I'm a Material Girl

It's time for a new challenge at Try It On Tuesday.

This time it's all about The Material Girl!

Time to use fabric, trim, sewing, threads. Show us your Material Girl side.

I made my page by pasting down a piece of dress material tissue. Then I die cut 3 sewing forms, painted them and finished by designing outfits for each with some fabric and trim. 

I finished by added some threads, some hand drawn needles and a little sequin bling. 

I had a lot of fun making this page.

I hope you have some fun and decide to join us for this challenge.

Thanks for stopping by my blog to visit.

T and a Travel Journal

Hi everyone. After some rain last week, the sun has returned and it was another really nice weekend. I got a lot of gardening done and then spent Sunday relaxing by the lake at my mother-in-laws.
I told myself no matter how cold the water was (and it was pretty chilly for late June, as well as it was windy) that I was going to go in for a swim once the dock was completed.
I know it has been a cold spring for us in New Hampshire, but I am often in swimming as early as late May. I am way behind this year.

And the dock did get completed so I went in for my first dip of the season.
The water was chilly but I got used to it.

The dogs enjoyed their swim too. Pete and I do a few laps out to the swim raft  (sorry is not in the photos) and back. He climbs up and then dives in but  I just swim back and forth.

And when I came out, I decided I could relax with my book and even have a late afternoon cocktail by the water.

A Pig's Ear brown ale from a semi-local New Hampshire brewery.  This is a flavorful fairly low alcohol (4.3%) beer. At least the hubby and I like it. 

I am linking up to   Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog  for this week's T day post. Time to share your drink related posts again!

But back to Friday.

It rained last Friday and I spent my morning making a travel journal. I cut apart an old book and used the cover boards to make the new cover of my journal.

I wrapped both the front and back covers in this cool paper I have. 

I bought an inexpensive wooden windmill and rubbed it with ink as well as took a metal gear I had in my stash and used some rust colored embossing powder to make it look a little more worn. I thought the gear looked a lot like the sun so I located it as though it was the sun. And I added a few grass stickers I had. They get a bit lost on the page in the photo, but on the cover they actually are just like ghost images peeking out.  This quote was something I cut off a tag from a pair of pants I bought a while back. I thought it worked perfect here.

I am going to link my cover up to Halle's "Words to Live By" challenge at Art Journal Journey.  I hope the cover works as it isn't really a journal page but it is a page in the journal.
 This is my last link for the month, even though June doesn't end for another week. That's because my husband and myself are leaving to go live our adventure on Tuesday. 

That explains  the travel journal, doesn't it?

It's a strange view but  here's how I bound it.

 My pages are mostly brown kraft paper cut to different sizes so I can add bits to them when I work in the journal. I made it so it would be ready when I get home around July 4.  While the trip is still fresh in my head.

 But I did stitch in a few other papers.

Here's my inner front cover "for now".
And here's the back.

The book was originally a discard library book I got for free at school, and I loved the original library/discard piece to it, so I added that back to the back cover.  And I left some space in the binding without pages so I could insert/tape in some items when I return home.

And so you may ask, where are we headed?

The hubby and I are catching a very early morning flight Tuesday (this T day), and then we'll be off doing some National Parks and exploring the Dakotas as well as a few other spots along the way.
And you might notice I included my Yeti cup with my ice tea in it (when I am home I make a pitcher of ice tea and just refill my Yeti as I want it). Today I am drinking some black currant and rosemary herbal iced tea which is actually really good.

A tea bag usually lasts me a few days as I just add more water and ice to the pitcher as it empties.
 Yup, 2 drinks in this post!
While gone, I am not bringing my laptop but plan on stopping by from my phone. I remember, however, last winter when I went to Florida I had issues with comments going through, so if I don't comment, it's not that I haven't tried. But hopefully it will work.
And I hope everyone has a nice T day next week as I won't joining in then.
But be sure to stop by Try It On Tuesday and the new challenge that starts this Tuesday. I will have a pre-post for that, but otherwise this blog will be pretty quiet until I get home.
Have a wonderful T day, rest of the month of June, and I well see you later next week.

