Folksy

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend to you.

It looks like it's going to be nice weather which is always welcome, even though a quick shower would be nice to help out with all the pollen. I just hope those bees I see flying in and out of the hive are collecting a lot of it (pollen). 

Today I have a fun junk journal spread to share at Aimeslee's challenge at Art Journal Journey. By now you probably know her theme is flowers.

I think I've also finally finished sharing my junk journal with you. 

You can see the roses plus the other flowers in the bunting images.

I used some magazine paper and some images, all from old FLOW magazines. I also used a bit of an old Japanese book as well as some punched out buttons.  Finally I made a border around the page with a white pen. 

And to wrap up my post, let me share some spring views. The other day I went with a friend to Bedrock Gardens, which is my local botanical garden. 

The horses aren't at the garden but at the farm next door.

Have a great start to your weekend.

A Relaxing Weekend I Hope

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend to you.

I'm hoping things will slow down a bit this weekend. Not that last week was a bad week in most ways, but there seemed to be a lot of things going on everyday.

The weekend is supposed to be a time to slow down a bit, so today I have a page from my junk journal with one way to slow down. One of my favorite weekend things to do, especially after a busy week, is to sit back with a cup of tea, put my feet up, read blogs or my book and relax. 

And it's even better if I can sit outside and enjoy the sunshine, watch the birds and see what's blooming in my gardens. They say rain later today for me, so I'm not sure that will happen.

If you'd like to join me and relax with  that extra mug of coffee or tea be my guest, as I am sharing 3 mugs on my junk journal page today.

I also think the weekend makes great gardening time, so you can see that I used some flower images. Working in the garden also lets you watch the birds and insects so I added a few of those also. 

I used parts of a birch bark designed gift bag and also some pages from a Japanese gardening book to create my background. Then I cut out images from some ripped out magazine pages. These included the mugs, the birds and the  colored flower images. The oval frame, the punched out buttons and the black and white stamped images and words are all left overs from my work table. 

I am linking up  my page to Aimeslee's Flower challenge at Art Journal Journey.

And for those of you who asked about replacement bees, sadly at this time of year the bees are not available to buy as their boxes have sold out. They only can split apart so many hives to make boxes for sale. I am getting reimbursed, but  I  hope the small hive will be big reproducers and will make enough new bees to survive. 

And to wrap up this post, let me share a few more photos from the Magnolia Gardens in Charleston, South Carolina that I visited last Sunday. And I won't share any alligators today either. Smile.

Have a wonderful start to your weekend.

Hats

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. 

I'm posting today for Rain's Art and Dinner Date .  Her theme this week is hats, so let me share a few with you.

First  I have this page out of my junk journal where this dancing lady is wearing a  traditional sombrero cordobes. 

I put the quotes too close to the left hand edge, and since this journal doesn't lay very flat, my photo is crooked so you could read the quotes. 

This page has a lot of flowers, so I am also linking up to Aimeslee's flower challenge at Art Journal Journey. 

I also have another tag for  Tag Tuesday  and Michelle's Hats challenge.

This lady was way too big for my tag, so I glued her down and then cut her to size. I've been wanting to use her in some art though, and this challenge has finally let me do that. 👍 She comes from one of those art paper pages you find inside Somerset Studio magazine, and I ripped her out while cleaning a small stack of magazines a while back.

I also have some interesting food to share this week for the dinner date part of Rain's challenge. It might look very familiar to some of you.  I tried a recipe that Jeanie at  The Marmalade Gypsy shared somewhat recently. She wrote a post on  making preserved lemons, and I thought they sounded really interesting.  I've never tried one before, and since I had  bought a big bag of lemons to make my lemon cake a few weeks back  I figured I might as well use what's left of  them. Plus I managed to  have some fun kitchen play.

I only made 2 jars because that's all I had for lemons.

I stirred them the other day, but they still need to sit for 3 more weeks. I'll let you know what I think once they're ready to taste. 

And thanks Jeanie for sharing this recipe.

That's all for me today. I hope everyone is having a super week.

Cheers for Recycling, Reusing and Repurposing

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend. 

It's the last weekend of the month and almost May 1. It's time for me to share my last page for Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's  Recycle, Reuse and Repurpose challenge over at Art Journal Journey

I'm so glad you picked this topic Elizabeth because I really enjoyed it. This topic allowed me to look at various materials differently. Plus, I've always loved to get the most out of my supplies, especially paper scraps, and I certainly did that. I did some cleaning up too, going through magazines to get images as well as keeping my work table pile from getting too messy. (At least for the moment-smile. And my art room is definitely not very neat right now though.)

