A Little Collage on a Patterned Background

Something  fun today. A stenciled pattern background as well as the heart patterned washi tape stripe.

I am sure everyone has been both the babbler and the poor person stuck listening to the babbler at some point in their lives.

Here's my latest inspiration for Art Journal Journey and the Polka-Dot, Stripes, Plaid and Pattern challenge.

Hope to see you there!

A Buggy Pattern

It's the weekend, and we are having some gorgeous last days of summer weather here in New Hampshire. 

And today I have a summery page that may not appeal to everyone, but I had fun stamping and coloring these six legged creatures.

I like this insect pattern as it is, and decided not to add anything else to it, other than a bit of background spray ink. At least for now.

I am linking up to Art Journal Journey and the polka-dot, stripes, plaid and pattern  challenge.

Thanks for stopping by and

have a great weekend!

The Stars

Happy almost weekend everyone. (Or maybe actual weekend for you b the time you read this). 

Every now and again I find something to inspire me to make a page in my night sky journal. It might be taking me quite awhile to finish it up, but I think it is one of favorite ever journals, so better to take it slow and be inspired than to rush and not like the finish.

This page started with some polka-dot and star patterned paper, a bit of stenciling over that, and then a lot of collaging. The sky chart cam out of an old atlas, and the words were cut from some junk mail I got. (but they are awfully good words I think).

And of course the polka-dots make this page the perfect link up to Art Journal Journey where this month's challenge is Polka-dots, stripes, plaids or patterns. There's still a little over a week to the month so I hope to see some more fantastic entries. And of course, big thanks to all the fantastic art already shared. And big thanks to Susi and Elizabeth for getting the webpage working so we can post!

I decided to take the day off from work today. It is a gorgeous day, that and I am fighting the head cold going around work. Too gorgeous to be inside doing some silly teacher workday activities. The kids have a long weekend (so I am not missing class time), and our district administration planned all these warm fuzzy activities that to me is no more than busy work since they couldn't find anything of value for us to do. (But they can't let us do the work we should and could be doing.) OK, enough said, you can guess how I am feeling about all that, but I did manage to get out for a walk this morning. Hurrah for that! There are certainly some signs of fall.

 And there are so many caterpillars this year. Here's a few.

This one below looks like a crawling stick.

Thanks so much for visiting and hope you are having a great day also!

Apples, Flowers, and a Few Other Things

Hi everyone.  It is a very cool Thursday morning here in New Hampshire. There is frost in some parts of the state, but luckily not where I am. And we're supposed to warm up tomorrow and get back to summer. Mother Nature just can't decide what season it wants to be.

So I have a tag for the Apples and Pears challenge at Tag Tuesday. I used this ancient Judikins cube stamp that has apples of all kinds on an ink colored tag. I cut the edge off of a paper doily to make the bottom lace and stamped the sayings.

And also how about another page for Art Journal Journey? There's a new link in for your posts since the other one isn't working right now, so you can still play along.

I stamped some polka dots  and painted some patterns, as well as some flowers. I stamped the Japanese lady on acetate and added her to the page also.

This of course is for the polka-dots, stripes, plaid and pattern challenge. HUGE thanks to all of you who have joined in with some fabulous art.

And finally, some garden photos. Please don't look too close, you can see all the weeds. That's what happens once I am back to school.

Enjoy the end of your week.

And thanks so much for visiting.

Hot, Hot, Hot

Hello. Tuesday is here and it is already time for a new challenge at Try It On Tuesday

There were some fantastic entries to the Boys and Girls/All Things Children  challenge.
Thank you to those of you who  participated.

And for this newest challenge think HOT! 

Hot colors!

Hot places!

Hot drinks!

Hot anything!

We call this challenge: Hot, Hot Hot!

I made my journal page by first stamping this flower several time to make a pattern of them. I painted and colored them with hot colors, as well as adding bits of black and white to each flower. Then I collaged some white printed tissue around them, which I painted with a light yellow. Finally I stamped my words, which might be falling downhill a bit too much.

I am also linking this page up to Art Journal Journey and this month's polka-dots,lines, plaids and patterns challenge. (And you only have to use one  of those within your piece.)

T Stands for Book Club

Hello ladies (and any gentlemen also). Time for T again. Time to share our drink related posts over at

Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog.

Last Thursday was book club night for me. We had 2 meetings scheduled over the summer but somehow they never worked our and we ended up cancelling until this past week. It was a very wet morning but luckily it cleared out by after school.

We decided to meet at a restaurant this time, which we don't usually do. Since we are all teachers, we could meet  after school  and enjoy what turned out to be a beautiful evening.

This is the view from the restaurant.

And here's the restaurant. It wasn't very crowded because when the rain cleared out, the temperatures dropped off. But it wasn't windy and the sun actually felt pretty warm.

