Bumblebees and Second Looks

    Hi everyone. Happy July 2! Yesterday the crazy heat arrived to New Hampshire. 😧 I'm going to miss the beautiful weather we'd been having. 

    I have a few things to share on my post including stopping by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog for Second on the Second. I also want to mention the last couple of days were busy, so I am once again going to apologize if I missed  any of your blog posts. 

   OK, I promise not to hyper focus on bees every post,😏,  but the other day David over at Travels with Birds made an important point in a comment on one of my recent honeybee posts. Since many of you enjoy a bit of bee info, I thought I would take a moment to share the general gist. (And then I won't keep going on about bees...well maybe I won't. )😉

    Honey bees do help with pollination, and they are important, however, sometimes people get so wrapped up  thinking honeybees can save our food supply that they forget about native bees. Native bees are the various species really in trouble. In fact, some of our foods cannot be pollinated by honey bees. Take tomatoes.

   OK, these are milkweed plants, not tomatoes, but you can see one native species of bumblebees.

    Honey bees evolved in Europe and Asia, and some foods, like tomatoes, that evolved in North or South America, evolved without the help of honey bees. Their flowers are not accessible to honeybees because the 2 species didn't evolve together and honeybees can't get to the pollen. The only ones that can do this are native pollinators. As native bees disappear, so might those foods they pollinate. Therefore it is important to  not to do big whole lawn sprays for insects ( all insects  breath the same way, so if you spray say for mosquitoes, it can effect bees) and to remember wild bees need habitat to live in.  I'm not trying to be the bee patrol, just passing on some information. 😁

  Today's main topic of my post is for Second on the Second  over at Altered Book Lovers Blog. I want to share some fabric art that I posted back in 2015 to go along with Halle's fabrictrim/sewing themed challenge this month at AJJ. . Here's my original post. More Quilting.

   I had a large piece of canvas that I painted, and then I did some stitching on it. Here's a few close ups.

    I'm still looking if I can find  any other photos for you to show the finished piece. It might be still folded up in a box under my sewing table because I know I never backed it, at least not yet. (Even though it's been a lot of years...too many actually.😒)

  I'll keep looking and add in a photo if I can find one.  

  With that in mind, I hope you have a super day!

It's July

   Hi everyone. I don't know what happened to June, but happy July to you.

   Before I get too far into my post,  happy Canada Day to my friends north of the border. 🍁

   Thank you Matilde for hosting over at Art Journal Journey last month. And thank you everyone who shared some Houses and Buildings. It was fun to see all the various houses and buildings people created. I can see it was a very creative month.

   But since it's now July it's time for a new challenge and a new host. This month I want to welcome Halle back. She's been with us for several summers now, and we love having you. Halle always has a great theme related to sewing ❤, and you can see some of her fantastic quilting and art pieces over at her blog Halle's Hobbies.

   This month Halle's theme is Fabric, Lace and Trims, Oh My!

   My first page is all paper and rubber stamps, but I do have some sewn pages coming as the month goes on. 

   I started with an 8x8 (inch) sheet of sewing themed paper. It had a pink vibe, so I painted my journal page pink, and once that dried, I attached my page. I then rubbed just a bit of the paint on the edge of the paper to soften it and make it look more part of the overall page. 

   I added a few stamped images to it including the bottom scissors, the snaps and the purple-ish pattern piece. Then I used my old Martha Stewart button paper punch and made the 3 buttons you see on the bottom left near the scissors. The other buttons were already printed the paper. 

  The top partial butterfly was on some scrap paper. I fussy cut it and added it. Then I had some butterfly washi tape that I added to continue the butterfly theme. To finish my page I added some paper lace on the left side, and I stamped the quote from an old Hero Arts sewing set.

  I hope you're excited about Halle's theme and will join us over at Art Journal Journey. Please remember we are an art journaling challenge, and we accept any type of art journaling, but we do not accept CARDS, ATCs, TAGS, etc. 

  Also just a reminder that we may not be able to comment on a link that goes to social media., so please be aware if you link up through social media you will most likely not hear from us.

  I hope you have a super start to the new month, and I', looking forward to seeing some sewing journaling  for Halle's challenge. 

   

T Stands for Another Play

    Hi everyone.  Happy new week to you. And hello  to everyone who  stops by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog   blog for our weekend T Day meet ups.

