Purple and Blue Butterflies

 Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday. 

It is  quickly moving towards the end of July. Summer is, as  usual, flying by, but my hope is that the  weather here in New England stays like it was last weekend so we have some beautiful summer weather ahead, and hopefully, maybe, not so much sticky,  humid and wet weather when we get into August. 😎 Today I am going to share a page for both Alison's Come Fly with Me challenge at Art Journal Journey and also this month's Anything Goes challenge #95 at Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge Blog.

Google added my photos in reverse order, so let me start with a close up. 

You can see I started by inking my background page and then stamping on it. I then added some blue paper I texturized as well as a blue-grey hardware store paint card.  I also added some washi tape, some die cut and embossed butterflies, a gold paper sun, as well as some mini confetti flowers and some black painted rings.

I might have gone just a hare too crazy with the painted rings, but oh well, I had fun stamping them.

And since butterflies love flowers, let me share a few more photos from my trip 2 weeks ago (boy that time flew) to the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens.

That's all for me today. Hope you week is going well.

3 Butterflies

 Hi everyone. I hope you're doing something fun or maybe you are relaxing  a bit this weekend.  Whatever, I hope it's a good one.

Last week was a mostly home week for me. It was great except for 3 things. The dogs had a minor skunk encounter (oh stinky 😩). My clothes dryer stopped heating so therefore I couldn't dry  any laundry, but luckily it was a cheap part on Amazon and my husband is a very handy guy ❤  so let's hope that fix lasts at least for awhile. (This is the 4th time my husband has fixed something on this dryer. One of these days I will need to actually buy a new one but the prices of them are a real ouch and they don't seem to last all that long on top of it.) And finally my hammock ripped while I was on it and I fell straight through landing with a thump on the porch floor . I'm fine, but I was more disappointed I had to order a new hammock, which (the good news) arrived quickly! 😀  I was toughing it out for a few days sitting in a chair-smile-hee hee- because I really love my hammock on my screen porch.

I am getting off track here so let me get to the main part of this post.

Today I want to share this butterfly page for Alison's Come Fly with Me challenge at Art Journal Journey

My page today began when I took this piece of 8x8 inch paper and die cut 2 butterflies. The rest of the paper wasn't enough to do too much with but also seemed like too much to waste, so I decided to use it as a background for my page.

After I inked the actual page in my journal, I attached my die cut paper scrap. I glued it down, but I also  framed it with some washi tape.  Then I took one of the butterflies that I die cut  (this die embosses at the same time) and rubbed a bit of black ink on it so the details would stand out. Then I added that to my page.

I've been so busy this summer that I still haven't cleaned off some bits and pieces from June's AJJ challenge (which was numbers) from my worktable. Since I liked how these pieces worked,  I added them onto my page. It does seem a little "bare" without words,  but on the other hand, I think words would make it feel more crowded, so I called this page finished.

This month Alison is hosting at Art Journal Journey, and since her theme is Come Fly with Me, this page works perfect for that challenge.

I'll finish off my post with  some actual butterflies that I saw in a native butterfly pavilion at Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens back almost 2 weeks ago.

I'm not good at identifying butterflies (something I need to work on) but I believe the top one is the back side of the wings on a mourning cloak and below is a monarch.

This next photo is a Painted Lady butterfly, which I learned is one of the most common in the world.

And here's the only butterfly that stays in new England throughout the winter.  This one is a mourning cloak..

Although as the guide in the pavillion said, this  butterfly was a very old mourning cloak, reaching the end of their life.

There were quite a few monarchs. The weird background is the screen  that creates part of the butterfly house structure.

And this black and blue beauty is an Eastern Tiger Pipevine Swallowtail butterfly.  Thanks David; I know I need a good butterfly book.

There is also a moth in this next photo. A moth has "fuzzy" antennae, and usually comes out at night, but doesn't have to only come out at night. I can't remember what moth the guide said it was, but I believe she said it was a Polyphemous moth. 

Last time I visited the garden there was no butterfly structure. I really enjoyed  this, even though it isn't the biggest butterfly house I've ever been in.

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

That's all for me. Thanks for visiting my blog. And enjoy the rest of your weekend and start of the new week.

T Stands for the Rest of the Botanical Gardens

 Hi everyone. 

I hope everyone had a wonderful past week and weekend. Last week was busy lots of things including  another road trip ( to be saved for some time in a future post), and my weekend was busy with a wedding on Saturday. It was for my husband's niece, and my daughter and her beau were here for a good part of the weekend. It was a lovely wedding,  and we had lots of fun. They had a great DJ too! Smile.

Today for T I thought I would share some other views from  Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens. You might remember last week for T I shared troll #1. I shared the rest of the trolls during the week. Trolls numbers 2-5 can be found here if you missed them and wish to see them: Troll #2, Troll #3, Troll 4, and finally Troll #5.

Even if you didn't care for  or see any of the trolls, the rest of the gardens were so pretty I thought I should share them. Please grab a cup, mug, glass, bottle or can of your favorite drink and sit back and enjoy the views.  

I'm curled up under a blanket on the couch on a crispy morning having a cup of English breakfast tea.

That photo is my link to T this week over at  BLeubeard's and Elizabeth's blog . We'd love for you to join us with your drink related post 

In and around the dahlia garden was just gorgeous.

Beyond the dahlias there was a little pond.

And more areas to explore.

They also had a children's garden. In the children's garden, there were these cool rock statues that spouted water. They were whale heads. Can you see it?

And I learned this was a butterfly house. 

As it is fall, there were a few fun scarecrows too.

These giant watering cans could also be my T day photo. Not that I'd drink out of a watering can, but plants certainly can get drinks when they are watered from one.

It's a busy T day for me this week. My Mom turns 92 today (Tuesday), and I am off on a road trip to go celebrate with her. I'd like to bring her a couple of cupcakes, but masks are required. (I'm thankful for that. As some of you might remember she is a covid survivor and I don't want her to go through that again.) Anyhow, that might make me a bit late getting to your post with comments. I am apologizing in advance for that.

Have a fantastic T day and week ahead.