Happy Halloween

     Hi everyone. Happy Halloween to you. It's going to be very warm this year for Halloween; it's even quite warm comparably this morning. Makes me want it to be spring-grin.  And have you heard of Trunk or Treat? That was a new one for me. If you haven't heard of it, it's where a public place is picked, people go and park their cars there, and then kids walk around the cars and trick or treat out of the trunks.

   Today my post is a collection of photos to celebrate Halloween. I will also be linking this post up to tomorrow's Friday Face Off over at Nicole's website,  Gillena's Friday Lunch Break, and to Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's Second on the Second which goes live on Saturday.  I guess you could say it's a bit of a hodgepodge post. 😏

     But first of all, let me show this fantastic Halloween card I received from Elle in Scotland.

      I love the fuzzy die cuts. Very very cool Elle. And I know some of you like to see stamps, so I included them on the right side of the card.

       These next 4 photos are related to last Friday's post (Fairy Houses) when I shared some of the fairy houses under construction at my local botanical garden (Bedrock Gardens in Lee, New Hampshire). These photos are not fairy houses, but some large fairies as well as the moon. These fairies are also some clever tree decorations and faces too.

     And then, to celebrate this spooky day some more, I have some second looks from the last 3 years. Here's a few pieces of Halloween art that I created.  This year's new Halloween art is something I can't share yet, so you'll have to make do with some second views.

I hope you have a safe and spooky BUT fun Halloween if you celebrate or enjoy it. 

Wrapping up October

      Hi everyone. Happy October 30th to you. We're already at the end of October, well just about, which means that today I am sharing my last pages for Alison's challenge at Art Journal Journey.  Thank you Alison for a great theme this month and more importantly, for being a wonderful host. And thank you everyone who joined us. Of course there's still a bit of time left to October, so if you want to join in, you still can.

      Today I'm going with pumpkins, since tomorrow is Halloween. In fact my first page has a couple of not so spooky jack-o-lanterns to on it. 

      This first spread is from my Autumn Harvest journal.  Not my favorite from the journal, but it works.

     I used some leaf printed paper for the background. I really wanted to use this old TH photo of the man and boy in the pumpkin patch so my page is centered around that image.  I colored the pumpkins in the photo just to  enhance them.

 

     I also die cut the wagon, and then I stamped as well as fussy cut a few pumpkins to put into it. I added some thin black washi tape and some black die cut lace along the bottom. To finish off my page, I typed and printed some common fall pumpkin foods, inked the paper and then cut it into strips for my page. Then I added a couple of felt jack-o-lanterns I had in my stash to finish it off.

    My other page is in my autumn journal. The back side of this page was already stitched, so I worked around the stitching. I painted the background orange, and then I used a stencil with some white paint. Once dry I added the die cut stars, some punch out leaves, a pipe image, the sparkly moon and another felt pumpkin from my stash. I finished with some sticky quotes.

    I still have some page from my autumn journal to share, but I'll save those for some other post. 

    Right on schedule, we have had just enough wind in the last week that many of the leaves have come down off the trees.

But they're not quite all down yet. Thank goodness Costco had battery operated leaf blowers on sale. 😏

That's all for me. 

Make It Magical

Hi everyone. Happy Tuesday.

     I'm back with a new challenge piece today, and also with a big welcome back to Helen who's rejoining us as designer at Try It on Tuesday. I'm glad you're back Helen, and I look forward to all your fun and sometimes snarky art. ❤

    Let me thank everyone who joined us for our last Halloween challenge, and also I want to thank Elaine for being our guest designer for that challenge also. There were so many fun cards and other art pieces I enjoyed checking them all out. 😀 You can't go wrong with a little playful spookiness when all the leaves are falling and the days are getting so much shorter. (At least for all of us here in the Northern Hemisphere.)

      It's time for us to start a new challenge however, and this time our theme is:

Make It Magical

     I made this collaged journal page. I used a piece of watercolor paper that I'd cleaned a stencil on, but since I didn't know what to do with that background, I covered most of it with some origami paper. It's magical how you can cover  over and go with a new page, isn't it? Hee-hee.

     I die cut the light green piece for the center, and then I stamped and  fussy cut/die cut the other images on my page. The rabbit jumping out of the hat and the magical quote came in a set I found this summer on markdown for just $1. I probably wouldn't have bought it because I wasn't sure I would use it a lot, but for only $1, how could I go wrong? I bet I'll end up using it a lot because Mr. Bunny is very cute. And it works perfectly for this challenge too.

     The magician is from an older TH die, as are the card suits. I used a bit of sparkle on the card suits and on the magicians hat. And the small fortune is a stamp that (OK I'm a little embarrassed to say this) I found on the floor of my art space. It must have fallen out of a set, and I never noticed it until I was cleaning one day. It was sitting on my work table waiting to be put away. It doesn't say much about the condition of my work space, does it? 😏

I used some minor confetti cards around the bunny, and there you have my page. 

