Book of Roses

The wonderful techniques I learned from Orly Avineri at ArtFest and my own favorite background and collage work has resulted in my Book of Roses. The pages are of different sizes and cascading with lots of bling and fiber embellishments. It was a undertaking that included liquid inks, black & white & clear gesso, stencils, stamps, acrylics, distress inks, gel and glaze pens, fibers, trim, decorative tape and of course rhinestones. Binding is a 4 hole Japanese with grosgrain ribbon. There are flowers other than roses but they were the main inspiration so they get the accolades. There was some binding angst involved, I now have a Zutter Bind-It-All so future projects with be free of banging the head against the art table. Thanks to Steve at Stampadoodle for ordering in this latest nifty toy for me.

I have been on a bit of a purge fest in the studio, if we ever move it would take me a month to pack the studio so I need to start the paring process. First up, going through all of my books and magazines I have collected for images. How long does it take to go through a cabinet full of National Geographic and cut out only the images you think you will use in the future? It takes a L.O.N.G  time, that's what. Those old encyclopedia's? It was a brutal quick and dirty selection and then into the paper recycling they went.

And too boot I think I have sustained a crafting injury. All of the eyelets in the Book of Roses were put in with the Big Bite punch and setter, its takes some muscle to set the eyelets, so after oh, say a million of them my arm and side muscles were a pretty sore the next day. Gerry was not sympathetic and would not fetch and carry for me, as I sat in my easy chair whining about my serious art injury.

In the garden news portion of this post we are having a freaky spring, too much rain, everything is late, rhodies just NOW blooming, finally could not wait any longer to plant the tomatoes so they are in but with their comfy little water jackets on them. In my world tomato growing is a competitive sport and things must progress ON SCHEDULE, lest I fall behind my rivals (you know who you are!).

Layered Shrines and Devious Deer Mice

It's been a long time since the last post, there has been a lot going on, visits to and from family, the house, shop & studio exterior being painted and putting together new classes for the winter and spring. Summer finally came and now it seems to be going again. I will be teaching at the Sparrows Nest Studio in the winter and spring, I will post the blog link soon for the fall retreat information and class schedules, blog, facebook page and restreat details are being worked on as we speak. Mixed Media is my first love and my new classes will be focusing on that. One of the new classes will be Layered Shrines as wells as a class on Texturing, Stenciling, & Resist Techniques. Here are a couple samples of the Layered Shrines.

The garden is doing good, the sun needs to hold on long enough the for beans and tomatoes to mature so the fall canning extravaganza can commence. Catnip will most likely be cut and hung this weekend so the spoiled felines will have their fix this winter. Dahlia's were late but well worth it, I have several dinnerplate varieties and they never fail to impress.

Here is the catnip, about 3 feet tall, it will be dried, stripped and dispensed as needed or when they are bugging me and I want them to go sit in a corner and just get stoned.

 
Speaking of the resident felines for those who do not get my facebook feed I will pass along the story of Donald the Deer Mouse. The story must first be prefaced with the statement that neither Dana nor Apollo are hunters of anything larger than a Pounce treat or a small insect, unlike their dear late brother, Wolf, who successfully brought down humans and non-humans alike in his illustrious 16 years.
 
Anyhoo, I was awoken at 1:00 am a few days ago by frantic scrabbling and squeaking in the vicinity of the foot of the bed, after leaping out of bed, turning on the light (I am now blinded and do not have my glasses on) I vaguely see a rodent of some sort racing across the floor and disappear behind the dresser. Neither useless feline, I mean beloved companion animal, was quick enough to catch it before it went into deep hiding and they promptly went back to sleep, sensing the immediate fun and games were over. It appears one of them had actually caught something that was capable of moving under its own power, brought it in and left if for Mommy to deal with in the wee hours of the mornin'. Am I not the luckiest cat Mom EVER!?
 
