Traveling Art Supplies a couple of garden pics

If you read my post on my Rust Garden you know I like to put "fun" things in my gardens.  Here are two pictures I took yesterday.   The first one is my bottle tree.

And another one of a little garden area that holds an interesting chair, among other things.   I found it at a flea market last summer,  I got it from the same guy that made the bottle tree form for me.

And here is the beginning of a new project................

We aren't on the road as much as we used to be but enough and for long enough periods that I have decided I need to make a traveling art kit...  I always seem to have to buy something I forgot to use in travel journals........
So, thanks to a post I read about on the Remains of the Day yahoo list I found a pretty good answer...........

http://caatjesartsy stuff.blogspot. nl/2012/06/ my-travelbag- of-art-supplies. html

Caatje worked out a great plan for traveling art supplies and tells all about it on her blog,  I will modify her plan a bit to suit my specific needs (because it will also require a few sewing supplies.)  But thanks to the inspiration I received from her post I am planning on getting my STUFF together for our next jaunt.

Tune in later for the pictures.  I am inspired today but my next week will be full with company and then some travel for ourselves.  So can't really do any more about this at the moment.  I will probably be making lists and starting the "planning" today.  I do have the perfect bag.  My Quarter Connection Doll house group has a convention every year and part of the gifts are usually some type of organization tools that include a carry all.  I have several items so will have to sort through and see what is most useful.

So keep in touch............
Oh yes, and tune in for another Tea Cup Tuesday.  I have one ready.........

My Rust Garden

While visiting a good friend in Maine last summer I was inspired to create a "rust garden" in my yard.  My friend uses interesting pieces of rusty junk in various spots in her gardens to add interest.  I have often included interesting items in my gardens but never really concentrated on Rusty items..... until now!

I had a small garden area that used to hold herbs.  I had pretty much stopped paying proper attention to it and the garden was getting pretty ugly....   so in the fall I cleared it out and began adding rusty items I had found and my husband had found.  I added some here and there and planted Sedums, all different varieties.  I did not know there were so many different types.  I also added a lot of hens and chicks which seem to like growing in our area.

So here are a few pictures of the garden....................

The is the rust garden cleared out, ready to receive...........

 And Bentley is on guard, ready to protect...............

The winter residue doesn't look too good in the garden but the plants survived as you shall see............

I still need to do a good overview picture but here are some pictures to show you what I have planted. And you can see the various "rusty items.  

 Here you can see that all the plants green up nicely.

                        I thought these rusty old metal gears were perfect for the hens and chicks.

And if you look closely in this picture you see an old rusty stroller (I found it in Virginia on our trip in March.)

 And   here is  "MY MAN RUSTY"    I just bought him this week at our favorite flea market in Leesport.
    for a mere $8.00.  And he is holding a gerber daisy I found for just $1.00.  Really good sales this week!

Hope you enjoyed this quick little tour!.  I will update the pics later if there are any dramatic changes. If you click on the pictures you can them bigger!

This and That

   Enjoying all the pretty flowering plants and shrubs.  We planted these forsythia a couple of years ago and they are doing better each year.

Perhaps it was because Spring has sprung and we had a nice vacation. But for the past week I have been getting very industrious.  Actually finishing or nearly finishing some projects.

I have mentioned that  I have done a lot more sewing lately but seemed to have trouble finishing things up.  This past week was different.  To begin I made this mat.  I saw a place mat on line that I liked and decided to make my own pattern and see if I could do it.  Here is the result.

Now that I know it turns out ok, I will probably make it in colors more suitable for my dining room table.  I just had these purple scraps and decided to use them.
       
The next project is this tote bag.  Last fall I went to one of my favorite fabric stores where there sell lots of scraps of upholstery fabrics for REALLY CHEAP.  I bought quite a bit and this is made from some of those.
I used a lot of the special stitches on my sewing machine, also did a bit of machine applique in the middle.
So here is that result.

And the final project is a "fall table runner."  Last summer I found the idea in a fabric store in Maine and brought home the idea to replicate.  I bought the fabric at that store but the rest is my pattern.  I went on line and found a picture of an oak leaf which I enlarged, worked on and made it like I wanted it.  I cut out the four different colors of leaves and machine appliqued them onto the base piece.  The thread I used was a variegated one using the colors of the different leaves.   I also found a picture of an acorn on line and used it to create a pattern.  I printed up enough, pinned them to the base and stitched over the stop to served as quilting on the piece.  Then I ripped off the paper.
     You will notice there is no binding yet.  I will be doing that in a class I will be taking later in the month.

