Sunshine, finally……

 

After a couple weeks of rain, sunshine looks pretty good!   So, I thought I would take advantage of the moment and take a few photos of our backyard flower beds.  Our backyard isn’t very large, it is about 40 feet deep and 90 feet wide and borders a city park.

This space is between our house and the neighbors.  The dark burgundy shrub/tree is an Elderberry, the bright green plant is oregano and the tall pink flowers are foxglove.  The tall grass on the left is a grass called Karl Forrester.

This large, heritage rose is called Sally Holmes and is covered with huge clusters of single white blooms.

 

 

My funky gate has been painted many time and many colors.  Now, it sits in a flower bed surrounded by Hostas, hardy geraniums, foxglove and ferns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This beautiful rose is called “Westerland”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rose arbor is coved by the yellow Abraham Darby rose and the pink is Compassion….in the background is the orange rose, Westerland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is a peony aptly named “Bowl of Beauty”!

 

 

 

 

 

 

More happiness…….the birdbath sits in the middle of blue Campanula, a mini-rose and dianthus, some more foxglove, ferns and geranium.  Yes, there is even room for a little patch of lawn, too!!!

I’m linking to A Southern Daydreamer's Outdoor Wednesday #179.

Visiting Artist……

 

Yesterday, we had a visiting artist……….

She is five and her name is Emma…….

 

 

Emma does lovely work on her own but, she felt the need to bring her assistant……..

 

 

……Lucy!  She has a special painting technique that she does with her eyes closed and her nose wrinkled up!!!!  Lucy is two!

These are our great-granddaughters with whom we had a great visit and they taught us many things about art and figs.  Yes, figs!

Journaling with hand carved stamps………

 

There is the carving of a stamp, there is the printing with the stamp…….

Then, there is embellishing the page with more stamps and a little lettering……

Priceless!

(Sorry, for the crummy pink glow to the photo….pretty sure it is photographer error, not, camera’s fault!)

Graduation time!

 

Congratulations, Nicole!  Another grandchild graduates high school!  Where does the time go?

When she started pre-school, her grandpa use to drive her to school everyday….she wasn’t much older that her cousin, Lucy, in the polka dot coat behind her!  Really, where does the time go?

Being, we live in Oregon and you may have heard it rains in Oregon….not always, but it does sometimes!  Well, yesterday was one of those times and last night in particular…it rained hard and the ceremony was outside, of course!

  This is my standing in the rain hairdo with our graduate and her Dad, my second oldest son, Jeff.

Nicole and her Mom, Darlene.

 

Nicole and her sister, Angela who will be a sophomore next year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nicole and boyfriend, Justin!

 

 

 

 

 

Nicole and cousin Vincent!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vincent’s mother,  Nicole’s Aunt Jan!

 

 

 

 

Nicole and one of her oldest cousin’s, Staci!

 

 

 

 

There were a few more family members at the ceremony….but those are the pictures I have on my camera.  Our girl is, now, off into the world.  She has a two year scholarship to Chemeketa Community College that will give her some time to figure out what she wants to do.  Whatever she does, we wish her well!  Her parents are to be congratulated, also, they’ve done their job well!

Carving and stamping……

 

I’m going to start this blog with more radishes…..it’s true.  Just to demonstrate some of the things you can do with the stamps you carve……..

I stamped one of the pages in my journal with the radish stamp and then added watercolors and some lettering.  I even drew  lines are for future journaling.  I don’t love the facing page, the big red circles are overwhelming, but I hope the addition of hand written words will tie everything together.

 

I’ve added a note on the facing journal page that says, come fall, the radish stamp could pass for the more seasonally appropriate beet!!!  Versatile, right?

Tried a little “birdie love” stamp carving…..

Then, I must confess, I was influence by Pam Carriker’s article in the Somerset Studio magazine and had to try carving my own portrait stamp.  On the left is a test of the stamp I carved, now, I’m going to add doodles and letters to finish off this journal page. 

 

With every stamp I carve, I learn something…..!  This, first attempt at carving a face is alright but it is going to take some more practice to get the look I’m striving for…I’m carving on!

Enough with the radishes, already!

 

As you know, I’ve been having fun carving rubber stamps lately.  This is similar to carving linoleum blocks only much, much easier because the material I am cutting is soft rubber and cuts like butter.

The softness has some draw back too, but the ease of carving makes up for it all.  I’ve shown several of my stamps on my blog, these are the fish I carved last December HERE!

For now, I’m into radishes……carved a single radish and after many experiments with stamping inks and printing inks, I have this.  The black is printing ink and the red is StazOn stamping ink.

Then, I carved the my largest stamp…to date, it is 4x6 inches……

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

and printed this with printer’s ink!

  The image above is printed on white watercolor paper and gives a cleaner print but, this one, printed on my friend Thea’s handmade paper looks “arty”.

Soon, I will need a sponsor and be enrolled in a 12-step program!  In the meantime, it is carve and print, carve and print!

May and June Daily Journaling

 

Here it is….the first day of another month, almost half way through the year 2012!  Where does the time go?  For me it is time, once again, to share my journal pages with Kate and friends at The Kathryn Wheel.

I can tell you that keeping a daily journal helps you recall some of those moments that have passed.  Years ago, I started keeping sporadic garden notes in journals.  Those garden journals have morphed into daily journaling, like this one from May.

May was a busy month!  Besides notes about what I do each day, I like to keep some of the memorabilia I collect along the way in my journal and in the case of the fold out page “wait….there’s more”, I still use this as a garden journal so when the page is open….

 

this is where I keep track of when and where  I planted certain plants and seeds or when I fertilized the roses or sprayed the weeds.  This keeps the information in one place for easy reference through out the summer.

 

 

My journal is not “just another pretty face”…..she earns her keep!

  So, I guess we march on……June here we come ARE!

 

Thanks for stopping by…..remember, I always enjoy your comments!