The baby today....

I just happened to look up this afternoon while typing and there it stood with mama, right outside the window. Thankfully I keep my camera right next to the computer.


I had the window open so mama heard the camera click and decided it was time to go...At that point another deer came from the side yard and went with them. They got down by the fence and baby headed a different direction...


Mama quickly got things under control....

Keep up baby...

They all headed back down to the far edge of the field, which unfortunately we had mowed yesterday. There's still plenty of hiding places around, but they're all a little more nervous now that the grass is short.

Theme Thursday - Favorite Holiday

This week we're to use our favorite holiday as the theme for our art at Theme Thursday.

I had a hard time choosing a favorite holiday. I actually love Thanksgiving (that forgotten holiday between Halloween and Christmas), but I also love Halloween and Christmas. Now that we live in a remote area we no longer get trick-or-treaters, so I miss decorating the yard and house like we used to when we lived in town. I still put a few things up, but just for us.

For that reason (but not that reason alone lol) I chose Halloween as my art piece.

I made an ATC. The background paper is some fun stuff from K&Company, darkened on the edges with Vivid Butterscotch ink. The stick "people" were inspired by a favorite stamp artist (and maybe Tim Burton a little lol). All three were designed by me and cut out by hand. The numbers are from a set by Stampcraft, stamped onto orange paper, punched out with a round punch, and then edged in black chalk ink. The 'Boo' stamp is by Annette Allen Watkins (Printworks I think), and also stamped with chalk ink.

I had a lot of fun making this!

4x4 Friday - Orange and Yellow

Yellow is one of my favorite colors, and I have an appreciation for orange in nature (not in clothing), but I don't often use extremely bright colors in my artwork.

I used to have a really hard time simply because I've always been drawn to earthtones, both in my personal life and in my art, but after taking part in a magazine challenge several years ago and being forced to do something outside my comfort zone, I now find that I enjoy working with bright colors now and again. This challenge was fun.

My 4x4 is layered papers, distressed, colored and stamped.

Check out the challenge and the other artistic entries at 4x4 Friday.

Make a Moo or Two - Asian

The theme this week is Asian...


The first one is collaged and hand stamped using Encore silver ink. The second has dragonfly brads, is stamped, and has highlights added using Perfect Pearls, and a copper leafing pen. The third one is hand stamped with Encore silver ink.

Mixed Media Monday - Places

The theme this week is places...I'm a little behind on my challenges this week. I wasn't even sure I'd do any, but as the week progressed I found some time, and inspiration.

My piece is about dreams of Italy......I used a 5" x 7" canvas as the base, added various collage papers, antiquing, designed and cut out the hearts and metal wings (embossed the wings with a stylus - antiqued with alcohol inks), then laid beeswax over the canvas.

A surprise....

Our field mower came out this morning and a doe was watching him from the sidelines. At first we thought she was just curious as to what he was doing.....Turns out there was a reason....She has a baby!

He saw the fawn running and jumping around so kept an eye on it to make sure it stayed out of the way. Mama deer wasn't thrilled that baby was oblivious to the tractor. lol

I thought this picture turned out pretty good considering it was taken from quite far away.


And yesterday morning, much to his dismay, Peanut, one of our cats, got chased by a doe. She was feeling her oats, playing, kicking up her heels and chasing him around the yard....He ran for cover of the barn and didn't come out for quite some time. When he did he looked around at his surroundings quite throughly. I wish I could have gotten it on video. lol

TMTA - Tickets

The theme at TMTA this week is tickets.

I technically went outside the official lines of an ATC with the flower on the left. Still, it needed to be added for me to feel that the piece was finished, so I said 'what the heck'.

This was outside our window on Sunday morning.....

Hubby looked out and there she stood. Something had scared her, as she was breathing quite heavily and stood very still for several minutes before relaxing and grazing down by the driveway.

