T Stands for Tuesday

It's time for Tea and

T Stands for Tuesday ! 

First off I'd like to thank Elizabeth for giving me a Heads Up on her blog this week. Since she posted on making teabags and was kind enough to mention me I thought I'd write about my teas again. 

I make a lot of herbal tea blends and herbal tinctures using herbs I grow in my garden and a few I buy at farmers market or on line. 

I've been getting my bags from BulkHerbs.com 

and they look like this. 

 After filling the bags with the herb mixture you seal with heat....iron it. I used to use a small craft size iron I've hard for years. I however dropped it and it no longer works. I'm not in the mood to buy a new one or drag out my real clothing iron so I usually just heat a butter knife on my electric stove  burner ( very carefully and not real hot) and seal it that way. 

I did just recently realize that MountainRoseHerbs.com  does carry the bags too and they are less expensive there. So that is where my next order will come from :) 

I'm way behind on processing my herbs this year..

This is what's in the basement in various stages of drying on a screen door.

This is the Chocolate Mint I gathered last week. One tray is completely dry and the other two are almost there.

This is the sage I gathered today and still needs to be stripped from the stems put into the dehydrators and dried. 

I finally got all of the Thyme for the year dried and bottled. :) 

With the perfect growing weather this summer and the extremely warm and late long running fall I have about 3 times what I usually get in a growing season. 

This is my tea for the night. It's Sage and Thyme tea with raw honey and a dash of Cheyenne Pepper. Great for colds or in my case allergies. 

The art in the picture is an on going piece that I need to get off my desk so I stop changing it :) 

She started out like this...

...Then went to this...

....then to this.... 

...wishing I had left the splatters on at this point ...but too late they are gone :( ...

Here she is today.....

I have the white flowers going onto the sides of the painting too and some of the scribbles... but she's about to become too busy so she has to leave the desk ♥

Today's Random Thoughts

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Art Journal Journey

Matisse 

For today's art I have chosen to do a Matisse inspired page. Actually it really chose me. As I set with my journal.... sort of watching TV. I was thinking of the dental work that I need to have done.... sooner rather than later... and the cost involved. How I wish the "Tooth Fairy" still visited and would leave a large amount of cash to pay for all this work. 

I had already decided to do something inspired by Matisse and so the 

"TOOTH FAIRY" 

appeared in my journal .

 If only she would appear at my home ♥

This week I harvested what I think will be the last of the Chocolate Mint for the year :) 

Will be bagging it up into teabags as soon as it's dried out. A hot cup of Chocolate Mint Tea on a cold winter day is soooo good ♥  I am amazed at the herbs and flowers still blooming in my garden this late in the season and after several frosts and a couple of hard freezes. The mints will be the only thing I harvest this late... since they are so aggressive and I don't mind if I kill off a few of the plants by harvesting so late. 

Today's random thoughts...

Sharing with 

Art Journal Journey

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Paint Party Friday and Art Journals Journey

It's FRIDAY once again!!!♥♥♥♥♥

Thanks again to Eva and Kristin for doing this every week!!!! Even if I don't show up every week I do appreciate the chance. 

I was reluctant to share some of today's art. I don't like how it turned out and plan on redoing it but just don't have time for it today. Since it was the only thing I painted this week and I really wanted to post  I'm making myself share a BAD painting. 

At Art Journals Journey the theme this month is "Inspired by the Masters" so I desperately tried to do one of Van Gogh's Sunflower paintings. I paint sunflowers all of the time and do a great job of it.... but not this week :( I think I was over  thinking the getting it as close to the original stuff that I just blew it. The smaller one is much better because I pretty much gave up duplicating and just painted. 
So here is the original by 
Van Gogh...

....then here is my mess....

I considered just tearing the page out of my journal but I like the drawing on the back side so I'll just have to fix it later :) 

I did do a few Mandala's that I really like this week .

Just to reassure myself and anyone who doubts...LOL!... Here is a Sunflower I painted for my daughter for her birthday...

It's on a little trinket box that I used to hold some of the other gifts I had for her. 

So here are some random thoughts for today..

Don't forget to check out the other great art at 

Paint Party Friday 

and 

Art Journals Journal.

