I seriously can’t believe that 2 weeks have gone by since I last blogeed. I do have a good excuse—our sweet baby boy decided to make an early appearance in this world. Oliver Fisher Cohen was born on August 29th at 9:19am. He was almost 6 weeks early, so the contractions took us by surprise, but he’s here, happy, and healthy!

Here is a pic of Oliver laying on a blanket that my talented mother knitted for him.

Back to regularly scheduled blogging next week!

 

Yes, today is my best day of the summer and that’s because I’m visiting the most magical place in the world—no beaches, no Mickey Mouse, no messages…it’s Birch Family Camp.

For the last ten years, I have volunteered one or two weeks of my summer to teach photography to the kids and parents of this wonderful place. For over twenty years, Birch Camp has been providing families from the poorest New York communities with extraordinary therapeutic and recreational services designed for people infected — and affected — by HIV/AIDS.

It is the tightest knit family I have ever been a part of, and after just six days together in the woods, we all leave with new friends, new lessons, and sore cheeks from laughing so much. Because I am almost nine months pregnant, I couldn’t go this year, so I am going to get my fill for just one day.

Camp has been suffering greatly due to the economy, and we are desperate for donations. If you’d like to contribute, please click here, or, if you’d like to buy our fabulous Birch Family Cookbook, S’more to Love ($40 plus S&H), with over 100 recipes and gorgeous photos of shiney, happy people, please click here!

And if you’d like to peak at our photo program, you can learn a bit about it here.

Donkey Products has an amazing selection of character tea bags. The top image is from their Zoo ParTea series, and the design-your-own group below is from CreativiTea. Don’t they just make you smile?

Serve your guests tea in glass mugs to show off these gorgeous origami tea bags. Found via Design Swan.

Of course, a tea bag on a hanger! Brilliant! Found via Yanko Design, via Pinterest.

Ew, but funny…tea packaged in cigarette form. This will keep paws off your precious tea! Found via Toxel.com

These tea sticks are so cool!

When a map and carpet come together, this is the result. The designer, Laurens Van Weiringen, and 29 of her closest friends worked together to accurately depict a landscape in the form of a rug. They used varying sized and colored foam squares in a very exacting grid to create this cool result. I wonder if she’ll do custom orders?

I’m always blown away by those able to turn the most 2-dimensional material (paper) into 3 dimensions. Take a peak at this gorgeous cut-paper work by Helen Musselwhite from the U.K. Found on Thoughtful Day.

 

Take a look at this and this for other cut paper phenomena…