Swearing Helps

 Ha, maybe its even true eh? I have spent some time thinking the last couple of days that when you lose your mama you lose your biggest fan. I knew my mom read this blog and She was also the person who always excitedly asked if I watercolored something ( even years ago before I owned a paint brush) so, I had the encouragement as I have been learning that also. It just struck me hard when I had seen the home page of her cell and she somehow ( I don't even have this) has a short cut to this blog on her home screen.

It was just a "wow" moment for me. So, yesterday I had some free time when I would normally be painting the next weeks sample or watching the video anyways and I started cleaning off my desk and I came across this Penny Black How's Tricks? dog on the other side and so, I stamped him on some Artist loft watercolor paper with Acorn ink and added a layer of Daniel Smith paints to him.

 

The humor of this dog being a scaredy cat just makes me smile. I have a lot of second hand stamps I picked up over the last couple of years that have not seen ink (by me) yet and or that I bought knowing they would tickle my mom's funny bone. I know I have a sentiment that reads "don't be a scaredy cat" but, I didn't see it when I was thinking of what to do with this. and that lead me to go see if anyone had ever posted a card with him in Splitcoaststampers. ( and if they did, they didn't use the name of the stamp on the upload as it didn't find anything for me to see with this particular pup) but, I did see the sample makers for the Featured Stamper challenge had started loading to the gallery so, I pivoted and went and looked at Cyndi Evan's Gallery and kept coming back to this Emerson Chick ( which I own I think I probably even have that die) but, I knew I could work to tweak the idea of this with this dog. So, I did. 

I did add more paints to the pup, and a little tiny bit of black fineliner pen to the pupils and the nose lines of him when the paints were dry. Cyndi's gallery has a lot of fancy backgrounds for her cards and I just thought, well if you cut a hole and counter sink the image behind some printed background paper it would give you another change. I kept the humor and the clean and simple style, but I changed the stamps and made my card square. This brick print is from the BoBunny Once upon a lifetime collection pad and the Sentiment here I used my Misti to do it twice and get it so bold. is from The Casual Fridays This Sucks set. This card is 5 1/2" square in real life, I did use some DOX vintage photo ink along each the cut edges of the printed paper. And that's about it for my Saturday evening, I hope you all are doing well & thanks for stopping by.

Treasure Hunting

 There is a craft Artisan event in a neighboring town from where I live this weekend and I decided to go to  work late so I could drive out and see it this morning. ( if you're local its at the Merrill civic center) called "Christmas in the Country" and some of the booths in it are the same artists who had some of my favorite booths at Shepherd's market way back when... 

 I have been actively searching for a small metal table for the porch to put between the rocking chairs and I found this one and those 2 old beater/whisks in the simpler times booth. It's not old but, it is sturdy and has good weight to it. The small green pitcher and the gnomes, and the Joy ornament were from the ladies who are a mom & daughter team with lots of has been painted on things, my mind just went blank ( I am so bad with names I do better with faces) The taller green rusty pitcher came out of the booth where they were sewing the pot holders and the Honey was locally sourced by a lady whose husband is a third generation bee keeper. I did see quite a few things that IF I had a huge house they would have followed me home also but, I felt really cool about the things I did find. Izzy approves also :) Hope you all are having a fantastic Friday also. Thanks for stopping by.

Watercoloring with Pencils

 A while back I came across this video on YouTube  from HulloAlice that shares some tips on using watercolor pencils. now be advised that she starts off with all the things you should not do with watercolor pencils. And considering I had never watched a pencil video and I have done All those things that should not be done multiple times I decided this would be an interesting thing to do for the weekly throw down. You can click on these photos to enlarge them and then just use your browsers back button to keep reading.

I have in the past tried Prisma watercolor pencils, Derwent Inktense pencils and some other kind that must have been a more affordable option. ( not sure now) but, I had these Faber Castell ones on my wish list at Amazon and my son bought them for me as a gift maybe for mothers day or my birthday ( a long time ago now) and the results I had gotten with the other brands I was skeptical if they would be any better. So, today was the day that box got opened.

