Ending as I Started

 Hi everyone. 

It is almost the end of September. Wow. Didn't this month just begin? Overall this is has been a nice and fairly warm September in my area. No frosty nights yet, but last night it was pretty chilly.  The temperatures are supposed to really start dropping off today.

 I want to share one last journal page for Wendy's VINTAGE challenge at Art Journal Journey.

Thank you Wendy for being a great host. And thanks for inspiring us with all your pages too. I've enjoyed vintage a lot.

And also thanks to all of you who joined us for this challenge.

My last page for this challenge is from my owl book, which is where I started this month's Art Journal Journey vintage challenge.

I used washi tape to create some stripes. Then the page was inked. After that I randomly glued down  scraps of some woven paper.

The TH boy needed something to stand on, and this piece of black and white fabric trim made a nice place for him to do that. He looks like his name should be Joey, and Joey told me he is very interested in wildlife. He even has a way with it, so that animals comes towards him, not fleeing when he is near.  Joey went out for an evening walk and was surprised when an owl flew in and landed on his hand and lower arm.

His story with the owl is told with my quotes.

I'm keeping this post short as I'm heading out early and will be gone all day today. I'm off to see some garden trolls. Smile. More to come about that another time.

You still have a bit of time to join Wendy's vintage challenge if you're interested. The challenge ends tomorrow, on the 30th. 

And of course, have a wonderful almost end of September.

Thanks so much for visiting. 

Autumn Blessings

 Hi everyone.

September is quickly winding down, and yesterday we wrapped up the Going Round in Circles challenge at Try It on Tuesday. Thanks to all of you who joined us for this  challenge.

Our next challenge is perfect for this time of year in Northern Hemisphere and also with Canadian Thanksgiving coming up. For the next two weeks our challenge is

AUTUMN BLESSINGS

This time we ask you make some art (any format is accepted) that celebrates autumn.

My page is a little different than my usual  style and used several die cuts, some fall colored cardstock papers, a couple of stamps, and my Posca paint pens.  I attached these to some ink sprayed watercolor paper.

This page took awhile to make because I had to dig out the  die for the flowers, ferns and other stems. They were definitely needing a little love. Smile.  The birds are stamped twice, once in black on my page, and then on some white paper in brown ink. I fussy cut them and drew in the details. The quote is a really ancient one from Technique Tuesday and Allie Edwards.  I finished the page by putting on some white paint dots (which were then immediately squished to form bigger blobs), and a couple of pieces of foil paper images.

Be sure to check out what the rest of the design team has created for this Autumn Blessings theme. There's some great inspiration if you aren't feeling the new season quite yet. This latest challenge runs for the next 2 weeks.

Thanks for visiting my blog, and I hope to see your autumn art at Try It On Tuesday.

T Stands for Tea and a Snack

Hi everyone. 

I hope everyone here for T has had a wonderful last week, as did everyone else who visits my blog and reads this post. We're in the last few days of September, (which is hard to believe), and here in New Hampshire the weather has been pretty mild so far. Our leaves are just getting a slight tinge of color (except for the swamp maples). They say our peak foliage season is running a week or so later than usual, but should be good as we've had so much rain. 

Last week I had a much needed  low key week. I had lots of time do some fun things like art, reading and walking. I also did do a few small chores.

Saturday I cleaned up most of the veggie garden, except where there are a few plants  that are still growing. You might remember my overgrown weed problem, choking out my garden plants, and since we had some landscape fabric from putting in the beehive, I laid that down after cleaning up the unwanted growth. When the leaves fall my garden fills up with them, and hopefully that will keep the growth down come spring. Next year I want to finish putting in some raised beds, as I only added 2 this year.

For an update on the deck project, the engineering  is now done. Hurrah. This next photo might look weird but you should  look at the front where there is a white post; the right side is lots of short term scaffolding for holding boards. That is a mock up of what my husband plans to do, and next weekend, weather dependent, he should be ready to start laying boards. Hurrah for that. 

A few of you mentioned it would be easier to hire someone to do the job, but it's good to see my husband excited about a home project.  Right now finding anyone to do anything isn't easy, and my husband is insanely picky. He would probably go redo some of it anyhow. I would say he is  probably a contractor's worse nightmare. He is still complaining when we hired someone to put siding on the new house  almost 20 years ago that they didn't do it right. Meaning, they didn't do it his way. Smile.

It's also been time to start more fall clean ups. Last Thursday my husband took the day off, and I was "volunteered" to go help him clean up some things at his Mom's home on the lake. Luckily it was a warm and humid day because the 2 projects meant someone had to go into the lake and get wet.

