Friday's Face

     Hi everyone. Another week is wrapping up, and before we know it May will be here. It's been a lovely week at my house weather-wise, and I've been busy with a lot of outside work.

     Today I am joining Nicole's Friday Face Off and also Gillena's Friday Lunch Break. 

     As I mentioned, I've been busy outside. We get these small flying and biting insects called Black flies that come out around May 1 so I'm always in a bit of a hurry to get some yard work done before that. (Although I've already noticed a few that have come out 😒)  Anybody who lives where these 'bugs" come out en masse knows exactly what I mean when I say I don't want to be doing yard work when they're around. Luckily they are only bad for a couple of weeks.

     One thing I've been doing is raking up my gardens. Last fall was a huge year for acorns. I cleaned up what I thought was the worst of them last fall, but no, in some spots there were still a lot of them. Here's a photo I took earlier in the week in one of my gardens.

    I think there was about 100 of these piles in my garden, and the worst of it is that you have to pick up the acorns by hand or with a shovel since you can't scoop them up with the rake. 

   I wonder if the big acorn harvest means there will be lots of baby squirrels this year? Of course, if food is easy to get like at my bird feeders then I guess the acorns will just remain on the ground.  

    Here's my squirrel buddy (?) who has figured out how to get on  one bird feeder that can be reached by jumping over from my back deck. Of all the squirrels that come through the yard, this guy is the only one who  is smart or brave enough to do this. 

    He and I often  have stare offs through the window, and it's probably 50-50 who moves first.

      I was the winner in this particular stare down as he took off after a minute. But as soon as I left I bet he was back to jump onto the feeder. 😏 😐😖

     And the other night I had a stare down with a much larger visitor. It was just around midnight and Mr. Pete started barking and going crazy. I jumped out of bed, grabbed my glasses but sadly left my phone charging upstairs.

     You can see how close to the house the bear was. Just sitting there on the sidewalk, using his paws to pull out the food out of this feeder and have his snack. He wasn't a young bear either but a big older guy. I pounded on the window and told him to leave, and he got up, slowly ambled off across the lawn, looking back a  couple of times, and then disappeared into the woods. And luckily, other than sort of pulling the pole partly out of the ground, there was no damage to the feeder. It's permanently tied onto the pole as it's one of those video feeders, and it had been a gift a couple of Christmases ago from my daughter. 

     It took a good hour to calm both dogs down, especially Maddie who I think scared the bear more than Pete, even though Pete was right in the window. She has that deep more ferocious bark.

     Which she was still barking the next day. I guess when you're blind you want to be sure that bear is long gone.

    That's it for me today. Have a wonderful weekend ahead. 

Beautiful Moments

    Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday. We're having more fantastic weather this week, so once again I am back outside working in the yard. 

     Today I want to share another journal page for my Spring Birds challenge at Art Journal Journey. 

     You can barely see that I made this page in my ledger journal. The background is inked in blue and pink, and then I added a large die cut pink square.  I also added some scraps from a book in Greek, which I have no idea what it says. Hopefully it is  about something nice and not about a bloody war-grin. Mia may be able to tell me if she can even make it out with the inks rubbed over it. 😏

    The bird's nest image is die cut and colored, and I also added the 2 die cut flower images. Then to finish I stamped the quote and used a white Posca paint pen to add lots of dots. I'm a little worried those dots look like snow, but maybe that's because it wasn't all that long ago it snowed too many days at my house.

    Over Easter my daughter came for the day. We had a lovely day. One thing we did was go for an entire family walk along the road where my mother-in-law's house is located.

     And look at this tree along the driveway (at my mother-in-law's house) that I've never noticed before. It has so many holes in it. I wonder if anything is or will be nesting in any of those holes.

     I wonder why it took me so long to notice it. Maybe because there's no leaves on the trees (in the woods where this holey tree is standing) around it yet so the sunlight hitting it just made it stand out more.

      And let me leave you with the cake I made for Easter.