So I grabbed this image that had not stamped well on some Neenah to just try what I seen in the video. 

I was not all that impressed with these on this paper so, I decided to be fair I should try something on good paper. 

Found a scrap of Arches cold press 100% cotton paper and this stamp was on the wall by the table so, it had some open spaces and I decided it would work for learning. These brush tips were colored with the Faber castell pencils 

 This pink tip on the left was done with this pencil. Studio 71

The bigger pink brush in the center here was done with the derwent pencil. and Its a close second to the faber castell. as far as I can tell, not quite as smooth to use but, not horrible. 

That pink on the far left was done with this Prisma watercolor pencil. and this is just not something I enjoyed. it caught on the texture of the paper and just does not have that smooth melting that the faber castell and derwent do. Maybe its me.

Added a little more color to this with the faber castell pencils. I am thinking that if you were going to invest in pencils and you do not already have any I'd personally save my money and go for the faber castell and not waste the funds on the pencils that are more affordable because, dust catcher pencils that you don't use will not bring joy is just my take on it. 

 

So, that all that being said I decided that I wanted to do something perhaps a little sketchy looking to try painting with these pencils. And this Stampendous sketched Horse was the first "sketch-y" style stamp I thought of.  I used some Acorn Versafine ink thinking I was going to make it a little cinnamon colored in honor of my first horse I ever had but, these pencils I have not even done an cheat sheet yet and they turned out to be a little more yellow-ish rather then red-ish. So, this is a first layer of pencils on Arches cold press.

When the first layers dried I they seemed so pale so, I did add another layer and then a third to this. The eye on the left is bugging me I keep thinking there is too much white on it, and I am considering adding a lot more black to it.

The watercolor panel was cut with a Spellbinders 6" mat die and so was the Crafters woodgrain print. The bazzill is 6" square in real life. The sentiment here is from the Stampin Up set called Birthday Whimsy just because, I am way low on Birthday cards here.

The challenge this week is to paint what ever you would like and if you have pencils dust them off an use them. If you don't have pencils same thing, you may still paint what ever you like. If you'd like to play along with us you can find this challenge here. Thanks for stopping by.

Virtual Stamp {Night} in progress

 

So, I seen late friday night there was an VSN underway at Splitcoaststampers. And this is what I walked up the stairs to find late Saturday AM when we got home... So, after a few hours of creative stacking, shuffling and a little bit of putting things away... I did manage to do 4 of the challenges so far.

the theme this go around is "famous last words" and the challenge here was thrown down by Rebekah and the saying was put a rose on your nose. Which I have never heard or read ever. but, the gist was to put a rose or a nose on the project. So, after some thought I grabbed this Crafters companion venetian lace folder and ran it through the big shot with some Strathmore 400 series watercolor paper. added a bit of Daniel smith paints from the pallette to it. found this already stamped and diecut sentiment in the drawer. popped that up on foam dots and decided it was a little too brown for the background and dug out these pioneer photocorners in a kraft color to add a smidge more brown to it. The base is an unknown color of pink and its A7 in real life. The thing with VSN challenges is you have an hour to assemble them. the thinking time can be as long as you want. And I tend to make better cards if I think about them a bit.

the second challenge I did was from Lisa called "we're in the same boat" 

The evernote file told me I had this sentiment on the Besties set from Essentials by Ellen and I grabbed it but, when I opened the drawer I thought would have vehicles ( and ships) stamps in it, I found critters and started to laugh seeing this Pooh bear floating along from Unity Stamps Rainbow searching set. I stamped these on one of the drop pieces from that same sheet of Strathmore watercolors. Added a bit of DS paints and cut that panel with a Honey Bee stamps deckle edge sq die. The chevron pattern printed paper is from My Minds Eye and the pale grey base is unknown. This one is 6" square in real life. 

and then life interfered and I worked on other things for hours and stole a little more time later in the evening to do two more. 

