An Autumn Weekend

     Hi everyone. I hope you're having a lovely weekend. The temperatures in my area have warmed back up, so it kind of feels like summer again. Of course the shadows are so long at this time of year that it cools down fairly early and the nights aren't bad for sleeping. This past week one of the things on my agenda lately has been doing some deep cleaning both inside in a few places in the house (thanks to having a couple of mice who wormed their way upstairs from the basement-😩) and also in the gardens outside. 

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

   The first thing I'm sharing in today's post is a journal page for Elle's Halloween, Steampunk or Halloween Steampunk challenge at Art Journal Journey. This year I am making a little journal for Halloween all about a Halloween party. (I love to make theme books that tell a story about the theme.)  The pages are only 4x6 inches (approximately 10x15 cm) in size, and the base pages are some off white, woven watercolor paper.

  The right edge of this page is connected to some polka dot paper that also forms the background of the adjacent page. The rest of the background was created  by inking the watercolor paper with black and green ink pads. Then I stamped the zombie image (Impression Obsession) one and a half times. I darkened the clothing so that it would give more contrast seeing this paper, although it took a stamped image well, didn't exactly highlight the black ink, making it look more grey.

   I used some of these little bead-like items (I think they are called Poms?) that I've had in my stash to make the moon. Once the glue dried I used some yellow watercolor paint around the moon to show that it was giving off light. Then I  drew and fussy cut some night clouds out of black paper. After I glued them down I used some grey and also some white paint to give them  depth. Finally I drew in the ground with some markers, added some washi tape along the edge of the polka-dot paper, and finally finished by stamping a quote (Picket Fence) on light green paper before cutting it  out and adding it to my page.

   This past week we have been getting some lovely leaf color, and last weekend we went to a local orchard/vegetable farm to get some fresh apple cider. I took a few photos to share.

    Unfortunately on our way home, my husband (he was driving and we were in his truck), decided to take a side road drive to check out the scenery, and when we came to a corner, we saw a motorcycle and its rider out of control and coming directly at us. We couldn't turn off the road because there was a guard rail, and we had a split second to decide whether to stay in our lane or to turn  into the other lane. I don't know if it mattered because the  motorcyclist was going too fast around the corner and was weaving between both lanes.

  Before we could actually predict what he would do next, he drove into the front corner of the truck, banging so hard it caused the truck's air bags to go off and the motorcyclist to fly off the bike. He had no helmet on, and he was wearing only a T-shirt and shorts. Luckily for him, he seemed not to have any head injuries, but when I saw him from across the street his whole side was extremely red. Come to find out he wasn't licensed to drive a motorcycle and didn't even own the bike he was on. 

   We really thought we were going to see his body parts all over the road, and thankfully for all of us involved, we didn't.

   He was going fast enough to mess up my husband's truck's suspension, blow his tire, bend his front wheel and cause all the front vehicle airbags to go off. The next day when we went to clean out the truck because our insurance company totaled it, we noticed that the whole driver's side was out of whack. 

   Thankfully we only had some bruises, and I had  some scrapes on one knee from the floor airbag. In those actual moments I didn’t notice everything, and it wasn't until we went to clean out the truck that we noticed there were even floor airbags. We also had the dogs with us, and luckily they were OK too.  👍 The good thing about being a dog in an accident is you don't understand or even watch oncoming traffic so they stayed relaxed, unlike the two of us who were in a panic before we were crashed into. Even though we were zero percent at fault, neither of us would want someone to die. Having to live with that would be horrible.

  Now we are in truck shopping mode which is not fun. My husband is mourning the loss of his truck, and even though he's constantly being told he can start retirement with a newer one, it's just a hassle he didn't want or need to deal with right now. And there is a bit of a time consideration here too since his boat needs to be pulled out of the marina by the end of next weekend (I think the son-in-law is going to come help with that) and we have 2 tons of biobricks that we burn to help heat the house in the winter and that we need to pick up to save the big delivery fee. I'm sure everything will work out however. We'll just have to cross these bridges as they come.

   That's all the news from my house. I hope yours is more boring in a good way than some of what I posted here. Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

   

   

 

Violins

    Hi everyone. It's the middle of the week once again.  February is zooming by. Can you believe March is almost here? I'm ready. I was excited yesterday that we actually had some rain and not snow. We haven't had rain  (versus snow) for a long time. The weather guy also said last weekend was the first time since December our temperatures were over the freezing point. And yesterday, we hit 50 degrees F (10 degrees C). ❤❤❤❤❤ This is not an unusual winter in my area, but it is definitely a tougher one than the last few years.

