The Marriage Tree

Hi everyone. Happy Friday. I can't believe this week is winding down already but the good news for me is the heat is suppose to break today. 

I have one more page this week for Art Journal Journey. Chris over at Pear Shaped Crafting is our lovely hostess this month with a theme of Art for Art's Sake. I have this spread from my Japan travel journal of the marriage trees at a shrine which I thought was a great symbolic image. 

I made the base of the page with some watercolor crayons and then I painted the leaves with acrylic paints and used a black Stabilo pencil to add a few details.

I showed you this image before and I thought I would repost it. These are the actual marriage trees at the Emperor's Shrine in Tokyo.

I simplified my journal pages and left out the shrine the in background. I also took a few liberties with my trees but that's the beauty of art.

You won't be hearing from me for a bit since I am off with my husband on a summer adventure. This is the first bigger trip we are able to make since his kidney transplant, and we are both excited to get away together. Newfoundland, Canada, here we come.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Sweets for You

Hi everyone. Hope everyone is having a nice Thursday so far.  I am waking up slowly this morning since yesterday was a busy day at my mother-in-laws place on the lake for the 4th of July celebrations. The heat (it was 95 degrees F/ 35 degrees C at 10:30 in the morning), the swimming, the socializing and getting home late has left me wiped out. We didn't even hang around for the fireworks last night, but I don't know if I would have been able to stay awake through them anyhow.

So I have another page for Chris's challenge, Art for Art's Sake, at Art Journal Journey. Once again  I have a page from my Japan travel journal. This one was hard to photograph only because my book has gotten so thick, 

This is the wrapper from a chocolate bar I bought and brought home. It was yummy. I didn't know Japan had such a good chocolate. But it was just kind of boring to put just the wrapper on the page, so I turned it into a temple using golden tape and a couple stamped maneki good luck cats. Then I stamped the couple on white paper, colored them and cut them out an added them. I bet they love the chocolate shrine as much as I do. :)

And let me show you a pie I made to take to the July 4th celebrations.

I had a lot of fun making this,even if the stars kind of moved around a bit while baking. It tasted delicious on such a hot day and I used up the strawberries I picked last week. Sorry I can't send you a piece but there is only a sliver of it left.

Hope everyone is staying cool and enjoying their week. 

T Stands for a Day on the Water

Hi everyone.  Happy Tuesday. It's another T Day and time to share our drink and maybe life or food posts. As I mentioned yesterday I have a boating T day post.

But before I forget,  stop by Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog and join in the T Day fun.

But first my drink. We're in a heatwave and a nice cold beer always tastes good  when you're relaxing on the water.

And now for a few boating photos from this past weekend. We went out Friday, Saturday and Sunday in our boat since the days were hot and humid and it is cooler on the water.  Plus, it's my husband's favorite way to spend some of his summer leisure time. And it is relaxing.

 Oh the joys of summer! 

Happy July 4th  to all of you who celebrate American Independence Day. And I was remiss to mention Happy Canada Day to anyone who stops by from Canada.
And for all your lovely ladies, Happy T Day.

Happy July

Hi everyone.  Happy July. This past weekend was a busy one for me. With the heat my husband and I went boating the last 3 days. I am wiped out right now, but it was fun. 

So today I have a lot to show you.

First of all it is July 2, so it is time for Second on the Second Time to repost a blog post from the past. Today I am going back to July of 2015 when I had a storyline going on for some Art Journal Journey posts. The story was that Wally (an artist) had left to do some painting internationally  and his love Lizzie, didn't go with him. I had a whole series of  posts in which they went back and forth with letters. The theme that month was either postage or letters. But here is the last page which I painted.

You can check out this entire post here: The Finale. Or if you are interested in following their story you can jump back to July 2015 on my side bar and starting with the Journey on the 9th, you can follow them along. There's a few non-story posts in between, but if anyone is interested I can repost all the pages.

Next I also have a page for Chris's new challenge over at Art Journal Journey. The challenge is Art for Art's Sake. This time the challenge is to show some art journal pages and even better if you tried some new or hardly used technique.

I'm heading back to my Japan Travel Journal once again. Today I have this abstract page I made (which I don't use often) with some transparencies (which I don't use often either).

It started with this piece of paper that a gift was wrapped in. On our trip we did a lot of gift exchanging, which I believe is a big custom in Japan. I saved a piece of the paper because I liked the red design on it. After that I added the red rectangular card it came with on the bottom left, and I added a couple of postage stamps to right of that tag. I finally I took 2 transparencies I had in my stash, which were printed with these abstract designs and added them to my page. I am happy with all the overlapping shapes and images here.

