Animals for Friday

Hi everyone.  Happy Earth Day. And happy "Bearthday" dear Elizabeth. I hope you have a wonderful day.

Another week has flown by. I've been busy trying to get a few chores done outside as it won't be long when (in a few weeks) the black flies hatch out and drive us back inside again. Luckily these little insects are usually only bad 2-3 weeks, but it is still annoying that when we finally get good weather, they have to drive you back inside.

To celebrate Earth Day and being green in all it's various forms, I have a page for Alison's  Play It Again Sam challenge at Art Journal Journey.

"It's not Easy Being Green" is a classic song from the Muppets.  Kermit the Frog sings it. The frogs on my page  are tired of being green, so they are now colorful frogs.

Or perhaps these frogs live in a tropical place where frogs have lots of color.

The one problem I have with using a bound bought journal (like the one this page is made on) is that it is hard to get a good flat photo of my page. My book is bulging.

I made my page by first watercolor painting the background. Then I used some sparkle glue over it to give it a bit of sparkle. Once that all dried, I stamped the grassy background with an ancient B-Line Design image.

The border is a stamped image that I fussy cut and  colored with markers. I stamped it several times in order to make the full top and bottoms borders. I also stamped the frogs, fussy cut them, and then gave them each a wash of watercolor paint. I then did a bit of doodling to give them a little more pizzazz. Finally I stamped the quotes, which except for the long one about eating what bugs them, came in the same stamp set as did both size frogs. 

The  spring peepers (tree frogs) around my house are really giving us a beautiful night chorus lately. It is a sign of spring when they start chirping. Some people might find them a just loud noise at night, but it is one of my favorite sounds, which also works for Alison's challenge at Art Journal Journey.

There is also a new challenge at Tag Tuesday . This time it is Animals, Tame or Wild, No Insects. It is hosted by Sandie.

I hope you can see the animal waving at you on my tag. 

Mr. Cat wanted to see a bit of the world and not add lots of carbon emissions to the atmosphere, so he chose to travel by balloon. As it is Earth Day, he sees lots of flowers and a pretty rainbow. He hopes the rainbow is a sign that people will learn and the earth won't be destroyed or drastically changed by plastics, climate warming and other environmental issues we are facing. 

I am also joining Gillena's Art For Fun Friday.

Thanks for visiting my blog. Wishing everyone a great start to the weekend ahead. 

Avians

 HI everyone. Happy Thursday. 

Today I have a few assorted views for Aviary, which is this week's theme over at Rain's Art Date. I don't actually have any aviary things to show, so I tweaking the theme a bit to Avians. 

My first birds are on the 2 page journal spread. The song represented isn't about birds, but it is a song you might remember by Katrina and the Waves. My page is for Alison's Play It Again Sam challenge at Art Journal Journey. The song is  I'm Walking on Sunshine which came out in 1983.

You probably don't remember the pink walking shoes I bought on markdown back in March, but I drew those and added these little Art By Marlene punch out white birds on the tops of them. I think these birds figure if they don't need to use their own energy to get around, they might as well go for a walk. 

I made my page by using some torn bits of yellow tissue paper on my background. I like how layering it gives me some various tones of the yellow. Then I used brown ink and stamped some images randomly around the page.

The sun is cut from 2 different yellow paper with a bit of yellow marker outlining on the rays.  I drew, colored and fussy cut the shoes, and added some punch out images around them. I also added some tiny yellow foam sunflowers and as well as some gold sequins. Finally I used some stickers as well as a Sharpie to add the words.

And I have another avian to show you. My daughter is a huge Harry Potter and also Lego fan, and for Christmas she wanted this Harry Potter Lego set.  The main part of the set is Hedwig (Harry's owl), and there are some  other assorted items that relate to Harry. When we went out to where she lives for our maple syrup making day back in March, I got to see the finished Lego.

