Birds and Spring

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. I hope your week is going well. I woke up to a dusting of snow, but it has since turned to rain, and with the temperatures climbing today, it will be gone by dinner time. (Hopefully if the weather people are correct 😏)  And any of you in a major storm zone, I hope you are safe.

     I'm posting another page for my Spring Bird challenge at Art Journal Journey, I found the center image in a  stack of ephemera I've collected for journaling, and I decided to make it the centerpiece of my journal page.

      I started my page by first using a dot stencil and some light green paint. Then I added the image in the center of my page. I followed by using 2 shades of green ink and some squiggle stamps over the background. 

      I really wanted the page to be full of green because after a long winter, green is definitely a spring color.  I took a third shade of green ink and this leaf/stem stamp by Dina Wakely and stamped it on the bottom and top of my page. I also added a punch out green fern on the bottom left.

    I added several small confetti flowers to the leaves and the fern. And yes, I do know that ferns are not flowering plants, but I took some liberties by adding them.  Finally I stamped the word springtime and the phrase a light exists in spring.

 

  Not much else to report on since I'm not going into politics, but  I hope you like my page today, and have a great rest of your day too. 

     

Second on the Second

     Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday.  I have a very short post today, but I wanted to join Bleubeard and Elizabeth for Second on the Second. It's time to re-share a post from the past.

    My post today is from April of 2022: Happy Holidays.  I wanted something that links up to my new Art Journal Journey challenge. This month the challenge is Spring Birds.

    Here's a very spring journal page from that time, and it even has a couple of really spring birds on it too.

  Hope you like this second look, and have a great day.

Time for a New Challenge at TIOT Too!

    Hi everyone. Besides starting a new challenge at Art Journal Journey today, it is also time for a new challenge at Try It on Tuesday.

    Thank you everyone who joined our Spring Fling challenge. This time we want to see lots of color because our challenge is called RAINBOW COLORS. 

    I had bought a new journal awhile back from an online craft supply store here in the US called Joggles. Although I am not getting paid to advertise for them, when my new journal arrived it was wrapped in this cool butterfly tissue paper. I noticed later that there were butterflies in every color of the rainbow except violet, but even without violet there are definitely rainbow colors, so I decided the butterflies would make a great page.

    I used some Paper Artsy Mattint in Dragonfly blue to color the background. I chose  that color because it seemed to be the closest to the background color of the tissue paper.  Then I cut out the butterflies and used matte medium to glue them down. I had thought about adding some other things, but I don't think the page needs it. Once dry I stamped the quotes (Tim Holtz) and there you have my page.

   Be sure to check out the design teams pieces too because there are so many ways you can go with this challenge.  And as always, you have 2 weeks to link up any kind of rainbow colored inspired art.

   I look forward to seeing your artwork at Try It on Tuesday. 

It's April!

Hi everyone. Happy new month to you. It's April!

   Due to some unforeseen circumstances, this month I am back again as host at Art Journal Journey. Before I move onto our newest challenge, let me first thank everyone who joined me for my Home Sweet Home challenge. I loved seeing all the different examples of home.   Those of you who participated just rocked the challenge. ❤

  Now that it is April, here in the northern hemisphere we have spring. The world is getting green. Flowers are or will soon be blooming. Birds are migrating back, and even the birds that don't take off for the winter are nesting. Days are longer, and it's getting warmer too. And if you live somewhere that had a tough winter (like I and so many people did), it is a very exciting month.

    This month the new challenge is SPRING BIRDS. You can make journal pages about birds, about spring or about both. For my first page I have  birds and blooms.

     To make my page I was thinking about birds migrating back in the spring, and then, once they get to their summer home, you not only get to see them but you can also hear their songs. To show that I was thinking of spring, I added some assorted cut out paper flowers as well as a few flower sequins. 

    I used my ledger journal and started by lightly rubbing blue ink over the page. Then I used a set of feather stamps as well as some light and dark blue ink to stamp all those feathers. I think this feather set is an oldie from Hero Arts, but I have no packaging left with it so I can't be 100% certain.

