My Weekend Post-This and That

Happy weekend everyone!

Tonight we're going to have a birthday celebration at my house. My daughter and her beau are coming later today, and  we'll be celebrating both my daughter's and my husband's birthdays. Although their birthdays are later next week, my daughter is not going to be around for hers, so we'll have our little family party early. 

I made a key lime dessert as it is my daughter's favorite. My husband will get his own cake on his birthday even if it will be just him and I to celebrate. 

I really want to try out a Halloween decorated cake I found the recipe for, but I doubt my husband would like that. He once told me all he got for his birthday as a kid was Halloween cakes as that was all his Mom could find at the store. And he didn't tell me that because he'd loved getting Halloween cakes every year for his birthday either. 

Speaking of Halloween,  I want to share some Halloween art with you today. Both pages are in a journal I put together earlier this month.

The face of the woman in this first spread is one I saw in a high fashion magazine my MIL didn't want anymore. I think my MIL got the magazine from one of her granddaughters after she (the granddaughter) was done with it, and now I have it to cut apart. There really are some interesting people in this magazine as it is  runway style fashion.

I wanted to make an Egyptian themed page  using the face you see on my spread. I also recently watched the 1932 version of The Mummy film starring Boris Karloff. That got me thinking I could make an Egyptian style page in my Halloween journal, and so I did.  That lady does look like she might be possessed by some ancient Egyptian spirit.

The background is the printed paper I used for my page. Most of the stamped images I left uncolored for contrast. I did fussy cut them out of the white paper I had stamped them on. I  colored the eye of Horus though. On the left hand side I used a mummy's tomb playing card I had. On the opposite side is the playing card info, and the back is this cool looking sarcophagus.

I don't think this Egyptian spread fits Tracey's My Favorite Colour is October theme at Art Journal Journey, but this next page which has some more traditional colors and Halloween themed pieces does work for that challenge.

This page is also in the new Halloween journal I made. This time I added a scrap of painted wax paper on the background, as well as a printed rectangle of paper. I also added a stamped and fussy cut broom, the TH zombie looking lady, some plastic gemstones,  a paper spider web, a quote stamped on acetate (so it would show up better) and finally this fun old witch that I've had a couple years and was just waiting for the right spot to use her. 

I don't know if the zombie looking lady is under a spell that the old witch cast upon her or if she is working really hard to  resist the witch's spell. You can decide how that story goes. 

And there's a few other things going on.

The deck project is coming along. I took this photo  before several more deck board were nailed in. You can see handsome Mr. Pete is so comfy he was yawning and getting ready to roll on his side for a nap.

There's a few more deck boards to go and then the steps and the railing needs to be completed. Let's see how much more gets done this weekend.

I had a crazy visit with with the bees yesterday. I'll be closing up the hive for the winter as soon as it cools down a bit more, probably in a week or 2. This past week I made some bee fondant for them. It's similar to cake fondant, but not exactly the same. I don't know if mine didn't come out quite right, but it was a little more crumbly than cake fondant would be. I added some lemongrass and mint bee syrup I have to it also. The fondant is a substitute for honey that isn't in the hive, and I will be putting more in to keep them fed for the winter. 

The bees went nuts for it.

They weren't even letting me put it in the hive without starting to cover it. The 2 brown patties are the protein pollen patties I've been feeding them for a few weeks now since there hasn't been much in bloom.

 You can see the bees swarmed all over the bags before I had a chance to bring them inside to be washed.

And when I picked up the bag (I moved it over to an more out of the way spot), a few crumbs of the bee fondant fell out.

They found those spots too. I guess maybe I should have made and feed them the fondant a few weeks ago.

The other exciting thing was I noticed this wasp that was trying to get into the hive. These bees weren't going to let that happen.

There are always small adventures going on if you stop to look around, isn't there?

That's all for me today. Have a wonderful weekend!