Friday Face Off

Hi everyone. Happy Friday to you.  Another week is winding down. It's been another fast one for me, and it's been busy too.  I seem to have had (and still have) several things on my must get done list. I hope your week has been a good one also.

Today I am joining Nicole's  Friday Face Off  challenge. My page also works for Elle's Fairytales, Folktales and Fables: Tell me a Story challenge at Art Journal Journey. Since we are getting close to Halloween, my page today is from my Halloween altered book.  

 My page is made in a smaller altered book, so I cut a skeleton face in half. The skeleton comes from a book  I have  that contains assorted black and white images. A section had some fun Halloween images that I copied, including the skeleton face I used half of on this page.

 First I painted the page in my altered book black and added this vintage style tissue paper. I even made it a tad bit wrinkled for effect. I then added the half skeleton face and also this die cut spider image that I had in my stash. Finally I stamped the quote in white. The quote is actually not as crooked as it looks, but my altered book is not laying very flat.

We have 206 various bones in our skeletons. Bones have several roles in our body such as protecting soft organs underneath them, allowing muscle attachment so we can move, and giving us support. Skeletons also came to be a part of Halloween folklore.  Halloween is also known as All Hallows Eve, the night before All Saint's Day. Some scholars believe that our Halloween celebrations originally came from this Nov. 1 Christian Holiday, while others believe that Halloween goes back to the end of the growing cycle and  Celtic holidays associated with that. 

You probably already know that info, but what is true with both ideas is that Halloween is associated with the autumn season and the end of life. I am sure you can also figure that point out. I did recently read that if you walk by a cemetery on All Hallows Eve, turn your pockets out and leave them out so that you don't bring home any ghosts or spirits. That was a new story for me.

I'm not sure this next photo counts as a cemetery, but if I walk by this house on Monday (Halloween), I might want to try turning out my pockets anyhow.

There's some freaky faces for you. (smile)

I am also linking up this post to Gillena's Friday Lunch Break.

That's all for me today. I hope you have a great start to your weekend.

Trick? or Treat?

Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. This week is going by too fast. I've been trying to get some must do chores completed (clean up all the books in my daughter's room before she comes home this weekend and get the bees partially winterized), and I haven't had any art time, sadly. Luckily I always work on several pages at once so I do have some things to share today.

Since we are so close to Halloween, it is time for some spooky art again. My art today is  on the dark side.  I am joining Elle's Fairytales, Folktales and Fables: Tell Me a Story challenge over at Art Journal Journey

Now to explain my page. In many fairy tales someone dies, often a princess's or young woman's mother or father who might even be the king or queen. And often there is an old crone (you don't hear that word very often, do you?)  who brings some magic potion which, if it doesn't kill you, might put you to sleep for years. You may drink that potion or maybe it's in the form of a magic apple so some other treat.

My page is in my Halloween altered book.  You can decide if this woman is the "old crone" who is delivering the potion or if she is the poor person who received it. I did some inking of the background, and then layered 2 pieces of ephemera. The photo is not an actual photo but from an ancient collage sheet.  All the potions are images I either stamped, colored and fussy cut or they are ones I drew and added. I also added some bits of cut out paper I had to make a couple of "corners" on my page, and I also added lots of little foamy bits. 

 Today is  Rain's Thursday Art and Dinner Date , and this week her challenge is Trick? or Treat? I think my spooky page also (in a broad sense) works for that because often in fairy tales the treat ends up being a trick. 

And here's a couple of fun Trick or Treat pages  I made in 2019.

And for the dinner date part of this post, I have this super yummy leftover meal.

 Every once in a blue moon I get a hankering for pot roast. I made one last week, and it was a yummy meal. However,  we still had a bit of left overs, but not enough for 2 people for a second meal. My solution,  I made hash.

I fried up some chopped onion and  peppers, then I added the leftover roasted potatoes and carrots along with the leftover beef. I served this with a couple of fried eggs on top. 

I find this is just as yummy as the original roast was. And this made extra servings so now I have lunch for a couple of days also, all from a tiny piece of leftover pot roast. I love it when things work out that way.

That's all for me today. Thanks for visiting. 

Bewitched

 Hi everyone. Happy Sunday to you.

I'm here today to join Bleubeard and Elizabeth for Second on the Second. Second on the Second is when you get to post a second look, or put another way, repost something you've already posted.

