As summer ends.....

Fall is in the air, as they say, the sun is lower, the light is different, the nights are getting cooler and the days shorter.

Thought I would do a little end of season round-up and share an Oregon fall-is-coming scene with you.

Labor Day Monday our family drove up into the foothills of the Cascades to visit this special spot.......Butte Creek Falls.

This is the first glimpse of the falls, coming down the trail.....you turn the corner and see this......

close up view...........at creek level.

Note....leaves are not changing colors, yet!  It was a beautiful day and we had a great hike, a picnic and some family fun.

Back home.....I want to share the gorgeous red blossoms

of our Crape Myrtle.  I'm not sure when they bloom in other parts of the country, but here in the northwest, it isn't until September.  We have two in our front yard named Dynamite, for their "explosive" red color, I assume!

My other fall bloomer is this unusual sage..."Salvia Spathacea" or Hummingbird Sage.  Grows best in dry shade and produces these magenta flower spikes.

I have it planted on the east side of the house, where it get morning sun.  It is low growing and has a sharp "sagey" smell.

I planted this plant three years ago and it has spread to about three feet wide and only grows to 12 or 14 inches tall, excluding the flower blossom.

Here you can see why the Hummingbirds are attracted to the flower that is reddish and tubular.  I'm a plant collector, of sorts, and I love the unusual qualities of this plant, even the odor.   

Thanks for visiting today, remember I love comments and followers.  Today, I am linking with the following blog parties Tuesday Garden Party. Bloomin Tuesday, Outdoor Wednesday and Rednesday.

My take on art journaling!

Since I started writing this blog, the first of this year, I have mentioned my artwork and shared a few pieces but today, I want to share one of my art journals and I hope you will enjoy.

This little book is made up of 4 1/2 by 6 inches cardboard pages that I have punched with three holes.  The holes are fitted with metal rings that bind the whole thing together...the cover comes later! 

This is not a book with one theme....it very random...like me!

Here I stamped and added a glittered crown that tops a cool 50s car that sits a top a map, a piece of a blueprint, tape measure and a strip of glitter paper topped by a cork circle stamped with a "y".

A bingo card topped with a coaster and clock hands.

A page from a bookkeeping text book is stamped with the Eifel Tower and two strips of paper that say "I dream in French".

  A bird sticker, feather and the saying by Alexander Pope that reads "all nature is but art unknown to thee".

One of my favorite photos, is actually my Grandmother and her friends, who look like they have just enjoyed a day in the outdoors so I added a leaf and seed pod.  All this tops a piece of sheet music titled "Can't You See I Love You".

 

The dragonfly sits on a piece of painted and stamped paper finished with a piece of cardboard and a twig.

 

 

This is a half page, that is between pages, it is covered with wallpaper, a ticket stub, a clear overlay hand and some type.

 

 

 

 

This side of the half page is stamped, paper lace, buttons, lace and a tape measure.

 

 

 

The next full page is pretty self-explanatory "the working woman...is a force of nature!"

A beautiful page of old handwriting topped by a seed packet and a dried pansy.

A real mix of textures, sheet music, felt, muslin and paper, stacked and stitched, topped with a wood heart, ribbon and ticket stub.  A salute to "girls who wear glasses".  

Finally, a tribute to young love with a sweet photo and stamp on top of a piece of cardboard trimmed with lace and ribbon.

 

 

This will become the cover of my art journal.  I love the old worn blue color and the title "One hundred narrative poems".  I'll punch holes and add the metal rings for binding.

 

I am going to add some beads and other trim to finish it all off and there is room to add several more pages, if I want.

This quiet, rainy Saturday afternoon gave me some time to browse my list of blogs I follow and I came across this great party September Holiday Open House at The Answer is Chocolate and so I'm off to join the fun!

Thanks for visiting me today!

All work, no play.....no way!

I started off my Labor Day weekend, laboring!

First: by roasting a mixture of Sun Gold tomatoes and the red Early Girls, from the garden, with some olive oil and springs of rosemary.  Having that on pasta tonight!

Bought a couple pounds of green beans at a local farm stand so, I prepared and froze few bags.  I'll get some more next week, it is just so easy to do them in small batches, at least, for me it seems easier.

Since "all work and no play, would make Jan, at the very least, a bored girl".....I played with flowers.

I know silk flowers are very popular, and with good reason, most of them a quite realistic and they could last for a generation, or two....they are so durable.

But, dried flowers still have a place in my heart.  I just wanted to talk about how easy it is to dry flowers you may already have growing in your yard, or a friend's or neighbor's yard.  Here are some examples..........

  These are onion seed heads!

Now if you are a really good girl and harvest all of your onions when you are suppose to, you have never seen these before, but if you are like me.........!  These were left over from last year!