First the swim raft was brought in.

Maddie and Pete enjoyed a ride. I got to help lift and pull it onto the dock in the forefront of the photo. (This dock is on land, so  it can stay in place through the winter. The rest of the dock will need to be pulled out sometime in the next few weeks because everything usually freezes solid.)

Then we had to get the little boat out of the water. Yes, my husband has a boat collection, all bought used. He has a good eye for finding bargain boats that are in great shape. I think it is comparable to me finding crafting bargains. If you love something you always have your eyes open and looking. Smile.

We call this one "My Boat" ( meaning me, Erika's boat) because he asked me to register it when he first bought it, even gave me a check from his account to do it. I was told at the town hall that if I registered it, it had to be in my name.  So it is technically my boat. We never even used it last year, but this year my husband decided to put it in the water at his Mom's.  Because of his mom's health issues, we've been at her house a lot this summer. He also wanted to take her (his Mom) for a few rides. Getting her into the boat has not been easy, but if this ends up being her last summer at her home, then at least it was a good one.

This angle of the photo makes the front of the boat look really big. It is not, as the boat is only 16 feet long total. And if you aren't familiar with boats, it seems that most people think bigger, like well over 22 feet, is better.

My MIL will be moving back in with one of my husband's sisters sometime in October. 

Hopefully these minor to dos haven't bored you. I know, after reading this you must be ready for a cup of tea or coffee. Or something to drink. And maybe a snack.

I baked a couple of things in the past week.

First I made a pumpkin cake with cinnamon frosting. I had to adjust the frosting recipe because it called for 7 1/2 cups of powdered sugar, which is crazy since it only called for 1 cup or 2 sticks of butter. I cut the powdered sugar down to 2 cups, and I added a bit less of the cinnamon. Now it was just sweet enough.  If anyone is interested in the recipe let me know, and I will include it for T next week.

This cake recipe came out of an older Taste of Home special fall edition. It was delicious (especially with my fixed frosting, but if you like it sweet, then maybe you'd like the original). And I know some of you might wonder what happened to the apple pie with a cheddar crust that I mentioned last week. Once I made this cake, we didn't need to pie, so that is still on my list of things to make this fall.

Then I also made a recipe that Kathy posted this past week in her cast iron cooking post. It is for a marbled sourdough loaf, half pumpkin and half chocolate.

When I remake this bread (it was delicious!) I will add more chocolate to that part, as it could have been a little more chocolaty.

Here is the recipe for that: Pumpkin and Chocolate Sourdough bread. It is written for cast iron loaf pans (Lodge Cast Iron sponsored this), but since I don't own any I just used regular loaf pans.

Which would you like a slice of? I can certainly share both as I don't need all the calories.

It's not any day I would invite you for a fancy cup of tea or coffee, but this lady makes it look like she does it everyday, doesn't she?

My ticket to T this week is is this page for Wendy's vintage challenge at Art Journal Journey. This challenge wraps up at the end of this month, later this week.

My page has a background to look like a vintage doily, and this lady comes from an old 1950's LIFE magazine in my stash.  I stitched a bit, die cut and colored the spoons, and stamped the quote on a little patch of gesso. I also added a few silver sequins for some sparkle.

Don't forget to stop by  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog  to see what the T gang has been up to.

That's it for me. I've got a busy week this week, with new challenges starting and things going on in real life.  

Thanks so much for visiting my blog, and have a super T day and week ahead.

 

Post 4 for the Sculpture Park

Hi everyone. I hope you are having a wonderful weekend.

In Friday's post, I showed you this photo, and I promised you an answer for this piece.  Let's see if you guessed what this sculpture is depicting.

How did you do?

I'm sharing some more photos of the sculptures from Andres Institute of art today.  I hope you are still enjoying them. There are more than 80 sculptures here, and even though we didn't see them all, we did see many of them.  I thought since the sculptors only had 3 weeks to complete their pieces, the sculptures are really well done.

And if you prefer a different sailing craft, here is another.

And here's a few more pieces to view.

This next sprite like sculpture, very small in size, was part of 6 pieces called the Witches. We couldn't find  all 6 , but we did look.

I'm not sure I like this next sculpture but it is aptly titled.

Had this next sculpture been designed  because of the shape of the rocks that make it up? (With a bit of cutting of course).

We saw this next one but never found any info about it. It's very different from most of the ones we saw, and I still can't figure out if these are cubes or maybe even old fashioned TVs.

I wanted better photos of this next statue (below) as I thought it was interesting. However, when we arrived, a small group arrived from the other direction, and they were very chatty. They were from Florida and were mostly complaining how hilly the park (and New Hampshire) was in general. We had to laugh. I think one reason they stopped was because they had to catch their breath as they were walking up the hill. 

