A Little of this and that and the other.....

Hello Readers!

I'm just gonna dive right in to this and get the show on the road, so to speak. It is 6am Saturday morning. I have been awake since about 11 am yesterday so it's past my bedtime. I mention this because there are bound to be typos and a bit of nonsense probably as well.

I spent yesterday afternoon working on my granny square blanket, which you will see later in this post. But I spent the bulk of the evening and the wee morning hours putting marks on some of the pages of my junk journal.  I've been working on this junk journal for going on three years now. I do believe this is the first sneak peek anyone has seen of it. I worked on 14 different pages during the dark hours but there are six times this many pages in the book. 

I started out with a composition notebook that I glued magazine cut outs into. As time progressed other marks were added. Paint was applied...It is nowhere near done. I'm rather liking it though.

I took the composition notebook apart by cutting the string it was sewn together with and separating the pages from the binding. I then collected them into bundles of seven or eight pages, and will sew the book back together into signatures. It will have a totally new cover when I finish it.

There is no rhyme or reason to what ended up in the book.

Lots to do to these two pages still.

I really like this green spread. That lady needs a beard and mustache. Cause everyone in these pages has a beard and mustache. Why? Cause I can.

I used markers, acrylic paint, shimmery watercolor paint, oil pastels, india ink and a paint pen. There may be other things on there I'm forgetting at the moment. I did mostly painting on it today.

That blond has been transformed into a man with glasses, a very long beard and fancy mustache, wearing a black suit with a white shirt. 

I'm pretty sure if you make the pictures bigger by clicking on them you'll be able to read the text better.

And this concludes the sneak peek at my junk journal progress.

I've done some sewing since the last time I was here.

Little ellie stuffie made from the fabric from a pair of pants. He's about 5 inches long, 4 tall. there abouts. I didn't measure him. He still needs a saddle and some bells.

Morning Coffee.  

The paper mache birds are progressing. I'm not crazy about the color scheme of these critters and I probably will change that up when the painting muse hollers at me again. There are three more of these birds. I found two of the lost birds under the kitchen table. There is still one MIA. I'm sure a cat helped themselves to my birds. 

Stay tuned. The birds will be done soon.

I crocheted this bag early last week. It still needs some handles. 

Another work in progress. A small crocheted bag done in cotton string. This one has been in the works since late April. It will be done eventually as well.

There are a couple other crochet projects in the works that I have yet to take a picture of. There's a few fabric bracelets that need some more sewing and baubles added. A couple more crocheted bags in the works. And we can't forget Fish Picture #21 either. I bought some spackling compound at the lumber yard today so progress will commence on it soon. I've been asking after styrofoam packing for a couple weeks now and I hadn't located any so I bought the spackling compound to move forward on it. It must be done no later than August. 

Thunderstorm brewing at sunset.

Same thunderstorm just after dark. 

I like these two pictures of the thunderstorm.

A shot of the yard, looking off into the wheat field north of the house. I see the marijuana crop is growing nicely. I should more likely refer to the wild cannibas growing in the yard as hemp, as smoking it will get you nothing but a whopper of a headache. 

I made paper mache bowls while the birds were being made as well. 

I used magazine cutouts to embellish the bowl inside and out. The bottom of the bowl is an original doodle by me on text from a magazine. That was done in markers.

A close up of the inside of the bowl.

I painted the bowl inside and out with acrylic paint after the paper mache had dried sufficiently. Then the magazine paper was adhered with gloss medium. I wanted the bowl to be shiny. That may have been a mistake, using the gloss medium. It has been well over a week since this bowl was finished and it is still tacky to the touch. It sat on the front porch for two days in the sunshine and even that did not help dry it. One would think 96 degree weather with sunny skies would have done the job.

I did the same treatment to the outside of the bowl with the magazine paper. The stars were punched out keeping in mind a color scheme as I punched out the stars with a hand held star punch. 

I'm really uncertain as to why the gloss medium did not dry. I use pva glue as an adhesive when making these  bowls. 50/50 water and glue. And some kind of paper to form the bowl. Truth be told, any paper is fair game for paper mache. I like to use different colors or even totally different papers for each layer so I'm sure I've covered the whole of whatever I'm making at the time. I didn't think there would be any trouble between the pva glue and the gloss medium but I may be wrong about that. If the bowls, there are three of them, don't dry soon, I'll have to give them another coat of some other kind of varnish so they aren't sticky.

We shall see what happens.

