T Stands for August Wrap Up

Happy last day of August everyone.  It is feeling like September has arrived  here in New Hampshire. Other than Saturday's rain, we've had comfortable days and nice cool nights.  It is putting a big smile on my face!

This is the first of 3 posts for me in the next 12 hours. This is my T day post. At midnight we announce the new Art Journal Journey challenge for September. And then finally at 4 AM tomorrow  the new challenge at Try It On Tuesday begins.  I guess it is a busy end of one month and start of a new one. (I hope you check out the new challenges also!)

I thought I would share this page with you first thing. I made it back in July for my When It's Hot book, and for some reason I never shared it.  Since T day over at  Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog              is where we share our drink related posts, and since today I am off at the beach for a few hours with my daughter, I thought this piece of art fits both of those occasions.

Perhaps you'd like a bite of my Sunday ice cream lunch? This week the flavor I had was chocolate lovers chocolate.

It was rich chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips and bits of brownie.

And for my drink this week, I have some hard flavored seltzer water. 

And Pete too.

This past Friday afternoon  on our weekly boating trip, it was too rough out past the jetties to fish, so my husband and I anchored in Little Harbor and had a cocktail and relaxed. I had this blueberry-acai flavored drink. I like how it isn't too sweet.

I'll wrap up my post by sharing some assorted boating photos from this past month.  

First up is one of 2 eaglettes, or baby bald eagles that grew up in the nest near where my husband likes to fish. They have since left the nest, but on this day they were making loads of noise and soaring around the nest.

And I think is flock of Canada geese is made up of parents and juveniles.  

And something good to eat had attracted this large group of cranes. Or at least I think it was some good food. 

And last  bird photo is this one of a Great Blue Heron.

And now for some boats.

Sailboats, last Friday evening as we motored into port.

And I don't know the Thomas Leighton was headed to, but as it approached the route 1 drawbridge in Portsmouth, the bridge started up.

I have a fascination with the commercial fleet. 

One day I will share some of  the close up photos I have taken.

And here is the Thomas Leighton again on another day, coming back into port.

Hpe everyone has a wonderful T day and great start to September.

Thanks for visiting!

Veggies and Such

Hi everyone.  Happy weekend. 

Hope everyone's week went well. I enjoyed some cooler weather which meant long morning walks,  a few little home projects finished and of course, some fun art time too!

I am  here today with what might be my last page for Alison's Pockets and Tags challenge at Art Journal Journey. I am not sure if shall get back online with another page before Monday when the month ends, or if I won't.  If I don't, I want to say THANKS Alison for such a fun challenge this month. And thanks to all of you who read my blog and participated. You certainly sent lots of inspiration my way!

So this is a page from my garden journal that I have been working in often lately.

This is my tribute to my dream veggie garden. It didn't happen this year thanks to chipmunks and the drought we're in ( I'm not watering as we are on a well and I don't want that to run dry).  But being ever hopeful, it will happen next year. I will say my cherry tomatoes have done fabulous and there might be some more kale coming soon.

So my page began with some mini papers, some rubbed on green and yellow ink, and then some blue stamping and brushing on the same blue ink. I then added the vintage seed packets and some other paper ephemera, including a playing card-showing the backside- coming out of the corn pack-that is my pocket.  And on the top of the beet seed packet is a small round tag that I stamped and colored with a butterfly image also. And you might notice the corn variety is called Country Gentleman. It's the perfect cue for adding this country gentleman TH found relative.

I wanted to share the star of my garden this year.

I actually got grapes on my one grapevine. It is  4-5 years old (not sure exactly when I planted it), and I did plant  it on a whim to see what it would do. I had given up on grapes, but this year it really produced.

It is a Concord Grape variety, better for making jelly than eating, so the other day I did just that. I had hoped for even 1 small jar of grape jelly, but I got 4!

Now I need to make some sourdough bread so I can try it out.

And look at this weird guy who was sitting on one of my hydrangeas.

I was surprised he didn't fly off when I got close.

That's all for me today. We are suppose to have some rain today (hurrah-hurrah-we so need it). My daughter is coming home tomorrow and has another vacation day Monday. If the weather works out, we are off for the beach again. So keep your fingers crossed it will be sunny and not too chilly.

