T Stands for Falling Leaves and Celebrations

     Hi everyone. And hello to those of you who stop by for T Day over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's         blog.   FYI- this is a bit of a long post today. So grab a drink you can use another time for T day and get comfy. 😏

    So what's new with me? Last week I finished PT. My shoulder is not 100% better, but I reached the end of the exercise program they were teaching me. Plus there is only 1 motion that still gives me a little bit of pain.  I am continuing with the exercises at home though,  so hopefully I won't need to go back to PT and my shoulder will feel 100% soon. 👍

   Last week started off with some relaxing days, and then things became a bit busy. The big thing was the wind that we had at the end of the week. So  many of the leaves came down. This week I need to work on doing some cleaning up because in spots the unraked leaves are up over my ankles.

   And there are still more leaves to come down. This is what happens when you live in an oak forest. 🤷

   We've also had a couple of nights with frost, so most of the garden plants  are now either going dormant or have died.

     Maybe now that the grapevine has died back I can straighten out my arbor that (I think) a raccoon climbed up on and made it lean.

     It seems only the geraniums are really tough.

    And so are my roses too.

    On Halloween afternoon I went to a fun movie event with a friend.

   Hocus Pocus is a 1993 Disney film about the 3 Sanderson  witch sisters who were hung in Salem (MA) back in (I guess) 1692 and come back to life when a virgin lights the black flame candle in their home.  It's Disney, so for those of you who haven't seen the film, it is not scary nor spooky. And of course it is all fiction. I didn't realize it started off as a flop in movie theaters but when it came to TV it took on "cult" status. Anyhow, I really like the film as does my friend Deb so we decided to go see it on the big screen.

   At this showing you received a candy box which was similar to an advent calendar. In certain parts of the film there was a note on the screen that told you to open one of the doors. In it you would find some candy. For example, one of the witch sisters often said "I smell children". When they said that, you opened the door and took out a sour-patch-kid candy to eat.

   It was way too much sugar, but still I'm glad I did it. (Once was enough though. I don't need to go again.) Plus the theater was sold out, except for the 2 sections where the screen is not visible  and where you couldn't buy a ticket. My friend and I did not dress up, but so many people did. It was almost more fun than the candy box to see everyone in costumes. 😉

   And even though I thought the theater would be filled with children, there were not that many. In fact, pre-movie the lines to the theater's bar were extremely long. We didn't get anything to drink in the theater though. Before the film we went to a local shop for a hot cocoa. (Sorry, no photo but I'll still count it as one of my T day drinks 😉.) Low and behold one of our former students was working there for his last day. He saw us before we saw him, and he came over and scooped us both up in hugs. He was a kid who didn't have the most supportive home life so he had to work his way through college, which he did. This week he starts a new job working for an investment company. It makes me happy to see former students get their lives together, especially those students I worked quite closely with.  It's one of those belated thanks you get in a job that is often thankless. 

   I have several drinks for T this week since also at the end of last week both my husband and my daughter had birthdays. (Not on the same day, but 1 day apart.) We didn't do much on my husband's birthday because we had our "party" when we visited my daughter for her birthday. However, I did take him out for breakfast because it was still his birthday, and I wanted to do something nice for him.

   Here's our diet Pepsi we had with our late morning breakfast.

    When we went out to my daughter's on her birthday we all went out for a late lunch. My daughter's choice was Elm City Brewery and Pub. The restaurant is in this old refurbished factory. I've eaten there before, and they have good food.

   And good beer too. 😉 I had water with my lunch as well as one of the best porters I have ever had.

   After lunch we went back to my daughter's house and had cake. We had one cake for both my husband and my daughter.  I can't believe my daughter turned 35. A few of you might know that she is going to have a baby in February. We are all very excited about that.

   You can see my husband's Coke Zero in the  cake photo too. 

   The cake was huge since we stopped at Sam's Club on our way. (There's no Costco in that direction.) After we had our birthday slices we split the leftovers in half, so I still have cake in the house. I'm trying very hard to stay away from it, especially after all the movie candy. Grin.

   OK, I have finally made it to the end of last week. Wishing everyone a happy T day and week ahead.

