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“Two” Many Ideas and More

Saturday, January 14th, 2012

The first post of the new year…. now that we are nearly 2 weeks into it….  I have actually finished a few little quilts in addition to my latest set of art cards for the “Arts in the Cards” group.  Each month a new theme is chosen as a guide for the cards we send out to each other. I have only been a member of the group a year or so, but this  month is the second anniversary of the creation of the group, so the theme was Two.

My Inspiration

The above photo shows one of the inspirations for my cards. Actually, I had originally thought that I would do a tiny quilt with a pair of Tulips blooming on it… Two Tulips, but while experimenting with a new die cutting machine, I happened to notice that some of the vine and leaf die cut pieces looked like they could be twos, and another idea began to form. I then thought about “two peas in a pod”…. another idea (see little “peas” upper right in the photo above)…. THEN came the Google results…. I found that the traditional gift for a second anniversary is cotton (ok, cotton Tulips would work), then I found that there was a flower for that anniversary- Cosmos…. I love Cosmos and more ideas were flowing.  I should have stopped at that, but I pulled up a dictionary which had the definition and tons of extra information, too…  I did some playing with the definition and other words from the dictionary in a word cloud program. The program put the words in different sizes and colors in random order and I did a print out (also showing in the photo- upper left).

Printed Insides

By the time I got  done with playing on the computer, I  realized I had too many ideas to put into one little art card, so I decided that I’d add another two… Two cards.  The photo above shows the text I ended up with along with more that I added, printed over photos of Two white Cosmos flowers. I decided that the two cards would be connected in a hinge fashion with one long piece of the printed card stock. The photo above shows 3 of the inside pieces printed and in the process of being cut to size.

Creased Insides

Once the insides were cut from the card stock, the center creases were made. I also ended up fusing some little “scraps” of the vines that also looked like 2′s in the inside.

Peas

When I first thought of doing “two peas in a pod”, I needed to figure out how to make the peas…. I squeezed out drops of a metallic pea green paint on parchment paper and allowed them to dry over night.

Tulips Start

Above shows one of the little Tulip sides that I decided to make as tiny “quilts” using a thin interfacing as a “batting” so that I could do the stitching.

Two Vines Fused

In the photo above, the die cut vines with leaves 2′s and single leaves fused and “smushed” to make little pea pods.  The background fabric for these is a white with silver glitter that was then fused to a thin fusible interfacing. The one upper right is the first I played with, placing the flowers and butterflies… I decided it would be much easier to stitch the vines first, then add the flowers and butterflies after that.

Beginning Stitching

I used a green variegated thread to stitch around the edges of the vines and leaves, and added little curly tendrils to the pea pod.

Ready to fuse to inside

After the green stitching was  done, I switched to clear thread around the tulips, butterflies and flowers. The little quilts were now ready to fuse onto the inside that would connect the two little “quilts”.

Cooled Under Pressure

This photo above, shows the stitched “2″ sides after they have been fused to the other side of the inside printed card stock. Once both little quilts were fused to the outside of the inside, the pieces were folded and cooled under a weight to keep them flat. When fabric is fused to card stock, things tend to want to curl, so the weight flattens things while they are hot, then when cool they will stay fairly flat.

Outsides of the Double-Sided Cards

This photo shows most of the cards after they had cooled. To finish the edges, I dabbed them with a stamp pad with purple ink. You can see Two of the cards standing up like little sign boards. I did find I had a problem with the ink. After I put it on, it seemed to want to rub off, so I ended up brushing on some gel medium to seal it.

Cosmos and Peas Finished

Here is one of the Cosmos, 2, Butterflies and Peas sides… you can see a bit of the inside printed card stock. If you look really close, you can even see the two little peas made from the paint tucked into a fold in the pod.

Two Tulips

This photo shows the Tulip side of one of the cards…

Two Many Twos Finished Group

This photo shows a group of the finished cards, with some showing the Tulip side, and some showing the Two Peas and more side, along with one open to show the inside of a finished card. “Two May Two’s” were then packaged in archival art card sleeves and sent to their new owners.  I really never thought I would end up with so many ideas for what one would think was a simple theme….  If you would like to see what other members created for this round as well as others (if you want to do a bit more scrolling) see the Arts in the Cards Blog where each of us have posted our creations.

Big Shot Machine with First Cut

This is the new tool I have been playing with that led to many of my ideas. It was one of the vine cuts shown in the photo above with the machine. The die shown is the first one I got with the machine. I also got a couple others, but this was the one that I have played with the most. I wanted to see just how many different designs I could make using  just one die. The die cutting machine is designed for scrapbooking and paper arts to cut paper and other similar art materials. I had seen a video online showing one being used for cutting fabric, and that got the wheels turning. I do a lot of fusible applique and have been doing more with tiny pieces and even with my straight handled scissors, cutting is hard on my hands and takes a lot of time.

2 Motifs

This photo above shows two full motifs that were cut with the die. I cut two pieces of Wonder Under backed fabric right sides together using the whole design on the die. Most of the designs I have come up with have just used parts of the motif with fabric folded in different ways.

Die Play on Dyed Fabric

This is a photo of one of the first pieces I played with. I took a 6″ square of white fabric, folded into quarters on the diagonal, run through the machine just using part of the die design. I pulled the vine pieces out of the square and fused them on the outside of it, giving me what you see here.

 

Vine Heart 5″x7.5″ SOLD

This little piece above is one of the little experiments I began with and finished. This is 5″x7.5″ in size, and I arranged the vines to make the heart shape and swirl below. I began quilting with green thread on the vines and added little tendrils, then I added more quilting with the clear thread to fill things in. This ended up going to a new home after I showed it at my local quilt guild’s show and tell…. My first sale of the year!

I now have some more dies to play and see what new things I can come up with. So far this little tool has been helping me to get the old creative juices flowing again. If you are interested, I have been adding photos to a Die Cutting Album  on my Facebook profile page.  I have two more little pieces finished using die cut fabric and have photos there. I plan to get any new pieces listed in my ArtFire Art Quilt Shop also.  If all goes well, I hope to add new posts more often this year.

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The Birth of a New Garden- Step One

Thursday, October 13th, 2011

As anyone knows who has seen many of my posts here, I have a LOT of big gardens…. Much of the past few days has been spent doing the beginning preparations for my first New garden in over a decade. Like I really need another new garden…. Well, this one had been dreamed  about for many years, and it will be where the “Back of the Workshop Mess” photo in the previous post is, or should I now say it mostly WAS. This area has attracted a lot of birds in the past few years, but the area is full of weedy Sumac trees and have fallen over. I have always dreamed of this becoming a beautiful bird sanctuary with various trees, shrubs and perennials to attract the birds in a much prettier way.

