The Rest of Hammond Castle (part 4)

 Hi everyone. Happy first Friday in 2023. 

Friday means it is time for Friday Face Off over at Nicole's blog and also for Friday Lunch Break over at Gillena's Lunch Break blog.

Today I'm back with the last of my photos from Hammond Castle.  (The other 3 posts are here: Part 3, Part 2, and Part 1.)

We've had so many holidays since I started posting about the castle, let me just refresh in a few sentences. Hammond Castle is in Gloucester, Massachusetts and was built by John Hammond, who was a prolific inventor in the early to mid 1900's. He was also eccentric, and since he wanted to live in a castle, he built one for himself. And since he came from and also made lots of money, he furnished much of the castle with antique pieces he had shipped back from his trip to Europe.

I have more face photos to share today. Let me finish off my visit photos with the more lived-in rooms of the castle. Some of them have been turned into more of mini museum style rooms.

Imagine having a comic book made about you.

This next photo display has lots of faces, including a lot of them in the large center photo. That photo is from a radiograph conference in London in 1912 that Hammond attended.

These music panels had some interesting faces. They were over my head so it was a bit hard to get  good photos.

And for a few views inside, here's the renaissance guest bedroom and

a not so fantastic photos of some faces behind a glass panel in that room.

No faces in this next photo but I loved the melted wax.

And in the colonial guest room, there were these faces.

And here and there in random spots were some cool little tiles like this one.

Meanwhile in the dining room, they had this cool tile floor. It reminds me of the one in one of the big cathedrals in Dublin, Ireland.

And who has a war room in their house? Hammond did. I guess because he could and because he invented so much technology the military (Navy) picked up. This battle mural went around most of the room.

And here's the library.

And this modern bathroom. At the time this house was built it was  usual for people to have indoor bathrooms quite this updated, so I wonder if this was later fixed up. 

Here's a boot cleaner and another face for you.

And I want this many cabinets in my kitchen.

And  to finish off, let me show you the view Hammond had from the front windows of his castle.

Here's the oceanside view of the castle.

And off we go through the doorway into a new day and year. 

Thanks for visiting. I hope you enjoyed all the views of Hammond Castle. Have a great start to your weekend.

Glass

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. 

Today for Rain's Art and Dinner date the theme is glass. You would think that would be an easy topic, but I was a bit stuck.  I could take photos of drinking glasses, through my glass windows, or even of my actual glasses I wear for seeing. But I didn't really feel inspired by any of those ideas.

I decided I would share a few pages from my holiday art journal that relate to glass in some broad sense of the word.

A glass or glass-like mug.

Glass windows in this (above)  house image.

Another glass window. And below the silver paper moon below could almost be glass-like.

And here's a photo of some not-so-smooth as glass ice on the lake where my mother-in-law's house is.

Then I remembered that back in 2017 I visited the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, NY. Here's  just a few photos from that visit.

This museum is huge, and the glass they display here is amazing. When you buy a ticket to get in, the ticket is good for 2 days. We spent a good part of a day here, and these few photos in my post don't even begin to show you what we saw. 

And for the dinner part of Rain's art and dinner date, let me show you a couple of snapshots from my New Year's Eve day lunch. My husband and I happened to be in Manchester, New Hampshire, and we stopped at one of our favorite Italian restaurants, Fratello's. 

I mostly filled myself up between the salad and their delicious breadsticks.

And when my baked pasta dish arrived, I could barely eat much of it at all. But that was OK; it travels well in a doggy bag. Both my husband and myself could have the rest of it for our New Year's Day meal.

I think this post is long enough for one day. For those of you who I only "see" at the end of the week, I wish you a happy New Year and hope it's started off well.

Wednesday Art

Hi everyone. Happy middle of the week. I'm having  a quiet week this week, so along with making some art, reading and walking (when it isn't raining), I am giving my house a good start to the new year cleaning. If only I could keep this cleaning streak up all year long-smile.

