Wild in My Backyard

 Hi everyone. Happy Wednesday to you. 

I want to share another journal page for Jo's Keeping It Wild at Art Journal Journey. Today's page is all about some of the "wild" in my backyard.

In my yard there are acorns from the all oaks in the woods around the house, grey squirrels and dragonflies. I even have some wild blueberries growing in the woods near my driveway. 

     I started my page with a cool leaf background that I pulled out of an old Somerset Studio magazine. Then I added a tag and a squirrel image to my page. I die cut leaves and used the stamps that came with the dies to give my leaves some texture. No they are not oak leaves, but I have plenty of other trees in the woods too.  The acorns and the dragonfly are clear stickers that I added. The clip on the tag and the blue berries are punch outs. The quote is another ancient stamp from my stash, and I used an old die to cut the bottom trim.

      And I've had a lot of actual “wild" encounters lately.

      I think the success story is all the wild turkeys I've come across in the past week or 2, including this mom and older youngster who have spent a lot of time in my yard lately.

     Wild turkeys had disappeared from New Hampshire back in the 1800's. Then in a second attempt to repopulate the state, some were released in 1975. Fish and Game estimates there are at least 25,000 wild turkeys now in the state all originating from that release. I seem to run into them everywhere in my town.

      The other day at work I spent some time watching this kingfisher "hunt" in the lake. He was a bit far off, but I think you can make him out enough in my photo.

     The wild blackberry patch on one side of my driveway is thriving. I have to eat all the ripe ones before my son-in-law shows up and eats them on me. Grin.

Caterpillars are everywhere too.

This is one of the many white hickory tussock moth caterpillars I've seen. While working at the boat ramp one day there was a whole army of them. 

And this woolly bear was in my yard on my grape plant.

      The woolly bear folk lore is that the more brown, the less severe winter will be. The more black, the more severe. I don't see much black at all, so if the legend is correct, it should be a mild winter. But I'm not holding my breath about that one.

       And my wildflower garden has gone wild with both native  flowers and some giant phlox which have seeded themselves into the plot.

     And finally, this corn-like plant has grown up around the base  of where my bird feeders are.  My husband won't let me cut it down because he's quite curious about it. I know it's something that's grown from fallen seed, but I'm not sure if it's corn or not.  

That's all for me today. Have a great middle of your week. 

Time for Another Challenge

     Hi everyone. It's been two weeks since our last Try It On Tuesday challenge began, and that means it's time for a new one to start.😀

      First let me thank everyone who joined into our Keep It Simple challenge and also thank Trina who was a guest designer. 

        Our new challenge that begins today runs for the next 2 weeks is

MAKE IT FEMININE

I'm not sure how I feel about my journal page, but it is definitely very feminine. 

     I started by making the tag which you can see in the center of my page. The background was white, but it was a bit too white so I inked it with this magenta red. I was thinking strong woman, someone who would wear red  proudly. Then I decided to attach my tag to a background page. I stamped a bunch of old images that are very feminine and then I inked it the same magenta red. Now it was too red, so I used some gesso and a paper towel to sponge down the background on the paper. 

     I wanted to add some ladies, so I went with these 2 long and tall flappers who look very feminine and frame the tag nicely.  My page still needed something, so I added some washi tape flower stickers a long the bottom. The quote  is from an old Technique Tuesday set. I know the keep calm part of the quote is something that was popular in stamping several years back, but I still liked how it worked with my page. 

      And before I sign off  don't forget to check out the other members of the design teams art too. There's some beautiful feminine art examples from those talented ladies to inspire you.

I hope you're inspired by feminine art and that you'll join us at TIOT in the next couple of weeks. 

T Stands for in My Dining Room

     Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. It's time once again for T day over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog       .

     Last week I showed you a cabinet that I was in the process of painting. Many of you asked that I show it all finished and in place. Since it's done and in place, here it is.

     The shelves aren't in it yet since this is a cabinet for my  husband to put his "stuff" in. By stuff I mean all the paperwork relating to his mom and some other odd things he uses the table as a desk for.  He hasn't done that yet. (And I can't wait until he gets his stuff off the chairs, from under some other cabinets and the floor-ha ha!) 😉

     Last week I showed you  a pizza I picked up at the general store in my town, and today let me share the somewhat similar pizza the hubby and I made the other night. We went for a thin crust using my sourdough starter. We usually vary it and this just happened to be thin crust week. And although I didn’t photograph it, I did have another glass of milk with my slice.