   Last week was a nice balance of busy days and not so busy days. Of course a couple of rainy/cloudy days didn't hurt with that. 😉  My husband finally finished getting his boat ready for the season, so one day we went out and went fishing (and ha ha, guess who caught most of the fish; my poor hubby was kind of sad it wasn't him 😁). It was also time for a second play at the Ogunquit Playhouse in Ogunquit, Maine.

    You might remember from my T Day post a few weeks back that this year some friends and I bought a 3 show season pass to the theater. Last time we went to see a show about The Temptations (click on the link if you're curious about that play post). This time we went to see a classic that I had never seen either on the stage or  the film version. 

Again, no photos are allowed during the show so I borrowed a few from the playhouse's website.

    What a fabulous show. An usher told us during intermission that 3 of the actors, including Dolly, were Tony Award winners from Broadway and also that the costumes came from a Broadway production of this play. I'm not really up on Tony Award winners, but I can say that the whole cast was amazing. Here's some photos.

   You can see there was a lot of singing and dancing. Plus the sets were amazing. I'm always very interested in how they make sets. I know very little about how a stage is set up and how they are managed so maybe that's why I'm always curious about that.

    You might remember that last play post I mentioned how they have these  glasses that you buy with your first drink and then if you bring them back you only then have to buy your drink, not the glass also. Here's my ticket for T this week since I brought my glass back with me.  This time I had some prosecco, and I'm inside the theater in my seat. The lights made a lot of glare, and my phone couldn't quite decide if I was taking a photo of my glass or the curtain backdrop.  But anyhow, here's my drink.

And here's a clearer view of that intro background that we saw before the play began.

   We don't have tickets for the next play, although we have talked about getting them because we've had such a good time at these first 2 shows. Our final season ticket is not until early September when the play will be The Producers, which I have seen years ago in Boston. It's by Mel Brooks, and I remember laughing non-stop. I am looking forward to that show.

   I hope everyone has a great T day and week ahead. And for those of you in Canada who don't stop by frequently, have a great Canada Day, and for those of you in the US, have a wonderful July 4th holiday.

Sunday Art -Mish Mash

    Hi everyone. I hope you're having  a great weekend. It's already the last weekend of June, which doesn't seem at all possible, does it?

   Thanks everyone for your bee questions and comments.  When I open the hives I do use a smokers, but I don’t suit up.  I do suit up when I put in a new batch of bees because then you get so many flying around all confused.  New bee packages contain 10,000-12,000 bees, and they all have to leave the package and get into the hive so there's a lot of bees in motion at once.

 

   But usually when I go into the hive I don’t get all that many that fly out. Most of them stay inside the hive doing their job and some of them are off looking for pollen and nectar. Those bees are so busy they just ignore you.  It’s just those few guard bees you have to be aware of. However, if you stay calm, you can usually just ignore them, or if they are really bugging me, I have a brush with soft bristles that I use to move bees inside the hive (when and if I need to move them), and I can also use that tool to brush the bees off of me. 

  And not to bore anyone with more bee photos or to give anyone the heebie jeebies, but the wild milkweed growing in my garden is now starting to flower and is attracting all kinds of bees, including my honeybees.

  And  for some reason (which I can't figure out), my new bees would rather enter the hive by going under the outer cover as you can see here

rather than going in and out the main hive entrance like the old hive does. Hmmmm.

   Today I am joining Nicole for her Sunday in the Art Room (SITAR) and also Gillena for her Sunday Smiles.  I'm going to start off this art part of my post with my final page for Matilde's Houses and Buildings challenge at Art Journal Journey. Matilde's challenge runs through this Tuesday.

    This page is part of a homemade journal that I used some music sheets in. Then I created this page on top of the sheet.

     I used a small piece of textured paper for the house itself, and I also used a TH die cut yellow house block to create the roof. There is some of the yellow pieces underneath the textured paper.  I outlined these with a Sharpie. Then I added a die cut butterfly on the roof. The window, flowers and snal are all punch out and/or fussy cut images from 49 and Market. The little white planting pot the flowers are in was a scrap on my table. It's actually from a Greek column die that I had used at some point. 

     The gentleman is also is TH die cut that's been sitting on my work table (the die has 3 of these men and I used the other 2 at some point). Then to finish my page  I used a TH quote rubber-stamp and added a few small flat yellow beads. 

   In this next photo you can see the whole page within the journal.

   And finally, a few views of all the milkweed and also the beehives. This is my wild garden area, and other than a tiny bit of fall and very early spring quick clean up, I don't do anything here. I just let nature take its own course, and occasionally someone gives me some plants and I might add them here because this area gets a lot of sun.