Enjoy your weekend!

Wrong Season

Hi everyone. The month is really starting to wind down, isn't it?  Yesterday we had a fall like day, and it was great to get some chores done and open the windows a bit. Even though it did feel cold.  I guess it's because we've had such a hot summer, and I'm not used to the cooler temperatures.  But it sure makes sleeping at night nice.

I'm a little off on season today, but I found this page in a journal that wasn't quite finished. Most of the page was done except adding the leaves and the beaded flower. I also stamped the purple dots and added the bit of tape. 

There's still a few more days left to Alison's Pocket and Tag challenge at Art Journal Journey, and I am linking up this page as I have a paper bag pocket which I tucked the leaves into and the spring lilac tag.

That's all for me today. Hope you have or are having a good day yourself.

Retirement Book

 Hi everyone. Hope your week is going well. 

I have finally finished my retirement from teaching book. Good timing since teachers go back to work tomorrow in my district.  I've mentioned it before how relieved I am not to have to go back in this Covid-19 world,  even if my school isn't going back full time in the classroom.

So let me share some more pages with you. 

I had to include a page (as you can see on the right) a page about the bridge I needed to drive over to get to work. This bridge has been under construction for at least 10 years, and I joked how it wouldn't be done until I retired.  And guess what? That's what happened. The photo of the bridge is one I took from our boat..

Every now and again my department would go out after school on a Friday afternoon. We used to call those get togethers safety meetings. I'm not sure how that all started, but I had to record that because iit is a memory I don't want to forget.

And I found this quote to use on this next page. I always used to say this to the kids as they left class, so it seemed appropriate to add it.

And finally, the last page.   The book lead to this final layout. The man on this page is Charles Darwin. It's a card I found and decided I had to splurge and buy it for the book. Plus it came with lots of fun little stickers.

And that's all I wrote!

Thanks for visiting.

Splash and Splatter part 2

 Hi everyone. Today I am sharing another inspiration for 2 challenges.

First of all, there's another week over at Try It On Tuesday and the latest Splash and Splatter challenge. 

Here's my take on splash and splatter.

And there's just about another week over at Art Journal Journey and Alison's fun challenge Pockets and Tags. You can use both a pocket and tag, or either a pocket or a tag. 

I went with just a tag on this page.  

Hope you like my pages.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!

T Stands for a Day Out

 Hi there folks. Happy T day. Time where we  stop by Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog and share our drink related posts.

Yesterday (Monday August 24) my daughter took a vacation day from work.  We decided to do something fun and summery, and so we made reservations to go the beach. New Hampshire only has 18 miles of coastline, but in that area there are 5 state parks, some large, some small. We chose one that isn't particulary large but is a bit more "isolated" and is harder to get to if you didn't drive there.

Some parks are requiring reservations this year to keep the numbers of people down with Covid-19. They have limited the parking to 50% of the spaces, and from what I could tell, it worked really well.

This is the days "stats" when we arrived.

We arrived pretty early, around 9 AM, and at that point the sun was still burning through some clouds.

The sun did burn through and it ended up being a beautiful day. But I actually liked the view  and the light early on.

 But here's a different view just before we left around 12;30.  We both had had enough beach time by then, and it was starting to get quite warm, since our temperature rose into the low 90's (degrees F), almost 33 degrees C.

And we needed lunch. So we went and tried a restaurant I had heard a lot about and had driven by about 1000 times. 

Here's what we both had for lunch.

You can see I had a Diet Coke for my drink. And here's where we went.

Although our lobster rolls were very good, my daughter and I both agreed we'd had better. And they were a bit pricey, considering they came with chips and wanted almost 3 dollars for French fries. It was a fun lunch however, but I won't rush back. And they aren't the best lobster rolls in New England like the sign says. (For the less money at Pop's where we usually go, you get more lobster meat and French fries)  But then again, at least for whatever my opinion matters, its pretty hard to find a bad lobster roll  my area. And it was still a yummy lunch after a morning at the ocean.

And that's my post for today. Hope you have a great T day.

And thanks for visiting my blog also.

Almost a New Week

 Hi folks!