As I said earlier, I did some sewing since the last time I was here.

Party Ellie made from an old sweater, a red purse and scraps of yarn.

Blue Ellie with her sunflower hat. 

She's made from an old sweater too. Both of them have tails made with the braiding disk.

Sitting in front of my computer watching an 18th Century cooking show on youtube. I didn't know I was interested in 18th Century cooking until I watched the first video. Now I do marathons of this stuff. Quite interesting, actually.

I got a new set of pens from Dollar General a couple weeks ago. I decided to break them in by using only the 8 markers that came in that pack to produce my June envie for EAU over at AFA. Link up in the corner... this is the back side.

this is the front.

I'm still working on the 365 Days of Granny Squares. I'm up to over a hundred of the buggers. I decided to start 'sewing' some of them together. They're not really sewn together. They are crocheted together. It's just easier to say sewn together.

I moved that cat three times and three times he was back again before I could snap a picture. So beings he wasn't cooperating... you all get to look at that sweet boy, Moses along with my colorful blanket that is still in pieces. Three pieces at the moment. In the last two days I've crocheted all of the little squares you see along the edge there and some other filler pieces that I don't see in the picture. They're underneath I guess. Most of the squares are different patterns. All are in different colors. I did resort to the simple granny pattern for a number of the squares, but the majority of them are all different. A few of them are patterns I made up on the fly as I was working on the squares themselves. I started this project back in November, if memory serves me correctly. One that I made up as I went is the large square in the upper right corner. When the blanket is done, I'll make my bed and put the blanket on a flat surface before I take its picture. 

I forgot to take a picture of the basket and the bag I crocheted with tulle netting last week. I'll show those off next time if I remember them when that time comes.

That's all I have for now. 

Thanks for sticking it out to the end.

Remember...

Be kind to one another!

It truly matters!

Peace

831

An art Beginning, Some Scenery, a little of this, a little of that!~

Hello Readers!

What better to do in the throes of a thunderstorm than finish this blog post I started some days ago.
Hopefully the electricity won't go off while I'm sitting here. This storm looks pretty wicked on radar but 15 minutes into it, all it's done is blow and spit rain. It will pour down rain, maybe a little hail with it too, before all is said and done! I do love me a good thunderstorm!!!

Dennis didn't come when I called him, before the storm got here. He showed up at the front door, hollering his fool head off, covered in a fine mist of rain and wanting someone to open the door!  Then he took his sweet old time coming inside because he had to make sure Lola cat wasn't anywhere around. They got into fisticuffs a few days ago. Looked to me like he won that match but he acts like he didn't. He gives Lola a wide berth these days!
I was headed to the back door to shut it when the storm wasn't quite here yet. The wind kicked up in a big hurry. Lola about bowled me over in the laundry room. She was heading in from the back porch.

I hollered for Dennis and Mo when I shut the front door. Mo showed up about two minutes later. Johnny on the spot! Dennis has a mind of his own and doesn't hesitate to use it! They are such silly critters!~


I'm just going to ramble through the pictures that follow. There's a little of everything.

Cows for Mel! 

Bathing Cows

Gathered at the watering hole.

I've no clue. Somewhere in Rooks County Kansas. 

The day lilies bloomed. This is the first year for more than a few blooms. They've been in that same spot for about 15 years. The trees got beat up pretty  bad a couple years ago and we lost some shade. This is the reason the day lilies have decided to start blooming. I miss the morning shade, but the lilies are pretty for a week or two. Day lilies blossoms and buds are edible, I'm told. I've not attempted that myself though.

I really think this tree needs a vignette of a troll at the base of it. This water filled cavity is at the base of said tree in the front yard. There will be no vignette though. This tree must be removed before a huge wind comes along and blows it over....this would not be good. to me, it just looks like trolls should live here.

Wild garlic. Grows in the back yard where the propane tank used to sit before the house burnt 12 years ago. The heart shaped leaves belong to bindweed. A noxious weed. The garlic seems to be strong enough to take the bindweed's crowding. 

I picked a couple of bulbs 4 or 5 days ago and put it a pot of spaghetti. Those bulbs in the picture are garlic sets. You don't eat those. Those drop to the ground and grow into new garlic next year. Each plant has a bulb underground with a few cloves. The two I picked had 4 on one and 6 on the other. It's a lot more mild than the garlic you buy at the grocery store. I suspect it would be quite tasty roasted....it was great in spaghetti.