I had some water to start, and here's where we met. Kittery is the southernmost town in the state of Maine, and right over the river from where we all teach.

I also had a beer with my meal. I just love the design on this can.

I had a  fish sandwich, fries and coleslaw.   And since I had brought yogurt for lunch, but didn't eat it as it just didn't appeal to me during the rainy part of the day, I managed to eat almost all the food on this plate.

Nope. There was no room for dessert.
Hope everyone has a fantastic Tuesday.

Art and Books-What Could be Better?

Hi everyone. Thanks for visiting my blog today. Another weekend has buzzed right by and it is almost time for another week to begin. But wasn't it just September 1? Now we are almost half way through the month.

  I have some art for you and also a book post for those of you who may want to see what's been on my nightstand.

Here's my latest pattern page for Art Journal Journey. This month the challenge at polka-dots, stripes, plaids or patterns (PSPP for short). 

I began my page with a paint brush clean up watercolor page.  I stenciled a design using a lace image stencil  with some black  paint onto some thin white paper. Once dry,  I tore that paper into some bits and attached those pieces randomly to my watercolor base, and then I went back over part of the page and stenciled over some of my page with some soft modeling paste.

Originally I thought of coloring the  modeling paste part, but then I decided I liked the white color and left it. I finished off the page with a bit of stamping and finally coloring along with fussy cutting some stamped dragonflies from another sheet of paper.

And for those of you who are readers and may enjoy a book review, here's my last month and a half  reading/listening list. 

I share these mostly so I can keep track of what I have read, but I know I enjoy book recommendations and I believe some of you do also.

My goal is this year is to listen to all 7 Harry Potter books, and I am doing pretty well with it. I finished book 5 and now I am working on book 6.   Jim Dale, the narrator of these books, has an amazing voice range also, and he is  great to listen to.  I think I  prefer the stories being read to me rather than  reading them myself. It certainly makes my daily commutes much more enjoyable. Go Harry!

And my latest book club book was the Great Alone. I would probably never have picked up this book but I am glad I did. It is set in Alaska, and I found it quite an emotional thrill to read. I will say however, it seems a few of our book club choices lately have had an abusive male in them, as did this one, and I am ready for some nicer male main characters. But it was an easy read and I could read it quite quickly.  I do recommend it.

And below is another oldie, reread for me. The Historian is long ( a 28 hour listen), but I enjoyed it the second time around as much as the first. This time I did listen to it rather than read it in book form, but it is a great suspenseful story about the search for Dracula by 2 historians who believe there is enough evidence that he still lives in the mid-20th century. It is fiction, but I enjoyed the romp around Europe in the 1950's and 1970's. My only complaint is some of the story is the reading of letters by one of the historians, and maybe it could have been written more in real time, but that is a small complaint. I like its suspense and gothic (in the traditional sense) feel. It is not full of blood and gore, although there are a few random deaths, but for me a good fall read/listen. I don't know why but I always have an urge to read some good old fashion style gothic tales as the leaves begin to turn.
And do they find Dracula? I will leave that to you if you want to know I guess you will need to read the book.

And another listened to story was this children's classic.

I had never read the books, and of course books are often better than films, so I decided to listen to the Anne Hathaway version. I must say I really enjoyed it. And definitely not the film either. How much not like the film really surprised me.

Now my reading book mood lately has been mysteries, and I have been racking them up.

I am only showing only one of this Dr. Ruth Galloway series, but I am hooked on these. This is the last of 3 I've read since early August..(This is the 8th book in the series and I started with #1 in January.)  Ruth Galloway is an archeologist who assisted the police with investigations, and there is a whole cast of characters which are really nicely done. They show up in all the books and I think some of my addiction to this series is I like to see what everyone has been up to. But I do suggest you start at the beginning to get to know the characters as you go.

I also read the last couple of Louise Penny's  Armand Gamache mysteries so I am all caught up for the latest which recently came out. I haven't read that one yet,  but I think these are some of the best written mysteries around, not quite as easy a read as the Elly Griffiths one but just as good.

And (ha-ha), I keep working on my husband so he might become a bit more like Armand Gamache.
There's been a few other light and fluffy listens/reads, including the non-political book by the Bush twins and  a pie baking cookbook.
And there's a couple more mysteries on my nightstand to read (including the latest Louise Penny) and also my latest bookclub book by Barbara Kingsolver. All of which I look forward to.

Thanks for visiting.

Checking In

 Hi there everyone. How is your weekend  going? 

I could use a quiet weekend but today I was off to visit my Mom and then run errands. But since it was rainy and grey the hubby came along for a ride. I must say it was great to have some company since Mom is 2+ hours drive each way.

But how about some art? I have another page to inspire you to join Art Journal Journey This month is all about polka-dots, stripes, plaids and patterns.  Today my page is all about circles.