I will start my post with a mural. I actually saw one this week down in Worcester, Massachusetts when I went to visit my Mom.  I always see   cool ones on some people's blogs, especially Bleubeard and Elizabeth's, which is where I am getting the link and the idea to join in this week over at Colourful World and their Monday murals challenge. This is my first link up for this challenge, which always feels a little strange for me. I don't know why, maybe it's just my new situation shyness coming out.

This  one is on the back wall of the building CC Lowell Art Supplies is in. I don't know much about it or what the images are of, so if you do, maybe you could fill me in. 

I did find this out about it though. The mural is painted by Nicky Davis of Houston, Texas and the wall is 18 by 35 feet in size.

And I have one more piece of art for today, an A6 page all about love.

I used lots of Dina Wakely spray paints to create the background. Most of the images are from Janet Klein and AALL& Create.  I did draw the clouds, use an old stamp to make the 9's, and also created the balloon from a tag and a hand doodled heart. No words are needed for this story. You can take it in your own direction.

I am linking up to Alison's challenge at Art Journal Journey, which happens to be Pockets and Tags.

Hope everyone has had a nice weekend.  Mine's been good, and not quite over as my daughter is on vacation on Monday. Hopefully the weather will hold so she and I can go to the beach for a few hours. 

That's all for me. Thanks for visiting.

Color on Black

 Happy Saturday everyone.  Hope everyone has had a lovely week. Mine was nice. I went to see my mom one morning,  had a great lunch with a blogger friend and her husband (Thanks Dorothy and Patrick!), made some art, did a bit of cleaning, went to the doctors to go through my blood work results because of my hives. but mostly, enjoyed some cooler gorgeous summer days. 

The heat feels like it is back this morning. I hope the sun remains. Even though we are in a moderate drought area at my house (not far from the severe drought area) and could use the rain,  my daughter is coming, and we have plans to go spend the day at the lake where my mother-in-law lives. Lately the track record when she comes is not very good, so keeping my fingers crossed we get even a semi-good day. I am also hoping we get some sun on Monday (that is also questionable) because she is taking a vacation day and we have reservations at the beach. 

If beach reservations sound strange to you, it a because of Covid 19. To keep crowds down at many state parks in New Hampshire, you need parking reservations. They have cut back the number of cars to 50%, thus keeping the numbers at 50%. We're headed to a beach called Wallis Sands as where it is located you don't get many walk ins.

Yesterday afternoon the husband and I had a nice day on the boat, even if the seas were a little rough. I didn't catch anything but he got a striper (striped bass).

It was too small to keep but  fun to catch. After the photo op it went swimming away.

And for yesterday's interesting boats, here's a few.

A lobster trawler heading upriver.

This is the Gundalow. It is a modern example of the first boats that serviced Portsmouth Harbor back in the 1600s (maybe) but definitely 1700's.  The have a fairly flat  bottom so they can get up some of the tidal rivers even during low tide. This one sells tickets for sails on the river.

And this is the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) research vessel parked at the University of New Hampshire dock.

A little boat like ours out mackerel fishing.

 I like how they painted the front of this boat.

And finally this beauty which looks like it is from the 1930's-minus the canvas and plastic coverings.

And finally  I have another page for Alison's pockets and tags challenge at Art Journal Journey.

I started with some black watercolor paper which is a lot of fun to use bold colors on. This page is one of my favorites in awhile.  I did some stenciling. Then I stamped and used white embossing powder to add the image (from AALL & Create). But, I also stamped the image on white paper so I could color it, fussy cut it out of the white paper and then added pieces of it to the image on my journal page.

The quote was done on another black watercolor page I made that I ended up cutting apart. I cut this strip out of the raiming paper and added it onto this page. It had the pink dots on it so I put a few on this final page to tie it together. 

And I added 2 small tags. In each I added a die cut butterfly and outlined the tag.

OK, enough said for me today. Enjoy your weekend. 

More Natural Dyeing

Hi there. 

So today I have another set of natural dyed papers. This time I  did the usual and wrapped some leaves with some watercolor paper around some dowels. Then I put with into some iron water.

But I did do something different which created the darkness. Take a look and then I'll tell you what that was.

 

The paper needs to be flattened here so excuse the just dried wrinkles. I can tell it is a little harder to see the leaf details.

I had a bag of some old Bing cherries in the frig, so instead of throwing them out, I threw them into the pot.  

