Saturday Art

Hi everyone. Happy weekend. I hope yours is a nice one.

I'm back today with some more art from my harvest journal. This 2 page spread seemed appropriate since it is apple season here in New Hampshire. I'm hoping to go apple picking this weekend, but we'll have to see if it's raining or not. (Since they are predicting some rain tonight/Saturday, but who knows how right they'll be.)

I started on this  side of my spread by stamping this old apple varieties stamp. Then I rubbed a red ink  pad over my page, and I added a bright green piece of washi tape down the left hand side. It's hard to get even a small ink pad right along the inner seam of a bound book, and the tape covers up any blank (not stamped or inked) spots nicely.

I cut a red tag from some checkered paper. The quotes and the apple picking image are from an old Technique Tuesday stamp set. The quote is stamped directly on the tag, but the image is stamped on acetate and then  added after I added the fussy cut apple basket. I also added some sparkles to the apples to give them a bit of glimmer, and I added a few punch out images to finish off my page. 

And the left side of my spread I used some red printed paper for the background. The image is from a garden harvest set of ephemera that I've had for several years. I added the old red postage stamp and the punch out bow.  I thought the people in this image looked to be about the same vintage style as the children  on the tag.  Plus everyone is  picking apples.

Here's the completed spread. You can see I also added 2 little apple decorations, one on each side on the spread 

I'm linking up to Aimeslee's Anything Goes challenge at Art Journal Journey. I'm also linking up to this month Inner Child challenge at More Than Words. I'm choosing this piece for that challenge because apples always remind me of back to school. Not only is there the quote "An Apple for the Teacher", but I remember often having an apple in my lunch while in school too. (Both as a kid and as a teacher too 😏).

That's all for me today.

 

The Dragon

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend to you.

It is nice to have the sun this morning, and hopefully a mild day too. I'm hoping  maybe it will be warm enough to take a peek into the bees and slide in some food. I will have to see though. Otherwise I'm hoping for a lot of art time, and that when my hubby checks my car's check-engine light, it isn't anything I need to take the car into the shop for (seeing I just had to buy new tires last month and that was an ouch!).

Today I have a page in my journal to celebrate the year of the dragon. It begins today. 

I started with gold paint,and once that dried, I used some red paint and a stencil. I inked the edges red. Then I used a Chinese writing rubber stamp and randomly stamped the background. 

And isn't that dragon face cool? A few years back I found this die on sale and I couldn't resist buying it. I don't know why I haven't used it yet though. Hopefully that will change now that the package has been opened.

The dragon face was die cut from red cardstock and then I rubbed a black ink pad over it to accentuate the details.  I glued him down and after he dried, I stamped the prosperity and happiness words  (from an old Hero Arts set) on acetate and added those. I then added some red velvet trim along the top and bottom, as well as a gold dot on each end. I finished with a fortune from a fortune cookie that I had. I colored it red to have it blend in better with the page. I'm not sure the page actually needed the fortune though now that it is attached. 

I'm linking my page up to several challenges. First of all to More Than Words, where this month the challenge is your element or dragon or red. I used all of them on my page since my element is metal, and the gold (well they're not real gold) dots represent that.

I am also linking up to Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge #101, where the topic is always Anything Goes.

And finally, because the gold background is the color we associate light , I am also linking up to Vicki's Keeping It Light challenge at Art Journal Journey.

And finally, I will be joining Gillena's Sunday Smiles on Sunday.

And finally Gillena mentioned it was her birthday today. Isn't this a beautifully frosted cake? Perfect for Gillena's birthday and for the upcoming Valentine's Day.

Happy Birthday Gillena.

Have a great weekend or the rest of it (depending on when you visit). 

Resolutions?????

Hi everyone. 

Do you make resolutions for the new year? I don't like to because I never seem to be able to keep them, and I feel like they are just setting myself up for failure. But I do like to make general goals for the year. 

In 2023 I was working on my third and the start of my fourth year of retirement.  I think I am getting the art of a good retirement (my style) down. It was tough retiring in 2020 during the peak of the pandemic and before vaccinations.  At that time I had lots of thoughts of what I wanted to get involved in, but with Covid, I really couldn't do much.

 I love doing things at home, but I didn't (and don't) want my retired life to just be about home. And if you've retired from working all your adult life, you also know  how retirement is a process. And as great as it is, it does require some adjustments too. I'll venture a guess those adjustments were trickier back in 2020 and 2021 they they would be for someone retiring today. (But of course, everyone's retirement is their own journey, so who am I to say?)