Don't forget to check out the other designer's pieces for some great ideas. I can't wait to see your take on making magic. I hope you'll join us with some of your own magic art during the next couple of weeks. 

T Stands for Quebec Part 4-Some Views of Forillon National Park

Hi everyone. Happy new week to you.And it is also time for T again over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

     I've been sharing my September trip to Quebec with you, and today we are still on the far end of the Gaspe peninsula, a short distance north from Perce which was last week's T day post. (You can find that post here if you're interested: Perce.) Most of today's photos are from a Canadian National Park we visited called Forillon National Park. What a gorgeous place. We only spent a day there, but I wish we had one more day because there was a trail (or 2) I wanted to walk that we just didn't have time for.

Today's photos are only from one small area at the park's northern end which is called Cap-Bon-Ami.

This is Cap des Rosier lighthouse which is a tiny bit further north than Cap-Bon-Ami. Google posted the photo a bit out of order. 

Anyhow, back at Cap-Bon-Ami.

This little white throated sparrow ignored me being fairly close so I was able to snap a few very nice photos.

     And if I hadn't been talking with a woman from Ottawa I might have missed these seals sunning themselves on the rocks. She pointed them out to me. We saw a lot of seals on our trip, both before and after seeing this little pod. But these made the best photo.

Here's Cap des Rosiers lighthouse again, this time with a view from Cap-Bon-Ami.

And finally a view from a high spot, looking northwest.

    These are just a few photos, but for the sake of not making this post a book,  I'll have more park photos in another post. Plus I need my drink for T.

     We never really had lunch that day except for a few snacks so by late afternoon we were hungry. We drove out of the park and headed past the cabin where we were staying to see if we could find a place for a meal. We did end up finding this microbrewery that served food, and it ended up being a good choice for dinner. Not only was the food delicious, but it was full of locals which is always a good sign. Here's my husband being a goof-ball outside of the front entrance.

     This next photo shows my dinner (which came quicker than my husband's so he ended up eating a fair bit of it). It also shows our drinks. For dinner I had some pulled pork poutine, poutine being a specialty of Quebec. Basic poutine (which I believe is pronounced pou-tin but I've heard it pronounced several ways) is French fries, cheese curds and gravy, This time they substituted pulled pork for the gravy, and it was delicious! I've actually had more traditional poutine here in New Hampshire because some restaurants serve it.

    My husband opted for a lighter lager on the left, which was this microbrewery's  best seller. He got a big glass. I actually had 2 different beers in small glasses and I opted for 2 different beers, a red and also a brown.

      This next photo is not very good, but it's the floor at the microbrewery, which I thought was very unique and quite a fun floor. All those little circles are beer bottle tops. 

And in case you missed any of the other parts of my trip and if you are interested, here's the links:

Miguasha National Park, Part 2, Autumn Leaves and Part 1.

That's all for me today. I hope everyone has a happy T day and week ahead.

More Autumn Art

      Hi everyone. Happy weekend. I have a busy one with a niece's baby shower tomorrow, and my daughter and son-in-law are coming today. The son-in-law is going to help the hubby with a project for me 😏 which I will share more of another day.  Then we're all off to the shower tomorrow. But in between all of this, we're celebrating birthdays tonight since my husband and daughter both have birthdays this upcoming week. 

      Today I have some autumn views for you, first off are 2  pages for Alison's challenge at Art Journal Journey. The theme is owls today.

     This first page started with some printed paper that I attached to a page that I had inked in yellow and orange. The owl and the little moon are stamped and fussy cut. On the bottom of the page I made a border starting with some washi tape that I covered with  some rustic trim. I then used  a white pen to define this border,  and I also added a couple of paper gears that don't look like paper. ❤Finally I used 2 rubber stamp quotes to finish off my page.

     This other owl page is a bit different but still had a scrap paper and trim background. After the glue dried I inked the background brown to pull all the pieces together. I then added a layered paper frame, a chipboard gear which is painted and inked, a small craft metal screw top, a few small die cut leaves, and a paper image of an old metal bar with bolts as well as the light bulbs. I also added some bronze colored metallic paper trim. 

     This owl is made of paper clay using a mold. When it dried I  painted, inked and used a pen to color it in. I'm calling him a new species called Autumnal papersonii. Grin. Finally I used a very old Hero Arts word to finish off my page.

     And here's a few more Autumn photos, starting with these red oak leaves. I want to be able to recreate their color and textures on  a page because it's interesting and beautiful too.

     

Too bad for tree shadows, but this skeleton leaf is really interesting.

Some bare trees already.

The raking waiting for me in the backyard

and on the back deck

Popping milkweed

And passed purple asters

Have a nice weekend and start to the new week.