Second on the Second

   Hi everyone. It's a new week, and it's November 2. My big project this week is to  put the winter wrappings on my beehives. I've had them wrapped in a tarp as a wind break, but nights are getting quite chilly. Plus, as I was looking back for something to share for Second on the Second (over at Bleuebeard's and Elizabeth's blog), I realized that we've had a lot of November snow events.  I am not quite ready for that! Luckily the next few days are going to be quite mild for New Hampshire ❤.

  I ended up not going with a snowy view for my Second look this month. Here's my post from November 9, 2023 which has more of a late autumn theme. 

   Here's the journal page I shared in that post that is all about the colors of November.

   I also thought I'd share a new journal page  for Wendy's Colors of Autumn challenge over at Art Journal Journey,

   You might remember the tag from back in September. I recycled it onto this journal page. I added the orange polka dot paper because orange is definitely a color of autumn even if by November a lot of the orange has sadly gone. Then I cut out a face from a magazine image and added orange hair to her. I also added an orange flower with a center I  enhanced a bit as well as some leaves. I added the orange confetti dots to the leaves because they made me think of berries. 

   Other than the yellow-orange border I drew in, this page didn't need anything else, at least as far as I could see. 😉

   I hope you're having a great start to not only the new week, but the new month also.

  

Maud Lewis: Part 3-The FInal Views

 Hi everyone. I hope you are having a lovely weekend. Mine has been busy, and once the wind dies down, I need to go clean up some leaves. In the last couple of days it's like the whole forest of leaves fell into my yard. 😉

 Yes this post is #2 for today, but because I will not be around next weekend for SITAR and Sunday Smiles, I wanted to finish off the Maud Lewis photos today. 

 You might remember that back in late September I visited  the Nova Scotia Art Museum in Halifax. These photos are some of the other pieces of Maud Lewis' work.  I'll be linking this post up to Gillena's Hey It's Sunday and also Nicole's Sunday in the Art Room.

   Also please excuse my photos that might be slightly less than perfect do to the fact that it's hard to take photos in a museum due to lighting and other people being around when you try to get a photo. I did try to straighten a few of these also, but somehow it didn't help. 😞 They are what they are, and you can get the gist of them.

   Let me start with 3 cat paintings which might just be Lewis' most famous subjects, especially this first one.

   She also painted some lovely winter scenes.

Because Maud and Everett did not have a lot of money, Maud painted on whatever she could find. Notice this next winter scene is done on a serving tray.

   Here's a couple of other paintings on trays. I wonder if this train one was painted for the tourist market specifically because I noticed what looks like US flags on the front of the engine.   This is how Maud began her professional career, by selling paintings outside of her home to people driving by. Usually her paintings sold for $2-$3, but once she was "discovered", she raised the price as high as $8.00. (Now you might end up paying  as high as $20,000 for one of her pieces.)

   The painting above this last tray is an early painting of Maud's. The write up next to it said she often painted images from books when she first started. The scene  definitely looks different from her later works.

    And here's a multi seasoned themed piece.

I took a close up of this one because I wanted to see the bees much more clearly.

   Being from Coastal Nova Scotia, Maud also painted some beautiful ocean scenes.

    And finally for  the last of my photos, here's the original door from her house which you can see she painted many times.

   I photographed most of the exhibit, but I know I didn't get all of her paintings. I hope you enjoyed them. I really enjoyed her primitive style and all the lovely colors she used.  If you missed my first 2 posts about Maud Lewis and if you'd like to see them, you can find them here: Maud Lewis Part 1 an also here: Maud Lewis Part 2.

  I have some other photos of some other artists exhibited in the museum, which I will share at a later time.  

  And as I mentioned above,  I'll be around all this  week, but I am leaving this upcoming Saturday on a girl's trip for a few days. I will not be joining  Sitar or Hey It's Sunday next weekend. 

  Have a super rest of your weekend and week ahead. 