Future Bird Sanctuary 1

Shortly after the photo in the previous post was taken, I started breaking up and piling what I could with the hour of daylight I had left after the last lawn mowing. The pile of branches in the left of the photo is from my Diablo Ninebark bush on the side of the Lilac Garden. It should have been trimmed years ago, and I finally took the pruners to it and gave it a severe “haircut”. The pile far back is what I was able to break up of the ugly Sumac trees that fell over into the lawn years ago.

Future Bird Sanctuary 2

I finally got put on Ken’s calender and Wednesday the chainsaw was put to the mess. You can see from this photo above how many of the trees were laying on their sides.

Future Bird Sanctuary 3

The bonfire…. The first day of chainsaw work we had a fire going constantly as Ken cut and we both dragged limbs to the fire. In addition to the Sumac trees, there also  was great abundance of overgrown wild grapevines. Those made getting the tree limbs out pretty tricky…. we had to cut the vines to free much of what had to go.

Future Bird Sanctuary 4A little bit later, more of the workshop trailer can be seen. We kept working till it got to dark to see where we were walking.

Fire at End of Day 1

I wanted to see what the new camera would do, and took a few photos of the fire as I left the area for the night. This one came out pretty good even with not too steady hands. One thing about all the rain we have had since August, the ground and everything else is still really saturated and we didn’t have to worry about starting an unwanted fire somewhere else.

Future Bird Sanctuary 5

By the time I got my body to allow me to get back to work the next day, Ken had gotten most of the trees cut and burned a lot more. Now most of the trailer can be seen, There are still some Sumac, wild Roses, and a lonely Ash tree left on the south end of it. The Ash tree will be the only thing left by the time all gets cleared. The trunks of the trees were left high enough for Ken to hook a chain onto them and pull out the roots. Sumac is really hard to get rid of because of all of the roots running just under the surface of the ground where new babies pop up. The more roots out the better, but I have found with the Lilac garden that if I keep a deep mulch of hay, any babies that pop up can be plucked easily and after a couple years less and less try to grow.  I am still amazed when I see some garden catalogs offering various Sumac varieties for sale…. They do have pretty fall color and red fruit clusters in summer, but they are huge invasive weeds!

Maple in Woods

Here is one of the young Maple trees that has kept growing despite having Black Walnut trees not far from it. Most of the rest of the woods is Green Ash which in some areas are being attacked by a borer, so I am glad to see other varieties finally taking hold.  I plan to find a not too big one of these Maples that might be too close to another to flag with ribbon to dig next Spring for the Bird Sanctuary garden or somewhere around the workshop to provide shade.

Baby Ginkgo Tree Leaves

Here is one of the two Ginkgo trees I purchased in the Spring. One of these will go in the North end of the new garden. They can get really huge, but that will take probably take more than my lifetime for that to happen, but I will still give them plenty of room. I also bought another Acer griseum (Paperbark Maple), a pink  Dogwood, and a Carolina Silverbell. I joined the Arbor Day Foundation and received another group of baby trees, and also have some baby shrubs from my gardens in pots. These will be used as some of the understory bushes.  I am now trying to plan how everything will be planted. Not all will fit in the new area, but many will go there. The nearly bare area after removing the junk trees is over 50 feet wide at the far end of the trailer. I have some tall trees, medium height ones, and the bushes, then will fill in with various perennials. The new garden will look a  bit sparse and the birds won’t be too happy for a while, but eventually it should be alive with them again, and more enjoyable since I plan to have some paths and seating areas in there.

Fungi on Stump

And now for some more random woods and garden pictures… Above is another rotting stump in the woods with three different kinds of fungi on it.

Steps Stone

This good sized stone looks like it has had steps cut out of it… It was near one of the old stone walls on each side of an abandoned roadway that goes through the middle of our land.

Walnut Trees

This is the back yard group of Black Walnut trees as viewed from the edge of the woods. They have really gotten huge in the 21 yrs we have lived here. The only shade that comes close to our trailer. It’s still dangerous to stand under them now with the huge crop of nuts falling, but they make the nicest shade in the summer.

Walnuts on Steps

Here on the steps that go to the back yard, you can see some of the nuts… I think this year is the biggest crop yet…. and many are Huge!

Blooming Grasses

The Ornamental Grasses in the Maple Tree garden are in their full glory! I really need to put a person in one of these photos… these grasses are huge… Miscanthus Goliath is the largest clump on the right, Pannicum Cloud Nine is the really light and feathery one, and way in the back just coming into bloom is Miscanthus giganteus…. a perfect name for it…. It is over 12 feet high. Goliath is around 10 ft high.

Variegated Grass in Bloom

Here is the Miscanthus variegatus blooming in the Arborvitae end of the Maple garden. This plant  has only been here for 2 seasons… There are two, but you can see the left one is pretty scrawny. It was a smaller chunk when I planted them and is just starting to take off.

Pink Clover

Here is a closeup of a Pink (Red) Clover flower… I keep practicing with the new camera and am getting more good macro shots.

Queen Ann's Lace Closeup

One of the last Queen Ann’s Lace flowers in the field…. We have only had a tiny touch of frost, but it won’t be long now till the flowers are done for another year….

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A New Beginning?

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

My last post was 3 weeks ago, and the perennials in the gardens are beginning to look a bit shabby… It didn’t help that we had nearly a week with no sun and 4 straight days with rain… One of them with 6.5″ in less than 24 hours….

Soggy Hibiscus

The above photo shows the Pink Hibiscus after one day of rain on Sept. 6…

Back Yard Rivers before digging

September 7th- The Mound Garden river was flowing again…. This time, I had a ditch dug in the dog yard to divert some water to the woods… It took a lot of water (near the back fence), but there was more water going through the Mound Garden than in any previous storms of the year….

River outside Studio

This photo shows the river as it passed in front of my studio window… The water running by the propane tank headed straight for my studio wall and ran right around it, then flooded much of the dog yard… Poor pups! They didn’t know whether they wanted to go out to do their business or not… Some water had puddled under my sewing machine and the towel I keep along the wall was soaked, so some re-routing of the river was required.

Back Yard rivers after digging

During a slower rain shower, I was able to dig the ditch in front of my studio deeper and also dug the ditch to the woods deeper to give the water a place to go. As you can see in this photo above, there is a lot of water in the ditch in the dog yard, and very little in the garden… That helped for a while, but a later heavy downpour caused breaks and overflows in the ditches, so I had to choose another break in the rain to do more digging…

Van in driveway

We usually park the mini van in the lower parking area, but we had gotten groceries the last time it was driven, so it was parked and left in this part of the driveway… The water was getting really high, and when I went to move it before my second digging session, the wheels were already partly buried in the gravel that had washed from the upper part of the driveway.

