Pinch me...

Happy St. Paddy's Day, y'all!

All of the Irish hype is cause for reflection on my trip to Ireland last fall. Some of you may remember the blog my sister and I set up to document our trip - The Pink Shamrock. I was laughing to myself as I read through and remembered all of our adventures... and in turn posted this little ditty to KO's Facebook wall:


I'll be back with some of my favorite green finds later this morning but in the meantime, enjoy this snippet of Irish trivia:

Erin Go Bragh is the Anglicization of a Gaelic phrase used to express allegiance to Ireland. It is most often translated as "Ireland Forever", and pronounced /ˌɛrɪn gə ˈbrɔː/.

Saint Patrick's Day (Irish: Lá ’le Pádraig or Lá Fhéile Pádraig), colloquially St. Paddy's Day or Paddy's Day, is an annual feast day which celebrates Saint Patrick (circa AD 385–461), one of the patron saints of Ireland, and is generally celebrated on March 17.

The day is the national holiday of Ireland. It is a bank holiday in Northern Ireland and a public holiday in the Republic of Ireland and Montserrat. In Canada, Great Britain, Australia, the United States, and New Zealand, it is widely celebrated but is not an official holiday.

St. Patrick's Blue, not green, was the colour long-associated with St. Patrick. Green, the colour most widely associated with Ireland, with Irish people, and with St. Patrick's Day in modern times, may have gained its prominence through the phrase "the wearing of the green" meaning to wear a shamrock on one's clothing. At many times in Irish history, to do so was seen as a sign of Irish nationalism or loyalty to the Roman Catholic faith. St. Patrick used the shamrock, a three-leaved plant, to explain the Holy Trinity to the pre-Christian Irish. The wearing of and display of shamrocks and shamrock-inspired designs have become a ubiquitous feature of the saint's holiday.The change to Ireland's association with green rather than blue probably began around the 1750's.

Avoca - Ireland

The first shop I popped into when I arrived in Dublin was by far my favorite of the whole trip. It was this darling store called Avoca and I believe it's an Irish company. It's similar to Anthropologie here in the States and they had the most fabulous items - including womens fashions, houswares, kitchen items, gifts, etc. According to their website they have one location in the U.S. in Annapolis. I highly recommend stopping by if you're in the area. Or if you're in Ireland, there are at least 4-5 locations.

I really, really, really wanted this candelabra but it was 80 Euro or about $120 and I wasn't sure how I'd get it home. I'm afraid I'll regret not picking it up:

I also really like this card designer, Caroline Gardner. She has some lovely cards and I enjoyed spinning the rack and browsing all of her designs:


Avoca also had some adorable pet items, all of which I wanted to take home. I did pick something up off of this table for a Christmas gift:

I've mentioned before that I love these fabric pennant banners and looks like they've caught on in Ireland, too:

Objects of affection

Many thanks to Lani of Objects of Affection for featuring my Funky Flowers notecards in her Wish List Wednesday post. All of the great stationery designs she's featured make me want to go write a letter... I think I'll have to settle for email in the interest of time.

Tonight I've been working on (filling orders) setting up a separate blog to document my trip to Ireland. I am going with my sister and we leave in exactly 2 weeks. Not that we're counting down the minutes or anything. We're going to try to post pictures and updates daily so everyone at home can follow along on our adventure. We arrive in Dublin on Thursday, Sept. 25th but I think the real adventure will begin when we pick up our rental car on the following Sunday. We've reserved an automatic so KO will have no excuse as to why she cannot drive. We even sprung for NeverLost from Hertz so neither of us will have an excuse for getting lost. Now if we can only figure out where we're going....

15 days and counting

I can't believe our trip to Ireland is coming up in 15 days. So much to do, so little time. We did manage to book our hotel for the first few nights in Dublin and we've rented our car - so at least we've got shelter and wheels:


Since I'm hoping for the luck of the Irish to get all of my work done before I skip town, here are a few Irish inspirations from around Etsy:

Beer soap bar from dennisanderson:


Lucky Four Leaf Clover Lariat from EmilyEJewelry:


Temple Bar Dublin - Signed Fine Art photograph from Starrybluesky:


Celtic Knot Cross Pendant - Designed by Tara Greer:

49 days and counting

This has turned out to be a rather busy summer for me but when things get really hairy, I remember that in 49 short days I'll be on my way to the Emerald Isle.


Lucky Me Little Girls Ponytail Holder Set by The Magpie's Nest.

63 days and counting

My sister Kathleen and I are going to Ireland on Sept. 24th... which is a mere 63 days away. We purchased our plane tickets months ago but prior to this morning that's about as far as we'd gotten in the planning process. We're flying into Dublin and we just reserved our hotel for the first three days - The Jurys Inn Christchurch:

We're going to create our very own travel blog so our friends and family can keep up with us back home. It should be an interesting adventure to say the least (especially the whole driving on the other side of the road part - yikes!).