Melody has a challenge called "I've told you a million times not to exaggerate!" And the idea was to have lots of numbers on your project, so I pulled out this old Emerson image called "I'm 22" from American Art stamps thinking I had one of those old cuttlebug folders that is covered with random numbers but, I actually don't own that folder and then I came across this old Tim Holtz bingo card folder and pressed a piece of Basic Grey print the color looked pretty close/coordinated with how I colored her dress to my eye. ( with the words upside down of course) and it cracked but, that did not bother me much so, I just inked the cracks with some Vintage photo DOX inks and mounted the whole thing to a pre-made A2 Pool card base. 

The last one I finished was for Lisa's "let sleeping dogs lie" challenge and I knew I have hundreds of dog stamps, not an issue but, the sentiment stumped me. I ended up picking this dog from the Penny Black Doggone sweet set, stamping him with Versafine acorn ink towards the top on a skinny scrap of Arches watercolor cold press paper and using some DS paints on him. This was trimmed down with the center die of the creative expressions stitched weave die, so the watercolor paper and the printed stripe paper were all done with 3 different dies from that set. ( which is a pain to line up I think) and then the sentiment, oh, seems to me this bugged me last time also. I stamped off one line of this from the Taylored Expressions Simple strip woof set and then decided against using their matching die on it, instead grabbing a banner from Lawn fawn and although it was tapped down, it did travel and get crooked in the big shot. Such is life. the edges of all the light colored panels got a bit of Vintage photo on them and the base on this one is 4" x 6" so a skinny A6 style. I hardly ever make open on the side landscape styled cards so, that was something interesting. And that's where I am at so far. There are 8 more challenges on the list and one of them I may be able to wiggle into working with today's featured stamper. ( I hope ) but, no guarantees. Hope your having a good weekend also, thanks for stopping by.

A Cottage Tag Making Factory {ha ha}

 

What my desk looked like a couple of hours ago. Yep, I was done wrapping a week ago but, the mood to make tags is happening now so, a stash is being built for next year. I have taken some Tim Holtz and Recollections printed diecut Christmas images out of their packages and tossed them in an old bread tin to try and use some of them up. Along with randomly cutting up mainly red & white scraps with various dies. 

One of the finished ones so far, the base is a Poppy Stamps Mainstreet pinpoint tag, the tree is from Sizzix, the birdhouse is from Quickutz, the Sentiment is from the Ton Blizzard Hugs set, the Red diecut letter S is from the Memory Box Twiggy Alphabet set, The crepe paper is a scrap that was just torn for the bottom to ground the scene. 

 One of the VSN fashionista challenges was to use white pigment ink on kraft paper, and I really don't have good luck with white pigment ink. not sure if its the climate, as I have bought many different brands over the years so, this really old Stampin Up Christmas stocking was heat embossed with white on the kraft and cut out with scissors. The sentiment here is from the Simon Says Stamp Joy for you set, the Letter B was cut from some shimmery opal stardream with a Ellen Hutson classic block letter B. The base tag on this one is using the Frantic Stamper jumbo Merry Christmas tag die. 

 Another of the VSN challenges was to do an Ugly Sweater project, and I really don't have or wear them so, it was a lucky thing to find this printed sweater in that bin of printed die cuts from Recollections. It did start out with a white halo around the image and I trimmed it down with scissors. The base tag is an Sizzix "Shortie" tag that was run through the big shot inside an Anna Griffin slimline snowflake embossing folder. The sentiment I want to say is Hero Arts but, I have not come across it again yet. ( I randomly stamp and diecut sentiments through out the year so, its one of those) 

During the Fallidays challenges there was an Swan Lake challenge so, I had stamped off this Inkadinkado Nutcracker on some Neenah solar white and barely colored him with some Daniel Smith watercolors. the Gold texture was a scrap, that evidently was embossed with an Tim Holtz Damask? folder a long time ago. the base tag here is also an Frantic Stamper jumbo Merry Christmas tag. 