Here's me geeking out with a little cherry chemistry and nutrition. The color is from anthocyanins, and I like the dark color these chemicals gives mixed with some rusty colors from the iron water. Some of the leaves on the pages look better than others, but  any of these will make  nice additions to some art project down the road.

Hope you enjoyed your views.

Thanks for stopping by my blog.

Alice in Wonderland

 Hi everyone. 

Today I'm doing double duty with a tag for Tag Tuesday and their Alice in Wonderland challenge.  I  also used the tag to make this page for Alison's pockets and tags challenge at Art Journal Journey.

My background used some more traditional Alice images.  I have this stamp  set of  Alice in Wonderland silhouettes,  and I stamped them on this stenciled page in my stash.  I decided it worked to do some images upside down and some right side up  as  Alice's story is so crazy and fun. I did add some splash and splatters to it (as a nod to the latest Try It On Tuesday challenge).

And for my tag I went with traditional images to represent items in the story. Alice  is a vintage girl, the Cheshire cat is a cat, and of course a pocket watch like the one the White Rabbit carried. I used this big hand/arrow from my newly discovered stash box.

And finally I had these  holographic letters which photographed quite interesting.  I'm not sure where I'd ever use them but they did seem to work with with this story so I added them.

Hope you like it.

And that's all for me today. Thanks so much for stopping by to visit.

Splash and Splatters

Hi there.  Time for a new Try It On Tuesday challenge already. This one is near and dear to my style.

This time our challenge is Splash and Splatters.  

I made my Splash and Splatters in a small (A6)  journal with some Dina Wakely spray gloss paint. I used several bright colors to make this rainbow effect. 

I am smitten with these Janet Klein little folks from AALL & Create stamps. I think this boy on the right has a big crush on the girl on the left, which makes her happy and she is jumping for joy.  I gave him  glasses because I wanted to stress that he is looking at her with big puppy dog eyes. And of course his cute puppy is being a good friend and sitting and waiting for his master's attention.

Be sure to include splashes and/or splatters on your page! And check out all the other inspiration pages our  design team has shared!

Thanks for checking out my blog!

T Stands for Fast Food for Dinner

 Hi everyone. 

Last Thursday evening I met my daughter in Nashua, New Hampshire. It is a good place to meet because it is exactly the same amount of time for each of us to drive to the park and ride, where we leave one car.  My daughter had ordered some new glasses at Costco, and since I am the member, not her, I needed to go with her so she could pick them up.

Before Costco we  went to Alex's shoes, which is very near the park and ride. I haven't been in many stores other than the grocery store, and if it was crowded, we weren't going to go inside. But it was fairly empty so I went in looking for what I needed.

 I have some shoes I use on the boat, but they are 11 years old this year. They are in decent shape except the bottoms are worn a enough that they are slippery on the boat. Slipping on the boat is not good. So I wanted to see if they had any markdowns since it is now August.

There was a possible pair i saw, until we were helped by a nice masked man (as we were masked also) who recommended with my small feet that I could also look into children's sizes and save some money.

Now my feet are small but not that small. I thought only women who wore a US size 5 could fit into children's shoes. But I was wrong. 

Not the greatest photo but here's my new shoes.

No slipping now!

And I saved quite a bit of cash even off the markdowns in women's sizes.

And for T this week  I have some fast food to share. After our Costco trip, we went to Chick-fil-A.

I must say I was very impressed with their set up, since you can't go inside to order.

Here's my T day drink photo. Stop by Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog and join us for T this week.

I had a chicken sandwich, still in the bag with the chicken head as well as some waffle fries. You can see we had a picnic in my car.

And this week for Sunday's lunch ice cream I had coffee oreo cookie.

And when we went out in the boat last Friday we saw some interesting things.

We saw 2 bald eagles. This is the only one I got a photo of.

And how about this tug boat spraying water.

This sailboat is huge, the biggest I have ever seen. This ocean ready sailboat is over 33 meters long.

You can see how much bigger it is from the other sailboats in the harbor.

And here's a bit of rusty barge for our hostess Elizabeth.

And finally I think this boat is named correctly as it does shine in the evening light.

Hope you have a great T day. And thanks for visiting.