Sunday in the Art Room- A New Fabric Book

   

  Hi everyone.  Happy Sunday. I hope you're having a lovely weekend. We were back in the snow again yesterday for a little bit. 😩 Not  a dumping, but enough to look like winter again. 

   Today I’m joining Gillena's Sunday Smiles  and Nicole's  Sunday in the Art Room  also known as SITAR .

   I finally finished going through my bookshelves, and probably one of the most inspiring things about doing that chore (besides finding a few books I want to reread and even a couple that got lost in the shuffle that I haven't read) is having gone through some of my previously made cloth journals. Now I'm inspired to get back to making a new  one and also to finish one I started over a year ago and then put aside.

   To get to that unfinished journal and to dig out supplies for another journal idea I've had, I needed to clean a  few bins that I had  stashed under my sewing machine table.  Well it was another spring cleaning job that needed to be done, and that one didn't take much more than an hour to do. 👍

   Today let me show you the partially finished cloth journal. This journal is being made on some 6x6 inch (15x15 cm) pieces of felt.  The theme is old linens and lace.  I’ve  collected some assorted  pieces of old linens and lace over several  years.   Some of these textiles were given to me and are  old, stained, or torn linens.   I  like being able to give parts of these pieces  more life in a new form. 

  Some of these pieces are old crochet doilies that I've picked up here and there. One place that I used to be able to get a lot of these types of textiles was a fair that  helped support the local hospital. I could find many inexpensive pieces because a lot of people from a generation or two ago would have had them, and now they really aren't the style so they were donated.  However sadly since Covid they no longer run this fair, but I can still find things with some looking.  Luckily I have enough to finish this project and probably even do a few more. 

   I'm using neutral colors in this cloth journal. Even though I have some peach, blue and bright yellow linens and lace, they'll have to wait for another more colorful project.

  Here's a piece (above) of an old quilt and a lace flower. I had a couple of these epoxy cameos and I added one to this page. And this next page (below) also used some scraps of old layered material  as well as a square of white burlap. 

  (above)  I hand stitched some old tan fabric pieces on, as well as this handmade button cover. I sewed it on in reverse because I liked the pulled detail. Usually that pulled detail would be on the bottom.

  Lace on lace on lace for this page (above photo).

     And above, I hand stitched this small lace coaster sized doily onto the felt directly. Then I hand stitched on some beads and some seed pearls.

  I'd sewn down some lace on this next piece, but that's as far as I finished when I picked up and put away the project . 

  I was playing around with this piece the other day, and I like this next view. It isn't sewn together yet though.  My sewing machine has gone in for a good cleaning/overhaul which is needed. (And for those who ask, I do clean my machine, but with a bunch of electronics,  there's certain things I cannot do.) I could hand stitch it, but I think I want the big cloth circle machine stitched.

Here's another idea I had for a second white felt piece.

     And here's me playing around with some ideas for some lace stitched onto black felt. I'm not sure what I'll end up doing with this page.

   I'm also not sure how I'll bring these all together, but that's part of the fun of this kind of project.

  That's all  for me. I'll share more of this when I get more completed. Hopefully I'll be able to pick up my sewing machine next weekend. Have a super rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

  

 

Bunnies in the Rose Garden

    Hi everyone. Happy Saturday. Today I thought I'd share another art page for Chris' Spring Forward challenge at Art Journal Journey.

   This page isn't a very complex one because in the homemade journal I'm working in I had inserted this piece of bunny paper as one of the pages.

    Sometimes printed papers are hard to work with, but I decided to add some more white bunnies. I really liked this background paper and didn't want to take away from it all. I stamped these bunnies with an old Impression Obsession set and then fussy cut them. To make a place for them on the page I cut this small framed rose image out of a sheet of printed paper. I added the bunnies, and then I stamped the rabbit phrase.

   And that's all there is to this page.

  And to wrap up this post, let me share a few more photos of my very spring pink tulips. They definitely make me happy. And they are really opening up now.

Have a great start to your weekend.

Friday Once Again

  Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Today I am joining Nicole for her Friday Face Off and Gillena for her Friday Lunch Break.