Happy Weekend

Hi everyone. The sun is back out after 2 days of clouds and rain. Although it is a bit windy, it should be a nice day.  And maybe since it is now summer it will actually warm up, although I must admit I like these not too hot days.

And I have another page for Halle's "Words to Live By" at Art Journal Journey.

 I played with some bits and pieces on my work table and made a page just adding those items to the canvas page in my summer journal. It was a fun little exercise to try to lay things out in an interesting arrangement.

And I know it isn't the most complex tag I've ever made, but see the seagulls on the tag on the left?

I am going to link that up to Sandie's "Things with Wings" challenge at Tag Tuesday.

And here's the quote to fit Halle's challenge enlarged.

And look, my peony has finally decided to bloom.

And my roses too.

It is summer!

Thanks for visiting and

Happy weekend.

Words to Live By-Maybe?

Hi everyone. I'll start off my post with this journal page. I am hoping it works for Halle's WORDS TO LIVE BY challenge at Art Journal Journey. I don't know if "flutter on by" is really words to live by or not, but I am going for it anyhow. Sometimes in life it is good to just flutter on by certain situations.

I began with a piece of watercolor paper that I had cleaned some black paint off my brush onto. I then made my page by stenciling with clear molding paste and then rubbing a pink ink pad over the page. Add a bit of bright green blobs for leaves, and then these flowers which I hand drew and painted.  They look black here because I painted some of the petals black but then I rubbed  colored crayons over them. In the light of the photo you really can't see that.

But you can see it  a bit better here when I mute the background a bit.

Then I added the vellum butterfly and the words.

And I am going to try something new also. I am linking up to Country View Challenge. This month the theme is It's a Bug's Life. I think my butterfly works for that.

So it's a wet and dark morning here. Good for me since I am still in work mode and this weather forces me to slow down a bit into vacation mode. I started a new mystery and read for quite awhile before I rolled out of bed, and I also made some bread dough.

I am trying to make hot dog rolls for a weekend dinner treat, New England style where we slice them along the top.  For those of you unfamiliar, most hot dog rolls are sliced along the side, but here in new England,  where it seems we have to do everything different, they are sliced down the top. Maybe they are like that other places too but I don't often eat hot dogs so I am not sure about that.

I will let you know how they come out. But good or bad, it is fun to have good weather to play in the kitchen.

And after I finish my tea, I am off to the studio for a few hours of play too.

Life is going well here right now. Hope yours is going well also. 

Beautiful Sunshine

Hi everyone.

I'll start my post today with a page for Moo Mania and their latest challenge which is Here Comes the Sun.

My summer journal had some burlap pages in it and on this one I made this bright sunny page. I used painted to make the background and then once the sun was painted and wet I added a lot of bright yellow glitter. Some of it spilled over onto the sky but I just think of that as sunbeams.

Yesterday was suppose to be cloudy with some scattered showers but instead we saw a lot of sun. I was excited about it and decided to put my screen porch back together, now that my floor is fixed, painted and dry.

I had to get my hammock ready for an afternoon of reading and napping. (smile)

In the process I moved almost all of my inside plants out onto the porch. I have been looking for a little table to put a plant on,

and the other day I found this great little table in the recycle shed at our town recycling center, aka the dump. 

 It wasn't in bad shape but could use a little paint on the legs and around the top. 

But the top itself is looking good. 

And the beauty about the recycle shed is that whatever is there is yours to take for free. (And another beauty is that it saves good things from being thrown into the trash.)

So I bought a can of bronze spray paint and yesterday gave the legs a little refreshing.

And it works great.

Someday I should show you the other treasures my husband has found for me at the recycle shed. 

Thanks so much for visiting!

It is Time

Yesterday at 11:30 AM I left school and started my summer break. First thing I did was meet 2 other teacher friends and went to lunch, for 2 hours! No 20 minute quick lunch for us as per usual. This was a long leisurely and summer style lunch. 

Big smile on my face!

