Almost Done-Dakota Journal

Happy Friday everyone. It is a gorgeous morning here, slightly crisp but blue skies. My kind of morning. And a great morning to have taken a long walk too.

So I have another Dakota travel journal post today, my second to last. And some photos to go along with it.

I will warn you this is a longer post.

 First of all here is a spread from North Dakota. I sewed a brown paper bag into my book for holding maps or brochures. You can see that on the left. I stamped some dinosaurs (yes I love dinos more as an adult than I did as a kid), finally found a use for the T. rex fabric patch I've had forever, as well as this sticker I  picked up at the Dickinson Dinosaur Museum. (Which even the hubby said he liked-amazing.) And on the right I used a man cut out of a shopping bag from Duluth Trading Post. We wanted to see what the store is like since we see the ads for it on TV, and the 2 here that I know of aren't particulary close to us. I also added a freebie sticker I found (citizen science is a big thing right now), a white pelican cut out of an old bird book because who knew they reproduced in North Dakota?

And here's another envelope pocket page in my journal. I added another map because here in New England very little is as far off as places are when you go out west, which I of course always forget.

 North Dakota is not my last state to visit (10 more to go), butI stilled liked the sticker so I added it.

And here's a few exhibits from the dinosaur museum.

And the next 3 pages are just to show you my mini-flip pages.

 I painted the Mandan Indian home. Here's some photos including one I showed you earlier in the summer.

Then when we were in South Dakota one of the places we visited was the Crazy Horse Memorial. This is the Native American response to Mount Rushmore that has all the presidents.  It is not yet finished, but the carving is still very impressive.

 They also have an attached museum with some fabulous Native American pieces which are really art in my eyes.

(I will say I am not a great photographer inside museums.) 

The cool thing about this statue is that they have no idea what Crazy Horse looked like as is there no photo of him.  The carving is a composite of many faces. Crazy Horse was a Lakota Warrior who resisted the US military in the late 1800's when they went to take over the Dakotas, which had been signed in a treaty to remain as Lakota land. You can read about him and the memorial here Crazy Horse.

 And here is the spread I created for it in my book. It is a mixture of stamping, a cut up brochure, our entrance ticket, and some various art supplies, as well as a bit of cloth scrap.

 And my final 2 pages for today are these.  Above on the left is some wildlife into that I cut out of the newspaper we received at Custer State Park, as well as some stamping. I stamped the burros are they brought back god memories of visiting her when my daughter was a child, and the coyote because we had one rub across the road in front of our car, which was a cool moment for us. And on the right is a postcard because we stopped at the visitor's center for the Titan Missile Site NAtional Historic Park. (We were too late in the day to visit the remote sites). We watched a movie and visited the museum, and I picked up this postcard specifically to put in my book. 

And lastly for today another small page where I attached another paper bag for bits and pieces that I wanted to keep but didn't put into the book. So there's one more post I want to share with you, but it will have to wait for another day. 

Wishing you all a fantastic start to your weekend!  (Hoping also Florida doesn't get hit too badly from the Hurricane coming its way .) And if you are here in the US, enjoy the extra long holiday if you can.

The Eyes Have It

OK, I know that the eyes in this quote is not spelled eyes.

But I took a little artistic license and played with the sounds of "ays" and all the stamped eyes on my page.
I began by using a page I had in my stash that had green circles painted on it. Then I used some various color spray inks. I stamped th eye image multiple times, painted the eyes, and then used some letter stickers for the quote.
I am linking up to the talented Gill's EYES challenge at Art Journal Journey. Thanks Gill for such a super challenge. I enjoyed playing along and finding eyes in all my art this month!

So this is the last day of the work week for me. When the school district asked us to change our  contract and start school before the Labor Day Holiday weekend many years ago, they buttered us up by giving us the first Friday of school off. We still have it now, and after working this first week, it will be great to have a 4 day holiday weekend. Even though it's been a short first week of school, it does feel like summer vacation was a long time ago. That's what getting back into the routine does I guess.
Happy end of the work week to you!
And thanks so much for visiting.

Wednesday Art

Hi everyone. Today it is time to share a bit of summer art with you. These are pages that I didn't forget about but just never posted.

I'll start with this ocean page above. The windows on the building look like a child drew them, but I really really like how the rocks came out. The water perspective is a bit different too, but I like the striped color effect. So the picture works from the rocks down, but from there up, well it needs a bit of work.

 I could go back and fix it I guess, and maybe someday I will. But right now it was a good learning experience.

And how about some strawberries?

