Wild in My Backyard

 Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday to you. 

I want to share another journal page for Jo's Keeping It Wild at Art Journal Journey. Today's page is all about some of the "wild" in my backyard.

In my yard there are acorns from the all oaks in the woods around the house, grey squirrels and dragonflies. I even have some wild blueberries growing in the woods near my driveway. 

     I started my page with a cool leaf background that I pulled out of an old Somerset Studio magazine. Then I added a tag and a squirrel image to my page. I die cut leaves and used the stamps that came with the dies to give my leaves some texture. No they are not oak leaves, but I have plenty of other trees in the woods too.  The acorns and the dragonfly are clear stickers that I added. The clip on the tag and the blue berries are punch outs. The quote is another ancient stamp from my stash, and I used an old die to cut the bottom trim.

      And I've had a lot of actual “wild" encounters lately.

      I think the success story is all the wild turkeys I've come across in the past week or 2, including this mom and older youngster who have spent a lot of time in my yard lately.

     Wild turkeys had disappeared from New Hampshire back in the 1800's. Then in a second attempt to repopulate the state, some were released in 1975. Fish and Game estimates there are at least 25,000 wild turkeys now in the state all originating from that release. I seem to run into them everywhere in my town.

      The other day at work I spent some time watching this kingfisher "hunt" in the lake. He was a bit far off, but I think you can make him out enough in my photo.

     The wild blackberry patch on one side of my driveway is thriving. I have to eat all the ripe ones before my son-in-law shows up and eats them on me. Grin.

Caterpillars are everywhere too.

This is one of the many white hickory tussock moth caterpillars I've seen. While working at the boat ramp one day there was a whole army of them. 

And this woolly bear was in my yard on my grape plant.

      The woolly bear folk lore is that the more brown, the less severe winter will be. The more black, the more severe. I don't see much black at all, so if the legend is correct, it should be a mild winter. But I'm not holding my breath about that one.

       And my wildflower garden has gone wild with both native  flowers and some giant phlox which have seeded themselves into the plot.

     And finally, this corn-like plant has grown up around the base  of where my bird feeders are.  My husband won't let me cut it down because he's quite curious about it. I know it's something that's grown from fallen seed, but I'm not sure if it's corn or not.  

That's all for me today. Have a great middle of your week. 

Beautiful Days

    Hi everyone.  

      I'm back today with another page for Matilde's What Makes You Happy challenge at Art Journal Journey  One thing that makes me happy is being by, on, or just in the vicinity the ocean. I sometimes think it's because I must have a lot of Viking DNA that was passed down to me. Ha-ha Grin!

      I'm also linking up to Creative Artiste MIxed Media Challenge blog. Their challenges are always Anything Goes, and this time it is challenge #105.

      This is a page from my Greece journal. The background paper reminded me of the many times I was near the ocean in that country including riding a ferry, driving along the shore, or walking near the shore.  The paper was only 8x8 inches, so I had some space on the top and bottom of my page. I filled in the bottom with some die cut waves (using a very old QuicKuzt die) that I then added some white glitter glue too. Along the top I used some fabric ric-rac trim. I would have loved to stitch down that trim in, but sadly the page behind this was already finished and I didn't want to ruin it with stitching. I also added a layered frame, an older quote as well as a die cut seagull.

     Last week after my allergy shot appointment I met up with a friend, and we went for a walk at the shore at Odiorne State Park. It was warm, but not really humid, plus there was a lovely breeze off the water so we had a nice walk. Thought I would share some photos today.

Did you spot the painter?

The path right along the beach looked like it had been re-sanded. It was pretty walking through this patch of beach roses.

Further along we came to pink ones too.

And along the trail, there was a patch of beautiful irises. This was an area of an old homestead, so maybe someone planted them long ago. I don't know.

I just love this part of the park and walking under these oak trees.

And of course the ocean is always great to see.  This view is at one end of the park overlooking a harbor.

The jetty marks the end of the harbor. Some day I am going to be here when the tide is low and when  I can walk out to end of this jetty. I think that the wet area just beyond the first rocks looks a little sketchy when there's water up around it.

And here's some views out to open ocean. (well mostly)

Tomorrow for Friday Face Off I'll have some ocean views from Greece.

Thanks for stopping by my blog, and have a great Thursday.

 

Circle Art

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday.

     Today I have a spread from my Greece travel journal that I am sharing for Valerie's Geometric Forms challenge at Art Journal Journey.  The left side of the spread is from the Acropolis Museum and the right side from the Acroplis itself.