 By 2023 I was ready to start finding some NEW things.  I picked the word Venture. Venture implies a bit of risk, and life still felt a bit risky last year. Especially early in the year.  

Every January I draw a page with some of the "plans" or parts of my "goals" on it. Obviously I don't know everything a year will bring, so when I drew this page in January of 2023 there were a lot of things in my year that I didn't know about. Those include the job at the lake I had last summer, Miss Maddie's  accident, much of the travel I would do (both far and local), the people I would get to spend time with, the art I would make, the new people I would meet, as well as all of the adventures with family and friends. ETC.  There was a lot of "venturing" out of the comfort of my home last year, so I definitely feel like I picked a good word.

I haven't shared this page even though I drew it a year ago. Did I succeed in accomplishing everything on my page? No. Did it help focus me? Yes. Could I have added other things to this page during the course of 2023? Also yes. 

This is my page for my It's On The Calendar challenge at Art Journal Journey. I am also linking up to More Than Words. where their January challenge is Open the Door.

In 2024, I'm really ready to continue getting into new things. And I want to be more spontaneous about those new things. My big picture is changing. It doesn't feel so risky for me (personally) to have the type of retirement I planned on having back in 2019 or 2020.  Now that both my immune suppressed husband and I have had covid, and now that we have both managed to get through it,  I feel a little more free of the idea that I might bring home a disease that would  strike him down. 

This year I chose a short phrase rather than a word, mainly because I couldn't come up with 1 word to describe exactly what I want my focus for 2024 to be.  Endeavor seemed too planned, as did undertake. Pursue, strive, and  attempt were also not spontaneous enough. 

So here's my phrase:  GO FOR IT.

I'm working on my drawing for this year too, but as you can tell it isn't finished. It would probably have been if I hadn't come down with covid. 😏

As you can see, my first added pictures have to do with getting my bees to survive the winter, to knit and sew more, to sell some art and not focus on it only as a hobby, to have a functioning greenhouse, and continue to exercise but this year in more focused ways. 

And I'm going for it all and a few other things also. 

Thanks for visiting.

Winter Skies

Hi everyone.  Happy middle of the week to you. 

Today I have a page for Wendy's Above Us Only Sky challenge at Art Journal Journey. I am also linking it to More than Words monthly challenge. This month their theme is Seasons.

Although I can't say winter is my favorite season, it is nice for a little while. After about 2 months of it though I am ready for spring. (But would I appreciate spring as much as I do if it wasn't for winter? That's a good question.)

We had another little dusting of snow the other night so my page looks like my area right now though. 

The background on this page is made by using a Hero Art's big background stamp. I stamped the image one full time at the bottom of the page and then another partial time to cover the top. The white title banner across the page is where the 2 stampings met. Of course at the top of my page I just stamped some of the snowy evening sky and only reinked my stamp in that part.

I also didn't press quite so hard in a few spots to get a more heavy snowstorm look, the kind of appearance when you get a little white out in the snowy sky.

The white banner is a free hand cut. The believe word is from a set of old Hero Arts stamps. I wanted a big word here because of the size of the title banner. Then I did something I don't usually do. I used some gold embossing powder, a snowflake stamp as well as some Versamark ink, and  I heat embossed a few snowflakes to finish off my page.  It's been a long time since I heat embossed anything, but the effect is nice. 😀

And that completes my page. 

I'll finish this post with some bee photos that have nothing to do with the sky.

You might remember that I wrapped the hive a couple of times with some insulation filled wraps, and then I took bags of raked up leaves and stacked them around the bottom. It's a mess, but hopefully it will help keep the heat the bees produce inside the hive.

I took this last photo  last Friday when it was about 50 degrees F (10 degrees C), and even though the bees were not outside, I could hear them loudly buzzing inside.

About half of the bags of leaves  (that I used) are recycled from last year. I think it's interesting that the bags didn't do well in the sunlight over the summer and started to rip, but the red oak leaves inside are still in perfect shape from last year.

This past Sunday we put up the wind frame around the hive. In this photo the wind frame still needs a tarp which goes over the top ( see next photo) and another tarp that hangs part way down the front. We couldn't find the tarp we had last year to hang over the front, so I had to go get a new one that will go up this weekend.

