Rock and Summer Late August Fun

Here are some more random rock pictures.

I am adding littler rocks in the corners of the labyrinth to round the paths...a little bit every day or so.

This corner was rather large so rounding them made the paths look better.

This is the east/west line of rocks of the labyrinth  looking to the west where the sunsets are beautiful most times.

This is a small path to the bird feeder in the new rock garden area.

This is a narrow spot along the sidewalk.

This is blue berry checking out the rock garden from the kitchen window... yes, she is that spoiled!  Argahhhhhhhhh!

This is the lovely lovely cup of hot homemade tomato juice left over from canning four quarts a couple of days ago.  This is one of my favorite beverages in the fall.  The temperature was over 90 degrees but I could not resist having a cup...

This is the rock wall I made over ten years ago looking to the south of our property.  HRH calls it the Great Wall of Carol, lol.

This is more of the new rock garden we are putting along our walk to try to stop the morning glory invasion and to do away with watering the flower bed that has been there.

And my little rock hound helper...the littlest car girl!

And, I have to share that yesterday, at the Farmer's Market,  I sold two collage paintings, two of my handmade journals, and the trunk I made for the Artist Guild writing experience from last winter, and another package of basil.  Next week I am thinking I might try a few packages of lavender.  Does anyone know what is best... just the stems with seeds, or some of the leaves too?

Recent Summer Art Activities

This is a hand crafted hinge I made for a glass journal cover I am attempting to make.

This is the tiny handle I put on the front of the journal.

This is the inside of the journal where, if things work the way I have them in my head, round journal pages will be.

This is the front of the journal.

I have been prepping for another workshop I will be teaching at Gypsy Mama's in September.   This is my "art props" box for that, lol.

I had to pull up several of these as I am working to change a totally un-usuable wild flower bed that became overrun with wild morning glory with a rock garden.

And, if you have followed me for long and you remember the "haute tomatoes" from a couple of years back, you will know why I took this picture, he he.

And these will go with the above photo too!

This is what the left overs look like...

And this is before the the second picture above spent time at the beauty parlor getting a shampoo...

Nest post will be an up date on the work I have been doing on the labyrinth and some photos of the new rock garden.  

So, what have you all been doing this summer?

Carol

As bloggers, we sometimes talk about strange but interesting (at least to ourselves) things.  I joined in writing challenge last yeat where we made dolls and wrote stories about the dolls travels.  I was researching for a name.  I looked up carol.  Here is the results... stuff I didn't know about my own name.  Have you researched your name to see where it originated and what interesting things historically there is about it?

A carol is a festive song, generally religious but not necessarily connected with church worship, and often with a dance-like or popular character.

( I liked the part about being a festive song and the character, lol)

The word carol is derived from the Old French word carole, a circle dance accompanied by singers (in turn derived from the Latin choraula). Carols were very popular as dance songs from the 1150s to the 1350s, after which their use expanded as processional songs sung during festivals, while others were written to accompany religious mystery plays (such as the Coventry Carol, written in 1591).[1]

(Circle dancing???  Let's go!)

carol verb

1

to produce musical sounds with the voice <she caroled with glee when she heard the good news>

Synonyms carol, chant, descant, vocalize

Related Words belt, croon, harmonize, hum, lilt, quaver, scat, sharp, slur, trill, troll, warble, yodel; serenade

( I have tried yodelling once or twice-jk!)

2

to proclaim the glory of <landscape photographs that carol the majesty and monumentality of Yosemite Valley>

Synonyms bless, carol, celebrate, emblazon, exalt, extol (also extoll), glorify, hymn, laud, magnify, resound

Related Words adore, belaud, deify, idolize, worship; acclaim, applaud, commend, compliment, hail, renown, salute; chant, cheer, eulogize, rhapsodize; cite; flatter; crack up, recommend, tout

Near Antonyms blame, censure, reprehend, reprobate; criticize, reprove; admonish, chide, keelhaul, rebuke, reprimand, reproach; castigate, lambaste (or lambast)

(Well, this last is a bit deep for me...)

Now, If I could figure out how to delete stuff like this from my Word files...

Sharing My Labyrinth

Remember when I posted this picture of my incomplete labyrinth and I promised to show the completed one soon?

I really do not have the thing completely completed.  I keep adding more things to it, like rounding the inner corners of the paths with more rocks.  And, I keep adding more rays to the sun burst with yellow rocks as I find them.  

But, I did take a video to share with you and you will find the link on the right hand bar over there ---> and you have to remember that I am very technically limited in my abilities and I am just so thrilled to actually get a video transferred from my flip video camera to youtube.  I tried to add music but to no avail so finally just let you hear me plodding along.  I hope you enjoy a trip through my labyrinth.  Walk it whenever you feel like it!

YSM Finds Butterly Journal

I bought a little box of scrap book discards at the YSM.  In it, I found some cardboard folder like pieces with pockets, made of heavy tan cardstock, and some white paper folder kind of thingies with a tab on them and a piece of white paper inside them.  Looks like someone had some plans for card inserts or some such thing.  But, since they were pretty much the same size, and right now I have "making journals" on the brain, I, of course saw a small journal in the making.  I took the tan card boards to the sewing machine and stitched them together to make the base of the journal.  Then I started to decorate the various pieces, mostly letting things lead me to the finished project.  I had a stash of bedazzler's with lots of studs. Since I could not never get the machines to work right and I am cleaning out, they went into the garbage and I hand mounted the studs to make a butterfly on the cover.   Then I decided the studs didn't show up enough so gave the whole front a shot of brown distressing ink.

Cover with studs and added edges using silver paint.  I stamped Trying My Wings for the title as I think this small journal would be good for someone to give journaling a try for the first time.

Rose stamp and collaged butterflies on the pages make it cohesive.  Some micro beads in the butterflies wings, and some purple water color spritzes added color to the drab tan of the book base.

Added legs and antenna with smooch inks... fun to play with if you haven't tried them.

The white folders with extra page in the center pull out with the tab so writing space is more than one would think.

There are four pull out folders plus the base pages... lots of writing space.

Making Tags

I have this shoe box sized plastic tub full of tags.  Many of them I die cut from found at the YSM hanging file folders.  They are made out of cool stuff...tough.  But rather dark too.  But, I had the die cutter tag die so cut lots for future use.  Well, here I am in that future, like over three years later, lol.  I decided to make some tags to tie onto my journals, and since I was in the mess... you know me...I thought I might as well make some others to package to sell at the farmer's market.  I ended up with almost twenty pkgs with ten tags in them.  I thought you might like to see them.  I used inks, stamps, bleach on the ones that would lighten.  I like the little ones to tie on my journals, and the others I will find a use for, I am sure.

The brown ones are stamped with bleach.  The two top birds are manila tags, the greenish ones started as manila tags too.  The gift for you tags I have had for years and years and I hoped that some added color and stamps would make them more appealing to me.  I love my new bird stamps acrylic stamp set.  You can see it has a swallow (kind of my trademark, lol) with swirls on the lower left card.  This was fun.

Now, I am painting a small trunk to put all my creations in to take to the market.  I hope it turns out looking cool!