I am also linking up to Moo Mania and their favorite colors challenge. Warm colors make great art pages and the slight touch of the cool blues here make nice contrast.

And finally, how about a few photos for this weekend's boat extravaganza? I know seagulls aren't the most exciting of birds, but here in New Hampshire they do mean a day on or by the ocean. (Do you know they don't have seagulls in Japan-or at least where I was?)

 This guy looks like he is on patrol. Maybe is you don't go slow he will dive at you.  :)

Yesterday it was also very calm and we went out to the Isles of Shoals (6 miles offshore) which is a group of small rocky islands and anchored in the harbor there. We had the dogs with us as it was cooler there and they could also swim. (Which we all did.) Maddie especially loves watching the birds.

Not just seagulls.  Ducks also.

And this cormorant which was fishing for quite awhile near the boat. Not sure what that was he caught an was eating, but he was having a lot of success.

I'll have more to show you on T Day. Hope everyone has a great start to their week.

Some Photos and Other Things

Happy weekend everyone. 

The heat and humidity has arrived. Just in time for July.

Or not to ignore June- for a couple of days at the end of June too.

The flowers seem to love it, especially after the good soaking they got on Thursday.

This is a page from calendar journal. I am linking up to Try It On Tuesday for their things with wings challenge. I am also linking up to Moo Mania and their challenge of your favorite colours. I actually think the more color the better . :) What I don't like about this page is how I tried to blend the the background colors using my markers. As they were water based I thought they might blend better with a damp brush, but no. That didn't work. But the beauty of a journal of any kind is that you get to experiment. The paper in my calendar is pretty flimsy so I just left it as is with my scribble blending.

And the bottom quote is not so crooked but there is a slight bend in my page. Oh man, maybe I shouldn't have posted this page. :)

And many of you mentioned the other day (in your comments) that you wanted to see more of Inari Shrine in Kyoto, Japan, so let me show you some more. If you missed the first round of photos and have any interest in those photos you can link back here: Inari Shrine

 As I mentioned Inari Shrine's animal is the fox, so you can buy this white wooden faces, draw your face and then writing your wish on the back.

 Even the ground I thought even the ground was pretty.

 And the higher you climbed (as this shrine is on the side of a mountain) it became more wooded. And way less crowded.

 Near the entrance.

 You are supposed to wash your hands, and mouth, if you are asking the Gods for any favors. Now I don't understand or know much of anything about the Shinto religion, so I really don't know if there are actual gods or if it is spirits  of passed people you are asking help from.

The mossy rocks are my favorites.

Hope everyone has a wonderful weekend. And stay cool if you are in the heat. (And stay warm if you are in the cold.)

Thanks for visiting. 

Inari Shrine

Hi everyone. I have been busily wrapping up my Japan Travel Journal this week. Still not quite done, but I am really getting close. So today I have another inspiration page for Gill's challenge at Art Journal Journey

On the left is the wrapper from a bag of mini chocolates I decided to try out. They were kind of like   Kit Kat bars (which are extremely popular in Japan-they have whole Kit Kat bar stores) which is a flavored cookie wafer  dipped in chocolate. I liked these mini candies quite a lot and decided to save the wrapper. On the right page is my sketch of the Inari Shrine in Kyoto that we went to. It was a great photographic place, especially as you walked up the mountain and got away from the crowds. I would have liked to make it to the top as my 2 friends and I were 3/4 of the way up, but then time ran out as often happens when you are on a group schedule.

I did notice I need to widen the black walkway a bit towards the front of the temple gates on  my page, but I will go back and do that today.

I haven't shown you any Japan photos recently so here's a few photos of the shrine.

 As I understand it, each gate is put up by a company. This is a shrine for business success. The animal theme here is the fox.

 You can see the difference between higher up the mountain and down by the bottom where the entrance is located.

 And there were all these cool chains of origami peace doves.

 If you verved off the main trail, there were all these small shrines. I really loved these-with their mossy rocks and candles and flowers.

 Here's the entrance. Look at the crowds.

 And here's some views when you get off the beaten path at the small shrines.

Ihave a whole lot more of photos from this shrine if you are interested just mention it in your comment and I will show you some more.

It's a rainy day here today. 100% chance of rain they so, which is good as the rain is needed but it is dark and dreary.  I guess that means I can have a little art time-as well as working on the daughter's bedroom closet some more. I finished emptying it yesterday and now I need to finish my sorting of what we store and what is donated and what is trash. So far there are 4 bags of trash and two bags for donation and a bunch of doll things for storage. But the good news is it is almost ready for me to move my clothes into which is great as my bedroom closet is tiny and the hubby is so excited to get more space for himself. :)

Thanks for stopping by.