The Bees Are Wrapping Up June

    Hi everyone.  I hope you're having a wonderful weekend. Yesterday we had another rainy Saturday. We've only had one sunny Saturday since March, and that was last weekend. I hope that one day wasn't a fluke, and we'll see more sunny Saturdays soon.

      Today I want to share my final journal page for Matilde's "People" challenge at Art Journal Journey.  I also want to thank you Matilde for hosting again and say that we loved having you. And I don't want to forget to thank everyone who joined in too. I always love seeing how people interpret a challenge. 👍

      As I have various types of media, I am linking up to Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge BLog challenge # 116. I really am squeezing this one in at the last minute since the challenge ends tonight. 😏 I'm also linking up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

      I chose to finish the month with this honey bee inspired page.

    In my big sticker book that I shared a few weeks back ( post is here if you're curious) there was this huge but lovely vintage bee sticker. I first used scraps of paper to cover my journal page, and then I added the sticker.  I then used a Creative Expressions stamps set to stamp the vintage bee keeping lady. I fussy cut her and left her uncolored so she's stand out more, but I did color the flowers that I stamped and fussy cut around her. I even added some little half pearls to them. I then added some washi tape along the bottom so she wouldn't be floating, and I added the cloth sun sticker to the top. I colored the sun with some yellow marker. Finally I stamped the quote (from the same Creative Expressions set) and fussy cut it.

    In this next photo you can see this page as well as the edge of the page next to it in my current journal project.

  And speaking of bees, I went  into the hives on Friday.  The 2 hives are total opposites. I have one hive that is just hanging on (meaning I hope the colony number increased enough so they'll make it through the winter), and I have one hive that has made more honey in the last month and a half than my other hives ever made in a  season. It's almost time to put on the super (which is the box where the honey is for you, the bee keeper) and get me some honey 😀.

Have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week ahead.

Beautiful Days

    Hi everyone.  

      I'm back today with another page for Matilde's What Makes You Happy challenge at Art Journal Journey  One thing that makes me happy is being by, on, or just in the vicinity the ocean. I sometimes think it's because I must have a lot of Viking DNA that was passed down to me. Ha-ha Grin!

      I'm also linking up to Creative Artiste MIxed Media Challenge blog. Their challenges are always Anything Goes, and this time it is challenge #105.

      This is a page from my Greece journal. The background paper reminded me of the many times I was near the ocean in that country including riding a ferry, driving along the shore, or walking near the shore.  The paper was only 8x8 inches, so I had some space on the top and bottom of my page. I filled in the bottom with some die cut waves (using a very old QuicKuzt die) that I then added some white glitter glue too. Along the top I used some fabric ric-rac trim. I would have loved to stitch down that trim in, but sadly the page behind this was already finished and I didn't want to ruin it with stitching. I also added a layered frame, an older quote as well as a die cut seagull.

     Last week after my allergy shot appointment I met up with a friend, and we went for a walk at the shore at Odiorne State Park. It was warm, but not really humid, plus there was a lovely breeze off the water so we had a nice walk. Thought I would share some photos today.

Did you spot the painter?

The path right along the beach looked like it had been re-sanded. It was pretty walking through this patch of beach roses.

Further along we came to pink ones too.

And along the trail, there was a patch of beautiful irises. This was an area of an old homestead, so maybe someone planted them long ago. I don't know.

I just love this part of the park and walking under these oak trees.

And of course the ocean is always great to see.  This view is at one end of the park overlooking a harbor.

The jetty marks the end of the harbor. Some day I am going to be here when the tide is low and when  I can walk out to end of this jetty. I think that the wet area just beyond the first rocks looks a little sketchy when there's water up around it.

And here's some views out to open ocean. (well mostly)

Tomorrow for Friday Face Off I'll have some ocean views from Greece.

Thanks for stopping by my blog, and have a great Thursday.

 

It's All About Santa

 Hi everyone. 

The last 2  weeks have again flown by, and it is already time for another challenge at Try It on Tuesday. Thank you Maz for hosting  our last challenge. And thank you to everyone who shared their Winter Wonderland art with us. 

Our newest challenge runs for the next 2 weeks and has a festive theme. Our challenge is

It's All About Santa.

I have a journal page to share.