Not really wanting to disassemble the bedroom at this un-godly hour I sort of go back to sleep, had strange dreams of herds of mice running, lemming fashion, across my prone body. Next day the great mouse hunt begins, furniture is moved, flashlight shone into every crevice and cranny, found enough dust bunnies to make Martha Stewart break down into a fit of hysteria, but no mouse. So now he's in the house, the cats have clearly lost interest and are of no help. So why not just put out a trap....because I have a soft spot for little critters and its was not his (or her) fault one of my defective cats dragged the poor little guy in. Hoping it would find a way out on its own or the smell of mummified mouse would eventually alert us to its location we went on with our lives. But...lo and behold 3 days later I am sitting in the recliner catching up on Mad Men when I see it scamper across the floor and disappear under the couch, both cats are still completely oblivious, their nap/butt-grooming/cat snack obviously of much higher importance. Great, I think, now I have to put Don Draper on hold to try and corner it, trap it,  and get it out of my house. That little sucker was quick, I mean, blink of an eye quick, and he's big, like bigger than an ordinary mouse and he's got a really long tail and big hind legs, so I figure he's a deer mouse and now we appeared to be involved in a relationship of sorts, so he needs a name...like Donald (Draper). He scoots into the laundry room and hides under the washer, I open the back door, wave my arms in a grand gesture and point to the beautiful, great outdoors, he runs by the back door, ignoring the beautiful, great outdoors, sees me and runs back under the washing machine. I construct an elaborate deer mouse tunnel from the laundry room to the beautiful, great outdoors from small pieces of furniture and boxes. He comes out, munching on a piece of kitty kibble he found under the washer (Martha is sooo dissapointed with my housekeeping skills), leisurely makes his way through the Funnel of Freedom, wanders out the back door and into the beautiful, great outdoors....I do the happy dance, I am smarter than a deer mouse.

Spring Fling

Next to my art gardening is my next biggest passion. When we purchased our property the landscaping was minimal which was good in that it gave me the opportunity to start with a blank slate. One great thing was that the lovely lady who owned the home before us had put in some roses, I think they had been there for quite some time as the base on this red rose plant is about 4 inches across at the base. This is the very first rose of the season....she's a beauty and fragrant too. No idea what kind it is though.

Rhododendron's are plentiful in our county, although they don't always bloom every year, however, this year every single one of mine did. Here are two that frame the front of our house and a close up of a gorgeous peach one.

There were also some Peonies that were in residence when we purchased the home and like clockwork they come back every year, big and fluffy. VERY messy to clean up when their done, but worth it every year.

Not much art has been done in the studio for a few weeks for reasons I won't go into here but since this was garden themed post I thought I would show a "Garden Box" that I did a few years ago. The box is dedicated to my Grandmother Eva, a wonderful woman and fantastic Grandma. The pictures are from vintage specialty paper, I placed glass microscope slides over selected areas to highlight them and bordered them with some micro-beads. Real feathers, dried flowers and text from my Grandmothers high school biology book finish it off.

Winding down to Fall

I am not quite sure where this summer has gone, I had many grandiose plans for all the things I wanted to see, do and get finished, but sadly most did not come to fruition. The tomatoes are ripening fast and I think I will have to book a day off work next week and spend it canning my salsa. I like it with some heat and always get compliments so that will definitely need to get done. Despite a few days of rain the garden is still going along, some things have been pulled out and I find myself looking forward to winter where all I need to do with it is look out the window of the studio and peruse it instead of constantly watering, weeding and fussing. Here is one of my African Daisies still going strong....

The Chinese Lantern plant pods are at their brightest orange now, I will be picking and drying them, they look wonderful piled in a bowl for some autumn color in the house.

The cats absolutely adore the garden and spend most of their time outside. We have a cat fence attached to our 6' cedar fence and they cannot get out of the yard. What is a cat fence you ask? It is a system of metal elbows attached to the existing fence with black mesh strung between, the elbows bend inward (like Alcatraz for kitties!) so they cannot climb over it. Here is a picture, if you look closely between the metal elbows you can see the mesh. It keeps the cats in the yard and I have peace of mind knowing they will not wander off, get hit by a car or attacked by dogs, etc.

August and September were full of fun events, I went to the Fair in Lynden, the first time I had actually made it out there. Never would I have imagined there were so many different kinds of chickens and rabbits, the 4-H barns were great fun. Had my mandatory Elephant Ear, chock full of greasy, cinnamon-y, sugary goodness. Here are a few of my favorite critters from the Fair.

September was my brother-in-laws wedding in Victoria, BC, the ultimate tourist trap. We stopped by the world famous Butchart gardens, took a zillion pictures, especially of the Dahlia's and roses. I have this new Canon camera that takes pretty good pictures, including good macro and I have been going a little crazy with it. There are tons of features on it, including stuff a pro would use but I figure I will need to take a class at the community college to learn all the bells and whistles as I am pretty much "technology challenged".