Today I have another page for Mia's Add A Photo challenge at Art Journal Journey. My page today started when I found this chipboard frame in a box of assorted art supplies.

The frame was unpainted so after I picked out my background paper (pink with a stenciled white design), I painted the frame pink and added some black and white details to it. Then I used a magazine cut out face to fill it in.

The hummingbirds came from a napkin that I received back in the 2022 T day napkin swap.I can't remember who sent this one with the hummingbird, but thank you whoever did send it for this lovely choice.  These hummingbirds are beautiful and worked great on my page. I should also say I first added some silver tape along the left edge because that side of the stenciled design looked a little ragged before I added the hummingbirds.

Finally  I added some little plastic bobbles and some paper flowers with leaves as well as stamping the quote.

And I also wanted to share a tag for Valerie's New Year, New Beginnings challenge at Tag Tuesday. 

This one has an Alice in Wonderland theme, but it could be anyone really. The start of a new year is the start of new adventures. 

To make my tag I used some paints,  a black Sharpie and a white pen, some scrap paper, an Alice image as well as a stamped quote and some little foamy confetti pieces.

There you have it. I hope you're having a great start to 2023 and a nice week also.

Thanks for visiting.

 

T Stands for Holiday Walks

 Happy New Year to everyone who joins Bleubeard and Elizabeth for T. It's our first post for 2023.

Last week I managed to take a few interesting walks, and after all the holiday nibbling many of us do, I thought you'd all love to burn a few virtual calories by walking with me. Smile.

Walk one was when my husband and I went to my mother-in-law's home. She isn't there, and the house is closed up for the winter. But after our holiday severe wind storm, my husband wanted to check out the house as well as his boat which he leaves there for the winter. (Everything was OK.)

The storm created  a mess with lots of small branches down on my mother-in-law's property. On the road there were several big trees down, but luckily people who live on the road year round had taken care of them so we could actually drive in, at least most of the way.

And my husband was happy his boat made it without any damage.

On another day I needed to go to Portsmouth, and I had some time between getting my morning allergy shots and meeting my husband for lunch. It was raw that day and not one that was very inviting to walk in, but I persevered and went walking at the Urban Forestry Center in Portsmouth (New Hampshire). 

I discovered this old cemetery, and I went over to check it out.

This walk wasn't the longest though because it was cold, and the car was a much more comfy place to be.

The next day however felt like March with temperatures around 40 degrees (about 4.5 degrees C), wonderful sunshine and no wind. I met my walking friend at Odiorne State Park in Rye (New Hampshire), and we took a long walk.

I think this seagull is used to being fed as he//she didn't move a muscle as we walked towards him/her.

And just to remind us it wasn't March but actually just after Christmas, there was this great decorated tree along the road and pathway.

And here's a tidbit of New Hampshire history (that can be read if you enlarge the photo).

After our walk my friend and I went out for a late lunch at the local 99 restaurant. (The 99 is a New England based restaurant chain.) We decided to celebrate an early New Year, and we each had a drink. My friend ordered a white wine, and I ordered a glass of red sangria that was HUGE and very festive.

Here's my drink link for T this week over at Bleybeard's and Elizabeths blog.

We had  an early toast to a happy 2023.

I hope your new year has started off well, and Happy T day to you.

As always, thanks for visiting.

Goals

Hi everyone. Happy January 2 to you.

It's time for Second on the Second today over at  Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog. It's time to republish a post that you had on your blog in the past. My second look today is all about something so many people do at the beginning of the new year

 Do you make resolutions or pick out a word? I have a couple of word ideas in mind for 2023, but I haven't picked out a specific word  yet. However,  I am thinking of what goals I want to have for 2023. I like using the word goal because a goal can be long term, can be accomplished in segments, and can take more than a year to complete. I know the experts say you should set time frames for  goals, but I guess it comes down to who you are and how immediately important the results of a specific goal actually are. 

