Digital Dreams and Backyard Dreams

Hi my friends, it's been so long since I blogged, and it feels really weird.
It's not that I have nothing to blog about, I do, lots, but I have been busy doing it and rarely have time to visit blogs lately.

First let me start off by sharing my latest creative endevour , here she is

I have created her in Photoshop using a Wacom Tablet. She is my finished project from Tam's Digital Dreams workshop, which is now available as a self study. I actually think I prefer and do better with the digital art than the actual mixed media collages. After all, I was a digital artist before I found the world of mixed media.

Head on over to Tam's Ning network to find out about a huge giveaway she is having right now, to celebrate 5,000 members. She is giving away lot's of her mixed media classes and more, you have one week left to enter.

 I have just started another workshop drawing digitally, which you can check out at Shwe's Sweet Pieces and Sweet People.
Now I am learning to use even more tools in Photoshop and am just loving it :)

What else have I been up to in the last two months?

Well, a lot of construction has been going on around outside the house. We have been here a year now, and we decided to just get all the outside work done so we can enjoy the back yard.

 My hubby built a cute shed , and a pergola, and we have had the patio done in stones and the driveway too. As you can see, everything is wide open right now, so we are having a fence built for privacy. I can't wait to be fenced in. I worry too much about Cooper , plus I want to create my own little sanctuary :)

I didn't realize the door was open when I was snapping photos, but you get the idea :)

One side of the roof is glass panels and inside there is a potting bench so we can grow some plants from seed this year, which I am very interested in.

There is a pond going in this hole here, we are just waiting for the fence to be done which should be completed this week. I have started a butterfly garden beside the patio, and I hope to show you that soon. There are a couple of photos on my photography blog of my two new butterfly bushes if you are interested. The link is at the top of my side bar.

DH is also building a gazebo, something I have always dreamed of having, but the two weeks vacation he took has been just unbearably hot and humid to do any kind of outside work. We are hoping for some nice fresh summer days to get out and do some more work.

It has been one of the hottest summers I have known, and I think a lot of you that I know have been in the same situation with the heat. I don't mind hot and sunny but when you mix that humidity with it, YUK. I have barely spent any time outside in the last week.

Hope you are all enjoying your summer, I will be back soon,
Lynn

Where the purple thistles grow

This is where I live , by lake Ontario, where the purple thistles grow.

I can see the lake from my bedroom window, kitchen window and the end of my driveway, it's only about 500meters away, but to get to the Marina is about an 8 min walk. I don't know why, but it just is a thrill each day to see the blue water, wonder what it will look like in winter, and what about the empty space in the back of us, maybe a new home there will block this view.



We live beside a natural conservation area, no cutting of grass or wildflowers , and you know I love wild flowers. The thistles grow every where there but I found some that were still nice and bright looking along the rock edge.

I think this is the one I used to create the digital piece at the beginning of this post.
I have been refreshing myself with PSE8 again after a long break, because we are still in yet another heat wave and I can't stand to be in my studio. Even with air conditioning it is the hottest room in the house.

I had fun snapping dried up dying off wild flowers , yet at the same time I was disappointed there were none left to pick for my flower press.
I am by no means a photographer but I am thinking more and more it may be something I would like to learn more about because I love taking photos of plants, flowers etc.

Below is what a lot of the conservation area looks like. You won't get me walking through there I tell you, I bet it is full of skunks.

There are two natural beaches that are not sand, but teeny tiny pebbles all broken up and the beaches are not really maintained like a beach you might find in Florida. They have a pet beach and then the larger one for people. I forgot to take photos of that.

My DH snapped this weird looking plant, I have no idea what it is but it reminds me of when cucumbers are starting to grow.

Cooper wasn't too happy there, and he could care less about the pet beach, he just wanted to go home. I think it was too hot, we didn't stay long anyway.

I think this is a large size Queen Anne's Lace drying up.


Another area on the walk back.

"At last" he thinks, "I am home" :)

Cooper wanted to let you know he is a big boy now, today is his 2nd birthday :)
Happy Birthday my precious little man,
Love, Mom xxx

I have some beef for you tonight.

Tussie Mussie and Good News

This is the tussie mussie I made for Debby. I used fabric to cover the cone, and I tea dyed doilies and trim to decorate it.
I really enjoyed putting this together, thing is, I forgot to take photos of everything else I included in the swap, but Debby has done a wonderful job of taking photos and posting them on her blog on this post at The Gathering Nest.

Now my good news. Our house SOLD last night... woohooooo...finally we can breathe better. We have two months before the new house will be ready to move in to, so it gives me just enough time to get packed and hopefully have some time to be more creative. It is so hard to be creative when you are stressed , and when people are constantly coming to view your house.

I am so happy, and so blessed to move into a new house which we got to customize a lot. All our married life (30 years in June) we have bought fixer uppers and then renovated ourselves and sold them to move up and up the housing ladder so to speak. Now, we are finally at our dream home :)

Here is a photo of my new studio, which I hope I get to spend lots and lots of time in when we move. I still don't have my muse back and it's been gone for a few weeks too, but I am not worried about it, I have done other things instead, and I know it will come back now. I will get more photos soon, probably going inside to view again on Sunday.

It's not the greatest looking room at the moment, and I still don't know what I will do with it, but I am loving the two large windows. It also has a walk in closet which we will put shelves in to store a lot of my "stuff" :)