I cut them off, hung them upside down to dry.  Upside down drying, allows them to hold their nice round shape and allows some of the million little black seeds, that these globes hold, to fall on the ground or floor.  Shake out the rest of the seeds (or most of them) and spray with clear varnish. 

The stems will be brittle and if they break, like mine, cut them in half and slide the small end of the stem into the larger end....voila'..a new sturdy stem.  A note here: cut the stems on all of the flowers much longer than you think you will need.  You can always make them shorter, much harder to make them longer...but you knew that!

Next, I cut the faded flowers from my Liatris.  Let them sit for a few days to dry a bit.  Then pulled off all of the dried leaves and sprayed them with varnish. 

 

Same day, I picked a few of the round thistle-like heads from my Ecinops (Globe Thistle).  Same process.....let dry for a few days, then I could remove the actual dried little flower petals, removed the leaves and spray varnish.

End Result!

A free bouquet!  I did add some feathery "blooms" from a tall Karl Forester grass, I have growing in my yard.  You could, also, add wheat, or other grain or grass heads.  Then, at the last minute, I added two hydrangea mop heads.  The hydrangea will slowly dry in the vase and I thought they added weight to the bottom of the arrangement and the added color really livened up the dark pink liatris. I am not a great flower arranger, I'm a "throw them in a vase and see where they land" kind of an arranger.  I can see in the photos that I need some of the grass spikes in the center, I'll change it, I promise!

Any way, there you go......start looking around and you will be surprised by the number and types of flowers that will dry well.  It's fun, easy and cheap, cheap, cheap!

The only sad thing is....dried flowers and Labor Day pretty much shout the end of summer and I am NOT ready for summer to end!  I do plan on playing some more this weekend with a family bar-b-que and a hike. 

Hope yours has been a wonderful and fun holiday weekend.

Please join me as I visit and link to the following blog parties:

Blue Monday

Metamorphasis Monday

Tabletop Tuesday

Bloomin Tuesday

Rednesday

Outdoor Wednesday

Tuesday Garden Party

Small space apple tree......

Since home lot sizes are getting smaller and fewer and fewer of us live on acreage, here is one way to have your apples and grow them too!

Columnar apple trees!  You may or may not have seen them but they are trees that are unique in how they grow.......on a single long stem!

This is a "Northpole" columnar apple that we planted, in our backyard, six years ago.

Now, it is close to 10 foot tall because we have never pruned it back.  I may do that next year, to make it easier to reach the fruit at the top.

 

And speaking of fruit......this has been a banner year!

 

The tree was loaded with fruit, if I would have thinned it out some, we would have still had lots of apples and they would have been larger.

The fruit is sweet and juicy and the tree requires minimal space and care.  The tree can be container grown and will produce fruit the first year. 

We bought our tree from One Green World Nursery in Molalla, Oregon.  They sell three varieties: Northpole,which is described as having McIntosh-like apples; Golden Sentinel which produces golden-yellow fruit and Scarlet Sentinel with large, greenish-yellow fruit.

I hate using sprays but I think we may have to, or try some organic methods.....here is a photo showing part of this years crop amongst the leaves.Even if you live in a condo, you could grow one of these in a pot......it just needs a fair amount of sun and you would have fresh picked apples every fall! How fun is that!

I am linking to the following:

Bloomin Tuesday at Ms Green Thumb Jean

Outdoor Wednesday at A Southern Day Dreamer

Tuesday Garden Party at Oregon Cottage

Rednesday at Sue Loves Cherriess

Mirror, mirror........

I was doing a little blog browsing this afternoon, when I came across this great blog by Jane Schott called "Empress of the Eye".  As I am reading, I come to this post about a mirror......

a very lovely mirror.  Jane discovered this beauty in a shop owned by her friend in West Palm Beach called Antiques Row.

For only $1450. plus shipping this 88 inch tall, gilt trimmed mirror can be yours.

She doesn't mention the width but it must be 60 to 72 inches wide.  It is a beauty.

 

Now, let me show you the mirror I just scored at a yard sale...............

  Granted my mirror is about half the size, at 44 x 31 inches, but it has its original gorgeous gilt trim and a heavy, beveled, plate glass mirror.

I touched up a few scrapes and scratches, with artist oil paint, on the black part of the molding, but the gold just required dusting. You get an idea, in this photo, of the detail and quality of the mirror frame, there are no cracks or broken pieces on the frame, amazing!

You want to know what's really amazing......I paid $15. for it.....can you believe it! 

I'm taking my mirror over to Debbie Doos Garage Salen Partay, Nifty Thrifty Tuesday and Tabletop Tuesday     .  Come see what the others brought and feel free to comment. 

Pyrography.....what's that?

I've been talking about collections lately, so I thought I'd show you another one of mine, and do a little "show and tell" of pyrography, which are more commonly known as "wood burnt" items.