The wheat field a couple days before they cut it.

The wheat field one day before they cut it.

And the big red combine cutting the wheat field. I was so very thankful the wind was  blowing from the south when this was happening! The last time wheat was harvested out of the field north of the house, the wind blew to the south and all that wheat chaff and dust blew right on the house. I think there may still be remnants of that harvest embedded in the carpet of the livingroom...

I'm going to make a prediction:  Next year farmer man will plant sunflowers.

(I really  REALLY REALLY want sunflowers!) Keep your fingers crossed!

I'm going to have to take the old blue beast out one of these days and locate a sunflower field close to home so I can take some pictures when it comes bloom time. That should happen mid August I think.

I'd love to watch a field of sunflowers from planting the seed to harvest. How cool would that scene be with it covered in bright yellow sunflowers???

I made Toby a dog tag for his collar from a key chain. I have about 500 of these key chains.

The clear part pops apart nicely if you're careful about it.

I put the red mark on there so I knew which way to put it back together again. The halves won't go back together nicely if you don't put them back together the way they popped apart.

The backside of the blue cardstock inside is blank. No need to cut paper to fit inside.

I drew an ugly pink dog in markers on one side and Toby's info on the other. 

The pad cactus bloomed. Five flowers, means I'll get five fruits. I will eat those if the bugs don't beat me to them.

Can you find the big green bug? 

This is the rock garden where the day lilies live. It's not really a rock garden. It's a garden with a ring of rocks around it. That green bug is made of rubber. It's about a foot long. 

This girl went home about two weeks ago. Here she is puttering around Rooks County on the chalk roads in my old blue beast of a car.  He mother said she hasn't gone driving at all since she's been home. I think that is more on her mother than on herself. I didn't have any problems with her not wanting to go driving. Her mother is just not of the right disposition to be guiding her girl when it comes to driving. Some folks aren't cut out for it, I guess.

As I sit here it is now almost a week after I wrote the previous portion of this post so there is a lot more to talk about. 

You can find part 2 in the next post.

Thanks for hanging in to the end!

Remember....

be kind to one another!

It truly matters!!

Peace

831

Driving Lessons and a touch of art

Hello Readers! 

Not a whole lot to show in the art department today. I've been busy with driving lessons instead of doing art. That and the old body doens't want to do art these days. I'm trying to enjoy going out everyday to do the lessons but making art has suffered because of it. Nine more days of driving lessons and I'll be back on my own again. 

I like my solitude. I've liked having my 18 yr old niece Allison here since around the 28th of May. We've had some adventures! 

Lets get busy with this and let me ramble through the pictures which blogger put up any ol' way they wanted. It will seem somewhat disconnected, but go with the flow! I find 'going with the flow' is sometimes the sanest option.

I was digging through a box the other day and came across this unfinished little blank book. What you see there is the caterpillar stitch done very badly. It still looks really cool tho! I need to finish sewing the caterpillar on the cover, through the page block and on the back cover. This actually appears to be the back cover so just reverse everything and you get the idea. This book is about 4 inches square. The cover backgrounds are painted newspaper on game board. It has copy paper pages. I'll show it to you all again when I get it finished. Whenever that is.

It has been awhile since you all saw the wheat field. It's the yellowish patch in the far distance. I have no clue what  kind of trees those are, except for the one in the foreground that you see a tiny bit of its trunk. That one is an elm three. I think the others are hackberries but don't hold me to that. 

The big clump of grass is pampas grass. The clump of unmown 'grass' left of the pampas grass is a stand of wild garlic being taken over by bind weed. You can't see it too well, but dead center, about a fourth of the way from the bottom is a baby evergreen tree with a wire fence around it. My brother, who does the yard work around here, has been babying that little tree for going on three years now. It has a cage so he doesn't run it over with the mower is what he says. I'd think knowing it was there for as long as he has known it is there, he wouldn't need to cage it. I could be mistaken though!

This picture was taken a few days ago. I'll get a picture off the front porch in the next couple days and show you how it's slowly changing from my favorite green color to a lovely shade of golden yellow. They'll harvest this wheat late June/early July. I hope the wind is blowing north when that happens! 

This is Dennis, the Bulldozer! He's a huge boy, sweet as treacle, quite entertaining and a mess of a cat! You see him here on the tote I use as a table when I'm sitting in my recliner. He's cleared the top of all the big things in his way and snoozing quite comfortably.

He's rearranged atop the tote and is working on knocking everything off the tote to the floor.