I started by using a musc stencil and some soft molding paste. Once that dried, I used a red ink pad to give the musical background some color. The big image is actually a small sheet of paper. The smaller Santa is an image from a collage sheet.  I used some red metallic paper trim to outline both pictures. On the top right edge I added a small metallic paper bow. Then I added some red and white cloth trim along the bottom. I attached it by stitching it to my page.

I finished my page by stamping a few items and then adding this little gold metallic paper  Santa in his sleigh. 

And be sure to check out the variety of Santa art the TIOT design team members have shared. There's lots of variety, and my teamies are a talented group.  Also, I want to send an early thanks to Bleubeard and Elizabeth for being our guest host for this challenge since our next challenge is our 2022 Spotlight where we share some of the pieces that have yet to be recognized during 2022.

TIOT's It's All About Santa challenge runs for the next 2 weeks. We accept all kinds of art at TIOT.

I am also linking my page up to 2 other challenges. First of all I want to link up to Jo's Snowy Winter challenge at Art Journal Journey. (Please remember we only accept journal pages at AJJ.) 

I also want to link up to Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge # 89. Their theme is always anything mixed media  goes. 

Just an FYI- This is the last challenge we will run at Try It On Tuesday for 2022. It's time for  our annual holiday break. Our next new challenge starts on January 10th of 2023.  Be sure to check in however as we'll be posting our Spotlight Winners before our new challenge begins.

Thanks for visiting my page, and I hope you can join us at TIOT.

Wednesday Art

 Hi everyone. It's already the middle of the week again, and we've made it into the double digit days of the month. August, please slow down. I love autumn, but I am in no rush for winter to return.

Today I have some art to share. First let me show a piece for Chris' When We Were Young challenge at Art Journal Journey. I think most people can relate to this experience.

It's that time of year, or almost that time of year, when kids are getting ready to go back to school. Right now there are so many back to school ads just about everywhere I look. When I was young, I was always excited to go back to school, except the year I started high school. That year I was terrified.

I started by inking my page, which looks a bit splotchy, but also works because it doesn't interfere with the images I chose to use.

I die cut the apples with an ancient Spellbinder's die.  Back to school used to always be September (at least here in New England), which of course is also apple season. I wonder if that's where the saying "an apple for your teacher" came about.

I  had the math flash card in my paper stash. The black and white stamped images on the bottom of the page are from an ancient stamp set by October Afternoon, and the 2 stamped phases on the top of the page are from another older set by Oxford Impressions. I drew, colored and fussy cut the pencil which seemed to be what the page needed, especially based on the quote. 

And then I finished the page with some number and alphabet washi tape.

I also have a second journal page to share today.

 I am linking up this page  to More Than Words. I've been meaning to join this challenge for awhile now, and finally, I've managed to get a page made that works for their challenge. This month they are asking you to use a map of some kind and also the word adventure.

You can see my map is the globe.

I started my page with some tissue paper and a page from an old book. Then I added some Art By Marlene images. They ended up being too bright for where I wanted to go with this page, so I lightly brushed some grey paint over the whole page.  While it was wet I wiped much of it off. Then I sprayed some white ink on to give my page for some extra motion and details, since travel and adventure often require a bit of movement. (Unless of course you are armchair traveling.)

Finally I cut out this great lady from a Stamperia cut out book and added the ric-rac because it reminded me of waves. And from the look of her dress, some of her world travel will probably be on the ocean.  I also think she might be looking into the future with her spyglass, and perhaps she even has a time machine to take her to the time of air travel.

I am also going to link up this page to Creative Artiste Mixed Media blog challenge #85. The theme is anything goes as long as you use various types of media on your page.

That's it for me today. Have a great rest of your day.

Recycle

 Hi everyone. Happy Tuesday to you.

I'm here today because it is time (already!)  to start a new challenge at Try It On Tuesday. Thank you Fiona for hosting  our previous challenge, and thank you to everyone who shared their masculine inspired pieces for this  challenge also.  For The Man In Your Life was a fun challenge, and it was great to see all the masculine ideas people had.

Our new challenge that starts today is: RECYCLE

I am sharing a page from my tag book. I started by using blue watercolor paint on a page in my journal.  Once it had dried, I used a very wet paint brush and splattered water all over my page. On part of the page I left a stencil as I splattered the water also. When my background dried the second time I had this fun mottled effect.

