Friday's Assorted Photos-Wrapping Up February

  

    Hi everyone. Another work week is wrapping up, and Friday is here. I hope your week has been good. Plus it's the last day of February. This year is already flying by, isn't it?  I will be glad to put February in the books because it's been quite the weather month in my area. Today I have some assorted photos to share. I'll be linking up today's post to Gillena's FRiday Lunch Break and also Nicole's Friday Face Off. 

    First here's a few photos from this past week.  I received some happy mail the other day. My blog friend Vicki at Stamped Smiles sent me this gorgeous card as well as a little fun package. Thank you again Vicki. ❤

     At the end of last winter I started knitting this sweater. I got about as far as 1 and 1/2 sleeves completed before I packed it up when  the nice weather arrived in the spring of 2024. Recently I've taken it back out, and here's where I'm at right now. I'm hoping I can finish it before next winter. That way if next winter is as cold as this one was I'll have it to wear.

     I showed you my daffodils the other day, but I haven't shown you the tulip bulbs that I have and that are now flowering.

     The daffodils were partially blooming the other day when I posted them, and now they look even better.

    And here's some delicious koukourakia cookies that I purchased the other day at a somewhat local but definitely authentic Greek bakery. ( The owners speak about as much English as I speak Greek.) I was quite pleased with myself that I could still say "Thank you" in Greek. I learned it when I visited Greece  last March,  and the funny thing was I had so much trouble remembering it when I was there. 😁

    I need a few faces for Nicole's Friday Face Off, so here's a few faces I've taken at different points of this month.

     Miss Maddie loves me to throw snow on her when I shovel. She shakes it off and then waits for me to throw more on her.  

     Here's a couple of sky photos I captured earlier this month with my phone. First is Venus around sunset and the second is the moon rise.

     And finally, the huge wild turkey flock was back last week cleaning up the bird seed on the ground in my yard.

    Enjoy what's left to February, and have a great weekend and start of March.

    

    

Wrapping up February

     Hi everyone. Happy Thursday.

    I'm back today with another journal page as I am wrapping up my pieces for Vicki's Music challenge at Art Journal Journey. Thank you Vicki for hosting. You inspired us with lots of wonderful artwork. ❤And thank you everyone for joining in. It was a fun theme, wasn't it?

     My page today is a bit of a jumble, but I like it. It started with a sheet of blank (no notes on it) music paper. I then stamped various instruments using the TH music set  and a set from the old Flourishes Stamp company. The funny thing about that TH instrument set is I only picked it up because I found it marked way down (several years ago). I didn't think I'd use it all that much, but ha ha, it became one of my most used sets. Shows you what I know. Grin.

    After I stamped those I  added some die cut musical notes and clefts. I hit a roadblock then, and I wasn't sure I liked it. I decided then to ink my page with a brown ink pad, and I still didn't like it, so then I sponged some gesso over to which pulled the background together at least.

     I'm not sure who made the quote stamp, but I wanted to use it once this month. I decided to frame it in so it would stand out, and I added some die cut musical notes around it to help it stand out even more. Then I added an inked and drawn on violin chipboard I had in my stash. The violin was the original inspiration for the page, and I really wanted it to stand out. 

    That's all for me today. I hope everyone has a great rest of the month.

Violins

    Hi everyone. It's the middle of the week once again.  February is zooming by. Can you believe March is almost here? I'm ready. I was excited yesterday that we actually had some rain and not snow. We haven't had rain  (versus snow) for a long time. The weather guy also said last weekend was the first time since December our temperatures were over the freezing point. And yesterday, we hit 50 degrees F (10 degrees C). ❤❤❤❤❤ This is not an unusual winter in my area, but it is definitely a tougher one than the last few years.

    With this month starting to wind down I want to share another journal page for Vicki's Music challenge at Art Journal Journey. 

     I used 2 shades of blue ink to color my background. Then I added a musical scrap of tissue paper and also took a stencil and some white paint to add some details. After that I included a tag I made earlier for a challenge at Tag Tuesday. And then to finish off my page, I stamped the violin playing boy (Postmodern Design) and also stamped the quote (maybe Stampers Anonymous) and finished out by outlining the white paper quote box. 

    And speaking of Tag Tuesday, here's another tag with a Face for Michele's challenge.

     This time I used some multicolored water based inks with a bit of water, as well as a scrap of printed tissue paper, a die cut face that I colored in and added some flower shaped sequins to her hair, the stamped word grace and finally a Sharpie outlined edge.

