T Stands for Home Improvement

 Hi everyone. Happy T day. It is always amazing how fast the weeks go by, and we are back to Tuesday again.

Today has been an exciting day for me. Sign ups for the covid vaccine began this morning for my group  in New Hampshire. I went on, battled the system that didn't work 100%, went back an hour later and managed (somehow) to get an appointment today for my vaccine. Shot one is done.

The other news for me this week is I am almost done painting my living room, stair well and upstairs landing. It has been a long process. The actual painting took a few days over several weeks (as I didn't paint everyday), but choosing a color was a project in itself.  I started back in January. My original color chosen was coffee.

Coffee colors vary as those of you who drink the beverage know. There is black coffee, weaker brown coffee, milky coffee, and all the colors that milky coffee can be, depending on your ratio of coffee to milk, cream, half and half, or other creamer you add. Here's what Wikipedia says about the color coffee:

Coffee is a brownish color that is a representation of the color of a roasted coffee bean. Different types of coffee beans have different colors when roasted—the color coffee represents an average. The first recorded use of coffee as a color name in English was in 1695.

I went to Home Depot and bought a few paint samples in the coffee range, came home, and painted patches of them on a wall.

I actually liked the Oxford Street color at the top, but since my house is a post and beam, and I have wood ceilings as well as wood posts through the area, I thought there would just be too much brown. 

I also liked the canyon dusk, the bottom sample color, but when I painted a big section of the wall and looked at it for a couple of days, it just was too blah in my particular space. I have a lot of natural colors in my living room, and I wanted something a little brighter.

After the coffee shades,  I tried some light oranges, some adobe-orange-tans and even a light rust color.

Nope.

Then I went onto greens.

Good thing you can buy paint samples for 98 cents at Home Depot as I have a whole collection of colors now.

I love the color green. The original color of my room was a sage green, which has worked great, but after 20 years it was time for a change.  I actually like all the sample green colors on my wall, but I wanted something  that matched the style of my house and  items  I already had in it. 

The new color is behind the TV on the left. It is called Bay Water. The old color is behind the fish on the right. Since  it's been so long from when I painted that color, and I don't know it's  name, I'll call it sage green.

I looked up the color Bay Water on the internet. The Home Depot paint is a green tint, but other paint companies have a Bay Water color and it is more blue. I think its fun that the paint designers get to name their paint colors. I think the name Bay Water sounds more blue than green, unless the bay where the water is is in a swamp. I like this green though, whatever color you want to call it.

My new color  is not drastically different from the old color, especially in less light,  but it is different enough. It certainly freshens up the area and is a little brighter. Painting also gave me a chance to wash curtains, clean out radiators, sort through the pile of dog toys...another words, I've done some spring cleaning too.

It might be a stretch, but my drink reference this week is in my paint colors. There's coffee and (bay) water. If that doesn't work, here's a some green tea (which you can't see in this photo) in a mug that has some Bay Water as well as my old paint color sage green color on it.  

I am linking up to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog where we meet each Tuesday with our drink related posts. 

I have one high section left to paint, over the sliding door. The hubby dug out the big ladder for me, and my plan is to paint that section one day this week. Hopefully, then we can move onto the stairs. The plan is to pull up the carpet, which is even older than my sage colored paint was, and put in some finished wood treads. That project is on the hubby's list, and he is planning on taking some vacation time once better weather is more guaranteed. 

That's about all for me. Wishing you a wonderful T day and nice week too.

More Secrets from the Secret Garden

Hi everyone.  Happy weekend. 

Also happy first day of spring.  We've made it through another winter! 

And if you are south of the equator, happy first day of autumn. 

Today I am going to share 2 more pages from the Secret Garden journal that I recently made.

Here is my first page for today's post, but you can see it is not a single a flower.  

The very bottom of this page is cut off in my photo, so the washi tape  looks like it is at the bottom  edge of the paper. Actually it is not quite so low on the page.  I needed to hold the book open and also hold my phone to take the photo. It made it awkward to keep the paper straight.

You can see that my background is made with watercolors, stamping, and a bit of stitching. I like the boy sitting on the flower too. He seems to belong there.

