It's Fun Friday

Hi everyone.

It's Friday. Hurrah. I am ready for it to be the weekend and even more so, I am ready for a few days off from work. 

And I am wishing you  a Happy Easter if you celebrate and a Happy start to Passover to those of you who celebrate that holiday for the next several days.

And look what I found in my garden when I did a bit of raking after work one day earlier this week.

 The first flower of the year. There was some green hiding under all the wind blown leaves.

Spring is coming to my world. Smile.

And today I have another page for Wendy's Have Fun challenge at Art Journal Journey

How about some silly monkeys?

This is my calendar journal page this week. These monkeys look like they are all jumping around in their monkey ways or maybe they are dancing for joy with all these bananas to eat.

Either way they are having a lot of fun.

Hope your weekend is a lot of fun too.

Thanks for visiting.

The Rest of My Travel Journal Views

Hi there everyone. We're not quite at Friday yet but I am getting excited to wrap this week up.  I  think it is time to show you  the rest of my Florida travel journal. I start a new vacation after work tomorrow and it is time to move forward and put this journal to rest.

No vacation travels next week for me, although I do have a few fun days out planned. I am ready to have some home time and am hoping the weather will cooperate so I can get some yard work done, now that the snow is finally gone.
So my Florida travel journal has lots of collaged style pages, including the one above made with tape, a couple of playing cards and a camera sticker. And of course I have to include a few postcards.

Here I created a tag using some doodling and part of a die cut, as well as the back of one of a kid's learn about the 50 states cards. And  below  I used the do not disturb sign from a hotel room, as well as a few art supplies to switch it up just a little bit.

The mile 0 sticker is because we reached the southernmost point of US Route 1, which runs north to south along the eastern seaboard. I got a kick out of this as my school is located on route 1, so I ride a short section of this highway every work day,

And a couple of little paintings I did also.

I painted this age for our visit to Big Cypress Swamp. We did some exploring of the swamp along a gravel road and saw more alligators as well as lots of birds.

And finally a last page for our visit to Biscayne National Park and a short boat trip we took out to one of the keys in the park.
I still have some trip photos I might show you sometime, but that's the end of the journal. Time to start making a new one as the hubby and I are heading out to visit a couple of more National Parks this summer.
Hope you have a great day.
And thanks for visiting.

Some Challenge Art

Hi everyone. I'm back today with art for a couple of challenges.  First of all, I have this collaged page for Wendy's Having Fun challenge at Art Journal Journey. These ladies look like they are having a lot of fun on their tropical cruise.  The photo is a little fuzzy so here is a clearer smaller version.

This is a page out of my Florida travel journal. I didn't go on a cruise but it fits since so many cruises leave out of southern Florida.

I used part of a tourist travel map as well as my boarding pass. I added the TH ladies, a cloth suitcase sticker, a plastic shell sticker, a couple of paper word stickers and well as well as some orange paint dots. 

And  I also have an Industrial themed tag for the new challenge over at Tag Tuesday.

Don't you love the crazy guy? I just picked up this stamp set from Stamperia because the man made me smile, and then this challenge came up and this image is perfect. So hurrah for getting to use this funny guy for this challenge.

The quote is a stamp I've had forever and I can't say I know who made it. But I am guessing it sounds like something from River City Rubber Works.

That's all for me today. Hope everyone is having or has a great day!

And thanks for visiting also.

Springtime

Happy Tuesday everyone. I'm here today with our newest challenge at Try It On Tuesday. Hopefully winter has finally left your part of the world and signs of spring or spring itself has arrived. So for the next 2 weeks our challenge is SPRINGTIME!

Spring is such an exciting time of year. With longer days and so many changes in nature, there are lots of things to be inspired by.

My page started with some painted and die cut flowers and a few bird stickers on a Gelli printed background and tissue paper. I put these blooms into a  vase, which you can just see that the bottom of the page. Flowers and birds are always something I look forward to seeing, and I am sure I am not alone there. 

 The words are all things that reminded me of spring. Maybe this page didn't need the bunnies, but since Easter is coming up and bunnies are signs of spring, I added them. 

