Happened Upon

I happened upon a fabulous garden on my morning walk...these are some of my favorite shots1 

Zinnias and dahlias are such great pops of color in a late summer garden. Every time I see them I have to stop and take a closer look. There are so many petals tightly packed in....I love to catch them in this unfurling stage. 

And isn't this globe amaranth spectacular! It looks fiberoptic.

I do love the bright summer colors of zinnias.

And just look at all that's happening here. Isn't this dahlia amazing. 

I'll be visiting this garden path again!

Paul happened upon an unusual found object while out on his bike ride.  

This tiger will dominate my puzzle gang...but we'll see how he does for a while. He's a little aggressive looking.

This new Liberty wooden puzzle was gifted to me from Alyson. Wooden puzzles are such a delight to put together...but this one is going to be a challenge. 

But I'll happen upon the right strategy!

Embracing Imperfection

The most well adjusted people are constantly adjusting!

I purchased a pack of 5 x 7 tea bag papers knowing they would be a sturdy substrate for cyanotypes. 

I've printed on tea bags before....and it worked really well. Roseanne is the one who gifted me the bags...so I printed her this little tea bag filled with cyanotype snippets. 

You can read about Roseanne's teabag here:
https://joyfulputtering.blogspot.com/2024/07/tea-bag-project.html

I made several others at the time that I gifted here and there.

When I coated my papers I used a few of the tea bag papers to blot up the solution. from my work surface. No blogs of solution should go wasted. When the papers were dry I put ferns on both sides all sandwiched between pieces of glass. Then I processed it on both sides yesterday outside in the sun.

I think it made a fun print with really interesting texture.

I did the same thing with some meadow rue leaves. When I held it to the light I can see the plants on both sides. The two sided teabag paper will make a pretty page in a journal.

I was compelled to make a tag. I started by glueing a piece of this meadow rue print onto a tag....and decided that would be the back. I wanted something more interesting  for the front and I wanted to transition to another color. Orange is the compliment to blue...so that's the direction I'm going. 

I cut an old Real Simple magazine title into strips and collaged them on for the background. Using recycled materials has been a theme on a couple cards.

The overlay flowers (which I don't love)  are cyanotypes on tissue.....so they collaged on easily and that kept the Prussian blue color going. I also added some gold speckles for more flow.

I should have left the back alone...but it was too close in design to last back with the blue and white blotchy paper. So at first I tried coloring the white spaces orange and I didn't like it at all. Thank goodness there is no photo.

I decided to go with the Japanese practice of Kintsugi where they fill cracks in pottery with gold embracing the imperfections. 

So I filled in the orange with gold paint....embracing the imperfection while also celebrating the blotches in the print. I actually like that there is still a hint of orange peeking through.

Today Was The Day

Today was the day that a couple of my royal standard hosta blooms opened. 

It's one of the only hosta blooms I really love. It's tall and stately....and it smells amazing! 

And today was the day for a swim. The water was warmer than the air temperature this morning...and it was magnificent. The hydrangeas by the pool are exploding making the whole experience such a joy.

This is what was left on my puzzle this morning....so I knew today would be the day I would finish it. 

I stretched it out throughout the day and did just a few pieces at a time. I love savoring the end.

This one was a challenge....but once I found the right strategy it ended up being pure joy! Thank you again to Linda S. for this very special gift. 

Today was the day! Isn't it fabulous!

 Thanks again Linda!

A Little Wild

Paul and I went to the downtown rally today...it had been a while and it felt good to participate. It was a beautiful...but sunny day so I needed my parasol and Paul needed his big floppy....which made for interesting shadows of us in the street. We enjoy the waving and the honking as people pass by but we also long for a day when we are not having to protest our own government. 

Juliann sent me some papers for a joy journal and I'm excited to be back in business again. Per usual....I spread things out on my dining room table and will let them percolate. She provided a nice mix of papers and snippets...and it's going to be fun to curate them into a journal.

I almost missed it in the pile...but Juliann's journal is also going to be little wild.

And this beautiful card....will set the color story.

In other words...it's going to colorFUL! But in a toned down kind of way.

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!