Time for a New Challenge at Try It On Tuesday

   Hi everyone. Happy Tuesday.  Since it's Tuesday it's time for a new challenge over at Try It on Tuesday.

   Thank you everyone who joined our Pretty Papers challenge. There were lots of pretty papers which I enjoyed seeing. (And of course, lots of great creations from those papers too.) ❤

    For the next 2 weeks our challenge is Animals (Real or Imaginary).  I had a hard time deciding what animal or animals to pick, but then I thought I'd go with something a little different and chose turtles.

    I was inspired by this old Hero Arts turtle stamp since he's carrying the world on his back. 

    I started by gluing down some scraps of paper, and then using some turquoise ink and this interesting background stamp I finished my background. I stamped, colored and fussy cut the turtle. It's a great image, and I believe many native North American cultures believe that a turtle created the world. I would imagine there are some other cultures that believe that also, but I'm not a world mythology specialist so I don't know off the top of my head.

    I added a couple of turtle stickers, as well as a piece of a navigation map. I framed the map using a cardboard frame  I also used a bit scrap trim off my work table down on the bottom right. Then I finished my page with a quote off the same Hero Arts stamp set that the turtle came from.

   And don't forget to stop by and check  the design teams blogs too. There are so many animals out there that there is almost an unlimited choice of topics. 

   I'm looking forward to seeing your creations and seeing what animals people pick for their entry(ies).

T Stands for The Start of My Trip-Part 1

   Hi everyone. Happy new week and T day to those of you who stop by with your drinks. You might have noticed I've missed T Day  over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog  for the last couple of weeks. For those of you who don't know, my husband, the 2 dogs and myself took a giant roadtrip  to Nova Scotia. Neither my husband nor myself had ever been there, and it was as beautiful as we'd thought it would be.

    Here's a map for those of you who may not be familiar with the area I'm talking about. I added the red line and green circles which are a rough estimate of our trip.The green circles are in the general area of places we visited (and in some cases stayed) and the red lines are our general route.  The red dots are places we stayed.

   Before we went to Nova Scotia, we spent a couple of days in Maine. We did that because we took a ferry that went from Bar Harbor, Maine across the Gulf of Maine over to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. Originally we had planned to just go to Bar Harbor for a night so we wouldn't have to rush there on the day we were catching the ferry, but then I suggested we go up a day early and stop over in Belfast, Maine. I love Belfast because to me it is quintessential coastal Maine without being too crazy touristy.  I have been antsy to go back there for a visit for awhile now. (Belfast is the lower green circle and Bar Harbor is the upper one.)

    I'll fill you in on the ferry in another post, but  for T today I'm sharing a few views from Belfast.   The top photo is one I took while we were having dinner the evening we arrived. I'm sharing dinner further down in this post. The next photos are harbor views the next morning.

    If you wonder why I have so many harbor photos that's because one of my husband's favorite things are boats. When we go someplace where there is a harbor we are always taking a spin through. 😏

    As you probably have already guessed, one of my favorite things is art. There is a shop in Belfast that I love to visit when I'm there. 

     One side of the store is all about fabric. They had their Halloween fabric out, and I had to just walk by it, no looking, 😞. (OK, I did take a few peeks.) Otherwise I could have bought a bunch of material I don't really need. The other side of the store has art supplies. I only took one photo of that side because I was too busy looking at all the various media and materials.  I still had to remind myself that it was only day 1 of the trip and that the car was pretty full (we did have to keep room for the dogs to stretch out), so I settled for a few replacement markers, a new Staz On ink pad and a roll of book binding tape (because mine is almost gone). But I could have spent a lot of money in that store. 😁

  For breakfast on our morning in Belfast we went to this  cafe where we have eaten before. The walls have these fun murals on them. I might have shown photos of this cafe a couple of years ago for T day, but even if you don't remember them you can see the cup of coffee so this works as a T day drink.

     For my actual T day drink this week, I'm going to share where we had dinner.  It's another place we have been to before. It is called Marshal Wharf Brewing Company, and they have a really big and tasty beer menu. (Not that I had beer for dinner, but I had beer with my dinner. 😉)

    They are located right on the water so we had a great view of the sunset from our table.

