Change of Scenery

Tomorrow is a travel day....I'm heading to Denver to spend a few days with Paul's sisters Alyson and Liz as well as my nephew Langston. I't's been a while....so it will be wonderful to see them all. Alyson and I plan to do a lot of walking...and looking closely at the world. 

This photo popped up on my screen today as a memory. 

I took it on this very day in 2022 while I was in Denver.

I adore the blue of these juniper berries...and I hope Alyson and come across some on our walks. A change of scenery for noticing is always fun!

The last couple of days have been busy....but I still needed a daily puzzle fix so I pulled out one small one...and two tiny ones. 

I've got a new one to start when I get back....but in the mean time revisiting these little ones was just right.

Next post will be from Denver! As always when I travel...the timing of my posts might be off. 

I thought they were worth a closer look! This one was a gift from my sister Marilyn.

These little pieces were almost too small for my clumsy fingers...but aren't they precious!

Curating

Use your eyes to see beauty, your voice to say kind words, your heart to love and be loved, your ears to listen to others, and your hands to create a better world.  Lynn Giunta

I enjoyed every part of this joy journal project for Preble Street and Maine Needs.....but I especially enjoyed curating the little packs of snippets. 

Sifting through my bins and boxes of bits and bobs and choosing a variety of snippets and scraps that gave a nod to the cover was meditative and calming.

More than once I've thought about just dumping my overwhelming stash and starting over....but so far I've resisted. I still seem to find little nuggets of joy.

The journal pages are mostly whites and neutrals....so most of the snippets are bright and colorful.

I was excited to find a pile of small cutouts of Margie's coloring from when I was making cards for my Words of Encouragement project. There was enough to tuck one in every kit. 

That Words of Encouragement project is described here:

https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2025/02/late-night-thinking.html

I reached my goal and was able to buy 500+ pairs of underwear for Maine Needs.

My hands and thumbs are a bit sore...but my heart is full. Turns out folding and stitching 10 journals in a short amount of time might not have been such a great idea.  But they're done...and I'll deliver them tomorrow.

Heart of Our Home

This amazing puzzle with such a sentimental back story is done! It's called Flowers in Bloom by the artist Elena Essex.

This is the second time I've put it together...and it was like doing it again for the first time. A big shout again to Brenda for gifting it to me....and I plan to gift it forward too.

I actually finished it yesterday...and I've enjoyed it on the table for a couple days while I work on my joy journal project. All 10 journals are done as well as the curated snippet packets. I'll assemble the kits tomorrow and deliver them to Maine Needs on Thursday. 

My puzzle table sits in heart of our home. It's a antique library table and divides the living room from the dining room. I can see out to the back yard from the vintage captain's chair that came from my childhood home. Before long the tree will be up and I'll have a great view of that too. Next to the table is the vintage highchair that I sat in as a kid....along with all eight siblings. It's one of my most prized possessions. The quilt patterned rug under the table is one of my favorites and I love it in this spot.

After dinner I sat in the heart of our home...and took the puzzle all apart! 

Time for a new one!

Foamy Bubbles

Clear skies today....so I searched for yesterday's raindrops on my walk and I found so much more.

feather finders.

pebble pocketers.

silver-lining seekers.

hope dealers.

wish makers.

beautiful weirdos.

gentle rebels.

all

rare,

brave,

& wild

souls

sent to 

keep wonder

from

going extinct.

@reviveyourroar

I felt like silver-lining seeker spending several minutes looking closely at a puddle....totally captivated by the foamy bubbles around the leaves. I'm posting all the photos extra large...so you can look closely too. Let's be those souls who are sent to keep wonder alive!

Rainy Sunday Color

A few random rainy Sunday pops of color:

My Christmas cactus is in full bloom and it's nice to have a colorful plant inside as everything outside turns brown. I haven't had this many blooms in a long time! 

I have six more journals done....and three more in progress. I still need to go back in and add a few bits of color here and there. 

I'm loving every minute of this colorful puzzle.....perfect place to pause on a rainy Sunday.

A Request.....

....led to an idea.

Maine Needs partners with Preble Street...an organization dedicated to provide housing, food, and critical services to individuals and families across Maine. During the month of November, Maine Needs is asking for a variety of items in various categories of wellness for teens and adults who access services at Preble Street. They want people to feel seen & loved during the holidays.

This is a screenshot of just one of the requests in their post:

The minute I saw it....I knew I wanted to think of a way to contribute.

Joy Journal kits...that's what I could make! Finding purpose in my joy....again. 

I spent a few days coming up with a plan....and the last couple of days I've been in production mode. I hope to have 10 kits done by early next week. 