The right hand page has lots of geometry. There is the big rectangle of the book page (that is part of the background and of course I had to buy a used book printed in Greek) as well as the rectangle of the vintage  black and white postcard I added. There are also 3 circles with the gold embossing. Those were from coasters at the hotel we stayed at. I recycled them  and cut away the outer white around the rings.

You can also see my ticket for the Acropolis. It has some cool blue geometric forms on it also.

The left side of the spread is about my visit to the Acroplis Museum. I included the 2 tickets I bought online and printed off just for this journal page. I also included a bookmark and a chopped up postcard both which I picked up in the gift shop. 

The vase was stamped, colored and fussy cut.

I also have one more tag for Sandie's Anything Goes challenge at Tag Tuesday. It also have some circles on it.

I hope that poor woman's thoughts and life stop feeling like they are going round and round. Grin.

     I embossed  most of the background and then inked it. I also used a different embossing folder and embossed the circles and some white paper before I used an old punch to make the circle.  I inked those also. I cut out the number from a sheet of printed paper, added the Art by Marlene lady, and wrote in the round and round words.

That's all for me. Have a super rest of your day.

Welcome A New Season

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend.  And welcome to either autumn or to spring, depending in which hemisphere you reside.

Autumn is now really official here in New Hampshire, and I really enjoy this season. Usually the biting bugs aren't so bad; the air is crisp so it's good to walk,and it's especially good for sleeping at night. It is also a bit bittersweet season though, because all of the good things about summer end, like using my screen porch, having lots of flowers blooming, and going for swims and boat rides.

Too bad we can't combine the best from each season.😏

I have a page for Elle's Books, Cats and Tea challenge at Art Journal Journey that celebrates  autumn here in New Hampshire.

Can you tell (if you look on the right of the photo) that this journal is so full I can't get the pages to lay flat for photographing?  I still think you can get a decent enough view of my page. 

I stamped the leaves in various autumn colors. Then I added the bronze washi tape, the die cut pumpkin and the stamped and fussy cut cat.   I used this round hello pumpkin stamp which comes from a very old clear stamp set  from back in the day when circle word sets for scrapbooking were big. Finally, I added a few little circle-spiral confetti pieces to finish off my page. 

One other thing about autumn that is always good are freshly picked apples.  Last Sunday the hubby and I  went to a local orchard, and we picked a bag.

Time for apple crisp, apple pie, and so many other yummy treats. It's a good thing it's cooled off enough to do some baking. ❤

To wrap up my post, here's a few other seasonal photos from the orchard.

Have a great weekend.

And I'm linking up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles too! 

A Cup of Tea on a Cool Morning

 Hi everyone.  It's the middle of the week, and I'm back with  a page for Elle's  Books, Cats and Tea challenge at Art Journal Journey

Today my page is about having a cup of tea which is always nice in the morning, but even better on a cool one.  However, it's not  a very cool morning in my neck of the woods as we're having some summer-like heat and humidity back this week. Usually this summer-like weather  doesn't last very long in September though.  At least I hope so.

I'm trying out a new journal with this page. A few weeks back I had some time to kill before my allergy shots appointment, so I went into Ocean State Job Lot. Ocean State Job Lot is one of those stores where you'll never know exactly what you'll find as they are  basically an overstock/markdown store. However, I had seen an ad where they had Strathmore art paper, and I wanted to go check it out. One of the things they had were  small spiral bound mixed media journals. I decided to try one, and that is the journal I made this page in.

This photo is of the larger version. I went with the smaller 5.5x8 inch version,   but this large version was  the only photo I managed to find online where I could save and repost the image. Have you ever used these journals before? 

I started by stamping the berries several times around the background. Then I colored in my stamping. After that I inked my background with 2 shades of brown to give my page more of an autumn look.  I stamped the tea cup and highlighted it a bit with a black marker, and after fussing cutting the cup out,  I added the top and the tea tag from an actual infusion. I stamped the blackberries again on inked paper, and then I colored and fuzzy cut them before adding  them next to the tea cup. I also added some metallic stickers of leaves, as well as adding the stamped quote and some white paint pen dots.

I was happy to see the paper in my new journal held up really well. Whether I'll get to check if they have any more of these journals left at ocean State Job Lot, I'm not sure. Right now Miss Maddie's hospital bills are going to put some of life's little pleasures on hold for a month or two, especially little art pleasures that are not really necessary, like more journals to add to the pile I already have. Grin.

Hope you're having a great middle of your week.

Playing Hooky and the Sky

Hi everyone. Hope your week is going well.

