Wrapping Up July's Art at Art Journal Journey

    Hi everyone.  Happy middle of the week. We're in the last few days of July (Really? Where did this month go to?) so I want to share my final journal page for Halle's challenge over at Art Journal Journey. By now you probably know her challenge is Fabric, Lace and Trims, Oh My!.

     I kind of got carried away adding things to this page, and I'm not sure I like it all that much. However with my right shoulder still sore I decided just to go with it and not make another new page.

  I did a lot of layering with papers and punch out images. I also added some paper lace to make a border. Then I realized that the background was a little too much for my stamped fashionistas, so I sponged on some gesso to tone that down. I also used some brighter colors to color in the styling ladies. They come from an old Inkadinkado clear set of stamps. The words come from an old Cornish Heritage Farms stamp set. I then added a felt flower that I pulled off of something I had, and I also glued down some chenille ric-rac. To finish those off I added the flat  beads. 

   Thank you Halle for joining us as our host this month. I loved your theme because it caused me to get out some fabric. Sometimes I think about doing that and then I don't actually do it, so it was good to actually get it out. ❤👍😊  Plus, it was a really fun theme.

   Thanks for stopping by, and enjoy the rest of your day.

 

Friday Art

     Hi everyone. It is ALREADY another Friday. I seriously don't know where time is going to. Today I have an art post, and  I will be linking up to a few challenges. 

   First off since it's Friday, it's time for Nicole's Friday Face Off. That also means it's time for Gillena's Friday Lunch Break. 

    For my face today I have one more UNFINISHED cloth journal page. Just like the other ones, the background is a cut up old pillow case, and I will be backing it up on some other fabric one of these days.

  I printed the face on fabric using a paper  image I liked. I die cut two small circles out some scraps fabric. I also die cut the fall flower out of some yellow fabric.  The trick with die cutting cloth imagines and then sewing them on a machine is that you want images  that have simple edges. Because die cuts tend to be small, you can't have anything too complex at the edge because you have to be able to manage your machine around the entire outer image.

   Since my page today is made of cloth, I'll be linking a up to Halle's Fabrics, Lace and Trims, Oh My challenge over at Art Journal Journey.

   I also have one more tag to share over at Tag Along (and ATCs too). This month Brenda is hosting, and her theme is Favorite Colors or  anything goes.

    When I made my last tag I also made a second tag using the same seashell background. Instead of my favorite blues with my favorite shade of green, this time I substituted a favorite shade of pink for the blues. It's fun to see how changing up the color combos gives art a totally different feel.

   I stamped the shell background (Impression Obession) and then used pink, light brown and green ink pads to color the background. I  used some markers to color in the shells and also a white pen on the little clam shells. I edge the tag with a pink Posca paint pen. Then I added 2 peel and stick silver starfish stickers. Because these stickers just gave an outline, I filled them with some coppery colored glitter glue. I also added a little clear water drop crafty "gemstone" on each starfish. I finished by stamping my quote (Rosie's Roadshow) three times and then trimming them down and adding them to my tag.

  Wishing everyone a great Friday and start to your weekend. 

 

Summer Blooms Our New TIOT Challenge

   Hi everyone. It's Tuesday, and time for another new challenge at Try It on Tuesday. 

   Thank you everyone who joined our Animals-Real or Imaginary challenge that ran for the last 2 weeks. It was fun seeing what people picked for animals.  For our new challenge, we're hitting the summer season that's going on in the Northern Hemisphere.  Our newest challenge is

Summer Blooms

   I have a journal page to share. It's in my ledger journal, and I started by putting down some rusty colored paint over the page. I was actually trying out the color for another page I was making so on the bottom the paint was thicker and as I worked my way to the top I watered it down some. But those of you who know me know I hate to waste a painted page, no matter what the condition of the paint. 😏

  I then used a small scrap of textured paper to emphasize the flowers. I also used a vase shaped piece of scrap die cut that was laying on my table. It was actually the inner remains of a window that I had die cut.

   I used a sheet of printed paper and fussy cut the 3 flowers. I chose them because they looked like sewn flowers. Then I added buttons with some thread woven through the holes to create the center of each flower.

   I used a grey paint pen to outline the vase and create the stems and leaves. Then I decided to add the little punch out bird. Because I decided to add a bit of pink to the bird's breast, I then decided to make this page really about summer blooms. I used the same paint and an old foam flower stamp to bloom up the background.