    I stamped the bird image twice, once directly on my page and once on some plain paper. I did that because I didn't think the strings coming off the tag would be easy to fussy cut. I  fussy cut the bird and glued it down over the one stamped on my page. I colored the breast an orange red because the bird reminded me of a robin, plus robins are a sure sign of spring. I also used some white paint to cover the word on the tag in the bird's beak, and I wrote in the word home since the birds are migrating back to their summer homes.  Then I stamped and fussy cut the quote and added the fussy cut and sequinned flowers to my page.

   I hope you're inspired by this new theme and will join not only me, but Bleubeard and Elizabeth and Mia over at Art Journal Journey. Please remember that we only accept art journaling, but it can be journaling in any form. 

   Enjoy the start to the new month!

 

T Stands for Some Very Random Views from March

       Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And to everyone who stops by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's     blog, Happy T day too.

      Since it's the very end of the month if you read this on Monday and  since it's just the start of April if you read this after Monday, I thought I'd share an assortment of random photos from March for T day. Some are drinks and some are not. Hope they're not too boring, and yes, there's quite a few of them. 😉

     I received a fantastic birthday card from Elle a couple of weeks ago, and I have been amiss at posting it. I actually thought about posting it last week, but I had enough to say about my brother's wedding.  Before we get too far off from when I received it, let me show you today.

        Seeing I'm a Harry Potter fan I really loved this card! ❤ And even the postage stamps are Harry Potter! Very cool. (Sorry I missed your birthday  too Elle. You are better than me at making cards too.)

    Even with the ice on everything from this past weekend's rain and ice event, my phoebe is back. The Eastern Phoebe is a type of flycatcher, and ever since we moved into our home 35 years ago there's been a pair that nests under the eaves of my husband's workshop/outbuilding. It is officially spring when they're back, and this past Sunday I saw my first one. 👍

     On a recent local rail trail walk, I came across a spot where someone had set up for the dogs who walk. The mailbox had treats, and there was a bowl with some water. Here's drink #1.

     Neither of my dogs were interested though. Maddie preferred the smells of the other dogs around the bowl.  Since she's blind, that's how she now sees the world.  Last week I walked the same trail without the dogs but with a couple of friends. We walked 5.5 miles or 8.8 km. I  didn't bring the dogs with me that day because I think it would have been too long of a trek for Miss Maddie.

      And here's a couple of other photos that I took at my brother's wedding that I posted about last week. Well these are not from the actual  wedding, but the ski area where the wedding was held. The building on  the left is the hotel where my husband and I stayed. You can see the ski trails in the background.

And a view from the hotel restaurant where we had breakfast on the morning of the wedding.

       Drink #2 is my mug of hot water and the tea selection that I had with my breakfast that same morning before we headed out for a drive and then later in the day, the wedding.

    Recently I also did a bit of baking one day.  I missed (pi) ℼ day but a few days later I made a rustic and mini-sized apple pie.

     And I also made a loaf of sourdough milk bread.

      Some of you might have seen this photo in a post last week of my bird feeder pole and bird feeders. When we were at the wedding I received a text from daughter. Bears are out of hibernation and hungry. 

     One of the bird feeders was ruined and my suet feeder disappeared. Luckily the pole is one of those that you build from various pieces so you can customize what you end up with. I only needed to replace the bottom of the pole.

      But, twice I bought the wrong part to fix it. 😒 I guess I should have taken it apart before I went to the store.

     Finally I managed to get the right piece and the pole is now back up. No feeders are on it yet though. I need to take the bird food in at night to avoid another hungry bear, and this past weekend the weather wasn't exactly  conducive to go outside (rain, sleet, freezing rain and at first, a dusting of new snow). Hopefully this week we'll see sunshine again, and I'll put out some feeders instead of throwing food onto the ground.

     I also need to clean up a winter's worth of seed shells off the ground, but the yard is still too soft and too wet to rake. 

     I haven't made  as much progress on my sweater as I'd hoped, but I'm not packing it away for the season yet. You might remember last month I was just beyond the  brown in the bottom. Plus the 2 sleeves are done, so when I reach the armpit area I will connect them and knit the top/shoulder area.