Flooded Dog Yard again

This was one of those helpless feeling moments…. The latest heavy downpour had overflowed the banks of the ditches and broken part of one of my new levees (left side of pic, inside the dog yard).  When I got out there later to do damage control, I found that grass, leaves and other debris as well as LOTS of driveway gravel had plugged the wire of the fence and caused water to stand everywhere and return even worse to the mound garden.

Dog Yard after Flood

Sept. 8th, after the bulk of the rain had fallen, this is what the dog yard looked like… The two piles of mud and gravel along the back fence is what I dug out away from the fence, trying to get the water to go under instead of through it. I had 3 areas where water was flowing under the fence, and the middle one clogged again…. The gravel came from far up the driveway….

Culvert by Upper Parking Area

This photo shows some of the deep gullies formed in the driveway… I am really glad I added the big rocks by the pipe before the storm… This culvert has been washed out too many times this year.  There was still a big ditch from the previous storm, so I filled in much of it with rocks…. Some stayed! It’s amazing how much damage water just from 1/4 mile above us could do…. all that water ended up heading to the Susquehanna after collecting more along it’s path…. We were very lucky living this high up. The river flooding was near or above record levels with many homes and businesses being affected.

Wet Mini Rose

Here is a lonely bloom on the mini Rose bush….

Harry is still trying to grow!

“Poor Harry” seemed to like all the water…. He seemed to put out some pretty good new shoots!  The poor thing has been munched on much of the summer… it seems every time he has put out new growth, it has been eaten off. This time I gave him a douse of dear repellent before he became deer snack again.

And speaking of “Poor Harry” (a Harry Lauder’s Walking stick bush), he was the inspiration for my latest batch of art cards for my trade group.

Harry in the Petunias

The full view of Harry shows the dead branches that he was left with after being mauled by deer. I liked the shape of these branches, so I left them even though they are dead. A bit of “sculpture” in the garden. I took this photo and removed the background in photoshop to  use for the art cards.

Balance ATC's Printed

The theme for this trade was “Balance”… My gardens have been about the only thing to give ma any balance to my life lately, and Harry makes a pretty balanced “sculpture” in the garden, so he was to be the star. I began by fusing random scraps of fusible backed fabrics to parchment paper until I had  just a bit larger than a sheet of paper. I wanted to print Harry’s picture on this fused background, so I painted over the fabrics with titanium white to soften the colors, and a bit of gel gloss to seal and snaggy edges.  I then set up the document to print and it  worked! No Jams!  The above photo shows the printed fabric  base.

Balance Pair started

This photo shows two of the cards after they were cut to size and Inktense pencil was added for the Petunias in the garden. I had only dampened the pencil for Harry’s leaves, and not the flowers yet.

"Poor Harry" Balance Cards

Above are four of the finished cards… See how much more vibrant the colors from the Inktense pencils are after I painted over them with very dilute gel medium. I added some more deep shading on Harry with the pencils and thicker gel gloss to give him a little shine like he has in real life.  I finished these cards the day before the heaviest rain hit, and they got in the mail just in time… I’m not sure how many days we were without mail after that….

Studio Window Garden

Since I have been pretty creatively blocked lately, I have been trying different things to get things moving again…. A member of the Quiltart list was about to turn 49 a few weeks ago and decided she would make a little journal quilt each week during her 50th year. She invited others to join her, and since I just turned 50 last month, I decided it might be something to get me back into creating.  For the first piece, I used the photo of the view of the garden I see from my studio window when sitting at my machine.

Week 1 Sept. 4

The “due date” for the first piece was Sept. 4th…. Thankfully the rules for the group are pretty flexible, and I only had part of the piece fused together by then, but for me that was better than I had done in a long time. Yesterday, I finally finished it…. It took a while to do the quilting with all the thread color changes I did, but Free Motion Quilting seems to be like riding a bike… I was a little rusty at first, but moved along pretty quickly. The photo above shows the finished piece!

Before I started quilting week one’s quilt, I worked on the second piece.

Week 2 Beginning with Photo

Since week two included the storm, I just had to use a part of one of the photos of the water flowing through my Mound Garden.  Above is the photo I used with the beginning of the quilt before quilting.

Week 2 Sept. 12

Here is the finished piece for week two. I played with different shades of beige and brown threads for the muddy water and gravel in the quilting. The main fabric in the middle of the piece is a bit of a small piece of a batik I had that gave the feel of much of the upper part of the garden. The lower part of the garden is a piece of my pale hand dyed fabric with Inktense pencil used to add the green for the leaves of the plants. I used little touches of titanium white paint for the Phlox and Echinacea flowers, and quilting with a variegated bright pinks thread makes the Vinca flowers.

While these two little pieces aren’t a lot, I really hope they will be the beginning of my creative mojo returning…. Maybe I’ll even finish a quilt that I started nearly 1 1/2 years ago.  I’ll take any creative bursts I can get!!

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In the Gardens Mid July

Wednesday, July 20th, 2011

There are still flowers on the Hemerocallis (Daylily) plants, but they are now beginning to slow down.  Since my last post, I made some interesting discoveries. The first was a nicely double flower on the variety Double Cutie.

Double Cutie Double Bloom

One of the stems of this variety opened flowers more double than the first blooms.  The one in this photo above was the most fluffy of them all… As you can see, the stamens in this bloom became petals, and they even have pollen like normal ones. One of nature’s wonders!

Another interesting discovery was with the variety Melon Balls…. One evening, I found all of the flowers were streaked with white and pale peach… I had not seen them like that before and thought it might have been caused by the sun or heat…

Hemerocallis Melon Balls Faded

The faded blooms were very interesting looking, and after a few days of stalking them, I found that it did seem to be the sun doing the fading. After a few days of finding streaked flowers in the evenings, I finally  got photos of the flowers morning, mid-day and evening… The more sun during the day, the more streaks there were by evening… What a great find! Flowers that changed as the day progressed!

Hemerocallis variegata

Also, as I mentioned in the last post, there was another double flower that hadn’t bloomed yet… It finally did, and here is one of the flowers. The original plant had variegated foliage, but most of my clumps have reverted back to green leaves. I will have to make an effort to dig out some of the remaining variegated parts to keep propagating those. The green foliage is much stronger growing, so it can take over if you let it keep growing. My clumps have been ignored a lot over the past few years.

OK, now that I have pretty much covered all of the Daylilies, there are a lot more flowers in my gardens. Other flowers that have been blooming this mid July.

