Snow in Summer?

Snow in summer is the name of a plant I have lot's of in my front garden, but this is not that kind of snow, this is freezing cold ice pellets that hit us last night at dinner time.

I can't believe it, this happened at the same time last year only it was much worse, I lost a lot of plants, and a lot of my beautiful hydrangeas were ripped apart then. This time the worst hit were my annuals in my flower pots. I just had to go out on the porch and get a photo of this and believe me it felt "chilly" out there.

Photo below I took while standing on the front porch when it just started, you can see all that white stuff on the black mulch we have. I hope the beautiful red maple there will be ok, it and all the other plants were not planted too long ago, this is a new section we had done in the front of the house.
And the rain and thunder storms just keep on coming, it has rained, actually down poured for a few days in a row now. I feel terrible for people who work and are off tomorrow for Canada Day, which is a lot like July 4th in the States only it landed on a Wednesday this year so it's not going to seem like much of a holiday for most people. I just hope they at least have some nice weather.

I am working on my ABAA challenge for this month, the theme is to use a Dragonfly, so head on over there if you want to join in :) I am doing a 6x6 canvas which I have been working on for hours, just had to take a break and let my puppy go pee pee, then I couldn't just walk by the computer and so I have been sitting again for over an hour. You know how it is.

Gothic Arch Challenge ~ Wings~

This week's challenge at Gothic Arches is to use the word prompt "wings" and this is what I came up with today.
What I did was cut the wings off this fairy lady and add some from another fairy because her wings were cut off and I wanted more showing. Then I went through my box of 12 x 12's and had a piece left of this gorgeous embossed paper from a decade ago, I love the flowers and the dragonflies on it, which are also "wings".
The dragonfly and some flowers are cut out of the paper and I added some to give her a head dress too, then I used chalk pastels for a little shading and shimmering. Thanks for looking :)

The lady is from Digital collage sheets.com

Marie Bookmark

Can you believe this is the first time I have ever created anything with a Marie Antoinette theme? Thing is I just love this collage sheet from Itkupilli and have been itching to do something with it, so I made this bookmark and I am really pleased how it turned out.

It is made on heavy water color paper which I painted with acrylics, roughly stamped some flourishes then added the images. I then shaded and highlighted with chalk pastels and gave her some shimmer with my shimmering pastels but they don't show up well on the photos. This was all glued to a really strong piece of card. I then added some pink crystals and some lovely gray and pink fibers finish it off.
If you use chalks in your work remember to use a spray fixative on it. I use Krylon Matt Sealer, it's great.


This one is in my Etsy shop now with a few new cards and tags I just added. I don't know why but I have a thing about bookmarks, you may have noticed that already if you are a frequent visitor :)
Hope you are having a good weekend, I am off to a bridal shower in a few hours, which means dress clothes and shoes, make up, you know the story, a bit out of my comfort zone, but at least it's not too hot today. See you soon!
Lynn

In the Rose Cottage Guest Room

I purchased these beautiful blue bird watercolor paintings from my friend Carolyn in the U.K quite a while ago and finally got around to painting some frames for them. I used a green to go on the pale yellow walls of my guestroom and made them look chippy. It was quite by accident really but it works and I love them. They are not on the wall yet, I need to get hubby to help me level them with some other things I want to add to the walls.

I was also lucky enough to win two prints from Carolyn's blog too, I think her whimsical and sweet drawings are sooooo precious. This is what I won :)
Since they are for my guestroom which I call "The Rose Cottage" room, thought I would show you some photos of it. I am not totally done with it all, need more things on the walls, but you can get the idea.
I purchased the sign above the bed from Signs By Diane on Etsy long before I redid this room, which was my daughters room before she moved out. I originally wanted the sign for my studio because I then had a blog of this name as some of you will remember, and I still do have an Etsy shop called The Rose Cottage for vintage linens and such, which I have been neglecting.

We took out the dirty white carpet in this room and had hardwood installed. I just love hardwood, and hope to have the entire house done in it someday. The walls are a pale yellow as is most of my house. The bed looks yellow in the photos but it is more of a creamy white, and my Rachel Ashwell quilt which I just treasure covers the bed. All but one cushion on the bed are made by myself and I have two vintage sham covers which I found for 50c each at the thrift shop. They are so romantic cottage style :)
The beautiful fabric art which hangs from the bed was gifted to me in a swap and I just love it so much.
There is the chair I found for $3 at a thrift shop, I painted it of course and covered it in my favorite Laura Ashley fabric. The wicker table is one I have had for many many years, and the dresser was a new piece about 6 years ago.
I am now painting an old frame to make a memo board for above the little wicker desk, this room is still ongoing :)

And just look who was enjoying a cozy little nap, one of my favorite teddy bears gifted to me by my best female friend ever, thank you Su :)



I have no artwork to share today, I am kind of in funk the past two days, it's been incredibly hot, I miss my hubby who has been away on business since Monday morning, back tonight though, and now we are having a major thunderstorm so I had better get this posted and close my computer. Stay cool if you are somewhere hot now too.