   

Welcome November

     Hi everyone. Happy new month to you.  It's already November. Actually I like November because it's one of those months that is quiet. After all the running around of summer and the fun of fall, November  means the yard work is just about done; there's usually a bit of chill in the air so I can pull out my sweaters, and with the days being so short there's lots of cozy reading time. I'm also hoping that this year the elections results will go well and then all the flyers, texts and TV ads will disappear. And hopefully there'll be no shenanigans from anyone in DC or elsewhere. 🤞

    OK enough about that.  It’s time for a new host to take over this month at  Art Journal Journey   First let me thank Mia who besides being a super host also had a great challenge.   I also wanted to thank everyone who joined in and shared some wonderful art. ❤

    This month we  have a new host.  We admins want to welcome  back  the talented Wendy. You might know her from her blog  Wendy's Art and Crafts Journal. Her challenge this month is 

THE COLORS OF AUTUMN

  I'm excited to be able to continue with some of this season's inspired art.  For my first page, I'm going with the longer nights that come with this month. We are just changing the clocks on this November 1, so darkness will be coming quite early tonight. 🌜

    I started my page with this barn owl image I had in my stash. The background paper is one I pulled out of an old Somerset Studio magazine. I thought the owl worked great on it. That meant all I had to do was pull the page together.

   I did that by using a punch out late autumn brown leaf images as well as the copper swirl sticker at the bottom of the owl image. I die cut the stars using some copper sparkle paper. Finally I used a stamped quote to finish off my page. 

  I also need to remind you that Art Journal Journey is an art journaling challenge, so please NO cards, tags, ATCs, etc. Unless of course they are on a journal page. 😏 We accept any type of art journaling. And also be aware that not everyone is on every type of social media so if you link up through a source other than blogging, we may not be able to comment on your piece.

  I hope you are still inspired by the colors of autumn and will join us this month at AJJ.

  

Halloween Faces for Friday

   Hi everyone. Happy Friday.  

  Last Friday I shared  my neighbors down the road skeleton displays. They change these every week in October. Here's this week's display. It's not a very good photo since I snapped it from the window of my husband's car when we were heading out yesterday. I love how the skelly on the left has a unicorn to ride. Smile. 

   Today I am joining Nicole for her Friday Face Off  and Gillena for her Friday Lunch Break. Since tomorrow is Halloween, and since one thing I have been working on is a Halloween journal, I thought I'd share a few pages that I created. 

   You'll notice there are lots of faces too. 👍

   I like to try new ideas for Halloween because otherwise it seems like I make the same thing year after year. I don't know how far a stretch these pages are, but I feel they are at least different from things I've made in the past.

   I really like this first page (above). The Tim Holtz paper doll couple don't look very happy. This story came up in my head that he died on his wedding night. Or maybe it was all just a dream for him. Hmmm. You can decide. I really like how the coffin came out. I die cut it, then I ran it through a wood designed embossing folder. I used some scraps of copper paper to make the hinges, and on the same paper I scratched in the word beloved. I darkened it with a bit of black after that. The light is stamped (as is the quote) and all the flowers are fussy cut. The ones over the coffin were cut from acetate, and you can see it bit of it on the black.

   I was inspired by Maria's junk journal pages that she posted awhile back, so I made one myself. You can see it above.

  And below, I used a bunch of fussy cut and punched out pumpkins. I added the eyes on the hack-o-lanterns. The bats are all die cuts from a TH bat set I've had for a couple of years and had never opened. It was definitely time to use it.  Otherwise I did some fussy cutting and some paper layering. The quote is a sticker.

    These next 2 pages are basically sheets of paper I cut down to size and then glued into the blank board book I am using.  On this next witch page I die cut the witch and the trees along the bottom. As you can tell I only used the top parts of those die cut trees. I stamped the quote (and yes it's quite crooked but I didn't want to add anything else to the page) , but everything else was printed on the paper. The washi tape you see on the left side is actually part of the left side page which is still not quite done.

   I really enjoy seeing all the art people make using Lavinia stamps. I don't have many of that company's creations, but I do have  these 2 owls. 

    This time I painted my page black and then used the old tree part from a sheet of paper. I purposely tore it out and left the side edge shorter so you can see the black below it and the tear. I stamped the owls onto the scene. I did give the yellow eyes to the owl facing at you. I stamped the quote too. I painted the moon and the clouds with acrylic paint and also added a bit of yellow glitter glue to give the area around the moon it's shine.

   And there you have it. I might be late commenting on posts today as it's my daughter's birthday, and my husband and I are driving out to Keene, New Hampshire where she lives to help her celebrate. It's about 2 hours each way, so I will be out for most of the day today.

  Since I am not posting tomorrow, have a Happy Halloween if you celebrate. And even if you don't, have a great start to your weekend.