    And I'll end this post with some spring blooms for you. The daffodil stems I bought at Trader Joe's this past weekend are starting to bloom. 

     Have a wonderful rest of your day!

T Stands for going to the Movies

     Hi everyone, including the T day folks. Happy new week to you. And it's time for the last T Day of February already. Be sure to stop by Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog where we share a drink and catch up.

      Last week it seemed like every errand that needed to be done, needed to be done. 😒 I ran out of bird food. I ran out of dog food. I had to go to the dentist for a cleaning and the allergist for my shots. Miss Maddie had a vet appointment. I ran out of olive oil and a few other kitchen staples that needed to be replaced. Etc.  I don't know if that happens because of bad planning/timing on my part or not. Does that ever happen to you? Where everything needs to get done at once? 

    I am  also ready for some walking weather. I am missing my walks. But other than the beach (and the tide nor wind always cooperate), the side walks are icy, my driveway is icy, my road is icy, the trails are covered in snow and ice...Good thing I had a bunch of errands to run last week because otherwise I wouldn't  know what to do. Ha ha ha! 😏  Seriously, it was a good art and reading and even cleaning in the house week in between all my running around.

    And it was a good movie week. 

    My friend Deb noticed that one of the theaters was running the first 4 Harry Potter movies on the big screen as  special showings. She's never seen them on the big screen, and I haven't seen them on the big screen since they were first released 20 or more years ago She asked if I wanted to go, and yes, I did. We went to the first one two weeks ago, and then last week we went for a movie marathon on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, one movie a day.

               

     I know some of you aren't familiar with this series, and some of you may love it or not like it. I won't bore you with movie details or my opinion of the films, but I do love seeing movies on the  big screen, at least the ones I really like or love. And with the surround sound  and big picture I will say that this past weekend I jumped at some spots that I never do when I watch a film on TV. 😁

    My drink this week for T day is a movie treat. I didn't get a film snack most days because the snacks cost more than the movie.  But most of the movies were matinees so one day I splurged and this was my lunch.

     I am a big fan of movie theater popcorn. But no butter please!

    That's it for me this week for T. I hope everyone has a great T day and week ahead. 

Sunday Art

     Hi everyone. Happy Sunday.  We've been having more sunshine 🌞 this weekend, and they say during the week our temperatures could get up above freezing. Hurrah!!!! I hope those of you in the deep freeze warm up soon also. 

     I'm here today with a bit of art for a couple of challenges. My first piece is a journal page for Vicki's Music challenge at Art Journal Journey. Her challenge runs through the rest of the month, which is at the end of the week. Didn't we just start February?

     I used a turquoise watercolor paint for the background, and then I stamped the images with a turquoise ink that was a bit darker, mainly because it was a different brand.  The stamps are really old from Postmodern Design. The composer faces are on a cube, and then last year I found the matching signature stamp cube on eBay. I was excited to complete the set. The quote is also from Postmodern Design. Too bad that company went out of business (well it was back in 2005 so not recent at all) because I really like their stamps. 

    The paper images are from a  Stamperia set. I die cut the musical staff and used an old hand punch to make the stars. And the moon is a gold paper image from my stash.

     I also made a tag for Michele's Faces challenge at Tag Tuesday I decided to stick with a night them and use these moon faces.

     I inked my tag blue, and then I glued down some tissue paper moon faces. I continued by adding some   bright green paint and playfully swirling it around the background. I left a bit of blue exposed. Once that dried I added the punched out stars, outlined the edges of the tag and finally stamped the quote. It's from another ancient set this time put out by Technique Tuesday. They were another company I liked that are now out of business. I guess like everything, stamp companies come and go. But the good news is, there are always new companies with fun new designs. 

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

     I hope you have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week ahead.

Birds at the Bird Feeders

       Hi everyone. It's almost the weekend again. Weeks go way too fast don't they?  

      It's been cold in so many places this week, including in my area, but the good news is the sun has been shining, the days are noticeably longer, and we've gone more than 5 days now without needing to shovel.  Plus, the winds that were crazy early in the week have gone, so now that they have calmed down I can even hear a bird chirp on occasion. 😀❤👍

      This week has been fairly uneventful except for running errands, but what has been eventful (in a small but making me happy way)  are all the birds at my bird feeders.  Today's faces are for Nicole's Friday Face Off.  I'm also linking up to Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.

      You'll have to excuse my photos since if I step outside all the birds fly off. These have been taken  through the window.

     I'm very excited about the bluebirds. Two years ago I only rarely saw any, and then I put out meal worms for them to eat and a bluebird box for nesting.  This winter I have a whole mini flock who are around every day.

