More Little March Celebrations

Looking back I can't understand how I had 3 posts on one day last week.  That wasn't supposed to go that way.  But here I am again with some more little celebrations for the last few days.

The first day of Spring fell on the 20th as per usual.  It was also Ravioli Day so we ordered from Olive Garden to celebrate that.  If you order online they also have the option to add an additional pasta dish for about 6 bucks that comes cold and we can have that for lunch the next day along with any bread sticks or salad that we haven't eaten from our main meal.  

The 21st was Poetry Day and I did write a poem - stick to it till the end and don't be offended.

The Unwanted Caress

Standing there naked - I was cold

And then

   I felt the warmth on my back,

          ..... between my shoulders.

It radiated down my arms,

   my torso, 

   my legs.

The heat building within me.

And then it happened.

The darn shower curtain liner

Reached out and wrapped me

In an unwanted caress.

L MASTALSKI 3/2023

On World Water Day (3/22) we took a ride to check out a potential project for HWNSNBP and had a beautiful view of the Atlantic but I forgot to get a picture.

The 23rd was Tamale Day and we got some pulled pork tamales from Trader Joe's to make for lunch.

Cheesesteak Day fell on Friday and being that it's during Lent we passed on celebrating that.

Saturday the 24th was National Peacock Day.  Here's a tangle I did using Pea-Fea by Amelie Liao.

On Sunday when I checked my e-mail there was an offer from Applebee's for a free Spinach and Artichoke dip appetizer with a $15.00 meal order for National Spinach Day.  We didn't have lunch planned at that point so we ordered a hamburger to split and a dessert for later in the day and got the free spinach appetizer.  

Which brings us up to the beginning of this week and what lies ahead.  March is coming to an end and it seems to be going so quickly.  But there are some more good things to celebrate in the works.

The Dandelion

The Dandelion

Each year at this time when the lawns are greening up, we get that pop of yellow in the landscape.  You may be thinking of daffodils as they are typically the welcome inhabitants of the yards and gardens around us.  Or the hedgerows of forsythia that also bring their golden glow to herald the arrival of spring.  But there are also the dandelions that appear, not only in the woods or on the roadsides, but smack in the middle of some well-kept lawns. 

The dandelion – now labeled as an unwanted visitor to our homesteads is not native to North America.  It is thought to have been brought here by the Pilgrims to be used not only for their value as a food source, but for their medicinal properties as well.  But somewhere along the line, the dandelion has become an unwanted immigrant.  We have, for the most part, turned away from welcoming them for their good qualities and think of them as something that prohibits the achievement of a pristine lawn.  It seems that there are those of us who do this to people too.  Some immigrants are looked down on because they spoil the idea of a perfect landscape.  We pick and chose between things that are often not that different not taking into account their best qualities.  Why is it okay to naturalize those yellow daffodils in the landscape but dislike the already naturalized yellow dandelions?

Within the last few years, some have begun to point out that by leaving the early blooming dandelions around the bees will benefit from them as they are coming out of their hibernation and looking for sources of food.  I’ve seen those messages and also the countermessages that say that it won’t hurt the bees to get rid of them.   We personally leave them in the bigger expanses of the lawn but try to remove them from the flower beds where they will be competition for plants we are trying to keep.  But they are not harming our lawn.  If I were industrious enough, I would take into account the many uses that dandelions have and use them for those qualities.  And there are a lot of them.

If you look on line you can find a lot of ways that dandelions are beneficial.  Aside from a plethora of medicinal uses, the greens are used for salads and contain high amounts of Vitamin A and are low in calories.  They can be used for tea or winemaking and the roots can be used as a substitute for coffee.  In the craft world they are used to make dye.  Their stems can be used for weaving – yes, if they are left unmowed in a field, the stems will reach a foot or more and can be dried and used as a natural weaving material.  (If you leave them in your lawn and continually mow over them you can see how they adapt by making their stems so short or almost non-existent so they will continue to flower.) They can be hammered between papers to make prints of the flower heads, and you can even let children use them as a natural “paint” brush or as a stamp for printing. 

The dandelion is representative of 3 celestial bodies at different stages of their lives.  The yellow flower represents the sun, the white puffball the moon, and the seeds when dispersed represent the stars.  And don’t forget the magic of wishing on those dandelion puffball seeds which, it’s been said, can be airborne for 5 miles. 

A dandelion is an immigrant that puts down a deep taproot and is determined to stay around.  They are amongst the weeds that were welcome when this country was new because of the benefits that they brought.   Whether they’re good for the bees or not, we shouldn’t be so quick to forget about all the other ways that they are beneficial.  Shouldn’t we hope that the Garden of Eden is not a well-manicured lawn, but someplace that embraces the goodness of all the flora and fauna?  Shouldn’t we embrace all the goodness of each other?

L.Mastalski

Week 4 of The 100 Day Project 2023

Just about caught up with posting these. 