The other side of the spread has a little different watercolor look, even if the colors I used are  the same. This is what happens when you watercolor separate pieces of paper and then fold and stitch them to make the book. I wanted to put pages together that worked well by color or by design.  This time I went with the same colors, and they do work side by side.

This page is the one I am linking up to Sheila's, aka Orange Esmeralda's, challenge at Art Journal Journey. This month her challenge is A Single Flower.

The flower is pretty obvious.  It is stamped on acetate so it stands out yet you can see through it. I also added a scrap circular die cut as well as some gold foiled paper elements.

I like to think these boys are brothers, exploring Mom's garden even thought that is not allowed. They thought if they wore their best clothes then maybe Mom wouldn't be so mad at them, if and when she discovers where they are.

I wonder if they'll look so dapper after playing outside for awhile. I bet they didn't think of that.

Enjoy this first weekend of spring. 

 

A Beautiful Day

 Happy Friday everyone. 

It's back to a day of chilly temperatures here in New Hampshire, but this past Wednesday was a glorious spring day. Low tide at the beach was in the morning, so I met my friend for a walk first thing in the day. She had to head out after our walk to babysit her grandchildren, but I had no place to be. The sun was bright, and there wasn't much wind, so I took a little drive. First I went for a short drive south down the coast, and then  I turned around and took a detour  east onto Great Island where the town of Newcastle, New Hampshire is located.

Thought I would take a break from posting  art  and show you a few photos from my drive.

My first stop was at a small state park that looks onto Rye Harbor and has a small beach.  At this time of year there aren't many people around, and the parking lots are open without charging fees.

You can see there was only 1 or 2 boats out on moorings. In the summer this harbor is filled with boats. The next photo shows the channel that leads into the harbor.

Six miles offshore are a small chain of islands called the Isles of Shoals. I've shown you photos when we've boated out there. The islands that are in New Hampshire (because some are in the state of Maine) are part of the town of Rye where this park and one of the beaches I like to walk are located. At this same little state park you can get a clear view of these islands. 

There is also a monument that talked about these islands.

I knew the islands were discovered by Captain John Smith, the same Captain John Smith who helped settled Jamestown in Virginia (the US's first permanent English settlement) and who is part of the Pocahontas story. He named these islands Smith's Isles, but that name didn't stick with time. (Although no one knows exactly why they are called the Isles of Shoals. Perhaps because of all the fish that shoaled near them.)

Captain John Smith's second voyage from England went from Maine south to Cape Cod. What I didn't know is that he is the one who coined the term New England. That name did stick and is now used to describe the 6 states (Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Rhode Island) in the very northeast of the US.

The grass in the next photo (Phragmites or common weed) is an invasive species that grows everywhere along the coast and displaces local plants. And it is so tall too. You can't even see the beach beyond it.

South of the state park are a couple of other state beaches with parking. There are some private beaches too. The beaches themselves are not private, as state law says no can own the beach itself, but without parking the only way to get there would be to walk, so that makes them more or less private.

By this point the tide was coming in so I turned around, headed back north and decided to follow one of the side roads that follows the coast.

I stopped and took this next photo because across the harbor, on the right, is the beach where we often anchor our boat and relax. I know I've posted a lot of photos of that spot in the past. The line on the horizon of this photo is the jetty that I've also shown you many times and that I shared a few weeks back when I walked at Odiorne State Park. It's the one that someday I am going to walk out onto.

If that means nothing to you, it is a nice view.

I had driven into  a small parking area for the scenic view to take this last photo.  Just beyond that parking area is this golf course and some very expensive homes on the golf course. This sign made me laugh. I am sure they needed to put it up because at least one person complained when a golf ball came flying in their direction.

My last stop for the morning was in New Castle, New Hampshire. New Castle is one of the oldest towns in my state and is the only one that is completely on an island. 

This town has a wonderful large park called Great Island Common. I wasn't sure if they were charging for parking yet, but they weren't, so I drove in and took a little walk here. It didn't make the dogs happy though, because this time they got left in the car when I went to check out the views. 

The scenery was beautiful.

I'll finish my post with this fun photo frame that was in the park.

Hope you have a great start to your weekend.

Channeling Georgia O'Keeffe

Hi everyone. 

