A Clever Adventure- London, England

London, England!

Last March I went to London along with my daddy and Emily(one of my best friends who I will probably be mentioned at other times.) It was actually a 3 day layover after having been in Uganda, Africa, for 2 weeks.... I mean if you're gonna be "overseas" you might as well stay there for a day or two! My dad has been to London 2 or 3 times before, so he was GREAT at leading us around everywhere. We got to see a lot of the touristy type things of course, but we also got to see the non-touristy side of London. It made for an adventure to be sure... 

From hidden pubs for drinks, hair salons called, "'enry 'iggins", world famous crepe kiosks, and cab drivers who call you, "Dear", to lamp posts down every beautiful street and alley, glove shops, and riding The Tube, we got to experience a magical portion of London in just 3 days and we adored it! 

 This is how Harrod's does cupcakes y'all... 
I want to try to do this!

Floral Jasmine Cordial-
 It's like honeysuckle in a bottle!
(Harrod's Food court)
This would be amazing in whipped cream or icing.
-Photo taken by Emily Gluntz Photography-

This is what all radios should look like! hehe :)

(Harrod's electronics)

Sparkly Donuts? YES PLEASE!
You can buy edible glitter at most craft stores too so how fun to put glitter on donuts yourself?! or cakes?! or cupcakes?!
 (Fun idea for a little girls b-day party!) 
http://www.michaels.com/Edible-Glitter/bk0394,default,pd.html 

Always. :)
(Coco Chanel store window.)

Rose and Lemonade, Ginger and beer... Interesting combos!

Binoculars for hire at Her Majesty's theater behind each seat. I've never seen these in the US! 

Black board labeled spice, or anything, jars. 
Adorable and CLEVER!
You can buy here: (http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/product/home-kitchen/23864820.jsp

Anthropologie was full of amazing knobs!
Buy here:
http://www.anthropologie.com/anthro/product/home-hardware/770549.jsp 

Display in Anthropologie: Page Roses!

Clever: This girl and her photography!
She took a picture in my sunglasses, reflecting her,
her camera, and the London Eye.
(Emily Gluntz Photography-
http://dreamsoffrippery.blogspot.com/p/portraits.html)

I mean OF COURSE even the ice cream cones 
in London are cool...
-Photo taken by: Emily Gluntz Photography-

Smashed Peas. :) ...I hate peas, 

but I love the idea! 

"Chihuly" glass blows my mind. 
 This artist and his team are incredible!
(This is at the Victoria and Albert museum.)
Check it out the glass here: http://www.chihuly.com/museums.aspx

...'Cause they had no lawn.

Horse's head: Apparently someone thought this would be clever.... ??

Deep fried seaweed-DIVINE! 
We ate this at "The Gold Fish", an Asian inspired
 restaurant we had dinner at one night.

Glove shops? How fabulous!

Sorry this ones blurry. :/

There was a city wide Easter egg hunt in London.
These "egg stands" were everywhere and you were supposed to hunt them.... How fun is that?!

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AND that's all folks! I hope these pictures inspired you, made you want to create something, go to London, or ALL of the above! Enjoy~

....and it's all For the Love of Clever. :)

Art idea: USE TACKS!

 I found some tacks the other day--> (http://www.staples.com/Staples-Nickel-Plated-Thumb-Tacks/product_480119) (I am employing the southern usage of that term, "the other day", meaning I probably found them MONTHS ago....) They inspired me and I thought they'd look cool in art projects. They add a 3D element and they hold things in place without using glue, and I will take ANY excuse to NOT use glue!!

        

 Now in my attempt to be clever, I decided to paint them. BRILLIANT! wait uh.... I mean CLEVER! Anyways... I can now match my tacks to any projects I do(examples of what I mean are at the end of this post).

Here's the "How To" folks:

                                                                                

              -Stick the tacks into small pieces of card board to dip the tacks into the paint.


(Painting the tacks with a brush wouldn't work as well because it would be too streaky and take several coats and I'm all for ways to minimize the necessity of multiple coats.)

-After the paint dries, paint Modge
 Podge on top so the paint doesn't chip.

Fun fact: I hardly EVER 
wash my paint trays~

*For sparkly tacks: 

    Dust any kind of glitter over the wet, already "dipped-in-paint" tack before you paint on the Modge Podge. (I chose to match the paint with the glitter when I did my sparkly tacks, but you could always have a yellow tack with blue glitter or some such combination. Be creative with it!)  

...and that ladies and gentlemen is the most simple 

instructions I will probably ever give... Have fun yall!  

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~Here are the tacks I did~

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These are some of the projects I did using tacks.

(Canvas art collage)

(Card stock, feather, and quote are mounted on a wooden plaque, held in place with tacks.) 

(Quote: "Awake My Soul", Mumford and Sons)

....and it's all "For the Love of Clever" :)