And here is this week's calendar journal page. I used the already in the journal background and did a bit of doodling and letter play. 

As the page says "Let's have an adventure."

Today for T

Happy Tuesday!

It is time for T again over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog.

Today you might like a taco salad? (Or what is left of it when the photo got taken.)

And me looking pretty silly.

Yesterday our teacher's union was throwing us a luncheon at work. They had a couple of food trucks come in with sandwiches to serve the entire district staff as well as any former retirees who wanted to come back for lunch.

So some of us went down to eat since the event was  suppose to start at one. And when we got there they said they were running a little late.

And a little late turned into a lot of late so one of my friends looked at me and said, let's go get some food elsewhere. So we did.

We wanted to go to this little Greek place but since it was Monday they were closed. So instead we hit the Mexican place.

A taco salad hit the spot. And for my drink, (or our drinks) we both had diet cokes. I will say a margarita would have tasted good, and was quite a temptation, but we both had too much left to do in the day for that.

So stop by our lovely hostess's and share some T with us today. 

 Happy T Day everyone!

And thanks for visiting.

Another One for It's A Man's World

Hi everyone. I am back today with a second page for Try It On Tuesday's latest challenge. There's still another week to share your masculine art with us for the It's A Man's World challenge. 

My page today is for the guys who love to go fishing, or angling as it is called in some places.

Of course there are ladies who like to fish also, but sorry if you are one of them, today's page is for the men.

The design team hopes to see you over at our challenge at Try It On Tuesday.

I made my background with a Fred Mullet fish stamp and some blue spray ink. The man with his giant fish is one of my favorite stamps. My dad loved to fish, and he had this sign that said "All fishermen are liars, except you and me.  And sometimes I am not so sure about you." This stamp reminds me of that sign because some fishermen are known to exaggerate the sizes of their catches.

And I am also going to link my page to Halle's challenge at Art Journal Journey This month we're being asked to create pages with Words to Live By. 

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

Words For Today

One Thing Leads to Another!

You may think this is a very strange journal page. 

 It's been wet and rainy here today and not a good day to finish painting my screen porch floor, which I started yesterday.

But I couldn't anyhow because yesterday when I painted I noticed one board felt rather soggy when I stepped on it. 

"Oh we have some of the flooring left so we'll just cut it out and replace it." Says the husband.

And then he says "Oh no, we have a problem."

We had some rot. Not just in the floor boards themselves but in the plywood underneath. 

Luckily not a lot, but a bit. My screen porch is almost 20 years old now (yikes!) and being an outdoor structure it occasionally, if the rain and the wind are just right,  gets puddles right in this spot.

Luckily the husband is a very talented and handy guy.

He managed to removed flooring and then he realized he needed his circular saw which he had left at his mother's house yesterday. (He had been there with his brother-in-law rebuilding her dock, which had a few issues itself). So that meant we had to take a trip up to her house and back before he could continue.

Luckily we didn't need any plywood or flooring as he had some stashed in his workshop.

Sometimes there are benefits to have slight packrat tendencies.

Maddie was quite curious about the project, but Pete vanished as he didn't like the sounds of the power tools.

Plywood in.

Floor boards in place. Yes, I now have a patch, but  at least I don't have to worry about falling through. One of these years we should replace the whole floor as it has also very  slightly cupped a bit, nothing you notice except when you go to wash the floor, (although  the salesman told us bamboo would be the perfect choice), but then again it's been on for almost 20 years and it is an outdoor porch. 

I can live with a patch.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get home early enough to finish my painting since it is supposed to be the best day for the next few days.

Afterall, (SMILE), summer break officially starts Tuesday afternoon, and I have lots of lounging plans on my porch.

Happy new week everyone.

Weekend Chatter

Happy weekend everyone.

The weekend has arrived after an eventful week for me. The kids wrapped up classes Friday, and a nice sense of decompression has set in. Even though I still have a couple of work days left there isn't a
schedule so now I can truly say I am in wrap up and ready to finish mode for the summer. Year 36 is just about in the books.
Today I THINK I am going to work on painting the floor of my screen porch, which really needs it. It really isn't a huge job especially if I paint half today and half tomorrow because then I won't have to move everything out of the porch but just move things off to one side.
 Let me show you the other half of my ATC journal page in my summer journal.

