T Stands 2 Types of Congratulations

Hi everyone. Happy T day.  Hope everyone is well and staying safe. Here in the US the virus is getting out of control in some places, or so the news is reporting. I think  people are having isolation rebellion, especially with summer weather here. I live in a tourist area, and it is a little scary to me to see how many people are back at their camps or who are visiting. Not that I blame these people for coming, but our population triples in the summer and those  much higher numbers are scary. 

This is the time to share your drink related post over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth''s blog

So my drink related photo today is this mug I received as a retirement gift from a friend. My friend Deb was the one who was going to have my retirement party at her house. Her son is studying graphic arts so  he made a custom design that was for both myself and my friend Jo who also retired this June. If it wasn't for Covid 19 and there could have been a retirement  party, this design was suppose to be the napkins and paper plates, but since Covid caused the cancellation of the event, Deb used the images to make us both a mug.

And my face side are some biology images, and on my friend Jo's side are some chemistry images as her background was that science. 

It's a fun mug with a fun story, and I like how it celebrates both of us retirees.

And this past Friday evening the school finally was able to have graduation. I had a lot of connections with kids in this class. These were connections that went back for 2 years when I had them as sophomores. So I wanted to go for that reason, plus I was curious about how graduation would be run with this virus and social distancing.

So here I am with my mask and my robe. The school orders teacher's robes to wear as it give an air of formality to the event.

Normally the staff and student march in but this year they had names on the seats for the kids so they could just go sit down. The staff seating was all around the edge of  the kids, and it was open seating for staff on those seats.

And I like this photo a parent took and sent to my friend Deb (whose son designed the mug). That's her on the right and me on the left.

I think the school did a fantastic job keeping everyone separated and being sure masks were worn. They only allowed 1 car for each student, with only 2 guests (they all had to be in the 1 car) per student. The ceremony was recorded and also shown live on the local cable network channel. After the ceremony ended, each graduates car participated in a car parade through the city. 

That's my post for today. I hope everyone has a great T day!

And thanks for visiting.

Last June Page for AJJ

Hi everyone. We've got some rumbles of thunder and they are saying we could have nasty storms. We could the rain as the lawn is really getting brown and the gardens are screaming for moisture. But with storms, it is easy for them to miss you, and maybe all this distance rumbling is just going around us.

Can you believe that June is just about over? This month flew by and it seems like I have been out school for months.

And I want to send a big THANK YOU to Halle who was a great host this month at Art Journal Journey. Her theme of A Stitch in Time was a lot of fun to play along with.

Today I am sharing my last page for this challenge. I painted some of page light pink and once it dried I added this pretty flower tissue. I also added a scrap of music tissue paper. Then I stitched on this page from a vintage sewing.  I stamped the quote on the top, and added the little cloth images as well as the TH found relative and also  butterfly sticker.

And there's my page.

Thanks to all of you who joined us for the fun. Although there are still 2 days to join into the challenge.

And thanks for stopping by my blog today.

The Seamtress

Hi folks. I'm back today with with another page for Halle's Stitch in Time challenge over at Art Journal Journey

Time got away from me and I realized that there isn't many days left to join Halle, and I have this and one more page I want to share.

I started with a stenciled page, which looked too much like another stenciled page I used this month. So I painted it with some pink paint. Then I cut out this sewing images from a vintage sewing book I have had for a long time. Then I added this lady from an Art by Marlene  punch out book. But she didn't have any legs or feet so I drew those in myself. She looks to me like someone who would knit or sew. 

 And my inspiration for even making this page is my quote, which I found in an old magazine earlier this month. 

And that's my page.

Thought I'd show you the other thing I've been spending my time with this past week. More garden photos. 

My only yellow rose bloom right now.

But my orange roses are looking amazing.

I have lots of happy bees lately. I love the sound of them buzzing around me. No bee fear from me.

Milkweed growing in my flower garden. There's also some in the veggie garden. Hopefully it will attract butterflies.

Peony blooms don't last very long. which is sad.  But the remains are kind of interesting.

Just like apsaragus season is short too. But right now my plants are flowering and attracting bees galore.  The orange you see is their very full pollen sacs.