    With this month starting to wind down I want to share another journal page for Vicki's Music challenge at Art Journal Journey. 

     I used 2 shades of blue ink to color my background. Then I added a musical scrap of tissue paper and also took a stencil and some white paint to add some details. After that I included a tag I made earlier for a challenge at Tag Tuesday. And then to finish off my page, I stamped the violin playing boy (Postmodern Design) and also stamped the quote (maybe Stampers Anonymous) and finished out by outlining the white paper quote box. 

    And speaking of Tag Tuesday, here's another tag with a Face for Michele's challenge.

     This time I used some multicolored water based inks with a bit of water, as well as a scrap of printed tissue paper, a die cut face that I colored in and added some flower shaped sequins to her hair, the stamped word grace and finally a Sharpie outlined edge.

    And I'll end this post with some spring blooms for you. The daffodil stems I bought at Trader Joe's this past weekend are starting to bloom. 

     Have a wonderful rest of your day!

If Nature Moves You

Hi everyone. Happy Thursday to you. This week is moving right along, isn't it?  Even better, we haven't had any new snow and the temperatures are a bit warmer than earlier in the week. It was only 22 degrees F/ -5 degrees C when I got up on Monday morning-brrrrr and Monday night we had some snow flurries. I'm glad it's warmed up a bit otherwise I might think winter is arriving very early this year. 

It also just dawned on me that it's only one week until the (US) Thanksgiving holiday.   I have to remind myself that Thanksgiving is early this year, and there's a whole 7 days of November left after the holiday so it's not like we're that close to Christmas and the end of 2023. For a moment there I had a little panic that I somehow missed a week of November. 😏

Today I have another page for Jo's Nature themed challenge at Art Journal Journey.

I started with this framed squirrel that was part of a bigger sheet of printed rice paper. And if he looks familiar, check out Jo's title page for AJJ. He's there too. 😏

My next step was to take the partial branch that is on the rice paper, and I expanded it to fit the rest of my page.  I did that with markers and a brown Stabilo pencil.  I then  randomly stamped the branches and berries around the squirrel and on  the bottom of my page. I colored in the leaves, the branches and the berries. The next step was to ink my page, except for the box with the squirrel. 

Finally I stamped the quote and splattered a few white dots on the bottom of the page.

And there you have it. 

I'm off for a morning walk with a friend today so once again I'm keeping this post short.  Tootles. 👋

 

Her Gears Are Turning

Hi everyone. Happy Thursday to you.

Today I have a page that I am sharing with 2 challenges. First of all I am linking up to Neet's In Gear challenge at Art Journal Journey.   I am also linking up to Creative Artiste Mixed Media blog for their challenge #98. These challenges  at Creative Artiste are always mixed media, and always Anything Goes. 

I made my background by layering some various washi tapes. Then I embossed the gear image on some craft graph style paper. I fussy cut out the embossed part, and then I  rubbed  some brown ink over it to bring out the embossing.

I added this TH lady. She is a woman with some big ideas and the gears in her head are turning. I die cut the flasks and test tubes, and then I inked in the colored liquid. After that I added some doodles and some small little art dots (for lack of a better word) to the glassware to show some action going on. To finish, I die cut the light bulb at the top and the shine word. The shine word was colored with a silver Sharpie, and the light bulb was also colored with a Sharpie and then I added some yellow glitter glue to make it bright. 

Let's hope her big ideas come to fruition. I love  her expression as she looks serious but also like she's having fun, even if she doesn't want people to think she's having too much fun. 

Let me finish off my post with the last of my photos from the train trip  from North Conway (New Hampshire) to Crawford Notch that the hubby and I went on last Saturday. (You can see the other photos here set #1 and set #2 ).

While waiting in line to board the train I snapped a photo of my ticket, 

and here's this fun vintage display near where you boarded. Those pieces of luggage definitely seem awkward to move, especially compared to modern luggage. 

This greeter had obviously been waiting too long for the train to go by-ha ha.

And here's a couple of vintage New England house and barn scenes.

Here's the Saco (pronounced sock-o) river,

some colorful foliage,

and the back of my ticket. Number 6 was a funny addition. I wonder how many people even bothered to read it.

I zoomed in on this view because from the distance we were at, it looked a bit like a moose.  Sadly, it actually was just the root ball of an upturned tree.

A couple more shots like I like.

Looking down on the road as we made our way into the notch.