And for a few more Avian related photos, here's the birdhouse I bought last fall (on my trip to Boothbay, Maine) that is now hanging my backyard. (Back view, sorry, you can't see the hole.) My sugar maple now has an acorn-smile.

And my husband also gave me a new bird feeder pole for Christmas which I  was finally  able to put out. I had to wait to put it up since the ground was frozen before.

I had to find a spot so the squirrels couldn't  leap down onto the feeder. One of them did decide to sit on my deck post and stare at me through the glass sliding door.  He gave me the sad face. Yes, he looked me right in the face, and I swear he had a big sad pout. I felt bad and put up my old pole which has taken a lot of abuse from bears over the years, and I hung it in the general vicinity but not close to the new pole. Hopefully since they can now only get to 1 feeder, many of those squirrels will go elsewhere for food.

And since I mentioned bears and my bird feeder, here's an old photo I posted in 2016 when Mr. Bear decided to have a sweet treat and drink the hummingbird food.

He's not an Avian, but he did pose for me. (Although you can see the empty hummingbird feeder.)

Although I certainly would not walk up to the bear, the ones around my area are used to people and usually take off when they realize you are there.  They usually grumble a lot as they lumber away too.  They can do a lot of damage, like bending my bird feeder poles over to a 90 degree angle,  and I certainly would get between a mother and her cub(s).

That's all for me today.  I hope your week is going well.

And thanks for visiting my blog.

Another Sign of the Season

 Hi everyone.

Today for  Food Wednesdays  over at Kathy's blog-Hummingbird Studio at the Lake I have a spring inspired post. It is always exciting when this flag is hanging outside of the restaurant in my town.

When covid first hit and eating in restaurants wasn't possible, my husband and I started a new tradition of having an ice cream for our Sunday lunch. We'd do this as long as the ice cream window was open which in our town is usually mid-April to mid-October. 

We've continued this tradition since then. This is the start of year 3. 

The restaurant in our town serves huge portions. Enough where an ice cream can be lunch.

I had one of my favorites. It's called Aroma Joe's. Aroma Joe's is a local coffee chain, and this ice cream (not made by them but is an ode to them) is coffee flavored with peanut butter chunks and chocolate chip chunks too.  Funny, I don't drink coffee, but I love coffee ice cream.

This is a bigger size than I usually get, but the new teenage staff that man the ice cream window lost our order. When we went to ask about it, I guess they felt bad and gave us giant ice creams.

But I'm not complaining. 

Thanks for visiting. 

 

I Can Hear Music

Hi everyone.  

The last 2 weeks have flown by, and I'm back again with some art for our new challenge at Try It On Tuesday  Big thanks to all of you who joined us for our Spring colors challenge, as well as to Koyel for hosting with her beautiful art piece. 

Our next challenge is I Can Hear Music.

I thought these 4 friends looked ready for their high school prom in their pretty spring dresses with corsages pinned to their shoulders. We're getting into prom season right now at high schools here in the US. I'm not sure if proms are held elsewhere, or if people elsewhere even know what proms are. Here in the US they formal or semi-formal dances usually held for older high school students. In the school I taught at there was a separate junior and senior prom (the last 2 years of high school), but at my daughter's school they had one prom for both years combined.

The best things about the prom now, compared to when I was in high school, is that they aren't strictly boy-girl dates any longer. That certainly makes it less disappointing to someone who doesn't have a date to go with, as it was back in the day.

This theme of my journal page prom is In a Garden, and these girls decided instead of looking for dates they would go as a group of friends. They had a fun time picking out new dresses with each other  and also picking out their flowers. And they can't wait to dance to all the music that will be played. 

Just like Cyndi Lauper's song title, Girls Just Want to Have Fun. 

I made my page by first stamping lots of images on a journal page. Then I watercolored painted the flowers, and watercolored the background a different color.  I added the die cut doily and a strip of polka dot paper for my girls to sit on. I added some paint dots to the centers of the flowers, and also some flower sequins because this is a prom page and these girls want the night to sparkle.