     And finally, this week I am going to start planting some seeds. The other day I moved some bags of soil out to the greenhouse. For my birthday I got this new Gorilla wagon, which I just love. ❤ If you pull up on the yellow handle it actually lifts and dumps out what's in it. 

     It also turns on a dime and is light weight so I can lift it up easily, but not with the heavy bag of soil in it. 😏

     I've been monitoring the temperature in the greenhouse. I'm still a little worried that the nights are on the chilly side. I know this is a terrible photo, but some of our nights are definitely well below freezing and the greenhouse doesn't have a heater. I'm still figuring out the ins and outs of early spring planting in the greenhouse, but I love collecting the temperature data and figuring out how to go about keeping it warm enough for any seedlings when they start to grow.

        That's all for me in this post. It's probably too long a post at that.  Wishing everyone a happy T day and week ahead. 

Wrapping Up March's Art Journaling

     Hi everyone. I hope your weekend is going well. This weekend we've been having a mixed bag of weather at my house: snow, sleet, freezing rain, rain. I'm scheduling this post, AND hopefully since yesterday (when I wrote this)we won't have gotten too much ice and lost our power. 

   Today I want to share my last page for my Home Sweet Home challenge over at Art Journal Journey. I'm also linking up to Sunday Smiles over at Gillena's blog. 

   I  want to thank everyone who joined me this month over at AJJ. I  enjoyed seeing everyone's take on the challenge, and there were definitely some fantastic ideas. ❤❤❤

  Today's journal page is also my favorite page that I  made for my challenge. Not that my other pages were by any means terrible pages, but one thing I have been wanting to play around with is more scenery collage, and I'm very happy with the view I created in the window frame.

   The window view is made by collaging some various papers, some plain, some printed and some painted by me. The 3 little houses are stamped and fussy cut. I also used some plaint drops to create the idea of trees, and I painted in some clouds in the sky.

   The window frame is from 49 and Market. I stamped the lady reading on the lounger as well as the plant besides her, and then I cut them out. I also stamped the quote. The stamped images are from Hero Arts. I added a few potted plants that I fussy cut from some paper also. 

    I'm a bit ahead of myself because before I added the images outside of the window, I used some yellow water color paint and made some squiggly lines to fill the background.  They could represent sunlight streaming in, a bad paint job or even a very abstract view of some light wood. Whatever they are, I like how they color the background. 

    To wrap up this post, I decided to snap some photos (through my car's windshield) as I went through the car wash the other day. They're not in any order, and they're just different from the usual. But the stripes that form the washing clothes (I don't even know if they have a name) made me think of my journal page today with the wiggly striped background. Plus I was washing away the dirt of March from my car, so I was wrapping up the month that way too. 😏 Smirk.

   

     Have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

Photos from the Mountains

     Hi everyone. Happy end of the week. We're in the wind down of March. And the snow that fell this past Monday at my house is gone-😀 😀😀 Hopefully, that will be it for this year. 🤞

     I know everyone is probably sick of winter scenes, but I have a few photos from my trip last weekend up to the mountains of western Maine. The day of my brother's wedding the hubby and I took a  morning drive (since the wedding wasn't until later in the day) over to the Rangely Lakes area.  We actually had visited this area several years back, but it was really the only  place close enough to drive  from the ski resort where the wedding was and where we were staying. We did have to be back in time to dress for and get to the wedding.

    I'll be linking  this post up to Nicole's Friday Face Off and also to Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.

   As we drove up in elevation towards a place called the Point of Land, we discovered the rain every place else had  the day before had  actually been  snow here. Not a lot, maybe 2-3 inches.  It might look wintery, but the views were gorgeous.

     As we drove higher in elevation, there was even snow still on the trees.

    And as we drove even higher in elevation, we could see that the road had not been plowed. But it wasn't like there was too much snow or no tracks to make an immediate turn around.

    And here's a few faces for Nicole's Friday Face Off.   First here is my husband who didn't get out of the car when I stopped at a scenic view to take some photos.