Front Door Planter Right

In past years, my planters near the front door have been filled with flowers that I usually purchased early to have color out front as soon as possible. This year, I couldn’t afford to get anything new for the planters and I have had to wait for color this year. I had some extra plants left from planting this year’s Memorial Day planters, some white Petunias, Alyssum, and blue Lobelia. I had also been able to get some wave Petunias late June to add a few touches of annual color to my gardens. It is amazing what can happen when you don’t do anything more than take weeds out of planters with the soil left in them from the previous year.

Front Door Planter Left

This is the planter on the other side of the steps. The only new purchased plants in these pots are the White Petunias, Alyssum, and one Purple Wave petunia in the Left planter.  The Violas, Nicotiana, and tall purple Petunias in the Left planter are seedlings that came up from last year’s plants. The same plants and the striped Petunias in the Right planter are seedlings. I even was able to take out  some extra Petunia and Nicotiana seedlings to use in the gardens.  I LOVE “free” flowers! I had to be patient to see much color in the post, but they are now beginning to overflow!

White Asiatic Lily

Back to perennials in the gardens, here is a pretty rare sight… at least this year for me.  The mice and moles, or voles or whatever critters they were ate the bulk of  my Asiatic and Oriental lilies. These white ones are in the Maple Tree garden near the pond that is covered with black raspberry bushes.

Pink Lilies

This stem of pink Asiatic Lilies is one that lived through the critter snacking in the Back Yard Mound garden. This garden used to have gobs of Lily flowers mid July, but between the critters eating the bulbs, the water washing gravel on top of the bulbs, and snacking deer, I had one stem of pink and one stem of yellow blooms. The center of the Mound Garden used to be full of yellow Asiatics that would grow to about arm-pit height. I dug up some of the bulbs this year and moved them around.

Hostas in Washout Zone

This is the end of the Mound Garden where the Hostas have nearly been washed away or buried in gravel. It still amazes me how beautifully they bloom every year. The shade trees in the back yard are Black Walnuts and there are lots of plant that will not grow near them, but the Hosta and other plants I have here and along the stone wall have been doing great.

Mound Garden 7-8-11

This photo above shows the Mound Garden from the lawn at the top of the mound. Toward the right you can see the pitiful yellow Lily plants. The Echinaceas were just beginning to bloom when this was taken, and a couple Hemerocallis Ice Carnival plants were blooming between the Hosta and Echinaceas.Yyou can see the pale lilac Wave Petunias just beginning to grow a bit… I bought them late in the season and they were pretty long and scraggly, so I needed to trim them some so they will branch out and bloom better. I just have to have more patience waiting for the plants to fill out and bloom more. There is a Salvia Black and Blue with blue flowers with pale green leaves… My plants sat on a table out front of the trailer until I could get them into the ground and didn’t get fertilized like then should have been…. Yea, I was a professional greenhouse grower and don’t always do things right.

Back Yard Gardens from Wall

Here is another photo of the Back Yard gardens taken from the end of the stone wall closest to the Walnut trees, looking toward the new dog yard. Vladdi our son’s black Lab is standing at one of the gates hoping to be let free. He has helped my gardens a bit so far by getting a woodchuck who was teasing him from the other side of the fence. I let Vladdi out and the woodchuck was no more. The Hostas along the stone wall are doing nicely. The Mound Garden is to the right in the sun and hard to see. The wider part of the Stone Wall garden is just past the stone steps right about in the middle of the photo. On hot summer days, the shade of the Walnuts is wonderful.

Lady Fern

Here is one of my Lady Ferns tucked between one of my Krossa Regan Hostas and the stone wall. Last year the fern was pretty scrawny, but this year with all the early rain we had, it has done great.

Deck Planter with Back Yard in Background

Here is one of my deck planters with the Back Yard gardens showing in the background. The deck planters didn’t get many new plants this year either. The Nemesia in this planter was a gift, and the Petunias, Nicotiana, and Violet plants are seedlings from last years flowers. Some more “freebies”. I had so many baby plants coming up, I had to take a bunch out and put them into pots to be used in the gardens. The Petunias I had here last were plum colored with deep plum veins. This year I have shades of plum, pink and lavender Petunias.

Phlox Flame White with Eye

Here is the only new perennial plant I purchased this year. Phlox have done really well in all of my gardens, so I have been adding new colors and dividing my favorites to fill various spaces. The Flame varieties are shorter growing varieties than the older varieties. As with most perennials I buy, I just HAD to divide this one into two pieces and it is now a part of the Mound Garden.

Vinca Annual

Along with the lavender Petunias, I have also planted Impatiens in the shady areas, White Petunias along the front edge, and behind them are these Vinca flowers. I found these in a greenhouse I stopped at on the way home from giving a lecture to a quilt guild in Reading PA. I tend to “shop” my way home if I have a few dollars to spare. I also found these in a beautiful shade of pink. I only have 12 of the Vinca, but they should fill out quite nicely in the next few weeks.

Hosta Lemon Lime in Bloom

The last photo from the back yard for this post is this Hosta Lemon Lime tucked nearly under the Brunnera Looking Glass.

Hydrangea Anabelle

Back to the front yard, the Hydrangea Annabelle is blooming beautifully. These flowers last a long time, and look great with the Crimson King Maple as a backdrop. There aren’t too many small delicate plants in the Maple Tree garden… It is the largest garden and a great home for some pretty big and aggressive plants and shrubs.

Carpet Rose

Not too far from the Hydrangea is one of the few Rose bushes I have. This is a Carpet Rose that is a low growing variety that blooms on and off all summer.

One Tomato Left

Not all plants in the gardens ind up looking good. Even though I sprayed the Tomato plants with deer repellent, they still got munched on. I bought 3 nice sized plants that had Tomatoes started and this is the only fruit left. Since this photo was taken, they are all growing much better and look like they will do well if I can keep the critters away from them.

Poor Harry

Here is another victim of critters. This poor Red Leaved Harry Lauder’s Walking Stick was beginning to put out some new shoots after being chomped by deer over the winter, and the new shoots were eaten… There are still some shoots trying . I have put more repellent around this and hope it can get growing again.  It has reddish leaves on twisted branches.

Monarda Summer Wine

Here is a closeup of a Monarda (or Bee Balm) flower. This variety called Summer Wine is a really pretty bright fuchsia wine color. This is near Harry, on the end of the Maple Tree Garden with the arborvitae. I used to keep this area for annual flowers, and am slowly adding perennials here. I have planted more Wave Petunias in this garden and the Purple Wave’s that are planted near the Monarda are nearly the same color. So far not much color yet from the Petunias, but in a few weeks if the weather cooperates, I should be able to see them from my kitchen window.