We  hope to see you over at our Springtime challenge. Cards, tags, paintings, art journal pages and other forms of springtime art  are welcome. Just remember to link us to your post.

Thanks for visiting my page!

T Stands for a Girl Weekend

Happy Tuesday and Happy T Day. 

I went to write this earlier but I was engrossed with the news and seeing Notre Dame in Paris burn. It so sad. 

How can you replace what is irreplaceable? 

But on to happy moments like T day.

My daughter was home this weekend and we had some fun mother-daughter time. It started Friday evening when we went and got pedicures.

Then Saturday before we went through and cleaned out some of her boxes which were in the attic, we went and took a nice but a bit muddy walk.

 Sunday we took a road trip to IKEA. We left before eight in the morning since we not only had a 2 hour trip but we also took the shortest route which meant we had to drive straight through Boston to get there, and I wanted to avoid the city traffic as the day progressed. We arrived hungry since we hadn't had breakfast, so while waiting for the store to open. we went to the IKEA cafeteria and had the Swedish American breakfast.

Scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, sausage and Swedish pancakes. And a bargain as breakfast was only $2.00 each. 

And you can see we had water as our drink.  

I thought the name was appropriate not only for the meal but for us  because we have a lot of Swedish heritage.

I got the bookcase I wanted and my daughter got her shelving/cabinet unit she wanted. Of course then we had to fit this into my car, which is not that big.

Easier said than done. We had to rearrange the car twice, but put 2 girl brains together and success is sure to follow.

We took the long way home and looped around Boston  and but that gave us lots of time for some good girl  talk. 

It was a busy weekend but a nice change of pace. 

Won't you join us for T this week over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog? All you need to do is share a drink photo with us.

Thanks for visiting my blog!

Waiting for the Rain to Stop

Hi everyone. Some rain is passing through right now, but hurrah for rain and not snow.

It should be gone in an hour or so and then it suppose to warm up. We have to finish our tax forms today (as they are due Monday) which is one chore I detest! Otherwise my day is open and hopefully I can get outside and enjoy it.

So I have a new page for Wendy's Have Fun challenge at Art Journal Journey. Today my page celebrates road trips, which are one of my favorite things to do. It is always exciting to go see something new or make a discovery.

My page began with a Gelli printed piece of paper, and then I added this cool map overlay which is printed on acetate. I don't remember what these were for, but I found a stack in the back of one of my classroom file cabinets. (When I get a little down time at work-which usually means I don't feel like working- I have started to go through the files in my file cabinets. There are so many thing in them that I have collected in the past 36 years that they need a good cleaning out, and since I will have enough to clean out next year at this time, I might as well get rid of the things I don't need now.) 

Since I don't even remember what I had these acetate maps for and haven't used them in decades, I  brought them home and thought they would be fun for playing with.

The little blue car is hand drawn and painted. Then I cut out a couple of faces from a magazine to use for the driver and passenger. If I had a found a good dog face I would have put them in the backseat, but there were no dog faces during my looking.

Finally I used a piece of paper tape for the road, and stapled it down to make the middle line. The car needed some spring cheer so I added some flower stickers.  I also added a couple of big flower stickers up near the adventure word , but they aren't showing up very well in the photo. The car quote is stamped on paper and added also. Finally, the big words are some letter stickers.

Here's a little too dark view where the flowers do show up better, but the colors are not quite accurate. The light also doesn't reflect off the acetate on this one so you get a better actual view.

I'm actually off tomorrow on a road trip. My daughter is home and we are going down to IKEA which is a little over 2 hours away. I need one more bookcase to finish my bookcase wall in her old bedroom, and it is time again for another book purge. It made sense to me to do this right now while I am in a cleaning/purging mood.

And my daughter has a list of her own, so my car is probably going to be very full on the way home. (smile)

And so I get a road trip plus a day with my daughter at the same time.

My all your roads be smooth and not full of potholes or frost heaves.

Happy weekend.

Turtles!