And what I thought were grapes are actually tiny little flowers. I hope they produce grapes. This is a concord grape plant and I could make some yummy jelly if they do produce fruit.

Hope you like my art and photos.

I will be by later on to visit blogs. Last night I had graduation at school (very well done with lots of seperation of people) and today we are going for a morning boat ride before the rain comes in.

Enjoy your weekend!

Natural Dyeing Part 2

Happy Friday everyone.  Did this week fly by for me.

Yesterday I played again with some plant dyeing. The big differences this time were 1) I added some iron water I made to my untreated outside faucet water and 2) a few of the plants were different this time.

 This pot of water above is the untreated water from my well. You can see why we treat our water and why we don't drink it.

And here's the iron water I made. I'm not sure it is quite as rusty as my tap water.

I soaked my plants in my untreated tap water for several hours (thanks for that advice Kathy).  Then I  used the rusty water with a little bit of the iron water I made added. Last time I used hot treated water so the paper boiled in cleaner water than this time.

I still rolled my paper and the leaves and tied them with twine. 

Last fall I bought this book which is mostly about dyeing paper this way. (There's a little bit about fabric in there.)

According to this book you can either keep your paper flat and use a heavy object to hold it close to the leaves or you can wrap and tie it around dowels. I chose the dowel method for no particular reason except I did. 

I boiled the rolled paper for 3 hours,  but then I had to leave for a dentist appointment, so it sat in the hot slowly cooling off water for another 3 hours. 

I was also happy with my results this time but they sure came out different than the other day. I don't know if that had to do with the plants, the  iron/rusty water, or whether because it sat  longer.

I love the dark brown background. I did not altered these photos at all.

This one is my favorite with the giant grape leaf.

I'm thinking I am going to stitched this with my other pages and make a little book. But first I need to flatten them out which I'm pretty sure is a fact that I rolled them.

Thanks for visiting and hope you have a great start to your weekend.

More of My Memory Book

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday!

I'm back today with some more pages from my retirement school memory book. I've been working  on it as well as some other art projects,  a little bit of each at the same time. And on top of that I am doing some cleaning up and rearranging of my happy place. I brought home a bunch of old school books when I cleaned out my classroom that would have otherwise ended up in the trash. I don't want any of them to read  but their the covers are good sizes to use for journals. And  that means I needed to find a place to store them until I use them. Time to do some rearranging I guess.   

I really should do some purging, but I can't say I am in the mood to that right now. 

The biggest problem with my rearranging and still doing art is so many of my supply bins are on the floor that I can't easily get to those that I want.

My first page has some info I cut out of the student handbook. Since it has a one handed clock (decided it was more interesting that way) I am going to link it up to Art Journal Journey and Halle's Stitch in Time challenge. The 35 represents the number of years I was at my job and then I added this cool DNA stamp as a border image. 

The other page that makes up the spread next to this time one has a DNA theme to it also, but I'm sorry I can't share it as it has student photos with it.  You'll just have to believe me that the 2 of them work together so well (smile).

This next page is an old photo I took for a T day at my desk.  I liked it though, so I added it, as well as some cut outs from the poster I am using as additions to the book.  That snake is pretty cool looking, even if I am not a snake lover, and works great as a page border.

And here's a couple of more pages.

One of the images from a mobile that a student made, and my drawing of a moving box.

And lastly, a drawing of my whiteboard. Since I am short, I couldn't reach the top of the board without a step stool. Kids used to leave me notes on the top part.  One of the kids drew a line across where my erasing stopped and called it the Mrs. Nelson line.  I really liked the line so I reproduced it in my book. I thought I had a photo, but I guess I never took one. 

Hope you enjoyed your visit today,

Latest Arty Projects

Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week. Already.

Yesterday I finally had a nice long chunk of art time. I was working on many projects, and  today I will  share a couple of those.

First of all, I made a tag with feathers for the latest challenge at Tag Tuesday

I inked and moped up some paint to make the background. Then I added some paper tape. The feathers came from an Art by Marlene pop out image booklet.  And finally I added some quote stickers (also by Art by Marlene) and a few little gemstones. I wanted to keep the page light are airy like feathers are.  Not sure the darker blue bottom  kept it as light as I wanted it, but I do like how it looks for a background.

