T Stands for Botanical Gardens, a Vineyard and Lunch

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

  Today I had my first physical therapy for my shoulder.   I really liked the woman who met with me, although today's appointment was really just doing some analysis on my pain. I go back Wednesday, but she's not quite sure it's my rotator cuff. She thinks it's more my bicep connection to my shoulder.   Kind of the rotator cuff, but not (hopefully) as bad as the doctor made it out. 👍🤞

  Last week was a fairly quiet week. My husband and I met up with blogger Dorothy (The Frog and PeguINN) and her husband Patrick at Pop's on Saturday for lunch since they were in the area, and we were home. It was their anniversary, and they were out celebrating.

  One other day I met up with  my walking friend Jo. She and I went to our local botanical gardens to walk and catch up since I haven't seen her all summer. We both have season passes which makes it convenient. Afterwards we went to lunch at a new place for both of us. Today's post is about my day out with my walking friend Jo.

   Here's a few different botanical garden views, starting with the water feature which runs through part of the gardens.

The water lilies looked beautiful.

And these ground shrubs were not new, but I hadn't seen this funky blue pot design before.

Here's a few more views

And finally, they were cutting the crazy hedge around the bee hives. You knew I had to include them, right? Grin. 😉

   Afterwards, we went to check out the tasting room and restaurant at Flagg Hill Winery. I had never been here before, but since it was only 2 miles/ 3.2 km away from the Botanical Gardens, it was worth seeing if it was a good lunch place.

    They had a very nice covered patio so we decided to eat outside and enjoy the view of the vineyards.

    They didn't have a huge menu, but they did have gluten free options for my friend. We both had grilled cheese sandwiches, with their homemade pickles and  homemade chips.

    For my drink this week, we both had a wine smoothie, made with fresh strawberries and white wine. It was a warm day (86 degrees F/ 30 degrees C), but not humid, and there was a beautiful breeze, so this drink was really refreshing. 

   I thought the glass our drinks came in was really pretty too. 

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

More Gelli Printing

   Hi everyone. I hope you're having a nice weekend.

   Today I am joining Gillena for her Sunday Smiles and Nicole for her SITAR-Sunday in the Art Room. Last Sunday I shared some Gelli prints. (Here's the post if you missed it: Adventures in Gelli Printing.)  This past week  was another mostly quiet one so I spent an afternoon making a second round of prints. It was  wet and rainy that day so instead of going outside to get some leaves, I  used a variety of stencils. 

   This time I was very happy  with all my pages. No brown YUK like I had on a few pages last week. 😊   Here's a few of my favorites. This first one reminds me of a painting on a brick wall.

   My trick (OK technique 😉) is to never clean the plate. That way  when you pull a print you get bits and pieces from older prints  (I think they're called ghost prints) and spots of colors that were left underneath.  Plus don't use thick amounts of paint, so rolling with a brayer is a good idea.  These  prints are done on student grade watercolor paper, but I have printed on everything from  scrapbook paper, deli paper, cloth and even newsprint. 

 The check patterning this next print is from using the plastic roller I mentioned last week. It's meant to roll even lines in clay, but if I roll it  in both directions on my plate (vertical and horizontal) it creates this pattern.

    The other thing I really like to do is pull a plate, let the design on the paper dry a few minutes, and then repress it back onto the plate and pull it a second (or even third) time.

 I then switched up my stencil.

I switched it up again.

I thought the window shapes in these next few would be great for some Halloween journaling.

   I really liked how the alphabet stencil looked. And the  ghost like rings are made by using a small piece of left over pipe insulation that I dabbed in paint and then "stamped" onto the Gelli plate.

    And here's the final stencil I played with.  In this next image you can see bits of yellow that were just dried on the plate from a previous pull.

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

Friday Flowers and Faces

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Another week has sped by, hasn't it? 

    Today I have a bunch of random garden photos to share. I'll be linking  up to Friday Face off over at Nicole's blog and also Friday Lunch Break over at Gillena's blog. And just an FYI- this is a photo heavy post

                                        

     I'll start with these faces on these wild turkeys. I haven't seen them around for a while. I want to say "They're Back!" 😁

   Do you see the grape vine growing over my arbor behind the turkeys? Usually the new growth comes off the old woody vines, and this spring there were none. I thought I'd lost the plant. Then we had a couple days of actual rain, and after that, new shoots came out of the roots. And look at it now. No grapes this year, but the plant certainly wasn't dead. 

