Three Muses Challenge Fowl Play

I think they took a wrong turn on the way to the chicken coop in the dark! Now the little hen on the outside is going to figure out how to break them out. Takes a female!

Please read the whole post. I have only just begun to learn Photoshop.

I had no intention of entering the challenge, just went to look at the Three Muses blog and see some of the work done for the challenge.

I just about fell over when I saw on the list a link to a creation  by terri d. at Pixels and Paste titled Harold and Lucy ! My husband's name is Harold, I am Lucy (Lucille but go by both).

My husband has relatives farming in Saskatchewan and we go there to visit at least once a year. I  always take pictures of the chickens, cows, kittens, barns, etc. We are known to them all as Harold and Lucy!

Terri wrote a cute little story to go with her wonderful digital creation. Go see!

Notice the lucky little hen on the outside of the fence?

Here's my original photo taken at the farm in Saskatchewan last year.

I used a Creative Commons picture found on Flickr for the background, chicken tracks were found on an image search google.

Who....ME?

Sweet Susie atVintage Susie & Wings passed on this blog award to me and I couldn't have been more surprised! She is one of the nicest people! I love her blog, so make sure you go and see it. I am now going to pass this award on to 5 bloggers who in turn should pass it on.

It was so hard to make a choice! I visit so many lovely blogs and even though I don't have time to comment on each and every one, I am so happy they are there in blogland for me to view.

The blogs I have chosen are authored by some great gals who are so generous and sharing. Just want you to know you are all very much appreciated! I'm a fairly new blogger and new at digital art and you have all been so inspiring to me. I hope you'll visit them.

Abbie atThe Vintage Moth

Rian at Freubel-Art

Carol Anne at Carol Anne's Boutique

Elizabeth at The Last Door Down the Hall

June at Dezinaworld

A quick post

Wow! This last few days have been too hectic for my old body and brain! Just stuff! A combination of different things happening that has me spinning around in circles it seems. I'm on overload, LOL!! I have lots to blog about and will catch up when I can.

So, just so I don't feel like I'm not blogging at all, here are a few pictures I took. The first one I took today from my bedroom window, so glad I have a new camera with a longer zoom!!

At the back of the yard in the bit of bush, almost above where we sit by the firepit, there is a huge wasp nest way up high in the branches of a tree! I could see something there once most of the leaves were gone, and wasn't sure if it was a birds nest or a wasp nest!..........Today, enough leaves were gone to see it and yes, it's a big wasp nest! We usually find one each fall somewhere around the yard, but never this high up!

Coming around the corner into our development on my way home the other day, the sky filled with hundreds of geese.... what a noise too! I stopped to take a some pictures and also of some that had been sitting by the road at the edge of the field when I left home a couple of hours before, and were still quite contented to sit there until I got back!

They were not in the least bit interested in joining the geese that were flying above.  I took these pics after the flock had flown over. I took quite a few, but I'm not going to bore you, lol!!

Down in the Dungeon

Here is the image that I started with for this challenge over at Art Freebies blog. Haven't done anything for the last number of days, so just did a little quickie with the spiderweb and some images that I got over at Freubel-Art which is a really fun place to visit.

Have a great spooky day!

Some backyard pictures lovely fall colors

I'm really enjoying the colors in my back yard. We've lost too many leaves already due to that yucky cold snap with snow a week or so ago, but there's still enough there to give some lovely color.

One of our old wheels is slowly falling apart, but we'll leave it there , it still has alot of charm.

Some old weathered wood cuts that Kiera uses to climb up to her "swinging horse" branch of a tree. The clump of decorative grass is not affected by the cold yet.

Crunchy layer of leaves will be alot thicker around the picnic table before too long.

My favorite picture of all I took yesterday! This little concrete fella resides in the bush. Last fall I was cleaning up my clump of chives and plunked a big chunk in his wheelbarrow. Haven't watered or touched them since! He looks like he's concentrating on moving them somewhere else! They will likely just keep on growing in his wheelbarrow unless we have a very long dry spell.
Have a great day!

Witches' Walk

After seeing all of the spooky compositions on the blogs I visit, I had to do one too! This was fun and is made up of 8 different layers. Hope you like it!

It's Monday, the sun is shining, the temperature is not bad, so I'll be going outside to do some various little chores around the yard that I've put off, waiting for a decent day. Yesterday was nice late in the afternoon, so I did go out for a while, emptying plant pots and putting them away, and a few other odds and ends.  Of course there's the laundry, Ebay auctions ending, things to pack up to mail, etc, etc, etc.....

Yes I do love lace!

Yes indeedy I do! That's why I sell vintage linens and lace on Ebay, you can't keep them all!! I was just taking some pictures of some of what I'll be selling in my auctions this week, so I thought I'd share. These won't be listed until tomorrow or Tuesday and I'd love if you looked at my auctions. The link is on the right. There's some nice linens on there now too.

As always, click on the picture to enlarge, then  you can see more detail. Check out the beautiful tatting on lower right hand corner. Yes, that is tatting, not crochet. There's a huge difference!

Playing with Collage......I love lace

If you only knew how many times I change my mind while composing this picture last night! What I had in mind was soft pinks on the white lace, then I wanted to use the friendship card, (which I over-edited, that word is "stretching" under friendship) so I needed red flowers instead! I would have liked something a little different at top, I knew I wanted something black and scrolly, but that meant a hunt on the internet and alot of distraction along the way, so I chose the black lace which I had in my files.

An update, I entered my lacey picture in a prize challenge, just for fun! It's at Dezinaworld, the link is at the right. There are some beautiful creations displayed for the challenge on the right hand side of her page.

