Down on the Farm Again

 Hi everyone. Happy Friday. 

Here in the US this is the start of the long Labor Day weekend which means we are at the end of the summer "season". I am hoping the actual seasonal summer ends with some dry, sunny and cooler weather this month so I can get back into gardening and regular walking.  I used to love summer heat but in the last few years I have been craving  crisper and cooler temperatures. Perhaps summers weren't so tropical in the past (thanks to the  changing climate), or perhaps now that I am  vintage (like my art today) my tolerance for heat has changed? Smile.

I'm excited my daughter will be here for the long weekend also as her beau is off visiting a friend. It will be good to have her home for a few days. I've no big plans otherwise, but I am sure, as summer is starting to wind down, my husband will want to get a boating day in  as that season starts to wind down also.

I'm back today with another page for Wendy's VINTAGE challenge at Art Journal Journey. I have one more down on the farm/gardening collage to share from a set I made earlier this summer.

 I am starting to love these burlap backgrounds. They do give a vintage background without doing anything to them. On this page I attached some vintage gardening ribbon, an old photo, and some vintage stamps. These stamps aren't for postage but would be given to someone as they bought food and other things at the grocery store. Once they had enough stamps they could cash them in for other items. These types of stamps were all the rage in the 1950's and 1960's. King Korn was one of these stamps, and S&H Green Stamps was another.

I also used a burlap tag on my page that I did some random stitching on. To finish my page I added a bit of cloth ric-rac trim, this paper sunflower sticker, and a few TH word stickers to create my quote.

I hope this lady in the photo has had a great year with her garden.

My veggie garden has been hit and miss this summer. Tomatoes and peppers have flourished, but zucchini not so much. It seems like zucchini grows just about in any weather in everyone's garden, but sadly, not mine.  Yet I must say the flower gardens have been very very happy. 

Since my page today once again has a farm theme, let me take you back one last time to the Sunflower Festival. The farm where the festival was going on  also had a few draft horses to greet guests as they arrived. One of them followed me down the fence a way as I walked towards the entrance. Maybe it wasn't me but he just wanted his photo taken. If my dog Maddie can be a photo-hog,  I guess a horse can be one too.

 My neighbor used to have 3 draft horses that were used to pull lumber out of the woods, and when my daughter was little we could visit them. They always made me feel so small, but they were definitely always receptive to some attention too. 

These guys, well especially the one who liked me talking to him, were so handsome I had show them to you.

Hope the new month is treating you well!

A Little More Steampunk

 Hi everyone. Happy almost weekend to you. 

We're suppose to be cooling off as today goes by  after some very hot days this week. It seems like this summer has either been wet or too hot. I hope fall is more normal and definitely drier and more comfortable.

I'm back again today with another page for Neet's   TYPE challenge at Art Journal Journey  You still have a few more days to join in if you've been thinking about doing so as the challenge goes through the end of the month. 

 I've gone a little bit steampunk in today's page.

I started with a blue paint mop up page. I next added some printed washi tape to it, running it in vertical stripes. Then I also used some scraps of type printed tissue  paper on random spots of my page. Before I added images, I also did a bit of stenciling with some rust brown paint and a stencil.

In the middle I added this TH gear image from a packet of ephemera he put out at some point. The men and quote are stamped from some of his stamps. The two men with their hands on their hips are a die cut (also from TH), as is the bird flying, but that image is not TH.

Finally I used one of my first set of  dies I ever bought  as well as some black paper to cut all the gears I added to the page. (The set was from Spellbinders.)

Did you know the first really practical typewriter was invented by  Christopher Latham Sholes in 1867? He worked on his design and then it was sold to Remington, who marketed the first typewriters in 1874. They still needed some work, and the improved model came out in 1878. Mark Twain was the first author to submit a manuscript to his publisher than had been typed. Thomas Edison created the first electric typewriter in 1872, but it was crude and became more of the ticker tape machine. The first actual electric typewriter appeared in the 1920's. (This is all according to the online Encyclopedia Britannica.)

Besides the print on the background of my page, my steampunk themed page does fit with the timeline of the  history of the typewriter. The Victorians were certainly into industrialization and creating new machines.

My photos today are the opposite of this industrial idea. How about a few  pastoral views from the farm where the sunflower festival was held?

Enjoy the start of your weekend!

Down on The Farm

 Hi everyone. Today's post is a country themed one. 

I am sharing a page with Neet's TYPE challenge at Art Journal Journey.

I made a collage of various items, including a copy of a typed recipe card that was made into a tag, as well as this typed quote. 

I have my grandmother's typed old recipe cards, including a few for our favorite desserts she used to make. They are cherished by me because I can not only imagine her handling and making the cards, but I can still taste her food. Like me, my Nana enjoyed experimenting in the kitchen. Here's a random couple out of the collection I have.

