Man of Numbers

Here's another page with the colors of fall I am linking to Art Journal Journey. This month's hostess is Susi. 

This page started as a Gelli print of the leaves on a sheet of map paper. Then I added all the number items-cloth tape, part of piece from a sheet of die cut letters and numbers, some stamped numbers, the round number cut out from a playing card, some pattern pieces with numbers on them, and also the number paper tape. (I might have gone a little overboard with numbers I guess!)  I stamped the man and colored him in (the stamp is from Stampington/Claudine Hellmuth) . I also added a couple of strips of paper-one which I wrote on- and also a couple of TH stickers.

I'm also posting this to Paint Party Friday. Thanks to Kristen and Eva for hosting.
Stop by both Paint Party Friday and Art Journal Journey to check out some great paintings, art journaling and other creative endeavors.
And keeping with the colors of autumn theme as is in my journal page, I went for a walk with a friend last weekend and snapped a few photos.

This photo does the colors no justice. The blueberry bushes are that deep burgundy wine color and the grass was almost but not quite white. This color scheme is certainly going to be an inspiration for some art.

This is what November looks like here in New Hampshire.

And driving home later in the afternoon the sunset was pretty too. This is another photo that doesn't do the view justice.  The mountains in the background don't look anything more than a bumpy horizon here, but with the full panoramic view they are quite pretty.

That's all I've got to say today.
Thanks for stopping by and hope its a good day in your part of the world!

Just Chatting

 So the last few evenings after work I have been cleaning and putting things into my new storage cubbies.

 I am having a lot of fun cleaning.  Yup fun. I've found a few goodies I forgot I had. I'm making a pile of things I am not going to keep any more. I am looking forward to getting rid of that stuff that is just taking up space. And figuring out where to put things is a good thought process.

I am hoping to get things cleaned up enough so I can get back to some art fun this weekend. But I still have a ways to go...so I will have to see where this cleaning project takes me. Just hope I get it finished before it isn't fun any more.

So Sunday I couldn't play with paint since  my art space was just covered in piles. So my creative energy went into a little bit of baking.

Yummy!

I decided to make some eclairs to thank the hubby for all his muscle power moving the art cabinet upstairs.  But then I thought, maybe instead of piping the choux paste into eclairs, I could put it into an angel food cake pan and bake it like a cake.

 I sliced it and filled it with some yummy pastry cream and then topped it with chocolate ganache. I think I could just eat the chocolate ganache plain. Deep dark semi-sweet chocolate melting in my mouth...

So here's what I think of my experiment. It tasted good, but putting all the choux paste into the cake pan just made it a little too much choux. I needed to make about 3 batches of pastry cream to fill it as much as you would get in a delicious eclair. But hey, it is always fun to experiment!

But I think this puppy would love this dessert-IF she was given any!

Have a great day everyone!

Sad Face

Here's a recent journal page that I am linking to Art Journal Journey. This month is being hosted by Susi and the theme is the colors of fall.

This page is a Gelli print using a leaf stencil and some green, orange and brown paint. I added this sad looking girl. She was in a magazine so I cut her out and painted /doodled over her. I then added  a flower, a heart and a die cut button. The heart and the button were die cuts laying on my table, so I painted them, and on the heart I added some white doodles and some white paint dots around the edges. I cut the flower out of a piece of  a floral piece of paper, and then I painted over that and added it to her hair.
Maybe she is longing for summer and sad it is so late in fall.
It is really looking like late fall in my neck of the woods.

I took these photos last Sunday morning on my walk.

That's all for me today. Time to get ready for work! Thanks for stopping by.

Weekend Wrap Up

It was not a very arty weekend for me, but sill a good weekend.

I went with my daughter Friday night to the movies.

Then we went shopping for a little bit at home store. They had all the Christmas things out which was fun took at.

We moved my new cabinet upstairs Saturday. It was a HUGE project because the cabinet didn't fit around the corner to go up the stairs, so we had to rig it up and pull it up onto the second floor through the barn door that makes up one of the walls on my bedroom. 

Boy that sucker was HEAVY!

But we did it! My husband and daughter are both engineers so they came up with part of the moving plan. But I had a few good ideas too!

But to move it I created even more of a mess that I still need to clean up!

