The Final Troll and Some Garden Photos

 Hi everyone. Happy Sunday. 

This is another pre-post as my daughter and her beau are still here. Yesterday afternoon was my husband's niece's wedding, so it was busy day. I can tell you more about that event another time since I am writing this post before the wedding occurred.  I can tell you I was worried I wouldn't make the wedding. Silly me getting my shingles and flu shots the day before. Luckily the Tylenol took care of my aches and headache!

I do want to share the final of the 5 trolls today, and I will show you a few photos from the Gardens also.

The last troll is the troll of the leaves named Gro. We found her in the late afternoon, and since she was deep in the forest, there were lots of shadows.  

She looked a lot like a yoga troll too. Smile.

Gro was situated in a large rhododendron grove, so I bet come late spring she will be in a beautiful flowering spot.

And here's a few other photos I took in the gardens.

Near Gro was this pretty little waterfall.

As we were in the forest and surrounded by some not blooming rhododendrons, it was hard to get a full photo of the waterfall.

And do you remember the Indian Pipe flower stems I showed you earlier this past summer? These are plants with no chlorophyll, which is why they are white and not green. I finally saw some blooming. I haven't seen them bloom before.

Here is the original photo from late July, not take at the Botanical Gardens.

Walking in the woodlands, there were not a lot of flowers, but still some beautiful things to see.

Like mushrooms,

a view of this tidal river,

this giant pine cone statue

and this cod fish.

We also passed a few fairy houses, in an area where children this past summer created a fairy garden.

Maine Coastal Botanical Gardens also had a some other pretty gardens, including a gorgeous dahlia garden and a children's garden.  Here's a few just photos for a tease. 

I'll share a few more views of the  Botanical Garden photos during the upcoming week.

Enjoy what is left of your weekend.

Friday Art and Troll #4

Hi everyone. Happy end of another work week.

Today I have some art to share as well as one more troll from the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.

My first page is from my owl book, and I will be linking it up to 2 challenges. First of all I am linking to More Mixed Media. This month it is anything goes with optional orange. 

I am also linking up to Tracey's My Favorite Color is October over at Art Journal Journey.

I stenciled the background bars directly onto the grey chipboard without doing anything else to the background. Then I added some die cut pieces, slightly modified. The 2 clouds were painted acetate, left over from a page I made back in August.  I added the paper leaves, an owl sticker,a small pumpkin embellishment, and finally I stamped the quote.

I'm sticking with the owl theme in my tag for the latest challenge at Tag Tuesday. This time Pinky is hosting and her theme is purple and orange.

I love that Lynne Perrella woman with her owl. She is stamped on a purple inked background. I also stamped a few other items onto the background, and added some ephemera, including the row of orange plastic dots to make my tag fit this latest challenge.  The field trip sticker I added is a very washed out orange.  I this piece is orange and purple enough, but I did make a very orange and purple Halloween tag I'll share next week.

Today I have troll number 4 to share with you.  After walking even deeper into the forest at the Maine Botanical Gardens, following the map, we came across Soren, the troll for the branches of the tree. (This troll also works with my tag's stamp today.)

Don't you just love his hair? 

It was a lot of fun finding these trolls. Plus it was great to walk in the forest on some beautiful trails. 

I'll share the last troll with you on Sunday, since tomorrow I have already pre-scheduled my monthly book post.

Have a wonderful start to your weekend.

An Autumn Owl and Troll #3

Hi everyone.

 I am back today with another page from my recently made owl journal. I am linking it up to Tracey's challenge at Art Journal Journey. This month the challenge is October is My Favorite Colour.

This page from my owl book definitely feels like October. The background is combination of ink and some vintage colored printed tissue paper. I used a very small stencil and some orange paint also. The owl is a vintage stamp from my collection. I actually stamped it twice so I could make the face pop out of the hole a bit.  (Although I guess in real life the face would be inside the hole.) I also used some fall looking clear leaf and berry stickers as well as some paper leaves. I finished the page by using some embossed letters that spell out the word owl. (Just in case you couldn't tell what the page is about-smile.)

We have at least one pair of bard owls living in the woods around our house, and last night they were sure making a lot of noise. In fact they've been noisy frequently. If you have to listen to outside noises at night, these are the kind to hear!