Jingle Belles - The 12 Days of Cardstock

Well I did make it back with another card before the deadline for the Jingle Belles cardstock only challenge.  My Pinterest feed was sort of bombarded with cards featuring this floating element technique and I was lucky to find a tutorial for it on a blog called Stamp With Lorraine - not me of course.  It wasn't until I started posting this that I saw that the date of her blog post was back in 2021, so I guess this is not something new to the world but just to me.  It did require me to make a sticker with my cardstock strips by adding them to a piece of acetate.  I'm hoping that acetate was fair game to use in this challenge - it doesn't have any pattern to it.  The only pattern that I have here is from the embossed cardstock piece that I found in my scraps which also happened to be chalked up so you can see the swirls.  

You can't tell from my picture that this element is floating - not sure if it's the way it's been photographed or whether the pattern behind it interferes.  Those are green jewels though they look darker here.  I used a Sizzix tree die in white.  This came together fairly quickly and was a nice way to use some of those scrap strips that I've been saving.  I have some ideas for some future cards using this technique.  

Now I really will be off to visit the other cardstock creations posted over at the Jingle Belles blog.  Click here to take a peek.

Week 3 of The 100 Day Project 2023

Days 15-21

For this first one, if you can make out the word you'll know that this was done this way purposefully.

I'm behind in posting but I have been keeping up with the daily challenge.  

End of Winter Days

Last Monday (March 13th) was National Elephant Day and I knew that I had a couple of elephant related stamps and dies that hadn't been used yet so I thought I'd make some cards with them.  The first two use a stamp gifted to me by Sabrina called Elephant van Gogh*.  I stamped the elements on two different types of paper to begin with - regular cardstock and watercolor paper.  I used watercolor pencils on the watercolor paper and Prismacolor pencils on the cardstock.  The painting with the tulips was created with paint pens.  Then I fussy cut the motifs out.  The card with the yellow background is slightly larger so I added the "hello" sentiment.  The second one has the sentiment on the painting.

I got this forest silhouette elephant die recently.  I did not try to make it into a sticker first as I sometimes do with intricate dies because this is very open at the tops and I knew that once I removed the sticker backing it would be a bear to get all those "trees" going in the right direction.  So I relied on using a glue pen which worked out quite well.  I haven't added any sentiments to these but invision something very thin in the upper right hand section - maybe embossed on a sliver of black cardstock.

On Tuesday, March 14 it was Pi Day and HWNSNBP found a Marie Callender frozen lemon Meringue pie that we shared for dessert the rest of the week.  It was quite delicious and a nice refreshing treat.

Did you Beware the Ides of March on the 15th?

Another card was made on the 16th using a panda for National Panda Day.  

Always, ever so slowly cleaning out my craft room I came across a small basket of things tucked away and in it were these pandas - a key chain I used during my college years and a fuzzy panda figure I don't recall.  I used to collect panda-related things in high school and for a while afterwards.  I have a few other little remembrances of that time in other places where the memories are hiding.  I come across them now and then.  

These two things were also in that basket.  Some might remember what they are and what they're used for.  Finding things like this is like opening a time capsule.  

On St. Patrick's Day I celebrated with a Shamrock Shake.  We had some delicious Irish soda bread scones earlier in the week that we got at The Fresh Market but they were all sold out by St. Patrick's Day so I was a little disappointed about that.

We visited Delaware on Saturday.  It was Quilting Day and Sloppy Joe Day, but we just concentrated on spending some time with GS2 and his mom and dad.  He was quite proud to show us the caterpillar that he made at daycare.

Sunday was Poultry Day and I wanted to share this from Fat Hen Farms ( #fathenfarms) on Instagram.  He raises button quails and posts pictures of his buddy Finn in hats - all kinds of hats that people send him.  He has videos of the tiniest little quail chicks that really look like they're the size of peeps candies.  Here is Finn in his new "Pig" hat.

*I've been watching a show on HBOMax called the Great Pottery Throwdown.  It's format is much like The Great British Baking Show but instead they are potters from all over Great Britain participating in the challenges.  What I found interesting that relates to this post is the way that van Gogh is pronounced.  I had to investigate a little more as I've always pronounced it Van Go - which is considered wrong.  The British on that show pronounced it Van Goff - which is also wrong.  According to the Dutch it should be pronounced van hohk.  There are videos on google if you're one who has to hear it.  

Jingle Belles - Cardstock Christmas

The Jingle Belles challenged us to create cards without any designer/scrapbook paper - only cardstock allowed.  But it could be die cut, embossed, stamped, torn, etc.  I went the die cut route.  Truth be told, I had these gnomes already cut out and assembled back in January for a previous challenge but didn't use them, so they became very useful for this challenge.  These are the Dancing Gnomes etched dies from Spellbinders.

The card that I made back then had a series of gnomes in rainbow colors and I cut out a lot of extra colors.  These were some of the colors that I didn't use.  They make a pretty cute trio I think.  All I had to do was die cut the Merry Christmas sentiment and add that to it.  I might go back and add some cardstock snowflakes or sequins.  We'll see what I can find.  

I have another idea that I want to try for this challenge and I'll have to see if I can get to it before the deadline on Wednesday.  In the meantime, I'll be checking out all the other cardstock creations at the Jingle Belles.  You can too by clicking here.