I had an orange and black page that I did not want to be too much like Halloween. So I began by hand painting some black circles (over the black spots) and then adding little white paint dots around them. 

I added this lovely lady which was a punch out from Studio Light. And she needed a friend so I thought this little duck stamp would be a good addition.  

Hope your weekend is going well. Hope to see you over at Art Journal Journey

Thanks for visiting.

Last of the Ocean Journal

Hi everyone.  Friday and the workweek is almost over and another weekend is almost here.
Smile.

Do you remember the journal I was working on this past summer with an ocean theme?  It had fold out pages and being summer, I was thinking about fun by the sea.  

Or in this case, fun in the water.

This last spread  is a fantasy page about mermaids.

And seashells along with polka dots too.
And since polka-dots fit my challenge this month at Art Journal Journey, I am linking this spread up.
Check out the polka-dots, stripes, plaid and patterns challenge and all the fantastic art linked over at Art Journal Journey. Big thanks to all of you who have linked up already!

My favorite part is the waves. I made then by painting on acetate and then cutting them out. I like the effect the created and think I am going to use that little find again.
You' also might not be able to tell, but the  mermaid here on the above right hand side is made from paper clay in mold. I then painted and colored her in.
Autumn feels like it is here in my world (even though yesterday we had some summer warmth), so my urge to be a mermaid is put back into the bottle until next summer.
Happy weekend!

Wednesday Art

Hi everyone. I thought I would share another journal page for the latest challenge at Art Journal Journey. 

This month the challenge is polka-dots, stripes, plaids and patterns, which one or combination tickles your fancy.

I started my page by painting some rather crooked green vertical and horizontal stripes. They reminded me of a green wire garden fence. So I doodled some vines and leaves and then stamped an abstract design that reminded me of a flower. But at that point I really disliked my page. OK, so I look a bit of gesso and scraped it with an old credit card over the page. 

Amazing how a bit of gesso can change the whole look. 

I stamped the fairy image on some plain white paper and colored her in. I also stamped her on the page to use as a guide plus there were all those cool little circles around her feet and on her dress and I hated to lose them all when I cut her out.

So after cutting her out I attached her onto her stamped on the image. Then I used some silver Stickles glitter glue to cover the dots. I also used some TH clear wings rather than the wings th image came with. And I also stamped the quote, which came with the fairy image stamp set. 

That's my post today.  Stope by the Art Journal Journey website to see all the beautiful art posted so far. Thanks so much for visiting, and  I hope to see some art from you at Art Journal Journey soon.

T Stands for a Drive through Vermont, and A Few Other Things Also

Hi everyone.  It is T Day again. Wow, the week went fast, didn't it? 

In my last post I showed you the corn maze (or maize maze) we did this past weekend. I certainly get why some of you commented that you  wouldn't want to do this maze. The one we visited was especially large. I have done a smaller one which was fairly easy and certainly a different experience.
And for those of you who mentioned being vertically challenged and walking in a maze of tall corn, I can totally related as I am only 5 ft  (1.5 meters) so those corn stalks were more than twice my size.

As the corn maze was in northeast Vermont,  we drove up through the White Mountains of my state (New Hampshire) and then into the Green Mountains of Vermont. We saw lots of pretty and interesting scenery.

 I took this top photo from the car on the road in New Hampshire, and you can see  we were close enough that Canada starting showing up on the road signs. 

 We spent Saturday night with my daughter's beau's family, and this was the view from just down the road from their cabin.

We had some rain Saturday night and Sunday morning it was just starting to clear out.

 But it wasn't all farmland.
Good thing we are used to gravel roads because we traveled down lots of those.

Vermont is known for their dairy products. 

But we also passed this alpaca farm.

What a face!

And Vermont has lots of cool barns of various kind, including this old one.

And there are a few pretty little lakes.

 And look at this tiny town library. I think it is the cutest. I could probably fit my books into it (as I have lots of books.)

Maybe I need one of these. (smile)

 And since we were meeting at the maze at 10 in the morning, we got an early start. We also knew lunch was not going to happen. So on our way we stopped for breakfast. This is my T Day part of the  post.

 We passed this diner along the way. And  here's my breakfast, along with some caffeine to wake me up and get me ready for the corn maze.
And although it is not in the photo, my straw was also biodegradable like Elizabeth's was too.

This is my drink photo for T Stands for Tuesday over at Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog.

And as if this post isn't' already long, I also have a journal page.

Just a reminder there is still a week to join in at the Girls and Boys challenge at Try It on Tuesday.

And since I stamped the stripes in the background and there is a number pattern along the bottom of the page, I am also linking up to the polka-dot, stripes, plaid and pattern challenge (PSPP) at Art Journal Journey. You still have the rest of the month to participate there.

Happy T day everyone. And thanks for visiting and reading a long post.