Summer family fun!

Just got back home from a fun weekend at the Oregon coast with the family.

This was the weekend of the third annual Friends and Family Slingball Tournament held at Pacific City. 

There's a real tournament held in town that is a fund raiser for a worthy cause, but the entry fee is $75, so we go to the other side of the sand dune and have our own tournament.....complete with a not so classy trophy and a really tacky custom made jacket! 

We don't play well....but we have fun and a yummy pot luck when it's over.

Last years champs, Lacey and Ron, planning their defending strategy.

This is a game with many names.....we call it slingball, some call it ladder ball, geezer golf and many other less flattering names.  You can see there is a ladder type apparatus and each player has three sets of slingballs, really two golf balls fastened to the end of a piece of rope.

The object is to throw the set of balls so they wrap around a rung on the ladder, each rung has a different point value.  They draw names for partners and then play double elimination, you lose two games, you're out......every body is giving it their best shot.

Emma, Lucy and I colored!

Getting ready to play for the "gold", Nicole adjusts the goals...getting it just right! 

 

With a little hula hooping on the side!

Down to the final rounds.....last year's champs are defeated by new comer Nicole and more experience player, Brett!  Time for the final two games....husband and wife, Brett and Jan, are on opposing teams.  Brett is partnered with his niece-in-law (we have two Nicole's, how do we distinguish?) and his wife Jan is partnered with the other niece Nicole's boyfriend...got that?

Brett and Nicole SCORE but, wait, Jan and Justin have another turn!

They need two points to win and............

Justin nails it!  Angela rushes in to congratulate the winners, while, Nicole congratulates her opponent.

A few high-fives and happy dances later......the awards are handed out!

This fine trophy is a slightly remodeled old soft ball trophy from Ron's coaching days.  Each year the winner must add something to it...to make it better, of course.

Next, Justin tries on the one of a kind jacket.

  Jan models the jacket......!  Just in case you missed it....here is last year's winner modeling the winner's designer jacket.

The jacket will be personalized for this year's winner.....who wouldn't be proud to wear this! 

Justin, this year's winner, starts college in the fall, I really think he needs to wear this on campus.....I seem to be the only one who think that......whatever!

I'm linking up to Outdoor Wednesday at Southern Daydreamer

Sharing art with some fantastic artists.......

I am participating in two round robins, one for altered books and one is two art pages using a specific color.

I just received Laura's incredible book in the altered book RR....I will share photos later but I am so intimidated by the art work these women are doing....INSPIRING and incredibly intimidating.

I just mailed off Corinne's book to the next person who will perform her arty magic.  Corinne choose "Be yourself, everyone else is taken" for her theme. 

So, going with that theme, being myself means........I'm garden girl/art girl....my two passions.

Also, I believe that I need to " Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become"

The other side represents more flowers and COLOR, love color.

For the upcoming "Color Round Robin", I've created this for Halle.  These pages need to be in the mail the middle of July.....and I haven't finished the second "blue" piece.....guess I have some time.

That's me being me and doing what I love to do with my spare time!

Check out these artists at Creative Every Day

Re-doing the re-do!

Monday I made a stab at sprucing up the patio and getting it ready for summer.  Summer?  In Oregon, we have yet to see Spring...until this week it has rained and/or been cloudy, suddenly it is warming up and we are getting more sun.  Today, PERFECT...75 degrees and sunny.

MOTIVATION: Sunshine and a "buck's" worth of old black and white ticking! 

Hit a few yard sales this A.M. and found a few fun things, but the BEST was a piece of old ticking that at one time covered a single feather mattress.  It has a few rust stains but there's a lot of fabric and potential for a $1.00.

For now, I just folded it and put it in the seat of our porch swing.

A quick spray with black paint covered the dark, blue green color the swing was last year.....add some pillows and worn quilt and voila, cozy seating!

Last Tuesday, I showed you how I had added some things to the wire shelves......it was still BORING!

So, today, I got out the lime green spray paint and brightened up those blah white wires!  The place is starting to sing a whole new tune!

That's better, kicked it up a bit......so I added a tole tray and another wicker covered bottle and a pop of red to the top shelf and rearranged the other two shelves.