I'm here today with a giant hand drawn flower for Sheila's single flower challenge at Art Journal Journey.

This challenge has me thinking about a Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986),  a very talented 20th century American painter.  I've mentioned her on an occasion or two before. Some of the art she is famous for are her  scenery paintings of New Mexico and her giant flower paintings. 

Here are a few of her flower pieces. She painted around 200 of them during her long painting career.

O'Keeffe's work is amazing and the inspiration for the drawing (or perhaps more of a doodle when I put it next to these paintings) I shared with you today. 

I drew the outline and some details on my piece using my Faber-Castell markers. Then I grabbed some watercolor paints. I painted in the petals and the flower's center. I also used some paint pens to add details to the flower's center. After that I went back with my markers and finished off the flower.

The dots around the flower were made with a small rubber stamp and some black ink.

If you want to read more about Georgia O'Keeffe, you can here: Georgia O'Keeffe Museum write up,  Georgia O'Keeffe info website, and finally the Wikipedia page about her Georgia O'Keeffe.

Hope your day is going well. Thanks for visiting.

 

In the Spring Garden

Hi everyone.  Hope you have a nice Wednesday and a nice St. Patrick's Day too. We're almost to the first day of spring (or autumn for those of you south of the equator) also. In New Hampshire we finally are supposed to  warm back up so it feels more spring like. Monday was brutally cold with an arctic wind, and yesterday we had a bit of a warm up, but certainly not spring like temperatures. I'm definitely ready for more spring like weather after the little winter temperature return we just had and after the beautiful temperature tease we had last week.

My page today is or Sheila's single flower challenge at Art Journal Journey. This page looks much better in life than in the photo. I think the flower is hard to see in the photo, but not as much on the actual page.

Here's a close up.

My background is made of watered down acrylic paints, some spray inks and some leaf stamping in black. The black leaves represent what's left of winter and fall, while the fresh bright spring colors are starting to come through.

 I stamped the flower and colored it with various markers. I then fussy cut it and added it to my page. To make it stand out a bit, I used a white wax pencil to cover over the bold colors of my background where the flower was going to be placed. Then I added the shamrocks for St. Patrick's Day as well as the pink bunny for spring. 

And that's my page!

Have a great day

Use a Stencil or Two

 Hi everyone. 

It's already time for another challenge at Try It On Tuesday Thanks to all of you who joined us for our Say It With Flowers challenge.

For the next 2 weeks we ask you to use a stencil or two.

I think I should have called my page when old fashion vintage meets modern.  I stenciled the retro modern design using white soft molding paste. I didn't color it as I thought the white worked with my water colored and ink sprayed background. 

I added this vintage image of violets and this definitely vintage TH girl. The quote is from Alison Bomber and Paper Artsy.

The butterfly is a TH image, and I created its fly trail with some plastic gemstones.

As always, all kinds of projects are accepted at Try It On Tuesday, as long as you meet the challenge topic. Also check out all the inspiration from the other design team members. It's always fun to see the variety of design.

Thanks for visiting, and I look forward to seeing your stencil art also.

T Stands for March Birthdays

 Hi everyone.

 T Day has rolled around again, and today I am going to share some celebration baking from the first week of March. This week I also have a  bit of a longish post.

There were 2 birthdays in my house that week. The first one was Pete's 7th birthday. We don't know exactly when he was born as he is a rescue dog, but do have an approximate date as he was still a puppy when my daughter adopted him. She picked March 1 as his big day, so that's his birthday.

I had recently picked up this box of make your own dog biscuits at Trader Joe's, and Pete's birthday sounded like a good day to make both dogs a treat.

I decided to use my star set of cookie cutters since Pete was the star of the day. Just before I baked them, I put a dab of peanut butter on the top of each cookie as well as a few colorful sprinkles.

They were a hit. And since a drink is required for T, let me share the dog's drink with you.

Smile. (The water is not really green, just the shadow off my kitchen cabinets that are green.)

The second birthday required a bit more of a celebration cake, as it was my birthday. cake My husband volunteered to buy me a cake, but I thought it would be a good time to check another box off my baking bucket list for 2021.

I didn't have this cake on my birthday, but instead we celebrated over the weekend after my birthday, when my daughter came home for an overnight visit.

