Back from the beach…

 

Every year, our family and some friends take a little trip to the beach for a “Slingball Tournament”.  Some folks, call it Ladder Ball, I’ve heard it called Geezer Golf, whatever it is called….it is a fun, easy game for all ages and skill levels.  Last Saturday we all met in Pacific City, about an hour and half drive for most of us for good times, good food, lots of laughs and sunshine.

Here is our family…..we are about half of the participants!

And, just cause I like the picture….I’m sharing this one, too!

 

Three generations……

It’s me in the middle, my daughter on the left and her daughter on the right!

My granddaughter has two little girls and, if we had thought about it, we should have included them….then it would be a four generation photo.

 

 

 

This is the serious final round match, here!

Justin, in the foreground, and his partner, Jan, not in the picture, won for the second year in a row!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The winner of the Tournament wins the opportunity to wear this awesome jacket for a year….wow!  Just how many places could you wear this jacket?  What a great conversation starter?  Oh, an there is a cool trophy, too. 

So, you can see we are not in it for fame or fortune…just silly prizes.

 

 

 

Since I am planning on posting this to Julie Balzer's Art Journal Everyday, I’d better move on…..!  Earlier in the week, Julie had posted some photos of things that inspired her, I like this quote…..so it inspired me to letter this page!

I’m back from the beach and back to art journaling….it’s been a good week.

Random Hearts……

 

I was pleasantly surprised today when I received an e-mail from Clytie at Random Hearts telling me she had featured my blog on her blog Random Hearts.  Every week, Clytie hosts a special Linkey event called “Guest Heart Thursday”.  She has been doing this for a while, this week was #117 but I had not seen it before.  You can bet I will be keeping closer tabs on this fun blog.

You may remember this photo…….

This is a photo of a heart shaped rock, that Clytie found by searching on-line.  I had blogged about HERE and used in my journal, pictured below.

After reading Clytie’s blog I was curious about how often I had featured “hearts” on my blog.  Most of mine have been very obvious, not as cool and creative as the ones featured on her blog…..but here are a few examples of heart photos from my blogs of the past!

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These are the Valentines I made for my family and friends this year…see obvious hearts.

 

 

 

 

The butterfly on the heart was featured on this blog posted last January!

My husband writes special occasion notes for me.  This year’s valentine, that he wrote, I inserted into a heart and used it for a journal page that you can read more about HERE!

As I say, mine are obvious heart…..many of the hearts on Random Hearts are “random”,  found in nature like my rock or purposefully photographed in imaginative ways.  Click on the words “Random Hearts” above to read more!

Celebrating the first half of 2012……

 

Here it is the first of July, already six months into 2012…..where does the time go?  So, here I am sharing my calendar pages on Kathryn Wheel’s Calendar Challenge.

June is all filled in and looks like this……

I’ve had a pretty good six months…..lots of positive things have happened with my art and my family, I’ve taken some really cool on-line and in the classroom classes and I wanted to celebrate all of that.  So, I put together this special layout……”Celebrating the first 6 months of 2012”.

I listed the classes I’ve taken under the flap and made note of some of “my favorite days” over the past six months, on the right.

With the flap back you can see I took a class, almost, every month and it was great!

So, now I’m off to journal July….

This is my daily journal and garden journal…..so notice, I’ve already put a reminder in place to fertilize the roses on July 10.  I suppose I could have used a phone or my iPad to remind me, but what fun would that be!  The “Daisy” word is a practice piece for the lettering class I took from Joanne Sharp.

This layout is for the last half of July!  Once again, my pages are not side by side and I don’t use the box format but I cram a lot of memories into this little journal.

Here’s wishing you, in the U.S., a Happy 4th and everyone a Happy July!

Hot Wax and Tissue Paper……

 

I took a few encaustic classes earlier this year and fell in love with the medium.  Unfortunately, it does require a little more time, and set up, than some mediums so I haven’t played with wax as much as I would like.

But the other day, I created this is 8” by 10” piece based on Jane Davies class Sketchbook Scribbles,  I collaged newspaper to a wood board for the base then I covered the background with acrylic paint, oil pastels and encaustic wax medium….resulting in this!

For the next piece, I have a tissue paper background and acrylic paint and ink for the design…..no encaustic wax involved….yet!

I’m trying to put together a few pieces for a show in August…..this is a start but I’m still shooting for a more, especially, more encaustics.

Art Journal Everyday…..

 

My daughter-in-law peaked my interest in searching for heart shaped rocks with this beauty, the big one!  I found the almost looks like a heart small one….well, if you look at it from the right direction and use your imagination…..you can see it!

So, I decided to do a journal page using this photo as the inspiration.

I’ve taken a lettering class from Joanne Sharpe and a doodling class from Alisa Burke so I decided this was a good opportunity to combine what I’ve learned.

My heart rock whenever you are near, love!

Thanks for stopping by…..please feel free to leave a comment and follow me over to Julie Balzer’s Journal Every Day!

I’ve been busy playing in my journal…..

 

I made this page using the radish stamp I carved/printed and one of the original photos of radishes that I took for inspiration…..”Grow your own art and stamp it!”.

A fun thing happened yesterday, I received an e-mail from a chef who is opening a new catering business and he asked to use the radish stamp image, above, as his logo.  Can’t wait to see his business cards!

This is a work in progress….the  birds were inspired by an ad in a magazine and the shoes, pens and apples (on the right) are a part of a Target ad.  Magazines are great source of ideas and collage material.  This, likely, will become a daily journal page. 

I’ve been busy……this is another project completed this week.

I will be sharing this blog with Julie Balzer’s Art Journal Everyday blog party.  Follow me and we will learn and be inspired.

Same backyard….different week!

 

Last week, I took photos of our backyard and wrote a blog about it!  Interesting, how much changes in nature in a week.  There is always something new in bloom and something old that is fading.  Like life, the garden is always changing and evolving.

More roses in bloom and the lavender is about to “pop”!

 

 

 

Our backyard is twice as wide as it is deep…so this is a view of almost the entire width….garden shed and all.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is the other side of the backyard where the white Sally Holmes rose is in it’s full blooming glory.

 

 

 

 

Looking the opposite direction….this is a small yard with a ton of plants!  What can I say, I like plants and, apparently, I’m on a mission to own them all!  (LOL) So, I’ll leave you with collage and a wish for your days to be full of the flowers you love.

This week, I am once again joining Outdoor Wednesday.