Summer Sealife

I try to decorate some with the seasons, but I was feeling a little weak for Summer. I had some nautical themed things, some antique ocean babbles and shells, but not enough to center a room one.
Flipping through an old magazine for Pottery Barn, I saw some of their Sealife pillows. They were stiched in beige and really pretty with Seahorses, an Octopus, and other fish. I thought they would also look nice as hand painted items.

I got together some art paints, a color scheme, some samples and started. First I sewed the pillow together from some cheap fabric remnants. Learned a good lesson about zippers, always get a larger size, you can make it shorter, but you can't extend it.

After that I sketched the octopus out onto the linen and began to paint the base color with acrylics.

I did some highlighting and shading after the base dried. Finished it off with a sealant spray. I found some matching pillows in the same oranges and corals on sale at Pottery Barn and finally have my summer sea room.

Shipping up to Boston

Back in April I had the chance to travel to Boston for work. I was there almost the whole work week and then Mike came out for the weekend to save ticket prices on my return flight.

I stayed out in Cambridge, but got a chance to visit Harvard a couple times, Newbury St, Prudential Building (Top of the Hub restaurant had a wonderful view of the city!)

(Stonework on the Longfellow Bridge)

(Cemetery in Harvard)

(Statue in Boston Common Park)

It mostly rained while I was there, but then the weekend warmed up a bit and we were able to go on the 'Freedom Trail' seeing the historical sites of Paul Revere. We saw the Aquarium out on the warf where we stayed, which was very nice. An octopus woke up during the last 10 minutes of operation and it was mezmorizing!

We got to eat a lot of great seafood and tour some of the older pubs. As we sat in the restaurants and wondered around, we continued to see people with little pastry boxes from a 'Mike's Pastry' shop. So after a quick google map, we decided to go see what all the fuss was about.

The fuss was actually the best Cannoli we have ever had (sorry Chicago). It also happend to be across from the restuarant we visited twice, for their seafood and every day there were lines of people streaming out of the pastry shop. Simply the best stuff!

The restaurant that brought us back a second time was called the 'Daily Catch'. We were told they specialized in Squid Ink Pasta. We found the small eatery, which was no larger than 9 or 10 two person tables, with the kitchen right in the room. (This picture is from the front door and you can see the kitchen in the back)

It was more than well worth the wait. The octopus squid ink pasta was so so amazing! In fact I found an accidental peice of glass in mine and continued to eat it and never even said anything it was so so good and they were working so hard. We had to come back the next day for another pasta dish and pastry for dessert.