I wanted to make a vertical layer cake. In this kind of cake (if you aren't sure what I mean), the layers, when the cake is cut, go up and down, instead of the standard horizontal way.

To make this cake you make a jelly roll/Swiss roll style sponge. Then you roll the layers of the cake around each other, standing the who thing on end.

You can see on the right the inner layer (standing upright), and this one of the cutting board will be wrapped around the standing on.

My cake was a chocolate sponge, and I filled it with whipped cream. That's what you see gobbed onto the layer above.

Here's the finished roll before I trimmed it. Then I frosted it.

I don't like super sweet frosting so I made a coffee flavored Swiss meringue buttercream. All butter, not much in proportion of sugar.  I put on some chocolate sprinkles. I was going to pipe a few swirls, especially along the bottom, but I since I needed to make more frosting, I decided this was probably decorated enough. Good thing too.

My daughter decided I needed a candle for every year. 

Lighting them took a awhile and caused a huge blaze.

My husband didn't think I could blow them all out, but it was easy-peasy.  Ha-ha to him.

And after we pulled out the candles, the cake looked like someone was using it for archery practice.

My layers didn't end up quite straight and you can see where a wrap ended,  but it didn't matter. The cake was delicious. Good thing my daughter took half of it home with her too. 

I just hope this year in my life won't be as challenging as the last year was. I'm still waiting to go out to dinner to celebrate last year's BIG birthday, which didn't happen because right after my birthday I got really sick for 5 days and then Corinna (covid) hit and life came to a screeching standstill.  I'm not complaining though because at least I didn't catch covid.

Don't forget to stop by   Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog  where we share our drinks. You can see my glass of milk  and my daughter's water bottle in  one of the lighted cake photos. You can also see my empty dinner wine glass in the photo where my daughter is lighting the candles.

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you have a happy T day too.

A Big Tulip

Hi everyone. Hope you had a nice weekend.  And a nice Mothering Sunday/ Mother's Day for you ladies in the UK.  Also I hope maybe you had pie on pi day. I had a piece of take out pie on Saturday when we got take out for dinner from a restaurant that has the best desserts. I guess I should have waited until Sunday to enjoy my slice.  Smile.

March has so many interesting days in it. March 4th- the only day of the year that sounds like a spoken command (at least in English), pi day, spring ahead with your clocks (at least in the US), British Mother's Day,  St. Patrick's Day, the first day of spring (or fall if you live south of the equator), the Ides of March, as well as sometimes even Passover and Easter. This year the Hindu holiday of Holi also falls in March. And here I thought March was just a slow month watching the snow melt.

Monday, March 15,  is the ides of March. I looked up ides  because I knew it had a Julius Caesar reference (thanks Shakespeare), but wasn't exactly sure why the 15th was the Ides of March. I discovered it really means the first full moon of any given month. This usually occurs between the 13-15th of March, at least according to the History.com website. Not so very sinister as the Bard implied, but I guess for Caesar it was since he was murdered on this day.

My actual digital photo of the spot Caesar was murdered has disappeared into the ether someplace.  I will find it one day. This photo is a re-post from my blog in 2007. IGNORE the printing on the photo about visiting Rome last April. That surely didn't happen with covid going on. I published this photo back in 2007, and it was from something I needed it for in 2006. Our trip to Italy was in 2005.

And even in 2005, I was amazed there were still flowers being placed for the fallen Roman leader.

All that chatter leads up to my journal page from my Secret Garden book. I used this hand drawn, colored and fussy cut tulip on my page. This makes it fit into Sheila's single flower challenge at Art Journal Journey.

The scenic route for this vintage lady must be a giant field of blooming tulips. Some of you may have them blooming or popping up out of the ground; maybe it is just a tad too early for them other places. A trip to see fields of blooming tulips or fields of blooming lavender is on my very very long travel wish list. (I check off 2 or 3 places and then I add another 10. Yikes!)

I have no idea where the old photo came from, but I liked it. I think it works well on my page. The TH quotes also help tell the story. I like to think this independent lady has fields of blooming tulips and fields of purple lavender on her travel bucket list too.

Hope everyone has a great start to the new week. And thanks for visiting too.