You have the next 2 weeks to link your music themed art up to the Try It On Tuesday website. We accept any types of art. And don't forget to check out the design teams musically inspired pieces. They always have some beautiful pieces and lots of inspiration. 

It will be fun to see everyone's musical art.

I'm linking my page up to 3 other challenges. First,to Alison's Play It Again challenge at Art Journal Journey where the theme is to create a page with a favorite song or movie. You can probably recognize the song by its title on my page. I am also going to share my page over at River of Creativity, challenge #12, where the theme is Anything goes with an optional twist of Spring, as well as linking up to Creative Artiste Mixed Media Challenge #81, where the theme is always anything goes, as long as you use at least 3 types of media.

Thanks for visiting my blog, and hope you're having a good week so far.

T Stands for A Glass of Wine or Two

Hi everyone. 

I hope the new week has started well, and if you celebrated Easter or Passover this past weekend, you have a nice holiday celebration.

  It is already  time for another T Day post over at  Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog .

Before I get too far into this post, I want to share this pretty Easter card I received in the mail from our lovely T Day hostess.

Thank you dear Elizabeth and Bleubeard too. The rocking  bunny is a cute stamp. I also love your hand dyed background. The colors are amazing. 

 It is always fun to get happy mail! And I might (in the future) have to recycle some of that paper too. Smile. 

The last week has been a busy one for me. I did some yard work, took several walks, met up with a couple of friends, and also, along with my husband, had MIL duty last weekend. 

My MIL is 88 years old and has been in a long slow downward spiral for a few years now. Contrary to my husband's opinion, I don't think she is on her last legs of life, but she is at the point where she needs  some regular  care. Family dynamics are interesting though, and how much care she needs is not something my husband and his 2 sisters totally agree upon. Or I should be totally honest and say that level of care is something my husband and one of his sister's mostly agree upon, as his other sister only does the minimum she must do because she is really just concerned with what she can get out of something. 

Then you throw in us in-law children. My MIL has 2 son-in-laws and me, as my husband is her only son. One son-in-law is a really big hearted and generous man. The other one doesn't want to deal with my MIL at all. You can probably guess who is married to which daughter in the brief description I mentioned in the last paragraph.  As for me, the only daughter-in-law, I love my MIL, have known her more than half my life, but she is very different from my mother . Let's just say that some of the attitudes about life I learned from my mother are not my MIL's view of the world. I'm not saying either attitude is right or wrong or even better or worse, just different. 

 I don't want to get too heavy in this post, so let me just say that my husband's family dynamics can be exhausting. Thanks goodness my mother "trained" my brother and I along the same line of thought so we can be straight up with each other (and therefore have worked together really well) when it's come to care issues.  I must also say I hoped I've "trained" my daughter in the way I want to be cared for when I am at a point I need that kind of care also.

Anyhow, my husband opened up my MIL's house so she could stay there for a few days while we've had MIL care. (She's been living over in Maine with one of my SIL's in the winter for the last several years, and my husband always closes up her house when she's gone.) My MIL's house is about a half an hour away, so we've been going back and forth between her house and ours, checking in, making and having dinner with her, doing some chores and trying to do a few things she'd like. My MIL is a very social woman, and she loves a pre-dinner glass of white wine (or 2) as dinner gets made.  I certainly wasn't going to make her drink alone. Ha-ha.

I raise a glass and say cheers to my MIL.

Maddie has also loved this weekend  as she's the first one, as usual, to go into  the lake swimming for the year, even if 2 weeks ago there was still ice on the lake.

And since my husband has spent quite a bit of time at the house this past weekend, he managed to uncover his boat. He stores it there covered up in the winter because since no one is at the house during that season, it isn't in anyone's way. He's always happy when he gets to uncover his boat.