    That's all for today. Have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

The Art of Bee Keeping

 Hi everyone. I hope everyone had a great past week. Other than the morning I spent waiting on hold to talk to someone from the IRS for far too long (the tax people for those of you who aren't familiar with American taxes) and then they cut me off and told me to call back (let's just say I wasn't happy at that point), it  was  a good week for me. Today I am joining Nicole for Friday Face Off  and also Gillena for Friday Lunch Break.

   I also want to apologize if I didn't get by your blog. My last 2 posts were scheduled, and the days got quite busy, so I'm behind. 😖 But today I should (hopefully) be able to watch up. 🤞

   The other morning I did a bee hive check, and I know some of you are interested in them, so if that's you, here's some insect faces for you today.

    Above, you can see how successful the new hive is doing. Not just those on the top, but if you look down between the wooden frames,  you can see all the bees that are there also. 

 The next photo is when I first took the top off the hive. Since these bees are new to the hive, they don't have a huge store of honey to eat, so I put in one of these sugar/pollen patties that you can see. It's about 12 inches/about 30.5 cm square, and usually takes the bees several months to go through. (They go through it quicker in the winter when there is nothing in bloom than they do when there's things in bloom.) However, with no honey store these bees emptied that package in just over 2 weeks.

  My other hive, which was new last spring and made it through the winter, is going crazy making those odd shaped combs from where I left out  3 frames.  You can see the honey glistening in many of the cavities. That honey will be covered as you can see in the bottom left of this next photo. It's the white bumpy part.

   Later in the summer I will remove this comb and take the honey, although with all the work they've done, it does seem kind of mean, doesn't it? 

    This crazy comb is in the smaller upper box.  The next box down is filled with honey that the bees get to keep, and then the bottom box is filled with eggs and brood. This hive probably has in the ball park of 75,000 bees in it.

   This older hives of bees are NOT very interested in me when I open up the hive.  I do use a smoker and smoke them (it covers up their alarm pheromones to keep them from attacking), but very very few of them check me out. They just go about their business.  The new hive however is much more curious about me when I open the hive.  They buzz around me checking me out. 

   However, I haven't been stung for a couple of  years. And when I have been stung, it's been my own fault doing something dumb. The only thing you must do when you open the hive is be totally calm and not rushed. You'd be surprised how relaxing it can be  to open a hive full of stinging and buzzing insects and just to focus on them. 😏

   Some of you probably don't even want to read this post. Grin. I get it. 

   Have a great Friday and start to your weekend. 

   

The Homestead

    Hi everyone.  Happy Thursday. Today I have another short post and another page  for Matilde's Houses and Building challenge at Art Journal Journey. It's already the 25th of the month, and so if you are going to join in, you have a few days left to do so.  This is my penultimate page for June.

   I used a page in my ledger journal. I started by taking a painty stencil and placing it down on the page and then using a wet baby wet to wipe it off and create the red images. They could be fireworks or they could be flowers, so on this page I added some yellow paint to the center and then outlined it once the paint dried making them into flowers. Then I splattered some blue watercolor paint in the background.

   I created the center images by using a TH couple and also this old house photo which I believe was also in a TH packet. I had a scrap of yellow polka dot paper on my work table, and I had some of the zig-zag paper also on my work table. I cut the edge off the zig-zag paper and added it and then trimmed it out with the yellow polka dot paper.

  Finally I added the camera sticker because it looks like these people were getting their portrait done in front of their home. I'm sure they are very proud of it. I couldn't find a phrase in all the quote stamps I have that spoke to me regarding this page, and I couldn't think of any words to put there, so I left it as it is.

   Since I said it would be a short post, I'm stopping here. Have a super rest of your day.

My Photo and My Page Don't really Go Together But...

     Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week. Today I have a short post as I'll be joining Matilde and her  Houses and Buildings challenge at Art Journal Journey.

   The photo of the little girl and her toys was in my stash. While cleaning I came across a sheet of images. On that sheet I noticed the house in the background of this image right away. I decided to make it the centerpiece of my page and to create a background for the lawn which stretches out in front of the house. 

   To make that background I used yellow paint and some green and blue watercolor splatter. I then added some flowered cloth tape. I also added a bit of honeycomb because somewhere in the yard I'm guessing there would be some bumblebees. I added the photo and put a frame around it, and then I added a little bumblebee chipboard image. All the bits and pieces on my page (other than the image) are from 49 and Market. The quote comes from an older French made stamp set by Aladine.

