Deep Indigo Blue

Replace fear of the unknown with curiosity! 

I came across these pressed lavender stems in one of my pressing books. They were delicate and fragile and kept their color so well. They photographed so beautifully that this post could stop right here at the first photo....but I really wanted to make a sun print. 

The problems was....I was out of pretreated paper....but I did have had an envelope of smaller scraps that I keep on hand for printing bookmarks. 

I placed the stems on one of the scraps...clipped on a piece of glass and set it on the front walkway....the only place I had direct sun at the time.

Then I got busy with other things and forgot about it until Paul reminded me. After what was at least an hour I had a deep indigo blue.....almost black.

The flowers had some dimension...so didn't lay completely flat on the paper under the glass leaving a bit of a shadow. Shadows often enhance an image.

I'm quite tickled with the print and learned a few lessons:

Process some prints a little longer!

Always have pretreated papers on hand.

Don't forget about the envelope of scraps!

The closeup shadowy detail is really special....almost etherial!

I'm smitten with this deep indigo blue print...I'll have to do something special with it. 

I did treat more papers in the garage. It's not a pretty process...but it's a necessary part of the process. And I made more blotted paper and coated a book page...stay tuned!

Better Than Expected

It's always fun when a cyanotype print comes out better than expected. I made this sun print from three layers of one of the the ferns by my front door. 

It's on lightweight but sturdy art paper and would fold into a beautiful journal cover! The blues on this particular paper always come out on the aqua end of the blue spectrum. 

When I went to trim up the prints for the cards I just delivered to the farm stand a few days ago...the cutoffs from the previous set were still on my cutting table. (I'm not very good a picking up after myself in the studio.) They were too pretty to throw away with all their pretty shades of blue and gold watercolor speckles....so I turned them into a tag.

I glued them down and trimmed up the edges....easy peasy. The Prussian blues flow nicely from the catalog page cutouts and I repeated a paper cut providing good flow and focal point. 

The back was an experiment where I blotted up the chemical solution onto rice paper. Once it was dry I put it in the sun and let the blotches process! No plants or stencils needed.     

  

The flow on the backs of the last two cards is better than expected too....which was pretty easy when working with just blues. But I am going to be more tuned into that going forward. 

Meaning In The Mundane

The humidity is down...the windows are open...and I'm a happy camper.

I get a kick out of finding meaning in the mundane. It's that simple everyday joy seeking thing. I pay attention to the small stuff...so the big hard stuff doesn't take over.

We had some rain a couple nights ago....and there were still a few puddles here and there that hadn't dried up. On my walk this morning I was tickled with what I saw ahead on the sidewalk.

The light was shining just right....so the 🩶 was clear as day. I couldn't possibly miss it!

Every once in a while I see glimmers of love...and light just ahead. Our country is in real trouble...and we need all the glimmers of love we can get.

But while were in the middle of the mess....or right on top of the puddle....the love is barely visible. But it's still there. We just have to look a little harder.

As I walked past the puddle I looked back and smiled because so much more was visible in the 🩶 puddle. Isn't it true sometimes that we recognize the love a little more clearly in hindsight?

Kind of silly I know....but I'm going to continue to pay attention and find meaning...and glimmers of light and love wherever and whenever I can. 

I highly recommend this post on glimmers:

https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2023/08/glimmers.html

Farm Store

I love finding these pops of color this time of year. 

It's still full on summer...but we're rounding the corner towards a season of change. 

Change is the only constant in life. 

It's always a good day when I go to the Winslow Farm store. Sarah and the staff are warm and welcoming and I always come home with colorful bag of veggies. Today I also made a delivery.

Sarah said she was down to one cyanotype card....so I scrambled over the past few days and stitched up another set of 12 cards and delivered them today.  

I didn't take any photos of the finished cards...but most of them came from this batch or prints I did about a month ago. I trimmed them up.....added watercolor and gold speckles to some...and all of them got stitched onto cards. 

This one was actually recently sent in the mail. I think meadow rue is one of my favorite leaf shapes. I'm going to make more of these.

    

Do you see the newly stocked wire stand on the back table. I love having my cards here and my portion of the sales goes towards much needed items for Maine Needs.

New Strategy

I popped in to see Janice today. There's aways so much color in her gardens!

Someone once said that if you want to change the quality of your life...clean out a closet. 

Almost a year ago today my friend Becky was visiting and we she helped me clean out and organize the hall closet. I needed to do the same thing in the laundry closet on the other side of the hall....and a year later I finally tackled it. The quality of our lives will most certainly be improved! 

The closet is tidy, but still not very photogenic....so I thought it was time for a puzzle post. You know I always have one on my table...and this one is a doozie! And I mean that in a good way. 

It was a gift from Linda D. who said it was too difficult for her. It featurs a Fabulous Floral hexagon quilt using Kaffe Fassett fabrics. 