    A few weeks ago in my book post I wrote about Mozart's Starling, a book about (obviously 😏) starlings. At the time I said I only occasionally saw them. Well since then they have also found the meal worm food. And sometimes (although not in this photo) I get about a dozen of them. I can see why people complain about them because the meal worm disappears quickly when they are around.  However, they need to eat too.

And the other day I saw a blue jay. I hear them often but I haven't seen one for a while.

   I never seem to have my camera or my phone on me to get a photo of the pair of cardinals that regularly visit, and I also should mention the chickadees, nuthatches and the various woodpeckers that didn't  make it in any photos either. 😏

   However, this smartie-pants squirrel has figured out how to avoid the baffle on the bird feeder pole by  jumping off the deck directly onto the bird feeder. 

He didn't like me looking at him so he turned around.

      And he knows I'm still looking at him in this (above) photo. After about 30 seconds he went back to eating and forgot about me being there. 

     I'd love to move the chair that the squirrel ricochets off of to get onto the feeder, but since my husband has yet to get the railing up on the deck and  since  I have a dog who is blind, the chair has to stay there. It makes a good wall so  Miss Maddie doesn't accidentally walk off the deck.  I  don't want her to fall and injure herself. 

     I'm going to finish off this post with a few drifting snow photos. I think it looks kind of cool.

Have a great Friday and weekend ahead!

The Dancer

Hi everyone. Happy Thursday.

    It seems strange not to have any snow in the forecast for several days, but I will take that kind of strange. 😀 👍 The weather folks are saying that  the temperature will be a bit higher and closer to the freezing point this weekend, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed 🤞the pattern of the last few weeks of almost constant winter weather has changed. However, I know winter isn't over in my area yet so I'm going to enjoy the less brutal weather while it's here. ❤

     Today I have another page for Vicki's Music challenge at Art Journal Journey I'm also going to join Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge Blog for their February #112 challenge.

     My page today is made with lots of scrap papers layered on the background. I then did some stenciling with a bit of white gesso. The accordion player is cut from a Ciao Bella pad. I added a bit of music tissue paper.  The dancer is a chipboard image that I painted. The quote is an ancient one from Post Modern Designs. And to finish, I outlined the page with a Sharpie and added bits of cloth ribbon/trim in the top left and bottom right corner.

    There's my page and I hope you like it. That's all for me today.

 

Lots of Cards

 Hi everyone. It's Tuesday.  That means it's time once again for another new challenge at Try It On Tuesday.

  Thank you to everyone who joined our romance challenge.  This time our new challenge is Boss It or in other words, it's time for some embossing. You can use wet media and embossing powder or dry embossing as any type of embossing is welcome for this challenge.

   I decided to make a birthday card for someone and use some embossing folders.

  I started with this birthday card folder and some red paper. This folder has the dots and the embossed Happy Birthday on it. And as you might know, I like to make things a little grungy 😏, so I used red ink over my red paper just to give it a bit more texture. I used a white Posca paint pen to highlight the happy birthday letters.

  I then used a TH die cut and embossed heart folder. I made it using the same red paper as the background, but this time I didn't rub red ink over it. Instead I used a white Posca paint pen on the flowers and over the bow. Then I added some white sparkle glue to the bow.  To finish off the heart, I added some Ranger Glossy Accents to give it a bit of shine.

     Finally I used some red metallic trim along the top and bottom, and I used a corner rounder to soften the corners. 

     I haven't done much embossing for awhile, and it was fun to play with these old folders from my stash. This embossing challenge runs for the next 2 weeks. and be sure to check out the other designers pieces. There's so many ideas if you're stuck.

     I don't make cards very often, but I was on a roll and made a few more in the process. On these other  cards I made the designs directly on the front of a glassy cardstock  blank card. And some of them even have embossing!

     I did some inking over the whole card surface. Before the ink dried I used a wet baby wipe and took off some of the center color. I then die cut a grunge style doily and added the stickers. I used some glitter glue over the stickers and colored in the open sticker spaces with a white Posca paint pen. I added some small confetti flowers and pink half pearls to finish this card.

    On these next 2 cards I inked the backgrounds, and once that ink dried I did some stamping in black. I used a TH leaf swirl die and embossing folder to make the swirls. Before I glued them down I inked them to highlight the leaves. I used the giant white paper daisies with a random brad in the center on each card.  I added  a scrap paper die cut leaf to each, and stamped my quote on the leaf. 