Thank you  also for hosting Elizabeth ( and of course Bleubeard too).  Also thank you to everyone who made some inspiring recycled, repurposed or reused item art. 

My spread today is all about lifting glasses to toast this month's theme.

This spread is in my junk journal. I used paper scraps and magazine cut outs. I also punched out some circles from an old book and used bits of a page from an old word search book. I pulled everything together with some washi tape. The red heart was laying on my work table from February, and I used a red paint pen to make all the dots in the background. I did add a few details to the toasting magazine  couple with both a black and white pen.

And while I was recycling, I made another tag using some from recycled scraps.  I wanted to link it up to Pinky's challenge at Tag Tuesday. Pinky's theme is Anything Goes.

Everything on this tag is recycled off my work table except for the Chinese words (I'm not exactly sure what they say) and the waterlily. These were all die cut. And I still need to punch a hole in it too.

I hope everyone has a great end of the month and weekend also. This is the second weekend in a row my daughter will be home for a day, and she has her mind set on going shopping, so you can guess what I will be doing tomorrow when she's here. Smile.

Enjoy your weekend!

Friday Faces

Hi everyone. Happy Friday to you. Can you believe April is just about over? This month went faster than a normal fast month usually goes, but I'll add that I've had a great month.

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

You might remember that last Friday I showed you some faces from a short roadtrip I went on up to Belfast, Maine.   Today's post takes you back to Belfast, but specifically to Tracy's Diner, where we stopped for breakfast Saturday before we started towards home.

The diner had the original area with the counter and a few tables, and then it had a small room off to the side.  We ate in the side room, and the wall murals in this space were absolutely amazing.

It was a little bit crowded since it was breakfast time.  I didn't want to bother people  that were eating, so some of my photos aren't necessarily head on. I think you can get the gist though.

Here's a view of the side room and you can see into the main room too.

I've zoomed in a bit more so you can see the mural.

And here's a few more faces from the diner.

And I don't know why I didn't snap a head on photo when we got up and left the table, but here's my last face from Tracy's Diner.

And there you have it. As the sign on the door said when we left,

and that's what I want to say to each of you who stops by.

Have a great start to your weekend.

Libraries Mean Books

Hi everyone.  

It's already Thursday. Another week is flying by, isn't it?  I've been working out by getting a lot of yard chores completed. We get invaded by annoying little black flies in late April or early May, so I am trying to get as much of my spring clean up and garden prep done (as is possible) before bug season arrives.

Today I have a journal page for both Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's Recycle, Reuse or Repurpose challenge at Art Journal Journey and also for Rain's Art and Dinner Date . This week Rain's optional theme is Libraries. 

Here's a book themed page from my recent junk journal. Other than some washi tape, everything on my page comes out of some pulled out magazine pages. The backgrounds on both sides are journal type pages that were in an old issue of a FLOW magazine. The letters were also postcards that were in the magazine. This quote comes from the same magazine, as do the ladies which were part of a sticker collage and that I cut apart. 

Since I've been busy outside much of the week, I haven't really done much for cooking or baking at all, even though I want to make some anadama bread and the recipe is sitting out on my kitchen counter. I really need to get my act together I guess.

Here's a few garden views from the last few days.

My rhubarb is really growing fast. (And that is not snow around it. It is actually very faded landscape fabric.)

The hydrangeas are getting leaves, and my delphiniums are coming up.

The daffodils will be blooming very very soon, maybe even today.

And the grape anemones are in bloom.

My iris bed is getting  large.

And sadly my crocuses are already starting to get passe, but here's some late bloomers I am still enjoying.

I'm happy that the daylilies a friend gave me last year are really coming back. The ones I already own are growing too. I love daylilies as they are such low maintenance plants and give you weeks of pretty summer blooms. If only my irises would bloom that long as they are also low maintenance and so beautiful when they flower.

I haven't even gotten into this garden to rake but the peonies are coming up.

And for some reason this  last photo isn't very focused, but the beehives are ready for my new bees that will be here in a couple of weeks. My alliums are growing like crazy. too I do need to rake up all the bird seed in the garden though. 

And that's all for me today. It's time to get out and finish the bark mulching I never finished yesterday. Thanks for stopping by.