Wrapping Up June.

      Hi everyone.  Happy June 29th! It's hard to believe that this month is just about over. Today would have been my parents 67th wedding anniversary. My Mom had a giant candle (thick and tall) that she used to burn every year on her anniversary, so growing up with that, their anniversary date became burned into my brain. I hope  wherever their  spirits may be they are together today reliving a happy moment in their lives. Now if only I could remember without doing the math how many years I've been married. 😉

Today I want to share my last page for Matilde's "What Makes You Happy" challenge at Art Journal Journey

     Thank you Matilde for hosting this past month. You thought of a great challenge theme. I loved it.❤  I also loved seeing all the things that made people happy.  Thank you everyone who joined in also.

     My page today is from my Greece travel journal.  However, it's the main quote that inspired the whole page. I happened to use it for Greece, but it's true for just about anything. Yes, dreaming is a form of planning, and it makes me happy.

     My background is some stenciled tiles which reminded me of many of the plazas with beautifully patterned  walkways. On the left is a piece of tiled designed paper which I cut to fit that edge.  I used a few chipboard items from my stash, as well as a printed acetate sun also from my stash. I finished my page with a couple of stickers (the flag and Greece word) that I picked up during my travels.

      I also have a tag for Pinky's flower theme at Tag Tuesday. 

I'd noticed a few tags lately that were shaped a little differently, and I liked that idea. ( Aimeslee's was one of them; thanks for the idea!) I have some old Sizzix framelits dies that cut various nested tag-like shapes, so I dug them out and made a couple of tags. Here's one of them. 

I layered 2 of the same shaped tags cut from cardstock. I stamped the flowers using a very old clear stamp set (sorry-I can't remember the maker), and I added some little confetti flowers to the centers of the white flowers. And I stamped the word also. 

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

Have a great end of June and weekend too. I'll be back Monday with July's AJJ challenge.

Faces from Greece

     Hi everyone. Happy Friday. It's almost the weekend once again.  As of right now, there's still some weekend rain in the forecast. It's tough for the folks who work all week and wait for the weekend to get outside and enjoy the summer.

     I'm still sharing photos from Greece today.There were a lot of faces in the Delphi Museum, so guess what I'm posting today? Grin. 😏

There were a lot of statues. The ancient site at Delphi must have been full of them. And you get to see my traveling companion Deb in this first photo too.

A lot of them were headless or armless too.  I think after being buried in the ground for a very long time that is bound to happen, and it doesn't make them any less amazing.

And then there were lots of body parts. Luckily it wasn't bloody-grin.😁

We managed to end up following a tour group, and when we got to this last statue, the guide was explaining how this statue was the star of the museum. It's Apollo on his chariot. (The chariot is in a couple of photos.)

These dark pieces are the only parts left to the rest of the statue. I really like how they showed them in this life sized drawing.

I think it's pretty amazing that anything survived after the 1,000+ years since Delphi was at its prime. 

And for those of you prefer living faces to old statues here’s some faces that were hanging around the entrance . I think I posted one or 2 of these before, but you can't go wrong with kitty faces. (Even if Mr. Pete or Miss Maddie say dog faces are better-grin.)

This kitty above reminds me of my Emmie, and this guy below reminds me of my Leo. I love having dogs but I miss having a cat too. 

I'll be joining Nicole's Friday Face Off and also Gillena's. Friday Lunch Break.  Otherwise that's it for me today.  Have a wonderful end of June and start to July.

 

These Pages Make me Happy

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. 

     Today I have an art heavy post; it's my penultimate pieces for Matilde's What Makes You Happy challenge at Art Journal Journey. 

       My pages today are from my Greece travel journal, which now just needs to be bound together. Hurrah! 👍😀 ❤Usually I bind the journal and then work on it, but the problem is (as you probably know if you're an art journaler) is that when you have a wet page, you can't turn it to work on a further along page. However, if you haven't yet bound pages, you can work on a lot more of them because if something needs to dry, you just put it aside and move on. I don't have a lot of free counter space in my art room, so often there are pages all over the floor while I work. 