For today's troll, meet Birk. He is the troll of the roots, and we had to walk even further into the forest, following the map, to find him.

Birk is a root troll.

He has very big hands!

Birk is also a very big troll too. I bet at least 10 people, if not more, could sit on one of his legs. He is lounging on the forest floor, which is what roots should do, right?

I'll be back tomorrow with troll #4.

I hope your month is going well for you so far. And as always, thanks so much for visiting. It is much appreciated.

A Pretty Scene and Troll #2

 Hi everyone.  Happy Wednesday.

I'm back today with this page for Tracey's My Favorite Color is October challenge at Art Journal Journey. I am also linking up to Creative Artiste Mixed Media. As long as you use several types of media the challenge is anything goes.

My inspiration for this page is this picture of this pretty autumn view. I partially framed it with some gold foil trim and added the gold foil sun. I placed the picture on a gelli printed page, and I picked this background out of my pile because of the blue in the print matched the blue of the sky.

The big leaf is a cardstock die cut that I added the veins  with a posca pen and stamped a couple of phrases. Once again, those stamps are some oldies that have been in my collection for a very long time. (I'm doing well using old stamps this year. ) 😃 Then I finished my page with this small wooden leaf and a few random leaf stamps in my background.

I hope you enjoy my page. I also hope you'll join us for Tracey's challenge at Art Journal Journey.

I promised you on Monday that I would share another troll. So here is troll number 2 from the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. To see it, we needed to take a trail into the woods, following the map to the troll footprints located where the statue was. It was a bit like a treasure hunt with these trolls being the treasure.  This is the troll of the flowers, and the youngest and smallest  of the 5 trolls at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.

I'll have troll #3 tomorrow. Have a great day!

Thanks so much for visiting my blog; it is always appreciated.

T Stands for Lunch ( and Trolls)

 Hi everyone. Happy Tuesday and Happy T day to the lovely T day ladies. I hope your past week has gone well.

Last week was very busy for me with a few appointments, a mother-in-law heating emergency as well as few fun outings. One of those outings was a big one as I went on a day trip to Boothbay, Maine. I went with my walking friend and her sister. Although I see my walking companion frequently, I haven't seen her sister for quite awhile. It was great to see her.

Boothbay, Maine has been one of the sort-of-local places I've wanted to visit for several years, and the fact that the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens has these new troll statues this year made it a long but perfect way to spend a gorgeous autumn day. It was about a 2 1/2 hour trip by car each way, and when I finally got home  that night, I might have been tired but I had lots of happy stories to share with my husband.

Our garden reservations weren't until the afternoon, but we left early enough to go into town, check out a few shops and have lunch. Unlike here in New Hampshire where you don't see many mask signs, it was great in Boothbay because most stores and restaurants had signs that said "It doesn't matter your vaccination status, wear a mask." I have been wearing a mask  in public inside spaces even though I was vaccinated last spring.

Boothbay is a cute little coastal Maine town with lots of shops and hotels for the tourists.

In the afternoon we went to the gardens to see not only flowers but the trolls. New this year, they have 5 giant wooden trolls created by Danish artist Thomas Dambo. I read that his scrap wood trolls can be found in many places around the world. You can check him out here: Thomas Dambo.

This week I'm trying to keep my T Day post a bit shorter than the last few have been. Today I'll share the first of the five trolls we saw.

These 5 trolls are the trolls of the forest, and this first troll is named Roskva. She stands for the trunk of the trees. You can read about her in the sign below. 

And this next photo gives you an idea of the scale of her.

I bet she was about 20 feet tall. These trolls must be pretty popular because there was many more people at the gardens than we expected there would be. Afterall it was late September and was the middle of the week.

I'll share another troll with you in my next post this week.

As this is T day and I am not trying to write a novel this week, let me share my lunch from my day out with you.  We found this old fashioned and out of the way little restaurant called Waves that had great food and normal prices. (As opposed to higher priced food in some of the more touristy places right on the water.) I had a crab sandwich with crispy bacon (just how I like it) and cheddar cheese. It came with fries and cole slaw. This slaw had a dill dressing that was quite delicious. I had an unsweetened ice tea to drink. 

This is my link for  our weekly hang out over at   Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog..

I hope everyone has a wonderful new week, and a happy T day too.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!