Texture Tuesday/ 8-9-2011

it's all about the small stuff over at Kim Klassen's Cafe today. i used her  free 'Not too Shabby' texture with one of my photos (square crop). Thank you Kim~!~

today's gifts included:

• playing tug and fetch with River (she's not 'lost' anymore)
• watching the hummingbirds chase each other around the feeder
• participating in the texture tuesday challenge this week

Happy St. Patrick's Day~!!~

come sit a moment and watch my summer garden grow.

this is a new combination of plants i'm putting in: liatris (the purple) and coreopsis (the yellow). i'm finding them a wonderful pairing and really like their contrasts in color and form. the tags optimistically put their cold tolerance at -40 degrees. we'll see . . .

the daisies are happiness incarnate.






the peppers are going gangbusters which isn't usually the norm . . .

so far just a few tiny green tomatoes so i won't bother showing those off just yet.



but the snow peas are yummy and plentiful . . .

i love this rose. it's a climber called jacob's coat (i think) and is new to our garden this year. i hope it does well and survives the winter (aka: hardiness test) to come back next year. i figure if a plant comes back three years running it's here to stay. only the toughest make it.

i'm getting little else done.

other than watching the garden grow . . .

photos/practice from the morning garden

this morning i spent some time learning about and experimenting with aperture. taking the camera off of the "granny green" button is challenging me but i do like the range of creative possibilities that are opening up to me when not shooting in the manual mode . . .
this first shot is straight out of camera except for the square crop.


once again i'm behind schedule with the TAST (www.pintangle.com) project/challenge. the stitch was an Up and Down Feather Stitch and not one that i was familiar with. the first attempt was while i was away from the computer and i tried to do it from memory . . . it turned out fine but i did it wrong. i used a heavy cotton thread in green. if looked at upside down i thought it could be peas growing on a vine . . .


the second attempt was done correctly (i think) and does appear slightly different when looked at closely. i worked this one in a heavy variegated green thread.
i may go back in and add some bullion "flower buds" between the two prongy bits . . . maybe in red . . .

the third attempt was worked with a red hand dyed silk ribbon and i liked the way that turned out too.

i found this stitch charming and packed FULL of possibilities.

all of these stitches were worked into fabric postcard blanks; each attempt on a different card.

Thank You for the many birthday wishes left within my comments. i did have a great day with many phone calls, visits and even some gifts~!!!~ i am blessed.
all of that birthday celebrating has left me a little bit behind on my blog visiting and i hope to be out and about in blogland during the week catching up.



this is the second postcard that i have made using some smaller appliqued heart blocks that were generously given to me. i've made this one for someone in particular but was wondering if i should make another one (or two?) for the give-away package of cards that i'm currently creating . . . what do you think? this second card is quite likely to be included within that package and there are several more that i'm working on . . .

just wanted you all to know that i haven't forgotten and i am still creating cards for the promised one year anniversary/200th blog post give-away.

a few years ago, at Christmas, i bought an Amaryllis plant. after it was finished with that bloom cycle it went dormant.

i continued to water it and hope but nothing happened . . . i was about to give up on it when i noticed a bit of green growth a couple of weeks ago. and now it has a long, strong stalk that supports two beautifully opened blossoms as well as a third smaller one that is still in the bud stage.

i love that lime green center as much as the red and white petals~!!~

is this one of those plants that only blooms every second year? and isn't it interesting that it has decided to grace me with color at Easter rather than Christmas, as it did originally? i'm guessing that the plant nurseries and their habit of forcing flowers at all times of the year has something to do with this but i don't really know.

i'm just happy that it has brightened my dining room with a second showing~!!~

"Do not think that love in order to be genuine has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired. Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies."

Mother Teresa

happy valentines day

last night it rained. and rained. and rained. i expected our temps to dip into the freezing zone and i would wake up to snow but that did not happen. instead i woke up to partially cloudy skies and some sunshine trying to break through so i went out with my camera to see what i could see . . .

at first glance things look bleak as there have been some frosts (earlier this fall) and the plants are all brown and droopy. but i simply cannot look through that lens without it being set to macro and so discovered a multitude of seeds. when looked at this way, i decided that i could be grateful for the many and varied "promises" being made by the garden to enchant me once again after their winter rest.

the ornamental crabapple tree is just loaded with tiny little fruits that are getting redder by the day.

these fruits are about the size of a marble and the birds are going to have plenty to feast on this winter.

some have fallen to the ground and made their own colorful poetry.

thank you to all of my readers who left such understanding and comforting thoughts on my last post. i have discovered that one of my gratitudes is the friends that i have made via my blog.

the magic of macro makes this tiny mushroom appear ginormous but in fact it was only about a quarter of an inch tall. it was accidentally uprooted when weeding the pea patch.
lift it up and put some blue sky behind it and voila~!!~it's the stuff of faiery tales~!~

i have some of the rudebeckia flowers picked and in a small vase on the dining room table. i spent a few minutes framining them up in different ways and did a few in black and white. they are such a pretty flower that it's hard to stay away from them with the camera.