      For my T day drink this week I have something different. Last week while the hubby and I were doing some cleaning at his Mom's house*, the hubby came across an old Corning Ware coffeepot. His mom had it stashed in her laundry room up on a shelf. It was mostly complete, except it had a plug and no way to plug it into the pot. I'm guessing there was a hot plate type of burner it went on and since there was no sign of that, it must have stopped working and was long ago thrown out. That would be like his Mom to keep the pot and everything else too, as we are finding as we do some cleaning.

    However, I thought the pot itself was kind of retro and funky, so I decided to use it as a vase on top of my hutch. Last week I went out and got some artificial sunflowers to put into it, and I'm happy with my new arrangement. 

Here it is on top of my hutch. 

(And if you look carefully, you can see some of my husband's "stuff" piled on a chair to the left. That's a controlled pile, so it's not too bad. 😊 GRIN. )

There's also a few of my teapots as well as a batter bowl and a pitcher on my hutch that also work for T day too. 

That's all for me this post. Have a super T day and week ahead everyone.

* For those of you who may not know, my MIL is in a memory care assisted living now, and her house is now in a family trust. But since we're all paying the taxes, etc. on it, the plan is to get to ready to rent part of the season next year.

On The Savanna

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend. I hope yours is going well. At my house we've  had and have a lot of clouds, which is not making me very motivated-grin. 

      I'm back today with a new journal page.  This time we're going to the African savanna where a few curious wild animals are taking a look at us.  I'm linking my page up to Jo's Wonderfully Wild challenge at Art Journal Journey. I'm also linking up to Gillena's Sunday Smiiles.

     This page in my Dina Wakely journal had a bit of grit, so when I rubbed yellow and red ink pages over it I got that cool textured look. To finish coloring the background, I used watercolor paints.  I used some acrylic paint to paint the sun, and once that dried I added some yellow glitter glue to it to give it some energy.

     All of the animals are stamped and fussy cut. I used markers to do some coloring. I thought the zebra needed something so I stuck the funny bird on his back. I also thought the zebra needed to be in the grass since that's what they eat, so I stamped this swirly stamp that reminded me of grass. I stamped it on acetate a couple of times with Staz On, and then I sort of fussy cut the pieces and layered them pieces to make it thick like layers of grass on a savanna would be like.  I would have preferred to make the grass green or brown instead of black, but black is the only color of Staz On I have right now.

     Finally I stamped the words from an old set by Technique Tuesday. And for some reason after stamping the words, I thought the ostrich needed a bow, and the bow does work great on her long neck.

      We also had some good news this past week about Miss Maddie too. I think the specialist has finally got her blood glucose levels under control. Hurrah! We've been playing around with insulin levels since January, and she's since gone blind (which doesn't seem to bother her one bit), but now she's definitely acting more like the Maddie we know and love. 👍

     That's all for me in this post. Enjoy what's left of your weekend, and the happy start of the new week also. 

     

Back to Greece in Photos

 Hi everyone. Happy Friday. We've almost made it through another week, and it time again to join Nicole's Friday Face Off   and Gillena's  Friday Lunch Break .

     I'm getting close to being done with my Greece photos, but I don't believe I ever shared photos from Meteora. I hope you don't mind if I share a few more because I went away 5 months ago and I can't imagine people aren't sick of posts about my trip. 😏 However, Meteora was a really interesting place and at least as far as my travels have taken me, quite unique.

     Meteora is an area north of the city of Trikala (in inland Western/Central Greece) where there are 6 ancient monasteries and one nunnery that are perched on these high pillar like rocks. These religious sites were built in between the 13th-14th centuries.  I read online that there used to be 24 monasteries, but  you'll see in some of my photos how precariously perched some of these buildings are. I'm surprised so many have existed this long. You can visit these places when they are open (each has their own time schedules), but you need to climb a lot of stairs to get up to them.

This is the start of the stairs at the Nunnery which was the first place we visited. You can see the building up on top of the hill behind the trees.

These next 3 photos show a few of the monasteries. Sorry I can't name them.

This next photo is the view looking down into the valley from the Nunnery. The second photo includes my face for Friday Face Off, but some of the view is blocked by my head. 😏

If you look carefully in this next photo you can see the stairs winding upward. 