I then recycled a page from an old dictionary along the left edge.  I also recycled an old tag. To do that I needed to pull off  an old image that was on the tag. That image came off easily because it was attached to the piece of recycled rusty screen on the tag. And my tag also contains a recycled scrap of striped paper as well as a piece of corrugated cardboard that I cut out and added.

   Once I attached the tag to my page, I drew in and used white ink to color in the clouds. The quote is a very old stamp; who made it is long forgotten, but I must say it is one of my favorite quotes.  You can see it better in this next photo. 

The quote was already on the tag, so I kept  the theme the same. To finish my page I added a few of Art by Marlene punch out images.

Our RECYCLE challenge will run for the next 2 weeks at Try It On Tuesday. We accept all kinds of art as long as you stick to the challenge, and this time you should somehow recycle something. And don't forget to check out the design team's art too. There are so many ways to recycle, and they have some excellent examples.

I am also linking up my page to Creative Artiste Mix Media's challenge, where anything goes as long as you use at least 3 different types of media. 

Thanks for visiting.

The Adventure

Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Another weekend is upon us, already. I hope June slows down just a little bit, but it does seem like during the nice weather time passes even more quickly than it usually passes. Of course time itself doesn't change, so I think it's just that I am enjoying the beautiful weather we've been having many days lately.

Today I have another page to share for several different challenges.  Before I list the challenges, can you figure out the story behind my page?

My page is all about a sea adventure, and I'm thinking for at least some of the trip the tropics are involved since those fish have some beautiful flowers on them.  Perhaps this sailor experienced  some fish cooking rituals on a tropical island while on his journey.

I made my page by first attaching a torn piece of paper. I really like how it filled a lot of the page, leaving those 2 corners open. I then used 2 shades of blue to ink the background. After that I stamped the fish head 3 times. The flowers and eyes  of the fish are colored with markers, and I used a watercolor pencil with  a bit of a water wash to finish the rest of the head. 

Many of the images on this piece are cut out of a piece of crafting paper. The lighthouse was on a sheet of arty images, and the man who is taking this voyage in his yellow raincoat is cut from an old Jacques Cousteau book. This book was in the free pile outside the school library back in my working days. I collected quite a few books to use in art this way. When I was putting things back into my art space I thumbed through this book looking for fish, and when I saw this many in his raincoat, I knew what I wanted to do with him.

Finally I used a stencil and a Sharpie to title my page.

I want to share this page with Mia's FISH challenge at Art Journal Journey. I am also sharing it over at Creative Artiste Mixed Media as their challenge is always ANYTHING GOES. And today I have fish faces for Nicole's Friday Face Off.  And finally I am also linking my post up to Gillena's Art For Fun Friday.

Wishing you a great weekend ahead.

 

Friday Art

 Hi everyone. It's Friday, and it's almost the weekend. And it's Friday the 13th which might mean something if you're superstitious. I also just learned that Sunday there is a lunar eclipse.   

My husband is taking today off from work to get a few things done. I’m excited because today the plan is to get the floor in spare bedroom get completed.

You can see we moved my big shelves away from the wall and there is just a strip of floor left to do. And the best thing is when we finish and move the shelves back, I can start actually putting things back for good. 

As it is now mid-May (or just about),  things are starting to open up for summer. I'm excited because this was the sign at Pop's.

Hey, that's tomorrow!

Today I have some art to share with you.

First I have a journal page that I am sharing over at Art Journal Journey for Matilde's Birds challenge.  I also want to link up to Creative Artiste's Mixed Media Challenge. This month is their 82nd challenge, and as always, the challenge is Anything Goes.

My page is made with  various papers, stenciled bricks (using white gesso), and a little bit of ink. I also used a stamped and fussy cut lady, as well as some stamped flying birds, and some other ephemera. I finally trimmed the top and bottom edge of the paper with thin washi tape.

I also have another tag I want to link to Pinky's Add Some Stenciling challenge at Tag Tuesday.

This time I stenciled part of the background after inking it. I also used a stencil and a red Sharpie to trace the big hearts, as well as the dotted line design.

That's it for me today. I'm linking up to GIllena's Art Break which does every Friday. I am also linking up this tag face to Friday Face Off over at Nicole's blog which the Face Off link will take you to.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

I Can Hear Music

Hi everyone.  

The last 2 weeks have flown by, and I'm back again with some art for our new challenge at Try It On Tuesday  Big thanks to all of you who joined us for our Spring colors challenge, as well as to Koyel for hosting with her beautiful art piece. 