I'm going back to October 11, 2019 with  a post that was titled Halloween is Coming.

Today I have lots of ladies and lots of purple in my second look.

I picked this 2 page spread because the new challenge at Art Journal Journey is Fairytales, Folklore and Fables. It is being hosted by the talented Elle. Halloween has a folklore of its own, and I enjoy getting a little bit spooky once a year. 

Here in New England Halloween is easy to get into with the old homes (well old for the US), the trees losing their leaves and turning to bare skeleton like branches, short cold days, the old cemeteries you find everywhere (including along roads and in many people's yards sometimes)...well you get the picture. I can see why Stephen King became such a great writer of  his chosen genre growing up in rural Maine as he did.

And before I get too offtrack, one of the classic Halloween legends is witches. I know witches have quite a history, and that history is more about black magic and not wearing pointy hats and carrying brooms.   It is also not the nicest history to anyone who was accused of being a witch. 

Here is a new journal page for Elle's challenge over at Art Journal Journey. I made this in a Halloween altered book that I have been working on over the last few years and that I recently pulled out. I hope to finish this book before October is over.

I painted most of my background purple, and then I added this card shaped cut out from a book. The book where I found the this image came with a deck of fortune telling cards. I'm not sure what happened to the cards, but I still have the book.

After adding this image, I stamped the flying witch. I then painted the black night clouds on the page. The children are a TH image. The owl-key image is stamped, colored and fussy cut. It's from an old set of unmounted stamps, and I don't know who made them, and the quote is from the same set. 

That's all for me today. I hope October has started off well for you. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and thanks so much for stopping by my blog.

Happy Spooky Art Wednesday

 Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday. We've been having a rainy week so far, and it's been feeling chilly and raw also. I actually had to pull out my wool socks the last few days just to keep my feet warm. 

With Halloween this weekend, I want to first  share a some Halloween inspired art today for Tracey's challenge at Art Journal Journey. This month the challenge is  My Favorite Colour is October.

October is a very inspiring  and exciting month for art. Not only is nature eye catching this month, but then we add in the fun of making Halloween inspired pieces.  It's been a very productive art month in my house.

My first page is from a Halloween journal I created a few weeks ago. To make my new journal I first cut the pages out of an old hardcover book and inserted  one standard style signature back in the place where all the book pages had been located.  I then created some flip booklet style signatures for the inside of the front and back covers.  Today's first journal page is from one of the flip booklet style pages on the back inner cover.

This first page is the most representative of October colors, so this is my page for Art Journal Journey.

This black cat image was in my stash. He was really speaking to me.  So after inking my page black just to set a bit of a night mood, I painted the full moon, including the cloud strips. The orange and slight green to the left of the moon is some scrap wax paper. It represents the moonlight lightening the  dark sky. I also used this scrap of textured paper. I'm not sure if it is a language (maybe Hebrew or Arabic?????) or just designs, but it could be some ancient witch's or demon's language in a spell book, couldn't it? Then I added the cat, some little sparkle stars, and some black trim to finish my page.

My other journal page today is from my giant Halloween altered book that I have been working on for several years now. I seem to make a few pages and then put it away until the next year.  The colors of this page are not really October colors, so I am not linking this page up to AJJ, but still sharing it with you.

Yes, there's pink, but I think my page still has  an old fashioned slightly Gothic Halloween feel.

I made the layered background for this page last year, and it was as far as I got on my page. This year I completed it, using the black tape, some assorted stickers, a metal clock hand, the TH woman, a stamped and fussy cut image, the die cut spooky house as well as the little rat die cuts. 

That's it for me today.  Have a great Wednesday and hope you're week is going well. 

The Spooky Circus

 Hi everyone.

Today I have a journal spread to share for Tracey's My Favorite Colour is October challenge at Art Journal Journey.  My page today is a little less traditional Halloween than my usual.

 I find clowns very spooky and scary, and that is why I made this page in my Halloween altered book. 

Some of you might think this is just a fun circus page.

I painted the book pages black, and then I stamped some random images in white pigment ink. I have this  very very old set of  cool unmounted images that I bought from some company in Rhode Island back in my early days of stamping. That was so long ago I can't even tell you the name of the company, now long defunct I am guessing. Except for the circus block image and the plague masked doctor, the rest of the white images on my page are those. 