 We wouldn't need all this if our winters stayed mild, but it's just about guaranteed we'll get some arctic cold and wind. The really cold spells are  from weather called Alberta Clippers. (For you weather lovers, here's an article about some of the winter storms we get here in New England: Winter Storms Explained). Sometimes we only get a few days of this cold, and sometimes we get a lot of this cold. It's hard to know what winter might bring, so better to be prepared.  This cold is the reason why the bees have become practically cocooned. 

I have Italian bees right now, and I'm not sure they will make it through the cold even with all this protection. They are the most gentle bees, but the least cold weather resistant.  I've pre-ordered a Canadian variety for next year called  Saskatraz. I had some this year but most of them died while being shipped, and the hive didn't make it. One local bee keeper I spoke to said last winter the only variety of hers that made it through the winter were her Saskatraz.  The Russian variety would probably make it also, but they are so aggressive I don't know anyone who has them.

As the cliche says, time will tell how things go.

That's it for me today. I hope you're having a great week so far.

 

More Halloween Bingo Pages

Hi everyone. Happy almost weekend to you. 

Once again I'm posting  some more pages from the bingo card Halloween book I am making.  I am  just a bit out of season 😏 since it is not yet late October.  Grin.  You might remember I shared some other  pages  a few Fridays ago. 

I'm making pages on some bingo cards and then I'll bind them together into a book. I have a couple of ideas how I want to bind them, but  I haven't definitely decided which one I'll pick yet.

I am linking  these up to Nicole's Friday Face Off  and Gillena's Friday Lunch Break .

I like the size of these Bingo cards. They are 4x6 inches (approximately 10 x 15.5 cm), which makes them  not too big nor too small to work on. For this first page I covered one side of the card with some printed paper, and then I added this silver netting fabric trim. I found a roll of this fabric  trim on markdown earlier this year, and I thought it would be versatile for lots of effects.  I think it looks a bit like some chain link  fence in this piece.

And I think I should have decorated this piece more for Christmas because am I wrong or does that guy have pointed elf ears? 😀

This silly skeleton head is also on a printed  paper background. I also  used a die cut net, added some  googly eyes, a metallic paper crown and some stickers. The quote says dead quiet, but I've never known crows to be dead quiet.

On these next two cards I used the bingo side. I am covering both sides of my cards, so when you flip through the book there won't be blank pages.  There is some stenciling and some inking on both of these next pieces.  This first one has this great moon image, and a small gold witch as well as some sparkle leaves.

This die cut tree  is pretty funny too.  The sparkles make him look like he is foaming at the mouth. 

It also has some purple and orange on it, so I am linking up to  More Than Words challenge blog where the theme this month is Purple and Orange. 

Here is one more page with a lot of purple and orange as well as some more faces too.

This one's background is made with assorted paint, and I added a skeleton sticker, some vintage cut out images, a wooden tombstone, some confetti cats and some other bits and pieces.

That's all for me today. Have a wonderful start to your weekend. And thanks for visiting my blog too.

 

Home

Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week. I'm having a fairly quiet week which means I have lots of time to play. Smile. That means my page for today is just perfect for me.

Today I have a journal page that began with one of those ripped out of an old Somerset Studio magazine artist papers.

I really like the canvas  and lace details on that paper. Yes there is actual cloth on this journal page, the recycled whitish lace that is stitched down slightly crooked under the word HOME that I added. But the house and the fabric details on the top 2/3s of the page are in the paper photo. 

I tore the magazine paper in half, and then put them back together on some watercolor paper to separate the bottom from the top. You can see a bit on the right edge right below the lace and above the frayed fabric.  It is the very narrow white space.

I made the bottom with some washi tape and punched out circles from an old book page. The stamped, colored and fussy cut lady holding the heart and the heart are both items I added, and the key is recycled from another project. 

And I finished off my page with this ancient stamped quote and a bit of paper scrap off my work table. 

I like to think of this svelte lady as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz all grown up.

I am linking this page up to 2 challenges:

This month's Home challenge over at More Than Words and also 

Valerie's Anything Goes over at Art Journal Journey

Hope your week is going well. 

The TIME is Now

 Hi everyone. 

I mentioned  back on January 1 that I was a special guest over at More Than Words this month. I'm thrilled to be asked, and thank you ladies  for having me join you this month. It's very much appreciated.

This month the theme is TIME, and I created a double page spread about the concept of time. It was a fun theme for me as  I like old fashioned clocks and clock faces. Plus the whole idea of time is interesting. I like to think about "time travel" and what places would be like if I could go back to them in another decade, century or even era. And I often wonder what people would think if they could come to our time from some other time period also. I'm guessing they would probably be overwhelmed and want to leave as our lives move pretty fast.