      It's a vintage style pineapple upside down cake with some chopped pecans on top too. It was tasty, but if and when I ever make another one I am going to cover the top with crushed or chunked pineapple so there will be pineapple in every bite. 😏

     Have a super middle of your week. 

T Stands for Lots of Outside Time

      Hi everyone. Happy new week to you.  If you celebrated any spring holidays recently I hope they were good for you. Also hello to everyone who stops by for T Day over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's        blog.  I want to wish our lovely T Day hostess a happy birthday, or should I say Bearthday since T day this week happens to fall on Earth Day.

     After a snowy week, last week we had some nice spring weather, including some warmer weather too. It was an outside week for me. I did a lot of  yard work ❤ and took a long beach walk one day too.  Plus I got some new glasses. This first photo is of me inside of Costco when I picked up my glasses. They say big glasses are back in.

    Here's a snapshot of me in my new sunglasses in my car before I was going to drive home. My daughter asked me to take photos and send them to her so she could see what I picked out. I thought I would share them with you also. 

     As I mentioned, I also did a lot of outside work. In last week's T day post I wrote about how I was going to move and spread out  some rose bushes. They are all moved now. This week I need to get some bark mulch and mulch the area. You can also see some of my irises coming up on the left too.

    My daffodils are way up but not budding or flowering yet. The little green leaves around them are the sweet woodruff which has spread out nicely in the last few years and the rest of the green is moss. If raking didn't rip up moss, I think I would love a whole lawn full of moss. It's an amazing plant.

 I  have a few crocuses flowering-finally. 😏

The seeds I planted a couple of weeks ago are really growing. First of all here's some kale.

And here's some spinach.

In a big planting bag I put in some beet and carrot seeds. The bigger seedlings in the front are the beets. My carrots are just starting to break the soil.

I also have a little bit of garlic coming up too.

When I picked up my glasses at Costco I bought a new rosemary plant. 

     I need to plant that in a better pot. It's also finally warmed up enough to  start some other plants, but  not outside yet.

  And because it's T day, I need to share a drink photo. I mentioned that I went for a long beach walk last week. I hadn't seen my friend Jo in awhile so instead of taking beach photos we spent 4 .25 miles (6.8 km) catching up. Then we went to lunch at a place called the Airport Cafe. It's at a small airfield, and in the restaurant they have planes that move around the ceiling on a track. 

      If you have a window seat or sit outside, you can watch actual planes take off and land. On the day we went it was fairly windy so I didn't see any planes besides the ones on the track above me.

     This cafe is only open until 2 PM, and they serve breakfast all day. On that day's daily specials they had a pulled pork and cheddar cheese omelette which sounded tasty so we both ended up ordering it.

     That omelette was big enough for 2 meals, but somehow I managed to eat almost all of it. (But I couldn't finish the potatoes or toast.)  I was pretty full by then and since I'd spent a couple hours walking in the morning,  when I got home I took a long (and wonderful)  nap. 😏

    That's all for me. Have a happy T day and week ahead. 

Happy Easter

    Hi everyone.  I hope you're having a wonderful weekend, and if you celebrate Easter, I hope you have or are having a wonderful day.

  I spent much of last week outside and hardly anytime making art, so I don't have any new art today. But back in 2020 I made a spring/Easter accordion journal. I shared these images back on Easter of that year, back when we were in isolation. That seems like a long time ago, but in other ways, not so long ago.

  They seemed appropriate  for Easter Sunday, so I thought I would share them again.   I hope you enjoy the second view.

      On Easter in 2020 my husband and I had a picnic lunch in his truck up next to a local lake since we were in isolation and felt like doing something. This year my daughter is coming, and I'm looking forward to seeing her. 

     Whether you celebrate or not, have a wonderful rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

Friday Again

      Hi everyone. The week is winding down, and the good news is, there has been no new snow at my house. 😏 I think (or maybe I hope) that's it for the year OK. 