I found him laying on the keyboard the other day, stretched out like he is in the picture. I pulled the keyboard out from under him and he barely budged. Look at the monitor. He's managed to turn everything on the monitor upside down. I gave him a good talking too....not that it helped in other areas, but he's not been back to sleep atop the keyboard again. 

He plays the lava game. You all know the lava game, yes? The floor is made of lava and if you touch it, you're dead-out of the game. Dennis wins the lava game! One cannot be mad at Dennis for long though. He loves cuddles, headbutts and talking. He has a lot to say! Anytime he hears someone talk, whether you're talking to him or not, he will have something to say. 

He learned headbutts from my youngest son, RW. It is rather sweet when Dennis wants a headbutt. He'll get up in the your face and stick his forehead on yours and bonk you gently. He's a funny boy.

Mo and Lola have mostly come to terms that Dennis isn't going anywhere so they might as well stop fighting it and just embrace the new addition. Dennis acts like he doesn't even hear Lola's low growl as he walks by nonchalantly. Mo has decided he doesn't mind another friend even if he is a little indifferent to it all. So long as Mo gets his fair share of pets, he's happy. 

Toby dog hasn't arrived as of this writing. Soon though I do believe.

This granny square bag is the only artful thing I've done since the last post. It is the smaller of the two granny square bags I've made thus far. I ain't overly crazy about it myself.  It was an easy project and I already have another one this size in the works. I have 7 granny squares out of 13 in various stages of completeness. The new one is red white and blue. I ain't crazy about it either. It will get finished in the next few days or so.

Driving lessons are a chore. I volunteered to be the instructor and I have given it all I have to give most days Allison has been here. We had to take a week off when the hose in the engine blew and grounded us. The longest lesson lasted almost 4 hours. We average about an hour and a half each session. Her driving doesn't scare me usually. She takes direction pretty good and gets away from the edge of the road when I tell her to. We've not driven in town at all yet. Not Stockton anyway. She's driven Woodston a couple times. They have wide dirt streets. She didn't do so great on her first drive in Woodston, but we made it out alive and no new dents on the old blue beast.  She drove #9 highway from Woodston to Kirwin yesterday and did a darn good job. She needs to work on her parking skills,stopping and starting, keeping her speed steady and perception. She needs lots of practice with making corners. She does better with left had turns than with right hand turns.

We go driving out in the middle of nowhere on the chalk roads. We don't generally get much more than 30 miles from home. We've been north a few times, east a few times, south a time or two and west, but only a few miles to the west. I don't know that country very well. The picture was taken just south of the Ellis county line (if my reckoning is correct). We were lost. I had no clue where the heck we were. I knew 183 highway was somewhere in front of us, but I had (and still don't) no clue how far south we had traveled. It was beautiful country!

That big hill, not the one in the picture, about done me in. There were huge ruts on the downhill side and the girl hit every stinking one of them! I thought the car was going to fall apart! She bonked her head on the roof, I held on for dear life while hollering, Hit the brake! Hit the brake! She did a good job getting us out of that mess. She refused to drive much farther after the fact though. She knew I didn't know exactly where we were and we'd had a nail biting experience with a tanker semi on one of those roads 15 minutes earlier. So I drove until we found Plainville. Then she drove us home on a road we'd visited several times.

She's making progress. We've done some parking lot driving at the ball field and the fair grounds also. I guess her mama is just gonna have to suck it up and teach the girl city driving or send her to driving school. 

We didn't go out at all today. My old body said, "NO NO NO NO NO!" I hurt from the top of the my head to the tips of my toes today. Tomorrow we will get back at it again.

I started some paper mache birds a week or so ago.

Newspaper wrapped in masking tape

Here they are with their first second coat of newspaper and glue, waiting for their wings and tails to be attached. The wings and tails are cut from dog biscuits box chipboard. 

All but three of them have wings. They all have their tales. The painting muse hasn't shown up to proceed with these. As soon as she arrives, the last three will get wings and the others will get some paint. And everybody will get legs.

The little wires at the bottom of the picture are all their legs. 

Things I should do:

Start taking pictures of all the scenery on the driving lessons!

Finish the paper mache birds in a timely fashion.

Do some laundry.

Have more fun!

Write every day! Not necessarily here at the blog, but somewhere!~ Be it my journal or 750words. 

Thanks for hanging in there for this one. That's all I got today.

Remember....

be kind to one another!

it matters.

Peace

831