        These pages  make me happy, as I must say, finishing a journal does too. ❤ 

This first page is made by recycling some items I brought home, and I like it, even if it is a bit rough. The main image on this page is the side of a  bag something I bought came in. I liked the blue and the images, so I glued it down on some white watercolor paper that I first quickly and roughly inked. The words and sun came off the top of another bag from the trip, as did the word Greece in the middle of the slightly crooked die cut. At the bottom I added a bit off of another bag, and then added some washi tape across the bottom. I’m not sure the flowers were the best choice,  but the blue matched the blue of the page.

     I like various papered background of this next page. I also like the layering and all the die cut lemons. I don't usually buy dies with a project in mind, but I bought the lemon set because I wanted to add lemons into my book. The Corfu image in the middle is a sticker. This is a very neat and organized page for me. 😏

     All the kites on this next page were doubled stamped. First on this page to lay them out, and then on white paper in  various colored inks. It took me awhile to fussy cut them out, but after I did that I attached them to the original stamped kites. I drew in the strings and the tails.

     The focus of this page is an old postcard taken with a view  of Delphi and also the  olive groves and the far off village that I could see from our hotel room. I used some old punch out paper arrows to label where things were in relation to the photo. Those arrows actually lift up so you can see the unblemished postcard, but I photographed my page with the arrows laying flat.

     You might remember the photos from the mountain village I visited. It was where my friend's grandparents had come from. There were lots of stone buildings, all old and  many a bit mossy, so I stamped this rock background and inked it appropriately. The shutters are closed because most of the village houses had been turned into summer homes.  I thought the fragment phrase described the village today compared to what it had been years ago.

 

And here's my final page for today's post.

    I like all the bits of pieces I used on this page. There's a bit off of a bag, some fabric trim, a painted sky,  a bit of lace, some metal screw "dots", an image off a sheet of paper, some stenciling, and even a few die cuts.  The window image  looks a bit crooked as I tried to fit it in and cover up the map. (But it's only crooked in my photo-of course. 😏

     That's all for me today. I hope you enjoyed these pages. and that you're having a lovely week.

Our New TIOT Challenge

 Hi everyone. It is already time for another new challenge at Try It on Tuesday. Where is the month of June disappearing to?

    Thank you to everyone who joined us for our book page challenge, and thank you Vicki at Stamped Smiles for having been our guest designer.

    For our next challenge, we're going with the season (at least here in the Northern Hemisphere). Our newest challenge is

Here Comes Summer

     Summer makes me think of swimming, whether it is at the beach, a lake or a pool. My page is all about that fun summer activity.

       I started my art journal page with some ink pads. I chose the colors of water, trees and sand. I then used some white paint and painted clouds around the border.  They look a little blue in the photo even though I tried adjusting the white levels (oh no) , but I wanted big white puffy cumulus  clouds that you would see on a beautiful day. 😏

      Then I did something a little different than my usual pages. I dug out some older dies and made a page only using them. I drew in a few details, and the men's bathing suit actually had holes so I added the ties. I also added in some shells to make this a day at the beach.

       I am also joining Matilde at her What Makes You Happy challenge at Art Journal Journey.  Please remember only art journaling (and no cards) are accepted at AJJ.

       I know the weather is nice and people don't think about crafting the same way as you might when it's cold, but if you need any inspiration, check out all the design team's creations. There's lots to  inspire you there as the team is made up of some talented ladies.  I hope you're inspired and join us at Try It on Tuesday also. 

     

T Stands for Summer Days

 Hi everyone. Happy T day. It's time to share a drink again over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

     This past weekend my daughter and her husband were supposed to come for a day, and we were all heading up to my mother-in-law's home on the lake. My MIL is now in an assisted living. She is definitely having some memory issues and having a conversation with her is very difficult.  Sometimes you have no idea what she is talking about. Whether anyone will take her by her house for a day this summer I don't know at this point, but since the house is  in a family trust, the 3 siblings are on a weekly rotation.

      Last week was my husband's week, and Saturday we planned on having an extended family day on the dock. Sadly, it was a miserable wet day, and that didn't happen. Sunday wasn't any better either, in fact the storms were more severe later in the day. The weather squashed all my weekend plans (😩) but what can you do about the weather? Luckily my younger sister-in-law often invites us up during her weeks just as we invite her and her family over on our weeks, and the summer is young, so I suspect there will be a lot more weekend get togethers on the dock.

