Green Thumbing

I found the perfect pot for my new string of pearls plant don't you think?

Treasures amongst the weeds.  On the cooler days we've had this summer (no so much last week, but there have been a few good ones) I've gotten to do some much needed weedingt all around the yard.  Little treasures are sometimes found, like this forget-me-not blooming so late, a shell which someone must have put there because we're not near the beach here, and a, shall I guess, bluejay feather.

And the decision as to what is a weed and what is a wildflower.  Here you see the tiny Scarlet Pimpernel and the not-so-much bigger wild Pinks.  I tend not to yank these out when I come upon them much to HWNSNBP's dismay.  Had he been doing the job, everything is fair game.

The birds are responsible for a lot of the little seedlings that we have, especially the poison ivy.  But they also surprise me now and then with something worth cultivating, like this little holly plant.  You can also see some cedar starts in this picture, but they do get yanked out as there are so many.

And a little bit of what is blooming now.

Zinnias

Vinca (aka Periwinkle)

Torenia

Petunia

Salvia

Dahlias

Cleome

 

I have a tendency to go for the pink/blue family of flowers.  You may notice fencing around some of these - we have a terrible deer problem.  When they find something they like, they devour it.  We've learned what some of the plants are that they won't touch, but even then, if they're in a munching mood, nothing is totally safe.  Of course, there are groundhogs and now rabbits again in the yard and they sometimes venture up near the back of the house for a little plant candy now and then.  One can never be sure who the culprit is!

Fruity

It's almost the end of the cherry season.  I do love Ranier cherries the best.  They bring back good childhood memories.  They are a splurge as far as pricing goes but they are only available for a limited time so I splurge without guilt!

 

Just recently I found out that there were wild raspberry bushes growing along the property line at the school where I work.  I couldn't believe that I've been here just about 15 years and never noticed.  So, before it got so beastly hot here, I ventured out and picked some.  They were good - a little tart but there's nothing like fresh fruit from the source.

 

And Another Week of ICAD

Day 37 - Clue

I know this prompt was meant for the game Clue but to be honest, I've never played so I went another route.  Letting you know that red fingerprints in my house are seldom blood.  And if they were in paint or ink, I would cop to it.  However, you might want to follow the trail of pizza crumbs next to the red fingerprint to see who the culprit is.

Day 38 - Color Chart

Just some spiral rainbow flowers because I think I was thinking more Color Wheel than Chart.

Day 39 - Blueprint

Day 40 - Card Catalog - Where the Train Went Off the Prompt Track

I wracked my brain to come up with something for Card Catalog and failing to do so, opted for a one staple collage using mostly scraps of stationery bits from the notes that come through my desk at school.  

Day 41 - Key Chain or Charm

We had all the locks in school rekeyed this past week and I asked for all the old keys to do something with.  I have a couple of ideas.

Day 42 - Direction

This is kind of off prompt.  I was going to put directional words in the outlined shapes but decided against it.  I had done this on a slightly larger scale in one of my art journals (in the background). But here is a quote I came up with...

"If you keep making right turns you'll end up right where you started.  But if you keep making left turns you'll end up where you  left off."

Day 43 - Pool

Or in this case, Tide Pool.  

Eyes on the Sky

I do have a few more sunset shots to go through, but I thought I'd get these posted before too long.

 

 

On a recent early Saturday morning visit to Old Barney and a walk along the jetty.  I didn't make it the entire 1 mile to the ocean - so I camped out on the rocks about half way whilst HWNSNBP continued on.  I found a spot where I could get to the rock that wasn't we yet but the tide was starting to come in at that point and I soon had to move.  He gathered his shells and I gathered my picture....no birds though this time.

 

Then when we got back to the condo, the storm started rolling in.  We packed for a quick getaway and just barely made it out before the downpour.  Found out later that there was a lot of flash flooding in that area so we were very lucky not to have been caught in it.

Catching Up on ICAD

Just continuing on with the prompts.  I have been keeping up day-to-day, just fell behind on the posting.  Here we go......