    Today I am joining Nicole's Friday Face Off and also Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.  I'm also linking up to Art Journal Journey where this month's theme is Spring Birds. I thought I would share a couple of views from a recycled envelope book that I made last month when I had some 9x12 envelopes that were destined for the trash but too good to throw away. If you're curious about my introduction post to this project, you can check it out here: Recycled Art.

    You can see the faces on the 2 lambs above, but there is a whole face below. This is the "tag" that I made to put into the pocket of the page above.

    And I thought the words flummox and cacophony worked great since as the world warms up and gets green there is a whole lot of noise as well as things going on.

   And hurrah, I finally spied my first crocus when I was out working in the yard the other day. 

    Have a wonderful weekend and start to the new week. And if you celebrate Easter, I hope it is a lovely day. 

A Page from My Envelope Journal

   Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. I'm very excited to report that so far there has been no snow at my house this week. ❤😏👍

 Before I share my journal page I want to share some happy mail I received the other day from CJ. She said she'd been doing a bit of stash cleaning and came across a couple of bee related images. Would I like them? Yes, definitely.

    Thank you CJ for thinking of me. I can definitely use these in some art, especially since I am still working in my bee journal. I also love the little kitty sticker in the cup. It looks like Calli. Give Calli  (and of course Quill) a little pat for me in thanks too.

     I also wanted to share one spring inspired page from my envelope journal today. I'll be linking this up to my Spring Bird challenge at Art Journal Journey.

     The bird is recycled magazine image. I also used a page from an Icelandic murder mystery that I brought home from Iceland with me in 2023. I don't read Icelandic so I hope it's isn't a bloody gory scene. 😏 I  used a bit of washi tape, a left over scrap from a die cut and some white watered down and sponged on paint. The buttons were in a bag I picked up recently at JoAnn's fabrics, which is a fabric and craft store chain that is going out of business. I picked up several bags in various colors to use on some art because they are super thin, and although I don't think they'd be any good at being buttoned and unbuttoned on clothing because they are so thin and would break easily,  being so thin they work great as a detail on a page.

    And here's the oversized tag you can see peeking out of the pocket, which also has a bird on it.  All of the images are cut out of an old magazine or torn from my Icelandic mystery book. I stamped the postmarks as well as the quote and added a couple of sticky silver half pearls to finish it off.

    That's enough for today. Have a great day everyone.

Recycled Art

 Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday to you.

      Today I'm joining Bleubeard and Elizabeth with a bit of recycled art. Elizabeth's birthday is on Earth Day, and to celebrate she always shares some recycled art in April. Elizabeth asked me if I could make some recycled art to join her. Although I had something else in mind, I didn't have time to get to it. However, I  spent last month making this project which has lots of recycled parts to it. Today I am sharing a few views of my envelope journal.

     I often file certain items  in 9x12 envelopes because it never fails, when I use file folders things always seem to fall out. I had several things filed in some envelopes, and then after doing a bit of cleaning, I didn't need the envelopes any longer. I usually write directly on the envelope what is in it, so these envelopes, although still in very good shape, weren't really useful for mailing. There were also so many of them, and it seemed a waste to throw them all out.

    I decided to use them for an envelope book. I  cut the envelopes down. I decided not to worry that they  all had to be the same size, and instead cut them randomly. I like how some are tall and some are shorter.  I also decided I wanted to leave the top on them, and that allowed me to create lots of open pockets I could fill with tags and other bits.  I stitched the pages down the middle to make 4 signatures, and on some of my pages I even did a bit of stitching just for texture and detail.

    I'll be showing more of these pages another time, but let me go to the cover. The cardboard that makes up the cover is from a set of sheets that I bought  last fall. I kept the cardboard because I thought it would make a great book cover. I covered the entire cardboard with some cloth bookbinding tape.