while out in the pea patch, i snapped a couple of shots; one of a new little pod growing and one of a larger pod that i opened up so the peas could be seen. btw: these are quite tasty~!~

i put the finishing touches on my Sunday Postcard Art challenge card today but won't show the card in it's entirety until tomorrow.

one tall stalk of thistle is slyly growing in between some other bushes where it thinks it can't be seen . . . but, it was spotted and because i thought it photogenic with a strong future in more photographs, i've left it to grow (for now). the wickedly spiny fat stem offers many of these large globes with only one of them beginning to show some purple flower . . . so pretty and such a pesty prickly weed~!!~thistle was my dad's favorite flower, so i have a soft spot for it . . .

the daily collage work continues with an additional layer of glaze applied over all. i was surprised to find that the paper i added yesterday dried almost completely flat . . . it sure didn't look like it was going to and i had decided to be happy with it and play with a peeling paper technique that i found in a book called "Collage discovery workshop" by Claudine Hellmuth using masking tape. i figured that the extra bumps would just pull up with the tape and ta-da~!~i'd be back to a smooth surface. this was last night when i was still thinking i would have a lot of bumps and lumps in my paper.

even though it was fairly flat this morning i decided to give this technique a try anyway . . . this is a detailed shot of the only bit that i could even get to tear up. i think that this was due to my having applied glue to the top of the paper as well as the watercolor base paper yesterday. (Ms. Hellmuth does say not to apply glue to the top of the paper for this technique; but what was done was done.) the top layer of glue wouldn't let the masking tape "grab" the paper, thus no great effect. this one little spot was it. since that was pretty unexciting, i also did the wash of sunflower colored glaze for today's experiments. after all it was "The Golden Gazette"~!!~

this is a bit of pre-washed muslin i have set aside to wipe any excess paint off of my brushes. who knows what sort of wonderful painted cloth i'll eventually end up with for future use in other projects. and, best of all, no wasted paint~!!~and now, i'm off to "the big city" to do some shopping and see the new Harry Potter movie.

Rules-?-I think NOT -!!

i received this fun postcard in the mail yesterday~!!~ it is oversized (measuring approximatly 6+ inches by 9 inches) and chocked full of wonders. not the least of which is that the "title" is stitched right into the card front~!~ believe it or not, that was actually one of the latest things that i noticed. if you click on the above image (to enlarge it) you may find it easier to see. i love the black fabric with the white spots as it reminds me of the center of a sunflower. the maker used a technique that i'm unfamiliar with to make the base of the card. i know it had something to do with solvents and magazines and i'll have to try doing something like it at some point.
on the back side of the card the fun goes on and i really LOVE the way that she used the whale cut-out as the center divider in the postcard~!~ also a collection of some very cool stamps used for postage. this card already has a place of honor in my studio as a daily reminder to just loosen up and make some art. if your heart's in it, it just can't go "wrong"~!!~

and here is the wonderful synchronicity part of this story: yesterday i did some more thinking and reading and looked through some of my favorite art books and made a decision that i MUST do a bit of playful collage on every day that i possibly can. then i received the card . . . just another tiny push to get active with my art on a regular basis rather than let a million little things get in my way. THANK YOU FARSTARR~!!~ for the card and the nudge~!!~


so i got out a sheet of watercolor paper and some paints that i had purchased and never used and even a bottle of nail polish that i have in with my other paint supplies and i just splashed around. it probably didn't take me longer than five or ten minutes (clean-up included) and i felt so happy with myself for just having done something.

and today i tore out a section of an L. Ron Hubbard advertisement and glued that down onto my painted base. easy peasy~!!!~the thing about collage is it has to dry between additions anyway so you can only do so much before it's time to set it aside and wait. this should make it a simple daily process for me to continue on with. and just for fun, i will document my progress with this piece that i have started.

one thing that i did not like was that i couldn't seem to get the paper to lay flat . . . maybe i need to be more careful with my gluing or use a different glue or . . . i don't know . . . any advice out there? i did use the side of a used gift card to try to flatten it but don't think that helped much . . .

i'm still looking for the small cache of watercolor bases that i began some time ago, and then put in a "safe" place . . . no idea where i thought "safe" was for those damn cards~!!~ but i wish that they would turn up soon~!!~ i vaguely remember thinking that they needed to be stored somewhere with some flat heavy weight on them (books) but that's the last thing i do remember . . . (to many glue fumes~!?!~) there's a lot of possibilities around here as there's a lot of books . . .



i also have managed a few spare minutes over the last couple of days to start another fiber art postcard. i had a few small shoo-fly quilt blocks that finish up to one and a half inches square once sewn and so i decided to give them a postcard audition. added some tiny prairie points and some festive ribbon and a few embroidery stitches and voila, it's almost done~!~ once i get the back done, i'll meld the two together and bind with a bright red binding. i think.




this one is looking somewhat traditional with a fun summer attitude and a twist of patriotism . . . what do you think?