   I stamped the quote (TH). The page still needed something, so I used a few plastic number stickers I had to finish it off.

  I'm also linking this page up to Halle's Fabric, Lace and Trims, Oh My challenge at Art Journal Journey.

  I hope you're inspired by flowers and will join us at Try It on Tuesday in the next 2 weeks that this challenge runs. And don't forget to check out the other  design team's creations too.

Wrapping Up Another Week

  Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Hope you're having a good week. We were supposed to have a very hot week, but then all the Canadian wildfire smoke blew in, keeping the temperatures down quite a bit.  The cooler temperatures were great, but obviously, not the smoke. It's too bad there are wildfires again too.  

   One day the sky was yellow (that was weird), and then the other couple of days it just looked cloudy. However, it wasn't cloudy; it was  just smoke.

   And no, my photos are not as  dramatic as some I have seen on TV. I'm sure some of you have had far more smokey scenes. But one thing I noticed yesterday that I have never seen before is  a sun reflection on my deck. It had rained the night before so there were puddles, and the sun was leaving a light bright dot.

   I hope if you're also in the smoke it's not too terrible, and let's hope the fires stop too.

  Today I'm not here to talk about smoke but to join Halle for her Fabric, Trim and Lace challenge at Art Journal Journey. I'm also joining Nicole for Friday Face Off and also Gillena for Friday Lunch Break.

   Today I have another unfinished cloth journal page. I made these pages before my machine went off to be fixed, and it's just been either too hot or too busy so I haven't yet gotten back into sewing since my machine came home. 😏

   I have a package of these 1930's prints pre-cut into hexagons. It was a pack with some odd cuts, meaning many of them might have an edge that is a little longer than the other 5 edges.  Anyhow, that's an easy fix because I can just cut those to the correct shape. I took 3 and stitched them  down on my page. Then I also printed off the face using some cotton fabric that could go through my printer. (If you're curious and didn't see how to do that, you can see it here: Sewing in Progress.)

   I die cut the flower out of some scrap fabric, and before I sewed that and the face down I used some yellow ric-rac trim across the page.

   That's as far as I have gotten. For now.

   I'm not sure if I'll be joining Sunday in the Art Room and Sunday Smiles as I have a lot going on this weekend. I could schedule a post, but I'm not sure I will be able to get around to everyone's blogs to comment, so if I don't post, have a super weekend and start to the new week. If I post, I'll see you Sunday.   And if I haven't been by your blog recently, I will hopefully be by soon. 👍

  

A Thursday Art Post

    Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. Today I have some art to share for a couple of challenges. First I have a tag for Tag Along (and ATC's too). This month Brenda is hosting, and her theme is Favorite Colors. But you can also always post a tag, ATC or bookmark for anything goes too.

   I'm also linking this tag up to Creative Artiste Mixed Media challenge #128, where the theme is always Anything Goes.

   I love the blue and greens of summer, so that's the main colors of my tag today.

   I started with an old Impression Obsession cover a card seashell stamp, which I stamped in dark blue.  You can just see the images peeking lightly through the background. 

    Then I used some vivid turquoise and lime green liquid ink to color over my background. It was a bit too bold, so I lightly sponged some white gesso over it. Now my  background was ready for some images.

   I took out a very old Kin Hughes/ Cornish Heritage Farm stamp set full of fish and other sea creatures. I stamp the wave directly onto the bottom of the tag. I used a dark blue paint pen to color it in, added a bit of white paint pen, and then finished that with some very dark blue Stickles glitter glue.

  I then took some fish and stamped them on white paper. I colored them in with markers and fussy cut them. Once I added them to my tag I darken the stamp outline with a black pen, and I also gave them a little glitter glue sparkle too. Finally  I added some clear water drop style embellishments. I also stamped the quote which  came from the same stamp set and outlined it with the same blue paint pen I used for the water.

   Since it's any arty kind of day I also have a page for Halle's Fabric, Lace and Trim challenge at Art Journal Journey. Today my page is made in my ledger journal and except for some cloth trim, is a paper page.

   I started with some lavender colored ink and an old Hero Arts background stamp which I stamped several times around my page. I like how left a light random design and even the bare spots (thanks to what was on some of the pages before this one).  I then took some scrap paper and tore what was left a bit. I knew I wanted to use this old B Line stamp, which I stamped on white and had decided, after  I fussy cut it, to leave it uncolored. I wanted the black and white background paper to fill in around most of the image, and because it was black and white is why I left the stamp uncolored. 