Next shelf is home to a cheap "urn looking" planter, a piece of architectural trim and my moss covered cement baby rabbits.

Bottom shelf is a rusty bucket of small terra cotta pots, some old garden tools, and Mama rabbit.    

Our patio is the typical long narrow slab of concrete located right next to the house....hard to decorate, harder to photograph but, I'll try!

Looks like a bowling alley, I know, but the dinning area is at one end and seating at the other.

Nothing says spring like flowers fresh from the garden sitting in an old wire basket with a slate Welcome sign.Almost finished!  I have a wood bench that sits across from the porch swing and I am trying to decide if I should leave it as is, with natural wood, or painting it black, too.  I'll show you after I decide.

There is enough of the ticking to cover the bench seat, too.  I'll buy some foam and make two covers then I will have pads for the swing and the bench......the cats and the dog will love it!

O.K. I'm ready.....where is summer?

I am linking to: Masterpiece Monday and Metamorphasis Monday

Almost to the middle of 2011......

My one and only resolution for 2011 was more like a promise to myself to do something creative EVERYDAY.  Some days that works better than others, you know how that goes, but most days I have managed to do something. 

Creating is so much more than just drawing and painting, it is what ever makes your heart sing and contributes something that makes you feel good about yourself and the world around you......I happen to love playing with paper and paint.

My goal was to grow my skills with collage and design.  I have been doing a garden journal for several years.....this year I decided that would be where I would practice my collage and create plus make notes on my garden and my life. 

I shared some pictures of the journal pages on this blog back in February, you can CLICK HERE to see the pages in their "raw" form.

So, here we are near the mid-point of 2011 and I thought I would share some photos of those pages after I get through writing, attaching "stuff" and generally messing them up......

There are more but I won't bore you with all of them. 

A journal does not have to contain fancy artwork to be useful.  I've kept garden notes for years, only in the last five years have I started making it into a "life" journal.  Now, most days I make some note of what we have done that day.  I do the art a page or two at a time, as inspiration moves me.

You would be amazed at how many times I refer back to these little books.  I've written directions to a great art supplies store in Portland that I went to a year ago, when I wanted to visit recently I had them to refer back to.

Husband was certain our dog was four years old....no, he is only three....I wrote down the day we brought him home in my journal.  It is really a trip to read pages from three or four years  back and refresh your memory of big and little events.

Few more pages that are prepped and ready to go...I included recipes, and receipts in these little books, along with pictures of flowers I have or want to have, when I fertilized, when I planted.

You have no idea what a handy reference journals can become.

Starting to believe in summer........

After almost a week of sunshine, off and on, I'm ready to believe summer will come to Oregon.....so time to spruce up the patio, a bit!

This funky wire rack served as a soda pop bottle display rack in it's former life!

Decked out for the 4th of July with flag decorated pinwheels in a wicker covered bottle!  A friend made the pot in a class some years back, supposedly, there would be a bouquet of flowers in the middle surrounded with candles.

I really like to use natural materials and recently I've been gifted with the cool bird's nest and the piece of a bee hive.  I added those to the old heart shaped basket I've had around for years and added some dried, faded hydrangea blooms.

I, even, put the houseplants out today....that is a real show of faith!

A little late but I am linking with Jean at Bloomin Tuesday

Brag book!

 

Pure and simple......my intent today is to brag!

These beautiful pictures were taken by our granddaughter Staci's friend and photographer extraordinaire, Melanee.  Melanee is proprietress of Melanee Selby Photography, you can link HERE.

This beautiful little girl is our GREAT-granddaughter Lucy, who just celebrated her first birthday.  Her parents are Ed and Staci and she has an equally beautiful big sister, Emma!

While I'm bragging here....the pictures were taken in our backyard!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been blessed with four children, fifteen grandchildren and eight GREAT grandchildren, and yes, they are all GREAT and beautiful! 

This picture (not taken by Melanee) is from last Christmas and is of me, Lucy and her big sister, Emma.

 

 

I'm sure Lucy can survive all the "bear hugs" her sister can, and will,  give her!

 

'Cause this is a post of one of God's Masterpieces,  I am linking to Boogieboard Cottage's Masterpiece Monday