  And they allow dogs to come in too. This is kind of a weird shot of Mr. Pete.

  Here's my T day drink photo. My husband decided on one beer, and I couldn't decide so I had a flight.

   For dinner we both had a grilled cheese sandwich, and instead of chips I substituted some clam chowder. It was a tasty dinner. 👍

   I think this post is long enough, so that's it for me. Wishing everyone a happy T Day and week ahead also. 

  

  

Sunday Art

   Hi everyone. I hope you are having a lovely weekend.

   Today I want to share my last journal page for Mia's  Background challenge at Art Journal Journey.  I'll also be linking  up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

  Thank you Mia for hosting again this year. You know we really appreciate it. ❤And thank you everyone who joined in. ❤ This past month I focused on making my backgrounds more of a part of my page rather than just making a background to put my page on. It was a nice challenge to change up my thinking and approach a  page a little bit differently.

  I found a page in my ledger journal where I had glued down 3 cloth hexagon pieces and then had done nothing else to the page. I decided to finish off this page.

   I started with an orange ink pad and a smaller design image rubber stamp. I decided to go grungy and do some overlapping in spots.  Then I took a piece of felt cut like lace  that's been sitting in my stash for way too long. I cut it to fill in the edge by the book's binding where my mounted rubber stamp wouldn't fit. I also cut the felt to work around the edges of my cloth hexagons. Once I glued it down and that was dry I used an orange Sharpie to color in the flowers that were in the lace.

   To finish the page I wanted to add something that wouldn't interfere with the background. I took 3 black and white stem/leaf images that I also had in my stash. I went with no color because I wanted to keep the orange on my background the focal color. I went with leaves also because there's a few flowers on the page in the felt lace and also in a couple of the  hexagons so the leaves felt appropriate. To finish the page I used a sticker quote.

  The orange in my journal page reminds me of autumn, which really has started to take on some color in my area. Here's a few photos from a walk I took Friday morning.

   That's all for me today. We're having a bit of a warm up this weekend, which is nice.  Have a super rest of your weekend.

 

Creepy Crawly and Then Some

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. I hope your week is going well. This post has several link ups in it, mainly because there are Friday challenges I like to join and also the month is winding down so I have some art challenges to join too. 

    Let me start with another  art journal page since these 2 challenges are ending soon. Today's piece is for Mia's Background challenge at Art Journal Journey. I am also linking up to this month Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge # 119. There challenge there is always Anything Goes, but you must use at least 3 types of media on your page.

      

   I started my page by inking a TH insect stamp with black ink and then stamping it several times all over my page. I then used a brown watercolor crayon and colored in some spots. After that I used a wet paintbrush to smush the color around the background. Some of the black ink wasn't quite 100% dry so it smushed that black with it. 

   I then used a small stamp and some red ink as well as adding  a scrap of red mesh I found in my stash. I then added some plastic rings (also from my stash) to create a design on the red mesh. Finally I used some red stickers to create my phrase.

  You might have noticed I hadn't been posting for a bit. My husband, myself and our 2 dogs took a trip to Maine where we then caught a ferry and headed over to Nova Scotia, Canada for 10 days. I still haven't really been able to do much with my photos from my adventure to Maine and Nova Scotia, but I thought I'd share a few random photos again just to wrap up my post. 

    I'll start with this silly view of my and my husband's faces for Nicole's Friday Face Off  and also for Gillena's  Friday Lunch Break .

     The downside of traveling with dogs is having to keep a large supply of poop bags on hand.  The dogs were great overall. They'd sleep as late (or as early) as we did. They rarely barked, and they love snoozing in the car. It helps that they're 11 and 12 years old too, and the weather was cool enough we could leave them to relax in the car here and there.

    I didn't know Nova Scotia had its own tartan plaid. Of course Nova Scotia means New Scotland, so I'm not surprised.

    This is a sign of one of the driving loops we took while driving out on Cape Breton. Cape Breton is the far eastern island in Nova Scotia. It's connected to the mainland by a causeway. I'll have a couple of posts later about this area of the province.

     Here we are getting ready to line up for the ferry in Bar Harbor, Maine. That ferry  would take us to Yarmouth, Nova Scotia in an approximate 3.5 hour trip. On the trip heading over the ferry wasn't very full, but on the trip back the ferry was at full capacity.