The circus tent is also another older stamp (a big one too!) from my collection , and after fussy cutting it from some white paper, I colored it some fall/Halloween colors. I also added the Halloween trim across the top of the pages. These 2 trim pieces are old acetate stickers left in my stash. Then I used an assortment of stamps and stickers (combined in many images) to complete the page.

We're suppose to have a slight warm up today. I've been cleaning up my gardens this week (a little every day), but I have to go to the dentist today so I think I will take a break from yard work for the day. I've also been making lots Halloween themed art, which has been fun! I'll share some another day.

Hope you week is going well. And as always, thanks so much for visiting. 

Old and New

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend. 

Today I am sharing art for Tracey's latest challenge at Art Journal Journey and also a piece for Elizabeth's 

Second on the Second challenge.

Here's my  second look  piece. I went for Halloween this time, since I always enjoy making a "fun" scary page. (I am really a big chicken when it comes to real scary.-smile)

This first journal page is from 2017 in my Halloween altered book.  It's a little bit dark, but not meant to be scary. I know some of you are not into Halloween at all, and me, I like it in a fun, vintage way. Here's the original link: White Crows.

Here's a how I made my page as I wrote about in this post: So my art today is my brain on the dark side. Or the nighttime side at least. I created this textured background with some modeling past, printed tissue paper, painted deli wrap, dark paper tape and some watered down down black paint.

So I was going for opposites and made my crows albinos.  Ghost crows if you'd like.

And this next piece is a new page I made awhile back.

This page is for Tracy's AJJ  My Favorite Colour is October challenge. It is from my garden journal.

October doesn't have to be about foliage colors. With the cooler, less humid air, the sky can also be so blue in October. Of course the squirrels are always busy with their acorns too.

 This piece began as one of the denim pages in my book that I painted this brighter blue.  There is some stenciling and stamping on it. I then went on to add a thin piece of blue and white paper as well as some vintage lace (a bit embellished with a small white pearl in each whirl), an embossing powder embossed leaf (made last fall from a leaf I picked up off the ground), some stamped fussy cut and colored acorns, as well as a quote block. The squirrel was a bit of a project, as when it was  stamped  on the background, it was rather hard to see clearly. The white part is the original stamped in pigment ink. Then I stamped the squirrel with Staz On ink a second time on acetate, fussy cut it and overlaid that over my white squirrel.  I actually like the 2 tones of Mr. Squirrel now. The leaf branch is a die cut/embossing folder that was made with white paper and inked with a gold ink pad. 

I know you wouldn't find lace during a walk in the forest, but I did like how it looked on the page. I like to think of the lace as some white fall wildflower like perhaps asters that we have here in NH.

I hope your new month is going well for you, at least for these 2 days. Have a great start to the weekend and, as always 

thanks so much for stopping by my blog.

Second on the Second and More

Hi everyone.  Friday is already here. I had very little on my schedule this week, and I thought it might be a long week (or at least a week for me to make a retirement adjustment  to the quiet). Just goes to show you how times flies when you're having fun-and making art this is!

Today I have lots of that art to share with you.

It is day 2 of October, and that means it is time for   Second on the Second    over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog.

I have a page from  my Halloween journal  today.  My Halloween journal gets carried over year to year, and here's a page from October of 2016.  October means it's time to have fun with a few Halloween pages!  (Not spooky though-I don't like spooky very much.)  I picked this page because of all the zig-zag lines that make up the background. There's also lots of other lines too. Right now, I have lines on the brain!

And I love the TH image of all the kids in their Halloween costumes.

Over at Art Journal Journey Chris is hosting. This month her challenge is Hold the Line.  Any kind of line works. (This why I have lines on the brain.)

My fall inspired page today has a background made with lots of lines of text.

I used a B Line rubber stamp, some word stamped images from a Stampotique rubber stamp, as well as some leaf stickers. And the clock punch out image also. My background is colored with some Distress Oxide Inks.

And lastly, I have one more tag for the Book Pages challenge at Tag Tuesday.

I made this tag along with my other tag (I showed you the other tag this past Wednesday), so there are some definite similarities. I used elephants as a background. Then I once again added bits of Japanese book page, some stamped words, and finally the big TH 2 hour time limit piece. No sure what the 2 hour limit would be, but if you like elephants, then I guess it could be that you can only watch them for 2 hours at the elephant reserve. 

