Garden Colors in June

    Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday. Hope your week is going well so far. 

    Last week I took another trip to my local botanical garden to see what was in bloom. Actually the whole place seemed to be in bloom.  There can never be a blossom overload, but this visit  was definitely getting close to maximum flower power.

    

   And next time I visit, all these fleeting  beauties will be replaced with other blooms.

   Have a great rest of your day.

T Stands for Snow, A Birthday, and Other Things

 Hi everyone. Happy new week and Happy T day also. 

Winter has made a  return to New Hampshire.

In this next photo here's the snow gauge this past Friday after all the little snow events we had  last week.  This photo was taken  before the big Friday night into Saturday snow.

You can see we had 14 inches (over 35 cm) before the big storm. Here  is the snow gauge  after the big Friday night into Saturday storm:

 I guess it's not as bad as some of the places in California where they've had enough snow to practically bury houses. And it sounds like they're going to get some more too. 

 I still hope this is it  for any accumulating snow in New Hampshire. One never knows in March though.

And this week for flowers let me share the bouquet of white roses my husband brought me home for my birthday. He brought them home Friday night after work since my birthday was Saturday, the same day of the big snow storm. 

White (with all the snow) was an appropriate color for my birthday this year.

My birthday was pretty quiet, but it wasn't  a bad day. I spent some time on the phone with my friend in North Carolina and even got an invite from my brother that he would take me out to lunch this week. That's a first. 😀

My daughter and her husband were going to come to my house for my birthday, but with the snow, those plans were scrapped. Instead we planned to meet half way between our homes for a Sunday lunch. (We live around 2 hours apart.)

Here's my link to T day over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog.

For T day this week, here's my drink, the one on the left. Only one is mine; the other one is my husband's.

We were back in Manchester at the Puritan Back Room, and yes, we both had mudslides similar to what I showed you a few weeks back. My daughter and her husband arrived a couple minutes later, and since we didn't have to wait for our table once they arrived, they also ordered mudslides once we were seated for dinner.  I never took any photos once they came as I was too busy chatting. As I mentioned last time I posted mudslides, the dinner speciality of this restaurant is their chicken fingers, which is what we all had.  This time I went "wild" and ordered half plain and half coconut. (smile) The best part is they give you so many that there are leftovers. That's what dinner for tonight (if you read this Monday) or last night (if you read this Tuesday).

That's all for me. Have a great T day and rest of your week.

Flowers

Happy Friday!  Hope everyone has had a good week so far. Mine has been busy but in a good way. My daughter was home for 4 days. I can tell she has been working from home  and wants  some different company and a change of scenery. Since she hasn't taken any vacation time in over 7 months, she took a day, and even though we wanted to go out to a state park, the tropical storm came through. But we still had a fun day,  and  we've planned a couple of more days later this month too.  And it is nice to have her home.

So a couple of weeks ago I was invited to a bridal shower for a niece of my husband. I didn't go as I thought there might be more people than I want to be in a group with, but I did send a gift. When I went to wrap the gift (which I bought on Amazon) I realized I didn't have a bow, so I thought, why not make something?

So I die cut a bunch of pieces from the few 3D flower dies I have.

And then I put them together, mixing and matching pieces, to make a bunch of flowers.

I thought it made a cool bow replacement.

And I had a lot of fun!

I guess I've been inspired by all the flowers blooming.

We've been having dry weather (actual low level drought here) so some flowers are growing well and some have stayed pretty small.

But my potted annual plants on my back deck are doing great, but I do have to water them each day.

I do love flowers! 

Thanks for visiting and have a great start to your weekend!

Winter Can't Stay Away

It's a VERY cold morning here in my world. 7 degrees (-13 degrees C). Brrr. Winter doesn't want leave this year. But the sun is shining and the skies are blue so at least it's not dark and dreary.

And it will be a good day to stay inside and make some art. There's always a bright side to these cold winter  days. (Did I really say winter days?)

So let's go tropical today where it is warm and lush.  Here's a page out of my Nature Journal.

I began by tearing this tropical foliage paper into scraps which I then collaged on my page. The hummingbirds are stamped images which I painted and colored with watercolor markers. Then I fussy cut them.

I drew the flowers based on a photo of honeysuckle. I colored then, fussy cut them also, and added them to the page. Then I added a couple of strips of these gold stars.

I am linking up to Moo Mania and their latest challenge called Color Effect.

And here's  a few tropical plants for your viewing. I took these photos at the arboretum at Smith College the other day.

In the tropical greenhouse. You can see some other folks who are in there also. (Most people were doing the bulb show, and yes, I promise to show you some photos of their gorgeous spring flowers.)

 I find it amazing that pineapples grow off a stalk like this one-close up above and view view below.

 Some plants have such fascinating shapes and textures too.

The outside of a cottage cheese tree looks like roots.. 

Looking up I discovered not only this cool view but these cool cones.  This is a cyclad.

And how about a cocoa pod growing on a cocoa tree. I wonder if they use these pods to produce cocoa for hot chocolate or even chocolate for themselves.

And finally they had so many orchids in the arboretum. I will show you more another day but here is a little tease.

Hope everyone is having a fantastic weekend!