My second art project for you today is the natural dyeing I tried.

I've never done this before but I was happy with my results.

 I started by having the hubby cut a dowel down into smaller pieces for me. Then I cut some large watercolor paper down into smaller pieces to fit the dowel.

I found a large pot for under $20 that is now  my dye cooking pot.  For this first trial I did not use any added mordants. Instead I took water from the outside faucet, which contains lots of iron as it is not treated by our water system.

Then I picked some blackberry leaves, a fern, grape leaves and some leaves that had fallen off my peony. I also picked up some peony petals off the ground and some wild strawberry leaves.

I wet the paper and then added leaves and wrapped those pieces around my dowels. I filled the pot with more outside tap water, covered the pot, and put it on to boil for 3 hours. After the 3 hours I let it simmer with no heat on the stove for another couple more. Then I removed the paper wrapped dowels and let them dry just a bit in the sun.

My wooden dowels dyed green. I don't know whether it was from the leaves or if it was from the green twine I had used.

  The peony petals did nothing, but the  leaves all seemed to work. There are more plants to try. Another time.

And I love the twine lines that formed. But I'm not sure why there are no leaf images there as I had plants over all the paper. But I am happy with my results. It's so much fun to play and see what happens.

That's all for me today. 

Thanks for visiting.

Create a Scene at TIOT

Hi everyone. 

It's been two weeks already and time for a new challenge at Try It on Tuesday.

For the next 2 weeks we ask you to 

Create a Scene.

I had fun making my scene for the Try It on Tuesday  page .  I started with the lifeguard station photo that I cut out of an old FLOW magazine. Then I stamped my funny beach ladies on white paper, gave them a color, and fussy cut them out before adding them to my page. The seagulls are die cuts that I hand colored, and the word summer is a die cut on some pink origami paper. 

Finally I stamped the quote. 

This page is hole punched because it is part of a summer album I am creating. 

So you can see that there are many ways to create a scene, from stamping, to die cuts to even cheating and using a  ready made background as I did.

Check out all the fabulous scenes from the design team over Try It On Tuesday page.

And I look forward to your scenes.

Thanks for visiting.

T Stands for Roses

Hello everyone.  Hope everyone has had a nice weekend and for those of you who I only "see" on  T day, I hope you had a nice week.

 So back in 2014 my dog Harley died. He was a German Shepard mix and lived for 14 1/2 healthy years. Of course when he died I was devastated, and when I am upset,  I need to be busy.  I went out and bought 6 rose bushes on my way home from the vet's office, which I then came home and planted. 

(My husband, who happened to away on business when this happened,  was of course upset not to be there when Harley passed, but I don't think he expected a new rose garden either.)

And truthfully, the reason I stopped to buy roses was that I didn't want to go home to a dog empty house either. 

The following year, I added a few more roses to finish the project.

I call it the Harley Memorial garden.

And my some of my roses are in their first blooms right now, and those first blooms are always the most impressive.

I thought you might enjoy some  flowers today.

And if you are now dry mouthed from saying "Wow!" (smile, this is my kind of dry goofy humor), maybe I can offer you a drink in my new retirement gift mug.

Working for a publicly funded school , there are no gold watches or something more ostentatious as a retirement gifts. (Although the teacher funded  Sunshine Fund did give me a nice Visa Gift card and the parent association gave me a restaurant gift certificate.)  But the school gave all of the retirees these nice school insulated mugs.

It had my name on one side and the school logo on the other side.

They recognized the retirees last Thursday when they had a staff drive-in movie night at school.  They decorated my car with balloons, which you can see next to my mug.

It also works well as my T Day post this week over at  Bleuberd and Elizabeth's blog.

I tried  my mug out this past weekend  with a new beer.

I have been wanting to try this beer as it is brewed by my neighbors who live down my road. They opened a very small brewery and tasting room at their farm.

It was very very good. We tried the Hackamore Brown. It seems like most places are brewing lighter beers right now, but most of Muddy Road brews are on the darker side, that are more to my liking. 

I am linking up this post to the Tuesday T party over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog.  It would be fun for you to join us also. 

Have a great T day and

thanks for visiting my blog.