  

     For my final 2 cards I went really grungy. 😀  I started by using an older card suit stencil and dabbed over it with black paint. Once that dried I inked the rest of the card front.

      I die cut the playing cards and the suit images  using 2 older Crealies dies from my stash. I also added some  glitter glue to all the suit die cuts. The glitter glue isn't showing up very well on the black club  on this bottom card. Instead it looks poorly colored. 🤷

     Card making isn't exactly my strong suit, but I hope my collection wasn't too bad. And I hope even more  you feel like embossing and join us at Try It on Tuesday.

T Stands for a Roadtrip

      Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And to everyone who stops by for tea over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog, Happy T day to you.

  What have I been up to?  Last week started off without too much on the agenda, but luckily the weather cooperated for a Friday north into Maine road trip. It was hockey night for us, which since Friday was Valentine's Day wasn’t exactly romantic, but since my husband and I met in college and we traveled back to our Alma mater for the game, I guess it was fitting.  😏 

     I actually bought these tickets back in August, 10 minutes after they went on sale, and I couldn't get tickets for Saturday night which was our first choice. It worked out in the end because Friday and most of Saturday the weather was clear, but Saturday night a snowstorm moved in that lasted into overnight into Sunday. If we had had Saturday night tickets, our drive home Sunday would have been terrible.

     Even buying our tickets back in August, the only seats we could get is way up towards the top of the arena. It was OK though, since there is nothing better than being in your home area when you play your biggest rival team. 

     And even though it looks like we were a big distance to the ice, that's just because I took this photo with the wide angle view clicked on my phone.  We didn't need binoculars to see what was happening and the players were NOT that small. 👍

      This past weekend the University of Maine (my Alma mater) was playing the University of New Hampshire. Our rivalry is called the border battle not only because (for those not familiar with the location of US states) Maine and New Hampshire  border each other, but also because back in 1999, when these 2 teams were playing for the national championship, Maine won in over time. New Hampshire has never gotten over that.  (And maybe Maine still likes to rub it in-grin.)

    We usually watch the games on TV since the University of Maine is a little more than 3.5 hours away.  However, it was great to be in the home crowd wearing our hockey jerseys, listening to the pep band playing and the student section cheering and booing. We haven't done this since before covid, although we have been to a few games in other venues.  This is a horrible photo of my husband, taken with the wide angle phone lens,  having fun at the game.

    The game officially ended in a tie, but Maine won in overtime.😀 Saturday we watched the game on TV from home, and it was a much better game, at least for Maine. There's only a few more weeks of regular season play, but Maine is having a super year so they should make the national play offs. I'm not sure where those games will be played since some of the teams in the playoffs will be from other places in the US. 

    I hope I haven't bored you with hockey talk, but I also know this is T Day so I need to share a drink. Before the game we went out for pizza at one of the few places left from our college days.  Here's my beer and our 2 cans.

      And since it was Valentine's Day we decided to split dessert after our pizza. We had a slice of chocolate chip cookie pie. I wanted the triple chocolate cake, but that was already sold out. 😒 The cookie pie was very tasty though, and since my husband isn't really a chocolate guy, I'm sure he enjoyed this choice much more.

  The crazy weather has returned  to so many places so I hope you're safe and comfortable whatever it is doing in your area. Have a super T day and week ahead. 

      

      

     

Weekend Art

 HI everyone. Happy Sunday to you.

     We're in the snow  and then (supposedly) we'll be changing over to an icy mix again at my house. This weather is stuck on repeat so many places this winter. What a weather year 2025 has been so far. I hope wherever you are you are enjoying your weather, be it snow, cold, or maybe if you're south of the equator, a hot summer.

    For my area, it's been lots of cold and now lots of snow.  I wish I had been able to get a photo of this sign I saw outside of a business. But I was driving and the traffic was too heavy to stop. The sign said "PLOW....SHOVEL....SAND...REPEAT!"  That says how this month has been so far in my area. 😏

     Because of the winter weather it has been a good art year so far. ❤Today I'm sharing this page I made for Vicki's Music challenge at Art Journal Journey.

     This is a pretty simple page, but I like it. I started by stamping the quote in the middle of the page. Then I stamped the instruments around that quote.  The instrument stamps come from 2  stamp sets, an older TH set and also a just as old set from the long defunct Flourishes clear stamp company. The musical notes are also from that Flourishes set.

      I painted the instruments with watercolor paint, and then, to finish my page, I splattered a few colors of watercolor paint over my page.

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

     Have a super rest of your weekend and start to the new week!