Evening Sky

Again a post is getting pretty long…. Here is a photo of the sky one evening, looking through the Maple Tree garden. The left round tree is the Crimson King Maple. The Monarda and Harry are to the left not shown in this photo. You can just make out the Hydrangea flowers along the lower center of the photo. The Maple trees, Balsam Fir (center) and Junipers are getting pretty big. It’s amazing to think that less than 20 yrs ago these all were pretty small trees from a nursery I worked at back then.

The great thing about the gardens is that there is always something new popping up or beginning to bloom. There will be more posts from the gardens…. the Echinaceas and Phlox are beginning to really come into bloom now.

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The Dancing Daylilies

Thursday, July 14th, 2011

I have so many beautiful Daylilies (Hemerocallis) blooming that I decided to do one post devoted just to them.

Hemerocallis Double Cutie

This plant is right in front of my kitchen window in the Front Door Garden. It’s name is Double Cutie and it was supposed to be nearly double, but this first bloom of the year was completely single.

Hemerocallis Double Cutie 2

This is the second flower of Double Cutie to bloom this year…. It has two extra petals… Almost double! Some plants with double blooms will have more double flowers as the plant matures, so it may get more double in coming years.

Hemerocallis Pandora's Box

This photo could be a bit misleading size wise… Pandora’s Box has small flowers about 2 1/2-3″ across. I love the creamy, nearly white color with the plum near the center.

Hemerocallis Bodacious Returns 2

The next Daylily in the Front Door Garden, is Bodacious Returns. I showed a flower from a different day in the previous post. So far I have had no more than 2 flowers at a time open, but the huge blooms (nearly 7″ across) make up for the lower number of flowers.

Hemerocallis Peach Rose

This is one of the Daylilies I am not sure of it’s variety name. I tried to check greenhouse records, but did not figure out who this is. I try to label my  plants, but this one didn’t get one. I do know that it was a poor lonely plant that was brought home when we had our greenhouses.  It is a nice soft peach with a lavender rose blush toward the yellow center.

Hemerocallis Melon Balls 1

Melon Balls is next around the garden. This plant has had a lot of flowers open most every day. As you can see, there are lots more  buds.

Hemerocallis Melon Balls 2

Here is another photo showing one of the blooms closer. The beautiful melon color also has tiny blushes of reddish plum and some lighter streaks in the petals.

Hemerocallis Mini Peach

Wandering from the far side of the Front Door Garden up the path toward the house is another un-named variety… I call it Mini Peach because of the small, soft peach colored flowers. This was another lonely baby that had lost it’s tag at the greenhouse and came home with me. After many, many years here it is finally large enough to divide so I can have  more in other places. The mulching and attention I have been able to give the gardens since losing the greenhouses has helped many  plants to thrive instead of “just hanging in there”.

Hemerocallis Bella Lugosi 2

Here is another photo of a Bella Lugosi flower. I have divided my original plant and now have 4 clumps of it, two in the Front Door Garden and the others in the back yard. This photo shows how the sun makes these blooms seem to sparkle.

Hemerocallis Black Eyed Stella

Back to near the front door, walking out toward the driveway,  is the clump of Black Eyed Stella. This is another small flowered variety. This one is also supposed to be a re-bloomer… I don’t remember if I have gotten any late flowers from this plant, but this is the first year I have a bumper crop of flowers.

Hemerocallis Hall's Pink

Not far from Black Eyed Stella is Hall’s Pink. The bloom in the photo is from a plant in the Stone Wall Garden in the back yard. The plant in the Front Door Garden has not bloomed yet this year.

Hemerocallis Ice Carnival

Ice Carnival is one of my favorite Daylilies with it’s creamy pale yellow to nearly white flowers. The color of the flowers fades during the day as they age.

Hemerocallis Ice Carnival Closeup

Here are a couple more blooms…. This variety has multiplied nicely and I have these planted in the Front Door Garden as well as in the back yard in the Mound Garden and Stone Wall Garden. So pretty in the early evening.

Hemerocallis Swiss Strawberry

Swiss Strawberry is tucked in the middle of the garden not far from Ice Carnival. This particular plant was not to stay here in this garden because the flowers were too reddish and clashed with other flowers near it. I dug the whole clump (I thought) out and plunked it in the woods in a damp area. The clump in the woods is a bit taller, but still growing in the now deep shade. The Spring after I dug these out, it returned…. I obviously missed a few pieces of root and they sprouted and grew happily. I didn’t have time to dig it out again, and now it has grown on me (quite literally)…..

Front Door Garden 7-11-11

Here is a photo from the walkway to the driveway, showing Ice Carnival and Swiss Strawberry with a peek of the dwarf Blue Spruce and Echinaceas in the background. This garden probably has the largest number of different varieties of perennials in it. It was the first garden that I dug out of the yard and planted, but it did start out much smaller. It took a few years to figure out what plants were the happiest here… if it is a wet Spring, this can be a soggy area. The Hemerocallis, Echinaceas, and Phlox seem to take most any conditions I have, so I keep dividing those and adding them to other gardens, too.

This is not the end of the Hemerocallis in the gardens…. There are other varieties in other gardens.

Hemerocallis Hyperion

This pretty lemon yellow, fragrant variety is in the wet area of my Rock Garden and a couple areas in the Maple Tree Garden. Hyperion is a delicate flowered variety that is nicely fragrant. This is the last of the photos I have for this post, but not the last of the Daylilies I have. I also have a couple small Stella D’Oro plants, one is in the middle of the flood zone in the Mound Garden in the back yard, and another is in the Shade Garden that is getting washed away at the edge of the woods.

There are also a few plants that have not bloomed yet…. I have a variety with variegated leaves. A couple still have the white variegated leaves, but most of them have reverted back to green leaves. The neat thing about them is that they have double blooms even if they are a very similar color to the wild roadside Daylilies which I have growing in one of our hedgerows and along the driveway. I also have a small growing plant that I forgot the variety I divided, and planted in the Stone Wall Garden. I guess I will know what it will be soon… the little flower buds are getting puffier….  I also have another plant  in the Front Door Garden that hasn’t bloomed yet…. It is labeled Pandora’s Box, but the flower stem is 3 ft tall…. much taller than the one in bloom. What fun!! surprise flowers!!

This has been a mini-tour of mostly my Front Door Garden and a couple others filled with the blooms of Dancing Daylilies.

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July 5 & 6 Walks and ART!

Wednesday, July 13th, 2011

To keep my posts from getting too long, I am including a couple days of photos in each. This post includes Photos of flowers taken during my July 5th and 6th garden walks, and as a bonus….this one also includes the first creative project I have done in a LONG time!