  I then fussy cute both the flower and the banner out of a sheet of paper. I colored the banner to match some trim (since I thought I had purple ric-rac but didn't). I finished by adding the banner and the ric-rac. I also had the left over of a large word stamp on my work table, so I cut out the words and added them. They seemed to work perfectly with my images. Finally I added a few white beads to the banner  to tie into the white flower.

   That's all for me. I hope you're having a super week and maybe even finding a little creative time for whatever you enjoy making.

 

Happy Sunday

   Hi everyone. Happy Sunday. I hope you're having a nice weekend.

   Today I am joining Halle over at Art Journal Journey for her Fabric, Lace and Trims challenge.  I'm also joining Nicole for Sunday in the Art Room (SITAR), and I'm also joining Gillena for her Sunday Smiles.

    Here's another unfinished sewing journal page. Like the page I shared this past Friday, I made my page on some fabric I cut from an old pillow cover that I cut up. I will somehow be attaching this to a background piece of fabric, but since I just got my sewing machine back from the repair shop this past week (it was there for 3 months), I haven't been able to do much machine stitching lately.

   And yes, 3 months for a repair is a long time, but the man  I brought my machine to has taken a job as a teacher. He used to work for a local sewing/vacuum cleaner business, and he sold me my machine (which was used at the time) many years ago. Since then that business closed due to the owner retiring, and this man had chance to pick up a full time teaching job. He still repairs machines, but his repair business is at his home and happens when he has time. But the good news is that he is a pro at fixing machines, has lots of spare parts for old machines like mine (since you can no longer get them otherwise), and he charges a lot less than other comparable repair places. It was worth the wait.  

   To make the rest of this page (so far) I used a square piece of blue felt. I die cut Scottie dog from some scrap fabric as well as the bones. Then I used some colorful threads and lots of stitching. I'm not sure how I'll finish it off, but once I do, I'll share that with you.

   And let me finish off this post with some various garden photos. I have tomatoes, cukes and green peppers starting to produce. 👍

This pickerel frog has found a nice place to live in the garden.

I pulled out all my spinach since it had bolted. It doesn't like the heat.

My climbing rose is looking fabulous.

Lots of lilies are blooming. I just love these orange tiger lilies; I think they are my favorites. And my day lilies are blooming too.

Also in bloom are my delphiniums

some Shasta daisies

the hydrangea bushes

and my goats-beard is finally  blooming. That's taken a few years to happen.

Of course the milkweeds are still blooming too. I went out the other evening, and the smell of the milkweeds was heady. You could just step out the door, feet away from the plants, and smell the flowers.  I'd never really thought about night time pollination, but there were some type of  sphinx/hawk months busy pollinating the flowers. Sadly, I never got a photo of them though.

   That's all for me today. Have a super rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

Sewing In Progress and a Hungry Hawk

    Hi everyone. Another Friday is already here. I hope everyone has had a nice week so far.

    Today I'm joining Nicole at Friday Face Off, Gillena at Friday Lunch Break and also Halle at Art Journal Journey. Today I have some art in progress  to share.

    I've been working on another cloth journal. My base pages are done, but I haven't put them together or added them to a rigid backing (like interfacing). After that I will stitch 2 pages together back to back to make a two sided page in this journal.

  My background is just an old yellowed bed pillow cover that I cut up. Then I die cut some circles from fabric scraps, and  I appliqued them onto the background.  The photo booth faces and  the slide are paper images that I  printed onto some white cloth. You can create your own cloth to run it through the printer (*instructions below) or you can use pre-treated cotton cloth sheets that you can buy. I happened to have an old packet of ready to print cloth sheets that had a few sheets left so that's what I did, but making your own sheets isn't all that difficult either.

  After that I took 2 little crochet-like flowers and 2 red buttons and hand stitched them down. I snipped these flowers off of something old a long time ago and I can't remember what they were on. I also took a small applique (again snipped off something old that I can't remember) and stitched it down. What I do to finish this page is something I don't quite know yet.

  My other face for today is this Cooper's Hawk. The other day I was driving into my driveway,  just a few feet from parking, when this guy swooped down in front of my car.  He/she then flew over and landed on my husband's workshop.

