Friday, November 13, 2020

Friday, November 13, 2020 

Woodland hills and a couple baseball fields and a playground with swings, slides and other equipment are all part of this quiet park Dave and I have found near our new home. We have enjoyed walking the many trails criss crossing the hillsides.  The picture was taken November 7 when we were enjoying unseasonably lovely weather. Today, the 13th, is cold and snowy. 

Another sticker. :)

Handmade stickers

 

 November 8, 2020 

 I am making stickers these days. I keep thinking up; noticing and hearing sayings that I could use for the stickers. Possible papers, and paintings catch my eye for backgrounds. 

Years ago, I bought a sticker maker on sale intending to use it in my classroom but never did find the time to use it in class. Now, being retired, gives me time to use it. It is a simple machine called a Create a Sticker, Max, by Xyron. I have been enjoying the process of creating some custom stickers. 

This sticker is from an acrylic painting that I made last year. I wondered if canvas would make an acceptable sticker material. So I tried it.  I think it works pretty well. I used one to stick to a plastic lamp and it is staying on quite well.

Just a few months ago, my friend, Carole sent me a text giving me the above advice. I wrote it down and used it on a sticker. The marker was a Tombow Fudenosuke. The drawing was done with Tombow water-based Dual Brush pens.

I like to use sayings from people that I love. It is more meaningful that way.

Sometimes I use scrapbooking paper. I have so much of it from years of scrapbooking.

Here is part of the painting canvas that I cut up. 

This one is for my granddaughter who shares the love of bugs with her dad. These are water bugs. 

My daughter made the background of this sticker. She was playing with acrylic paints and learning about color. She said I could use it for stickers.

My granddaughter is the perfect age to love friends to come over and play at her house. She just started school. That is what inspired this sticker.

So imperfect and hand-made. I don't want them to look like they came from a machine.

Someday I want to sell them. Don't know how yet.

January 6, 2019 Sunday

Hi.

Just thinking I should begin blogging again.


Sunday is a good day for blogging, maybe I will do a one sentence blog every day.  (When I limit myself to one sentence then I find many more things that I want to tell about. This helps with writer's block.)

So here is my one sentence. Dave is working and I slept until noon.

Now, there's much more to say. Like: drink lot's of water. (That is rather lame.)
So how about: Make your bed every day.   (Lamer)
Well, Have a great day today.
Love you. 😊

I will set two goals.
1. drink thirty two ounces of water to start my late day.
2. Do Laundry.

I will return to say I have done these things.

They are done.

Winter Home Early 2015 Illinois

Hello,

Kevin and Dad in bright snowy driveway.

There is Dad. Shoveling! Someone take that snow shovel away from that man!

Wasn't it pretty?

Conservation Posters, Again

Here are more posters made by third graders in Wisconsin. January 2015

Honey Bees! This is what they make for us. Honey honey

Save Our Pollinators

Don't kill pollinators

Save Our Pollinators
Yellow and Black Hover Fly

Don't kill Pollinators

Butterflies

Third grade conservation posters

Hi everybody,

At school, I had the kids make some posters about saving our pollinators. At the library, I borrowed almost 25 books about bees and beetles and bugs.  Bats are important pollinators, too but I had not been thinking about that that day.

J. had a great big bee. Love it!!!

Maybe this will be the winning poster.

Notice the pollen floating in the air.

Protect the helpers.

Indeed.

Local Heroes- Your Hardworking Pollinators. Bee! A Hero!

Grasshoppers

This artist used water colors. Ladybugs are awesome!

These are for a competition and were sent to the judges yesterday. 

They die We die Protect Pollinators

Notice the eye on the bee! :)

Thanks for viewing. More posters next time.
Leave a comment if you want to.
Love,
Berryblue

Messy Experimental Journal Process

Hello Everybody!

 It has been a great Sunday. Relaxed and quiet. Laundry is in the washer and on the couch. 

Here are a few pictures of the progression of my journal page. It is a "get messy" page. Not meant to be a great work of art, but a fun, exploration of art materials.

Well, I am using Golden (which is the brand) Soft Gel Medium, Matte. See the gold glitter? I put the get medium over that and it still looks sparkly.

I really know that I need to study into how to draw a face. Mine is quite cartoony. I have a book: How to Draw Faces, on my Amazon wish list.  

I almost left the hair just like that. I like it, but love to do hair so worked on it for another 2 hours.

This was meant to be sort of playful and not a work of art but something fun to do and to "get messy" on a page.  By get messy I mean, take some chances and don't stay right in my comfort zone. The blush was a get messy addition. Her hair has about 6 or seven colors in it. This page is not really done. I want to give her some clothing. The tag is from a gift C. gave me. She combined some different tea leaves and put the tea in these huge tea bags, big enough to put in a tea pot, and put a Brene Brown quote on the back of the tag. The tea tasted lovely and I can't throw away the tags. 