    And besides having to stop for a Rough Grouse who was sitting in the road (and who moved too quickly for me to photograph once we had stopped), we also had to stop for some deer.

     But we didn't see any moose, and this area is full of them. I guess that is good or bad depending on how you look at it. 

      Have a wonderful rest of your day and start to the weekend.

    

It's Thursday

     Hi everyone. I hope you're having a good week so far. 

    It's getting towards the end of the month, and I want to share my penultimate journal page for my Home Sweet Home challenge at Art Journal Journey. This month I've shared lots of animals as part of my  journal pages. There's been bees, cats, cows, pigs, chickens, birds, bunnies, fish and frogs, but there's only been one tiny dog. Miss Maddie and Mr. Pete aren't too happy with me about that. Grin. 

   My page today celebrates people's best friend, or at least some people's best friend, their dog. 

    I used my ledger journal and some red, orange and yellow ink to color my page's background.  Then I stamped some paws around the page. The dog house, the big bones and the water dish as all die cuts (Cheery Lynn). After I colored the base of the water bowl I used blue watercolor paint to make the water, and since I don't know a dog who doesn't dribble some while drinking,  I made a few little drips over the edge to show that. The small bones on the doghouse and water bowl, as well as the background, are some little confetti pieces.

    I stamped, colored and fussy cut the dog (Pink In Designs). At first I drew in a few lines to have him, the water dish and the dog house to sit on, but I didn't like them, so I added a bit of white gesso to ground these pieces. Finally I stamped the quote (Impression Obsession) on white paper and fussy cut it before adding it to my page. 

    And what dog doesn't want to chase a squirrel?

    This is Little Red or one of Little Red's offspring. I see lots of grey squirrels, but only a few red ones. I had one a couple years back that knew how to open the feeder and crawl inside, so I named him/her Little Red. I know red squirrels can be scrappy,  but I like them because of that. This guy was out digging up bird seed off the ground Monday when we had some snow. 

Have a great rest of your Thursday.

    

Just a Fish in a Bowl

       Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday. I hope everyone's week is going well. 

       Since March is winding down I have several art journal pages to share this week. 

      My page today for my Home Sweet Home challenge at Art Journal Journey is one of the first pages I made for this month's challenge. However,  it doesn't seem finished to me yet. The only problem is I don't know what to do to finish it. Therefore, maybe it is done. 😏

    I started with a goldfish and fish bowl die set from Hero Arts. I die cut the bowl  by recycling some packaging plastic. I outlined it with a black Sharpie. Before I added it to my page I used watercolor paints, a Sharpie and also some gold glitter to create the contents of the bowl. Plus I added the fish too.

     I finished the page, at least so far, by stamping a goldfish (Stamp Francisco) several times and then using some blue watercolor paint to create some watery stripes. I also stamped the quote (not sure who made that stamp) several times.

    My challenge at AJJ runs until next Monday, March 31, so there's still plenty of time to join in if you're inclined.

      And on another note, I mentioned in my bee post last week how I'd turned on the electric fence around the hive, even though it has no bees it does have some honey. Thank goodness I did, because when we were away at the wedding last weekend, my daughter (who was taking care of the dogs) sent me this photo of my bird feeders. Or  should I say what were my bird feeders.

     I'd say the bears are definitely out of hibernation. 

    Luckily the pole is one of those  types that come in connecting sections. The part in the ground and the upper parts are fine, but I do need to go get a new lower post. I ended up with one broken feeder that can't be fixed, and my suet basket is gone someplace, wherever the bear dragged it off to. My meal worm feeder was undamaged, and the hot pepper seed tube holder top is the green piece laying upside down on the lawn. I took a little walk into the woods, and there was the hot pepper seed tube intact. I guess it not only keeps the squirrels from eating it but the bears too. 😏 No wonder why there's a small clump of hot pepper seeds still sitting on the cinder blocks. I would have thought the bear would have scooped that up with one paw first thing.

    Although this isn't the usual sign of spring for most people, myself included,  winter is definitely over when the bears are out. 🐻

     Have a great rest of your day!