I have a new journal page today for Wendy's Door and/or Arches challenge at Art Journal Journey. Today my page is  called the Doorway to the Sky.

My background is pretty crazy, isn't it? During my supply clean out I had a big sheet of paper I was trying markers and ink pads on. I wanted to be sure they still had ink in them. Even though I thought this was really just a scrap sheet of paper, I liked the end result and used half of that paper to make this page. 

I used a stencil and a black Sharpie to make all the stars on the background.

Inside the doorway I first used a black Sharpie to color in the space. Then I added bright yellow glitter glue. The  little clouds were part of a stamped image, and I cut them out and added them to my page. The door itself was on a sheet of door paper and was brown. I cut it out and colored it because the brown door on the colorful background just didn't work.

Finally I added the TH lady and the quote.

Today I am also sharing some photos for Rain's Thursday Art Date. This week her theme is Playing Hooky.  I think the lady on my journal page could also fall into the hooky theme as she looks like she might be more interested in the sky than doing  the "woman's" work expected of her. Yet maybe she is lucky enough to be able to enjoy the sky without other expectations that the time period she lived during would most likely impose on her.

This gnome in my first photo is definitely sleeping on the job. Smile.

And one of my favorite places to play hooky is out on my screen porch. It is also a favorite place for the pups too, and they are waiting here for me to be let inside. You can also see my love of gardening extends to having lots of pots filled with annuals on my deck.  Smile!

The deck still needs the railing put up. You may possibly remember my husband  had started reflooring our deck last fall because  the  boards were getting a bit soft and were starting to split and pop up. He never got to the railings or the steps, so hopefully later this summer that will happen.

The last time my husband rebuilt the deck, around 2000 or 2001, was when he built the screen porch. At that time the deck needed a total rebuild from the ground up (not just the floor boards). I always wanted a screen porch (there's so many bugs around here), and when he rebuilt the  under the floor support system, he was able to create the supports needed to carry the walls and the roof of the screen porch. Since then  the screen porch is one of my favorite rooms in the house, even if it really isn't in the house.

I used the wide angle lens on my phone for this next photo, and it certainly makes this space look a lot bigger than it is. 

This is where I disappear to during the nice weather when I want to play hooky. Although I must admit being retired I am only playing hooky from things I love to do (well at least for the most part). You might be able to say I am playing hooky every day-smile.

That's all for me today. Thanks for visiting. Enjoy the rest of your week.

Hope It Was Happy

Hi everyone. How was your weekend and Christmas?

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas holiday (if you celebrate).  We had a warm up on the 24th and 25th and lost a lot of snow. It's not all gone, but the rain and fog did make Christmas a dark day, which in turn made it a no expectation, who cares if we didn't have breakfast until noon type of day. I was happy my daughter came home (and is still here). I ate too much, but had a lot of quality family time. 

My daughter is on vacation until after the New Year, and, and since she works from home and sees no one except her beau  and his parents (who don't see people either), she is hanging out here with us until Tuesday.  We're working our way through the Die Hard movie series, have watched several other Christmas favorite flicks and who knows what come next after those are over. It's been relaxing and low key. 

Here's a quick page I made shortly before the holiday. I had started it earlier by stenciling the poinsettia's and also spraying it with watered down ink. I then stamped some small phrases and the circle image and added the TH couple. It still needed something, and I had this sheet of mostly used up Christmas stickers from years ago. I decided they worked on this page, so I added them to finish it off.

I am linking to Tracey's  The Meaning of... challenge at Art Journal Journey. The holidays are full of glitter and sparkle and other traditional images. I like that the same things come out of storage every year and give that continuation to the holiday.  

Keeping this short.  Have a great rest of your weekend.

And thanks for visiting.

 

Bird Talk

 Hello there. Here in New Hampshire it is going to be cold and windy today. They are saying that it could feel as cold as 10 degrees F or about -12 degrees C with the wind chill. Brrr. It is too early for it to be this cold, but at least I don't have to go out and can spend my day making art! And maybe finishing my book too. 

  I have another bird page for Wendy's challenge at Art Journal Journey as well as day 18 of Leah's Art Everyday Month.

I think these chickens are having a really interested bird conversation. Who knows what bird conversations are about however. 

The background was made with some Pouring Paint.  Back on one of the Amazon Prime days in October, Amazon had this paint on one of their lightning deals.  I noticed it and decided that I wanted to give it a try.

It is always nice to have something new to play with.

