Wrapping Up July

  Hi everyone. It’s almost the end of July, and today I am sharing my final journal page for Halle’s Botanical challenge at Art Journal Journey. My page has a bit of a fall feel, but with the heat many of us have been dealing with, in many ways the chill of fall sounds fantastic. Of course, I'm really not trying to rush the year nor the arrival of autumn, I just wish it wouldn't be quite so hot. 😏

  My page today  is from my Nature Journal.

     I started by using yellow and orange ink on my background, and then I added 2 pieces of tissue paper with some birds and writing on it. After that I stamped the quote (not sure what company made this quote stamp but it was wood mounted.) Then I sprayed the page with some sepia colored spray ink to give the background a little more depth. Finally, to finish, I added a couple of laser cut images from 49 and Market as well as a crow cut out of some clear tape.

    Thank you Halle for hosting and also for picking such a great challenge theme too. I loved it. I hope you had fun too and want to join us again another year. I also want to thank everyone who joined in. Of course it's only July 30, so there's still a little bit of time to link up a botanical journal page if you'd like. 😉

    Let me end this post with some other botanicals. Since I am obsessed with flowers, I hope you also enjoy these views. And they are definitely signs of summer.

    And if you've made it this far, I'll finish this post with a visitor who stopped by my house last evening.

Can you notice Mama hiding in the background?

Have a great rest of the month.

 

T Stands for This and That

     Hi everyone. Happy new week to you, and as I always say, hello to all the T day participants who join in with their drinks over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

    Last week was a very busy week for me. Besides working my 2 mornings, I spent some time at the lake where my mother-in-law's house is. I believe I've mentioned this before, but even though I call it my Mother-In-Law's home, she is now in a nursing home as her dementia as well as her body functions have become too much for  her to be cared for at home or in the assisted living where she was. The house is actually now my husband's as well as his 2 sisters. This is the second year we've all been assigned weeks, (the best way to keep any one family from "hogging" the house), and last week was our week. 

    I was very excited that my daughter had some comp time at work and so she took Friday afternoon off and came over to join us. My husband also took the day off from work too, so the 3 of us could have a nice time together. (Well 5 of us if you count the dogs.-Grin) We had a nice afternoon, but later in the day we had a huge rainstorm.

    Luckily that storm only lasted about 30 minutes, but, HA HA, it was just long enough for me to doze off and have a nice little nap. 😏

    Saturday I had a wedding shower to go to for my husband's niece. She always tells me I'm her favorite aunt, and I definitely think of her as my niece too. Anyhow, when her sister had a wedding shower during COVID, I didn't go. I did send a gift and I made a paper flower bouquet as a decoration on the gift. That bouquet was a big hit, so I figured I better make one for the niece too.  I thought I'd share a few views of this latest bouquet today. 

    I had a spare tyvek envelope from the post office, and I liked the material, so I die cut a bunch of flowers from that envelope. Then I played with some alcohol inks to color the flowers.  I also cut a few flowers  from cardstock that I mixed in with the tyvek flowers.

     Here's a  close up view.

    Earlier in the week my good friend who lives in North Carolina was up visiting. She tracked down someone who we used to work and be friends with and who had moved away 20+ years ago, so one afternoon the 3 of us had lunch together and had a good catch up. And ha ha, when the waiter came over, I looked at him and thought he was one of my former students. When I asked him he smiled and said "Hi Mrs. Nelson. I recognized you as soon as  you walked in." Not only did I have some friends catch up but I was also able to catch up and see what my former students was up to. 😀

    I never took any bridal shower photos, but I have 2 drink photos for T day this week. I'll warn you, there's some food in case you're hungry.

    The first one is when I had lunch with my friend this week. I had a couple of pulled pork tacos and a frozen strawberry margarita. It was very hot and humid that day and so the icy drink was refreshing.

     My other photo is from Friday when I mentioned that my daughter took the afternoon off and joined my husband and myself. She loves a good lobster roll, and she hadn't had any from Pop's this year, so on our way up to the lake we stopped and picked up some take out for our lunch. You can see my Diet Coke which I brought from home.

