Jingle Belles - Pink Christmas (For the Cure!)

Maybe it's the dropping temperatures, or the leaves changing, or, more likely, HWNSNBP's worrisome prodding that I won't have enough Christmas cards made that sent me up to the stamp cave to make sure that I got going on the latest, and one of my favorite Jingle Belles challenges.  It's October, or Pinktober to some, and that usually means that the cards are going to be predominantly pink.  Lauren and Steph have a tradition of making a $2 (apiece!) per card donation to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and this year they are continuing that tradition.  

I recently got some dies that I thought might work well with the pastel pink colors for Christmas.  There is a bit of simplicity to this card, but I thought the bunny was so sweet and I know exactly who is going to get this card.  My PT has a pet house bunny so I think she will appreciate this. 

We've had a couple of frost warnings the last few days and the daytime temps have dropped enough for HWNSNBP to turn the heat on should we need it if the house becomes too cold.  He's starting the yard clean-up and has deposited several loads of leaves at the edge of the street so they can come and vacuum them up.  They usually do that several times right up until the end of November which is a good thing because we do not have a shortage of leaves.....ever.  Yesterday, since the lower stems and leaves of the tall zinnias were all brown, I asked him to pick the last of the blooms and he brought those in along with some of the last of the dahlias.  They greeted me on the kitchen counter this morning and I can see them in the sunlight from where I sit to use the computer.

I've got another card almost finished for the JB challenge - it needs a sentiment to complete it and I will be able to share it soon.  In the meantime, should you want to check out the entries so far just click here.  You will not only see what the challenge participants have done so far but you will definitely be treated to the always gorgeous work of Lauren and Steph.  And if you're a card maker, there's another 8 days left to come up with a pink Christmas card.  I know you can do it!

Northern Lights - Bucket List √

These pictures were taken from the back porch of the condo in Barnegat on Thursday 10/10 around 10:18 p.m.  I had seen people posting pictures of the Northern Lights on Tuesday and Wednesday night both from Barnegat and Branchburg but they seemed to be fleeting and not many caught them.  I even went outside on Wednesday night in Branchburg, but nothing was visible with the naked eye. 

With the prediction of visibility being more certain on Thursday night, tips were posted on how to view them with your cell phone camera - the settings to use to get the longer exposure and basically making sure that you were in night mode so the camera could pick up the low level light that the eye cannot see.

We had arrived at the condo on Thursday night to prepare for the kids to visit on the weekend (since cancelled) so I knew I was going ot have an unobstructed view from the back of the condo that faces north.  I waited til a little past sundown but apparently too long because at that time they were very faint.  I had all but given up but saw someone post on FB to "go outside now - they're back" and the post was only 2 mins. old so I had to try again and this time the results were great.

Back in the 60's (the 1960's not my 60's) we were visiting relatives on a Sunday night and when it came time to leave, my uncle walked us out the door and I remember that that was the first time that I had heard of the aurora borealis - the northern lights because he happened to look at the sky and he said that he saw them then.  I'm sure I looked at the sky but I don't remember seeing them - I would have been around 10 at the time.  But I did remember what they were called and as I grew older, after seeing pictures in books and on the internet, always wanted to have that experience of seeing them in real life.  Well, thanks to my iphone I have been able to √ that off my bucket list.  

Sketchbook Work - September 2024+

I don't have a regular sketchbook practice but every once and awhile I get on a roll.  These are some of the things that I worked on in September and I think a few of them were actually earlier than that but I'm just catching up now.  

This first is a tangle I had seen called Skalla by Theresa Fessler CZT.  In the true Zentangle method you are not supposed to use an eraser, but an eraser was very necessary when I did this.  Also, you are encouraged to do it in ink from the beginning but I did this in pencil first.  The basic tangle/shapes were done in Micron and then I added the glitter marker.   It's much prettier in real life.

Some things come up in my Pinterest feed and I usually just pin them to the specific category I have set up.  This time I decided to grab an index card and give this a try.

The same creator did something like this also which I chose to try in my sketchbook.

