More Pages from My Florida Travel Journal

 Hi everyone. Happy Sunday. I hope you're having a lovely weekend. If you're here in the US, you might also be getting a long weekend for President's Day tomorrow. 

Today I have a few pages from my Florida travel journal that I've been making.  Today's pages are made with scraps of items I picked up on the trip as well as some other supplies that were in my stash. My theme today is the Kennedy Space Center.

Page one is about the grackles who wanted to share our french fries during  lunch. (I showed you photos and explained them in yesterday's post.) I didn't have a grackle stamp so I  substituted this starling one.

I used a stencil with grey acrylic paint on a watercolored background for this next page. I had purchased this Kennedy Space Center sticker, and the pink astronaut on the bottom was cut out of some collage fodder in my stash.

On the above page I used part of a small sheet of paper. I attached our entrance tickets, stamped a couple of things and added a few stash finds also.

On the page below I made a die cut background. I used stickers and a moon I cut out of a sheet of paper. The astronaut is from the label of a pick me up late afternoon chocolate bar the hubby and I shared.

On this next page there are more bits from my stash, pieces I cut out of a brochure and also the label on a second chocolate bar the hubby and I shared once we left the park.

And for my final page I added some bits from the trip as well as a die cut rocket and die cut hanging stars and a heart.

I'm linking this page up to Art Journal Journey because even though there isn't a lot of red, the red does stand out and is the first thing to catch my eye. This month you probably are aware that I am hosting and my challenge is Seeing Red.

Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

It's In The Mail

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend. I hope your weekend is a good one, whether it is just starting or whether  you are already well into it.

Today I have a page for Art Journal Journey . Seeing Red is the theme this month, and for my page I went with a red background.

I had no idea what I wanted to do with my page when I started except I had all these leftover red die cut numbers that I wanted to use. The first thing I did was glue some scraps of red polka dot tissue paper on my background, and then I randomly glued down my numbers.  After that I gave my page a couple of sprays with red ink.

Don't you love the mailbox? Since it's too muddy to walk outside most places where I live at this time, I sometimes drive to a nearby shopping center and walk there. I walk through the big stores and around the perimeter of the lot to get in my steps. One of the stores is Hobby Lobby, and on my weave up and down the aisles one day  I noticed that they've stopped carrying cutting dies. They had a few on their mark down wall though, and I noticed this mailbox. Since I'm a fan of mail and mail related art, and since it was marked way down, I picked it up. It also came with this mini envelope image die, so besides using the mailbox die pieces I also cut a few letters on my page today.

The mailman image was in my stash so I added him. I also added this old US postage stamp. Years ago the US post office printed a sheet of 50 stamps, one for each state. 

I liked this set and picked up a couple of sheets of these stamps when they were released, not for mailing (although I could use them for mailing if I needed to),  but to use in my travel journals over time. I decided to add my state's stamp to my  page. To finish my page I rubber stamped a few postage words and images.

 

Speaking of travels,

how about these boat tailed grackles we saw in Florida?

 When my husband and I were at Kennedy Space Center,  and we had picked up sandwiches and a cup of French fries to share for lunch. We were warned about eating outside and the birds.  The cashier told us the birds particularly like French fries and they can recognize the fries and the cups they come in.When my husband came out with the food tray,  a couple of grackles swooped down towards him as he was carrying the tray to our table, hoping to steal a fry or two. He waved them away. After that they looked for other unsuspecting people.

This girl tried to feed them and her parents quickly (and loudly)  stopped her. 

It could have been like a scene from Hitchcock's The Birds. I thought it was funny to watch the birds and to watch people's reactions to them. Luckily none of the birds were really interested in attacking people though.

That's all for me. Thanks for visiting.

Florida Journal

Hi everyone. Happy Friday.

Today for Nicole's Friday Face Off and for  Gillena's Friday Lunch Break let me share this vintage photo.

The little girl on the right is my daughter, and the girl on the left is her cousin.  The girls were 5 and 6 here, and we were on a 2 family Disney trip back in 1996 or 1997 (I can't remember the exact year but it was the 25th anniversary of Disney World). It was a fun trip, but I remember it was really cold, which none of us packed for. 

