The Purple Garden and Sunshine

 Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week.  

I had a frustrating day as I spent a big chunk of the afternoon at my eye doctors office. I had some floaters in one of my eyes this morning, and then it got  worse. Luckily it was nothing serious, and my retina is still attached and looks good. I was also lucky that the eye doctor squeezed me in. The worse thing is that I have one dilated eye so reading and looking at things tonight it a bit tricky.

 I want to share another page for Alison's Summer Countryside challenge at Art Journal Journey You still have a few days left this month to join her challenge as July isn't quite over yet .  Although July is sure speeding right by, isn't it?

I recently started a new garden journal since my last one has no blank pages left. It is always so exciting to both start and to finish a journal. Now I just need to do something with the covers of my old journal. Making garden pages is one of my favorite themes to work on, so eventually I will fill up my new journal also, even if it take a few years, like my older one did.  

This is the first page in the new journal, and it is inspired by a single color summer garden. The page is a bit crooked in one of my photos because I have yet to really break the spine in this new journal. 

I started by adding a few torn bits of this flowered paper I have had for too long. Then I painted the page and the edges of the paper to make it all blend together.  To tone down the color a bit, but still keep it purple, I rubbed a copper ink pad gently over it.  I like how that gives a brown effect but in the right light, a little metallic sparkle. I'm not sure this photo is the right light for that.

I added a TH ephemera piece at the top. The maze reminded me of a formal garden that might have a shrubbery maze in it. I die cut the flowers, inked and outlined them. On one stem I replaced the die cut flower with a stamped one that had 2 bees on it (from a very old set in my collection by Chocolate Baroque). I also added some tiny yellow beads for depth as well as coloring those bees.

In the bottom corner I added a scrap off my work table from a vintage check ledger, as well as the 2 foxes. I also had some bits of mica on my work table that I added to the top right and bottom left corners. I finished off my page with some gold "gemstone" stickers, a piece of gold metallic paper trim and a stamped quote. 

Hope you like my latest page.

I also have a tag to share over at Tag Tuesday. Pinky is  hosting this round, and she picked flowers as her theme. 

I  make tags as warm up exercises when I first sit down at my work table. This one is pretty simple, but it certainly marks how I feel about the weather in my spot on the globe this July. Many days I  wait for the sunshine to arrive, and it just doesn't want to come out from the behind the clouds and in between the rain drops (smile). You've got to love it when it does come out though.

I added a bit of yellow background ink to my tag. The sunflower lady comes from an Art by Marlene punch out set, as does the quote. This tag looked pretty flat without anything else added to it, so I put these 2 yellow buttons on the bottom of the tag.

Hope you also like my tag.

 Since I have a sunflower on my tag, let me show you some of mine that are starting to bloom. They're self seeded from birdseed that fell onto the ground over the winter and spring.

More blooms to come.

Last week  the grocery store  had some pots of sunflowers so I bought one. My bees seem to like them too.

I'll be offline for the next couple of days; I'm heading out for an overnight trip to New York State first thing tomorrow with a friend to go on a couple of art garden visits.  The art gardens aren't far over the Massachusetts border, but they are still 3-4 hour trips for us each way, so we decided just to get a hotel room and make a little adventure of it.  I'll be back online Friday. 

Enjoy the middle of your week. And thanks again for visiting.