 Hi everyone. They say we are going to start warming up again. Hurrah. All of you telling me how you are having real warm weather is making me jealous. But it could be worse. Some part of the US are going a BIG snowstorm and way more snow is predicted compared to the little bit we got the other day.
Today I have some more views from my Florida travel journal for you.  Today I have some turtles for you!

My top page is made with some corners of a napkin, a stamped, colored and cut out turtle image, a sticker I bought as well my wrist band from the tour.

The left page is a few postcards I picked up, and my right page is a piece of a free tourist map, a piece of scrap palm tree paper, as well as some stickers from my stash. I love going back and being able to use some of the left over stickers on a sheet.

One place I wanted to visit was the turtle hospital in Marathon. These people rescue injured sea turtles and rehab them. Those who can't be re-released either stay at the hospital or get adopted by aquariums. I didn't know this but the only way aquariums can get sea turtles is to adopt those who can't be released back into the ocean.

I took some photos while we took the tour, so let me share a few with you today.

Some of these turtles were injured by boats. Others were ones that had swam too far north and then went into  a kind of torpid kind of state where they couldn't function properly in the cold waters. Some had swallowed things that interfered with their digestive tracts.

They have this operating room for surgery, but since no surgery was going on when we visited, the patient is jus this stuffed turtle.

This place is impressive. I loved seeing the turtles and learning about their recoveries. Although we weren't nearby the next day, they were having a successful release. The longest turtle to stay in their facility has been there since the late 1980's, as the turtle has something called bubble butt. When their shells get cut open like from a boat propeller injury, they scar with a shell that is light and contains  air bubbles in it. This means the turtles are not able to dive because that part of the shell floats..  These turtles would not make it in the wild, so they get to spend their life swimming around in this big pool. 

You can see how that part of the shell floats here.
It was a great place to visit for sure.

Thanks for visiting my blog. It is always much appreciated!

Yes You Can Go Back In Time

Hi everyone. Today I have this week's page from my calendar journal to share with you.  I thought it would work perfect for the Polka Dot challenge over at Moo Mania as you can see lots of dots in the background.

My page also has some recycling in it. I was cleaning a kitchen cabinet a few weeks back when I found this plastic cake doily stuffed int the back corner. This was a scalloped edge pink piece that you would put on your dish and then put your cake down on. It is meant so the pretty pink scallops would stand out around the bottom of the cake.

Now I didn't even remember I had this piece, and I have never used it. So what do I do? I cut it in half and use it as the border for this giant spring flower.

I painted the center and stamped some little yellow stars on it. For the rest of the page I painted in the stem and leaves, stamped some postmarks and bumble bees. I also stamped the quote and added the sticker letters to make up the word spring.

This page makes me happy because I am ready for some spring flowers.

And as it is a happy page, I am also going to link up to Wendy's Have Fun challenge at Art Journal Journey because I had a lot of fun making this page.

Think it is going to be awhile before I see spring flowers though. This what I came home to yesterday.

And to think last Sunday afternoon I was sitting on that lawn chair reading for a couple of hours and enjoying the warm sun.

Happy mid-week. Hope your day is a good one.

T Stands for Another Sure Sign of Spring

Hello everyone. T Day has arrived again and this week I am sharing one of the best things that happen in April with all you lovely ladies (and gentlemen who occasionally stop by also).

I'll be sharing  over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog where the T Gang  gets together.

As those of you who stop by regularly know, winter takes its dear old sweet time to leave here in New Hampshire. Here it is April 8 and this is what I came home too.

It is just a dusting but...
(And I will admit, this year has been really long since snow started early in November for a switch). And I am sure many of you are sick of hearing me moan about that too.

But come this time of year, the boards come off the windows of some of the local businesses that have been closed since September or October. Signs go up for summer employment opportunities and better yet, you seen signs like this one above  popping up.

Late Saturday afternoon the hubby and I went out to run an errand at the local farm supply store.  It had been a nice day outside, and on our way, I suggested we see if our local ice cream/take out window was open. 

We hadn't had an ice cream since September, and I thought since we had both done a lot of hard work cleaning during the day we deserved a little treat. 

