All in the Family

It occurred to me today what a talented family I have. It's no wonder I have been obsessed with the arts my entire life, disappearing outside with a sketchpad and pencil for hours, or locking myself in my room as a child making tiny food and furniture from clay for my doll house. I see my daughter doing the same kinds of things now, without ever having known that I used to do the same thing. She spent the second half of week on bedrest drawing and coloring, disappointed she couldn't get back to her fashion design and sewing her doll clothes. My own mom had an arts and crafts room stuffed to the gills with every imaginable supply, some of them passed down to her by her mother. It's memories like that that inspire me, and stay with me and my daughter.

I also have incredibly creative and talented people on my other side of my family, who have combined that with modern technology to share that with the world. My uncle Mark has an amazing website resource of flower pictures. His fresh flower scans are gorgeous, high resolution images he obtains from local flowers he finds in sunny southern Florida, where he lives (lucky guy!), and then scans and does his magic to with photoshop. It doesn't hurt that his first love and job are in biology/ botany something or other, so he knows his flowers and scientific names. Uncle Mark, if you're reading this, forgive my ignorance of your actual job title...

Check out his site here and see some of the most beautiful macro shots of exotic flowers on the web:

Then cruise on by my Uncle Bill and Aunt Nancy's website, Starfish and Dreams. From their large warehouse and office in sunny southern California (are you seeing a pattern here?), they, along with other family members and a small staff that is like family, they have created gorgeous stationary, scrapbook papers and stickers for years under the name NRN Designs. Now Starfish and Dreams, their focus is more on cards now that the scrapbook craze is slowing down, and they make the most fun and wonderful cards! One of the coolest things they have added is an option to personalize and print cards straight from the website. They come in many different style options that you see on the front page:

But my favorite cards aren't the print at home ones, but rather these holiday diva-ish cards:

Gotta love 'em! You can visit their website here.