Tag Tuesday

The theme for the Tag Tuesday Challenge this week is "Time", and here is my tag.
I started with a plain white tag and covered it in this grayish brown paper which has text on it. Stamped on that with half of a stamp I have in Brown, colored the butterfly lightly with chalk pastel pencils and added the little boy on the edge. I used a Tim Holtz game dial on the clock, I guess it is old and broken LOL. Then I went around the boy with my black chalk pencil a bit.
Below is the full shot but I liked the close up photo better :)

The little boy is from Digital Collage Sheets.com

Now I can go and see all the other tags posted today :)

Gothic Arch Challenge Postcards

The theme this week for the Gothic Arches challenge is "postcards". Here is my entry for this week. I know this vintage image of the three sisters and brother was free from a blog but I am not sure from who now. I usually put a name but didn't. Sorry about that.
I used petals from a paper flower which has maps on it behind the family if you are wondering what that is, only problem is I stuck it so flat with gel medium it doesn't look like a flower now :)

Today is Father's Day in Canada, and it is also our daughters 25th birthday. We are going out shortly to my inlaws because we are having dinner there, so I will visit everyone else to see your arches later. Hope you are having a great day, for the first day of summer it is just gorgeous weather here :)

Gothic Arches Yellow and Black

The Gothic Arches Challenge for Sunday was to use yellow and black. I am a bit behind this week due to taking the weekend and more off from blogland.

I made this Arch on water color paper, used acrylic paints and water soluble crayons, black flourish stamps and painted some netting black. I love this little girl, and sorry I can't remember where she is from but she was a bit faded even on my laser printer so I colored her in with black chalk pastels and gave a bit of shine on top of that with some glimmer pastels.

I have been soldering this morning for the very first time, and I got frustrated so left it for a bit to finish my Arch, now I am going to get back to that, but I wanted to show you what I found in my garden this morning, take a look. No more mystery plant, it is the most beautiful red poppy plant I have ever seen.
Actually I havn't seen poppies anywhere before unless in a photo so I was sooooo excited.
They are a dark purple in the center and look more orangey in this photo but they really are quite red. There are four more pods to bloom yet too. I hope they last a little while, I don't have many things that are blooming just yet, we are just starting to have our summer this past week.

Ok, back to my soldering, it's not as easy as it looks but Lorraine is a great teacher and her videos are so helpful. Hope to have something good enough to share with you soon :)

Beautiful Trinket Box Gift

"It's not what we have, but what we enjoy, that constitutes our abundance"
These are the words inscribed around this beautiful trinket box which I won for Cindy's monthly giveaway.
It arrived in the mail at the end of last week but I have been taking some time off the computer and from my art work so I just didn't get around to taking photos until this morning. We are having some nice weather finally so I have been spending a lot of time outside and with my daughter who was here from Thursday until an hour ago.

Back to this little box, look what I found inside when I opened it, a teeny tiny book which ties with a ribbon.
Cindy has stamped butterflies and such in this sweet little book and added another lovely quote.
When I took the book out, there was even more to this little box. I don't know if this is glass, it feels like it, but a moon face is at the bottom of the box and I just love it because I am a Moon Child, born in July, a Cancer. Not that I am big on astrology but I am so true to what a Cancer is.
Thank you Cindy so much, I will treasure it always and am so happy to be the winner of your little treasure trinket box :)

Vist Cindy at her blog Plant's List, you will truly enjoy her talent.

Tag Tuesday and another win

Tag Tuesday Challenge
Theme this week is Definition



I made a mistake after posting this, I went back to Tag Tuesday and realised the theme was not "Friends" which I had thought. What can I say, it's just been one of those days :)
So my "definition" for this tag is "Friendship between people and their pets"

My tag is quite simple today, I used an Anna Griffin paper for the background, one I really, really love, sloppy stamped with sepia ink and wiped some off, added music paper this pretty girl with her kitty friend and some distress ink around the edges. I then used some blue chalk on her dress and brown where she is standing, she needed a touch of pink on her cheeks and lips too :)
The girl is cut from a vintage advertisement, free image, and can be found at Shabby Chic Papirskatter, where you will go nuts saving images if you like this type of thing, she has sooooooo many too.

I won a prize at my friend Carolyn's blog, and am so excited, I just love her whimsical watercolor paintings and I own two of her original bluebird paintings, which I have been trying to get framed to show off.
So we had to figure out or guess how she made herself look like a Ghost in a photograph she took, and I was right :) You can see this amazing photo on her blog at
Magpie Pixie


This little sweetie is Maisy, and I won a print woohoooooo....
I met Carolyn last Spring at Etsy Cottage Style when I was running the place and was lucky enough to meet her when I went home to England last September. We had a nice, but chilly day out in Harrogate and we went for a treat at Betty's which is a famous tea room in the North of England. I had the works, it was wonderful :)
I will of course treasure this little beauty as I do my blue birds , thank you so much Carolyn, I am just so glad I visited your blog last night or I wouldn't have won.

