A Last Trip to the Local Botanical Gardens

      Hi everyone. Happy Thursday to you. I hope you're having a wonderful week. It's feeling a lot like fall at my house. And looking like it too.

    Last weekend the local-to-me botanical garden  closed for the season. Earlier that week I met a friend there, and we walked around with our cameras and also did a lot of catching up. Today I thought I shared some autumn garden views. Just follow the red arrow.

    This carved dog was missing for a while. He's actually flat, and I think he needed some repair. I'm glad he's back.From this angle he doesn't look flat, does he?

Cloud reflections in the koi pond.

Some perfect natural lighting around  this garden art.

Some white flowers,

 and these cool green seed pods, or are they blooms?

I love the scattering of pots around the gardens.

More flowers

and some more bumble bees too.

More unusual plant growth,

and a touch of autumn too.

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you  have a lovely day.

Remember Sasquatch?

 Happy Friday everyone.  It's almost the weekend once again.  They say we will have some rain at my house  tomorrow/Saturday. The hubby isn't happy because he has some outside chores he is trying to finish up, but I've been in the opposite mode, so now maybe I can do some inside things. For those of you who stop by fairly regularly, I still haven't gotten back to cleaning my giant pile that I posted the other day 😫, but my art table sounds like an even better place to be on a wet Saturday. 😀

Today I have some photos to share for Nicole's Friday Face Off  and Gillena's Friday Smiles.

You might remember back in early September I showed you my husband's first art project.  Here's a link back to that post (Friday Face Off) in case you're interested, but let me refresh this post by sharing a couple of photos again.

Since then Mr. Sasquatch has  been painted and  urethaned.

 Painting was easy, but I think my husband was a little intimidated when he went to paint the face.

After the basic face was painted there were several minor changes. A line added.  A color switch  for the mouth. I wanted to do some blending with a paper towel but I was reminded this wasn't really my project. 

He did a great job. Maybe he has a new hobby for when he retires.

Now Mr. Sasquatch is guarding my yard from any wildlife that might wander into it. (Well, he isn't scaring the deer though, so I don't think anything would be afraid of him either. Smile.)

Here's the view from up near the house.  He's a fun addition to garden decor. ❤😀👍

 I'm really curious to see how he looks next summer when everything is really green, and there's more leaves than there are now. And I bet he'll be a yeti when he's covered in snow this winter.

That's all for me. Have a great start to your weekend, and thanks for stopping by my blog.

Autumn Time

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday to you. 

I'm back today with another journal page for Jo's Nature challenge at Art Journal Journey. I am also linking up to my page to Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge. This month is challenge #99, and as it always is, you just need to use at least 3 types of media on your page.

For the Nature part of my page I used some dried flower images that I cut out of a sheet of printed paper.  I also used a gold metallic paper moon. I really like my page, but it certainly isn't the most heavy duty nature page I've ever made.

I started by using an ink pad on my background. Then I layered lots of strips of washi tape. After that I used some small torn strips of colored and printed paper. Along the bottom I used a strip of printed paper as well as some bronze metallic paper trim.  My TH lady needed something to stand on. 

I fussy cut and glued down the dried flower images, wrapping them around the lady. I also added the moon. The black dots are some "waste" pieces from something I die cut (I can't remember what). The quotes all come from an older Impression Obsession rubber stamp that has lots of autumn words on it. I cut around the words I wanted, and once they were glued down, I outlined them with a Sharpie. 

We've started getting colder nights with temperatures below freezing, and nature is quickly tucking in for a long winter's sleep. This morning I even woke up to our first wintery weather. We also had a lot of wind yesterday, and many more leaves have come down.

The end of the season plants look just as captivating as when they're in their prime. 

Hope you're having a lovely week.

Second on the Second

 Hi everyone.  It's the second of the month and time for Second on the Second over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog . All you need to do is repost something you've posted before.

Here's a page from November of 2017. I picked a nature themed page since this month Jo's theme at Art Journal Journey is Nature. I also picked this particular page because here in the northern hemisphere our days are getting to be more about dark nights than long days.  Plus I love the owl. 

The original link up is here On Wildlife Art.