     We didn't visit all of the monasteries. I think it could be done in a day, but parking was  limited especially by noontime when it was actually pretty crowded. Plus it takes a bit of time to visit each place, and we weren't running up the stairs and racing  through each that we did visit. I will say that reading how there might be 150 (or more) stairs up to reach a monastery was a bit intimidating, but the climbs never seemed as bad as what we thought they would be. 

       I love how one of the monasteries we visited had this pulley systems. They used it to transport supplies.

Here's a few more views.

This last photo for today is of Agios Stephanos, which is the only monastery with no stairs to climb. 

      Next week I'll share some views in the monasteries (at least where photos were allowed). But here's a few travel hints if you ever go to Greece and decide to visit Meteora. First of all, get there early as it was less crowded before noon than after noon. Secondly, wear comfortable walking shoes. Women are required to wear a skirt when entering, but you can rent one for a couple of Euros at each place. (The nunnery lends you one for free.) You can cheat like we did though. We each brought large scarves and wrapped them around our pants. That was all we needed to enter. And finally, there is no food available. We ended up leaving mid-afternoon because we were hungry. If you really want to visit all of the monasteries, I'd suggest you bring some snacks or even a bag lunch with you.

     That's all for me today. Have a great start to your weekend. 

Thursday Art

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday.  I hope you're having a nice week so far.

Today I have some more art to share. Once again I'll start with another journal page for Jo's Wonderfully Wild challenge at Art Journal Journey. 

    I really wish I hadn't used  matte medium to glue down the branchy border at the bottom. At first I thought the page needed it, but now that a bit of time has passed since I made this page, I don't think the page needs it. Oh well, it's there now and unless I trash the page, I can't get it off.

    I started my page by spraying quite a bit of pink and green liquid inks onto it.  I swirled them a bit, and then I took some scrap paper and laid it over the page and rubbed my hand over it. I really like how it combined the inks. Once dry I added this fussy cut bird that came out of  an old bird book. I stamped the quote in white and used a heat gun to dry it. Why is it that the only good white ink I've ever found is white pigment ink that needs to be heated to dry?  White must be tough because even with white pens so few are actually any good at being seen over bold colors. 

    Then I added the  branchy border.

     I also have another tag for Sandie's Vintage challenge at Tag Tuesday.

     Yesterday I went with vintage feminine, so today I'm going masculine. I like to think this gentleman is a reporter, traveling the globe back in the day of steamships. Of course he needed to bring his trusty (and probably very heavy) typewriter with him so he could work during his spare time on that novel he wanted to write. 

     I used some old stamps; the man comes from a Claudine Helmuth  set which is at least 20 years old, and the globe and the typewriter are from a not quite so old but still old clear set. I used a couple of chipboard gears which were painted silver and then inked brown. I do wish I had trimmed the globe a little bit closer because the white on the top of it is bugging me, but I could go back and color it in some to hide it more. 

     That's it for me today. I hope your day  is going well. 

Wednesday Art

      Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week to you. When I scheduled this post the other day I noticed the date was August 14th. Is it really almost the middle the month already? Every month goes fast, but this one is REALLY going fast. Only 3 weeks(5 days)  left working at the lake too.

     Today I have some art for a few challenges. I'll start with a fun page for Jo's Wonderfully Wild challenge at Art Journal Journey. I am also going to also link up to  Creative Artiste Mixed Media challenge blog and this month's challenge # 107. The theme at Creative Artiste is always Anything Goes.  

  Don't you just love this alligator image?

     This Gator guy is from a newer stamp set by Pink Ink Designs. It's not often I have to have a new stamp set, but I couldn't resist this one.  I think it's that face. He looks so serious and yet pretty silly too. 😏I stamped him on  paper and used green watercolor paint to color him in. Then I used some markers and paint pens to color in the details. After that I outlined his body to make that stand out more and sort of fussy cut him out. 

     This page is made in my nature themed journal, which is actually a Dina Wakely journal. Every so often there is page made of denim, which makes an interesting work surface. You can see I used some paints on the background as I was trying to give it a shabby watery look. 

      I used a glitter pen and also some crafting gemstones on the cake sparkler.  The quotes are all from an old Technique Tuesday set. 

       I also have a tag  today for Sandie's Vintage challenge at  Tag Tuesday.

     I dug out this ancient cube rubber stamp that had these pairs of vintage shoes on it. I really like the details in these images.  I used those as well as an vintage postage mark on a brown inked background. Then I stamped this TH face image. She had a small flower in the front of her hair, so I colored it to match the blooms I added on the left. Otherwise I left her face black and white as the background is such a strong color that I wanted her to stand out.  To finish I added the quote. 