This tangle in the middle is called Stikz by Preeti Gupta which I did on another index card.  The framing is ad libbed similar to what I had seen her do.

I did it again in a smaller sketch pad I had at the condo one night and added my "maze" around it.

I got these owl stickers at the $Tree and kept forgetting to give them to GS2 and they were getting a little beat up in my travel art bag, so before they started flying off their page on their own I made a little owl mandala using some of them.

This was one of those neurographic art pages where you make the "scribbles" and then, using your ink pen, round the corners of the shapes.  I then went in with the glitter markers and filled in some of the spaces leaving a small portion of the white paper as a frame.  

It was a choice not to fill in everything hopefully adding to the design.

This was from the Sanntangle FB group page.  It's Tile #477.   It just looked very Halloweeny to me so i had to do it.  I had a 4" square of bristol paper that was perfect for it.  

The next 4 index cards where done on the fly.

This mandala was inspired by, believe it or not, a crocheted doily that I had seen somewhere online.  It is completely hand-drawn and colored using my own choices.  I have another one started but I'm also doing a couple of other challenges this month and haven't been able to quite complete that one yet.

I've been able to keep up with the Birdtober challenge (post coming soon) but I am behind on Inktober tangles.  Hopefully I'll get to catching up with that in the next couple of days - I finally found the paper for it that I wanted to use and will tell that story when I post the tangles.

Fall Into Fall 2024 - Tangles

A FaceBook group that I follow - Tangle All Around - facilitated an event during the month of September called "Fall Into Fall".  They provided a list and a pdf of the daily tangles.  This was much like some of the other tangle events that I've participated in and once again I decided to take part in this one.  I used another keyring tag booklet for these that was orange and measured about 3" long.  On the front of the tag I indicated the name of the tangle and it's creator along with a sample of the completed tangle.  On the back I drew six boxes and used two colors to show the step-outs of the tangles.  In the past I've just done the tangle on the front of some smaller tags, or in the case of the previous years' Inktober challenges, just the finished tangle which is good, but having the step-outs on the tag itself helps to not have to search out the steps again, and believe me, sometimes you really need the steps.  There is an example of the back at the end of this.  

Here is the complete keyring - there are about 20 extra tags that I can use to add to this.

And here is a sample of the back.  You can see that I have used a dark pink marker to indicate what is added in each consecutive step.  The arrows between the boxes show the progression of the steps.  This is what the official Zentagle creators have used in the past.  This is pretty small - having to fit 6 boxes on a 3" surface is challenging.  

Inktober will be starting on October 1st and I'm going to take part in that also but I haven't figured out what substrate to use yet.  If you recall, last year I used a sheet of black paper and put the tangles in a segmented pumpkin.  I'm kind of leaning towards doing a large leaf on kraft colored paper if I can find something large enough.  Maybe later this weekend I will see if brown kraft wrapping paper would be suitable.  If not, there's always the thought of another pumpkin.  We shall see.

What's Been Showing Up

I took this picture on our way back from our lunch at Hens & Honey a couple of weeks ago. That one red tree stood out amongst all the green ones lining the highway.  There's a lot more color that's been showing up in the time since.

Some other things that have been showing up..........

This toad jumped out of the planter when HWNSNBP was watering recently.  I'm sure he was very cozy hidden there until that point.  

And last week, as I was getting ready to leave the house in the morning for my PT session, I caught this guy going through the yard.  He doubled back towards the car in the driveway before moseying over to the neighbor's yard.  This is not the same fox we've been periodically seeing the last few months as that one was very scraggly and had lost all of the hair on it's tail to mange.  Not sure it's still around because it looked to be in very bad shape.

Another find whilst watering.  This foot-long cucumber coming out the back of the planter.  Don't know how that was missed.

Arriving at the condo a couple of weekends ago I glanced out the back and saw this fella hanging out in the tall grass.  I managed to get the screen open and get a few snaps before he heard me and flew away.  But it wasn't long after that we noticed it had returned to the same place.  After that we didn't see it again in that spot.

Oh, but on our way to the condo that day we stopped at Anna Banana's Bakery because they were celebrating Harry Potter Week again and I wanted to get a ButtaBeer and a Sorting Hat Cupcake.