For this batch I am using recycled calendar pages lined with pretty papers for the cover. Inside the journal are blank and lined pages pages...along with prints and found papers with plenty of pockets. I'm including a bag of snippets, quotes, stickers, a glue stick and a Micron pen. Everything but the glue and pen are from my stash.

I'm putting it all all in a compostable cellophane bag....and have nine more to go! 

When Cherie sent Patty her Wandering Flowers I offered to pay for shipping. Rather than send her money Cherie wanted me to buy something for Maine Needs. 

I used that money to buy nice Micron pens and quality glue sticks. 

Thank for helping me with my project Cherie! 

Hackmatack Heaven

Hedy....one of the friends  from our college days who recently visited lives in Downeast Maine near Acadia National Park with her husband Greg. That's the part of Maine where I was introduced to hackmatack trees (also called tamarack and larch) and where I've seen more than anywhere else. In the Portland area I only know of one.

Heady sent me this photo from a walk and I was absolutely gobsmacked! Hackmatack heaven...in their golden fall glory! Before long...their branches will be bare.

Like This

I had breakfast with a friend and Paul and I have a date with our boys tonight....dinner and a movie. In between I chatted with my sister...and puttered with this and that in the studio. I love days like this. 

We've had unusually warm weather here in Maine so Paul and I continue to enjoy time on the patio. In just the past few days... most of the oak leaves from the woods have fallen.....so we keep the blower handy to clear the chairs for cushions. The warm weather is both appreciated...and a bit disconcerting.

The backyard is absolutely covered with leaves in every direction....and I'm grateful that I'm not the one that has to rake them up. That's one of the joys of condo living!

There's something about walking through the crunchy leaves that takes me back to my childhood. The edge of our yard on the farm dropped into a little ditch. We would fill the ditch with leaves and jump into the pile from the swing....over and over again. I love memories like this.

I also love moments like this....when summer is still peaking through.

A Path Forward

"We just showed that the politics of division is no match for the politics of love." James Talarico

I feel like we have a path forward to heal our country. It's not going to be smooth sailing...but there is reason to be hopeful. So I'm celebrating that today!

I've been channeling Margie as I've worked on this colorful puzzle. It's no coincidence that a path was made from top to bottom and side to side just yesterday.....on election day. I'm celebrating that today too! 

The day after the election two years ago as Paul sat with Margie in her last hours....I was home and visited Bessie...my favorite tree. I was devastated with the election results....not sure what this would mean for our country...a walk would do me good. Within an hour....Margie passed and my grief and attention was redirected to my family.  

Just today...after this election I made Bessie my destination for my walk. Just a week or so ago her needles were still very green....but today there was a noticeable change in color....just like  Congress.

For those of you who don't know....Bessie is hackmatack is a deciduous pine tree. She turns golden yellow in the fall before she drops all her needles for the winter. They are also known as tamarack.

Bessie is scruffy but beautiful....and visiting her takes me to a place of peace. I looked back at my posts about my love for hackmatack trees (there are lots) and I was quite tickled to know that I actually discovered Bessie in a nearby neighborhood ON the day in mid November when we celebrated Margie's birthday with the family back in 2023. Sometimes our winding paths intersect with meaningful moments and precious people. Today my path forward intersected with puzzles.....Bessie...and people in politics driven by love. 

Winding Down

November is the month when Mother Nature begins to wind down as she gets ready for a long winter's rest. The leaves on the ground are crunchy and the ones left on the trees are mostly brown. Seed pods are more visible and any pop of color stands out and draws me in. I loved October...and the explosion of color and change and November feels like a big sigh after the party.

It's election day....and I'm cautiously optimistic.

On election evening two years ago I was sitting with Margie (my mother-in-law) in her nursing room. She wasn't conscious...and actually died the following morning without knowing the results of that presidential election. 

Our family continues to believe that to be somewhat of a miracle. She wasn't afraid of dying...but she was afraid of suffering. Being the progressive peacemaker she was....the past two years of chaos would have caused her so much pain....and she would have suffered. She died in peace.

I'm sitting with Margie in my thoughts tonight and all the joy she brought to my life. And...I'm hoping for a better election result.

This is what the path looked around the pond today....the beauty of winding down.

Rescued

I saw a version of this idea using layers of ferns as a trees on line and wanted to give it a try. I think the concept is a winner...and I hope to make a batch of Christmas cards. I will never grow tired of making sun prints.

Back when I was putting together torn paper collage supplies for Lily....I made several tags as floral collage samples. I punched the backgrounds out of different heavy weight papers including one from a not-so-great cyanotype.

I wish I had a photo of the original tag....but the print was washed out...and as I glued on the torn papers the surface of the inexpensive watercolor paper started to peel. So it got set aside....but not thrown away.