Lookie what I got in the mail today!

I thought I'd wait to tell you until I received my cute spooky pendant.....I won it in a blog giveaway a couple of weeks ago. Thanks so much to Lynn at Trash to Treasure Art. As you can see there is an image on both sides, and check out the cute little spider! Love it! Very well made too! I will really enjoy wearing this!

I was busy making these fleur de lis pendants and pins this week. I sell on consignment at a shop nearby and a customer wanted a pin and a pendant in fleur de list design. This is what I came up with. I thought I'd give her a choice so made a few extra.

Poor Little Robin

Can you find the little robin in the collage? Poor little thing! It was supposed to be just about him, but I got all carried away with the butterflies, starting out trying to hide a couple of boo-boos with them, then balancing them out, etc, etc, etc. Oh well, I'll try another one with him being the star player!!

I fiddled around and managed to move the music a bit so he would show, but really!! You wouldn't have known he was there if I didn't tell you, right?

This is what started it all, there were alot of robins in the yard all of a sudden around dinner time, this was the only half decent pic I got, and he was being quite cheeky, looking at me with his head crooked!! CLICK TO ENLARGE

Goosey Goosey Gander

Goosey goosey gander,

Whither shall I wander?

Upstairs and downstairs

And in my lady's chamber.

There I met an old man

Who wouldn't say his prayers,

So I took him by his left leg

And threw him down the stairs.

Did you read your children nursery rhymes? Or maybe your mom read them to you? I remember this one well but googled to make sure I had the wording right. (I did)....but who knew??....."The traditional interpretation of this rhyme regards it as an account of the religious upheaval in England during the sixteenth century." Also, there are alternative words to this rhyme!
Read all about it, here's the link:

http://childrens-verse.suite101.com/article.cfm/understanding_goosey_goosey_gande

By the way, I took these pics at a nearby park. The geese were gathering on the miniature golf playing area! Guess they're hanging around for a while, even though it's quite chilly out there! Have a great day/evening!

Fun with digital collage

I finally broke down and bought Photoshop Elements version 8, so I can do some digital collage work, just for fun. I enrolled in an online class to help me along as it can be very confusing using such a complex program! I'm sure having fun!! (and wasting more time than I should, playing!) Playing with a whole lot of layers, erasing backgrounds from a picture so you can use just part of it (the little girl below), hunting for images, you can get lost for hours!! Anyway, the above was something that just sort of happened that I liked, even though there are only a few layers. I started out with more, but they ended up getting buried somehow and I like the way it looked so .......there ya go! I would like to touch it up some, but afraid I'll end up losing what I've already got, so will go back at it when I've learned more.

This evolved from a challenge posted on Art Freebies.........the image given was of the suitcases, you have to make something with the image. I had a few things going, but ended up with this, which is fairly simple in the digital world, but kept me busy for quite a while.

I am now going to sit down and watch a chick flick! I haven't watched tv lately at all and there is actually a good movie on right away!

THIS IS NOT GOOD!

Waking up to this is not good! Please make it go away! Winter is too long already without it starting October 10th! Hopefully we will get some warm sun to melt this off, ......real soon!!

This was last evening. I grabbed my camera to catch a shot of the spider...upper right. He was hanging from a big of web and madly spinning around and doing acrobatics. He went into the corner so I couldn't get any more pictures. I'm sure he was taken by surprise by the weather too!

Apple Muffins Recipe

I found this recipe for apple muffins  in an old Betty Crocker cookbook. They were quite tasty and quick to

make. I've been hunting for different apple related recipes since I have quite a few from the tree that I'd like to use up.

I used more cinnamon than called for, probably triple, as we like lots of cinnamon with our apples!

1 egg, 1/2 cup milk, 1/4 cup vegetable oil

1 1/2 cups sifted flour (I never sift)

1/2 cup sugar

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 cup grated apple

Heat oven to 400 degrees. Grease bottom of muffin cups or use paper baking cups. Beat egg slightly with fork. Stir in milk and oil and grated apple. Sift dry ingredients together and stir in just until flour is moistened. Batter should be lumpy. Do not overmix. Fill greased muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 12 medium muffins.

Topping to be sprinkled on before baking.

Mix 1/3 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup broken nuts (I omitted nuts) and 1/2 tsp. cinnamon

I found these tasted even better on the second day.

Lots of frost on the pumpkins last night!

It was -10 C this morning! that's 14 F ! Any way you put it is cold. Cloudy, damp cold! ...with some of that white stuff in between the rain, called snow! Thanks goodness it was melting when it hit the ground, but it was certainly miserable out there. On my way back from getting groceries I pulled over onto the side of the road to snap a couple of pictures of 2 "pumpkin stands". Just around the corner from me, they start with the pumpkins and squash and gourds as the corn and tomato season is winding down.

This is the bigger of the two, the pumpkins are grown at the back of their home on fertile land that backs on to the Red River. We always buy corn from them, knowing it is the freshest and sweetest around.

A little competition, one door away. They will both sell the majority of their pumpkins before Halloween.

Due to the heavy frost last night, alot of the leaves have fallen off of the trees, even though they are still green! The tree below on the boulevard across the street was shedding them like crazy this morning. They were piling up in a matter of minutes and since then the poor tree is almost naked!

I sure hope we don't loose too many leaves all at once, we'll miss the best part of fall...all that beautiful color!

I think any strawberries in the garden were frozen solid! I quickly took this picture this afternoon. Now I'm warm and cozy in the house and catching up on my blog. I'm double posting today, next is a recipe for some apple muffins!