If you look closely you can see the "outlines" of the acorn that make up the quilted areas.
I will show again when I am completely finished.

Meanwhile I have been doing a bit of cleaning out in my garden.  I was NOT a happy camper when I discovered that the deer had been dining on my freshly growing hostas!  See picture below.

You can see the little places where they bit off the spikes.
I was reading a gardening book recently where they suggested that you put up little pinwheels in the areas where you want to scare off deer....  So I found one and put it up.  It doesn't go constantly but it does move.  I do hope it helps.  If it doesn't, well it looks cute anyway.

Come back to see me on Tuesday.  I have another tea cup Tuesday blog entry planned.

Decluttering, Quilting and whatever............

 A few things to share from outside.  Here are the visitors that came to "feast" at my garden (well the birdfeeder really)

And I am not real pleased to see all my daffodils popping up out of the ground.  It has hardly been winter here yet.  So I guess they don't know it isn't time yet!  Hope they don't get really messed up.  I love to see the pretty fresh faces of the daffodils when they do bloom.

I am still in the decluttering mode.  This week I managed to get rid of 24 piece plastic dinner set we used to use in our camper but don't use anymore.  (it went to SA) Also went through 25 magazines, tore out a very few things I wanted to keep and sent the rest off to recycling.  And I sent 10 books off to the library sale!  So for a quick total that is 59 more things gone.  So my total is now............. 124!!!!!!!   Only 242 things to go.  This is easier than I thought it might be! I have a feeling I will have more than enough very soon.

Another bigger decluttering will take place in April.  We have signed up to take stuff to an auction.  That will include things from the house and my antique shop.  That should make a big difference in the way things look around here.  I can hardly wait!

Tomorrow I am going to take a class in Machine Quilting on my newest sewing machine, a Janome.  I still have the Brother machine but it doesn't do nearly as well as this one does.  I will keep the Brother to try and master Machine Embroidery but the new one is for quilting!  I did a lot of quilting back in the 70s and early 80s but not so much now.  This should help a lot!

I will report on the class and what I learn later!

I feel like we are living in a RAIN FOREST

Having lived in Puerto Rico for three years, not too far away from the El Yunque Rainforest, I am having deja vu type feelings as I look in our yard.  Because of all the rain we have had our yard is so lush and green.  I think our flowers are the happiest they have ever been.  And my poor husband is nearly worn out from mowing.  Well maybe not.

Here are some of the pictures I took yesterday.  If you click on each picture it will get bigger and you can probably see it better.

 The chives in my herb garden are going crazy.  I should cut some!

 I love the colors in this big basket. 

This picture shows the boy planter I got a couple of years ago.  AND a "stump" planter that has hens and chicks in it. I got this last summer from a lady over in Reedsville, PA at a flea market.  I didn't have to do anything special to have them winter over.  Just left them in the stump and placed it in a corner of the house, outside.  It was a bit protected but don't know that it even mattered.  They have come back with a vengence.

 Here is the girl planter that I bought at the same time as the boy planter.  

 Here is a single Purple Iris competing for sun and space with a large group of tiger lilies.  

They will be ready to bloom after the Iris has done its thing.

 I tucked a small six pack of these little pansies, or maybe Johnny Jumpups in a planter and tucked it into a garden that is filled with black eyed susans.  They will bloom in the fall.  I hope the pansies will keep on doing their thing.

 More Purple Iris.  These are in another garden.

 and here are some Yellow Iris.  I didn't get a good picture cause they are in a shady area in the garden. They don't seem to mind the shade though.  There are more pretty areas.  I will save them for another day.

Books, Books and more Books

If you know me very well you know I love books.  I love to read.  I also like books about things I am interested in.  At the moment I seem to be adding books about quilting and paper arts.  And always new cookbooks.

I obtain books everywhere.  I get them from Library, borrowing or buying from their book sales. I get them from yard sales, flea markets, regular bookstores, places on line. AND I trade or accept gifts of books.

In our house in Maine every time we re-did a room we made sure to add bookshelves.  In this house we haven't so many places to put bookshelves.  HOWEVER that hasn't stopped me.  In one of our walk in closets we added thin shelves and that is where I store a lot of books.  In the remodeled kitchen we made sure there was a good sized bookcase.

These are all cookbooks!

And when all else fails I find places to get rid of them.  I take a lot every summer to a local flea market where I trade them for credit to buy more books.  Also I put books out in my antique shop and fortunately some of my customers find they need to buy them!