Izzy says Hello and she is ready for Santa to come, so I hope you are all continuing to do well and Have a beautiful Christmas, Thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW # 635 {Chicks & Ducks}

 

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

There is also a new Instagram hashtag of #WOYWW

 

 So, this was an idea (under construction paint is wet here) for what will be a two-fer sample one DTGD and one IC challenge for this coming Friday I think. Used a MFT stencil for the water with watercolors and it did seep under the design in the center a little so, after this was dry and shot I did add some more paint to it, and some white gouache where there should have been highlights from the stencil. ( have not looked at it yet this morning to see if that worked) 

It's an unusual time of the year for the feed store to have chicks. Usually its a spring or fall thing, but we went in for dog food over the weekend and also came home with 6 Rhode Island Reds.

(Izzy is only 2 and has not seen this happen before, last time we got chicks she was too small to see over the side of the bin they stay in while tiny.

little fluffs of cuteness for your Wednesday. I am driving for Ice today so, may be a few days before I look at anything. I am mostly puttering around working on samples for Dare to Get Dirty. ( this is a thank you event week of challenges hosted by current and alumni Dirty girls from Splitcoaststampers as a perk for members of the fan club.) That's about if from me, stay safe out there & thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW # 621 {again}

 

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

There is also a new Instagram hashtag of #WOYWW

 

So, the window is not in yet. and I have been cleaning and putting things away and had the bright idea to drag that big rolling cart that is usually at this end of the folding table I stamp on to over by the window to see if it will fit next to the baby dresser that holds some stamps and dies that I use as a flat spot to shoot photos of finished things and since its on wheels it will not be a big deal to drag it back out of the way for them to work on the window. And Izzy is supervising. one thing is different from this view. What feels like a million years ago, we received a book shelf from hubs grandma's estate and I had it turned around backwards under this side of the table where those suitcases are stacked and it held just the two top cases which contain finished cards as those are two of the cases that go to the schools craft bazaar in the fall. And I had hubs take it out of the space and put it into the someday we will really have a yard sale pile in the barn and that gave me the space to stack a bunch of the other suit cases that were under the window next to the dresser for a long time that got drug down to below the other window when I moved  that altered bakers rack to sit next to the dresser in the window last year some time, well. that is not working because, moving things around I seen that even with the curtains closed on that side, some of the plastic iris project case boxes are turning yellow tinted and so, that had me re-arranging this space off and on. the rack is now where the sofa table I sit to color on was, that table moved to behind this love seat. and the table that matches the coffee table has been drug around the corner to the back side of the wall of the stair case. the good news about that is, it gives me more counter space with a plug in on the wall so, the intention is to get the things that plug in out of the closet and be able to be used on that table there. ( I will take more photos when the window goes in and I get it more the way I think it will work when the dust has been cleaned up)
 

 So, sometime last Wednesday after that post, I started watching the video for the watercolor challenge and it ( can be found here) and decided to give that a whirl. the one on the left was the first one and doing it landscaped view I felt like I did not have enough room for the sky and water so, I tried it again in a portrait view and I was really tickled to see there was a rigger brush in that set of brushes I had gotten in the mail a few weeks ago. I had better luck with the grass using that skinny little brush than a round one. DS has arrived and we are enjoying this time together a great deal. That's about it from me,  Thanks for stopping by & I hope you are all doing well and stay safe out there :)

WOYWW # 618 { a litle bit of this and that}

 

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

There is also a new Instagram hashtag of #WOYWW

 

So Monday's happy mail was this little roll of self adhesive dots from Amazon that I am applying ink to 

and sticking on the ends of the ink pads like so, ( see below) some are very misleading from the stickers on the top of the pad to reality. for instance the Ranger Adirondack Mushroom index sticker is kind of a grey toned brown on top, the reality has a lot of pink in the ink to my eye. I don't remember where I seen the dots being used but, it could very well be Jennifer McGuire's blog.