Black Caps

This year the Black Caps (or Black Raspberries) have been very productive. I have picked a few quarts of these luscious berries and eaten most of them myself… I LOVE them!

Blurred Berries

This is what happens when the camera isn’t ready to take a picture…. I am not sure if I could reproduce this effect, but it did result in a fun photo of the berries on this wild Honeysuckle bush.

Free Pink Petunias

These petunias flowers are on one of the self seeded plants. Last year I planted some plum colored flowers with deep veins in them, and this year I have an assortment of pretty shades of pinks, plums, and lavenders.

Kitchen Art

Since all of the drama around here, I finally got out some of my art supplies and worked on some very late ATC’s for the “Arts in the Cards” exchange group. Thankfully, the other traders were very patient with me! The studio is a hopeless hovel right now, so I took over the kitchen table.

Hearts ACEO Pair

The  group of cards due my the end of May had the theme of  “Fabulous Fakes”. I  had planned to do something with fake flowers or such, but after Ken had his heart attack a new idea crept in. Our real hearts don’t look as pretty as the “fake” ones we are familiar with. I used an image from one of Ken’s brochures of a real heart on the backs. We don’t tend to think too much about our “real” hearts unless they cause us trouble. For these, I cut my own stamps for the simple solid heart and the one with the rays around the heart.  I also used some thin metal in pink that I embossed with a pencil on both sides to give different texture. I also played with embossing powders for scrapbooking that I have had for quite a while now.

Wild Daisy

Sunflowers Daisy Print

The second set of cards were done for the theme of “Sunflowers and Lemonade”. The wild Daisies were coming into bloom, and I thought I would do some flower prints with them to make my Sunflowers. The idea didn’t work as well as I thought it would. I am used to printing on fabric not paper, so the textile paint I used was too thin. I had to play with the paint to get it thicker and finally got some decent prints.

Pair of Sunflower ATC's

The  prints needed a bit of touching up with my Inktense Pencils and I added the leaves with the pencils too. The backgrounds were painted in a watercolor effect using my Inktense Blocks, water and a paintbrush.  I used the pink metal again and used a scrapbooking paper punch to cut the butterflies, and embossed them with a pencil from the backs.  The centers were made glossy and sparkly by using embossing powder with Art Glitter over Inktense block.

Pale Yellow Pansies

Back to the flowers…. Here are a couple of pale yellow Pansies that came from seed in one of the deck planters. I had assorted Pansies and Violas in the planters in the past couple of years.

Seedling Petunias

This photo shows what I think are flowers from the same plant in an earlier photo. You can also see some of the purple Petunias and Lavender Violas that are also seedlings. The only purchased flowers I added to the deck planters are Impatiens, Lobelia, and white Alyssum. I have even found baby Lobelia plants, too!

Hosta with Cuddles

The nearly washed away Hostas were beginning to bloom in the Mound Garden. In the background you can see the top of Cuddles who likes to follow me when I try to take photos in the gardens.

Hemerocallis Bella Lugosi Closeup

This is one of the first varieties of Daylily to bloom….. Bella Lugosi is a really deep wine purple color with a greenish yellow center. They are hard to photograph due to the deep color. I really wish these blooms lasted more than one day… At least there is a bumper crop of buds this year.

Hemerocallis Bodacious Returns

Bodacious Returns was the first Hemerocallis to bloom this year. The plant is not very tall… barely over a foot, but the flowers are absolutely HUGE! As the name implies, this is a re-blooming variety. It should bloom again sometime in the fall.

The next post will have lots of Hemerocallis flowers of all colors. I have counted at least 13 different varieties in the gardens with flowers in all sizes and colors.

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Catching Up in the Gardens

Tuesday, July 12th, 2011

A lot has happened in the gardens in the past month since my last post. I have slowly gotten most of them mulched with hay to keep the weeding chore as minimal as possible, the Iris and Peony flowers have long faded, and new flowers have taken their places as bright spots of color.

Riedels Greenhouse Flowers

While I would love to have the garden in the photo above in my yard, this one is along RT 222 between Reading and Kutztown PA…. The greenhouse is set back from the road, but the flowers literally pulled me in. The end of June, I was in the Reading area to present a lecture and trunk show to the Quiltessence Quilters quilt guild, and on the way home I did some “greenhouse hopping”.  In the past while we owned the greenhouse, I did have gobs of these Tidal Wave Petunias in my own gardens…. Without the greenhouse and with a very limited garden budget, I have none of these this year, and the Petunias I have were purchased the last week of June and are no where near full bloom yet.

Deer by Deck

This little deer and other critters have been making things quite challenging to keep my plants growing and blooming. The deer and woodchucks seem to love the tender buds of various Lilies, Petunias, Phlox, and more. I even found that two of my large Hydrangea bushes have been trimmed by the unwelcome guests. The deer in the photo had been playing with one of our cats in the front yard, then wandered to the back and posed while I stood on the deck. A week after the deer’s visit, and additional sightings of this same critter, we gained a couple more fur-kids…. one who is helping with the unwanted critter populations.

Andrue and Dogs

The photo above shows our two new charges…. Nick and Megan’s dogs. They brought them up from GA on their way to Germany where Nick will be stationed for the next 4 years. They took their 2 cats with them, but wanted to be sure they would be able to find a home they could have the dogs at before having them sent over. Well…. It looks like we will have Roxie and Vladdi here until they get back to the states…. They found that renting a home for 2 dogs and 2 cats was not a possibility…. most homes only will allow one pet.   Vladdi is the big black Lab, and Roxie is the brindle who lived with us for 6 months, a couple years ago.  Roxie is pretty low key… the total opposite of Vladdi, who within 5 minutes of being let out of the car when they arrived here, had killed and rolled around over a skunk AND killed an Opossum that came wandering down the yard. He began his stay as a “skunk dog” who has now had three de-skunking baths and still has a lingering odor especially when wet.  He is helping out my gardens a  bit…. I let him out of the dog yard we now have off the greenhouse when a young woodchuck was teasing him from the garden…. the woodchuck didn’t last very long….

Roxie in new Bed

What was the wood box in the greenhouse is now a comfy dog bed. With just Roxie, we could let her stay in the house and outside when we were with her. Vladdi tends to be a runner, and to be sure we don’t lose a dog, the fenced in yard was made so they can come in and out of the greenhouse. The cats are a bit put out, though…. they “owned” the greenhouse…. Now they “own” the deck for the summer. We will have to figure out how to get everyone to get along in the greenhouse come winter.