The reason I'm sharing this photo is that the girls are now 30 and 31, and  this week they're back at Disney  World with their husbands. This is a celebration for their husband's birthdays, since they both married men who were born on the same day. I hope they're having as much fun as they did when they were kids. 

And speaking of Florida, let me share a few photos of a trip journal I have started. I'm having so much fun making this little book that I'm buzzing right through this project.

I used an old book and cut out all of the pages so I could use the covers. I painted and stenciled the covers with some bright colors, and then I covered the spine with some duct tape. I bought this Florida gator sticker  because I liked the vintage look of it. We did visit the Sunken Gardens, although I wish it didn't say Sunken Gardens on the sticker. But oh well, it is what it is.

My journal pages alternate between white watercolor paper and also some heavy duty kraft paper. I like the sizes of the pages to vary slightly, as you might notice in my final photo. I made 3 thin signatures for this book, and I machine stitched down the fold of each signature to hold the signature together. A quick, easy and bit of cheating book binding technique I learned is to use heavy duty tape between the last and the first page of each signature. That connects the signatures together. Then I used more of the heavy duty tape and connected the very first page of my connected signatures to the front cover and the very last page to the back cover. You do lose some actual journal pages this way which you wouldn't do if you stitched the binding to the cover, and it definitely isn't as pretty as the stitches can be. However; it's fast, and it works as long as you use heavy duty double sided tape.

My journal pages contain a mixture of items from my stash, trip info, and any little bits of pieces I managed to accumulate on the trip. Some you probably know that already though because I say it every time I make a trip journal. Smile.

One of the first pages was about our flight down. It was a great flight since there were only 14 passengers on the plane. The flight attendants were joking that they hoped we enjoyed our private flight. I'm sure they were also happy because, since we flew down on a Saturday evening, this was the last leg of their day and it wasn't a crowded flight for them to deal with.  I must say, I've never been on a commercial flight with that few people before.

There are also lots of faces on this page, if you include the mechanical gauge faces too.

You can also see the pilot's face when I lift up the tag. (Not our pilot obviously-smile.)

And here's the other half of the  spread.  It's the smaller white watercolor page, and it is not attached to the kraft paper page behind it. 

I wonder what the face behind the helmet looks like.

I'm also linking this post up to Art Journal Journey where this month's theme is Seeing Red. My flight page has some definite pops of red on it.

Happy start to your weekend. I hope it's a nice one. 

Beach and Bread

 Hi everyone. Happy Thursday. 

The other day for T Day I was unloading about my February slump and mentioning that this week low tide at the beach worked for walking. Hurrah for that. I took the dogs down on Monday morning, and  even if the wind off the ocean wasn't exactly warm I pulled  my scarf up over my face and pulled my hat all the way down over my ears and walked on. The dogs didn't care if it was windy. They love walking at the beach as much as I do.

Monday the beach was really empty (probably because the wind was so cold), and I could even give the dogs a bit of off leash time.  This next photo  looks like layers in a dessert to me but it's actually looking up to some rocks along the seawall (from where I was standing) and including the sand  by my feet.

A huge tree stump had been washed ashore during one of the recent storms, and in the process it also gathered a little sand on it.   I think it looks more like a rock than a tree stump.

But maybe you'd just prefer to see the beach. (This is Long Sands Beach in York, Maine.) See what I mean about it being empty?

I also drove over to Nubble Lighthouse which is very close to the beach.  I never took a photo of the lighthouse (mainly because I seem to have a lot of them), but I did get a couple of interesting photos of this couple down on the rocks.

The ocean was pretty rough at that point because the tide was coming in. I caught some nice wave sprays when those waves crashed into the rocks.

And  today  Rain's Art and Dinner Date has a theme of bread.

Tuesday I tried one of my bucket list recipes, Japanese Milk Bread. 

This bread starts with a warm flour and water mixture called the tangzhong. The tangzhong is what (so I read) gives the bread small air holes and a light and springing texture.  If you're looking for a light white bread, this is definitely one to make. It was delicious.