Plan for this week to is work in this room at least a couple of evenings after work.

This has turned into a HUGE project. But a much needed clean up is always a good thing!

And Sunday I took a morning walk with my daughter and the dogs. 

It was CHILLY!

And then it wamred up a bit so my husband and I spent some time with the rake, lawnmower and leaf blower cleaning up a lot of the leaves in our yard.

Glad that job is done!

And I also had a nice visit with a friend. We had tea and went for another walk. Sunday was a gorgeous day for mid-November. I really enjoyed having some outside time. (Especially since Saturday we had gale force winds and snow flurries and it was really cold.)
And I want to say before I forget.

My thought are with all those people in that city.

And now another work week is about to begin.

Hope yours is a really good one.

Fun Owl

Friday again. The rain we've been having the last few days is moving out but they say we'll get a little bit cooler temperatures for this weekend. I need to do some leaf clean up. Frown! We are quickly approaching the time of year we could get our first big snow, (last year we had a huge storm the day before Thanksgiving-like Nov. 26) and I don't want to get caught short with all those leave still on the ground, just in case we dumped on. Otherwise it makes the spring clean up a lot more work. 

But hopefully none of that white weather until December-------------------or January---------- or ever as far I am concerned! 

But I don't think I will be that lucky.

Another bird journal page today. This piece is a collage of paint, deli-wrap painted papers, and some other paper images. I stamped the black linear parts.
I keep thinking this page isn't finished, but as I don't know what else it needs, I am calling it finished.
I think this owl is awesome.  I cut her out of a magazine. And I added the yellow to her eyes, beak and talons.
I am linking this little owl lady up to Paint Party Friday. Thanks to Eva and Kristen for hosting.
I am also linking this up to Art Journal Journey. Thanks to Susi for hosting this month and for the theme of fall colors.
Be sure to visit those pages if you don't usually stop by them, and check out some interesting paintings, journal pages and other arty things

So my weekend is going to be quiet-I hope.  I am very excited about a low key weekend. Besides the dreaded yard de-leafing, I  need to move this new shelf unit up into the spare bedroom. It is sitting here in the middle of my already small living room making it even smaller. I can't wait to get it upstairs and get it filled up with paint tubes and other art goodies! I am having fun thinking about how I want to arrange my things in it, and what art supplies I actually want to put in it.
Cleaning up and going through my art supplies can be as fun as making art. I do like to sort through and find those things I forget I even owned. Wednesday when I was working I found a shoe box of  postcards I collected years ago to collage with, and now I feel like I have a new selection of  journal fodder.  But usually I need the carrot at the end of the stick, like a new piece of storage furniture,  to get me moving to do that cleaning.
So thanks for stopping by. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

Girl on Black

It is Thursday but with yesterday off today is like Monday again. This week has had 2 Mondays and 2 Fridays, since Tuesday felt like Friday  having Wednesday off. But  tomorrow is the "real"  Friday-YAHOO!
I think the girl on the journal spread is saying the say thing!

I cleaned off a stencil on the black paper and then I stamped the postmark in white. The city scenes were left over pieces on my work table. I stamped and cut out the flowers, and that happy girl is cut out from a magazine.

So I didn't get to do the much needed leaf clean up  on my day off-too wet, but I did  start cleaning up the space for my cabinet. Of course typical of cleaning up you make a huge mess first.

 It is a good excuse to purge!

I think the putting back together is going to take a few days of cleaning too!
But I didn't spend the whole of my day off cleaning.
I also finished up watching Last Tango in Halifax and did a bit of knitting.
Just the kind of day I needed.
Makes me wish I didn't have to go back to work today.
Luckily it isn't really Monday.
Hope your week is going well!

Fall Birds

Happy Wednesday everyone. I am very excited to have the day off from school. My daughter wants me to go shopping with her but I think I am going to stay home and putter about. I don't need to be tempted to spend any more money! Hopefully the sun will come out so I can putter outside and rake, but if not, I have things to do inside. Like playing with some paint or fabric or even getting the space ready to move my new cabinet upstairs.
That will be a chore since it weighs a ton!