A bit more rain is in today's forecast here in New Hampshire.  We sure need it. I think we are still 8-9 inches  (20-23 cm) behind normal, which is a lot for New Hampshire as well as other New England states. It's usually a fairly wet place. The only bad thing about the rain is so many leaves are down already. I think we are a couple of weeks early  this year. I am guessing that is brought on by the drought.

I  love how the ones that fall on my road get run over and look like fossils. 

I think I have chatted enough today. That's all for me. Have a great start of your weekend.

Halloween 2

Hi everyone.  My title today sounds like a horror movie title, but instead it is this Trick or Treating page that I recently made. 

The background is collage of various bits of tissue paper. Last year Hobby Lobby had packets of tissue paper (1 X 1 inch or 2.5x2.5 centimeter) squares you could buy for fall. (They might this year but I haven't looked them.)They worked out great here and you can see where I used them in the piece.  I also did a bit of stamping and then collaged over and around that also. I added some bits of paper tape to my background also.

Then I added the party style trim, the cut out paper crow, the TH found relatives, the TH stamped haunted house and some cut out pumpkins from a collage sheet. The crow needed to say something, and he announced that it was time for those kids to Trick or Treat.

Sorry for the the crooked trim at the top. This page is in a BIG book that is  one of my 2 Halloween journals. I like this particular journal because it is big enough to put 8 1/2 x 11 inch pages right into it. It doesn't, however, lay flat any more as I've been making some pages in it for several years. I really needed an extra hand to keep the top down when I went to photograph this, but having the kids in the middle be centered and straight I think is the most important.

And the milkweed were seeding today when I went for my walk.

I thought they looked pretty cool, and I image with the wind the seeds will be flying around soon enough. I hope most of them get to grow into new plants next year and help attract the Monarch butterflies.

That's all for me. Chores on the agenda for me today.It's that time to make the clothing change over and to pick up the lawn furniture on my screen porch.

Enjoy your weekend. And thanks for stopping by.

Halloween

Good morning from a very chilly New Hampshire. We even had a few snowflakes this morning. Brrr. Not sure I am ready for this.  

So I am going to join  up to 2 challenges today.

 I want to join in to the new Halloween challenge at Try It On Tuesday. This is a page out of my Halloween journal/altered book. Maybe I should have colored the background page but I liked the black and white. Then I added some bits and bobs including the sparkly  tree and bat, as well as a couple of wooden cats that I colored.

I am also going to link up to Linda's Creature Comfort theme at Art Journal Journey. 

And I'll also show you the latest autumn look here in my world. (These photos are from earlier this week. Since then we've had  rain and wind, and since it is still dark here, I bet we have a lot fewer leaves left on the trees.)

Thanks so much for visiting me, and hope all is well with you.

Cute Balloons and Art

Hi everyone. Hope you had a wonderful weekend. We got cold temperatures this weekend, not quite frost weather but this morning it was 39 degrees F (like 3-4 degrees C). I guess it is the middle of of October and time to get chilly, but just a couple of days ago it was like a hot summer day.

Today I had an afternoon of art. One of the pieces I was able to make is this tag which I want to share over at Tag Tuesday and their challenge buntings/flags.

I started by partially covering a tag with some music paper. Then I rubbed a bit of ink over it. I added some painted cardboard as well the TH found relative and some flower stickers. I also added a bit of cloth trim and some little gemstones.

I was also able to make a page to join Linda's challenge at Art Journal Journey, Creature Comforts, and my creatures are having a dance party.

I used  bit of black ink on the page and then added these fun stickers that I found in the Halloween section at Hobby Lobby awhile back. I drew the disco ball and colored it with silver glitter glue and also added a few little metal stars.

So yesterday I went to visit and celebrate my Mom's 89th birthday. Look at this fun balloon I found for her.

This balloon was about 2 feet tall and I knew Mom would love it. Her dad used to raise beagles so she named this one Sally as it was the last dog her dad had. (I actually remember Sally when from when I was a young child.) When I walked into her apartment building there were a lot of woman in the lobby waiting for lunch to begin and this balloon caused quite a stir. I think many of them hoped I was delivering it for them. 

She had a good birthday celebration and my brother showed up too so it was nice for Mom to have both of her kids (and one of her grandkids) there.

And here's the birthday girl. She'll tell you she's 29 again.

And since my brother showed up I got distracted and forget to get a group photo.

Thanks for stopping by to visit.