The boarder was going together pretty well and at first I thought I would start at the top and work my way down pushing it up on the table as I usually do. That lasted about 10 minutes. Way too many pieces to sort though....I needed a new strategy.

I started assembling the very middle of the motifs The fabrics all seemed different so it seemed like the best way forward. I did the ones that were bright and easy like the blues....and that lasted several days. I had a mess on the table and I wasn't making progress. Again....I needed a new strategy. 

I cleaned up the table and finally found a strategy that has been working well.

I'm sorting out all the pieces that have the same small flower border around each motif....starting with the little blue flowers. 

Just today I pulled out the pieces with the little white daisies.

I've gotten far enough along where I could join motifs and I actually have a path from the top to the bottom. And I just noticed as I uploaded this photo that there's a path from side to side too. And you know how much I love that! Hallelujah! My new strategy is working! 

The whole time....my puzzle gang has been cheering me on. Change your strategy as often as you need to!  That improves the quality of your life too!

I'm loving this challenging and colorful puzzle....thank you Linda! 

Laughs and Smiles

This made me laugh out loud....I SOOO do this! 

And I'm going to smile when I'm in the car and I see someone else doing it!

I watched this butterfly for several minutes this morning and she fluttered around the verbena doing her pollinator thing.  The quote made me laugh....and the butterfly made me smile. I couldn't help but think about the butterfly effect.....where small actions can lead to big change. There's a a whole lot of changing that needs to happen in the world!

Flowing Into Blues

Even when you don't think you have time to make art....you mostly likely do. I made another quick tag today...and it flows nicely from the reds...pinks and purples into the blues.

I continued with the catalog pages with cut out circles and used another paper cut from my car project. I'm pretty tickled with tag #3. And I like the simple back just as well.

I added a scrap from the catalog left over from the first tag on the back on the second one and the blue dots help with the flow! The ease of it tickles me. 

This blouse from the new Gudruns catalog was the inspiration for the transition from the purples to blues. I started with the black and white dot...then cut holes in the catalog parts and layered them up until I filled the tag. Yes....I could have just layered cutout circles...but this was more fun. And...the cutouts go into a scrap pile for something else! Yup....I'm a scrap and snippet saver.

I'm going to enjoy flowing into the blues! I see some cyanotype art in my tag future. I know I'll find time to make some mini art!

I've got a couple of white rain lilies....and more buds coming.

Your Joy Journals

It is better to do something than do nothing while waiting to do everything. Winston Churchill

This was the Unfold montage Alyson sent me today. I couldn't love it more. 

You know by now how tickled I get when I see what some of you are doing with your joy journals. Judy has been working in one of the ones I made for her  and she posted a video of her progress on Instagram. I hope you check it out: https://www.instagram.com/p/DbohCcuPjke/

And just for the record...I'm still willing to make joy journals. As a matter of fact I don't think I'll ever stop making them. If you are new to the blog here is a link to the posts about my project so far.

When I was in Wisconsin....I was so tickled to see that Emily was adding to hers. She's now a busy mom of two....but is also an avid collector of interesting packaging and papers that catch her eye. She now has all kinds of places to tuck them.

Emily wanted her journal to be a living thing...and that's what it's going to be. At some point she's going to send me some of Max's art for another journal.

Tag #2

I'm so excited to have a few meadow rue plants blooming. They don't do very well in my garden because there's not enough sun....but I do have a few volunteers that are doing better than plants I actually planted.

Because the blooms are so delicate...they are really hard to photograph. I just adore the round pearl like buds so I'm going to keep trying. 

I've been a little under the weather....so not moving very fast....but I did take a few minutes to make another tag for my Tag Project 2.0. As was true with my last tag series....I want the tags to flow from one to the next in some way....either color or some design element. 

I was pretty tickled to still have the scrap from the catalog that I cut the centers from the flowers on the first card...so that was the starting point. Those three white circles are actually cut into the paper and the black dots are on the tag itself.

I layered more catalog scraps and cut apart the square paper cut I shared a few days ago. And there you have it....a second tag for my Tag Project 2.0. and it only took about 10 minutes. 

I like to do something simple on the back.....and I still need something on the second one. This was a painted paper gone wrong...but the colors were right and it works just fine as a backing.

Life Size

It's Clarke's birthday today! 

Clarke is my niece and is solely responsible for this blog actually getting off the ground and continues to be my tech support. I couldn't have done it without her. 

She is also the maker of the fabulous frogs:

 https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2025/12/clarkes-creature-christmas.html

She lives in a high rise condo along the lake in downtown Chicago. Right around the corner is this life size giraffe named Edna....and the owners have a good time dressing her up for holidays and seasons. Clarke sends me photos when she changes clothes..and I get quite a kick out of it. It was about time I shared them here....and this may not even be all of them. I feel like Edna should have a birthday had and balloons today!

Newborn Clarke...and Aunt MaryAnn! Happy Birthday Clarke!