 

So, that little pile of DOX on the table when I got home Tuesday was all that was left to do here. and then the pads that had no labels on them written or stickers now have stickers also. My regular Distress pads are all on top of the file cabinet and I think are the only ones left to do unless I do the little tiny 1 square pads and cats eyes. ( not sure about that yet but, I have a few of them now that seem to come in card making stamping kits from either Hero Arts or Simon Says Stamp and I really do not play with them much so, I probably should at least open them up and get a color idea of them. I did find some big pads that were just ruined. ( one Avery Elle mermaid pigment pad the pad had turned into something that resembled a wet mushy marshmallow) tossed it in the trash. not sure I will replace it as some of the DOX are close enough color wise I think. and I really like the DOX best for just messing around with colors. a few of the old SU dye pads the pads are not disintegrating but, they are changing color in a strange way compared to the others. one looks like it has the measles with spots of colors across the pad and the other looks like shoot I forgot. The funny part is the ink colors still look OK. 

Miss Izzy is turning 2 years old today. we spend part of every day walking in the pasture behind the barn now that we no longer have sheep. Drought conditions have already been declared for the county I live in this year ( the only county in this state) and there have already been fires. So, not having to worry about how we will be able to grow grass to feed sheep is a relief. ( hay cost dearly during extended droughts) so, we had fed all we had on hand last year up until the time we sold the herd. 

"Snow" crocus has started peeking up in the flower beds along with Daffodils and lily of the Valley bulbs. but, the gophers ate the tulips again. *sigh* someday hubs is going to make me some metal cage bulb holder things so I can try tulips again.I tend to forget about asking him in the fall when I should be planting bulbs. who knows, maybe this year :) 

Oh, I did play with those new watercolors and there are finished cards in the two posts between this one and last weeks WOYWW that show them. SO far so good, have not played with the brushes yet, one of them rattles where the metal band is near the bristles when you pick up the brush and it distracts me. have not looked at it closely enough to see if maybe crimping it with a pliers or something would stop that.

That's about it from me. I will get my second shot friday afternoon and am looking forward to having it behind me. but, our news has been saying this particular shot ( Moderna) is only good for 6 months. So, it sounds more like it will be something that needs a booster like a flu shot every so often. Stay safe out there and thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Penguin Random House}

 This week the Inspiration Challenge is taking a look at the Penguin Random House publishers pinterest boards. and I seen so much book cover art to be inspired by, but I tend to do my sample late in the afternoon early evenings on Fridays and yesterday evening our 13+ year old "fox red" English Lab Grace had gone over the rainbow bridge after a long battle with cancer. 

So, that changed what I wanted to do and in the books about Animals board I stumbled across this one and the title grabbed me by the throat and I water colored this simple one below jump started by that.

This is Stella Puppy from the picket fence studios line, she was stamped with some Versafine Clair Acorn ink on Strathmore 400 series watercolor paper. the watercolors on this one are Daniel smith and the sentiment is in that same stamp set. I did cut this with a Waffle flower A7 rectangle die and mounted it flat to some speckled cream cardstock and it finished out at 5X7 in real life. We are of course heart broken and yet, relieved she is no longer in pain at the same time. If you'd like to play along with this challenge you can find the details here at Splitcoaststampers.  Thanks for stopping by.

Inspired by {Monika Winden homemates Pinterest boards}

 

This week I am hosting the Inspiration Challenge and I sent everyone to Monika Winden's homemates pinterest boards. And I came across this one as one she had saved. I just love the colors and textures of the space. would I live there. no, but it was interesting in a thing to me to catch my eye because, I really used to tend to skip over the yellow and orange tones. And a few years ago someone said to me, she see's the orange colors best so that was her reason why it was her favorite. and I think I started looking at a wider range of colors after that but, not really moving out of my comfort zone of greens and browns and pale colors very often. So, when I seen that space. I thought of this stamp because there are so many patterns layered right next to each other and So, I started coloring this Colorado Craft Co. Anita Jeram's puppy hugs image with some Polychromos & Prisma pencils. there is a tine bit of Stardust Jelly roll pen and some white gel pen bumps on those flower centers on the bottom pattern. The Bricks printed paper is from crate paper and the yellow is some really thin paper from Joanns. The base is Bazzill and this one finished out at A7 so far. There is not a sentiment on it because, I am not sure what I want to do with it yet. You can find this challenge here at SCS to play along with us. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you are all continuing to stay safe out there.