And finally, the money shot, one more view from on the mountain side looking back into the notch.

Thanks for visiting. 

Weekend Art

Hi everyone. Happy second half of the weekend to you. Today is my 35th wedding anniversary. I don't think we'll be doing much  to celebrate today, but yesterday we went on an  adventure in the White Mountains that are a little over an hour north from where I live. We had a nice day out, and the foliage was still full of beautiful color. It's fun to play tourists in your own area sometimes. I'll have more to share about that outing in another post.

Today I have a page for Neet's In Gear challenge at Art Journal Journey. and one more tag for Valerie's Colour's of Autumn challenge at Tag Tuesday. I am linking my whole post up to Gillena's  Sunday Smiles   also. 

First, here's a page for Neet's In Gear challenge. 

My page began by using this giant embossing folder from Cheery Lynn Designs.  I actually had to cut it down to fit my 5.5x8 inch page. I have a couple of these old metal embossing pieces, and it's great to pull one out and actually use it.  (It's one of my long term goals; to either use those things that are just sitting there or else clean them out.) 😀 I embossed these gears and screws on some brown kraft paper, and then I rubbed  some black ink onto my page to bring out the embossed images better.  

The car is cut out of an old book, as is the title for my page. I used a TH person, an old cigar label, some white paint pen dots, as well as some small copper washers. Oh yes, and I bordered my page with some thin washi tape before I glued anything down. 

I think Mr. Brown (as I think of this man) and his dog Kirby will be going for a ride in his new posh automobile, don't you? I hope Kirby doesn't shed the way my 2 dogs do or else his new car will be filled with a lot of dog hair. Grin. Perhaps Mr. Brown has someone who can clean the car for him, since he must have a big bank account  to afford such a beautiful automobile.

Now if only I had someone who would vacuum Maddie and Pete's hair out of my car, life would be perfect. Ha ha.

And here's  my tag for Valerie's  the Colour's of Autumn challenge at Tag Tuesday.

I started by stamping a large card background image with flying leaves. Then I inked my tag to color the background.  I added a left over die cut oval, a TH woman image, some glitter foam leaves and some little pieces of confetti.  The 3 background quotes were stamped once the tag's background was complete. I did outline them in white pen to make them stand out more.  And I created the small quote bubble.

You can see the quote words  better up close. They say "Rake, Pile Jump". And the quote in the word bubble says "Let me change my clothes and join you." 

I remember jumping in leaf piles when I was little. My grandmother was  good at raking piles especially so we could jump into them. 😀

And finally, here's a few more random photos from when I visited my local botanical garden a week and a half ago. It was warm that day, and now the autumn chill is here.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend or start to the new week, depending on when you read this.

 

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.

 

Wednesday Art

Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week. 

I realized that I've made several pages for Elle's challenge at Art Journal Journey  that I wouldn't have time to share if I procrastinated, so for the next few days I have some Books, Cats and Tea  journaling to show you. 

Today's page is one that took me  several steps to get through before I liked it and thought it was finished. 

I started by first stamping this kitty in the window image in the middle of my paper. This is an oldie rubber stamp that I just love. My black ink isn't very dark anymore, and when I stopped to get a new ink pad the store didn't even have any. (They had a lot of blank spots along the wall, and I'm guessing they were in the process of putting out new merchandise, hopefully not getting rid of all their stamping ink.) To darken up my stamped image I  used some grey and black markers and doing that even gave the window frame a little more depth. 

Then I watercolored the background, thinking I was going to give this page a sunset/sunrise look.   That idea went (hee-hee) out the window because when I added the sunset colors the  page was still too flat.  I drew in some lines to see if that helped (they didn't), and  I added some colored paint pen dots that did nothing for the page either.  By then I really disliked this page and almost called it quits.

But I didn't give up. I thought about painting over the background. Instead I decided to (first) add some ripped pieces of black washi tape.  The good thing about washi tape is I could pull it off if I needed to. Surprisingly, I liked it now. I picked up the scalloped border scrap off my desk and made a curtain. Finally I added the quote to remind me of how  making art can be as complicated as life. And that they are both so much easier if everything is simple.

And here's a tag I made for Michele's silhouette tag challenge at Tag Tuesday.  It looks pretty large in this first photo, but you can see in the second photo that it is an actual tag and not a full page. (This is a small journal 5.5 x8.5 inches).

I had a piece of cardboard just the right size for a tag. I covered it with some colorful printed paper and also some word printed paper. I then took blue ink over the exposed cardboard and the word printed paper so the background would be more consistent. 