    In the past couple of weeks we've had a few days of nice spring-like weather. 😀 It's much hoped for weather too. This is one of those years when everyone I talk to (in my area and even further a field)  mentions that it's time for spring.

   However, there's still snow on the ground that is now melting, and anyplace there is open ground is  VERY wet and soggy. The best place to get out for a walk is the beach, so in the past couple of weeks  there’s been a couple of beach walking trips for me. Today's photos are from one day when I went walking with my husband and the 2 dogs. 

    It was actually quite crowded that day at Rye Beach (Rye, New Hampshire), but the tide was way down so there was plenty of room. I know it looks pretty empty in theses first couple of photos.

     And do you think I could get a photo of both dog's and my husband's faces looking at the camera at the same time? Ha Ha!  Here's my faces for Face Off.

 Seeing it's always 10 degrees (F) cooler by the water, that day we still needed hats and winter jackets for a walk.

    And brrr. There's a group in the area that goes winter swimming. Even if the day isn't too cold, the ocean water in New Hampshire is  cold. Right now it's been about 38 degrees F/ 3 degrees C.

   

     I like these next seaweed photos. 

    These crushed lobster traps and ropes certainly ended up a tangled mess.

   After our walk, and since it was such a nice day, we also took a ride along the coast for a bit too.

   That's it for me. I hope you're having some lovely weather whether you are awaiting spring for fall. Wishing you a great Friday and start to your weekend.

    

A Little Spring Madness

     Hi everyone. Happy mid-week to you. I hope your week is going well. We've had a couple of gorgeous spring days ❤, and even though we have some supposedly precipitation coming in later today, it is supposed to be rain and not snow. 😀 (At least for today. That might not be true at the end of the week.)

    What a fickle month March has been. Last week started with the temperature at 1 degree F/-17 degrees C. Then we had 2 need to shovel snow events, plus a 50 degrees F/10 degrees C day. This week we have had 2 days around 70 degrees F/ 21 degrees C, but now we're in a cool down. It sounds like we could get a little wintery weather at the end of the week. Maybe. We still aren't snow free in my area, but you can imagine we lost a lot of it with the 2 very warm days. There is SO MUCH MUD right now too.

    However, it was really nice to open up some windows after the inside of the house being closed up all winter. 

    Today I have a page for Chris' Spring Forward challenge at Art Journal Journey. The madness in this page's quote could be referring to the recent weather crazies. 

   I wanted to use this old stamp I have of the chick in her spring hat (or maybe it's an Easter bonnet). I liked her  kookiness, and I liked how she contrasted but still seemed to work with this sheet of 8x8 paper. I did rub a bit of grey ink on the white base paper to start with, just to create a bit of depth. 

    Miss Chick was stamped, colored and fussy cut. I bordered my page with some pink flower metallic trim, and I added a few of those flowers to her hat. I thought this quote stamp (an oldie from Impression Obsession) worked perfectly with the images on this page, except maybe instead of King it should have said queen or princess. Grin.

   To bring spring into the house, I bought a jar of tulip bulbs at Costco a few weeks back. Right now they are blooming.  I have them on the windowsill, and if you look carefully you can see all the snow we still had/have each day when I took the photos...although it is melting.

   These tulips are so lovely that I wish I had several jars of bulbs around the house. Grin. But it's great having any color and any signs of spring at this time of year.

  That's all for me. Have a super rest of your day.

T Stands for Happy Birdday and Beeday

    Hi everyone. Happy new week to you.  It's also time for T over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog  so hello to everyone who stops by for T day.

    Last week was my birthday. My big event ended up being on an absolutely gorgeous day (50 degrees F/10 degrees C) with blue skies and no wind. It was even better since this day was squeezed in between a couple of snow events. March is so bi-polar like that, isn't it? At least in my area  it can mean 6 inches/ 15 cm of snow one day and then true spring weather the next.

   Anyhow, my birthday was a gorgeous day, and I didn't have anything going on. No was around and available to do anything either, but I was OK with that. I decided I wanted to go on one more snowy owl hunt down at Salisbury State Reservation in Massachusetts before the season was over. I brought the dogs with me because even if it wasn't a good birding day, we could at least go out for  a walk.