The background is painted and then some painted stencil, and I played with paints to make the berries. It was a good lesson to play with shadows.

Hope you like the art today.

We have a warm front moving in and could get a lot of heavy rain tonight. Hopefully if we get this rain, the driveway work we just had done last Friday will hold up. Keep your crossed for me.

Thanks for stopping by!

T Stands for this Season's Last Trip to Pop's

Hi everyone. Tuesday has arrived, and it is once again time to share our drink related posts. Be sure to stop by Bleubeard and Elizabeth's  blog to join the T Gang and see what they have been up to.

As August winds down, the tourist season in my area also drastically slows down. Kids are going back to school, days get shorter and cooler, fall is on its way. It's not that the season is actually over, but seeing this upcoming weekend is the long Labor Day weekend in the US, there are places closing down for the season.  On of those is my local clam shack, Pop's.

It doesn't seem that long ago that I showed you this sign on the restaurant.

And this photo from early summer.

 We haven't been to Pop's since early July, but with the closure coming up in a week, and seeing May of 2020 when they reopen is still quite a ways off, we decided to go for a late lunch/early dinner this past Saturday.

Here's my drink, a diet coke. And for lunch, I had one of my favorite sandwiches.

 On the left is my lobster roll which comes with French fries. 

My husband had chicken tenders with a side of onion rings. We shared the fries and onions rings, but he doesn't like lobster roll.

Lobster rolls around here aren't anything exotic as we live about 30 minutes from the ocean (depending where you are actually going),  And the lobster industry is huge on the New Hampshire coast, so it's nice to support local independent industry. Plus lobster meat is low in fat and calories, but yes, I know, when you add a bit of mayo and then fries or onion rings you're still getting plenty (of calories).

But it is my favorite summer sandwich.

Today all the kids arrive back at school, and the real teaching year begins. But it is my last first day. Next year at this time I will still be taking my first thing in the morning walks and not rushing out the door for work at 6:30. It puts a new perspective on the first day of school for sure!

That's all for me this week.

Hope everyone has or is having a wonderful T Day.

And thanks for visiting my blog.

More Travel Journal and Snapshots

 Hi everyone. Hope you are enjoying your weekend. 

It is really crisp here in New Hampshire today and feels more like late September or October than August. It does not feel like summer, and they say another day of rough seas so no boating this weekend for us.

Thought I would share a few more pages from my Dakota travel journal.

I am showing this spread twice because the top photo is a better view of the right page and the bottom photo is a better view of the left. Both pages have images cut out of a newspaper, and I find fussy cutting newspaper doesn't always go that well.

Custer State Park in South Dakota, which is what these pages (especially the one on the right)  are inspired by, has some fascinating little one way tunnels.

 I really like this park. On the right side I used the newspaper map, our car window sticker that showed we paid to be there, as well as a little sticker. on the left I used the rest of the stickers from the set, as well as that funny car sticker which I added the exhaust and the driver. I stamped the mammoth because south of the park there is a mammoth paleontological dig site which we visited.

Here's some views from Custer State Park as well as the mammoth dig site.

And the mammoth dig site:

 You can see here the skull and some tusks from multiple mammoths. These bones are believed to be 25,000 years old and the animals died because they fell into a sinkhole and couldn't get out. There is no evidence from this site that they were hunted here. They also found fossil bones of giant extinct bears, giant extinct buffalo, camels and even dire wolves.  (Fun fact, horses and camels evolved here in North America and then left through various land bridges that formed during glacial times. Horses were brought back by Europeans, and camels have just plain disappeared except for those at farms or zoos.)

And in the attached museum they had many of the removed fossil bones, as well as some that came from elsewhere. This fossilized body of a baby mammoth was from a cave in Siberia and displayed in a climate control case. To me it is truly amazing how the Siberia permafrost and ice maintained the skin and hair of this animal that has been dead for over 10,000 years.

And lastly, a couple more pages. The postcards are ones of when Mount Rushmore was being carved. Mount Rushmore shows the heads of some early American presidents, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln. For those of you who might not be familiar with these people, they were all presidents who played a major role in our country, from being the first president, writing the Declaration of Independence, being the first environmental president to releasing the slaves and navigating through the Civil War of the 1860's. (As well of course as many other things)

Mount Rushmore is right outside of Custer State Park and is a very iconic American place.

OK, I think I have maybe 1 or 2 posts left from this and then I can say I am done posting about it.

Or least a lot of the highlights. (It took me 5 Shutterfly books to do my trip photos so be glad I am only giving you glimpses. Smile).

Enjoy whatever time you have left of your weekend.