None of these original cards were cut or glued in making my page. It must have been popular to type the recipes out at one time. It must have been that lots of homes had typewriters in them.

On my journal page I also stamped the beets and carrots onto this stained piece of ledger paper. I cut the basket of veggies out of a sticker you would use on some homemade canned goods. The  tiny fork that is attached with twine is something that came in a paper ephemera packet. I also added the lace mini doily and also some white metallic paper trim. If you've been wondering about all the metallic paper in my art lately, it is because Susan who runs The Stamp Diva online store, is going out of business and has had her entire site at a 30% markdown for months now.  Every month or 2, I've been buying some of her metallic paper trims and images. They used to be easy to find, but not any more, and so I figured I should grab them while I can not only get them, but get them 30% off.

And since we are on the farm today, how about some photos of the animals I saw when I went to the Sunflower Festival at Coppal House Farm?

That's all for me this post.

Thanks so much for visiting, and I hope you are having a nice day.

Back to School

 Hi everyone. 

Can you believe in a week it will be September first? If I wasn't retired, today would be my first day back to work at school after summer break.  Although  I retired from teaching in June of 2020, with summer's off from school, retirement didn't feel like it began until a year ago now. Even with covid and the fact that my first year didn't go anything like I hoped (nor did anyone else's I'm sure), it was a good year. 

Let's hope in this next year our covid world becomes even less covid restricted and more back to normal. So onto the adventure of year 2 of retirement. I am looking forward to it.

To celebrate the big day for the many people  who are still  going or are already back to class, I made this journal page. And with my added type, I am going to link my page to Neet's type challenge at Art Journal Journey.

It started with a page that I scraped some left over blue paint onto.   I also used some left over terracotta  paint and a stencil on top of the blue background.  Finally to finish my background, I ripped bits off of a paint covered paper towel (kitchen towel) that I had been using to wipe up painty messes with for quite some time. I liked the color combo on the paper towel, and it worked well here. I added those scraps with matte medium. 

I used this Sizzix/TH embossing folder to create the type letters. I emphasized them by rubbing a brown ink pad over them. 

I am glad TH released this set of groups of people last spring. Besides having some new faces to craft with, I liked these 3 boys sitting crossed legged. They fit the bottom of the embossed paper just perfect. The bicycle may be a girl's style, but it is the only bike die cut I have. This was a spare from another project that was sitting on my work table.  I drew and colored the pencil before fussy cutting it and adding it to my page. I did use a real pencil and scribble in some writing in various spots on the page, not enough to stand out, but if you look carefully something to see.

I thought about adding other back to school details, but then  I decided there was enough on the page. The boy on the bottom right makes me think he doesn't want summer vacation to end because his expression looks rather forced and not focused on the camera. I bet he is thinking about taking the bike and riding off into the day, skipping school so early in the year. That wouldn't be good if he did, would it?

Perhaps those boys are also thinking about the teachers and staff inside the school building. I wonder, if in the boys minds, they look like these next faces do.

With mean teacher faces like that, who would want to go back to school? 

Not me. 

(Smile- I wasn't known as one of those mean teachers! It is amazing how much you accomplish being kind but strict enough maintain a productive classroom.)

My tree face photos  today are also from  the Sunflower festival I was showing you last week. When we visited we asked about these trees and were told that they were left over from when the farm had a haunted Halloween hayride. They would be scary at night, but pretty fun to see on an August morning.

Hope your day is going well!

Summer Leaves

Hi everyone. Happy end of the weekend.

Last night we had a fun wedding for my husband's niece. This morning we are all a little wedding hungover. Not from drinking too much, although they did have an open bar, and the drinks were very strong. I switched over to Diet Coke very early in the event. The DJ was great; there was lots of dancing and singing. The groom and a couple of his friends were amazing break dancers. Who knew? My husband and I sat with 2 of my husband's cousins and one uncle from his dad's side, and how 4 people can be such clones of each other, I don't know. They look alike ( except for age related differences), think alike, act alike. Luckily all us wives could roll our eyes at each other and feel like we had some compadres.  

My only complaint was the food. Not the appetizers, which were an assortment of veggie medleys  such as spring rolls and veggie somoas, and not the dessert which was a huge help yourself assortment of vegan donuts. The meal food, though good, was sparse. The bride and groom are vegans, and I am OK with having a vegan meal, but the serving plates were the size of a tea saucer and could hardly hold any food. It was dinner time after all. 

Overall it was a fun night out, and my only other concern is that no one comes down with covid because of course, even with masks, when you haven't seen someone for 2 years, there was a lot of hugging going on. (But fortunately everyone there was vaccinated, as was requested by the bride and groom for you to attend.)

The other news here in New Hampshire is, unless there's a change in the track, Hurricane Tropical Storm Henri is bringing  some rain and wind into New England.  

