Time for a New Challenge

   Hi everyone. It's Tuesday, so that means it's time for a new challenge over at Try It on Tuesday.

  But first. let me thank everyone who joined us for our Keep It Simple challenge. And thank you Denise for being our guest designer.  I don't usually make simple pages, so it's fun to get ideas from all of you who really rock the simple style.

   This time our new theme for the next 2 weeks is GOING ROUND IN CIRCLES.

   The inspiration for my page started when I was cleaning and came across a pile of ATC's that I had made in the past. I decided to make one of them the centerpiece of my page.

   Not only are there circles on my ATC, but I decided to sort of mimic that in the background too.

   To make my background I began by using 2 shades of bright green acrylic paint. Then I decided that the play word that's on my ATC shouwldbe on the background too. Sadly I don't have that original play word rubber stamp any longer so the phrase rubber stamp I had would have to do. After that I hand drew some circles with a black Sharpie and then painted them pink and orange to match the ATC. To finish, I used a piece of scrap from a die cut border to create a spot to put my ATC. Between the slight bend to the page (it's not lying flat as it's at the end of a journal)  and my not so straight gluing, it does go down a bit on the left hand side of the page. In reality it doesn't go down quite as much as this photo makes it look.

   And please check out the design teams circle examples too. There is so much you can create with a circle.

   Thanks for stopping by my post. I hope you like circles as much as I do, and that you'll decide to join us at Try It On Tuesday. 

   

T Stands for Motown

    Hi everyone. Happy new week to you.  I hope you had a great past weekend also. Since it's time for T  over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog, hello to my T day blog friends. 

   Last week summer arrived with some hot and humid weather for a couple of days. Then it cooled off and we were back into early spring like weather. Then it rained. This week I think we're going to be back to normal temperatures. Maybe. The weather this year has just  been crazy and unpredictable. I'm not sure even the weather people can  forecast it very well. 😏

  I've still been working in my gardens when it's not too hot or too wet or even too cold, but I also had a fun day out last week. Some friends and I went to a play at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine.

photo from Wikipedia

   For the last couple of years we've gone to one play a season, and since we've always had a good time, this year we decided to try a 3 show season pass. Doing that meant we picked out the shows, dates and times we wanted back last winter, and now it's time  to start seeing those shows.

   The  summer theater season has started, and the opening  show was one of the plays we wanted to see, so last week we saw our first show.

   The first show this year is Ain't Too  Proud To Beg. It's about the life and times of the Motown musical group The Temptations. (You probably already know their music and name.) It was excellent, and there was a lot of great music. It was also really nice to see that an afternoon matinee was sold out. Or at least I didn't see any empty seats from where I was in the theater. 

   Photos aren't allowed during the show, so here's a couple I also borrowed from the internet.

    Before the show we went to lunch. Then we each got a drink at the theater. My glass of wine is my ticket to T day this week.

   You can also see a bag of peanut M&M's  ( my dessert for the show) I bought. 

   You have to buy a glass if you don't bring one with you to the theater. Well you can't bring just any glass. Once you buy one of these theater glasses you bring it back to the next play  if you want a drink. Then you just pay for your drink and not the glass too. The last couple of times I went I had a borrowed glass, but this time I needed to buy one. (But they aren't very expensive, and a good way to get people to recycle too.)

   We'll be back next month for another show, so now I just need to remember to bring my glass with me then. 😏 Next month the play is a classic which I have never seen, not even the movie version of it. Next up is Hello Dolly.

  That's it for me. Wishing everyone a great T day and week ahead. 

At The Botanical Garden

      Hi everyone. I hope you are having a lovely weekend.

     Today I am joining Gillena for her Sunday Smiles  and also Nicole for her Sunday in the Art Room   .

    My local botanical garden (Bedrock Gardens) opened on May 12th for members, so I went with 3 friends.We had a lovely time checking out not only what was in bloom, but also what was new for 2026. The woman who manages the bee hives for the garden was also there. I had a great chat with her for a while too. 

   I love taking garden and close up photos, and so today I thought I'd share some with you. It's always fun to try different angles and see if I can get any interesting photos. Sometimes they work out; sometimes they don't.  I hope you enjoy a little digital walk through the gardens.

The reflections in the koi pond look a tad bit like abstract art.

For some reason I really like this view of the clumps of grasses.

I wonder how many people actually notice the skinny red ball stuck up in the crook of the tree?

pink on green

And here's a few grander views.

   When I go back (hopefully)  in a week or two, it will all be different. It's so amazing how quickly gardens change, isn't it? 

     Wishing everyone a wonderful rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

Friday Faces-Fun Sculptures

    Hi  everyone.  Happy Friday. Another week has flown by, and here in the US it’s the start to a long weekend. Memorial Day is a day to honor fallen soldiers, and often is a time to visit cemeteries to visit loved ones that have passed, even if they were not fallen soldiers. And unofficially, it is the start to the summer season.

   Sounds like the weather in my area will be cool and even a bit wet but definitely not feeling like summer. 

   Today I will be joining Nicole for Friday Face Off  with some  faces. I will also be joining Gillena for her Friday Lunch Break.