We also took notice how chatty they were. That is NOT a bad thing in any way, but us New Englanders are pretty laconic and keep to ourselves. Most people say "hello" or "nice day" and pass by.  It was fun to actually have a conversation with some other visitors. My photos aren't great because they kept hanging out next to the sculpture, and I didn't want to include them in my photos.

Here's a few more random pieces.

This next name goes with the photo below it.

And finally for today's post,  this one, whose name I can't exactly remember, was something like connections to my father.

Hope you are enjoying these armchair visits.  I think I have one more post left of photos. Since new art challenges are starting during this upcoming week, I'll save that for next weekend. 

Have a great start to the new week.

Weekend Art

 Hi everyone. Happy start to the last weekend in September. 

This weekend's project at my house is more deck construction, at least for my husband, and some garden clean up for me, as well some bulb planting, should the clean up  get done. A bee check too. As long as the skies stay dry that is. As I wrote this post Friday night, there is a chance of some rain in the forecast. Maybe that won't be the case as the weather forecast can seem to change overnight.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed there will be some sunshine.

Today I am sharing a couple of pieces of art for a couple of different challenges.

This first piece is for Wendy's VINTAGE challenge at Art Journal Journey. Do any of these 1980's items look familiar to you?

These pieces come from an older visual dictionary that was laying around the house from when my daughter was little. I hated to cut it up, but the technology section was so out of date. Doesn't the portable cellular phone make you laugh?

And although cars are still cars, their design and even so much of their technology has changed too. 

The base of this page is a gelli print on watercolor paper. The bordered is doodled. I also added an old photographic slide, some little foam punched dots, a strip of music stamped on wax paper, as well as stamping the quote and the letters to make the word retro.

The other piece of art today is a tag for the newest challenge at Tag Tuesday. This time Sandie is hosting, and her challenge is book pages.

I made a few tags to put into one of my recent projects, my owl book. Here's one that works for this challenge.

The background is cut out of an old birding book that was actually one I used in college for a vertebrate zoology lab. Although not useless, I did find some of the info had become outdated, so I decided to purge and use it as an art picture source. 

I added the quotes and the foiled paper trim to it. 

Now I need to just bind my owl book together. The problem is that the pages and tags were supposed to go into a small chipboard 4 ring binder.  I had been painting the cover, and I put that binder on top of my workspace trash can to dry. I forgot it was there, and the hubby did the trash. You can probably guess where I am going with this. Out it went. It was dropped off at the "dump" before I even noticed what happened. 

It does make a good story, and luckily I have some rings I can bind this book together with. I just wish it had been a 3 ring binder rather than a 4 ring binder because new covers would have been a lot easier to find. Smile. But it is only a binder.

OK, enough about that. Have a wonderful start to your weekend! 

And as always, I appreciate your visits too.

Back to the Sculpture Park

 Hi everyone. Happy Friday.

I thought I'd end the workweek with some more views from Andres Art Institute, the sculpture park a friend and I walked through a few weeks back. I hope you’re enjoying them.  There were so many interesting pieces we saw, I think I took too many photos. 😀

Let's start off with this sculpture. Perhaps it is a bit steampunk, or maybe lots of symbolism?

My friend and I wondered about the tail. Are people becoming machines? Has human culture changed into something more of a mechanical?  Perhaps the artist is saying that the mystery of life is gone. Hmm. Any suggestions?  But I like it. Especially this face.

I wish I'd remembered to snap photos of the artist's and sculpture's name for all of the pieces we saw.

(Referring to the above sculpture) I do like the next photo I could get through the opening, even if I haven't figured out exactly what this piece is about.  Two people as one, maybe. A side view of someone with their head in their hands.  Hmmm.  Is the shape as pleasing to your eye as it is to mine?

I am never good at guessing the artist's meaning, but I thought this  next sculpture looked like  a digestive system all tied in knots. I am sure I am very wrong. Smile! The title is below. So maybe I am on the right track, even if my friend did laugh at me.

  In this next piece, the sculptor did a super job  embedding rocks so they look like that's how the big rock formed.

And yes we had to touch it.

Do you think this next one feels a bit celestial also?

Here's another favorite of mine.  What do you think?

It could just be a shell, or it could be

And 2 more for today's post.

And finally, I'll leave you guessing for this last one.  It is exactly what it looks like.

I'll give the the answer on Sunday when I show you more.

And here's my other posts to the park if for some reason you want to link over: Another Sculpture Park  and More Photos from the Sculpture Park.

Have a great start to your weekend.