Stackoholics Anonymous & New Blog

I want to send a Huge Thank You to all my followers, everyone who has visited, everyone who has commented ... I've decided to end my Bonsai Habits blogging and move to a new corner of Blogland - Earth Cuddles. Please come visit me to see more pictures of stacks and find out about Seth Apter's Stack Attack. Plus I'm having a surprise giveaway!

Our World, Majestic

Quinn McDonald, author of Raw Art Journaling, is facilitating a workshop over at Artists of the Roundtable. Above is my "Light Up A Single Word" for lesson 4.

Flower Pounding

A recent topic of discussion in the Blissfully Art Journaling group was flower pounding. So today, I pounded lilies and delphiniums. The lilies were too fresh and made a watery mess. I like the result created by the older, dryer delphinium blossoms.

All kinds of beauty

Our first Lily blooms of the season (of course, our daylilies have been blooming for quite awhile).

Growing on a fallen log.

Love the low branches which quickly turn 90 degrees and reach ever so high.

Mellow Yellow Monday

More blooms from my garden: Sedum, Blanket Flower, Yarrow, Potentilla
Visit mellowyellowmonday.blogspot.com to see more yellow.

My Blooms & Hubby's Vegetables

Foxglove above. Delphinium below.

While I plant and maintain the flowers, my darling hubby grows the vegetables. He has peas, onions, radishes, two kinds of lettuce, spinach, beans, tomatos, peppers (sweet banana, jalapeno, red bell, sweet chocolate bell), kale, potatos, cucumbers, cantaloupe, and japanese walking onions (my addition for this year). We've been enjoying the most delicous salads. The speed at which the lettuce grows back is amazing!!

"You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt."
"Gardening is a way of showing that you believe in tomorrow."

I learn more about God
From weeds than from roses;
Resilience springing
Through the smallest chink of hope
In the absolute of concrete....
~Phillip Pulfrey

What a Weekend!!

Above, a magical, photographic accident! The camera must have been swaying to the music.
We enjoyed listening to the Sawyer Brown Band in Goodhue, MN during the Volksfest.

Fireworks colored the sky as the Sawyer Brown Band began to play.

We took a long walk through the woods to see the Stone House.








Dexter, Amanda, and Ken travel back down the trail:

Back at the campsite:

Weaving a Journal Page

Today, I am hosting Tuesday Technique for Blissfully Art Journaling yahoo group. Last week, Carolyn offered the first technique - Checkerboard. Here is the link.
Let's begin ...

First, paint, collage, and/or stamp your journal page and another sheet of paper larger than your journal page. Leaf stamps and ink pads were used on this journal page. Brown packaging paper was crumpled, smoothed out and stamped with an “antique peeling paint texture” stamp (which I think looks like bark).
Turn your journal page over and draw a line approximately ¾” from the binding.

Cut horizontal lines stopping at the drawn line (The picture shows the page turned for ease of cutting). The lines may be drawn or cut freehand. Your lines may be straight or wavy. Line width may vary also.

The other piece of prepared paper is cut into vertical strips. Be sure to keep all the strips in the same order you cut them so that they will fit together. In the above picture, the ruler is lined up with the point at which the horizontal strips start and with the left edge of the vertical strips. I placed the vertical strips below the page so I could see where my last strip would be and left the right edge uncut.


Above, I have shown two ways of weaving the vertical strips into your journal page. The first, using a ruler works well when your strips have been cut in straight lines. In the second picture, each horizontal strip has been bent back along the curved line of the previously woven vertical strip. During this process, you may wish you had more hands. Just keeping working the vertical strips as far to the left as possible and holding them in place as the horizontal strips are folded back down. Before you add the last strip, you will have to cut the right edge. Where you cut will depend on whether you want a border with just the horizontal paper showing like the left side of the page or if want the weaving to go to the edge.

Carefully, turn your page over while being careful not to pull out the top and bottom horizontal strips. Lay your backing paper down and cover it with glue. (I used mod podge.) When turning your page back unto the glue, keep the backing paper even with the edge.

Use a brayer (shown below) to make sure all the woven areas are glued down. Then, go around the edge and glue down the ends of the vertical strips and the right ends of the horizontal strips down.

Now, you need to decide whether you want to make a border using the backing paper or cut off all the excess backing paper. I have chosen to make a border (See below.) I cut a strip of the crumpled brown paper and rubbed two different ink pads across it and glued it onto the left side of the page. I then cut the excess paper on the other three sides to the proper width. Before gluing them down, I folded them over and placed a piece of scrap paper under them so I could rub them with the ink pads. As I glued down each side, I cut the ends so they were diagonal.

A marker was used to redraw the outline of the leaf. Red glaze was used to paint the leaf. Once dry, distressing ink was used to soften and darken the glaze. Using a needle, red fibers were woven through the outer edge and tied at the corners.
Since yesterday was Memorial Day, I'm going to create a dedication page to all who have died serving our country on the opposite page. We continue to benefit from all they have given. The changing leaf falls to the ground and becomes the part of the earth which nourishes the new plant.

A True Story

Earlier today, my daughter had collected the money for five neon green poster boards from an elderly Asian man with only two teeth. She gave him the receipt. He continued to stand in front of her. She noticed he was digging into a coin purse that was different from the one he had taken his money from. He held out his fist face down. Into her hand, he dumped the above marbles and pointed straight up. Gems from Heaven! And out the door he went. I wonder what he'll do with five neon green poster boards? Maybe signs to point the way?!

Yesterday's Rainbow

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.

He may be cleaning you out
For some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from the beyond.

~Rumi

I saw this rainbow yesterday evening. Earlier in the day, the sun was shining over my home while a tornado tore through a neighborhood only ten miles north. Loss hurts. Good grief, how are we supposed to find delight after such a natural disaster? Ten miles, 1000 miles, the other side of the world - not my home this time. As to the future, I'm not in control. I guess I'll have to welcome whatever guests come my way.

Quadruplets

Alligator Tree Limb

A friend and I went walking down by the MN river today. I spotted an alligotor up in the trees and ghost face in the roots. We stopped at three garage sales and -jumping for joy - I found this metal tree with five ornament frames for $5. YES, all for only five bucks. I am so thrilled!

And I found this mosaic "Study in Blue" for only $2. What a treasure! When I got home, I googled the artist Sheryl Tuorila. And WOW, you have to check out her website: www.SherylTuorila.com.