   As I said, I'm keeping today's post short. Hope you have a wonderful mid-week. And thanks for stopping by my blog.

Time for a New Challenge

   Hi everyone.  It's time for a new challenge over at Try It on Tuesday. I can't believe the last challenge has already wrapped up. 😉

    Thank you everyone who joined our Flying High challenge. There was a fun variety of things that fly. And some lovely art too. ❤

    For this new challenge,  our theme is IN THE GARDEN.

  I made a journal  page that started off as a clean my brush off page. At least the purple, yellow and the reddish-brown are  from me cleaning my brush. I added  the blue  and some purple watercolor paint to the background when I decided I saw a sunset in the colors.   I kept all my stamping with black ink.   You know how it is when you look out at sunset, anything in front of the setting sun just looks black. 

   On the left, right and top I used a TH border stamp. And a long the bottom I created my garden by using an old Hero Arts flower image several times. It over lapped and even created some double views, but this garden needed to be full of flowers. The little bunny is an image from a Ciao Bella Junk Journal epmphera book. I also stamped the words (Hopes/Dreams) using a very old stamp set from Flourishes clear stamps and also a TH phrase from one of his sets. 

   As always our challenge runs for the next 2 weeks, and we accept any type of art. I hope gardens inspire you and you'll join us at Try It on Tuesday.

T Stands for Around the Garden

    Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And hello to everyone who stops by Bleuebard's and Elizabeth's blog  for T day.

    Why is it you can have  a lot of socially busy days one week and then the next week is quiet? That's how my last week was, quiet. And the week before was packed full. I didn't  mind the quiet though because I had a lot of things to do around the house, even though I didn't get the whole list finished, I did get  quite a few of the big things done. 👍

   I thought I'd share a few garden photos (OK warning, this is another photo heavy post!)  today since everything is looking good, except my rose bushes. I'm  not quite sure what the problem is but some of those roses have lost all their leaves. After doing some research, I'm leaning towards it being too dry (we are in a moderate drought from last year still) mainly because my  gigantic climbing rose is doing great, and that rose bush is right near the outdoor faucet that leaks when the water is turned on, so it's getting extra water.

    This climbing rose bush is very happy where it's planted. It is covered with buds right now, so in a couple of days it most likely will be filled with flowers. You can also see my thyme plants around the base of it are huge too, except the spot where the creeping thyme is.

   One day last week I gave the rose bed a good weeding as there was Creeping Charlie there, and I read although it doesn't hurt the roses, it aggressively sucks up water. Now that it gone, and I've been watering more, I've noticed some of the plants are getting fresh shoot coming up from the roots.

   But then even my bare roses have flowers.

    This next rose is one I can remember the name of. It''s a Julia Child rose bush, and the yellow roses turn white as they age. It was named that because of course eggs have white and yellow parts.

If you're not distracted by the roses, yes, our house needs a good painting.

   I gave all my roses a good feeding, and as I mentioned,  have started watering them. I'm not a rose expert by any means, so if you spy something I'm missing, I'd love the advice. 

  I also have some late blooming fancy irises looking good.

   My asparagus plants are blooming, and you can see the full pollen sacs on this bumble bee. Funny, there are many of bees on the plant, but so far I can't get a clear photo of any of them. 😒

The milkweed will be blooming soon or is starting to bloom.

   All of my  spirea plants are in full bloom,  and besides bumblebees, my honey bees are fond of them also. I started with 2 spirea shrubs years ago, and those 2 plants have seeded many other spots in the yard. They do look great when they bloom though, but every year I pull out too many new plants. (And occasionally I keep a few.)

    I plant my giant dahlia bulbs  in some  pots every year (it's easy to find them to dig them up come fall), and they are now popping up above the soil. 

And my veggie garden is looking good. I've been picking lettuce and spinach lately. (Excuse the shadow places in the photo.)

I haven't planted peas in a long time, and look, there's some pods forming.

And my cukes are flowering. So are my green peppers and my tomatoes. 

The deck  pots are looking great too, and my house plants are out.

My asparagus fern looked horrible a month ago, but now it is oversized again.

What I love about my  deck garden is how I can easily change it up every year, and since I plant annuals they give me flowers all season.

  After some time puttering around outside, it's time for a snack. And my drink for T day.

   Here's a mug of my homemade iced tea and a bag of Fritos. We stock up on little snack bags of various treats in the summer (the only time we buy them) because they are convenient for when we're out and about. We put them into a small cloth cooler and call it our snack bag. 

  That's all for me today. Wishing you a great T day and week ahead.