We stayed in a mix of hotels and Air B&B's.  One of the cabins we stayed in had this great deck with a gorgeous view (more about that some other time). Here's Miss Maddie relaxing in the late afternoon.

   It's not often I see yellow asters in bloom. I love autumn wildflowers, and we saw a lot of them.

   Our trip was a mix of nature, local history and local culture. Here's a view from a museum we visited about Alexander Graham Bell. Who knew he did so many interesting things? I thought he just invented the telephone. This is just a tease so I'll share more about that in a later also.

    And finally, some wildlife. We saw so many deer on our trip, as well as a few other animals.

    That's all for me. Have a wonderful end of your week and weekend ahead.

In The Garden

    Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. We've had some much needed rain these last couple of days, but not as much as we could actually use. Right now we're in a severe drought, and there's no outside burning in the whole state. 

    Since I came home Monday night from my trip to Nova Scotia I've been busy with some small chores, including the other morning in the garden.  The deer were quite busy while I was away. 😟😠😡

     So much for letting my carrots and beets grow more.

This is what my peppers and then beans looked like when I came home.

     And even this hydrangea right next to the deck got a good chowing down on.

    Add that to the severe drought we are in, I decided it was time to pull the veggie garden. Plus it is almost October and the end of gardening season .

    Here's a few of my beets and carrots. The carrots are small, but so are baby carrots you buy at the grocery store.

    I pulled a few last green tomatoes and the last of the peppers still clinging to the bare stalks. 

    Surprisingly my zucchini is looking great. It's in a different spot from the rest of the garden, and the deer cant't easily get to it. I picked one, and have a few others still growing on the vine. If it doesn't get too cold in the next week or so, I should be able to pick them.

     I also pulled my second batch of baby potatoes. 

     And ha ha, I think a squirrel must have tried to bring this treat back to his/her nest.

      That is the strangest place I have ever seen a tomato. It certainly didn't grow there.

   I moved a few plants into the greenhouse. Some of them were perennials/house plants that I still need to carry into the house, and a few of them were garden plants that are growing in large garden bags.  I hope I can get some more grow time from them if they're not outside. Of course there is no heat in the greenhouse, so I can't overwinter in there. Moving plants inside is just a temporary stopgap measure. And once we get a dry day, I have more garden cleaning to do. Wasn't I just setting up these gardens? 

   Have a super rest of your day.

  

Home Again

     Hi everyone. I hope everyone has had a great last couple of weeks and a nice start to autumn.  The hubby, dogs and I had a fantastic trip to Maine (for a couple of days) and then we had 10  beautiful days in Nova Scotia, Canada.  The weather was great; the people were friendly; the scenery was gorgeous; we had some cozy accommodations...you can probably tell we had a great trip without me having to go on anymore.❤

   I know I didn't get a lot of time to visit many blogs, but I had a couple of evenings where I did stop by for some quick visits. I don't know how easy it will be to catch up so I may just pick up with new posts. I've hardly had a chance to go through my trip photos either, but here's a quick tease from some photos I had on my phone. 😏

    There will definitely be more views to come once I have some time to download, go through and organize all the photos I took. Since we arrived home Monday evening and yesterday I was loaded with laundry and unpacking, you'll have to wait for more on my trip.😏

  I  want to link up another journal age for Mia's Background challenge at Art Journal Journey since it is already the 24th of the month.  We weren't gone that long on our adventure, but my latest page speaks to how much more autumn-like it became while we were gone.

   This time I made my page on a slightly off center angle because I liked how the book pages looked with a slight lean to the inner journal binding. Plus I liked how the not so straight  book pages makes the leaves look more like their fluttering on light breeze.  I glued the book pages down on the page in my ledger journal. Then I used green embossing powder and a background design rubber stamp to give my page a big of a summer reminiscence. I then used a maple leaf rubber stamp and some copper embossing powder to randomly add the leaves. To finish I added the quote (Unity Rubber Stamps) which I stamped on some paper and fussy cut around. I then outlined the edges with a Stabilo watercolor pencil. To finish, I added a couple of punch out images from an older 49 and Market image set. 

  That's all for me today. Thanks for stopping by.