You ARE a Winner and so am I

You ARE a winner, we are all winners, we are all special, but this time I could only draw one name and #33 is Lynn from It's A July Thing. Yes, another Lynn, the last giveaway I had was for reaching 100 followers and the winner of that draw was also a Lynn, feels like I am winning every time :)

I actually have been lucky lately, I won two giveaways on the same day not too long ago, and on Friday I received this awesome package of supplies I won in a giveaway from Terri at
Blooming Ideas.
Just look at all the goodies, Terri was extremely generous. I think my favorite is the box of chalks, they are pearly and I used some yesterday on my Arch, just love them. Thanks again Terri :)

Now I have to put all this aside, I am starting a workshop today, Just Charming ~ Soldering 101 with Lorraine Stobie at Creative Workshops
I purchased this soldering kit and it arrived in April. I havn't done a thing with it, so I am hoping this workshop will get me going :) There is just enough in the kit to get started, and I bought some of the really small glass pieces to get started on, so off I go .........

Gothic Arches Challenge Open Theme

The Challenge at Gothic Arches is an open theme this week.

I chose to use the color Purple this week. I used digital images from Itkupilli.com and a bird from Digital Collage Sheets with a touch of netting (thank you Patty) and some chalks to create this Arch.

On another note, 29 years ago today I was married to my wonderful husband, and I wanted to show you the gorgeous red roses he gave me. The photo doesn't even show how beautiful the are, and well, you can't smell them the way I do. Every time I walk through the house I can smell them.

We really celebrated more yesterday, it was a lovely warm day and we just lazed around outside on the deck not doing much at all. We don't often do that lately.
Then we went for dinner at one of the local wineries. We live at the start of the Niagara Wine Trail so you don't have to go far before you start seeing all the grape vines neatly cast among acres of ground in perfect rows.
I will not say which winery because we were actually very disappointed. I am not one to complain but to start with I thought I was in Starbucks, you know that music they play in there, jazz and blues ? Not the romantic ambiance we expected which is what they described. Then the food, it was tasteless and over priced. We actually came home and ate some bread. I won't go on about it but I have never gone to a high end restaurant and been that totally disappointed, and we have been to some good ones over our 29 years together. Needless to say we didn't stay for dessert.
Tonight however my husband, who is an amazing cook, made us a beautiful, delicious dinner and we had our favorite wine. I made a lovely fruit salad for dessert. I didn't have to get dressed up or even put makeup on, he loves me just the way I am, and we were much more comfortable. We had a good laugh about that dinner last night too, and now as he cleans up (he is spoiling me big time) I am blogging.
Now I will go and spend some more quality time with my best friend, soul friend, lover, companion and damn good cook, maybe even another glass of wine and a snuggle with our puppy.

100th Post Giveaway !!!!!

I finally made it to 100 posts woohoooooo... so to celebrate I am having a giveaway :)
I made another bookmark especially for the giveaway, because I had so many lovely comments on the previous one's I made. So along with bookmark, I will send the lucky winner some bits and pieces to play with too.
Let's see, there is about 10 yards of off white seam binding, which is new, but vintage, some bits of vintage lace, and a piece of new lace, velvet flowers and some silk flowers, then some tickets.
Hope you like it :) Click on the photo to see more clearly.

All you have to do to win is leave a comment , everyone is welcome, I will ship anywhere :)
I will draw a number at Random.org sometime on Monday June 8th , and post the winner here that day. I will also get in touch with you for your address.

Thanks and good luck.
Lynn

Tag Tuesday and Mystery Plant

I was in the mood for a challenge today after not being so creative all week , so I am joining in the Tag Tuesday Challenge for the first time. This week's theme is Travel, and what I did was revamp an altered postcard I had created which I simply just didn't like. I like it much better as a tag with this vintage lady.

My next post will be my 100th post, so I am having another giveaway :) Please check back soon it could be tomorrow if I get the gift finished.

And now, I have a question for you gardening people out there. I have a mystery plant in my garden, it has not bloomed yet but as you can see in the photo it is ready almost and looks rather strange. You have to click on the picture, the close up is soooooo neat, and I won't say what it sorta reminded me of because I just do not have a dirty mind *giggle*

I can't for the life of me every remember seeing this before, but it could have been a plant that someone gave me last fall and is just now taking off. It is a rather large plant so far too. I just had to have a before and hopefully and after photo if it does flower because I don't want it looking like this.
Everything blooms so much later here in S.Ontario than most of you in the States and especially in Britain, all I have had so far has been lilacs and forget me nots, but I hope soon my snapdragons and hydrangeas will bloom, I just love them both.