Here's a recipe for it from KIng Arthur Flour. I didn't use this recipe, but the one I used was almost identical. In the recipe I used, the tangzhong only contained water (1/2 cup) instead of water and milk. My recipe also explained you could make the tagzhong in a microwave, which I did. The recipe I had also didn't use any powdered milk in the dough, and instead of the 1/4 cup of sugar I only used 2 Tablespoons. I found my recipe in America's Test Kitchen  Bread Illustrated cookbook.

I think next time I might try making smaller pieces and baking them in a square pan because this bread would make delicious dinner rolls. And thanks Rain for this theme this week because I've spent too much time procrastinating making this bread.  

OK, that's all for me. Have a great rest of your week and weekend too. 

Heart Overload

Hi everyone. 

I hope your week has been lovely so far.  

Today I have another page for my Seeing Red challenge at Art Journal Journey. Keeping in mind that yesterday was Valentine's Day, I used some hearts. OK,  I got a little carried away with the hearts on my page, but I will explain why if you read on.

Hopefully you won't mind all the hearts as it seemed like I ran out  of time finishing this page before Valentine's Day.

I started my page with a partial piece of vintage notebook style paper that had some red writing on it. Then to add pieces to my base page, I cut apart an old journal page  that I really didn't like. The little metal key came off that  old now cut up page as well as the Cupid image. I also cut out some painted hearts from that page.

I knew I wanted to add the key to the window frame, and I really liked the Cupid in the corner of that  notebook style paper which was already attached to my  in progress page. I decided to layer the  painted hearts I had cut out of my old  page on the top right and bottom left of my new page. (You can see one heart in the above photo.) I glued them down, and then took a look at what I had done. That's when I decided that  I disliked the hearts as much on this new page as I did on the now chopped up page. 

Oh no.

 I tried outlining those hearts and adding paint dots to them to see if I could like any better, but no, those techniques  didn't work.  I also tried adding some stamped hearts around the page to distract my eye from those ugly red hearts.  I liked the stamping, but it didn't distract from those painted hearts. Nor did spraying the page with some red ink help fix those "stupid" painted hearts. (Or at least the way I had arranged them.)

OK,  it was time to cover them up. I did that by using a big sheet of red cardstock and a heart die. With several runs through the machine I made a whole big pile of hearts. Then I added them to my page like crazy. 

After all that, I really like my page, especially after I added the key and the chipboard window. Sometimes making a page really is  an art journal journey, just as the name of this challenge states. 

 And thanks so much for visiting my blog.

 

T Stands for Fool's Spring

Hi everyone. Happy T Day and Happy Valentine's Day to you.  ❤❤❤ 

We don't really celebrate Valentine's Day in my house, which doesn't bother me. Last year my husband bought a mini chocolate cake for the holiday. I think he only picked it up because he happened to be at the grocery store after work and saw it marked down-smile. But it was one of the yummiest chocolate store bought cakes I'd ever had, and that made it memorable. I know he thinks of me all the time, and that's what's really important.

I found this fun "meme" online. Some of you might have seen it. I'm not sure who came up with it so I can't credit anyone. (Sorry) I do think one correction needs to be made  for us folks in the woods because before  we get to The Pollening  we also need to add in Bug Season. 😉

Right now  we are in Fool's Spring, and I'm in my February slump. I get this way most years. I am loving our warmer temperatures for sure. But the snow on the ground is dirty and brown; my road goes back and forth between being ice covered/ frozen solid and then turns muddy; the walking trails are covered in snow, ice, snowmobile tracks; my car is filthy  outside and has so much dog hair and beach sand on the inside. I need some dry driveway time  to put my car out in the sun on one of these warmer days and give the inside a good cleaning.

Just an FYI- here's a photo of what I'm living with.  I'm not sure you can make out the road but it's just like my driveway.

I should clarify my February slump is  not me sitting around in a lump on the couch being sad; it's just me being restless while I wait for things to dry out a bit. 

The good news is that  low tide at the beach this week is not at the crack of dawn nor after it gets dark so that gives me a place to walk at least a couple of days.

This past weekend my husband and I ran errands, and I dragged him on some walking around a shopping center and around Costco. I have to be creative with my walks since I can't really walk on my road right now. If I can get some chores completed while getting in some movement, why not?