So now I have discovered Paper Back Swap on line. You list the books you are willing to trade, people ask for them.  You send them and you get credits to get some for yourself.  It isn't the cheapest thing because you have to pay for the postage to send the books.  But the ones you get back are sent free AND media mail isn't too expensive.

So I have listed quite a few books and am having success, people want my books.  And I have already ordered and received some in return.  It is fun actually and except for having to go to the post office to mail them, not so bad.

Speaking of Post Offices, our little local post office just closed.  I loved going there.  It was just up the road, no parking problems and easy in and out.  Now I have to go down town, worry about a place to park, which I have to pay for,  and then wait in line inside.   I am presently not a happy camper about that.

But back to the mailing, here is today's load of outgoing books.  They provide you with the pdf to print out with address etc.  You just wrap and mail.

 Almost all of our snow is gone except a couple of places in deep shade.  So I went out to check out the daffodils.  There are three clumps of them in one of our beds that are doing nicely.  Looking forward to seeing their cheery yellow faces.  Here is one closeup.

       While I was out looking at my gardens to see if anything else was happening I found some Sedum just starting.

     And when I checked on my azalea bushes I found a few blossoms.  They have quite a ways to go but these are all hopeful signs of spring.

Hope to have more spring like pictures soon.

Spring may be Springing?????

We still have a LOT of snow on the ground but it seems like it may doin some melting this week.  My husband was looking around the property today and took these two pictures.  They make it seem like Spring may be on its way. If you at the pointed end of the arrow you can see the little daffodils popping up.  Notice where the snow is melting away.

 And below is a close up.  I think there is now hope for spring.  The temps are supposed to be getting better this coming week so I am hopeful we will see more little hints of spring.

But doesn't that look great.

More flowers

I seem to be on a coleus kick this year.  There are some many varieties and colors.

There are some coleus I put in the this tea cup planter in May.

I  am having some trouble figuring out how to add pictures today for some reason. And to add to the words.   I started this morning and gave up so am back again to try again.  I wanted to add a few more pictures that I took the other day.  Not as many as I thought were good enough to post but I liked these four.  I hope I can get them to settle properly here.  They are here and labeled but I can't move them to the order I want.  I hope they make sense.

And here the tea cup is in late July.  The coleus has really grown and filled in.

These are corel bells, a dark leaves version. And some plant I don't know the name of just behind it.

Catch Up Day

Today I will attempt to catch up a bit.  I feel a bit overwhelmed these days.... NEVER enough hours to do all I want to do.

I am taking the Artist Classes again.  This time it is called Garden Party.  One of the lessons involved using broken or old light fixtures in a new way.  So I thought I should show you the "no longer a light fixture" I have in my antique shop.  I got the idea from a Lowe's Home and Garden magazine quite a while ago.  I really love it.      

It is definitely spring.  Hot weather one day, cool the next.  But I have been encouraged by the weather to get out and clean out some more beds,.  I have worked on all but one now.  That one is a notorious hiding place for poison ivy so I don't touch it.

Here are a couple of pictures I took. 

  This is the edge of the garden filled with poison Ivy.  It pretty much grows as it pleases because of that.

 

 
Today it is rainy so it has slowed outdoor work.  But it is making everything very Green looking.  Love it.

The Colors of Spring

This has to be the best spring ever. I can't remember ever being so thankful and enjoying it so much. It wasn't an awful winter but seemed long and dreary. Even this persistent little violet was anxious to see the spring.

So I have started making plans for gardening. I had hand surgery a couple
of weeks ago so still have to be careful but am itching to get out there.

I love violets and am enjoying them in my yard. They are such a pretty color
and even look good with the "dreaded" dandelions.

Another thing I love about spring is hearing all the birds. We have a number of bird feeders around the yard so we can enjoy them all summer and even some in the winter. Our most prolific bird is the Gold Finch. In the winter they are still here in their winter drab coats but of they are so pretty when they turn that lovely yellow. And doesn't this one look nice with a backdrop of apple blossoms.

Even though I have been having fun making the doll house..... it is fall here... and that means garden and yard cleanup. So for the past three days I have spent time working in my gardens and yard doing fall clean up. I have left the Echinacea and Rudbeckia seed pods attached to their stems for feeding the birds. My cats sit in the window and go crazy when the birds come around to feed on the seed pods.

I was very happy to see how pretty my Sedum are this fall. I have it in several locations around the yard. It is always so nice to see it when my other plants are dying back or fading away.
One more day of good hard work and I should be ready for what ever comes our way weather wise.