According to the last forecast I saw, (and this may have changed by the time this is posted) the track of Henri comes right through my area, but late in his travels. I think by the time he reaches New Hampshire he would have lost some steam over land, but there still will be rain. But better that than a full blown hurricane.

 

Today I want to share another page for Neet's TYPE challenge at Art Journal Journey. This is another page in my garden journal with a denim background.

I used some black ink to stamp the swirls using an ancient  Hero Arts stamp from my collection. Then I added some scraps of printed tissue paper with lots of type on it. Once my page dried I added several of these vellum leaf stickers I've had for a while. I love how you can see the type tissue paper through them.

I stamped the butterfly image on white paper, cut a rectangle out around the image and used some green watered down paint for most of the background. Then I used a couple of markers to color the butterfly.  This gear die cut was sitting on my work table which framed the butterfly perfectly, so on that that went. And finally I added those typed words.

Hope you like my page.

This week let me take you back to the sunflower festival. When I was driving out after the visit a few weeks back, I passed a couple of really interesting old barn buildings. This first one was huge. With all those little screened over windows I'm guessing this first building is an old chicken barn, maybe?

This other old building was across the street.

This glass and wood door looks like a cool art mosaic.

You have to love the weathered wood and peeling paint. And that yellow door is a beauty too.

I'm a fan of barns, and one of my dreams in life is to have one.  Of course I want a barn I can turn into a large bright art studio. Smile. Whether I ever get a barn or not, these 2 really made me happy to see.

OK, enough said for me. My husband and daughter just got home from their bagel run-we need breakfast this morning still being hungry from last night. 

Hope you have a great start to the new week.

Label Maker Type

Happy Friday everyone. Thanks for stopping by my blog. 

I'm writing this post Thursday night, hoping all the rain from the remnants of tropical storm Fred have moved out by Friday morning as I have plans for a  walk. I've only gotten in one actual walk this week  between things going on or the weather, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed I can go.

This week I have been showing you lots of pages for Neet's TYPE challenge at Art Journal Journey, and today I have one more to share. All my effort went into making the tag on this page, so I thought I would leave the background as it is.  I hope it doesn't look like I just stuck a tag onto the page.

This page started with this tag I made as an art warm up. I used watercolor paints and made a multicolored background. Then I did a lot of random stamping and added some die cut flowers that I doodled over. I also added some bits of scrap printed type tissue paper to the background also. To finish my tag, I added both a quote and a woman from an Art By Marlene punch out book. 

I attached my page to a denim page in my Dina Wakely garden journal. I then used some label maker tape (From TH all punched out, although I should have found mine and used that- that would have been a good idea for the background.). This black Maneki-neko cat die cut that was sitting on my work table. I added a bit of color to him and thought he made a great object to tie the tag and the tape and the page together. Finally I added a few plastic rhinestones that came off of this sheet of rhinestones that I picked up on markdown at some point in the past. Just because a pop of sparkle is always nice.

I guess I could have stenciled a bit of a background on the denim, now that I am looking at this piece on the computer.  I might go back and do that, but for today, it is what it is.

And  besides this journal page, today I want to take you back the Sunflower festival.

I absolutely loved visiting Coppal Farm a few weeks back.  I have some more sunflower photos today.

Not only did I enjoy walking through this big field of flowers (and they were buzzing with bees-smile), but the farm is also  a working sheep farm. They even had a few goats and chickens. And some sweet draft horses too. I'll share those photos next week. 

This was the view looking from the sunflowers back to the farm and the entrance tent they had up for the festival. If it doesn't look crowded it was because we got there just as they were opening at 10 in the morning.

And you might notice lots of bees in today's photos.

I took tons of photos of the bees pollinating the plants. I won't show you all of them, but I had to include a few.

Hope you enjoyed all these summery flowers. 

 I might not be online much this weekend as we have my husband's niece's wedding on Saturday night, and because of this wedding, my daughter and her beau will be here for weekend. My husband's niece and her beau actually got married last August in an immediate family only ceremony, but this year they are celebrating their wedding with a big shindig. The interesting thing, and a sign of the times, is that on the response card we had to check off if we were vaccinated, and if you weren't vaccinated, they asked whether you would be by the wedding. 

My daughter saw on their wedding website they had posted that all guests coming were vaccinated and that tables would be more than 6 feet apart.  The other day they sent out an email with all their celebration covid safety requests, including wearing masks. 

What I am curious about is how they are going to sit us at tables. My first thought is that we will sit with my husband's other sister's family and my mother-in-law.  I wonder if my mother in law will actually mask up. She goes on about my husband being safe (he had a kidney transplant 4 years ago) and  about him taking his immunosuppression meds ,but she never even attempts to wear a mask inside around him, so it will be interesting to see  what happens. 

I might stop by your blog at either end of the weekend, and I do have a scheduled post for Sunday night. 

Have a great weekend.