I showed you Monday (A Fun Day Out) my photos of the vintage fair where I found this beauty.
(It is the  big grey on in the back.) It is an old hardware store wall rack. I want to move it into the spare bedroom that is my art studio so I can store all my art bits and bobs in it. (And clean up some of those plastic containers that are piled up!)
The man I bought this from delivered it to school the other afternoon and we slid it into my husband's truck- where it fit just perfect- so I could get it home. Now it is in my living room waiting to be moved upstairs.
That's the hard part! We are still trying to figure out the easiest way to move it.
So today I have another fall art journal page for you.
I've been into birds lately.  They seem to keep showing up in my journal.
None of my bird pages are all that complicated, but I did paint this top bird on my page. I also painted the tree. The other birds were part of the Gelli print background I made awhile back, and I added a bunch of stamped and then colored fall images along the bottom of the page.
I am linking this page to Art Journal Journey. This month's theme is the colors of fall, and it is being hosted by Susi.
In a way this feels like 2 different pages, because the top and bottom are rather different, but I like that about it.
Anyhow, that's all for me today.
Enjoy your hump day!

Little Birds

Tuesday! But tomorrow is Veteran's Day and there is no school! Although a day off in the middle of the week is kind of strange to have, it does break up this week. And I am hoping for a nice day with not a lot of wind so I can rake all those leaves in my back yard. (Even though they are saying rain! I hope those weather people are wrong!)

Last Friday I think all the remaining leaves still had on the trees had a discussion and decided it was time for them all to fall off. The yard went from a few leaves to a carpet of brown!

And I have been making a bit of art.

Here's a journal page. 

Not sure if this page is the colors of autumn or not. It fits right now, and it is autumn, but hmm.

Going to link up to Art Journal Journey which is hosted this month by Susi and has a colors of autumn theme.

I added a couple of old pattern pieces that I found under a stack of Gelli printed papers.

Then  I freehand sketched and painted the this bird cage on this bird themed Gelli printed page, and I stenciled the little birds on the cage in blue. Finally I added the words which were painted and then outlined.
It is a dark and chilly Tuesday morning and there's isn't too much new and exciting here in my house. Last week's warmer weather had disappeared and we are back into November. The trees are now bare, the days are getting shorter and shorter, and even when the sun is up it seems like the shadows are so long. I am sliding into hibernation mode...more TV at night, going to bed earlier, wanting to eat rich food...all those bad, or in another way good,  things.
Ah late fall.
Hope your week is going well so far.
And thanks for stopping by!

A Fun Day Out

. So Saturday my friend Corrine  invited me along to this cool vintage fair. I had never been to Pettengill Farm. I didn't even know it was there. 

They had big tents and  greenhouses where various sellers of vintage wares, crafts, and holiday cheer had tables set up to sell their wares. There were some interesting things for sale.

Not that we were going to spend ANY money!

(Especially Corrine who got lucky and was given a free ticket to get in by some nice woman whose friend never showed up.)

Pettengill Farm is a garden center. I am going to visit next spring or summer because they had some gorgeous garden items. I can only imagine what it looks like in prime garden season.

They had some gorgeous displays at the vintage fair.

Cool greenhouse reflection in this nice old New Englandy photo.

 I found this Christmas tree absolutely gorgeous. My photo does it no justice. It was decorated with all these natural and woodland items. Ideas are brewing around in my brain.

 I think someone needs to pick the leaves out of this emus  curly feathers.

 I love this little shed.  With a heater inside it would make a gorgeous little art studio in my backyard. Should I say hint hint honey?????
Ha-ha!

I love this owl's expression.

And we saw some other cool things too.

This is not a person in a costume! Isn't she a beautiful snow person?

Do you like this old hardware store wall cabinet as much as I do? (Not the little cabinets in front of it, although they are pretty nice too!)

I think it would hold art bits and bobs very very nicely.

When I showed this photo to the hubby he said it would work in his wood working shop more than nicely. He said it would make a great early Christmas present.

That is if I was going to spend any money.
Ha-ha!

And Corrine, weren't we talking about a selfie to post?  We forgot!
But anyhow, I had a really fun day out. It got me into the holiday spirit. I got to talk art and life and see a little something different!
All those good things.
And now since it is Monday again, I am off back to work. Another week begins.
Anything exciting on your week's calendar?