  I think he/she was interested in raiding the phoebe's nest which sits up under the eaves, but he couldn't get in there. I was down below in the driveway next to my car, and all I had on me was my phone. I zoomed the camera to max, and that means I can't really crop down these photos because they won't come out very clear.

   While I was watching him the whole forest was filled with songbirds in warning call mode. And then, it went very quiet.

  After that he/she flew off into the woods. I'm sure he was looking for another nest to raid.

  That's all for me in this post. Have a great Friday and start to your weekend.   

*Step-by-Step Guide for making cloth sheets for your printer

1. Cut the Materials: Cut a piece of freezer paper and a piece of fabric so they are exactly the same size as standard printer paper (8.5 × 11 inches). 
2. Iron Together: Place the freezer paper shiny side (the waxy side) down against the back of your fabric. Use a hot, dry iron to press the two layers together until they are firmly bonded.
3. Trim Edges: Snip away any stray threads or frayed fabric edges so the sheet will feed smoothly without catching on the printer’s rollers. 
4. Feed into Printer: Place the fabric-and-paper sheet into your printer's paper tray. Note: Ensure your printer is set to print on the fabric side, not the paper side. On most top-feed printers, this means facing the fabric side down.
5. Print: On your computer, set your print settings to "Best Photo" or "High Quality". This prevents inconsistent ink flow on the fabric. 

It's July

   Hi everyone. I don't know what happened to June, but happy July to you.

   Before I get too far into my post,  happy Canada Day to my friends north of the border. 🍁

   Thank you Matilde for hosting over at Art Journal Journey last month. And thank you everyone who shared some Houses and Buildings. It was fun to see all the various houses and buildings people created. I can see it was a very creative month.

   But since it's now July it's time for a new challenge and a new host. This month I want to welcome Halle back. She's been with us for several summers now, and we love having you. Halle always has a great theme related to sewing ❤, and you can see some of her fantastic quilting and art pieces over at her blog Halle's Hobbies.

   This month Halle's theme is Fabric, Lace and Trims, Oh My!

   My first page is all paper and rubber stamps, but I do have some sewn pages coming as the month goes on. 

   I started with an 8x8 (inch) sheet of sewing themed paper. It had a pink vibe, so I painted my journal page pink, and once that dried, I attached my page. I then rubbed just a bit of the paint on the edge of the paper to soften it and make it look more part of the overall page. 

   I added a few stamped images to it including the bottom scissors, the snaps and the purple-ish pattern piece. Then I used my old Martha Stewart button paper punch and made the 3 buttons you see on the bottom left near the scissors. The other buttons were already printed the paper. 

  The top partial butterfly was on some scrap paper. I fussy cut it and added it. Then I had some butterfly washi tape that I added to continue the butterfly theme. To finish my page I added some paper lace on the left side, and I stamped the quote from an old Hero Arts sewing set.

  I hope you're excited about Halle's theme and will join us over at Art Journal Journey. Please remember we are an art journaling challenge, and we accept any type of art journaling, but we do not accept CARDS, ATCs, TAGS, etc. 

  Also just a reminder that we may not be able to comment on a link that goes to social media., so please be aware if you link up through social media you will most likely not hear from us.

  I hope you have a super start to the new month, and I', looking forward to seeing some sewing journaling  for Halle's challenge. 

   

Sunday Art -Mish Mash

    Hi everyone. I hope you're having  a great weekend. It's already the last weekend of June, which doesn't seem at all possible, does it?

   Thanks everyone for your bee questions and comments.  When I open the hives I do use a smokers, but I don’t suit up.  I do suit up when I put in a new batch of bees because then you get so many flying around all confused.  New bee packages contain 10,000-12,000 bees, and they all have to leave the package and get into the hive so there's a lot of bees in motion at once.

 

   But usually when I go into the hive I don’t get all that many that fly out. Most of them stay inside the hive doing their job and some of them are off looking for pollen and nectar. Those bees are so busy they just ignore you.  It’s just those few guard bees you have to be aware of. However, if you stay calm, you can usually just ignore them, or if they are really bugging me, I have a brush with soft bristles that I use to move bees inside the hive (when and if I need to move them), and I can also use that tool to brush the bees off of me. 

  And not to bore anyone with more bee photos or to give anyone the heebie jeebies, but the wild milkweed growing in my garden is now starting to flower and is attracting all kinds of bees, including my honeybees.

  And  for some reason (which I can't figure out), my new bees would rather enter the hive by going under the outer cover as you can see here

rather than going in and out the main hive entrance like the old hive does. Hmmmm.

