pink flowers are...

...one of my most favorite things. They make me smile. So when I saw these at the store, slightly past their prime, but only $4, I thought about it for only a few seconds, then stuck them in my cart.


Once home, I pulled off the dead flowers and stuck them in an old canning jar on my kitchen table. I don't even know what they are. Snapdragons, maybe? They remind me of sweet peas.


The colors in them are so soft, fading from a true pink to the palest shade of blush, and the green stems are the perfect shade of green. I'd have this color scheme in every room of my house if it was up to me.


They'll be gone in a few days, their beauty dropped bloom by bloom into the trash, but for now, they live on my table and bring a smile to my face every time I catch sight of them.

Sunday studio shots - in the family room

I guess I should just rename this series Monday Meanderings or something, since I've rarely managed to post it on Sunday. But I think I'll just consider it things that happened on Sunday, and not worry about what day it gets posted.

My side of the love seat - books, afghan, art stuff, Ott light, mocha

DH has been feeling lousy the last few days and spent most of Sunday on the couch looking wan. At 5:30 an NBA playoff game started, so I rolled a cart full of stuff out to the family room and and watched it with him while messing around in a 6 page folio that will be bound in with a few others eventually. Right now I'm keeping them separate so that I can work on one while another's drying. This batch of pages will be a garden theme with birds and the occasional bug.

I started with a blank spread, about 5.5" x 9.5", a floral paper napkin, a TH grunge board flourish and a couple nature prints. After much muttered cursing and lots of picking and plucking, I got the 3 layers of the napkin apart and tore the top sheet into the flowers I wanted to use.

With gloss gel medium and a brush, I glued down two of the flowers.

Without waiting for it to dry, I watercolored the background with a wet mixture of yellow and green.

I also went around the edges of the page with the Antique Linen color of TH's Distress Stain that I just got from Collage Stuff. 

They had the best price I could find online - only $4 a bottle. (I think it retails for $6) I got 4 colors and it's very

cool. Kinda like an ink pad in a bottle.

Thanks to Lenna for using it in her journal recently and making me have to go buy some LOL. 

Then I went over the flowers and leaves with various watercolors until I liked how it looked.

A piece of the original napkin is shown so you can see how much I deepened the colors.

Then I dabbed the Peeled Paint Distress Stain thru the flourish here and there. This is where I left it on Sunday. 

Today I began journaling on the page with a Haiku I made up while waiting for the flooring guy to show. I'll post it once I'm done with the page. 

I did a couple other things too, but I'm out of steam for today. Have to go eat another brownie before I pack them up for work tomorrow. It's someone's birthday.