I finished by die cutting the dancers and making a frame from 2 different sized oval dies. Finally I added this Art by Marlene quote.

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

Fantasy

 Hi everyone.   It’s time again on this Tuesday for a new challenge at Try It On Tuesday  It’s our first challenge for September.

Thank you to everyone who joined our last  Let's Go Outside challenge including   Bonnie who was our lovely guest designer for the challenge.

Our new challenge is

FANTASY 

What is your favorite fantasy creature? Elves, unicorns, superheros, dragons, or perhaps like mine, mermaids. There are so many ways you can go with this challenge, not just fantasy creatures.

My page was inked, and then I added this piece of deli paper that I had used as scrap paper to stencil on. It had a cool reverse design on it, so I added it to my page, as well as adding a bit of the same blue color around my page so it blended in better.

The mermaid is stamped, fussy cut and colored. I also added a couple of scraps from some silver mesh fabric trim that I found on a markdown table. The mesh looks like netting or fish scales, doesn't it?  I used a stencil and a Sharpie for the words. Then added some tiny seashells and some sequins, as well as some plastic starfish that I pulled off an old journal page (that I wasn't crazy about) that I cut apart to use for another page.

Just a reminder that we accept all types of art at Try It on Tuesday. This challenge runs for the next 2 weeks.

Thanks for visiting my post. And I hope you're inspired to join us for this challenge.

Second on the Second and Some New Art Too

 Hi everyone.  Happy weekend to you.

I almost didn't post today, but luckily I had this post basically finished in advance and I figured it would be worth posting to keep my mind busy. Yesterday my hubby took the day off. We went out in the boat and took the dogs with us. The current was really strong  when we returned  to the dock to pull out the boat at the end of the day. Miss Maddie started to jump out of the boat when she thought we were up against the dock. Her front paws landed on the dock, but just then the boat jerked away from the dock, and she went down into the water.

In this process her belly slammed into the dock. She's a tough cookie, and she swam to shore. But she wasn't quite right. We took her to the emergency vet and discovered  she had received a slight tear in her bladder and some water went into her lungs.

Luckily the tear is small and should heal without surgery, but she is being sedated and will be in the emergency room "doggy" hospital for several days. If you could keep your fingers crossed that everything continues to heal as expected, that  would be much appreciated. 🤞🤞🤞🤞🤞

We spent the whole evening and until almost midnight at the emergency vet and left waiting for more information. The middle of the night phone call luckily came with good news, as did this first thing this morning phone call, and I am relieved. But I will be happier after a couple of more positive phone calls.

OK, onto the post I had already written.

It's the second of the month, and that means it's time for Second on the Second   over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog

This month Elle' challenge at Art Journal Journey is Books, Cats and Tea.  For my second look let me share a couple of book themed pages I made in January of 2017 when the theme at AJJ was Every Journal Page Tells a Story.

And here's my favorite type of novel to read.

I'm still particularly proud of those footprints I hand drew and made for this mystery page

This month (right now, September of 2023) our AJJ host Elle has said we can make a page about a particular book, and that's what I did for today. My page is actually about a series of 7 books that you might be familiar with, the adventures of Harry Potter and his friends (along with others he's not so fond of) at Hogwarts. 

The Harry Potter books are long enough that if you read them and own a cat, the cat might get bored while you read. (Especially if you go through all 7 which will take you at the minimum several days.)  I added these cats in various cat positions to represent what your cat might be up to while you enjoy the story. Plus these kitties also work as part of the latest Art Journal Journey challenge.

My page started with lots of bits of leftover paint. The stickers were a set I had picked up during a visit to Universal Studios back in 2021 when the hubby and I went to California. If you're not familiar with Harry Potter, these are the 4 houses where students live and also compete as a team at Hogwarts, the school for wizards.

Sorry for the glare on the top part of the page  but those stickers have a shine to them and are hard to photograph with any kind of light on them. 

The cats are part of a great cat set of rubber stamps I have, and I fussy cut them after stamping them. After I attached the cats and stickers, I used a writing stencil and some black paint to add the writing along the  edges of my page.  And just an FYI, my grey marker was quickly drying out when I went to color the cats which is why some of the images look streaky or  colored differently from others. 

And along with my journal pages, before the latest OWL challenge ends over at Tag Tuesday, let me share the second tag I made. Thanks Wendy for this fun tag theme.

There you have it. Some old art and some new art.

I hope you enjoy the rest of your weekend.