One thing I picked up at Costco were these tulip bulbs. Here they are now, and it will be fun to watch them bud and bloom. And they make me think of spring too. 😀

Perhaps you noticed the cool shadows behind these leafy bulbs.

And this shape is

my beloved wooden bear with a fish in his mouth.

After our afternoon of errand running/walking we decided to get some dinner since we had skipped lunch. We decided to go to one of our other favorite restaurants in Manchester (New Hampshire), The Puritan Back Room. We haven't actually eaten in this restaurant since pre-pandemic times, and I admit, the waiting area was too crowded for my post-pandemic personal space requirements. The Puritan is always mobbed, and we had a 40 minute wait even though it was 4:30 in the afternoon. I told myself it would be OK and waited.  Funny how before 2020 I wouldn't have thought twice about things like waiting area personal space.

 There was an open table in the bar, and  we decided to do something different (for us) while we waited. We grabbed the bar table and each ordered a drink.

Here's a slightly goofy photo of me and our drinks that my husband took. This is my link to T this week over at Bleubeard's and Elizabeth's blog .

 The Puritan's signature drink is their mudslide. When I've eaten there I've noticed so many people having them. I've always wanted to try one of their mudslides, and this seemed like a good time since I'd have plenty of time after my drink and before I had to drive us home (which is like an hour away). I had the classic mudslide, and my husband had the milky way mudslide, which I actually liked better.  

I won't make you hungry by showing our dinner, but I will mention the Puritan is best known for their chicken tenders, which is what we both had. And the best part is you get so many that we had leftovers for another meal.  

That's all for me because I think I've said enough. Sorry if I sounded like I was complaining.  Have a wonderful T day, Valentine's Day and week ahead. 

Not Alice’s Red Queen

 Hi everyone. Happy weekend to you. I hope your  Saturday and Sunday are/will be / have been good days. And if you are an American  football watcher in places where it is shown, do you have any plans for the Superbowl tonight? Will you watch it? The hubby and I will be watching it, but we're not doing anything special other than watching.

As it's also getting close to Valentine's Day I thought I would use some hearts on a journal page. These hearts  are all die cut from some red cardstock and then embellished with a white paint pen and a black watercolor crayon.

The "Queen" has a secret admirer who sent her a single red rose. And he sent her some words of love also. The queen is cut out from an old collage sheet and her secret admirer is a die cut. I thought using the black printed paper was what I wanted, but the black was too definite for someone who is so mysterious.  I used a white paint pen to tone him down a bit and to make him more a mystery. 

 

During my latest reorganization I found where I put my ancient Technique Tuesday word stamps. I actually knew where I had put the notebook  I stored them in ( as the sheets come 3 hole punched), but they weren't easy to get to.  Now that I can grab them easily I might as well use them. That's where the red word came from. (Although as I continued working on my page, I'm not sure the red work was necessary.)

I also needed something to border my page with, and there was enough red on my page already, so I added some of this colorful yellow ric rac. It has just a bit of red in it to connect it to my page.

And let me finish today's post with a few more photos from Canaveral National Seashore in Florida. This stretch of national park is actually a barrier island with the Atlantic Ocean on one side and the Indian River on the other side. It is part of the Inter-Coastal Waterway which you find along the southeastern part of the US where there are many other barrier islands.

In this first photo the Indian River is on your left and the Atlantic is on your right. You can clearly make out where the national park begins also. Just look for where the development stops.

And besides walking along the beach, we had a few nice other walks also. Luckily even though this part of the Indian River forms Mosquito Bay, there were not a lot of mosquitoes.

A little bit further down the bay, while still in the park, we saw lots of people kitesurfing. It's fun to watch them especially when they get some air. None of my photos are very close up though as these folks were too far out for  my zoom lens to get them really close.

And if you went across the road and parking lot and down onto the beach (which is on the Atlantic side), you might come across some sunbathers who go au natural. There is a stretch of the beach where nude sunbathing is allowed.

And here's a few palmetto and palm fronds for you to end my post.

Happy rest of your weekend.