Can anyone tell me anything about this sign?

I found this great Madison Ave street sign.... not sure if it is from New York (Manhattan) or possibly Chicago. It is double sided, yellow with black lettering and black edges. It measures 9" x 36" and is metal. If it is from Manhattan it would be from the 1970s. I was hoping somebody out there might know something or could point me in the right direction. Either way it is a very cool sign, just wish I could find out more about it!

Fathers Day and Fish!

For Father's Day this year I went down to my folks house by myself, DH had to finish a work project & couldn't come. Early this summer my dad had completely re-done their fish pond. (Last year the pump went out, the waterfall had lost many of its stones & the irises had taken over. They lost all of their fish when the pump died. ) He put so much work into it it looked brand new! When I saw it I knew right away what I was getting him for Father's day! Fisheeeees!

When I got there, Mom and I went to the store to get them, we didn't tell him yet what we we were getting. I knew he loved his Shubunkins from the pond at their old house, which BTW my Dad & I built(the pond, not the house), so that was what I wanted to get. I personally love Koi, so when I saw that they had some that were very reasonably priced, we got one of them too. All told we picked out 3 Shubunkins and one Koi. Dad loved them, he was so tickled. He said he would have never have thought to ask for them but thought that was the best idea.

I love to make my dad happy!

I didn't remember to take a picture of his card for some reason. I recently learned how to use distress inks from Tim Holtz, so I had made some great background paper in blues and orange-ish browns. I can show you the card I made for my FIL though:I distressed the Dad and cream cardstock using Tim Holtz's method. The black cardstock and patterned paper came from DCWV. That cream cardstock was almost a buttercream yellow before I distressed it, not the right color at all. The distressing made it the perfect color!

I also made a birthday card for one of my niece's:


Isn't that blow-fish the cutest! He was a $1 Snag-em stamp from Imaginisce's Splash Dance line. I colored it with copic markers and used Glossy Accents from Ranger on his eyes. The water paper is from DCWV and the letter brads I found on clearance at Joann's. It says "Happy birthday to you!" inside in aqua ink. I didn't have the right color green paper so, once again, I used Tim Holtz's method to color my white cardstock green! I like the way it gives it a mottled appearance as opposed to a solid color.

I hope all the wonderful Dads out there had a great Father's day too!

Mom's b-day card & mini disaster

So my Mom recently had a birthday, and I made her this cool birdie gate card:

The tag for the envelope:

The Front:The inside:

The gate stamp and birds are from Hero Arts. (I love their stamps!) the Sakura blossom was an altered die cut flower, and the words were cut on my craft robo (designed in inkscape). I even made a fold out stand attached to the back so it could stand up on its own. That was interesting to design on my die cutting machine!

For her gift, I got her this really cool ceramic birdhouse.... Its kind of hard to describe, it looked a little like a mushroom, but the bottom of it ended in kind of a point of graduated rings...like an upside down honeycomb. Here is my crude rendition of it:

She absolutely loved it & told all her girlfriends about it. When she got home & went to get it out of the car, she dropped it & it shattered. :( She was so bummed about it she must have told everyone about it, twice. Her girlfriends were like "we know, you e-mailed us".

If anyone who sees this knows where to find another like it, please let me know. I'd love to replace it for her. I found it at Home Goods, but have not seen another, and I've gone to all of the Home Goods, Marshalls, TJ Maxx stores, etc. in my area to no avail.

Spinach! And roses!

I had my first harvest of Spinach a couple weeks ago. It was sooooooo delicious. I also had an arugula harvest too. DH enjoyed his arugula salad! I harvested some extra and washed, dried and bagged it for my wonderful neighbors too. When I went over to drop off the lovely leafy greens, I was treated to some beautiful roses from Mrs. Neighbor's garden! She gave me so many that I actually was able to make 3 arrangements! Here is the main one I made:


The darker pink ones are called "knockout roses" and they bloom all summer long. The pale, pale pink ones she grew from one single rose by rooting one of her MIL's flowers. That was 25 years ago and now the rose bush covers the entire fence on the side of the house. (it's a climbing rose)