Blooming Art

This has been a wet and cold week here in New Hampshire. Plus with a sick dog my head hasn't really been very creative. I made these earlier last weekend, before celebrating the fact that lilacs and roses are starting to green up and bloom.

I love lilacs. They scent the air around them. I was in a parking lot the other day and when I stepped out of the car I could smell them. I wanted to just stand there and inhale for a long time. Too bad the way our noses work the smell vanishes after you stand there a bit.

So this top page has lots of stamped images. The lilacs are from Obsession Impression. I used some die cuts to make the letters, and then I doodled all over them.

I love how this rose page looks like old fashioned wallpaper. I stamped the roses and then used watercolor paints to color the background and the roses. I added lots of pen dots and wrote in on the spaces between the roses.

Posted to Paint Party Friday and Art Journal Every Day.

That's all.

I hope your day blooms wonderful things.

A Few Other Weekend Photos

A few more assorted shots from this past Memorial Day long weekend.

Besides some vet time with Harl (see yesterday's post), there some other excitement going on here in New Hampshire.

Mr. Leo cat was quite curious about all the moving and constructing and digging in the dirt.

I found a new spot for this old set of mailboxes I have. Time to shake up the house a bit, rearrange bits of pieces.  What better time to do that than on a wet long weekend?

I LOVE this new chair I bought for my screen porch.  Or maybe I should just move it into the house! Notice I need to fix my Japanese style light in the background too. The paper on it was rather icky so I took it off and will spruce it up. Add that to the summer to do list!

And this little cabinet looks really nice here, and gives me a place to store some cookbooks.

Finally got my annuals and got my container garden on my deck planted.  I just LOVE having all the color and blossoms outside my door.

Dave picked up the new bed.  I am so happy with it.

The cat has decided he loves it too.

And its time for all those little roadside summer restaurants to open up. They may not give you a lot of classy atmosphere, but this place has delicious food. especially the onion rings.

Can't eat it every day but it was a delicious holiday treat.

And finally, we went to the movies. Not award winning but it was an enjoyable couple of hours.

Hopefully I'll get back into the art zone...the better the weather, the more outdoor time I spend, especially on the weekends, so that cuts back on the studio time.  Hoping once school gets out I'll have more time.

Still, got to love the outdoor time. Been waiting for this for a long time.

Have a great day!

Only a Little Bit of Art Time

Not much time for art this past 3 day weekend-it was crazy. Home improvement and gardening and a lot of nursing is what I spent my time doing. But after spending most of the day Monday at the emergency vet with my 14 year old puppy dog, and he was able to come home, I did manage to squeak out this art journal page.
To celebrate that he was still in our lives.

He ended up back in the vets on Tuesday morning since he seemed to be sinking a little bit more.  Our vet send him off to a canine cardiologist, and low and behold, he has a treatable condition-pulmonary hypertension.

Here he is in an oxygen tent getting some air into his lungs! What a difference 20 minutes with oxygen made; my puppy was coming back to his old self. Hopefully the meds will work and he'll be able to spend some more time with us. I know he's an old man, but he's still got some life left in him.

It was a couple of roller coaster days for us-convinced he wasn't going to make it and then suddenly feeling some hope. When the cardiologist told us he could be treated, my daughter cried tears of joy. I felt a huge weight lifted from my soul. Do a little dance joy. It just didn't feel like it was his time to go. Especially since all his blood work was really good and x-rays didn't show anything abnormal except his arthritis, which we already knew he had. My regular vet said she just didn't think it was a hopeless case and that we should go see the cardiologist. She thought he might have a treatable condition, and she said she'd seen dogs come back from conditions worse than his.

I just hope today the call from the vet hospital will be more good news!

That's my Harl. He's always had enthusiasm for living.

Today's Journal View

Another work week gearing up here in New Hampshire.

Nice for me to know the school year is in its final weeks. BUSY weeks ahead though.

My long holiday weekend (Memorial Day) was nice. The weather wasn't as gorgeous all weekend as we hoped, but it was a big furniture weekend in my house. New bed, new dresser, picking up clutter and doing a bit of rearranging. Love all those house changes and will have photos to show you another day.

Was a  very good weekend even if it wasn't very summer-like.

So today a view of a journal page.

Lots of bright color and flowers and doodling.

Flowers are stamped from Dyan Reavely's new flower set and then I set to work with a white pen and some SILKS paints to give them their final appearances. Colors kind of washed in the photos; the orange way overshadows them, but the petals are a wine red and there are dark mallard blue centers.

Not the most complicated page, but was very therapeutic and fun to make.

That's it for me this Tuesday.

Hope you day is filled with lots of bright colors, flowers and maybe even some doodling.

Thanks for visiting.

Summer

I can't believe it is already Memorial Day.