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Around the World Blog Hop and T Stands for Tuesday

Surprise Elizabeth!!! 

I remembered :) 

A few weeks  back a  blog friend of mine asked if I would do the Around the World Blog Hop... I told her I would but that she would have to remind me on the day I was supposed to write or I'd forget. Good thing I told her.... cause you guessed it... I FORGOT. :( 

So first off we'll start with a little bit of background on me.... 

I was born and grew up in central Illinois. 

... wasn't I just the cutest little thing ? :) 

That was in 1952...so I'm old :) 

....as a teenager I had lots of attitude and spent a lot of time  grounded because of it... 

all of that time stuck at home in my room  gave me the opportunity to draw and do fiber arts. Someone teased me once about trying to be an artist ....so being the self conscious girl that I was I gave it up... 

.....for years. I spent my free time then doing fiber arts and making myself clothes to wear to school. My parents wouldn't spend much money on school clothes once I stopped outgrowing everything every year. I learned real fast though that they would pretty much buy me all the fabric I wanted :) 

My art didn't return until I was adult and my kids were grown. 

I started out making Native American Jewelry and Dream Catchers. Sold them through a shop a friend owned. Then I decided to try painting tee shirts and a whole new world opened for me.  

I couldn't stop drawing and painting.

......now the questions.....

       How does my work differ from others?

I'm not so sure that it does... I don't think I've really developed a style of my own yet. I take on line classes and visit other art blogs and get my inspiration from those artist. I'm feeling that my style is developing more towards the whimsical...but not completely sure on that yet. :)  I doodle a WHOLE LOT!

Why do I create what I do....

Being creative is an intricate part of who I am. If I go too long without being creative in some form I get very edgy and depressed. I'm not a happy person or a pleasant one. I have to be creative in order to be complete! 

How does my creative process work?

Sometimes I'll  see something or hear something that will just inspire me to create. ... and then again I'll just sometimes have an idea just pop into my head from out of no where  and I'll try to create that image or thought. It's kind of like my style... I don't really have a set process . 

What Am I Working ON ? 

Right now I am doing Mandalas . A new experience for me. I've always loved them but never tried doing one. I saw a challenge on Facebook and decided to give them a try. We'll see how this goes. 

A random sampling of my art....

First some fiber art.... 

hand dyed wool and scarves crocheted with it...

Last year I crocheted 100 hats and donated them to 3 local charities... I won't be crocheting that many hats in one year again! :) Talk about hard on the old hands!!!

...ART...

   

So that's me in a nut shell :) 

For T Stands for Tuesday here is my beverage shot...

Thanks Kathy for inviting me to join this HOP ♥

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Paint Party Friday

It's Friday and it's Halloween

No costumes or candy here :( no little ones in the neighborhood any more and the grand-kids all live too far away . So it's just us and the animals and a whole bunch of scary movies on TV. 

Just a couple of little altered playing cards this week. 

a random thought

♥

Paint Party Friday and One Hundred Mandalas

Friday has come and gone and I'm late posting once again. I did have the art done... I just got involved with cleaning out my shed that I wore myself out completely. No energy or enough brain power to write a post last night. The shed however looks great :)

Not much art at all this week. Just too busy getting things cleaned up outside and ready for winter. The weather has been beautiful and it's been nice to finally be able to actually do some work with out it hurting my back too much. Perhaps the injections are going to work well. 

The art is two Mandalas done in my journal. Using watercolors, watercolor pencils and Micron pens.

  

I have started on a small wooden case for the Inspirational Quote Card Deck that I completed last week.  Have only gotten the Gesso and some background stuff done sp nothing to really photograph this week. 

I am finally down to ONE bucket of apples left to do!!!! Almost ready for the HAPPY DANCE.  This week I made 6 quart jars of applesauce , 6 pints of apple pie filling  and several jars of Apple Butter :) and some pineapple, pear & apple marmalade.

The marmalade was an experiment that turned out pretty well. Taste good on English muffins and makes a great sauce on baked chicken breast ♥♥♥♥ 

Random thought for the day...

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PAINT PARTY FRIDAY 

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