   I probably wouldn't have shared a photo but I have to say that this lobster roll was the best one I'd had in a long long time. It was hot that day and also we wouldn't be eating lunch for about 30 minutes so I got both of our sandwiches with mayo (figuring butter would make everything soggy after that time), which as you can see if really lightly added. This sandwich was my idea of lobster roll perfection and definitely one worth taking a photo off. 😏

 

   

Happy Weekend

    Hi everyone. It's the last Sunday in July, and I must  not be paying  attention because I really feel  like it is only the middle of the month.  My excuse is that I think the wet cooler weather we had in June  made June feel like May so I am behind-grin. 😏 Glad I have the calendar finally  squared away, but I still can't believe next weekend it will be August. 

     Today I have a page from a smaller summer journal I am making.

     This journal is made on some colored cardstock, and you can see the green background paper on the far left. I covered the page with a section of some TH paper covered in flowers. 

     I then stamped the butterfly which is a very old stamp from (I think) Tattered Angels. If it's not from them it is from a company that makes/made mica spray ink. Sorry for the confusion but I bought this stamp set back in like 2004 or 2005, and I don't have the paper it came in any longer.

     I painted the butterfly with some pink water color paint. It didn't really color it pink, but it did slightly change the paper (it was stamped on) color so it stood out a bit more. Then I used white and pink paint pens to add the dots to it. 

     To finish my page I added the pink paper flowers and stems. Those stems come from one those pop-up cards that you can buy. My daughter had given me this card a few years back for Mother-s Day, and I usually put it back up in the spring because the bouquet was so pretty. But after several years of storing it and then putting it up, the pop up wasn't popping very much. I decided instead to use it as some images for journaling.  I finished by adding some washing tape along the right and left edges and stamping the TH quote.

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

     I've shown you lots of flowers in the last few weeks, but my veggies are doing well too. It won't be long until I have tomatoes.

     And I have sweet peppers and some jalapenos growing too.

I noticed my first zucchini growing, and this past week I've been picking lots of green beans.

Finally, I spotted this hopper on a plant in my wild-flower garden.

And just like this grasshopper, I'm hopping off. I hope you have a super rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

   

Friday Faces-On the Water

     Hi everyone; happy end of the week.  It's Friday again which means it's time for Nicole's Friday Face Off and also Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.

      It's been a busy week and I've had no art time nor did I think any faces.  I almost thought about not joining in, but then I remembered I have lots of face photos from last weekend on the boat.  Hope you enjoy them.

You may get sick of seeing my dogs, but I never do. Here's Mr. Pete (above) and then Miss Maddie.

I can't forget the hubby.

    The weather was so beautiful and the seas so calm we traveled out to the Isles of Shoals on one of our 2 boating days (although we did not go on any of the islands). The Isles of Shoals are several small islands about 6 miles off shore. A few of the islands have homes or research stations, and on Star island there is an old fashioned hotel (The Oceanic) built in 1876. In this next photo you can see  a group of visitors was being delivered to this island by a local tour company. 

   Although you can only see a glimpse of the Star Island  hotel on the far right of the photo, in this photo you can see some of the other buildings.

    Here's a few seabirds on Square Rock which is off one of the islands. Funny, the rock doesn't look square at all.

    Here's a few more island views, including a better view of the hotel.

I'll finish with this photo that I took when  we were back on shore.

Have a super Friday and start to your weekend.

Thursday Art

   Hi everyone. Happy Thursday to you. Here at my house we're going back into the heat and humidity. The last couple of days have been so lovely.  I chose today's page to link up to Halle's Botanical challenge at Art Journal Journey because it has a big hot sun on it that represents today's weather. 😏

    Acorns are botanicals, and something different for Halle's challenge. I also figured I'd add a few plants too.

     I had trouble figuring where to go with this page. I started by painting it that fun bright pink, and then I added the bright yellow flowered paper scraps and some thin pink and yellow washi tape. Hmmm. What to do next?  I decided to add the squirrel which was printed on some tissue paper. I colored him in. From there I added the acorn stickers and some plant stickers too. I still had a big gap of space that didn't look right, so eventually the idea of adding the sun came to me.

    The sun is actually an old cardboard coaster I'd saved. I painted it yellow, stamped the circular image to the center, distressed it a bit with brown paint, and then added some sparkles to it. For some reason, the sun made this page for me, even if it doesn't quite give the page perfect balance.

    I also have a tag for Tag Along and ATC's challenge blog. This month the theme is Anything Goes or In The Garden, and gardens is  what my tag for today is all about.