Seems I've been sorted into Gryffindor yet again.

Although this was not the last night of summer, this was the last summer sunset picture that I took.

This little guy is getting ready for Halloween.  Can you tell what/who he's going to be?

And this very happy kindergartener has earned his first Paw Certificate at school for outstanding sportsmanship during gym class.   

I've finished my Fall Into Fall Tangles and will post them soon.  Inktober starts in a few days and I've been contemplating how I will be doing that.  It will also be the start of Birdtober and I've seen the prompt list and have set myself up with reference pictures for all the birds.  There were two lists to choose from this time - and International list and a North American list.  I chose the the North American list to go with.  I ordered (and received) an 8"x8" watercolor pad with 34 pages in it so I could work a little bigger this year.  I enjoyed last year's work in the smaller pad, but at times did find it a little restricting with getting the bird on that size page.  This should be a little easier.  

And my physical therapist reminded me today that it's just 3 months until Christmas, so there are projects and cards to get moving on also.  It's going to be a busy October.

September Anniversaries and Birthday

HWNSNBP and I celebrated out 47th anniversary earlier this week.  This is the card I made for him.  Yes, I know it's a floral and some might consider it a little too feminine, but here's my thought process - there were flowers at our wedding and he almost always gets me flowers for our anniversary so why not make him a floral card.  I also get to display it and enjoy it here.  

 

While they are not the colors of the flowers that we had at our wedding, they are the colors that I mostly go to.  It took me one evening plus a little time the next day to do the stitching.  I wasn't sure what I was going to put in the center but was glad to find that I had the "Love" die that fit perfectly in the space and for the occasion.  

The next three cards were kind of cobbled together with parts and pieces that I came across while doing some rearranging (still in progress) in the stamp cave.  The first one I used as a birthday card for my mother.  I took the picture before I added the sentiment in that blank space near the leaves.

I actually added the handwritten sentiment to this card. 

And this was used for another anniversary.  

We're going to try to get to Cape May for our annual September anniversary visit in the near future, but we did manage to get a visit in to Hens & Honey down in South Jersey a couple of weeks ago.  As we were driving there, we noticed some work being done on the water tower near the restaurant. We'd never seen the "cleaning" process on a water tower before.  I only got to snap the pictures because there was a traffic light we had to stop at right next to it.

My guess here is that he is making sure it's working or adjusting the force of the spray.  The shadow in both pictures is because I was taking the pictures through the windshield.

We had the Cream Cheese Board for our lunch.  It came with 4 different flavored cream cheeses and we wound up with five after the hostess realized that she had put two of the same flavor on our board by mistake.  She brought the additional one on a pumpkin plate and I didn't get a picture of it.  The flavors were pumpkin, cinnamon roll, roasted tomato, and not pictured was strawberry.  We did bring about half of it home with us, because it is a lot even for two people.  HWNSNBP had the Vanilla Bean drink and I had the Harvest Moon Smores coffee.  

The last time I posted about this restaurant I had forgotten to get a picture of the area they have dedicated to Taylor Swift but I made a point to get it this time. 

There's a mirror on the right that says "You're like really pretty........now go get coffee".

One last thing for now, I tried a new cake recipe this weekend.  It's called "Do Nothing Cake".  I think it's only called that because it's quick and easy to put together.  

You mix the batter all in one bowl and bake it.  While it's in the oven you make the icing which can even go on the cake when it comes out of the oven so it will seep into the warm cake.  I let this cool a little longer than I should have and the icing didn't get a chance to seep into the cake too much but did run off a little more when it was cut.  I won't write out the recipe here but here's the link.  If  you've got a can of crushed pineapple, a can of sweetened condensed milk, flour, sugar, baking soda and some eggs, you're on your way.  The coconut and chopped pecans on top are to your choice.  I had to send HWNSNBP to the store for the pineapple and condensed milk so I asked him to get coconut and pecans also.  The cake is sweet and our problem is that it is too much for the two of us.  He said I should try to halve it the next time.  We'll see.  If you try it, let me know what you think.