Spring took forever to get here and then it just slammed bammed popped into place- like over night.

Woe Nilly!

But here it is, the start of summer season. Less than 1 month left of school.

The marina has opened and boating season is here.

Getting closer to my summer travel.

Swimming season???? I have been in for my first dip many times over this weekend. Not this year though. We're having a slightly wet Memorial Day Weekend.

WOW!!!!!

(summer photos from my archive-all taken by me!)

Seeing I am such a goal oriented person and seeing I have been a list maniac lately (sorry if you find other people's list long,boring, unexciting, stupid, repetitive...)

thought I would think about what I want to accomplish this summer.

Wait a minute-

take that back.

Do I want to accomplish anything this summer?

Using that word accomplish sounds so much like work!!!

Let me say, here's what I hope to experience this summer while I am lounging away on the long sunny hot days with my daughter having by then moved out and my hubby at work and for the first time in over 22 years, me having a summer really to myself.

Much better.

1- I hope to sew. My sewing machine has been collecting dust and I have a new serger I have never even pulled out of the box for the last 6 months. Time to rekindle my fabric obsession.

2-OK, one little chore, get my studio into tip top shape.  The thing about this job is I love cleaning my studio. Going through my things, purging, reorganizing. (as long as I can then find those things!)

3-I have some furniture that is in the basement I want to pull out, refresh and find a place for in my house. Cheap redecorating! Now that the college girl is gone, time for a new environment to perk up the place-and me.

4- Watch a few sun rises and a lot of pretty sunsets. On the water maybe.

5-Pick flowers.

6-Become a better long term veggie gardener.(I always get excited to start, and then it flounders.)

7- Make jellies, jams, chutneys and relishes.

8-Catch up on a couple more seasons of the old soap Dark Shadows.

9-Have adventures. Spontaneous glorious moments of exploring.

10-Read! Finish up the pile of books on the floor by my bed.
11-Nurture me. Things I want to do. Things I love to do! Last summer was busy and I took a 3 credit grad course that took me to Costa Rica and an excellent adventure. Not that I want complete mellow this summer, but I want less someone else organizing my time.
12-Paint more.
13-Spend long lazy afternoons on my screen porch with a cold drink and a good book and a comfy nap place.
14-A road trip or 2 would be a lot of fun!
15-Hang out with family and friends.
16-Dream and contrive ways to make dreams come true.
17- Write the book that is in my head right now.
18-Hope to travel
19-Do nothing-watch the clouds or hummingbirds. Take advantage of having the summer to myself.
20-Be spontaneous. Do something I never think of doing or expected to do.  Or when something comes up, do it.

That's the beauty of summer. Its a great time to be light hearted and follow your heart, whereever it takes you.

Do you have any plans or goals this summer?
Thanks for visiting.



What I am Loving Lately

So much has been happening here in my life. Besides graduation, a nasty cold that kept me out of work for 2 days this past week, the news that my daughter is moving in with her boyfriend in a few weeks, spring greening, there's a few  things I have been loving lately.

My new rose garden.  I just planted it last Sunday before I got sick.  Still needs mulching but I planted 3 new rose bushes and the sticks of one I already have, hoping it will perk back to life. I trimmed the sticks from this "stick" bush back a bit and they are not dead, but unlike my other roses in another garden (that stayed sticks half of last summer before greening up) this bush is usually one of my best-greening up and flowering like crazy. The other ones who stayed sticks half of last summer and greening up fantastically this year. Go figure.

I also love these owls I bought last year at Costco.

My new bed!!!!

I get it this weekend-today in fact!. This is the photo from the furniture store. I've been eyeing this bed for awhile and saw the store was having a sale to clean out some floor models, so I went for it and splurged and bought it for myself.  

Got almost $500 off the regular price so that makes me even happier.

These Silks paints. I have been using them so much lately.  Saw a demo at my favorite craft store a while back and decided to try a couple of colors- now I have about 8 colors and am painting up a storm. I love how they have mica in them and kind of sparkle, not to much though.

More roses. In particular the color of this bunch we bought my daughter for her graduation. I love the cream with a touch of pink and these light pink solids.

All the birds that are back. Mr. Baltimore Oriole is still hanging out at my hummingbird feeder. He's quite the handsome fellow for sure.

Ready for boating season to begin. I want to get out on the water! (Must be the fact I am a Pisces!) Here's our boat with the hubby giving it a wash. Lately he's finished his polishing and this weekend we can move it back to the marina. I am ready for a shake down cruise. I find when we go out, even though we often go the same route, that every time it is so different. The colors and cloudiness of the skies, whether we see seals or certain shore birds, the waves, the shoreline views...I'm sure I'll be showing you more photos pretty soon.

Cookbooks!

I have been in a cookbook reading state of mind.