Our next challenge is I Can Hear Music.

I thought these 4 friends looked ready for their high school prom in their pretty spring dresses with corsages pinned to their shoulders. We're getting into prom season right now at high schools here in the US. I'm not sure if proms are held elsewhere, or if people elsewhere even know what proms are. Here in the US they formal or semi-formal dances usually held for older high school students. In the school I taught at there was a separate junior and senior prom (the last 2 years of high school), but at my daughter's school they had one prom for both years combined.

The best things about the prom now, compared to when I was in high school, is that they aren't strictly boy-girl dates any longer. That certainly makes it less disappointing to someone who doesn't have a date to go with, as it was back in the day.

This theme of my journal page prom is In a Garden, and these girls decided instead of looking for dates they would go as a group of friends. They had a fun time picking out new dresses with each other  and also picking out their flowers. And they can't wait to dance to all the music that will be played. 

Just like Cyndi Lauper's song title, Girls Just Want to Have Fun. 

I made my page by first stamping lots of images on a journal page. Then I watercolored painted the flowers, and watercolored the background a different color.  I added the die cut doily and a strip of polka dot paper for my girls to sit on. I added some paint dots to the centers of the flowers, and also some flower sequins because this is a prom page and these girls want the night to sparkle.

You have the next 2 weeks to link your music themed art up to the Try It On Tuesday website. We accept any types of art. And don't forget to check out the design teams musically inspired pieces. They always have some beautiful pieces and lots of inspiration. 

It will be fun to see everyone's musical art.

I'm linking my page up to 3 other challenges. First,to Alison's Play It Again challenge at Art Journal Journey where the theme is to create a page with a favorite song or movie. You can probably recognize the song by its title on my page. I am also going to share my page over at River of Creativity, challenge #12, where the theme is Anything goes with an optional twist of Spring, as well as linking up to Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge #81, where the theme is always anything goes, as long as you use at least 3 types of media.

Thanks for visiting my blog, and hope you're having a good week so far.

Down on the Farm

 Hi everyone.  Happy Thursday to you.

I'm back today with a page for Art Journal Journey.  This month the talented  Alison from Craftytrog's Arty Adventures is hosting, and her theme is Play It Again Sam. Today I have another page that represents a song.

Since I used so many bits and pieces to make this page, I am also linking up to this month's  Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge, challenge #81, which is always anything goes, just use a variety of mixed media ephemera or techniques. 

And lastly, I am also joining Rain who I've recently "officially" met over at Food Wednesdays, but who many of you already know. Here theme this week is Farm Life.

Here's my art journal page. 

I started this page because while going through my scrap bin I came across this giant Red Rooster image.  It was part of a big can label, although I have no idea for what item. I received the label as a freebie when I bought some art supplies a few years back.

 I collaged some yellow tissue paper on my blank page.  I filled in the white space with some yellow watercolor paint. I also stamped the black checkerboard, but because this page is on the left side of my journal, and the left side of my journal is starting to bulge  a bit, the image didn't stamp very well. (But I must say I like the effect.)

I then collaged some printed acetate scraps, my food label, an old playing card, some other chicken images and some little yellow foam sunflowers. The playing card gave the farm boy a convenient place to sit, and the quote is one I made up using some older TH word/phrase stickers.

And I'll be honest, I didn't start with a song in mind when I made this page. The rooster label was calling me to be my centerpiece, but once I made it, the  song that jumped  into my  mind  was the Chicken Dance.  You might be familiar with that song because it is so often played at weddings and other events and has people dancing like chickens. I liked my page, but didn't think that was a great song for Alison's challenge because it's not even a song I like.  I almost decided not to post this for that challenge. 

 After looking at my page for awhile though, a song finally came to me, and even though it's not my favorite John Denver tune, my song  for this page is Thank God I'm a Country Boy. Here's the first stanza that fits my page.

Well life on the farm is kinda laid back
Ain't much an old country boy like me can't hack
It's early to rise, early in the sack
I thank God I'm a country boy

It is a catchy tune though, and John Denver makes great listening. He was also an excellent song writer. One of my favorites he wrote that you usually don't associate with him singing in I'm Leaving On A Jet Plane. Perhaps that would make a great page.

That's my art and post for today.  I hope your week is going well.

Thanks for visiting.