 

  Last week my local botanical garden (Bedrock Gardens) opened for the season. I always get a season pass, not only to help support them, but also so I can visit as much as I'd like between May and October. The other interesting thing is that they are part of the American Horticulture Society. If a garden belongs then you can visit any other member garden for free with your membership. When we visited Magnolia Gardens in South Carolina last month both my husband and I were able to get in for free, and just that entrance fee would have cost more than my membership to my local garden. I love that I'm already ahead of the game. 😏 But not as much as I love visiting my local garden. 👍

   One of the original founders of these gardens is  a woman named Jill Nooney. She is also an artist who makes some fun sculptures with found materials. She sees things in those bits and pieces I certainly don't. She has many of her pieces displayed  at the gardens. 

     These first 2 are some new sculptures in the garden. 

     There were also a few sculptures at the little shop area at the entrance to the gardens. Here's a few of the choices you could buy if you had a little extra cash.

   I really like this next one. (And it's probably how I looked when the bear visited my yard last week at 3 AM.)

   Too bad her sculptures, although not ridiculously expensive, were just a bit pricey from my present budget.  😏 Wishing everyone a wonderful Friday and start to your weekend.

Thursday Art

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. 

  Today I'm sharing another journal page  for Mia's Birds challenge at Art Journal Journey  This page in my journal doesn't want to lay flat even when I push back the covers, so I apologize for the quality of the photos. (I actually had to use a small clamp to hold the page down while I made it.) 😣

    The background began when I was trying out an ink pad to see if it was the right coppery-brown shade for different page. No sense wasting ink if it wasn't quite right, and I could use whatever coppery-brown color it was on this page. The ink ended up quite streaky on the paper (and didn't work for the other piece I was trying to make either), so I covered up much of it with this 4 frame sheet of collage paper. In 3 of the frames I added some acetate that I stamped on and then cut to fill the frame. I thought 4 blank frames was a little too boring. 😏

    I then edged the top and bottom of that sheet with some washi tape.

    The parrot is cut out of a sheet of Ciao Bella paper, and the flowers are cut out of a sheet of Mintay paper. Those flowers were all white, but I did  a tiny amount of coloring on some of them. I thought the white would pop off the page a lot more than if they were completely colored in. Finally, I finished with a quote from TH.  

   I also want to share another tag for Pinky's Add Some Pink challenge at Tag Along (and ATC's too).

   This time I started with a red tag, and I outlined the edges with a white paint pen. I punched out 3 flowers from an older Art  By Marlene set. I added a bit of pink paint with a  paint pen to the more purple flowers. Then I took some leftover scrap mini flowers that were white and painted them pink also. I glued them down in the center of each flower.

   I had this metal ribbon charm (I believe from TH) in my stash. It was silver, so I painted it pink and added a small pink 1/2 pearl  to the center. Then I added a piece of thread through the loop and glued it down. Finally, I finished my tag by stamping the Inspiration word with white pigment ink. The word comes from a musical Stamperia set.

   That's all for me today. Have a great rest of yours.

Birds In The Garden

    Hi everyone. Happy mid-week. We've been having some gorgeous weather, and yesterday it even felt like summer. Thank goodness my husband got the plastic off the screen porch because I really enjoyed using it. 😄

   Today I want to share another  journal page for Mia's Birds challenge over at Art Journal Journey 

   I had this sheet of printed paper that came out of an old Somerset Studio magazine. I liked it, and decided I could make something with it as a background, versus cutting it up for something that is. I started by taking another piece of magazine paper and a diamond shaped die.  I die cut 5 images of this shape. I glued 3 together on the bottom of the page and then two on the lower right side.

   After that I fussy cut these 2 birds from a sheet of paper. I left them as is except I did add some yellow to their beaks and upper breast. I also used some punched out leaves and a tag. I made the background on the tag by inking it with a light green ink pad and then using a crackle stamp image and some darker green ink. To cover up the tag's hole I used a yellow dewdrop (manufacturer's name) for these small glass-like water drops. Finally I wrote in my quote.

  I must admit the only butterfly I’ve seen was yesterday, the first of the season. It was a big yellow swallowtail.  But I have had a whole lot of birds, including a male scarlet tanager I also saw in the woods yesterday,  but that I couldn't get a photo of because of all the leaves.

    Here he is, thanks to a photo I borrowed from Cornell's All About Birds website.

   Mom and  Dad Baltimore Oriole have been around. Funny how they always come by in the spring and then  vanish into the woods after a short time. I have lots of photos of Dad.

But only one of Mom as I haven't seen her as much as I have Dad.

   I've also had 2 male Rose Breasted Grosbeaks at my feeder too. Sometimes at the same time, but those photos didn't really come out. 

     I think the bluebird babies have fledged. Sadly I missed that event. Maybe they'll have another brood because last year they had 2. But before the bluebird house became empty, I snapped a couple of photos.

   And finally, I've seen the Myrtle warbler a couple of more times, but not as much as this pine warbler. He/she is around a lot and isn't too afraid of me either.

 I can see why they are called warblers, because one day he decided to sing as he sat on the fence and wow, what a song.

   That's all for me today. Have a wonderful middle of your week.