Color for A Dreary Day

A little color for a dreary Monday.  The threat of snow from a Noreaster the weatherpeople have been hawking appears to be passing us by with rain instead.  From where I'm sitting I can see the clumps of soon-to-be-flowering daffodils that are scattered on the hill in the backyard.  They're up about 3-4" now and are noticeable not only for their height but the contrast of their dark green color against the green gold of the winter grass.  Don't be fooled when I say grass.  We have a nice piece of property but what grows as a lawn is some grass and some nicely manicured weeds.  Still, it's nice to see the greening of spring beginning.

So let's brighten it up with my second installment of #The100DayProject.  

It occurred to me while I was photographing these that I hadn't shared the January Zentangle challenge that I did facilitated by the group 7F5R called A Fragment of Your Imagination.  Each day they featured a fragment in the form of either a square, circle, leaf, or triangle that could be used as a reference when completing a larger tile.  I used one of the little notebooks for that - one with less pages and I chose the pink one (they also come in blue, yellow, and green) and added the fragment of the day, it's name, and in most cases, the name of the creator of that particular pattern.  Those that did not have a name were original Zentangle patterns.  

You know that we set the clocks ahead this weekend celebrating Daylight Savings and our sunsets are later allowing us to enjoy the daylight longer but as we all know, it does take a toll on our daily activities and notably our sleeping pattern.  So would it surprise you to know that today, March 13th is National Napping Day?  I think everyone, myself included, would benefit from celebrating that.  I won't mind doing that later when the heavier rains set in.  

Little Celebrations and Party Birds

We did have our Cheese Doodles last Sunday on Cheese Doodle Day.  HWNSNBP had the orange fingers to show for it.  I used my finger chopsticks on my helping.  He picked up a snack pack of Oreo's at the local convenience store so I could have them with milk on Monday to celebrate Oreo Day.  We don't get the big bag anymore because it's too much of a temptation to keep eating them.  

Monday was also Fun Facts About Names Day and I remembered that I had shared the story of my name with someone recently - the brother of my school colleague that I had visited.  I forget how exactly we got to the point of discussing how my name was chosen but I did tell them that I always thought that my parents had some romantic notion of going to the Lorraine region of France.  But that illusion was shattered when my mother told me that Lorraine was the name of a carpet store in the town that my father hailed from and they used to pass it on the way back to her house when they were dating.  I guess that's a little romantic without the France part. 

Tuesday was Plant Power Day and you can see the hellebores outside the dining room window powering through the dusting of snow that we received.  (We still haven't had any significant accumulation this winter.)  HWNSNBP waited until this melted to plant two of the new hellebores that we picked up at Trader Joe's last week.  They were reasonably priced and in full bloom but they needed to be in the ground and so far they've handled the temperature changes well.  We like these because the deer don't bother them.

Thursday was Meatball Day so we decided to get a meatball parmigiana sandwich to split for lunch.

I got tagged for jury duty again - this time for District Court in Trenton.  I was tagged for county last year and did not have to report on the days I was assigned.  I got this notification in December and, to be honest, disregarded it.  So they caught up with me and in the letter I received this time said that if I didn't fill out the form (either the paper or on line) I could be legally required to report to fill it out in person at the office in Trenton.  Not wanting to do that, I contacted my cardiologist to see if he would fill out the form to excuse me - this based on the medications that I take and what they're for and the office manager said they would.  So back and forth with the form and e-mails to Trenton made for some busy work this week.  Last I heard, they are processing my request.  This is the 6th time I've been called upon and I know some people who have never been called - go figure.

Friday was HWNSNBP's birthday and also the International Day of Awesomeness (which I didn't tell him about - he already knows how awesome he is).  We were busy running around during the day and met with some friends for an early dinner.  He just wanted us to pick up a couple of slices of cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory for dessert when we got home.  That was a nice treat.  I'll show his card in a couple of days.  I'm not quite liking something about it right now and need to fix it before I take a picture.

Some new plants we picked up at The Great Swamp Nursery

Yesterday was Worship of the Tools Day.  I didn't do any worshipping but I was thankful for the new battery-operated glue gun I got for Christmas so I could fix the new wreath rail I made for the back door without having to take it down.  I guess I hadn't glued the tube-ribbon shamrocks well enough and noticed that they popped apart.  I'm finding that the glue doesn't set as fast as my previous glue gun, so I have to hold things in place longer.  Thank goodness for fingernails.

I painted these birds the other day and despite the fact that I watched the video twice (and took notes) I can only use the excuse that I started them late at night and did them completely wrong.  You start with a heart shape for the body and they're supposed to be upside-down.  Then you add the head and the tail.  And the legs.  Totally done wrong, but I think I salvaged them all right.  I was going to use them for Art and Found Day today but didn't feel like mounting and packaging them up and it's supposed to rain heavily tomorrow and they would be exposed to that.  So I'll save them for ............

They're done on 4x6" watercolor paper and are called Party Birds because they are far from realistic and just having fun.