   The big round circle you can see is also a piece of recycled cardboard. I'm not exactly sure what package it came from, but I'm thinking maybe a Christmas bowl I bought a couple of years ago.  I painted it before I attached it to the cover.  I also added a piece of scrap envelope paper to the cover and the junk word  which is made from a set of stitched letters I found on a markdown table and had in my stash. I also used a pink paint pen to outline the cover.

    Since I've shared my cover, I thought I  would also share it once I bound the inner pages. This time instead of straight binding I tried something with a pattern. It took me a lot longer to do   than a straight binding would have, but I'm happy with how it came out.

    Thank you Elizabeth for asking me to share some recycled art. It was lots of fun to share recycled art to help you celebrate. 

    

Try It On Tuesday New Challenge

 Hi everyone. It's Tuesday and that means it's time for a new challenge at Try It On Tuesday.

     Thank you everyone who joined our Rainbow 🌈 Colors challenge. It was fun to see so much color.  And for our latest challenge, we're asking for art with the theme of 

Oh So Sweet

    My first thought for this challenge was to literally go with something sweet like a cake or cupcakes. And that made me think of birthdays.

     I must admit I like my painted/stenciled background, but I don't really like it for my page. I don't know what I was thinking going with such a dark palate. Because the background was so dark, I decided to keep the images white.  The aprons and the oven mitts are oldie stamp images from Hero Arts that I stamped and fussy cut. The baker is an old stamp from Stampington. I did color in the cake she made because that's the sweet part of my page and I wanted that part to stand out. And I really wanted to make the burning birthday candles glow, which I think they do.

   Luckily I had this old snarky birthday quote that worked great with my journal page.

   To finish my page I die cut the white lace on the top of the page and also added a strip of thin purple washi tape. I had a few sequin flowers that reminded me of the purple flowers on the page, so I added those to the aprons just to give them a little bit of life. I also like how you can see through the sequins and so the apron details are still visible.

   Be sure to check out the rest of the design teams takes on Sweetness. There are some adorable images.  And as usual, you have 2 weeks to join this challenge. I hope  you're feeling sweet and decide to join us.

T Stands for Spring???

    Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And I'm a day late, but happy Passover to those who celebrate. It's the start of the week and time for T again over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's  blog. 

   Today there was  absolutely gorgeous weather at my house, but last week it was another story. The poet TS Elliot wrote a classic line in his poem The Waste Land. "April is the cruelest month".   Sorry to complain. It snowed on 4 days. Mostly just flurries and a dusting that melted pretty quickly. The biggest snow was Saturday where we  were in a 1-3 inch (2.5-7.6 cm) range. 

The poor Phoebe was looking forlorn while waiting for some insects to fly by.

    OK, even I don't want to see any more snow photos .  Or snow either!

    Luckily  it later turned to rain, but sadly the snow didn't disappear immediately.  It's gone now though--❤👍😀 This week our weather has warmed back up to the normal 50-60 degrees (10-15 degrees C), even though there's still some rain and wind in the forecast.  I really hope it's  sunny or at least a mostly dry week and things green up a bit.

   But some things are saying spring, like the kale and spinach seeds I planted that are now popping up. They are inside in some pots.

    And last week we had one nice-work-outside type day so I could get out and start a project I need to do. My roses are a little too crunched together where I have them, so I want to spread them out. The best time to do that is now before they start to grow for the season. I spent one morning cleaning out around them and moving the edging to see how I want to expand the area.

     Hopefully I can move the ones I want to spread out this week. I am very excited to get my hands in the dirt. I love to dig and plant and then watch the results of my efforts over the summer. 

     And since it's T day, I need to share a drink. One day when the snow changed over to rain I went out and met my husband for lunch. There's not a lot of places to eat near his office, and a few of those aren't the quickest, so we often go to the Longhorn which is a steak chain because besides being fairly quick, they don't have a bad lunch menu either.

     I had  their soup (baked potato) and  salad combo, and for my  drink, I had a  diet coke. You can see my husband's meal in the background, and he had the same thing. 

    Have a great T day and week ahead.