Madera Wine Trail--back in February!

I'm finally ready to "catch up" on some posts that I started but never finished. The first event to  belatedly-blog about is the Madera Wine Trails "Wine and Chocolate" weekend which took place in mid-February. Fortunately, the weather was gorgeous--sunny, dry, clear, and quite warm. Roy came with me to Birdstone Winery both days of the weekend. We had 2 great lunches, tried some more Birdstone wines--our personal favorite, so far, is their port!--saw some old and new friends, and made some new friends.

I did my first Wine Trails show at Birdstone in November of 2009 and returned for the second time in February 2010. I really enjoyed being there and the events, in general. People love to do wine tasting and it's a great opportunity to meet new art lovers and collectors.

I decided to try something new with my art for the February event. Instead of painting new wine paintings, I decided to do some "Love" paintings instead since they would be shown over Valentine's Day weekend. I also decided to give a 14% discount on any one item purchased on the holiday weekend. Valentine's Day. . . . Feb. 14. . . . . 14% discount. . . . . .  :)

The discount and the wine paintings were both popular and I'm glad I tried a new subject. Everyone loves love, right? So it was a good decision, I think.

The next Wine Trail weekend is coming up in May--on the 15th and 16th. Roy and I will be there both days and also look forward to attending the "Release Party on the Grass" on Saturday evening. Day time hours will be from 10 till 5 both days and the release party is from 5:30 till 9 on Saturday night. The places to go to for more information are Birdstone Winery and Madera Wine Trails.

Mark your calendars and make your reservations--buy a glass!--for this upcoming special event!

Also, check to see my updated list of upcoming events and activities! And if you haven't "friended" me on Facebook, please look for me there soon. I have an individual page (Kathleen Mattox) and a Fan Page, under "Mixed Messages" by Kathleen Mattox. Hope to chat with you on Facebook, soon!

"Sparkle and Shine!"

The title is a saying of Shiela Boyd's and I hope she doesn't mind my using it as my post title for today. I am SO EXCITED to have fairly successfully updated the look of my blog. I added a new background called "Fairy Dust" and a new header that I did myself using Photoshop Elements more successfully than I am usually able to. Yippee Doo! :)

It feels nice to have a new look, rather like getting a new hair style after looking the same way for a long time. I never had a background other than just the plain black before but I find "Fairy Dust" just glitzy and sparkly enough for my taste. And I loved "Juicy" as my header but it was just stuck there in the middle of the space, rather obtrusively and rather badly. This header uses "And the Ring, Please?" more successfully I think and I plan to change the header photo periodically. Now I just need more followers! I have 16, which is wonderful, but I should have more than that by now. If you are reading this blog and you'd like to receive notification when it's updated and have your photo (Facebook profile photo, blogger photo or ???) shown as a follower, please scroll down the right hand sidebar until you see the Followers area and join me as a follower here on "Mixed Messages." And maybe you know someone else who would like to follow me also. Let me know, if that's the case. And I thank you profusely for doing that! :)

I  have 112 Fan Page fans on my Facebook Fan Page so I think I should be able to do better than 16 followers on my blog. I try not to post the same info both places although my blog posts are linked to Facebook and my posts are linked to Twitter. Everything is becoming nicely interconnected and I am becoming more technologically proficient by the day. Now if I could just master Photoshop Elements and Twitter, I'd be feeling pretty good about it all. On the other hand, I just heard of another social networking application called "Google Wave" that I've never heard of before yesterday. Oh, well. . . . onward and upward. Maybe tomorrow I'll check it out and see what other mischief there is to get into. :)