When it arrived, I spent a morning playing with it on some watercolor papers, but darn, I forgot to take a photo of this background before I covered it over.

In case you aren't familiar with pouring paint, this paint does move, but it is thick. Thick enough to add details into the paint also. On my bird journal page I used a round empty tape roll and made a bunch of circles. I also love how the paints don't  blend together. So you can add all the colors you want and not end up with mud.

Here's another of my practice pages where I used a credit card to create the texture. And it doesn't take much paint either. I think this page is a bit blue for me, but I can go back and add more colors.

Anyhow, back to the chickens. I added a strip of partially punched dots to the left. The strip was laying on my work table, and it was time to do something. Then I added some paper tape, some stamped and fussy cut chickens, the stamped conversations they are having, and some die cut clouds and sun which are ancient Sizzix dies but still ones I like to go back too. I stamped the matching blue lines on the clouds,  and added the hand drawn dots to outline the sun. 

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

How to Spend a Hot Day

Hello. I am back today with another post for  the When It's Hot challenge at Art Journal Journey. So what is a good thing to do on a hot day?

Maybe not sitting on a mushroom, but certainly a good book helps to pass the time. And maybe even makes your eyes a bit heavy and helps  you to doze off for a nap too, even if it's a good story. 

My background is made with 3 colors watercolor crayons and 2 different stamps. The main image of the boy on the mushroom is an old LaBlanche stamp from my stash. The beauty of reorganizing is I have found some fun stamps that have been sitting unused in bins for awhile. A little coloring, some stickers and finally a tab that seemed just right for this page.

And it is time to do my monthly  reading update for anyone who is interested. This is how I am keeping track of my reading, and June was a pretty good reading month.

It started with this oldie from the early 1960's (I think 1962).  I was reading a list of the top books for each year, and this one was listed. It sounded pretty good and relatively light reading, a mystery with bit of romance set in Crete. I did enjoy it, and even though it was from the early 1960's I love the independent and strong minded female leading character.

And it is really nothing like the Disney film by the same title with Hayley Mills which I watched after finishing the book.

And then it was onto another older mystery, this one from the 1990's

This one's main character is Anna Pigeon, a US National Park Service ranger. I also enjoyed this series, which I can't believe I haven't ever read before. There's a whole collection of these set at different parks, so I think I need to read a few more.

This is book 2 is another series. The premise of this series is that there are Gods (like the ones from Greece, Rome, Norse and Celtic) still on earth fighting the daimons of New Orleans. I like that part of the story. And there is also the beautiful young girl one of them falls in love with, which is a bit too romance for me. But I have to say it is light fun reading, and this one (book 2) I liked this one much better than book 1. I guess you have to just be in the mood for an easy and light read, but I will probably read another some other time when I want a bit of  fantasy escape.

I listened to Jungles of Stone, which was a very good book. However, I think the title was deceiving, as the book was more about these 2 men and life in Central America than the Mayan discoveries. However, since I knew nothing about Central American history nor the discovery of the Mayan temples I did enjoy the listen. There is always so much to learn, isn't there?

So once I finished listening  to Jungles of Stone , I decided to listen to another Latin American book. Love in the Time of Cholera came out in the 1980's, and I read it then, and I loved it. I also enjoyed it this time around too. I have to say I remember some images from the book, and the gist of the story, but not all the details of the story. It is a wonderful piece of literature about first love and love later in life.

And then I went on to book 6 from the Sookie Stackhouse vampire series, which enjoyable and so much better than book 5.  

And right now I am listening to book 2 of the the Mayfair witches trilogy by Anne Rice. I've read the first book 3 times, including last summer , but have never read any other book in the series. This one is 28 hours long, and I am not too far into it, so let's hope I enjoy it because it is a bit commitment.  (But the first book, The Witching Hour, was also long to read, and I looked it up and that book was a 50 hour listen. Only I read my paper copy.)

And finally, I am also back to rereading  some of the earlier Louise Penny books. This is book 4 and another excellent mystery set in Quebec, Canada. I wasn't going to reread this one because I thought I remembered it, but since it's been years, I realized I didn't remember that much of it, and I really enjoyed another read through it.

And if you stop by on a regular basis, you might know I've been playing with dyeing plant images on paper. Here's a few books I've read/reread recently to learn and refresh my skills.

This top book (Eco-dyed Art Journals) is very useful with instructions. Eco-color is a wonderful book of inspiration and nice glossy photos. 

And Wild Color is a super book with lots plant dyeing info also. 

If you read, I hope June was a good month for you. 

And I appreciate you stopping by to visit.