   It ended up being a fantastic birding day but because of all the fresh snow melting, as well as the full moon and it being a really high tide (spring tide), it ended being a terrible walking day. (Well terrible in the fact that had I walked the dogs, my car would have been a disaster zone with water, mud and sand.  And it already is a dog hair disaster zone 😉). I'm sure the dogs would have preferred a walk to my looking at birds. 

 The first bird I saw when driving in was a raven. Then I pulled into a parking area where there were a couple of cars. A man walking to his car told me I should go over to where the 2 women were standing because there was a barred owl visible from there.

   If I saw no other birds that day I would be thrilled because I really like owls. Even though I've seen barred owls a few times (there is even a pair that nests in the woods near my house but I rarely get to see them close up), and even though I hear them a lot, they are pretty spectacular birds.

  On my way back to my car I decided to walk a snowy trail out towards the marsh. There were a lot of ducks out there, but then I spotted something that didn't look quite like a duck nor a mound of grass.

   I used my camera's zoom to see that far off,  and the lump was the Northern Harrier that lives on the marsh.  But wait, is she sitting on a nest? Maybe. I looked it up when I got home, and these birds  nest on land in marshy areas. And in Massachusetts, they start nesting in March.  Plus the nests I saw online did look like this mound.  I'm not sure so I will have to go back  another day to see if there is a Harrier in this spot.

    With the fresh snow the views were nice too. (Although at this point spring  views would be better than snowy views...)

Ha ha.  I'd offer you a seat  so you can soak in some sunshine and enjoy the beautiful day, but I think the seats might be cold and a little wet. 

   This next photo is usually a parking lot and is usually filled with lots of gulls, but on that day it was a field of fresh snow but still filled with lots of gulls.

   When I went to leave I saw some orange traffic cones along the road and a few people there. I parked the car and walked over and asked what people were looking at. I was told there was a long eared owl in the trees.

   I never did see more than the top of the back of the  head and the ears. But since I have never seen a long eared owl before, I'm OK with that. And besides, seeing 2 different species of owls in 1 day was definitely something to celebrate. 

   One woman told me that there are 3 long eared owls that nest in this area, so you can guess I am going to go back and see if I can see more of one of them some other time. 👍

   Before I left for my owl hunt, I went down and shoveled out in front of the bee hive. There was quite a lot of snow down there, and since it was going to be warm, I thought there might be some bee action. Although there were no bees in the snow  before I shoveled, shoveling made more room for them to maneuver in and out of the hive enclosure.

    There's definitely some life in the hive since they did a huge amount of hive cleaning that day. This (photo above) was the view below the hive entrance the next day. I'm not sure whether it's the variety of honey bees I have right now  (Caucasian- A.m. caucaia) , whether it's the temporary winter shelter my husband put up, or a combo of both, but I'm happy they made it because this was one long and very cold winter. Whichever it is, I'm happy see all these signs of life.

    Even better, since today (Monday 3/9) it was warm,  there were lots of bees buzzing around outside. 😀👍❤

   Since this is T day, I need to share a drink. 

   This past Saturday my husband and I took a trip out to my daughter's home which is about 2 hours west of us in New Hampshire. We were going to have a family birthday celebration for me.  I haven't seen my daughter since Christmas, so it was nice to visit. Later in the day we all went out to dinner (my husband, my daughter, my son-in-law and me).  Here's my drink with my meal.

   I went with a beer because I figured it wouldn't be as strong as a cocktail style drink. The menu didn't list any alcohol volumes for the beers, and I thought I'd try this stout. Ha ha. I didn't realize it was 10% alcohol. Luckily I wasn't driving, and I had enough food that it didn't go to my head. 😉

   We went to a restaurant that was new for my husband and myself, but one my daughter likes to eat at. Even though they are not near the ocean, the restaurant is on a lake.

   My daughter raves about the chicken tenders. I noticed on the specials menu that night they had a combo meal: chicken tenders, haddock nuggets and clams. We were celebrating my birthday so I decided to go for it. I haven't had any fried clams since last summer, and they are a favorite of mine.

    I actually liked the fish and the clams better than the chicken, but the chicken was still delicious. And even better, it was a big enough meal that I could take half of it home for dinner the next night. :😀

   That's it for me. Have a great start to your week and Happy T day too.