I must say our care weekend was successful. Even though my MIL still thinks I can't cook (and tries to tell me how to make something, which I just say OK and then ignore), she told me  many times how delicious the salmon was, the ribs were and  Easter dinner was, etc.. One night we bought pizza, which was not something she thinks of as dinner, but it was from a restaurant she likes so no complaints. She ate well and slept in her own bed and got to spend some time at her house.  And of course got to enjoy her glass of wine also.

Thanks for making it through this post. I hope you have a nice T day and week ahead.

It's a Beautiful Morning

Hi everyone. I hope everyone had a good weekend. I have another scheduled post for this today, but I will be back  with a non-scheduled post for T day. 

I wanted to share another song  inspired journal page for Alison's "Play It Again" challenge at Art Journal Journey. My choice today is "It's A Beautiful Morning".

This song  is an oldie by The Rascals, which came out in 1968.  This little lady looks like she has sunshine and flowers along with her white ducks to enjoy.

It's a beautiful morning, ah

I think I'll go outside for a while

And just smile

Just take in some clean fresh air, boy

No sense in staying inside

If the weather's fine and you've got the time

It's your chance to wake up and plan another brand new day

Either way

I think this bit of the lyrics explains it all.

The background is a collage of tissue paper as well as a bit of a dictionary page. Then I used some watercolor paints.  I added to strips of polka dot paper, some white metallic paper trim, as well as a drawn and fussy cut sun. I stamped the flowers and the ducks, added some sticker dots, stenciled the musical staffs, and then added the TH girl as well as some Art By Marlene insects.

I hope you like it and get a little new week inspiration from the song. And I hope you're having a beautiful day too.

I'm keeping this post short, so have a great start to your week.

Happy Holidays

 Hi everyone. 

To those of you who celebrate Easter, I wish you a happy day. Also to those of you who celebrate Passover, I wish you a happy celebration also. 

This is a scheduled post as my husband (and that means myself in many ways) have MIL care duty this weekend. So far it's been going well. My MIL is happy to be in her own house, and I think the change of scenery is doing her a lot of good. 

Today I have this spring journal page to share with you. It started with some pink paper and pink paper tape that I ripped and collaged for the background, and then discovered it was too pink for the image so I added some white gesso to tone it down a bit.

The image is from the cover of a recent Vermont Country Store catalog that I received in the mail. After I tore off the cover of the catalog, I fussy cut around the image, and then I cut out the chicks which were located up on the top of the page.

I glued down the big bunny and garden image. I fussy cut the chicks  and added them to the bottom of my journal page. I then added a stamped image of the haremail postage stamp, which is a fun oldie in my stash. I also added a few foamy flowers around the stamp.

Finally I used some old letter stickers to reference my song. It's an oldie sung by Gene Autry who was an early to mid twentieth century cowboy actor and singer. It  just screams Easter. Here's some of the lyrics.

Here comes Peter Cottontail

Hoppin' down the bunny trail

Hippity hoppin', Easter's on its way

Bringin' every girl and boy

Baskets full of Easter joy

Things to make your Easter bright and gay

He's got jelly beans for Tommy

Colored eggs for sister Sue

There's an orchid for your mommy

And an Easter bonnet too

Oh, here comes Peter Cottontail

Hoppin' down the bunny trail

Hippity hoppity, happy Easter Day

Here comes Peter Cottontail

Hoppin' down the bunny trail

Hippity hoppin', Easter's on its way

Try to do the things you should

Maybe if you're extra good

He'll roll lots of Easter eggs your way

You'll wake up on Easter mornin'

And you'll know that he was there

When you find those chocolate bunnies

That he's hiding everywhere

Oh, here comes Peter Cottontail

Hoppin' down the bunny trail

Hippity hoppity, happy Easter Day

Hippity hoppity, happy Easter Day

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Jack Rollins / Steve Nelson

I can't say I put on Gene Autry as part of my regular listening music, so maybe my page doesn't work in the favorite song aspect for Alison's challenge (Play It Again Sam) at Art Journal Journey, but it's the only Easter song I can think of.   What the heck, I am calling it a link to AJJ. 

