Friday Flowers and Faces

    Hi everyone. Happy Friday. Another week has sped by, hasn't it? 

    Today I have a bunch of random garden photos to share. I'll be linking  up to Friday Face off over at Nicole's blog and also Friday Lunch Break over at Gillena's blog. And just an FYI- this is a photo heavy post

                                        

     I'll start with these faces on these wild turkeys. I haven't seen them around for a while. I want to say "They're Back!" 😁

   Do you see the grape vine growing over my arbor behind the turkeys? Usually the new growth comes off the old woody vines, and this spring there were none. I thought I'd lost the plant. Then we had a couple days of actual rain, and after that, new shoots came out of the roots. And look at it now. No grapes this year, but the plant certainly wasn't dead. 

     How about the deep red of this lily flower?

A dragonfly hanging out on a tomato plant.

  This year I bought a few plants for a tiny spot next to the deck that usually just filled up with weeds. One plant I bought was a Black Eyed Susan, a favorite plant of mine. It's very happy there and looks amazing right now. Plus there's a face in one of these next photos of the flowers too.

    OK, I guess I got a bit carried away with black eyed Susan photos. 😉 Next up some golden-rod with another face, and then another favorite of mine which are now blooming.

Zinnias ❤

    The other day I noticed 3 Great Spangled Fritillary butterflies on this one bunch of zinnias at one time. I only captured a photo of 2 of them because one flew off as I walked over in that direction.

   These tiger lilies blooms have seen better days, but I still think the flowers are very interesting to look at.

Here's another face on some milkweed.

   This first dandelion photo is slightly out of focus, except for one seed that is breaking away over on the left.

   You can still see the dandelion break away seed here, but it is not so dramatic.

  I visited my daughter the other day, and my son-in-law pointed out this swallow-tail caterpillar that was in his garden.

And to wrap up this post, the son-in-law's sunflowers look AMAZING! 

   Have a wonderful Friday and start to the weekend everyone.

Spooky

  Hi everyone. We're having a cool down in my area. Part of me is glad because it's been kind of warm sleeping for a few nights and part of me liked the warmth.  It is October, right? Mother Nature seemed a bit confused about that for awhile with us having temperatures in the 80's degree F (27-29 degrees C).

   Today I have a journal page for Elle's Steampunk, Halloween or Steampunk Halloween challenge over at  Art Journal Journey.  As I mentioned last time I am making a small Halloween book this month all about a Halloween party attended by some spooky souls. 

   For this page I used 2 images from a TH package of images. One is the centerpiece woman (I added the red to her eyes) and the other is the curtain. I added some black cheesecloth I picked up a few years back at Target which is meant to use for decorating, but I cut it up and use in some art pieces. I added a paper gear and a black brad on the top left corner of the draping.  Then I added a bit of clock washi tape as well as a TH quote sticker. The witch paper on the right is from another page and so is the striped paper on the left. 

   Although this lady isn't a traditional Halloween image, she does remind me of a ghostly vision with that flowing outfit. I think the red eyes make her spookier too. 😉

    Since we still haven't had a frost and only a few cold nights at my house, I still have some flowers blooming in the garden. Of course there would probably be more if the deer hadn't had their Thanksgiving dinner in my yard while we were away. I have done quite a bit of cutting things down, but here's some blooms I am still enjoying.

It's been a fantastic year for dahlias.

    And I've been deadheading roses all summer. They don't seem to mind the drought at all because I haven't been watering them. (Some of these photos I took yesterday when we had a bit of much needed rain.)

    And who doesn't love a zinnia?

   Have a super day or whatever is left to yours when you read this. 

  

 

T Stands for a Flowers for You

Hi everyone. Happy new week to you, and a big hello to everyone who visits Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog  for T Day.

     Last week was busy for me, in a good way with some outings and a few other things going on. My summer lake job wraps up next Monday, so when this post goes live I have only 2 days left of work for the summer. But after last week's cool down I am thinking fall. Especially being at the lake. One morning last week it never got over 58 degrees F/ 14 degrees C, and there were clouds and some wind, so to stay warm I sat in the car for almost my entire 5 hour shift. Luckily I didn't need to run the engine, but I did need to escape the wind off the water. Of course my only boat was 5 minutes before my shift ended 😏. However even with that chill, it doesn't seem possible that by next week we'll be into September.

     For Today's T day post I want to share a few photos from a trip to my local botanical garden last week. A friend and I went on Thursday, and this friend, unlike the ones I usually go with, has a real eye for seeing easily missed things. And seeing I haven't been there since opening day back in May, it was a great visit.

    I thought today I would share a few views because I'm guessing flowers and other gardeny things might make you as happy as they do me. We brought a picnic lunch with us, so I'll share that at the end of my post.   

     We stopped on our way and picked up sandwiches to have a picnic lunch at the garden. We also got this flavored seltzer water which we split.  It was not too sweet and really fruity. I'm going to keep my eyes open to see if I ever come across it again, and I'll definitely have one if I do. What is also interesting about the can is it doesn't scream at you who makes it.

Cheers to T Day, summer gardens and flowers.

Have a super T day and week ahead everyone.

 

Mystery Man

 Hi everyone. Happy Sunday to you.

Since February ends on Tuesday, I am sharing another Seeing Red page today. This is for my challenge this month at Art Journal Journey.

I'm recycling another older journal page today. I managed to remove  the bits off of this  old page, except I couldn't  (nor wanted to) remove the big red painted heart and the "Je t'aime" written quote I had put in the heart. The Mystery Man words were added once I finished the page.

I thought it would be good to stitch around the heart so it would stand out more.  At the same time I stitched around the border. I also die cut this man. As I did on another page earlier this month, I used a white paint pen and colored him in because I wanted him to stand out more than he did in his original black. Since he has no features, he is still a bit of a mystery.

I also created the border along the bottom of the page.  I used some cut outs from a sheet of red ephemera I had in my stash. I cut the leaves off of  another old journal page that I was pulling apart, and I used some tiny red beads to add a bit of texture.  Then I wrote in the phrase mystery man to go with my written Je t'aime.

I wonder who this mystery man is, and who will receive his big heart. There's definitely a story (or several stories)  behind this page.

And how about a few more views from the Sunken Gardens in Florida.

I love how plants I grow at home in a pot inside my house can grow outside year round here in Florida.

That's all for me today. I hope you have a great rest of your weekend.