WOYWW #608 {tinkering}

 

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

There is also a new Instagram hashtag of #WOYWW

 

what it looks like on Wed AM. ( I have had zero time to finish these, the dog card just needs an envelope and the stuff put away, the snowman card needs more nuvo clear glaze on his right eye. ( it countersunk into the space where I embedded the black cardstock when dry) not all the way but, its not as tall as the left eye so, I was going to add some more to it.
 

This is before the eye has been added to. the snowman is a really old red original sizzix die and the background is a Tim Holtz engraved folder that has some espresso and speckled egg DOX inks on the watercolor paper. This was done jump started by the January Dirty Dozen Christmas card prompt found here.

now this was done jump started by this cool card in Deb Felts gallery as she is featured stamper this week, I loved the framing on hers. but, you have to make changes and I loved the background paper I picked so, I made a corner instead of a frame. There is speckled egg DOX on the edges of the papers that were distressed on this. I though it was a fun change from browns. (which I like brown but, this was fun, and it is harder to see ) Anyways, I did turn one of those backgrounds I showed you last week into a card and its in this catch up post along with some other things made this month that just never got blogged. I was able to get the first does of a Shingles Vaccination last week and that was a really uncomfortable one for me for about 24 hours and so, it was such a relief after the 36 hours had passed and I started to feel more normal again. my husband warned me it really bothered him and I rolled my eyes so, he is enjoying his told ya so moment. Hope you all are continuing to do well. Thanks for stopping by.

WOYWW # 600 {dogs}

 

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

There is also a new Instagram hashtag of #WOYWW

 

 Nope, the girls do not fit on my desk however, this was a photo I grabbed recently with my phone because, you may not know this but, this is an extremely rare thing to see Izzy decide to lay down with Grace. And this is what I found when I went looking to see what kind of troubles may have found her as at a year and a half-ish the temptations are plenty yes? :) 

 

I have been very industrious and making Christmas cards the last few weeks but, I have also been cleaning up along behind myself as I go. the piles tend to annoy me and really right this minute after work there is nothing on my desk. The gift card I won during the Coffee Lovers hop was spent and that order is on its way expecting to arrive here on Saturday. So, I could possibly have something to flash then, if not next week.  I keep having people ask for if they can poke around in my Christmas cards stash and buy some, so I have been now just as of today I think sold the last batch and now I can start on my own list. ( I do this to my self every year) and every year I think I will have this fabulous big stash for me to pick through when its time to do envelopes. ( and truly I do have some left, not sure how many as the suitcase of what is left is at work while I type this) but, I think there could just be a small part of me that enjoys the creating on the fly at the last minute. who knows. I do actually participate in yearly card quota type challenges to get some done, but I very rarely use those cards my self. Strange I know :) and I think I will do a big post where I just dump the photos all in one behind this if you are curious about what I have been up to. 

 

Congratulations again Julia, 600 weeks is such a fabulous accomplishment. And thanks to each of you who stop by and chat, It is such a warm and fuzzy thing to be a part of this community of bloggers. I hope you all have been continuing to be in good health and recovering quickly from things that have happened. I will be driving all day for work tomorrow. So I will be peeking in at odd times maybe friday and I am not sure the Zoom if I will have "enough" wi-fi for it to work on Saturday. and I am totally stumped about how to set up the phone and make a name tag ( where to put it). but, If I do not make it, know I am thinking of you all and will raise my coffee cup. :) Thanks for stopping by.

A few thoughts

 So, I know its been forever since I posted. We have a Verizon hotspot for internet at home and for what I did with it here it was "ok" but, I was also told that all the other services did not connect to my house so, it was also pretty much the only thing I could have here. The cable co.'s line stop a block away. The provider that has a fiber line at my office in the city their lines are about 2 miles away. and would cost about 12K to run the line from there to my house.