   My tag is made by stamping some garden images and over drawing them with colored markers. The stamps I used are a couple of old sets from Paper Artsy. The dragonfly is from Hero Arts. The background is a mix of grey, light blue and light green distress inks. I'm not sure who the quote is from, but I think it is from an old and now defunct company called Flourishes. 

    And what is an ATC? A couple of you said you had no idea what an ATC is when commenting on my last post, and since I was remiss explaining it 😞, let me do that now.  ATC stands for an Artist Trading Card, which is basically a standard sized playing card (2.5x3.5 inches in size or if you prefer metric 6.3 x 8.9 cm in size) that are made into mini-art pieces. They are great for swaps because you can easily mail these little mini pieces of art. 

    Of course those who make ATC's already know that. 😏

    Thanks for stopping by my blog, and have a super rest of your day.

   

Time for a New Challenge

    Hi everyone. It's Tuesday again, and 2 two weeks have passed (where did they go?) since my last Try It On Tuesday post. That means it's time for a new challenge at Try It on Tuesday .

    As I always do, let me first send out a thumbs up 👍to all of you who joined our Summer Blooms challenge. For those of us who love flowers, we were able to enjoy  some colorful and pretty pieces. Thanks to those of you who joined in. 

     Our next challenge is a fun one. This time we ask you to Make It Magical.

    I was thinking about Harry Potter for my page, although I didn't want to make it a strictly Harry Potter page. Instead I used some fun images from Ciao Bella. I started in my ledger journal  by spraying with some blue and lavender ink. Once that dried I added the transparent castle in the middle of the page, and then I added the fussy cut witch and dragon. I then used some acetate images from 49 and Market, and I finished with some words from the same Ciao Bella paper I cut the witch out of. I also added a few gold little star stickers, but I colored them silver because the gold didn't quite work. 

   There's lots of ways you can go with this challenge so check out the design team's work to get some other ideas. As always, this challenge runs for the next 2 weeks.

   I am also linking up to Halle's Botanical challenge at Art Journal Journey. You can see the plants on the witch's hat as well as the acetate branch that I added. Please remember we only accept art journaling at AJJ.

   I hope you're inspired to join us at Try It on Tuesday. 👍

    

    

T Stands for ATC and the Water

      Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. And happy T day to everyone who stops by for our weekly drink meet up at BLeubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

      I  joined Elizabeth's ATC swap for last week's T day celebration, and my partner was Jo. Her ATC arrived this past week in the mail so I'll share it today. It came in a little folder as you can see in my first photo.

    And here's her stunning ATC. ❤Thank you Jo! I love it. I was surprised how quickly it arrived (comparing it to how some domestic mail seems to take forever), and I'm glad to hear mine arrived too. 

    What's been up with me? It's been a big water week since we met for last week's T. 🌊🚰🏖 I spent 2 mornings working at the boat ramp, 2 days on the ocean in my husband's boat, and one day I even went to the beach at the ocean (Wallis Sands in Rye, New Hampshire) with some friends. 

     Here's a few random water views that I took when we went on our 2 boating adventures . I hope you like boats and ships. 😏

     Above is some of the local fishing fleet, and below, the Thomas Leighton which is  a cruise ship. You can  board this ship for a trip out to the Isles of Shoals (several small islands 6 miles off shore) to either stay there or for a day trip, take it for an evening dinner cruise or even take it on a whale watch.

     Here's a lobster boat  next to the Portsmouth Headlight and the Fort Constitution which was originally called Fort William and Mary. The original fort was built in 1632.

    Friday afternoon we saw this ship just offshore.

       Saturday we saw it docked along the river that takes us from the marina down to the ocean. 

    We guessed it was unloading gypsum since this dock is at a gypsum plant.

And this ship makes a much more peaceful view.

    Since it's Monday I need a drink for T  Day. My T day drink this week is my  water from  Tuesday when I was at the beach with my friends.

   If you wonder why I'm wearing along sleeves shirt on a 90 degree day (32 degrees C), I wasn't cold, but I'm one of these people who BURNS 🌞 very easily,  I was wearing a sun shirt to protect my arms. The towel was on my legs because I'd just finished eating the left-overs I brought for lunch, and it seemed better to eat them on a towel rather than eating them on my legs.  It was also very hot that day, and even though the ocean is quite cold off the coast of New Hampshire, it felt fantastic.

    If the forecast stays as it is, there will be more water in my life this week 😏 since it's our week at my mother-in-law's home. I hope you have a wonderful T day and new week ahead.