Sushi Love

I just thought I would drop in to say a quick hi! I hope your Memorial Day weekend was fun. We spent the weekend at the lake. It rained most of the time but we still had fun.I have decided I'm in love with sushi! I can't get enough of it. I even tried eel sushi. It was fabulous. You don't find much sushi around here so I'm excited to have found a good source. What kind of sushi do you like?




I have also been adding new items to my shop. I will be adding more daily.

I Guess I Do Sew After All

I have been wanting to try fiber art for a while now. I thought these little fabric collage tags would be a perfect way to use my new vintage stash. Big projects overwhelm me so I went small. I used my cheap little sewing machine that I purchased to sew paper with. I had SO much fun making them. Well...except for the part when my sewing machine kept jamming over and over again. But, I'm glad I jumped in and tried it. I'm really enjoying it. I think I might even put together kits so you can make some too!

P.s. Thanks for all the sweet comments about my studio! You guys make me blush!

Spring Clean

My sweet husband and I spent the weekend in a flurry of spring cleaning. I just have to give him credit. He was so patient as I kept pulling more and more stuff out for him to haul off for donations. Not to menation the massive amounts of cleaning he did too! Thank you so much sweetie! I'm a lucky girl! These are some "not so great" pictures of my studio. The lighting is weird in here. I plan on making a video tour of it to share with you soon. I have decide to do a major purge. I will be calling it The Spring Clean Sale. I want to keep the prices VERY low so no foofy packaging just straight up great deals. After the Spring Clean sale I will start adding my new stuff. I am so super excited about this.

Do You Sew?

I went to a garage sale for the first time in FOREVER yesterday. There was a large sale benefiting a local organization going on so I stopped by. I must admit I have never had that "swooning" feeling at seeing anything before. Well that all changed! Covering two tables and the floor was boxes of lace and trim. It was vintage, still on spool, and.......in gorgeous pastel colors. Some was still in the package! My heart pounded, I felt faint, and I was frozen. It looked like a shark feeding frenzy with all the ladies grabbing and shoving. I finally came to my wits and started grabbing whole boxes and taking them to the holding table. Some ladies REALLY got upset at me for this! I stopped when I felt I had gotten most of the good stuff. It took all the people working there to stop and add up my stuff. People were in line grumbling and griping about me. I was very unwillingly the center of attention. As I (and several people working there) carried my boxes out a lady asked me "Do you sew?" I loudly told her the truth. "Nope. Not even a button." I could clearly read the faces around me. " Whats up with that?" Whats up with that is I got VERY lucky and hit the jackpot! I have been working nonstop all day packaging all the pretties to put in my shop. Its been a bit overwhelming. Most of the trim is from New York Import companies. So who knows where its from. A lot of it had notes attached that said things like "wedding Veil", "slip bottom", and " to be dyed blush pink". There was also bags of pretty flower appliques. My hubby laughed at me when he saw me dividing it all into two piles.' My keep for me' pile was much larger that my sale pile. I'm such a hoarder. I couldn't tell you about all this with out giving some away so stay tuned for a give away! And I will update my shop soon.

Happy Mother's Day Weekend

I hope everyone has a fabulous Mother's day weekend. We are going camping!

Also be sure to Bookmark the Joli Paquet site. New things are coming soon!

Texas Longhorn Herd

We recently went on a cub scout camping trip and got to visit with these guys. They are part of the Official Texas Longhorn Herd. You could feed them by hand and even kiss one of them. I passed on that! Longhorns are such amazing, gentle animals. The only downside was the wind was really blowing hard in our direction and apparently longhorns slobber. Gross! At least can say we got slobbered on by longhorns! The trip was really fun! If you ever go to Copper Breaks State Park make sure you go see them. Its worth it.

Happy Earth Day

I'm spending the day planting things like okra, squash, cucumbers, and green beans. It's supposed to be in the high 90's today. Yikes! What happened to spring?

Mother's Day Kit

Mother's day is comming up! I always try to find or make someting extra special for my mom and mother inlaw. Throughout the year I have been saving some really cool vintage "mother" items. I had more than I could use so I made a few kits and listed them in my shop.

New Flickr Group

I just thought I would tell you about a new group I started on Flickr. The group is for you to share your crafts, art, ideas and tips with items bought from Brandywine Boutique!Pictures need to include anything you have made using supplies from Brandywine Boutique. Please add the tag Brandywine Boutique to your photos and tell us what you used.
Your craft/art could be featured on my blog! And you could win something!
I will have a monthly drawing for a fun give away. Each person who adds a picture in that month will be entered for the monthly give away. You can find it here: Creating With Brandywine Boutique I really hope you will share all your wonderful creations. I know you all are sooo creative!

New Tags!

I have had SO much fun making these new digi collage tags. I hope you like them too! You can find them in my shop. Also I doing the whole Twitter thing now so if you want to follow me here is the link. Do you Twitter too? If so tell me so I can follow you too.

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter Weekend! I will be back soon with some shop updates!

Earth Hour USA

Today is Earth Hour day! My family is going to participate and you can too! On March 28, 2009 at 8:30 p.m. local time, you will join hundreds of millions of people around the world in making a bold statement about climate change. By turning off your lights for one hour, Earth Hour, you will send a message that Americans care about this issue and stand with the rest of the world in finding solutions to the escalating climate crisis. You can find more information HERE

This is such a simple fun thing to do that could really make a difference. We are even taking advantage of this hour to play board games by candlelight as a family. I hope you will join in too!

Spring Eve

I hope your having beautiful weather on this spring eve day!!

We Have A Winner!

Our winner is.....................Sadie Lou!!! I guess Friday the 13th is a GOOD LUCK day for her! Thank you all so much for your comments. I was especially tickled to have some "virgin" commenter's! Its always hard to make that first step.

I wish everyone a crafty weekend!

Easter Baskets, Maggie Mays, and Give Aways

Today is the last day to comment to win my handmade millinery flowers! I will announce a winner tomorrow. I will also be listing the pretty spring and Easter stuff you see above in my shop. I have started working on some kits I will be offering soon too. This week has been crazy weather wise. It started in the high 80's and now is in the 30's! What a tease!! And as of yesterday I have my very first niece! Her name is Maggie May. How cute is that?! I will be back tomorrow with a winner. Good luck!