If, your definition of an antiques is an item over 100 years old.......these items are true antiques. 

In the late 1880 through the 1920s, women's magazines featured this new pastime, for ladies, called pyrography or wood burning.  Soon, art supply companies were making and selling wood boxes, wall plaques and small pieces of furniture with the designs drawn on them and the latest innovations in wood burning equipment for this new craft.

As time passed, and skills improved, ingenuity brought originality to the burned designs depending on the artistic ability of the craftsperson.  Paint was added to highlight the design and backgrounds were chiseled out to add depth and texture.

Apparently, safety was not much of a concern, considering ladies were using hand held devices that were heated with a benzine/air mixture plus, asbestos was added to reduce explosions.  Fun hobby, huh.....sort of like an "extreme sport" of the 1900s.

Thousands of these items were purchased and completed.  I've had a few more pieces over the years but I have edited down to these few pieces that I really like and enjoy looking at everyday.

This wall plaque is 20 inches by 9 inches and was produced by Flemish Art Company.  There is, of course, no way to know the name of the craftsperson who burned it.

Since, we are very fond of cats in this household, this is one of our favorite designs.

 

  This wonderful magazine holder is 24 by 14 inches. 

I really like this one and I've been using it in my craft room, recently, to hold scrapbook papers.

 

 

 

So, you get a sense of how it looks with magazines in it I took this photo.  It must have been designed to hang on the wall, next to your favorite chair, holding your reading material at the ready.

 

 

 

This little sweetie would have hung on the wall and held your comb or brush in the tray.

A quick check in the little round mirror would have told you if you needed to use them! 

 

 

Behold, the detail!  Burned, chiseled and textured this little beauty is only 12 x 9 inches.

  More detail from the front of the brush holder.

This sweet little frame, made to hold two photos of loved ones, is about 8 inches wide.

The most common examples of pyrography, you will find these boxes, in various sizes and designs, in almost any antique store today. 

Here the top box belonged to my grandmother and is what piqued my interest in this burnt wood craft and where the collection began.

The bottom box is my most recent acquisition and is about 9x11x5 inches high.  The painted designs are my least favorite and, normally, I wouldn't have bought it.........except for the message on the bottom.  This is what makes this box so special.

The woman I bought it from told me Fred W. was her great-uncle and the box was done by his niece for Christmas 1910.

You can, also, see the manufacture mark on the left, it was produced by Flemish Art Company.  Thayer & Chandler was another company that produced a lot of materials during the popular years of wood burning. 

If you find these crafted items as interesting as I do, you can learn more by reading "The Burning Passion" by Carole and Richard Smyth and published by L-W Book Sales.

Thank you for allowing me to share, with you, what I think is a fun and fascinating collection from another era.

Remember, I blog for comments.....they are always appreciated!

I am linking to Metamorphasis Monday at Between Naps on the Porch, Tabletop Tuesday at A Stroll Thru Life and Sue Loves Cherries at Rednesday.  Please join me and check out all the other great blogs.

Yet, another collection.........

My last post was about collecting plants, Heuchera (Coral Bells) to more specific.

So, if the rule of three applies to plants, from the saying "if you have three of something, it is a collection", I now have a collection of canes........WOW, were did that come from?

These are my most recent yard sale finds...note: a cane and a box!

I was, already, aware that I collected Pyrography or burnt wood items.  Wood burning was a popular craft in the early 1900s.  This box was made by a young girl for her uncle in 1910, fortunately, she wrote (burned) this info into the bottom of the box.  I'll share that collection at another date.

This collection....CANES....started when I inherited two canes from my parents, that they had purchased on a trip to Missouri, in the 1970s. 

They had the two on the outside edges, the one in the middle is the one I just bought for $5.  The cane with the handle(on the bottom) has a wood burned designs and they used some colored stains or ink on the designs. It's interesting BUT the other one..............

 

looks like "out-sider" art, to me.  It has a hand carved man's face with possibly and ear of corn, or a watermelon, on top for a handle.  This one intrigues me and I'm sure has a story to tell, that I wish I knew.

 

So, when I found the one last week for $5.00, I thought, what the heck....now I collect canes.

The new cane is interesting, in as much, as it is made from the twisted branch of a tree, I'm not familiar with, and the handle is hand carved, as you can tell from the photo.  Actually, I think my new collection is pretty cool!

 

 

This is my favorite corner in our living room....my collection of flower pots, globes, burnt wood items and the colorful pillows and granny-square throw.

 

 

 

Now, I added my newest collection of canes and I think it may be too much.  

That's one of the problems with collecting canes, how to display them.  I don't want to put them on the wall.....an umbrella stand, maybe?   Got any suggestions, I'm open for ideas?

Thanks for stopping by, remember I love comments and new followers.  I am joining Sue at Rednesday