Mound Garden Mulched

This photo shows the Back Yard Mound Garden after I got most of the weeding and mulching done… This garden has taken a real beating this year with all the heavy downpour rains that have washed gravel from our driveway all the way through the garden and into the woods shade garden. It is hard to see, but the Dark Purple Japanese Iris were in bloom when this photo was taken. I also had some white Impatiens planted between the ditch and lawn along with some lilac Petunias on the upper side of the ditch.

Pale Japanese Iris

Here is a photo of a pale Iris flower I found… The flowers are usually a very deep, dark purple.

Vladdi and Cuddles

This photo shows Vladdi with his favorite toy and a few others nearby. He loves to chase and catch the frisbee and chew on various pieces of lumber or dead branches from the old Lilac bush. If  you look closely, you can see Cuddles the cat “picking on” the dog…. He is in the gravel at the top of the Mound Garden. That end of the garden was not completely weeded yet the end of June.

Before the Storm

This photo was taken the same day as the earlier two…. A few showers started, and something bigger was looming on the horizon. You can see some water already running down the driveway….

Mound Garden Water 1

Here is the Mound Garden during the storm…. The water turned the garden into a raging river…. So much for the new hay mulch…. Most of it did stay, but a lot got covered with more gravel. The water ran right through the  middle of the dog yard.

Mound Garden Water 2

Even though the Japanese Iris do like water, they are not usually at the edge of a stream. Here you can see how much water was flowing through the Hostas and across the lawn…. This storm was the biggest one yet this year. Thankfully, the Impatiens and Petunias I planted were out of the major water flow.

Lawn Ditch

The storm shown in the previous photos was on June 28, This is what the area that was covered with water looked like after I filled in the ditch, mowed the lawn, and another storm came through on July 2nd. I started with larger stones in the ditch and filled over them with gravel dug out of the garden…. July 3rd, the gravel was gone, but the larger stones stayed… not all was lost!

Deck Planter 1

With all the rains causing trouble in the gardens, I was glad I had my deck planters. I have been blessed with an abundance of flowers that seeded themselves from last year. I did plant the Impatiens, Lobelia and Alyssum in this pot, but the Violet, Nicotiana, Pansies, Violas and even some Petunias came up on their own. The seedlings were so thick I removed many and put them into pots to use in the gardens and other planters.

Back Yard Gardens planted

July 5th I finished planting most of the Mound Garden. It doesn’t look like much yet, because by the time I could purchase annuals, they were a bit scraggly but half price so I gave them a trim and with a bit of patience, will have color again in the gardens.  Things were pretty much mainly green after the Peonies and Iris finished blooming. In the photo, you can see the buds on the Daylilies on the left nearly ready to pop.

Pink Lilies

These Pink Asiatic Lilies are pretty rare sights in the gardens this year. I used to have many, many varieties of these and Orientals, too. The mice or other critters must have eaten many of the bulbs as there is no trace of many of them this year. Of the few that did escape the critters, many of those became deer snacks…. the deer seem to think that the Lily buds are like candy. The biggest problem…. Once the buds are eaten, I have to wait until next year for flowers again…  The deer also like to munch on the Phlox buds too, but at least those will re-grow new shoots that will bloom a bit later than usual.

Pink Achillea

This will be the last photo for this post. This was taken on July 5th. The Achillea, or Yarrow, likes hot, dry weather. It has grown a bit taller than usual and has flopped due to the many rain showers we have has this year. This is growing in the Lilac Garden which has not been very colorful since the Lilacs finished their bloom months ago. In the week since this photo was taken, I finally finished planting all of the annual and vegetable plants I purchased late June. All but a few areas have been mulched with hay, and the Daylilies have been blooming. The Phlox are beginning to bloom a bit, too. To keep posts from being too big, I am dividing things up a bit. I have taken many many more photos throughout the gardens in the past week or so.

 

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Colorful Fabric Dyeing Results

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

This post will mainly show some of the fun, colorful fabrics that I dyed in the past week. I usually use paint because we have a well that is not very reliable in the warmer months. Right now, there is still snow on the ground, and with the melting going on, all the springs are running full tilt so I am playing while I can.

Windbreak Trees March 24, 2011

This is what had me in great need of some “Color Therapy”. This was what it looked like heading up the driveway last Thursday after another snowstorm on Wednesday. I started ripping fabric, scrunching it into containers, and squirting on colors while the snow fell. Thursday was the first wash-out day.

4 Yards in Dye Pan

The above photo shows one of the first batches soaking in soda ash.

Multi Color Yard 1

Here is one of the pieces from the first tub…. As you saw in the earlier photo, I just randomly squirted concentrated dyes onto the scrunched fabrics.  This is only one of 4 pieces from the first sweater sized tub. The next few pieces that I did were sample fat quarters to see what the colors I had would look like.

Cerulean Blue and Fuchsia

Fire Red and Cobalt Blue

Mixed Blues Quarter

The above piece is a mix of 3 different blues. Some of the blues ended up nearly the shade of the sky in the first photo.

Spring Green

1 Yard Brights 1

This and the next large pieces were done in the same tub. I used less colors and kept them clearer by not overlapping them much. For the green, I mixed yellow with a couple of the blues, then added it. The above photo was randomly scrunched, while the lower one was sort of fan-fold scrunched on the diagonal, then packed into the tub.

1 Yard Brights 2

Mediums Yard

The piece above was scrunched similarly to the previous one, but I diluted the dyes before adding them so the colors would be less intense.

2 yd Plus Mediums

This piece above is over 2 yards that was scrunched into the bottom of the sweater size tub. I used diluted dyes for this one, too so the colors are similar to the one before it. I was trying to get a lot of different “garden-like” areas to play with. I had to lay this on my bed to take the photo, so it is hard to see all the details.

2 yd Brights

This piece above is another bright one that I expected to come  out  much different… I guess that is one thing about fabric dyeing, you don’t know for sure what you will end up with until the fabric is completely rinsed and dried.

Fuchsia

Here is a piece done with Fuchsia, the way I scrunched it into a small square container allowed it to be deeper in some areas and much lighter in others.

Fire Red Quarters

Here are two pieces done with Fire Red. The lighter piece was scrunched and placed on top of the first piece so it got less dye on it.

Yard Spring Green

This piece is a color that I am hoping to see outdoors someday soon…. Some bright springy green would be a nice change from the white snow and brown mud…. At least I have been able to play with lots of pretty colors indoors while waiting for the gardens to bloom again.

Once I finish another big day of ironing, I will have more pretties to show. I have even dyed up some sad looking towels to give them new life as well as some white shirts and tops… A great way to update the wardrobe.

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Playing with Inktense Blocks Part 3

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

It’s been a while since my last post about my Inktnese play…. Today I finally finished a batch of ATC’s made from my test pieces. Before I show the finished cards, I will show how things went when I tried the blocks on a cotton sateen fabric.