(The other half is in yesterday's post.)
I am linking up to Halle's challenge at Art Journal Journey. This month it is Words to Live By.
And I snapped these garden photos this morning when I got home from my walk.

I am going to have lots of roses very soon.

One of my azaleas is in full bloom.

 The other one isn't as happy and only has a few blooms.

It is time to go do some separating and weeding I think. This cool and wet spring has really made the plants very happy and they are growing like crazy.

My mountain bluets have started to bloom.

 And still only buds on my peony.

This year I tried leaving the fall leaf clutter in my veggie garden. Everything is growing well but I have to admit I am having a hard time with the looks of it. The big plants in the background are some wild milkweed which seeded themselves a few years ago and which I left for the butterflies.

That's all for me today. Have a great weekend!

A Spring Page Today

Happy almost weekend everyone.  

I think I mentioned I was keeping a spring/summer journal. Here's one page of a 2 page spread from that book. I began by making a bunch at ATC's one day. All my ATC's had a spring theme. I didn't make them to trade but to use in my journal spread. I've been playing around with using lots of little items and turning them into a big page. 

After I made my cards I sprayed the page with some green and light blue inks. I also added some bits from a Japanese book and some of this cool wide paper tape.

There's lots of words to live by here so I am going to link up to the Halle's fun challenge at Art Journal Journey

That's all for me today. Hope your day is going well or goes well if it hasn't started yet.

Flowers

Happy Thursday everyone. It's going to be a really wet and cold day here in New Hampshire today. And yesterday was just gorgeous, but that's they way the weather goes I guess. 

I have a page today for Halle's challenge at Art Journal Journey. The challenge is words to live by.

So my calendar journal for this week had this pink and purple background page. I thought about covering it over but I wanted to see if I could do anything with it. I also felt like painting flowers, an abstract take on my irises (OK, very abstract). So I said to myself, just do it.

And so I did. I like it and I don't like it. I haven't made up my mind. But it does work. 

But let's focus on the words for the challenge. They say

we are fearless,

independent,

original

Hope everyone is having a good week. I've been dealing with some major hives for the last couple of weeks and they are now under control (again), so that is making me really happy. Hives are not fun, especially when they are from an overactive immune system, not something I can just stop using or doing. As my doctor said the other day "I just don't know what we are going to do with you." (Hopefully she hasn't totally run out of ideas or I might need a new doctor.)

Thanks for visiting.

A Vintage Page

Hi everyone.  I am back today with a page out of my summer journal.  I wanted to make a journal that was artsy but also recorded my late spring and summer adventures.  I have been doing a lot of gardening lately so I made this page to celebrate the joys of gardening. The open me tag has some notes on the backside. And I gave the page a vintage feel since I think gardening is one of those activities that people have been doing and loving for centuries.

My page is burlap so I began by taking a piece of a dress pattern (which is tissue paper) and attached it to the burlap.  I used some rusty embossing powder to give it a bit of texture, as well as some washi tape bits. Then I added  lots of bits including TH ephemera, a found relative card and the vintage frame.  I also added these cool vintage metal butterflies from Finnebar as well as some of these cool cloth flowers which feel (to me) like they came off a vintage quilt.

And I am joining up to Astrid's challenge at A Vintage Journey. For the Junee challenge, this month she asks that you use tissue paper in your art, and my dress pattern background should work for that.

I also want to answer a question that was asked in my T Day post yesterday. Some of you inquired about drinking alcohol on boat. I don't know all the different state rules, but in this area boating is considered a recreational activity and it is legal to drink. However it is illegal to operate if you are over that state's legal limit or are impaired in any way. Somewhat similar to driving a car, but an open container is illegal in a car but not in a boat. Hope that answers the question.

Happy mid-week everyone. 

And thanks so much for stopping by my blog.