I had toasted coconut, which is vanilla ice cream with coconut and chocolate chips. And this is their baby size. I don't know who could ever eat the large.

And if this photo  looks empty of other people, it is because it was now after 6 PM which is dinner time in this part of the world.

When we had driven to the farm supply store about an hour and half earlier, there had been a long line, which was why we waited to stop until we were on the way home.

Ice cream makes a good supper too. (Smile)

But then I realized I left out a drink photo for T. Since it was later and the evening chill had returned, we were eating our ice cream in my husband's truck cab.

Pardon his mess.

I had been nursing a Diet Coke for awhile that afternoon and I had brought it with me in the truck. I don't know why the hubby had a Diet pepsi since Coke Zero is his usual choice.

By the way the dogs were in the back seat of the cab (yes Jo he has a double cab pick up), and they each had a cup to lick out after we were done. 

While at the farm supply store I saw this great use for old wooden pallets. Maybe you have seen this before, but it was new to me.

Put 2 together, attach to a wall, and slide your long handled gardening tools into it. We need to make one of these with a couple of old pallets as our long handled gardening tools are rather in a messy stack. It is a great recycling idea of Elizabeth's month of recycling ideas.

And while I have your attention (hopefully), don't forget about the latest challenge at Try It On Tuesday which is Use a Stencil or Two. Here is a page from my Western Journal. 

I am using a Dina Wakely journal for this and some of the pages are canvas.  I used this cool western blanket stencil with red paint onto the canvas.

Once dry, I used  bit of Black Sharpie to outline a few things and stitched on some fake leather trim which I had a picked up in a bag of trim scraps several years ago. Then I added a square of printed tissue paper and this Native American image which I believe is a raven. My two Native American images are from different parts of the West.

You still have almost a week to join in this challenge.

OK, enough for me.

Thanks so much for visiting and

Happy T Day!

Happy Sunday

Hi everyone. 

Today I have another link up for Wendy's challenge "HAVE FUN" over at Art Journal Journey.

The photo came in a Yetti Cooler "magazine" that arrived in the mail, (the several page ad showed all kinds of cool things you might want a Yetti cooler for) so rather than just tossing it out when I was done looking at it, I recycled it . This is one page out of many that I have used. 

I added some die cuts which were in brown or black paper and that I then used a bit of the opposite colored ink pad on. I added a couple of threads pulled off of a piece of burlap (which are actually in the Dina Wakely journal I am using), which were snipped and crossed. Then I added these little metal screw heads and stamped the quote. Finally I added a piece of ribbon down the right hand side.

I will say though this isn't something I do, but it was the perfect photo for my Western Journal. 

I have literally only ridden a horse once, and that was when I went to Costa Rica 6 years ago on a Cultural Exchange program through school, but it was my favorite part of the trip.  Maybe one of these years I will splurge and take riding lessons. It would be a great retirement thing to do.

Anyhow, that is all for me today.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

First Walk This Season

Happy weekend everyone!

So I had hoped that my road, which is gravel, would finally be dry enough to walk the dogs on this morning. 

Not exactly, even though I went out when it was still close to freezing. 

But we slopped on through. The dogs got muddy, but a little mud compared to a little more mud doesn't seem to make a big difference to them.

This is spring in my world right now.

 Lots of running melt off.

 The new beaver pond is still a bit icey and appeared very quiet.

 Some snow if left in the woods.

More melt. The ground is still pretty soggy.

But just before I turned around to head home, look what I spotted in the town forest? I don't think she was too happy to see the dogs, even though they were leashed. She stood frozen until we started to move and then she dashed off into the forest.

It was pretty grey then and the sun was just trying to break through.  

And for just a little pop of color to my post, I thought I would include this cloth collage I found in my attic a couple of weekends ago. It was in my "found" box of fun craft supplies. 

I am waiting for the my world to green up a bit. (oh green, how I love you!)  It is taking its time this year for sure. (But I did see a great blue heron yesterday as well as the eastern phoebe, and when they arrive back from their migration, you know real spring weather can't be too far behind.)

Happy weekend everyone. Thanks for visiting my blog.