The other morning there was ice on the dog's outside water dish. The last couple of nights it's been down to 29 degrees F or -1.7 degrees C. Brr. Frost is on the pumpkin (as the saying goes) for certain. At least with these dark and  chilly mornings sleeping in an extra hour is a nice treat. 😏

And here's a new autumn page for Jo's Nature challenge over at Art Journal Journey. This page is inspired by all of the leaves falling off the trees in my area right now.

I began by using some blue and pink watercolor paints to create my background. Then I stamped a lot of falling leaves and colored them with markers.  After that I die cut the tree and fox from an old  die set.   I also used a few other older dies and cut out the leaves and the acorn. Finally I used an old die set from Spellbinders and cut out the tag as well as the large textured maple leaf.

I inked the tree and the tag to color them. One leaf and the acorn were colored in with markers. I used markers and a white pen on Mr. Fox.  I also used an orange paint pen around the edge of the tag.

Finally I added a bit of bronze colored metallic paper trim at the bottom of the tree, and I stamped the quote.

And here's a few photos from my yard that were the inspiration for my latest journal page.

The warm weather we had last week gave my brussel sprouts (the only thing left growing in my garden) a boost in size.

I hope they get a little bit bigger before I need to pick them.

Thanks for visiting.

T Stands for a Few Random Things

 Hi everyone. It's T day again over at   Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

Today  I have an assortment of random photos to share.  Let me start with all the heirloom chrysanthemums blooming right now in my garden.  I got my original plant from my mother's garden, and her plant came from my grandmother's garden. I love that these flowers bloom so late  in the season (which it is now here in New Hampshire).

The honeybees are very excited by them also.

On one of my regular walks, I veered off  my road and onto a logging road. The logging road  was cut into our town forest a couple of autumns ago when they were trimming back dead trees and doing normal forest maintenance.  The headwaters of the Cocheco River begin in this forest, and I was now able to walk right up to the banks of the river.  From my road you can only look down a steep bank to the river.

 The reflections are pretty.

Along the road on this same walk I noticed some milkweed seeds not quite free of their split open pod. I hope many of them grow into milkweed plants for Monarch butterfly food during their caterpillar/larva stage.  

You might remember the bigfoot wooden "statue" my husband is making. It will go  in the backyard, looking like Bigfoot is walking out of the woods.  Even though I said I would paint it, he insisted it was his project, and he's working on the finished painting. I think it is coming along nicely. It's his first art project.

Last week before my allergy shots appointment, I went by the beach with the dogs for a walk. Because it wasn't a beautiful sunny day, the beach was not crowded. No one was at one end of the beach, so I let them lose  for a few minutes so they could run into the water and play.

I know the horizon is  far off, but I love how much sky you can see at the beach. We're very forested in New Hampshire, so the view is usually trees. The cloud cover was interesting that morning.

I made a pumpkin quiche last week. If anyone wants the recipe let me know in a comment, and I'll post it. 

Sadly this past weekend's  rain and then wind brought down a lot of leaves, but here's a few views before the weekend. This first one is the road into my mother-in-law's house from when I walked in one day.

This next one is looking off my deck down into the woods along the side of the house. We own a way into the woods, and then there are more woods that belong to our neighbor. We can't ever see the neighbor's house, but sometimes we hear things like their lawnmower.

Here's my yard. I am standing in my big flower garden looking towards the picket fence that surrounds my veggie garden.

In this view, I'm looking down on my beehive. Near the bluebird house is my bee garden which, in the summer, is full of a few cultivated plants (like irises since it gets lots of sun here) and lots of wild flowers. The pole standing with nothing on it is for a bird feeder. I haven't put this feeder out  since bears haven't hibernated yet. I have put out the ones closer to the house, but I take them in at night when bears are more likely to be out. (Even though they could visit anytime.)

And here's another view of the heirloom chrysanthemums in my big flower garden. This garden is going to take a lot of work between now (which I've started) and next spring as it's getting too wild. I need to separate some plants and pull out some overgrown ones. 

Last week when our lovely hostess Elizabeth was sharing the Spice Market, she mentioned how I liked the happy face mugs she had shown. This week for T let me share the happy face mug I  have. Mine is from the Red Arrow Diner in Concord, New Hampshire.

This is my ticket for T this week. I'm steeping  some green tea with ginger and pineapple ( from Republic of Tea)  in this photo. 

That's all for me this week. Have a great T day and week ahead.