I am also linking up to River of Creativity. Their challenge is Anything Goes with an optional twist of Spring.

Have a wonderful Sunday and rest of your weekend. 

Friday Art

 Hi everyone. Happy almost weekend to you.

Today I have some art to share with you.  Let me start with my latest page for Alison's "Play It Again Sam" challenge at Art Journal Journey.

I had a lot of fun making today's page, and even though it may not be my most "finished" looking page, I think it represents my song choice. 

I wish I planned out the words better and had had room on my page to add: 

Why not. 

Make him stay up late. 

One of my favorite bands from the 1970's and 80's is the Talking Heads. For my page today I chose their song Stay Up Late. 

I made a slight twist to my page. Instead of a human baby as implied in the song, I used these Janet Klein images and substituted a cat. After all, cats and dogs are often our babies. 

I started by inking half my page in dark grey ink and the other half of the page in yellow. I drew in the clocks and the white circles. I stamped the stars and moon. I didn't bother to color all the stamped cats on the left because the star of the show is the tiger cat asleep in Blondie's arms.  That could have been my cat Leo, because I was his possession. 

And if you've had or have cats or dogs, it is fun to tease them back sometimes and try to get their attention while their napping. I definitely don't mean torturing them though, but just to see them roll up an eye and look at you. Of course they never think twice about waking you up when you're asleep. 

I also made another tag for Valerie's Blue and Green challenge at Tag Tuesday. 

I inked my tag, added this Art by Marlene figure, and used TH quotes to tell us something about Mrs. E. Pettigrew. I also added some little foamy dots and drew in a frame to finish off my tag.

And I am linking my entire post up to Gillena's Friday Lunch Box.

I'm not sure how good I'll be at commenting this weekend as we have MIL duty. My sister-in-law that  my MIL lives with in the winter has gone off on a 10 day vacation, so my husband is splitting her care with his other sister. Luckily for us we live close enough to my MIL's house (not the SIL she lives with in the winter but my MIL's actual home) that she doesn't need to stay with us, especially since the only spare bedroom (my daughter's room) is filled with many of my craft supplies, and is therefore not walker  friendly right now. 

My MIL doesn't need constant care, but she does need someone to give her her pills and to have dinner with.  It  means we shall going up to her house to visit each day, but I'm not yet sure what or how much time that quite entails. I just hope that my husband makes plans with his sisters about the summer situation because I can see this being a tough situation if and when she moves back to her house later on this year.

I hope you have a great weekend ahead! And thanks so much for visiting.

Japan- A Fond Memory

 Hi everyone. 

This week's theme at Rains Art Date is a Fond Memory. I'm in travel bug mode right now. Since the last April trip I took was to Japan in 2018 with school,  I thought I'd share some fond memories from that adventure as well as some journal pages I made when I came home.

Some sketched in my journal memories, mostly from the Nichinan area where we started our trip.

Here's a few photos from Udo Shrine in Nichinan.

And then we're onto the famous Inari Shrine in Kyoto. You might have seen photos of this.

And here's the bamboo forest as well as the Golden Temple also in Kyoto.

And finally, we're on the bullet train to Tokyo (Mt. Fuji was actually clear that morning which they say doesn't happen very often) and a few snapshots of that big city.

Here's a photos of saki barrels from another shrine, this time in Tokyo. The  barrels were beautiful works of art.

In a book store.

And finally for today, the view from my hotel room at sunset.

OK, that's a fraction of my photos and journal pages but this is already a long post. I would love to go back to Japan. It was definitely culture shock, but the people were so helpful and kind. 

I'm not sure if putting this post together helped take care of my travel bug much either, but it was good to look back and relive a few fond memories as well as seeing some details from this adventure.

Thanks  for visiting.