It's Time Again for a New Challenge

 Hi everyone. It's time once again for a new challenge at Try It on Tuesday.

     Before I get to that let me thank Anita from Beads, Charm and Wire for sharing her fabulous tag with us during our Inspired By a Song challenge. And thank you everyone who joined in also. It was fun seeing all the songs people picked out.

Our new challenge that starts today is

FANTASY

I had recently been rereading one of my childhood poetry books that I came across, and one poem inspired me to make my fantasy page. 

     The poem is Lochinvar. It’s written by Sir Walter Scott, and it is all about a knight’s romantic journey. I loved this poem when I was younger. (And I still like it today also 😏)

     Sadly the glare  from the metallic elements and also some glossy paper on my page, along with the blue, meant it wasn't the easiest to photograph.

     My page started with the inside of some craft packaging. I liked the background, and  I attached it to some watercolor paper. Then  I rough stamped the background design and used  blue and a bit of black ink on it.  On some white paper I stamped this ancient Magenta image, and I added it to the center of my page.  I also decided not to color it in so the image would stand out more from the background.

     I used gold paper and a edging die to make the trim that goes across the page, and I used silver paper and some crown dies to make those embellishments. I decorated the crowns with paint dots and also a couple of little decorative gemstones.

     The dragon was stamped twice, first on some white paper that I fussy cut, colored and added some glitter glue too. Once that dried I stamped the image on acetate, fussy cut it again and glued it down over the top of the paper image.

     And finally to finish my page, I photocopied this poem out of a childhood poetry book. I loved the poems Lochinvar as a kid, and thought the title and a couple of lines from this long poem worked with my image. 

      If medieval fantasy doesn't excite you, be sure to check out all the lovely pieces from the rest of the design team.  There's all kinds of directions you can go with this challenge. Also remember, we accept all types of art at Try It on Tuesday, and you have 2 weeks to to join in for this challenge.

Hope to see you there!

T Stands for Sweets

 Hi everyone. And happy T day to all of the lovely people who visit from Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's       blog. 

     I know I say this most months, but I can't believe it is already the end of April. Of course since we had that big snowstorm at my house early in the month, and since that snow took a week to melt,  it made the start of April not feel like April. Plus we've had a lot of cool weather besides that snow. We've even still had first thing in the morning temperatures below freezing a few days just last week.

    A few Mondays ago Massachusetts and Maine celebrated the Patriots Day holiday. Since my daughter now works in Massachusetts, she had the day off. We decided to meet at a location fairly equidistant between us to have lunch and do a bit of shopping. We  met in Lebanon, New Hampshire, which is right on the Vermont border and just a short drive to King Arthur Flour.

      The only 2 things I wanted at King Arthur was some of their cocoa blend (I bought) and their caster sugar (they were out of), but I noticed their store now has a lot of their mixes. I've tried a few before, and they were good. I had been craving an old fashioned yellow cake with chocolate frosting, and I decided that maybe if I tried a box of their chocolate buttercream (frosting) it might make less work when I went to make the cake.

    

  Last week I ended up making the cake.  I still had to add 2 sticks of butter and a bit of water to the frosting mix, and I still had to pull out my mixer to make this buttercream. I will admit it was the most yummy chocolate frosting from a box or jar I'd ever had. Not 100% easier than making homemade chocolate frosting, but definitely quicker. 

I had already eaten half my slice when I remembered  to take a photo. And you can see my first drink for T, which is a glass of skim milk. 

     The cake was homemade; I used a recipe from America's Test Kitchen The Perfect Cake cookbook. I'd use this recipe again as it was moist and very tender. If anyone wants the recipe let me know and I'll post it next week for T.

King Arthur Flour not only has a store, but they have a bakery on the premises. Of course after we shopped we had to have a little treat. My daughter had a chocolate croissant and a box of water. She said the croissant was delicious . I had one of their rye-sea salt brownies, which I had had last time I visited back in the fall, along with a large cup of hot chai tea. I really want to find their exact recipe for these brownies because they are really delicious.  I have their brownie recipe in their cookbook, but I'm not sure how much rye flour I would need to substitute. Anyone have any idea?

It's a good thing I've been doing so much yard work lately because April hasn't exactly been a low calorie month-grin.

That's my  post for T this week. I hope you have a great T day and week ahead.

Sunday

 Hi everyone. I hope everyone is having or had a super weekend.

     Today I want to share my last page for Valerie's Geometric Forms challenge at Art Journal Journey. Thank you Valerie for hosting. I wish we could continue this challenge longer because it was such fun playing with geometry. Also, I'm sending a big  thank you to everyone who has joined in. 

       Of course there is still time to participate in this challenge since it runs through the end of the month, and that is not until Tuesday 

     My page today started by me tracing some various sized circles. Then I used inks, watercolor paints, acrylic paints,  markers, rubber stamps, die cuts  and a white pen around those circles. I finished by using some cut out words.

I am also linking up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles. 

This past week my daffodils have started to bloom. That is making me smile.

     And my raking is done. 😀Now it is onto the other garden chores. But before I go there, I'm taking a  minute to enjoy how much more green everything has gotten. since last weekend. This next photo is the one from last weekend that I shared this past Monday for T day, and then you can see my garden just 7 days laters in the second photo.

And one more photo for you. The reflection in my gazing  ball is cool.