     How about the deep red of this lily flower?

A dragonfly hanging out on a tomato plant.

  This year I bought a few plants for a tiny spot next to the deck that usually just filled up with weeds. One plant I bought was a Black Eyed Susan, a favorite plant of mine. It's very happy there and looks amazing right now. Plus there's a face in one of these next photos of the flowers too.

    OK, I guess I got a bit carried away with black eyed Susan photos. 😉 Next up some golden-rod with another face, and then another favorite of mine which are now blooming.

Zinnias ❤

    The other day I noticed 3 Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies on this one bunch of zinnias at one time. I only captured a photo of 2 of them because one flew off as I walked over in that direction.

   These tiger lilies blooms have seen better days, but I still think the flowers are very interesting to look at.

Here's another face on some milkweed.

   This first dandelion photo is slightly out of focus, except for one seed that is breaking away over on the left.

   You can still see the dandelion break away seed here, but it is not so dramatic.

  I visited my daughter the other day, and my son-in-law pointed out this swallow-tail caterpillar that was in his garden.

And to wrap up this post, the son-in-law's sunflowers look AMAZING! 

   Have a wonderful Friday and start to the weekend everyone.

Thursday Fashionable Art

   HI everyone. Happy Thursday. I hope your week is going well.

   Today I have a couple of pieces of art for a couple of challenges. First I have a summer inspired journal page for my In The Good Old Summertime challenge over at Art Journal Journey. Then I another tag for Pinky's Fashion challenge over at Tag Along (and ATC's too).

    Here's my page for Art Journal Journey.

  I call my  journal page Beach Wear. It's definitely some vintage styles. 

 I started my page by using 2 small sheets of 6x6 (inch) summer paper that is blue and covered with some boat/sail flag designs. I used that to cover the white base page I was working off of. Then I used a second sheet of paper that was black and white and covered in summer fashion. I cut that page apart to arrange the fashion on my page. I finished by pulling out my Ciao Bella junk journal book and fussy cutting the girl in her swim suit as  well as the colored swim/beachwear pieces. I think the pops of color not only added to my layout but also enhanced the black and white images.

   To finish, I outlined the page with a Sharpie. I did not add a quote, even though I thought about it. This is one page in a small journal I made, and since the page was already full with fashion and some fashion "quotes", I decided not to add anything else to this page. Plus I really like the quote that was printed on the paper right at  the very top  which says "You're In The Swim".

   And here's my tag.

   This month Pinky's theme at Tag Along (and ATCS too) is fashion. If you don't like fashion you can go with Anything Goes. In the last several years it seems that fingernails are also becoming high fashion. Some women have very pretty nails not only with them painted but also with all kinds of nail art added. I don't do my nails because I don't think they would last more than 5 minutes between me always getting my hands covered in paint, dirt, or assorted other messy things.

   My tag today is titled hand fashion. 

   I cut the tag using an AALL& Create tag die. I used a punch card for the base. This punch card is the kind you would use if you were punching in for a job. After I die cut it, I used an ink pad to color it. Then I took a bottle of Hero Arts liquid watercolor and added some drops of neon pink ink. After those drops dried, I took and orange ink pad and added a bit of color to the tag's edges. I was really hoping to get some good drips from the liquid watercolor, but I had a hard time getting it to run. At least the drops certainly work.

   The reinforcer around the tag hole was cut from the tag material scraps and also from the same ALL&Create die set as the tag. I did not color that.

    Finally I went for some bits and pieces on my work table. The 2 hands come from a hand die set made by Impression Obsession. I used a pink marker to color the nails. I added the 2 cloth flowers (from some yellow trim) and put  small confetti pieces in the center of each. The filmstrip is from a TH roll that I've had forever. And the quote is from an old Flourishes clear stamps set. (Flourishes is another one of those long defunct companies.)

   That's it for me today. I hope you enjoy my art view. And thanks for stopping by my blog too.