee like I'm coming down with something, something worse than any stomach ache or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--a kind of measles of the spirit, a mumps of the psyche, a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.You tell me it is too early to be looking back,but that is because you have forgotten the perfect simplicity of being one and the beautiful complexity introduced by two. But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.At four I was an Arabian wizard.I could make myself invisible by drinking a glass of milk a certain way. At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince. But now I am mostly at the window watching the late afternoon light.Back then it never fell so solemnly against the side of my tree house,and my bicycle never leaned against the garage as it does today,all the dark blue speed drained out of it.This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,time to turn the first big number.It seems only yesterday I used to believethere was nothing under my skin but light.If you cut me I could shine.But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,I skin my knees. I bleed.

-Billy Collins

Love and its mysteries.

E.E. Cummings
Love and its mysteries- 6


You shall above all things be glad and young
For if you're young, whatever life you wear

it will become you; and if you are glad
whatever living will yourself become.
Girlboys may nothing more than boygirls need:
i can entirely her only love

who's any mystery makes every man's
flesh put space on;and his mind take off time

that you should ever think, my god forbid
and(in his mercy)your true lover spare:
for that way knowledge lies, the foetal grave
called progress, and negation's dead undoom.

I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how to not dance.

Did I mention Diana and I are going to start a clothing line... She'll run the boutique and we'll co-design.

All Saints come marching in

My dear friend Diana just introduced me to two things- her bountiful closet and All Saints clothing. I am instantly obsessed: parachute skirts, bustles, suspender straps, and beautiful fabrics. This dress is my only indulgence thus far. Allsaints.com

Rflaiz.etsy.com. My new etsy store. Check it out!

Blame it on bad timing or my unfortunate appearance as a child but for whatever reason I have never been a flower girl. I was asked to be a flower girl once but the bride got cold feet. Before the wedding was called off however my mom bought the material to sew me my dress. These earrings were made from the lace from what would have been my one and only flower girl dress.

A weekend of projects. I'm considering starting an etsy store.

Just found this on the laptop.
On a lonely day in Barquisimeto, Venezuela-2006
I haven’t heard from those who I considered my closest friends in weeks. I try to remind myself that life is busy and I am out of sight and thus out of mind, but my loneliness convinces me it’s more. Why do I lose those that I care most about? A friend has been defined as someone who truly knows you and loves you anyway. It seems that those who truly know me always turn away. Are we truly as lonely as we want to be? Or are there things in us that push others away that we have no control over? I’m hurt by the loss and don’t understand. Is it my own incapacity to look beyond others mistakes that isolates me from them?
The bird that just flew overhead, silhouetted against the dark sky, looked as if it was growing tired. Its flapping was labored, unnatural, awkward. These buildings around me are too tall. The cars are too loud and the smog too thick. The bars on the windows give the impression of imprisonment, but they’re merely representative of cruelty and fragility. Would you come back to us? God, in all of this- earth, sky, galaxy, beyond- where are you? What are you? Are you the air I breathe or the warmth of a fire? Are you in the sun setting in the distance or are you the sunset? Is the nostalgic feeling I get from the ocean chemically induced or is that you? Or are all things truly one and I a fool for asking so many questions- for wandering so far from home and feeling so alone? I’m not scared to be alone and I’m not scared to be without you if you truly are not.
Distorted voices and affinities- popping in between awake and sleep.

In my first blog post I wanted to share this photo of my rabbit son- Pierre. Every time I see him I smile. He brings me joy.
I'm not sure what this blog will develop into but my intent is to share the beautiful things I encounter and create.