    That's all for me today. Enjoy your day!

     

T Stands for My Week in Photos

 Hi everyone. Happy new week to you. It's once again time for T over at Bleubeard's and lizabeth's blog.  

Since last week's T day  the weather at my house was a few gorgeous days and a few pretty wet days. I enjoyed the gorgeous days outside, and the rainy days I spent inside.  Here's my week since last T day in photos, but I didn't take very many so this won't be that long of a post.

Monday morning I worked my shift at the lake. It was still pretty humid. Tuesday it rained most of the day and I spent part of my day painting this  unfinished cabinet we bought for our kitchen-dining room area.

Wednesday and Thursday were gorgeous. I took long walks both days.  It was also our week to have my mother-in-law's house at the lake. Wednesday morning I took the dogs for a  walk on her road (it's private for the residents along that side of the lake so there isn't much traffic) and went for a dip in the lake. The air temperature  only hit 72 degrees F /22 degrees C that day (❤ these perfect temperatures) so it was warmer in the lake than when the sun dipped behind a cloud.

Thursday I walked a local rail trail with some friends and then afterwards we stopped for an ice cream. The only photos I took were these 2. If you enlarge them you can see the mama deer and her spotted fawn crossing the trail in front of us.

 Friday it poured as the remnants of hurricane-tropical storm Debby moved through. Luckily we didn't have any flooding in my area. I spent most of my day making some art. I have a few clay molds in a box up on top of a cabinet, so I pulled them out and played with a package of paper clay that I bought maybe a year ago off a mark down rack. 

And finally this past weekend the hubby and I were busy doing a few small chores and going back up to my mother-in-law's. Saturday night on the way home we got pizza from the general store in my town. It was a particularly good one, and you can also see the glass of milk I had with my slices. This is my ticket for T this week.

And that was my past week. 

I hope everyone has a happy T day and week ahead too. 

My Little Summer Journal Part 2

 Hi everyone. I hope you're having a lovely weekend so far. 

     Today I have a few more pages from my little summer  journal. I made the cover using some scrap cardboard , and the pages are made of folded and slightly trimmed then stitched index cards. I'm quickly learning how it is hard to work on both sides of an index card with certain media as the paper is not as "tough"  as some other papers are. But learning about ideas and material is part of the process of journaling, Still it's fun making this journal and trying out some ideas in a very small format.

On this first page I used some stamps from a very old set from Cornish Heritage Farms. I went for an almost symmetrical layout, and I colored the images with some water based markers. Then I used some yellow watercolor paint to give the background a bit of color.

     I really like this next spread. I stamped the flower words (a single background stamp) and added some Art By Marlene punch out images. I added the line around the sun, but in summer, you really need some of both types of weather otherwise you either flood or have a drought.

And here's another garden themed page  made with some stickers, a crepe paper flower and a couple of punch outs. I drew the vine of leaves around the border.

This little strawberry girl ffrom Janet Klein and AALL & Create is a favorite of mine. All of the images on this spread except the tag (which was in my stash) and the hearts (also in my stash) are from that stamp set.

This next page has a chipboard net image, as well as some punch out images and some scrap paper along the bottom. I stamped the quote, inked the background slightly and added some clear sequins.

And to celebrate July 4th, I used a foam firecracker stamp and some red paint. Then I fussy cut the fireworks and attached them to some striped paper (that makes up the background of my spread). I used paint to make the lighted fuse, added some glitter glue exploding fireworks and added a few punch out hearts from my stash.

For my next page I used a lot of colorful Art by Marlene punch out flowers. I added 3 flamingo sequins and a couple of sticker phrases/words. 

Here's  one insect that I don't mind except when they get into the house. I must admit the lined pages aren't making me live this journal, especially on a spread like this one where they are so obvious. I may have to do something to this spread just to make the lines less obvious.

A black foam ant stamp (another very old piece in my collection) and some black paint was what I used on this page. I think if this book would lay flatter I could have gotten some sharper stamped images.

And finally, on this last page, I went "wild" with some colored shaker card sprinkles. I had just a few left in the bottom of a jar, and I figured I might as well use them up. Plus they really perk up this page.

I am linking up today's post to Jo's challenge at Art Jounal Journey because  not only are the ants wild animals, but because of all the wild colored sprinkles on this last page. I am also linking up to Gillena's Sunday Smiles.

Have a a great rest of your weekend and start to the new week.