   Today I am joining Nicole for her Sunday in the Art Room (SITAR) and also Gillena for her Sunday Smiles.  I'm going to start off this art part of my post with my final page for Matilde's Houses and Buildings challenge at Art Journal Journey. Matilde's challenge runs through this Tuesday.

    This page is part of a homemade journal that I used some music sheets in. Then I created this page on top of the sheet.

     I used a small piece of textured paper for the house itself, and I also used a TH die cut yellow house block to create the roof. There is some of the yellow pieces underneath the textured paper.  I outlined these with a Sharpie. Then I added a die cut butterfly on the roof. The window, flowers and snal are all punch out and/or fussy cut images from 49 and Market. The little white planting pot the flowers are in was a scrap on my table. It's actually from a Greek column die that I had used at some point. 

     The gentleman is also is TH die cut that's been sitting on my work table (the die has 3 of these men and I used the other 2 at some point). Then to finish my page  I used a TH quote rubber-stamp and added a few small flat yellow beads. 

   In this next photo you can see the whole page within the journal.

   And finally, a few views of all the milkweed and also the beehives. This is my wild garden area, and other than a tiny bit of fall and very early spring quick clean up, I don't do anything here. I just let nature take its own course, and occasionally someone gives me some plants and I might add them here because this area gets a lot of sun.

    That's all for today. Have a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week.

My Photo and My Page Don't really Go Together But...

     Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week. Today I have a short post as I'll be joining Matilde and her  Houses and Buildings challenge at Art Journal Journey.

   The photo of the little girl and her toys was in my stash. While cleaning I came across a sheet of images. On that sheet I noticed the house in the background of this image right away. I decided to make it the centerpiece of my page and to create a background for the lawn which stretches out in front of the house. 

   To make that background I used yellow paint and some green and blue watercolor splatter. I then added some flowered cloth tape. I also added a bit of honeycomb because somewhere in the yard I'm guessing there would be some bumblebees. I added the photo and put a frame around it, and then I added a little bumblebee chipboard image. All the bits and pieces on my page (other than the image) are from 49 and Market. The quote comes from an older French made stamp set by Aladine.

   As I said, I'm keeping today's post short. Hope you have a wonderful mid-week. And thanks for stopping by my blog.

Happy Sunday

    Hi everyone. Happy weekend to you. It's the first day of summer for many of us and the first day of winter for others. I personally am enjoying these longer days, except I must admit that when the sun is coming up before 5 AM I tend to wake up on the early side too. Sometimes it is just a little too early. Ha ha!

     It's father's day here in the US and a few other places like Canada too. Happy Father's Day to all of you who are dads of any kind. Here's my Dad, long before he was my Dad. Imagine a day when kids wore a tie for school photos. 😏 As someone who taught school for 36 years, the only time I saw ties was when the boys had to wear ties to school for the day before  sport competitions they were a part of, and even that disappeared over time.

     

    Today I am joining Nicole for Sunday in the Art Room (SITAR)  and also Gillena for Sunday Smiles.       I'm also linking this page up to Matilde's  Houses and Buildings at Art Journal Journey.

   I've been working on an America 250 art journal to celebrate this milestone. Here's one page I made for it, which is why you see a lot of red, white and blue on my page.

    I covered my base pages with this red and white paper. Then I used some black ink around the area where I was placing the house just to help the house pop off the page a bit more. The house itself is from a TH set. 

    Beneath the house I added a strip of red metallic star border (sometimes called German scrap). Then I also used some 49 and Market punch out leaves.And finally I stamped  the quote.

   And speaking of summer and the color red, it's strawberry season in my area right now. This past Friday was a gorgeous morning (and as I heard someone at the strawberry field say, it's not 80 and we're not melting while we pick). My husband and I went to a pick-your-own farm in the town next to ours. The picking was excellent!

   

    While there, I saw a couple of barns and I thought of Tom and his Barn Collective that he posts on Sundays. Neither of these are as pretty as the barns he shows, but the second one was the cider and bakery barn so it definitely smelled wonderful.

   And besides eating lots of fresh picked strawberries right out of the box, I also did a bit of strawberry baking when I got home. Strawberry pie, plain and simple.

    Sadly I was a little bit off of the center for my big steam hole, but Oh well! It was tasty. ❤

    Have a  great rest of your weekend and start to the new week.