I just love this time of year when everything is greening, growing and starting to bloom. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and happy start to the new week. 

Carnival

 Hi everyone. Happy Friday. It's almost the weekend again, and I just realized that this is the last weekend of April. Eeks. 

   Today I have some more Greece photos and a page from my travel journal. Neither my friends nor I realized that we would be in Greece during  carnival weekend. It make sense when you think that Greek Orthodox Easter is May 5th, but since of the 3 of us who went, 2 of us were never associated with the Greek Orthodox Church, and my friend who is, isn't religious. It made a nice surprise and added to our travels.

    You'll see some faces  for  Nicole's Friday Face Off, and these also work for Gillena's Friday Face Off.

     I'll start with the page I made for me travel journal. The long confetti paper strings are pieces I actually picked up. I die cut the masks and the clowns (which I left white). You'll see why I added the clowns if scroll down just a bit. I also need to go back and write in the Greek word for carnival, which I just learned as I wrote this post.

This season of festivals right before Lent is called Apokries. The big celebrations occur on the weekend right before Clean Monday. I mentioned Clean Monday in an earlier post as one thing to do on that day is to fly kites. The fact that it was Apokries also explains why there were creepy clown faces all over the place. Clowns originated in Greece a long time ago. One article I read said that the first clowns appeared around 7 BCE in Sparta.

We missed any parades, but we were out on the town with a lot of other people enjoying the spring weather and the holiday decorations. This restaurant in Trikala was decorated for the holiday.

There was a lot of confetti after parades. 

And besides restaurants, stores and other buildings were decorated for the holiday.

As it was carnival,  you can't forget to have some masks.

     And while on Corfu on Clean Monday, we went out for a drive. We were headed north to explore some views of the Ionian Sea and also to maybe find a cute little town or 2 to check out. We should have known when we saw the clown we were riding into a festival.

That meant we were stuck in small town traffic.

Not once but twice.

     It was too bad we couldn't make it to the top of the island, but it still makes a good story. And trips are all about the stories, aren't they? I also think this makes a good reason to head back to Greece (and Corfu) one day. 😀

Have a great weekend ahead.

Circle Art

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday.

     Today I have a spread from my Greece travel journal that I am sharing for Valerie's Geometric Forms challenge at Art Journal Journey.  The left side of the spread is from the Acropolis Museum and the right side from the Acroplis itself.

The right hand page has lots of geometry. There is the big rectangle of the book page (that is part of the background and of course I had to buy a used book printed in Greek) as well as the rectangle of the vintage  black and white postcard I added. There are also 3 circles with the gold embossing. Those were from coasters at the hotel we stayed at. I recycled them  and cut away the outer white around the rings.

You can also see my ticket for the Acropolis. It has some cool blue geometric forms on it also.

The left side of the spread is about my visit to the Acroplis Museum. I included the 2 tickets I bought online and printed off just for this journal page. I also included a bookmark and a chopped up postcard both which I picked up in the gift shop. 

The vase was stamped, colored and fussy cut.

I also have one more tag for Sandie's Anything Goes challenge at Tag Tuesday. It also have some circles on it.

I hope that poor woman's thoughts and life stop feeling like they are going round and round. Grin.

     I embossed  most of the background and then inked it. I also used a different embossing folder and embossed the circles and some white paper before I used an old punch to make the circle.  I inked those also. I cut out the number from a sheet of printed paper, added the Art by Marlene lady, and wrote in the round and round words.

That's all for me. Have a super rest of your day.

Blue

 Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week to you.

Today I have some randoms bits and pieces to share. I'll start with a page from my Greece travel journal. 

     I was cleaning out some papers one day a few weeks ago, and I came across some black papers I had dipped into some marbling paint. This particular paper reminded me immediately of the jellyfish we saw one day on my trip to Greece. I decided to use it as a memory page, even though the Aegean Sea was  NOT black. I thought the letters on the stickers worked for the water color though.

     Here's a couple photos of the jellyfish my page was inspired by.

     I am linking my page up to Valerie's Geometric Forms challenge at Art Journal Journey. Besides the jellyfish form, you can see the  black circles on acetate that I glued down onto my page.

     The other day I shared some yellow photos from my Greece trip, so today let me share some blue with you.  I'll start with this one and the deep blue of the morning sky. I snapped this from the window during our last morning in Greece. We had a late morning flight that day and needed to be at the airport fairly early. This is the view from where we stayed.

Blue mountains, blue sky, and a hazy morning landscape.

 Looking up at a bridge (top) through the sky light from the backseat of the car.

Here's a full on view of that bridge with the blue Ionian Sea, blue mountains and blue sky.

Now the view of the bridge is from when we were driving over that bridge in the other direction.  I was sitting in the front seat for this photo.

Blue water, blue on the boat, and does anyone see something resembling the evil eye?

More landscapes with blue

I took this photo for my husband.

And it was a gorgeous day in this next photo. I would love to have been on that boat.

This cool evil eye was hanging in one of the places we stayed. 

A couple of views from the balcony of where we stayed in Corfu.

A sign with some blue,

and finally for today's post, the blues boxes for this octopus (I believe) in tomato sauce I saw in a grocery store we used as well as a pretty scene on some bottles of a new alcohol for me called Tsipouro. And no, I didn't try the Tsipouro. 

I hope you're having a lovely day.