Monday, November 30, 2009

Tea Art

After a lovely Thanksgiving and utterly relaxing Friday at home with my husband and bonus daughter I spent Saturday visiting a blogging friend! Kimberly Shaw is an artist that I have long admired (I've seen her work around in local tea shops and yearned for it for a lot longer than I have known she blogs!) and when she held an open house last year I was unable to go. My mom went and I had a delightful Christmas full of stickers, cards, and even some prints that are hanging among the teacups and plates on the wall in my dining room!

So when I saw her post with her invitation for this year's open house I hastily looked at the date and was overjoyed that I was going to be able to go. As an added bonus, Georgia was bringing her delightful Christmas ornaments and Sherry Evans was going to be there signing copies of her new book, Afternoon Tea in Southern California (which has Kimberly's artwork throughout)!

It turned out to be an absolutely lovely day in spite of (or perhaps because of) the stormy weather. We arrived just before the hail, and so were warm and cozy with cups of tea in hand perusing the Christmas cards in the living room of the home that houses Kimberly Shaw Graphics when the skies opened up. Among displays of all of her cards, stickers, notepads, pins, magnets, and teas (and beautiful paper crafts by Georgia and Sherry's book) we nibbled on homemade scones with homemade lemon curd and pomegranate jelly and sipped tea, chatting it up with all of the other Kimberly Shaw fans who came by to restock their stashes of her beautiful cards.

It was quite the day, and I came home with another print to join the two in my dining room as well as several cards and sticker sheets. I think at least three of the cards are going to end up framed (especially this one). It was wonderful to spend time in such a creative space and to chat with Kimberly about her products and plans. She even showed us some of the original paintings, and my mom and I spotted several of her teacups on the shelves as well.

I loved having the chance to meet Kimberly, Georgia, and Sherry in person and to make those local connections that sometimes get lost in the shuffle. I know that when I first started to covet those Kimberly Shaw cards and notepads I saw I never dreamed that they came from less than an hour away!

4 comments:

kimberly shaw said...

Wow, what a fabulous write up on my open house. It really was a fantastically fun day!!! I so much enjoyed meeting you, my close by blogging buddy :) Thanks for coming. It was such a treat visiting with you and your mom. Thanks for sharing your beautiful wedding photos with all the elegant English china, bringing your copy of Dale Evan's childrens book (so fun we each have one), and please tell your mom her cookies are in one piece all wrapped up still looking as beautiful as ever. I'm hoping to get a good photo of them and do a little write up on my blog for her.

I hope we can get together (over tea?) way before next year. Now that we know where all the tea rooms are in Southern CA, thanks to Sherry Evans, we won't ever have trouble finding a place to get together.

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