I picked up this book cheap on Amazon. Of course its got a travel theme. And some Mexican food recipes, which has been something I have been craving lately. Plus lots of other  yummy recipes like lemon chicken and gazpacho from this family's travels. Travel is a lot about food too, even for me (and I don't claim to be a professional foodie person). If I can combine the 2-perfecto!

And since I mentioned Mexican food.

Loving this!

 And even though we desperately need a new grill, it is finally barbecue season. I don't watch Guy Fieri's show very often, but saw this at Costco and it has some good recipes

Time to fire up and make some ribs or some burgers (I LOVE a good burger) or pizza on the grill.

YUM!

And finally, my latest issue of this magazine arrived from the Netherlands.

I love reading this publication. It is truly eye candy, but also some good articles and lots of art inspiration. Have you seen it?

I also love all those nice comments left on my blog. 

I want to give a shout out and thanks to all of you who have stopped by recently.

What have you been loving lately?

Art Journal Day

l I Love Friday because I have some journal pages to show you today!

Got to start with graduation! I've been talking about graduation all week since my baby graduated from college last week. I wanted to make a page to honor that. I used my new graduation dies that I showed you yesterday.  I also used them to make a cap stencil for my background, which worked better in some parts of the page than others. Used a little too wet paint for my first few hats, but then I figured out it worked better to go with less paint.

I should have known that!

Stamped images from Hero Arts.

I spent 2 days this week home from work feeling under the weather. So I made this page with purple clouds. That made me think of that old Carly Simon song- You're So Vain- with the clouds in my coffee line. And being sick, I definitely felt a little cloudy. I love my little viruses. Not sure which one is my favorite.

This page was a lot of fun to make.

One last page. 

Lots of inking and painting with Silks paints. Edges are stamped with Dylusions rubber stamps. I did a bit of painting on the hearts with Silks also, and used some white pen to finish off.

Then I used the whole page to write on, as you can obviously see. I really like using a white pen on a bright page like this. The white really pops. What do you like for a white pen? I'm hooked on a Uniball Signo. Just wish they didn't run out of ink so fast. 

That's what I have to show you today.

Glad you stopped by and hope you come back soon.

Posted to http://paintpartyfriday.blogspot.com/ and

http://www.balzerdesigns.typepad.com/#axzz1VWnvyq1x

Graduation-This Time Some Cards

Since this week has had a few posts about my daughter's graduation, I thought I'd show you a couple of shaker cards I made for both her graduation and my niece's high school graduation. Might as well continue with a popular seasonal theme, right?  This top one is Katie's card. I made the shaker a little smaller. I stenciled the background with blue paint and a star (Memory Box) stencil. I filled the shaker with some confetti I made using a couple of dies I recently bought made by My Favorite Things.

Thought it made the card more fun and festive.

 My niece is also graduating in early June from high school. I made her shaker a lot bigger-using an acetate overlay. 

But other than that I used most of the same supplies for both cards. They really look different though. It is a lot of fun to see what you can create using the same supplies, don't you think?

I also made the cards to match school colors. I like that personal touch.

My daughter's card at the top is a little more detailed but I'm otherwise happy with both of these graduation cards.

Thanks for stopping by.

Today

Not a very original title, eh?

Oh well, guess we can't be wildly creative every day.

Here's a journal page I made last week. I found these flowers that I  made earlier this spring -they were buried under some cardboard when I picked up the studio the other day. They're die cut from fabric (and screening) and then treated with a fabric stiffening product (Plaid Stiffy Fabric Stiffener).  I like the look of the screening. What do you think?

I drew and cut the today letters out from some watercolor paper. I made those letters kind of big because I wanted them to really stand out. Kept them white for that reason too.  I tucked the journaling onto the bottom right corner because I only wanted to say a little bit, and not make that the centerpiece of my page.

I also used a bit of stamping, doodling, ink spraying and stenciling with paint.

Hope you enjoyed this little piece of creative journaling. That's all for today.

Beautiful Evening Photos

After graduation last Saturday we went out this gorgeous old hotel and resort to have a celebratory dinner.

This is the Wentworth by the Sea in Newcastle, New Hampshire. Dinner was absolutely delicious.

I also tried this new local beer which I had never heard of. I really liked it.

 After dinner  we walked down to the waterfront and around the grounds. It was a beautiful evening and made for some pretty photos during our walk.

It should be called Wentworth on the Sea. They have a private marina that some very large and ultra expensive yachts dock at during the summer. We see them when we cruise by in our little boat. But the Saturday night shadows made some beautiful views.

This magnolia was shedding petals and made such a pretty pink carpet.

In the evening shadows the resort grounds were quite photogenic. 

It was a really nice evening out to celebrate my daughter's new college degree.

Makes me excited to get out in our boat too- this weekend if the weather doesn't let us down.
Thanks for stopping by.