Cure for the winter blues ~

While much of the country battles snow, Tucson still has flowers blooming! Well, colorful metal ones at least. You can find Yogi, an entrepreneurial metal worker, parked most weekends on the corner of Speedway and Houghton with his blooming bouquets and much more fun yard art.

Simple desert beauty ~

I loved this combination of real agave side by side with metal agave sculpture on the corner of Houghton and Speedway. A simple view - plants, mountains, Tucson's famous blue sky and - don't miss the little dancing kokopelli!

Landscaped and ready!

So a few days ago I posted the gingerbread house that I was working on. I finished it with a peppermint fence, snow dusted pine trees and snow on the roof. This was a super fun project! Lastly I will spray it with varnish, carefully store it, and unpack it in 11 months. Wow - nothing like starting a project very late and acting like I'm just planning ahead.... (:

Hi ho, Hi ho, it's off to recycling we go ~

A wee bit early, perhaps, but this Christmas tree is now headed for recycling. Tucson's tree recycling program provides wood chips to the public - good for mulch. Traditionally, the dismantling of the tree was performed on January 5 (Twelfth Night). Twelfth Night was considered the official end of the Christmas season and was the precursor to the feasting that leads up to Lent. King Cake, anyone?

Fresh year, fresh paint ~

For many years the wonderful Magic Garden, a nursery on 22nd Street, was painted a really wild hot pink. They then switched to an all-green exterior with blue lettering. As you can imagine, it was really hard to see their sign until this new touch up job. While they were closed for New Year's Day I snapped this view of their yellow striped accent paint. Looks great now!

Before and After: 2013 and 2014

This may sound like a crazy plan but it is what it is! I wanted to make a gingerbread house this year and somehow I just didn't get around to it until Tuesday, Dec 31 - the last possible moment before 2013 disappeared forever. So I started it in 2013 and I (mostly) finished it in 2014. The "before" shows all of the ingredients I had assembled to decorate this beauty. The "after" shows it 95% complete. The gingerbread man still needs a little more stability (hence the icing spatula propping him up). And still to come I want to dust the roof with sparkly sugar to look like snow. I also am going to add a few little pine trees and probably some kind of candy border. I had never made one before - it was fun! And now I'm ready for Christmas 2014. (:

The Road Ahead ~

This beautiful antique wagon is on display at Trail Dust Town. It looks like a circus wagon to me with its intricate carvings and colors. Reminds me of Professor Marvel's wagon in Wizard of Oz! Where will the 2014 road lead?