Holland in Haymarket

on Easter Day…

we enjoyed some glorious spring blooms at a farm not too far from us  (I have taken you there before to see the sunflowers)…

it was fun pretending we were in Holland instead of Virginia for awhile…

enjoying the riot of colors with our Traveling Tea Cup in tow with more than a million tulips and daffodils…

I have always been drawn to wooden shoes and Burnside Farms had a very fine array from teeny tiny to small boat size… 

I think I am part tulip because the almost 90 degree day (32.2 Celsius) felt way too warm for me… 

turns out the heat is not ideal for spring blooms like tulips either…

we brought home some of my favorite Muscari bulbs to plant in our garden and a jar of raw local honey to help balance the effects of the heavy pollen that is everywhere…

the price for so many blooms popping just now (happily on Monday we got some much needed rain)…

I am joining everyone over at Elizabeth’s Altered Book Lover to wish you a Happy T Day…

I’ll be taking a blog break and will see you again in May…

Spring changes…

April is turning out to be a month of big changes for me and the month is still young…

a week or so ago I had my hair cut and donated fifteen inches to a good cause (I have donated hair in the past but this time around I learned how much it costs to make a human hair wig confirming that monetary donations are very much needed as well)…

for the first time in my life I have braces and what an adventure that is going to be for the next year or so…

late last year we had some work done to reduce the size of part of our herbaceous border getting rid of wild blackberry and honeysuckle vines to name just a few marauders (I Love them in a wild setting but it wasn’t good that they were choking out so many other plants)…

now we are watching to see what survived the clean out before we do any new planting…

I had fun recently altering vintage spools of silk thread that my always generous friend Carmen shared with our mixed media group using a bit of shredded map, wire, moss, rose ribbon trim and a shiny egg or two for the little chick to sit on and the little boy is from the top of a small valentine candy box that I altered years ago (I created the frame using distressed copper mesh and brads)…

the blue Muscari/Grape Hyacinths are definitely a favorite spring flower of mine ♥ they seem to pop up everywhere…

I am tagging along with everyone over at Elizabeth’s Altered Book Lover to celebrate T Stands for Tuesday and

wish you a happy day…

the Virginia Bluebell … Mertensia virginica

it is that time of year again when the forest floor of Bull Run Regional Park transforms into a blanket of blooms…

our first visit this year was perhaps a week ahead of peak bloom and VERY muddy (we always come prepared with a change of shoes… a little slipping and sliding is so worth it)…

I get excited each year and look forward to walking in the woods with our traveling tea cup along the looped Bluebell Trail…

I will leave you with a just a few photo collages and if you’d like to see more you can click here for past and much more colorful visits…

we plan to return for an early morning walk when more blooms are open and the light is softer…

joining everyone at Bleubeard and Elizabeth’s to wish you a Happy T Day…

 

Travel …

another two page spread inspired by Yvonne’s OUT AND ABOUT theme for Art Journal Journey this month…

just in time as March 2017 is just about history … whoooosh … traveling has always been one of my favorite things…

 

here is a photo of rubber stamps I stamped onto white tissue paper to add to my pages (if you’re interested in the name of a particular stamp please ask…I am always happy to share details)…

a few rubons and some pencil scribbles and I thought I was finished but when looking at my photo on the computer screen I felt it needed something above the newspaper word TRAVEL so I added a postage stamp…

I intentionally left other spaces on my pages representing openings for adventures to come…

“Travel is more than the seeing of sights; it is a change that goes on, deep and permanent, in the ideas of living.” – Miriam Beard

Little Free Library…

in browsing the website of the Fife and Drum Inn that we selected for our 5 day stay in Colonial Williamsburg recently…

I interpreted the photo above  (courtesy of the Fife and Drum) to mean that there would be a Little Free Library so I packed up a stack of books to deposit when we got there…

turns out it had nothing to do with books at all and each of the rooms in the inn had one = a little house to hide the television from constant view…

we got some chuckles out of that and then did a search and found a “real” Little Free Library a couple of miles away in front of an interesting looking shop…

we never made it back that way during business hours to go inside but we did leave our books (Mr Magpie always laughs at me because I can’t help but tidy up the book boxes a bit)…

being within walking distance of Colonial Williamsburg gave us   several opportunities to stroll around looking for signs of spring…

we were drawn again and again to the 18th century vegetable gardens where the gardening methods, tools and gardeners were all colonial style…

it was a favorite spot back when we visited in December of 2015  (2015 photo above)…

after one of our walks we shared a rich hot chocolate and Linzer bar just a couple of doors down from where we were staying  snapping two more traveling tea cup shots…

wishing you a Happy T Day on this last Tuesday of March along with everyone over at Elizabeth’s Altered Book Lover…

in search of the divine…

being out and about recently as noted in my earlier Botticelli post I was inspired by an image of Venus…

using some rubber stamps I got busy layering my pages with lots of paint… gesso… and stamping on tissue paper as well as directly on the page… the stamp on the lower right ended up completely buried but my new cityscape stamp from StampDiva was brand new (a great company with a great stamp selection and very good delivery)…

a snippet of my favorite flimmersterne made a nice halo…

I am joining Yvonne at Meggy’s Way for her Art Journal Journal theme of OUT AND ABOUT...

“Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity.” Henry van Dyke

Family Moments…

my mojo has seemed to be mostly out and about lately partly due to a few hitches in my get along (leg pain) which slowed me down and curbed my creativity…

grateful to be feeling a bit better again I did not want to miss playing along with Yvonne‘s OUT AND ABOUT theme for Art Journal Journey this month…

looking at my journal pages on the computer screen…I noticed that they needed a little something to help anchor them…

so I stamped additional arches using my Impression Obsession, Inc. J4478 Moghul Arch stamp and tore strips to add to the bottom edge…

my spread includes various kinds of paper…deli paper scraps…map pieces…scrap papers from cleaning paint brushes…bits of napkins…stencil with super heavy gesso…grass from a magazine and rubber stamping

Botticelli calling…

we were thrilled to learn of a unique opportunity to see some of Sandro Botticelli’s works being shown for the first time in the U.S. and not all that far from us at The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia…

after visiting Williamsburg a couple of years ago to celebrate my birthday we had imagined making a return visit in springtime so we made a long weekend of it…

this is the largest and most important display of Botticelli’s works in the United States featuring 24 paintings from international lenders…

on 15 April the exhibition will open in Boston, Massachusetts which is the only other opportunity to see these paintings together in the US…

we were delighted that photography was allowed (excluding professional photography or use of a flash) although it was impossible for a photo to do justice to the exquisite details…

the first night in Williamsburg we ate out under the stars with the full moon shining down on us…

the temps dipped down each day after that so it’s good we chose that first night to eat al fresco…

we took the Traveling Tea Cup along so there will be more to share at another time…

here’s wishing you a Happy T Day along with everyone over at Elizabeth’s Altered Book Lover

change is constant…

some changes are subtle while others can be more dramatic…

one of the last home improvements we made recently was to have our trusty Norwegian cast iron wood stove removed along with the brick wall behind it (it has found a new home where it is being used and treasured anew)…

Mr Magpie chopped a lot of firewood in the 28 years we had the stove and now with gas logs we have simplified the getting warm and cozy process with the click of a remote control…

it is nice having things back in place again with no more construction upheaval to deal with…

my cup offering for T Stands for Tuesday this week was a birthday gift to my mother from her brother many years ago…

~♥ wishing you a Happy T Day ♥~

quickening of time…

the quickening of time is hard to ignore as we find ourselves at the end of February already…

Mother Nature has wobbled from winter to May like temperatures and back again…

I ended up at a garden center last week on a glorious 78 degree/25.5 Celsius day which was a good 20 degrees warmer than normal for this time of year here in northern Virginia…

a few plants came home with me and I will have to babysit them mostly indoors until planting time arrives in a month or more…

I can’t seem to snap enough photos of this potted Lenten Rose… how do you spell spring fever…

we have eaten a good bit of cake this month celebrating Mr Magpie’s birthday…

 still celebrating with a yummy Sunday treat of pear puff pastry tarte OH MY… 

wishing everyone over at Elizabeth’s Altered Book Lover a Happy T Day… 

Love Never Dies…

this month marks the sixth year since my mother’s passing…

in some ways it seems like only yesterday and yet…

I am extremely grateful to have had a wonderful relationship with her with so many fun times and no regrets other than selfishly wishing she could have lived forever…

still inspired by my mother’s painting on the step stool I shared earlier this week here… 

I printed out several copies of photos I had taken doing lots of cutting and layering…

I painted several shades of red on top of the heart I gessoed in the center…

I am pleased with how these pages came together and am sharing them for Linda’s “Fifty Shades of Red” challenge over at Art Journal Journey…

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.” -Robert A. Heinlein

the Passion of Life

John William Waterhouse’s lovely lady in red inspired these two art journal pages that I had originally painted blue with a gold burst…

I stamped a  Stamp Francisco heart on tissue paper and like how the Matte Medium helps it melt onto the page…

then I got busy with my white pen and almost couldn’t stop making marks…

I found the Federico Fellini quote that helped complete the left hand page….  

joining in once again for Linda’s “Fifty Shades of Red” Art Journal Journey challenge…

“The one thing that you have that nobody else has is you.  Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision.  So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.” – Neil Gaiman

♥ February ♥

here we are in February already…

heart month…  I have accumulated a bit of a he♥rt collection over the years and even have a “heart” category on my blog…

something very precious to me is a stool Mr Magpie made many years ago and my mother painted with intentions of giving it to me (the apple tart is from the shop in the photo above with the ♥I wheely like you♥ sign…they sell wonderful organic farm bread too)…

my mutti found the stool so useful (she wasn’t quite five feet tall) that she had it in her kitchen for many years before it came to me…

each speckle adds to the patina and charm of so many years in her pantry…

wishing you a Happy T Day along with everyone over at Elizabeth’s Altered Book Lover where all you need to join in the fun is to share anything related to a drink (guess what! I found a way to post photos again that can be clicked on for a closer look = hoorah!)…

as an aside a few of you have asked from previous blog posts what was inside the Paris box I have shared in photos…all is revealed above… (I was content with just the box but the candle is very nice too!)…

“February, a form
Pale-vestured, wildly fair,—
One of the North Wind’s daughters,
With icicles in her hair.”
~Edgar Fawcett, “The Masque of Months,” c.1878