To me, a goal is  more of a morphing and developing idea, and a resolution is a hard fixed thing. As everyone knows sometimes on the way to meet a goal you hit a wall, and so the goal has to change a bit or take longer than you hoped. That's why I like the idea that goals are more long term wishes you'd like to accomplish.

And in my way of thinking, if a goal doesn't get accomplished, it wasn't that high on the "goal" priority list, or it just isn't  the right time to get to it. And yes, I am a goal oriented person so goal thinking is right up my alley.

Here's my goal page that I made in 2021 and which was posted here: Jan. 14, 2021. This is my link to Second on the Second.

2021 was the first time I drew my goals. I can't say the idea of drawing my goals was my own because it was a lesson on Creative Jumpstart that I was participating in that winter. 

I really liked this idea  though. Instead of writing them down or making a mental list as I have done in the past, I drew them again in 2022. I've never posted this next page before, but I thought it not only worked with today's post, but was a good way for me to go back and see how successful I was with my goals during the past year.

In 2022 I accomplished some goals and not others. For those I didn't accomplish, some were out of my control, and others, I just didn't end up completing because on the "goal" priority list, they either  weren't that important or something else (like not enough time) knocked them back down the list. Of course the good thing is that if they are still important, I can just add them to my goals for 2023. 

I'm working on goals for 2023.  Do you do anything similar?

Thanks for visiting.

Happy 2023

 Happy New Year to you!

It is January 1 of 2023. I want to wish everyone a happy, healthy and wonderful new year.

Today I want to send a big note of thanks to Jo from Let's Art Journal for hosting last month at Art Journal Journey. And I also want to once again thank everyone who joined us during December. It was a fun month for art journaling for certain.

As it is is not only a new year but a new month, I need to introduce our new host at Art Journal Journey.

This month our new host is the talented  Mia who you might know as Craftartista. This month Mia's theme is

Use A Photo

My journal page has 2 photos on it. The train is cut out from a photo I took last fall when my husband and I went on our National Parks adventure. Here's the original photo I cut the train from.

It's amazing how different the train can look on a new background.

The other photo is one of TH's paper dolls.

I made my page by first painting a background light blue and then glueing down a piece of deli paper that I stenciled with some white fireworks.  I added the train and  made the tracks out of some washi tape. I also used some dark blue ink to the edges of my page.  I then added the stamped and fussy cut railroad crossing signs as well  as 3 clocks I cut out of a sheet of paper.  My page looked rather flat, so I added a bit of printed tissue paper on a couple of spots along the edges. I still wasn't happy with my page, so I sprayed some rust colored ink on the bottom. While it was still wet I took a baby wipe and rubbed it around my page, making it darker in some areas than others. When that dried I took some black ink along the edges of my paper. Finally I framed the page with a black Sharpie, added the paper doll and used a white posca paint pen to make the random dots. Oh yes, I also stamped the 2 quotes and after cutting them out of my sheet of white paper, added them to my page. 

I wonder who this traveller is going to meet. Someone special I think as he is carrying that big bouquet of flowers. Or perhaps it is just his way to welcome the new year.

Just a reminder of our dreaded Art Journal Journey "rules".

We are an art journaling blog, which we don't accept cards, tags, ATC's, dimensional art, etc. However, we do accept any type of art journaling whether it is digital, on loose paper, in a journal, on cloth, etc. Also, we can't comment on your post if you are linked up to our page through Facebook, Instagram, etc, so please be aware of that.

I'm looking forward to seeing everyone's Photo Pages at Art Journal Journey.

I  also want to mention that this month I am a special guest over at More Than Words. My post doesn't go live until the twelfth, but be sure to check out all the art at their website.

As I posted yesterday, I also want to also say "Thank You" to everyone who has stopped by and supported my blog in 2022. I've appreciated all your supportive comments, and I must say, I feel lucky and blessed to have such a wonderful group of blog friends.  Thanks for visiting my blog!