And then the Satellite TV co. said, oh we partner with the phone co. and you could have high speed internet and it just plugs into your TV and you can stream what ever etc. So, I set up an appointment for that. Turns out, it does not plug into the TV it needs a phone line and the phone lines are buried underground on the other side of the street, and they would have to partner with a construction co. to core drill under the street to run a line over here and then install a phone line into the house to hook up said internet. and the installation was just shy of 2K... so, that has been canceled and we are on a waiting list to have a fiber line installed. (which is still 2K) but, I think if you are going to pay 4 figures for internet you may as well get the best one available.  ( this is from a different company that what we have had for years at work but, the speeds are comparable) but, this co. is already in a line outside my house as we live across the street from a school and they have that same Fiber line.

 we had switched to I-phones in August, the phones and the hotspot all share the "unlimited data" but, the phones use up all the 4g within the first week of the month and I have a hard time opening any site with photographs and or trying to up load photos from here has become pull your hair out make you  crazy feeling. I also have no bars sitting in my kitchen with my phone so people who text me photos, I see them the next time I am at work. ( it will not load the photos in the phones text messages at home) 

 It is currently upland game bird season and these are Izzy's birds from the opening weekend and Grace decided to come check them out after hubs brought her home. We had a bit of rain a couple of weeks ago and it knocked the smoke down to the ground so, on the nicer days we have blue skies here again. (what a relief) That's about it from me, thanks for stopping by.

 

 

 

WOYWW # 588 {piles & pets}

 

Happy desk peeking day, if you'd like to see more spaces or play along 

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

There is also a new Instagram hashtag of #WOYWW

 

Izzy at work today, ready to go home...

My actual desk on Wed night, this is left over piles from maybe Monday night? the pile of flower stamps are ones that my son's girlfriend is interested in coloring some time so, they are piled up to be stamped for that purpose. The other piles are the left overs from the first card she made, I should have made her grin holding it for a mug shot ha ha.Ooh I have a new phone, the camera is so much cleaner than my old phone. I am really enjoying this but, have not taken that many shots as of yet.

 

 
Gracie Lou who and J in the backyard this afternoon.

 

 playing with both of them. And so, hugs are being enjoyed even though he will have over a month of self quarantines after the fact. 

WOYWW # 584 {random thoughts}

 Happy desk peeking day,

if you'd like to see more spaces or play along with us

the link up for this blog hop starts here at our hostess

Miss Julia's Blog.

 There is also a new Instagram hashtag of #WOYWW

 

My Actual desk on Wed am. I am one of those people who plays with the scraps when I am putting things away and the other day I had made a sample for the Inspiration challenge which I am hosting that goes live this week and I had wanted a second generation deer on the project so, this deer is the first generation of ink and I seen these Waffle flower dome dies and thought this could be a little scene if you play with them and fun thing I found was the bases that come in this set cut the woodgrain pattern into that piece. ( fun stuff, this is very preliminary and will get inked and such as I go along I am sure) the paper glaze and Impression Obsession sentiments are new ones that are waiting a turn to be played with too.

It's been so hot all summer long we actually had a thunder shower with lightning that hit the power converter box on the pole between my house and my neighbors house. it knocked the power out last Thursday for a little while ( it really only took the power co. 2 hours to get that box switched out and restored) very nice. so, the drive way looked like a little stream and there was fairly good sized hail with the show too.

personally I like to sit on the porch when it rains in the summer ( and its coming straight down not in sideways right) I love how it smells when it is so hot and then all the sudden it rains. but, Izzy was less than impressed. She really wanted back in the house but, she also wanted me to go inside with her. 

Part of our drive way, The streets where we work were completely flooded for a couple of days after and then when it was all over they said we got a 1/2" of rain. the drainage systems here are not set up to handle the water loads like they see on the East Coast of the U.S. where they talk about getting their rain in inches and feet. 

that mountain in the background, it disappears from the view on days the valley fills with smoke, so the rain was nice, it really knocked a lot of that down.

 Just something fun, I have been finding clumps of frogs in the green house this last week or so, this year has been less frogs than previous years it seems so, its always fun to find them. ( most of them hopped off when I sprayed this tomato with the water hose. That's about it from me, I hope you are all doing well and thanks for stopping by.