     Now for all I mentioned the bad weather weekend, the good thing is that during the extremely hot heat dome that we had during the middle of last week, my daughter had Juneteenth/Wednesday the 19th off from work. My husband took the day off, so we were able to have a fun family time at the lake. We just missed my son-in-law who didn't have the day off, but it was nice to have a day like in  the olden days when our daughter was younger and unattached. 

     The dogs definitely enjoyed their lake day too. Even Maddie. Her glucose levels are not as low as they should be, but they are down some. You can see she is wearing a glucose sensor so we can keep track of what they are. Luckily the sensor can get wet for short periods of time, so she was able to take some short little swims. Since she is now blind, there have been some obvious adjustments. At home she is  successfully maneuvering most of the time, but this was her first lake trip since losing her sight. She did really well, but we did keep her on a rope and keep our eyes on her just so she didn't do something to injure herself. We've had more than enough vet bills with her diabetes that I don't want to pay for any other injuries.

Pete did a lot of swimming, and he even needed the next day to rest. 😏

This last photo isn't great, but here's a late  in the day drink for T day.  And ha ha for the next photo. My daughter was faking she was asleep  in the new chair she bought for herself.

And I'll finish with this photo of Maddie's wet hair.  I think it has great texture. Maddie loves being wet, so you can image how many times she went into the water.

That's all for me. Have a great T day and week ahead.

Back in the Garden

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend to you.

     Thursday night we had rain and thunderstorms, and luckily that heat dome lifted. Now we are back to normal summer weather where it's warm and humid but not oppressive. Friday I went out and checked my gardens, which did need some weeding, but not enough that I couldn't take a few minutes and pull one or two. I am sure if I wanted to do some major weeding I could find some renegade plants to pull, but instead I'd rather enjoy the flowers.  ❤

     I thought I would share some more of my garden views since I'm very happy with how most everything looks right now.

     I'm not sure what variety of Spirea this is, but the one plant I bought has seeded itself a million times around my yard. I've pulled out a lot of those seedlings, but some are in good spots so I left them to grow. The bees of all kinds just love their flowers.

     The blackberries in the wild blackberry patch next to part of my driveway are looking like what they'll eventually become. This is a close up because these green berries are actually quite tiny.

My Astilbes  are looking pretty right now too. 

    Sadly I am back to 1 beehive (the second year hive). Once again I lost  too many bees  during shipping, and even getting a second queen didn't salvage the hive. 😢 But my second year hive is still doing fantastic. And for those of you who asked, the orange bucket just covers the power box for the electric fence. I live in black bear and skunk country, both of which can destroy a hive so I have an electric fence around the bee area.

     Here's a close up of some soon to pop milkweed flowers. I'm working on getting the milkweed plants  to grow in an area where I want more wildflowers, not my actual cultivated flower bed. Last year when the pods started to open I threw them out of the garden and down into my wildflower area, and it seemed to work as I have a lot of milkweeds growing here. 

These zinnias grew from seeds a couple years old.

     This is the path down to the beehive, which goes through my wild-flower garden. I've planted things here, and also, some of my garden plants like the flowering Spirea have self seeded in this area. This year the pants have gone wild. They're huge.

     Speaking of self-seeding, This is a bed off to the side where I have more tomato and pepper plants. I switched sides this year,  but if you look between those shorter pepper plants (on the right) you can see a lot of self- seeded tomatoes growing. I'm going to have to dig them out and find a place in the actual veggie garden for them.  They're getting big fast.

    I was very bad  😏 this spring and bought myself a greenhouse. Not a big one, but to put it up I need some landscaping done to have a flat area. Good thing the hubby bought a tractor. The other day he started working on the area where the greenhouse will go.

And lastly, this cool bee was my Mother's Day gift from my daughter. 

     I'm hoping the weather is wrong, and we don't have a lot of rain like  the forecast predicts because  my daughter and her husband are coming by for the day if it's a lake day. This year since my mother-in-law is not in her house, every family is assigned a week every 3 weeks. This is our weekend, so if the weather is good we'll see my daughter. Right now that is not promising. 😟

 I am linking this post up to Gillena's  Sunday Smiles.  I hope you enjoyed the garden views, and have a super weekend!