CANVAS MINI-ALBUM

So here are a few pics of the swatches of painted canvas from the previous post. They lent themselves quite well to the Bind-It-All machine which has proved to be a great investment. Again with most of my projects I like to "wing it" and see what happens for the work to morph into completion. This album turned into one entitled "Beautiful Things". I had planned on doing lots of doodling and journaling on the pages, however, when scouring through my treasured stash, I came upon some single word rub-ons (remember, adore, adventure, treasure, explore, memories and smile). The sentiments proved more meaningful alongside the photos than a jumble of words and, hence, a more minimalistic album evolved. They also lend a visual continuity amongst the pages. I did leave one page to dedicate to journaling and look forward to filling it with words of, well, beauty.

The photos are of my family and garden all of which exude beauty. Embellishments are also minimal - the odd charm, button, paper flower and brad. I used my MOST favourite alpha stamps for the cover title. They remind me of an old typewriter font (the kind I actually learnt to type on in highschool which was manual, clonky and loud - it was the 80's after all).

I love the jagged edges, bold colours and general feel of this album and plan to make many more of a similar kind.

A DONNA DOWNEY KIND OF DAY

Today I was inspired by Donna Downey's style of art. She is such an amazing "cross scrapbooker" and incorporates a variety of medias into her work that appeals to my own mixed media sensibilities.

So, while Quinn was enjoying his nap, Elizabeth and I got busy with our acrylics. We set up our makeshift "studio" on the deck and I cut up pieces of cloth canvas to paint on. I love that children are so completely uninhibited and just dig into their art. Elizabeth enjoyed the process making her imaginative paintings that magically morphed with the addition of more paint. My goal was to make a cloth scrapbook so I simply painted all of my canvas rectangles a myriad of colours - kiwi, orange, egg shell blue, pear, shimmery turquoise...

Quinn eventually awoke and joined us to paint a picture.

I bound my nine colourful cloth pages with my Bind-It-All machine and now it awaits embellishments, photographs, ephemera and more!

Fabric Mini-Album

Yesterday I was thinking of ideas for our 52 challenges at http://www.ellabelladesigns.ca/ . I was enjoying a quiet (and very rare) moment with a coffee and perusing some fave blogs. Link after link I stumbled across Elizabeth Kartchner's wonderful blog and was instantly inspired by her soft fabric mini albums. (It was strange actually, since I'd been gazing at my laundry gently swaying in the wind and contemplating writing a post on that subject when I found myself on Elizabeth K's blog where she has the cutest little image of laundry on a line with colourful scrapped paper, meanwhile her posting that day was entitled "Serendipity".....h'mmmmmmm.)

Anyway, I was immediately taken with her ideas and remembered that I had a stack of 4 inch square fabric pieces that were leftover from the quilts and soft blocks that I had made when expecting.

I remember choosing all of those colourful (and quite mismatched) lengths of fabric. I cut them up into loads of squares and recall a pleasant afternoon laying them all over the living room floor in random fashion prior to sewing them together to form what are now two quilts and 5 soft blocks.

Elizabeth has always loved her quilt she named "New Quilt". It is layer number 4 of 7 blankets, sheets and bedding that make up her winter Nest.

The soft blocks were a hit when the kids were small and they still like to toss them around. Now we have this new little mini-album to accompany our hand crafted keepsakes. Not sure yet what whether to put real photos inside or copy some photos onto muslin and sew them into the album....

MORE BEES PLEASE!

With the bee population in danger, I think it is terribly important to do what we can to attract them to our gardens. In our garden they love the abundant lavender - I had wanted to harvest the lavender this year, however, could not bring myself to cut it back since the bees were enjoying it too much. I have to suffice by pinching off the odd sprig to sniff or throw into the kids bath.

If you really want to be a hit with the neighbourhood bees, then I suggest growing Sea Holly. I have several Sea Holly plants in a sunny location that will usually boast no less than 3 dozen bees of many varieties (big & fuzzy, small, orange backed, thin - my bee termination is not up to par!). It sounds like a formula one racetrack when nearby. I staked these lovely, prickly, silvery flowers with candle sticks that we had made for our garden wedding 7 years ago. They are stairway spindles that we bought from ReStore and my husband painted them white with different flowers. They looked so pretty with lit candles scattered around the garden on our wedding day and now I am thrilled to recycle them yet again to help keep the long Sea Holly stalks staked.

I plan to divide these plants up in the fall or next spring and create more bee havens around the garden in the future.

GARDEN BOUNTY

We have finally been harvesting our veggies we planted back in the spring. The tomatoes are ripening and the lettuce is abundant. We try to mix lots of herbs in with our salads which is easy to do when the herb garden is a few steps away from the kitchen.

I was never a veggie garden person in the past, however, it is so satisfying to pick your own things that I am now hooked and planning additional spots to plant edibles. The kids love picking peas and strawberries and I plan to add raspberries, cukes, squash and more....

PICTURE FRAME

I was looking at some of my favourite garden books yesterday (a brief moment when my toddler was napping) and was inspired by a old photo frame that the author had hung from a tree in their garden. When Quinn woke up we went to the basement and searched out our own old wooden picture frame and went to hang it from a plum tree in our garden. I could not find fishing line so I just used white thread to hang the frame.

It will be interesting to see who and what images I can capture as they pass through the frame. It's also a great way to recycle an unwanted picture frame.

IN THE GARDEN

Here are a few photos of the garden.... Elizabeth has been "Chef" all day (she even wore her chef's outfit to the library this morning) so it was fitting that she pick some yellow wax beans to accompany our dinner (chicken breasts stuffed with pesto - also made from the abundance of basil in the garden).

John's tomatoes look like they are on steroids - he specifically requested roma's when I was tomato shopping back in May. My 100 millions aren't doing too bad either. The strawberries produce enough for a delighted toddler to sample almost daily. The new herb garden has taken off. We have been using lovely herbs in our many Jamie Oliver inspired meals. Some of the herbs growing there are: sage, rosemary, thyme, fennel, coriander (although not successfully), bay, tarragon, sweet marjoram, summer savory, dill, chamomile, burnett, lovage, borage, parsley, Italian parsley, oregano and lemon thyme.

The secret garden's pathway has become overgrown with self seeders such as mallow, lemon balm, some purple flowering stuff and buttercups.

The garden is lovely - I added a beautiful french white lilac, many ornamental grasses and a brilliant ornamental oregano this year. We are all enjoying our the many aspects of our garden and hope our wonderful weather continues.