I just came across it again and wondered if I could somehow rescue it. Turns out I could!

I painted over the parts of the washed out print with an inky blue watercolor to intensify the color and help conceal the peeled parts. I added some gold and outlined the flowers and leaves with a black pen. I actually love it now.

The back is a cyanotype print from a stencil...that I also outlined.   

 

From the start of this rescue....I had in my mind that it was make a fun next tag for my Tag Project 2.0. Nope! 

But I had used my tag punch...which is a different size and shape than the tags for my project. I'm not sure the flow would have been right anyway. So now I have a rescued little tag for just the right gift or journal.

I like the concept of outlined collage flowers on a cyanotype background. And painting in washed out backgrounds will be a good way to rescue some reject cyanotype prints! 

I'm calling this rescue a win win!

I'm Calling It

Happy November!

I used one one of @reviveyourroar's poems on my moon post a few days ago. She has a powerful voice and I adore this one about making space for beginnings.

some beginnings

look like

starting.

some look like

stopping

leaving

trying again.

changing your mind.

some beginnings 

look suspiciously

like endings

until enough

time passes

to see

nothing

was taken

from you.

life was

just

making space.

 @reviveyourroar

Originally there was an 8th page on my summer concertina rainbow book.I started it...didn't love it...and wasn't motivated to figure it out. Summer was over weeks ago. So I ripped it off and felt liberated. I worked my way from pink to purple....there are seven official colors in the rainbow....and seven pages. That seems like a good place to stop.....so I'm calling it done making space for something new.

For those of you new to the blog...I started this at the beginning of the summer as a creative practice project.....and I loved it. I traced stencils onto an accordion folded concertina and filled in with watercolor, colored pencil, paint pens, fused fabric and paper collage. 

I started with pink....because thanks to Kimberly I fully embrace that pink belongs in a rainbow.

But maybe it's only half done! Maybe the back will be a winter project.

I think there's space for that!

Costumes Encouraged

Happy Halloween! We get one trick-or-treater every year. Just one. 

Patty gave me this lovely monarch butterfly from a recent trip....and I love it. It found a home on my wreath by our front door and goes so well with my pumpkins....and I was tickled with the reflection of the tree in the side light. Where did October go? Bring on November! 

Paul and I attended  the rally downtown today....costumes were encouraged so I went as joy. There was a festive and hopeful energy in the air...we're so glad we went! 

Be Like Ray

I dried some of the seaweed I picked up this summer and made this cyanotype print. The second and third layers didn't come through very well....so I'll be trying it again. I love the unexpected subject matter of seaweed....it's so Maine.

I'm going to be working on cards throughout the fall and winter for the garden shop next spring. Some may end up in the mail...but most will go into my stock in support of Maine Needs.

This was a print from the wet fresh seaweed this summer. Kind of magical don't you think! 

For those of you new to the blog....my sister-in-law Alyson and I text a photograph or two every day to each other....and we've been doing it for years. Our shares are often a montage of nature photos from our day with other little nuggets of joy mixed in...and it's a wonderful way for us to connect. 

I sometimes share them here too....but not always...but I had to share this one from Alyson....it made me smile all day long. 

She met Ray as he helped her cross the street in a busy construction zone. His smile...and his hat caught her attention and she asked his permission to take his photo. She said it was clear that he was pretty tickled with himself and his hat....and I'm pretty tickled with him too.

It's going to be a long weekend as we head into next week's election. Let's be like Ray....and be a ray of f%&#@ing sunshine!

The postcards on our fridge that give me hope. Please vote!

Dancing

Kate....blog reader and physicist from England sent me an email with some information about the moon. We all learned these things in school....but I never mind being reminded. Kate is the same person who introduced me to The Butterfly Effect....so I pay attention when she shares! Here's Kate's moon refresher...with a twist at the end:

"The moon seems to rise because the Earth is spinning on its axis, but the Moon also moves around the Earth every 27.3 days, which is why we get different phases of the moon (and lunar months). But it also sort of wiggles up and down a bit, which is why it's never in the same place each night. Basically, they are continuously dancing around each other. And I love that."

I love that too....the idea of the earth and moon dancing around each other. Thank you for planting that image in my head Kate!

Speaking of dancing....I've been keeping an eye on the Montauk Daisies right up the street. 

They started blooming at the end of September...and I walk by them several times a day. These are a couple montages I sent to Alyson over the past month as I've been tracking them. 

They were beautiful in their prime....such a breath of fresh air in the early fall.

 But here at the end of October...they appear to be dancing around as start to fade.

They are just as beautiful...and maybe even a little more interesting.

Definitely dancing!

This one...however...appears to be a little pissed off.

Or maybe it's the last dance before the bow! Let's go with that!