Day 31 - Mismatched

Day 32 - Caramel

I found a recipe for 1 pt. caramel cookies and made them.  They were delicious.  (Actually still have some.)  The recipe can be found here.  

Day 33 - Ogee

I took the ogee pattern and made my own flag in preparation for the 4th of July.

Day 34 - Constellation

The Crab (Cancer) Constellation seemed appropriate for this day as it was the first day of HWNSNBP's unofficial crabbing season.  (That is catching blue claw crabs, unlike that pictured.)

Day 35 - Pine Tree

Well, I think I combined the prompt of the day with something else entirely.  Though you will see that there are pine cones on the pineapple.

Day 36 - Thesaurus

Completely for fun!

Day 37 - Botanical

This was a little bit of a cheat as I had been playing with this card whilst doing the ribbon in June and set it aside thinking it might come in handy in July.  

End of Year Thank You's

I always need a stack of thank you's at the end of the school year.  Whether they're for staff or students, I still like to acknowledge the little gifts we get in the office.  I try to pick somewhat of a summery theme.  This time it was pineapples.  I had just received this pine apple background stencil and had a little pineapple stamp.  The sentiment would probably work better with a bunch of bananas but I thought there was a bunch of pineapples in the background so it would work.

Garage Sale Finds

Thought I'd share my score at the Kirkside Garage Sale from June.  Better late than never.  Spent a whole $3.00 total for all of this.

A map, some envelopes, pretty nature related cards and Christmas cards to make my cards out of, and some funky labels.

That glass dome below was a quarter (I've seen them for a whole lot more in stores lately).  A glass candy jar, some stemmed glasses probably being repurposed for plants, and some little blue bowls.

Once again, we, the followers of rules or signs, showed up at opening time and people were already walking out with boxes of stuff.  In any case, I did find some great things.  I usually have pretty good luck at this sale.  It all depends what catches my eye at the time.  Too hot for garage saling now until the fall.  Now I just have to find time to put some of this stuff to good use again.

ICAD Rainbow Ribbon Complete

When I planned this out I didn't take into consideration how far I would have to work ahead with the ribbon as it sometimes didn't stay on one card/level.  I think the longest was 10 days ahead, which really didn't affect me a lot because by the first week, I had a rhythm going with switching off the pencils.  

I chose to use colored pencils for the ribbon because of the quality of the index card paper.  I had been doing the rainbow ribbons in an art journal with markers and they blended well on that paper, but the index cards just soaked up the ink making blending kind of impossible.  The next choice was which pencils to use and I opted for a set of somewhat inexpensive pencils as I would be using a lot of them continuously and didn't mind running those down.

The 3" x 5" index cards proved to be a bit of a challenge with space left to use after the ribbon.  I didn't want to go to the 4" x 6" cards because I didn't want to have to color more ribbon.  It was a trade off that worked out okay.  I stayed on prompt and think I did a pretty good job with my interpretations.  

I am glad that I only did this for the first month.  Halfway through, I was beginning to doubt that it was a good plan, but after investing all the time to that point, there was no way I was going to abandon the plan.

Right now the cards are all temporarily taped together on the back with painter's tape until I take the time to replace that with clear packing tape.  Another thing I realized was that the index cards are not exactly the same size.  The differences are very slight and hardly noticeable, but taping them together made them obvious to me.

I'll be working on just the prompts for the remainder of the challege - no more theme.  

ICAD Week 4 plus 2

Here is the last full week plus that last two days of June ICAD.

Day 22 - Bicycle

Day 23 - Poem

The poem is "Color" by Christina Rossetti.  The verses may be a little out of order.

Day 24 - Music Box

Inspired by a musical jewelry box we gave Rachel for her first birthday.

Day 25 - Rose

A simple spiral makes the quickest bouquet.

Day 26 - Tinker Toy

Day 27 - Corduroy

Day 28 - Architecture

Arched doorways and windows.

Day 29 - Terra Cotta

Day 30 - Lemon or Lemonade

I'll show you the whole month in the next post.