The design team at More Than Words has some other clever ideas on this theme so be sure to check them out.

I inked my background paper with similar blue and pink  as my background papers. Then I used these 2 very old Tin Can Mail stamps I have. Measuring the days and months is so much about time.

 I added my background papers  as well as a bit of printed tissue paper. Some of my background paper was plain and needed  a bit of something.

I cut the giant clock as well as the smaller clocks out of a couple  of sheets of printed paper. The gears are chipboard that I painted with metallic bronze paint and then inked with some black ink. I used letter stickers for the word time, and I stamped a few quote off of an ancient Postmodern Design rubber stamp word block stamp.

Be sure to check out the More Than Words digital magazine  as well as their website too.

Thank you again ladies for inviting me to join you this month. 

Happy 2023

 Happy New Year to you!

It is January 1 of 2023. I want to wish everyone a happy, healthy and wonderful new year.

Today I want to send a big note of thanks to Jo from Let's Art Journal for hosting last month at Art Journal Journey. And I also want to once again thank everyone who joined us during December. It was a fun month for art journaling for certain.

As it is is not only a new year but a new month, I need to introduce our new host at Art Journal Journey.

This month our new host is the talented  Mia who you might know as Craftartista. This month Mia's theme is

Use A Photo

My journal page has 2 photos on it. The train is cut out from a photo I took last fall when my husband and I went on our National Parks adventure. Here's the original photo I cut the train from.

It's amazing how different the train can look on a new background.

The other photo is one of TH's paper dolls.

I made my page by first painting a background light blue and then glueing down a piece of deli paper that I stenciled with some white fireworks.  I added the train and  made the tracks out of some washi tape. I also used some dark blue ink to the edges of my page.  I then added the stamped and fussy cut railroad crossing signs as well  as 3 clocks I cut out of a sheet of paper.  My page looked rather flat, so I added a bit of printed tissue paper on a couple of spots along the edges. I still wasn't happy with my page, so I sprayed some rust colored ink on the bottom. While it was still wet I took a baby wipe and rubbed it around my page, making it darker in some areas than others. When that dried I took some black ink along the edges of my paper. Finally I framed the page with a black Sharpie, added the paper doll and used a white posca paint pen to make the random dots. Oh yes, I also stamped the 2 quotes and after cutting them out of my sheet of white paper, added them to my page. 

I wonder who this traveller is going to meet. Someone special I think as he is carrying that big bouquet of flowers. Or perhaps it is just his way to welcome the new year.

Just a reminder of our dreaded Art Journal Journey "rules".

We are an art journaling blog, which we don't accept cards, tags, ATC's, dimensional art, etc. However, we do accept any type of art journaling whether it is digital, on loose paper, in a journal, on cloth, etc. Also, we can't comment on your post if you are linked up to our page through Facebook, Instagram, etc, so please be aware of that.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's Photo Pages at Art Journal Journey.

I  also want to mention that this month I am a special guest over at More Than Words. My post doesn't go live until the twelfth, but be sure to check out all the art at their website.

As I posted yesterday, I also want to also say "Thank You" to everyone who has stopped by and supported my blog in 2022. I've appreciated all your supportive comments, and I must say, I feel lucky and blessed to have such a wonderful group of blog friends.  Thanks for visiting my blog!

Wednesday Art

 Hi everyone. Happy midweek to you.

I'm posting today with another art journal page for Jo's Snowy Winter challenge at Art Journal Journey.

I started my page in one of my Dina Wakely journals that has some  brown kraft paper pages. I wanted it to have a more "snowy" look, so I used some gesso  in a kind of wind blown style.

I have a pretty big stash of holiday images, and it's time to weed them down a bit so I added this adorable vintage holiday picture.  Under the top of the image I added half of a die cut doily that I made from some kraft paper with some gold metallic polka dots on it. The leaves on my page look brown, but they are actually gold. This winter light at this time of year makes it hard to get a good sparkle photo. I also added the pine cone which is made of resin and that has some white sparkle snow on it that you can actually see.

I finished my page with a stamped quote. 

As I used gesso and my page has some sparkle I am also linking up to December's gesso and sparkle  art journal challenge at More Than Words.

And let me finish this post with some early December foliage. I snapped these photos one day last week when we had had a lot of rain in the morning, and it was still a very foggy afternoon.

That's all for me today. I hope your week is going well.

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.