Cotton Sateen Sample 1

Right from the start, I did not get the results that I had expected. Since the sateen has a smoother surface with a bit of a shimmer, I thought it would have less bleeding trouble…. Just the opposite as the photo above shows. As soon as I got a little water on the pencil or block marks, I ended up with color bleeding badly. The intensity of the color was also not as good as it was with the cotton muslin. Before I did too much more, I decided to try coating the fabric with thinned acrylic medium in the hopes that the coating would reduce the bleeding.

Cotton Sateen Sample 2

Amazingly, the coat of medium thinned with water to the consistency of cream, did not cause more of the color to bleed on the florets I had first colored. Once the first flowers dried, the color seemed to stay in place nicely. Once the fabric was dry again with the medium on it, I ironed it. Now when I added the Inktense pencil and Block colors, they both went on much more smoothly. When I then used the blender pen to wet the color, I had no bleeding and the colors were more intense than on the untreated fabric. Lesson learned….. The left and top two smaller florets in the above photo were done before I added the medium coating. The florets middle and right are the ones I did after the fabric was coated.

Comparison

I really liked the way  the Inktense Blocks and pencils reacted on the medium  coated fabric. This photo shows the first piece I did on the right, and the one on the sateen on the left. This was just before I wet down the background colors of the new piece. I wanted to do the two pieces nearly the same way to compare. As you can see, I ended up with the colors a bit different on each piece, but I learned a lot working with them.  On fabric, when using the Inktense blocks or pencils, coating the fabric with acrylic medium first lessened the tendency for color bleeding. On the sateen, the colors were also more intense on the pretreated fabric.

Delphiniums Stitched

Both of the sample pieces were destined to become Art Cards for an upcoming exchange. I fused the fabrics onto Peltex interfacing, then added some free motion stitching with a deep blue rayon thread. I also added a bit of texture and interest with white pearlescent paint and a touch of black in the centers of each floret that faces forward.

First Piece Cut

This photo shows the first piece cut into 6 art cards. I ended up adding the butterflies with the Inktense blocks with pearlescent paint over them to fill in the empty looking areas.

Sateen Piece Cut

Here is the second piece cut apart into 6 more cards. More butterflies added here, too.

Delphinium ATC's Group A

There is what the cards look like after I couched a blue variegated yarn on the edges using the deep blue thread. Group A above, Group B below…

Delphinium ATC's Group B

Now that I have these done, I will be doing some more playing with the Inktense blocks. I am seeing what I can do with just the blocks in my sketch book…. I am trying to use just the blocks with my blender pen. The corners of the blocks do well for fine lines, and then I can fill in with the ends. If I can get used to only 12 colors and how to blend the colors I want, it will be great to just keep my tin of blocks, blender pen and sketchbook by the couch for evening sketching or to travel with.

I will be moving on to playing with dye on fabric for a while… With our latest snow storm and more white on white or mud when the snow melts, I need some serious color around….

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Recycling Can be Beautiful!

Friday, March 4th, 2011

The ATC exchange group, “Arts in the Cards” had Reduce, Reuse, Recycle as our latest theme. With ATC’s being so small, they are a great way to use little bits of this and that to create unique art pieces.

ATC Base

For this group of cards, I began with a piece of fabric paper that I made at least a year ago. It consists of a faded  piece of fabric covered with pages from an old book, pictures from gardening catalogs, and tissue papers saved from gifts I had received. Much of the surface was covered with pearlescent medium and I had stamped some large butterflies with blue paint. I started by drawing lines for the edges of the cards so I knew how to lay things out for each card. If I had paid attention earlier, I would have noticed that the left 3 cards were drawn too small… I found that out when I was cutting the cards apart in one of the final steps…. Oops!!

ATC Base with stamp waste

The next step was to add the “waste” from a couple pages of postage stamps. These were from Hawaiian Rain Forest stamps that Ken came home with after I asked him to get me some “pretty” stamps…. flowers preferably….. The Hawaiian stamps were the prettiest the post office he went to had. After the stamps were used, there were a lot of pretty “stickers” left behind. I left many of the pieces as they were, and cut others apart. The above photo shows the paper fabric with the stamp waste applied.

Stamped Flowers and Some Butterflies Added

Once I had the stamp waste on, I tried to figure out where I was going to place some pink paper that I made from junk mail and waste paper from the printer, that I had textured by pressing heavy lace into the wet pulp.  (A little piece of the paper is in the above photo with colored in circles on it, next to the glitter.) The paper didn’t look right, so I pulled out my pearlescent medium and a flower stamp to add flowers with. The flowers were too pale, so I added fuschia colored glitter to the wet medium. The glittery flowers lost their definition, but added lots of color. I then stamped more flowers with white opaque paint, and even added white over the glittered flowers. I still wasn’t happy with the flowers, so I pulled out my Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils to add more color. I added yellow to the flower centers, and orange to the petals.

Recycle ATC's before cutting

Somehow while clearing my cutting table to work on or finding supplies, I found a piece of black sheer fabric with the glittery butterflies.  The fabric was already backed with Wonder Under, so I cut out the butterflies and added them. I didn’t have enough for each card, so I found a chunk of printed organza backed with Wonder Under with butterflies and flowers on it. I cut out butterflies for the cards that needed them and also some flowers and leaves to add to other cards that were lacking. The white organza didn’t show up very well, so I used more of the pencils to brighten them up. I added fuschia and orange to the butterflies, and made their bodies and antennae black. The photo above is what the cards looked like just before I cut them apart.

I added Wonder Under to the back of this piece, so I could fuse to card stock backs. When I cut the first 3 cards from the left end of the piece, I realized that I had not measured right for my first line and they were all nearly 1/4″ too short. No problem, I used trimmings from other cards to add to the short ones to make them the correct size (I thought I had all of the cards a bit oversized…. Not).

Finished Hawaii Dreamin' Cards

The cut pieces were fused to the card stock backs, and I colored the edges using a lavender stamp pad that I had never used…. One of those things I picked up from the craft store, thinking it would come in handy some day. In my excitement to get the finished  cards out in the mail to their new owners, I forgot to take photos of all of the cards in the batch…. Above is a photo of the card I am keeping for myself, and 3 extra cards. Thankfully I had a few extras or I would have only had one finished card to show.

It was fun playing with things that would have ended up in the trash or were just being ignored. I also like the images on the postage stamps and around them. Since things are so icy outside still, I could at least play with flowers indoors and dream of visiting Hawaii….  Soon, three of the above cards will be available as ACEO’s for sale in my ArtFire Studio…. I’ll add a link when they are listed…. I guess it’s time for sleep now….

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