Thanks for reading!! Any suggestions? Leave a comment.
Love you much!!!
Berryblue

Birdfeeders and unfinished journal page

This is the other bird feeder that E and A gave us. The birds seem to like it better than the other metal one they gave us.

This unique bird feeder was made by dad some years ago. It still works really well. It holds peanuts in the shell for chickadees and woodpeckers. 

We had a snow day today!! Hooray.  The reason for the snow day was not snowfall, but the intense cold. Kids could be hurt trying to walk to school. I just hope we do not have to make it up in the summer.

Here it is up close. Notice the moss growing around the base of it. I like moss.  It's pretty. And it was just too darn cold to stand there and wait for birds to light on the feeders to take a photo, but they were there in droves. Or flocks. Not herds.... There were an awful lot of birds. :)    Finches, Black Capped Chickadees, Downy woodpeckers, Goldfinches, Cardinals, Crows, Blue jays.

Notice the lichen on the top of the feeder.

This is a day to journal. So here is a beginning. Maybe I will show the finished product another day.

And I paired many socks today. And washed loads of laundry.

Book club tomorrow.

Thanks for commenting!! 

Love,

Berryblue

PS You know, I have never told anyone about this blog.  Funny.

Getting to bed early.

Reading his new book. Dave relaxes on a sunny winter's day. 

Dave with a book and his best friend. What more could you ask of life?

Dave adds delicious sunflower seeds to our new bird feeder.
The birds have been flocking to them.

I IIIIIWent to bed early last night and slept late this morning. 

This looks so cozy. They are pretty good friends. Car-pet and Mishka. 

These are those sprouts. We had eaten a lot of them but I kept watering or rinsing them and they continued to grow. Yum. Ah, the enzymes!



Well, that's all I have today, folks. Make a comment, okay?

A Winter day. January 3, 2015

Hello!

Hope this day was a good one for you!!! Did you get some fresh air? Dave made a track for me around our yard.
And speaking of our yard, often we have 3 or 4 deer eating under the bird feeders. They are so big. Really, I open  the screen door, not expecting to see them, and whoa, they seem like horses! Then when Mishka flies out of the house to chase them away she seems so small.  They run, but are not in too big of a hurry to get away from her. She is so small, she doesn't scare them.

 Dave and I visited today with a friend of ours.  He told stories of borrowing his dad's tools, as a kid, and losing them or getting in trouble because he used a screwdriver as a chisel and mashed it so it was unusable.  Now he is a dad of two kids and he says he's wondering how he will handle the tool borrowing thing himself.  He is our son's age and his smile reminds me of my cousin. With lines all around his eyes and face. A great smile. He often calls Dave throughout the week just to talk. His wife is a friend of mine.Their kids are little. She comes to the book club. They live near us and I think the guy is a bit like Dave when he was that age. 


C and R and E and A went to a Raptor Center today. It is like a bird sanctuary. 

This is Berryblue, somewhere in the north, signing out for now.
Stay warm.

Ten four.
Over and out.

P.S. Here is my new coat. It is very light and soft. Not heavy at all.

No, I didn't hear you say anything about the Michelin Man, C.!  :)

Happy New Year, 2015!

From Eric and Angela we got bird feeders. Here they are. Super well put together and made of metal!

And Dave got a book of Korean history from Cass. It is quite fascinating. It's written by scribes in the Chosun Dynasty. The scribes had to write whatever happened to the king. If they changed what they wrote they could be put to death. So once a king fell off his horse and he asked the scribe to not include that in the writing but the scribe recorded that he fell off his horse and that he asked that it not be recorded. How about living in a fish bowl! I'm glad I'm a commoner.

Another subject.😳 I just learned that George Washington Broth has MSG! Oh my! What MSG does is get the adrenals working too hard! But to add insult to injury I also just found out that Special K cereal has high fructose corn syrup and that works the adrenals extra hard for nothing also! Here I thought my Special K loaf was good for you!

I will adjust the recipe and find a decent cereal without high fructose corn syrup! Ugh. So, instead if George Washington Broth, I guess I will use any variety of Bill's Best vegan, gluten free seasoning.

Dave and I just watched The Rifle Man and Superman on television. During the five minute commercials Dave surfed a few other stations. One of them had Seinfeld.

In The Rifle Man the hero fought and won against evil in the form of selfish and cruel foes.  He also recited a quick synopsis of the book of Job to his son. This served to give both Rifleman and son courage for their upcoming trials. 
Superman rescued a man who was hanging on to a rope attached to a blimp that had come loose from its moorings. The man's life was saved. In contrast, witty and laughable as it is, in Seinfeld, you see weak grown men being happy when they have fooled their "friends". And they exhibit rude behavior meant to be funny, but for kids soaking it up, it concerns me. Kids under 8 years of age don't know what is real yet.  I can be too serious, but what kind of sincerity, honesty and integrity is modeled?  Consider the difference in messages each generation has absorbed after countless such examples.  By beholding what are the babies and children of today learning?

Also, I do not know how to answer any comments, so, otherwise I would. Sorry. But I will keep working on it.