I hope you all are having a great summer weekend.  We are enjoying beautiful summer weather here in northern Illinois.  The humidity is low, the sun is shining, and for July the temperatures are staying on the cooler side.

Yesterday, I got my promised Mother’s Day visit to the Chicago Botanic Gardens.  We usually go either at the beginning of the growing season or towards the end in late August, so this time was a little different.

Today I’ll show you the photos from our first stop at the gardens. Please excuse the quality of my photos; it was a very sunny day.  The Butterflies and Blooms exhibit was moved this year, so we actually noticed it and decided to check it out.

This exhibit is a large screened in enclosure with butterflies flying all around.  Flowers that  butterflies particularly love are planted everywhere.

The butterflies will land on you too.  I was told that they seem to love white the best.  I was wearing a darker colored top, so they left me alone, but landed on my daughter’s shoulder.

These little feeding stations are set up throughout the exhibit.  I think these two are dining on banana.

The chrysalises are purchased and hung on wooden dowels until the butterflies emerge.  Here is one that is almost ready to fly free.

This visit to the Butterflies and Blooms exhibit at the Chicago Botanic Gardens was perfectly timed (not planned though) to show you Talyssa and Gracie’s new ensembles.  I don’t usually make two at the same time for Kaye’s MSDs, but the fabrics are from the same collection and begged to be made into coordinating sets, so I did just that.  I hope you like them.  By the way, both sets are the same size so can fit both the 17″ and 18″ MSD bodies.

As you can see, Talyssa found her own butterflies in the garden.

And Gracie, found a little house wren that she befriended.

Gracie’s “Nature’s Delights” and Talyssa’s “Garden Surprises” ensembles will be available tonight (July 10, 2016) at 7:00 pm CST, cindyricedesigns.com.  Check the “Shop What’s New” page at that time for more details.