We like seeing the deer, but I have to say that we're getting fed up with their selective grazing habits. As long as the grass was tall they seemed happy enough to eat that (mostly), with an occasional snack of strawberry plants (now covered to be protected from them and the bluejays). Now they're starting on the blueberry bushes. I guess we'll cover those next.

Deer are magnificent looking animals, but they can be very destructive for someone trying to maintain a garden. Thankfully they ignore most of what we have around the property.

Last night the two does were in the yard while I was working. I had to physically chase them away. This morning I caught something out of the corner of my eye and saw a flash of deer jumping through the back yard. I went to look and they were gone. A bit later I heard a thundering sound as they raced through the front yard, obviously playing and chasing and having a wonderful time. lol

There's a lot of wildlife (or evidence of it) at this time of year. I found this feather in the grass while mowing yesterday afternoon. The colors are fantastic and it's so soft. It's only 3" long. I suspect it's a pheasant feather. We have a regular male pheasant who wanders between our house and the neighbors. Every fall a male comes through with several females. Of course we feed them (as does our neighbor) so they stick around. Last spring there were even babies running around. The females usually disappear during the summer months, but the male sticks around, and even if we can't see him we usually hear him.

And another bargain find for me. Isn't this a great plate? Though I had absolutely no idea what I was going to use it for, it was so bright and fun that I had to have it. Some things are just like that.

Yesterday I had my lunch on it. Now I wish I had more of them. Sigh.....

Small World of Inchies - Celebrate

Since I'm making some birthday cards for an order, I'm in a b-day frame of mind. Fits in perfectly with the theme.

Some days are best forgotten....

Saturday was such a day for us.

It was our anniversary. Not that that should be forgotten, and wasn't, but what happened needs to be swept under the rug forever.

We were headed down to the coast for the day, and about 1 1 /2 hours from home the car engine froze up. We were stuck out in the middle of nowhere for 2 hours waiting for a tow truck. We weren't even close enough to a park or a restaurant or anything else. So we waited by the side of the road, and waited, and waited.....watching the traffic zoom past us.....The entire fiasco (from the time we broke down and got back home) took a solid five hours. Not a day we want to remember.

The engine is gone, and it's not worth fixing. The Nissan is ten years old and has worked really hard for us. It's time to let it go.

Isn't it funny how we become attached to objects like vehicles? Our very first brand new car was very painful to let go off. Part of that was due to the fact that it was a first brand new car for either of us. We had both driven junkers throughout our entire teenage and young adult lives. A brand new car was a big deal back then. When I was rear ended while sitting at a red light (by a pick-up going 60 mph) I wasn't concerned about myself (I wasn't hurt btw), but was devastated by the loss of our car. We hadn't had it for more than a few years.

I'll miss my Nissan. It was a good little car and served us well.

At the beginning of our trip out, it was fitting that we stopped at a nearby country church for a few minutes. We were married in a tiny church much like this one. While dh adjusted the bike rack, I took pictures of the church (these photos have been manipulated).

It has always reminded me of the church we were married in, though that particular church has been built on to the extent that it no longer looks the same. Even though they kept the original part in tact (which dates to the 1800's), and they did a good job of fitting the construction on, it still isn't quite the same.




And, we decided that we'll postpone and celebrate our anniversary next weekend. We'll start fresh, and hopefully have a better day. lol

InchybyInch - Black and White

I was honored when asked to be a guest designer at InchybyInch this week. I chose the theme of black and white, never realizing what a pain in the neck it was going to be to photograph those colors! I tried every conceivable background and finally went back to the black one because it made the white parts stand out best.

Anyway, here are my designs for the theme. The first one has brads holding the punched flowers in place, the butterfly is stamped with white chalk ink. A 1" white inchie is the base (water color paper), with a smaller black square over top. The white edge is antiqued with black chalk ink, and being watercolor paper the ink spreads inward on its own.

The last one I'm most proud of. It was actually hubby's idea to add a door, I just ran with it. The outside is stamped with images from Studio G, the inside image is a raised epoxy sticker. It fit perfectly!