Sunflower Studio

WHAT A WEEK!

So, our family has been trying to wring everything we can out of this last bit of summertime 2011.  We started last weekend by seeing JOURNEY, FOREIGNER, and NIGHT RANGER in concert in Virginia Beach with my sister, Lynn.  What a blast from the past too!  There were even quite a few people dressed in "vintage" 80s clothes and hair-dos.  The problem with them was that I'm thinking they were so not even old enough to have been around during the heyday of these bands.  Well, you gotta give it to them for appreciating the "old folks" music!  Ha!

Then, on Tuesday, my mom and I took the little boy and a friend to MOUNT VERNON.  Why not get a little educational activity in there too, right?  I highly recommend visiting George and Martha's home.  It's such a beautiful place. It's all restored to what it would have looked like in 1799, I think it was.  I don't know why I didn't remember that it's right on the Potomac and so picturesque.  The museum and gardens are wonderful as well. 

Of course, the big news on Tuesday was the East Coast Earthquake!  And here we were right there in Virginia - not really THAT far from the epicenter - AND WE DIDN'T EVEN FEEL IT AT ALL!  Crazy, I know!  I was somewhat entranced by all of the amazing sunflowers in the gardens - I think I took 35 pictures of them! - and we missed it.  When we headed to the spot where the mansion tour started everyone was talking about it and they were evacuating the mansion to make sure that all was still okay.  WHAT?  An earthquake on the East Coast?  That's just silly talk! Anyway, I made a little slide show of our day at Mount Vernon in case anyone wants to take a look...

 

Now, we await Hurricane Irene here on the East Coast!  The in-laws will be coming inland (they live at the beach) tomorrow morning and spending the weekend.  We get so many of these "gear up for anything" events only to have the storms change track and head out to sea.  Nothing to do now but wait and cross our fingers that no major damage comes our way.  (I'm also praying that my sister - who lives about three blocks from the ocean - will remain safe and sound!)

WHAT A WEEK!

ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR

I'm taking a class online through reneepearson.com to learn Adobe Illustrator CS4.  Renee was one of my digital scrapbooking heros...she's amazing.  This class is being taught by Laura Coyle and she's pretty amazing too.  Check out her website....woweeeee!  The class is pretty cool.  What I've learned so far is that almost anything can be made graphically using shapes.  You don't necessarily need to be an artist...at least that's what I'm hoping.  I really need a ton of practice since I'm a firm believer in the fact that you can only get better by "doing".  So, the first week we used the shapes and then this past week we worked with color.  The three graphics above were made using a combo of both lessons.  What I couldn't figure out is how to resize and blah, blah so that I could show you these here on the blog...oh well...that's for another day.  For now, just thought I'd share a little peek with you.

HOPPY SPRING

Well, it is officially Spring now and the frogs are out and about.  I took pictures of two of them this week.  We have a little stand of trees behind our house and then behind that is the library {how convenient?!} and it has a nice sized pond next to it.  So, in addition to hearing the froggies and bugs talking each night, we get to see them now and again.  The big giant toad on the right was on the patio on Sunday night.  He's huge!  I can't remember what the size of those patio tiles are - maybe 5x5?  I think he was about 3.5 to 4 inches square.  Big ole frog and look how bumpy he is.

The other frog was on the vertical wood surround at the garage door.  He was stuck on there pretty flat...waiting for a bug to fly by the lights that are mounted above.  I would say that he's more of a tree frog since he had those flat sticky looking ends on his toes.  {Are they called toes on a frog? hmmm}

Anyway, I like the wildlife.  We have a bunch of deer, a fox, a few groundhogs, squirrels, tons of birds...all of that stuff is fine with me.  I don't even mind the frogs.  I am iffy on some of the other insect type things though.  Remember my spider?!  As an update on that, I've sent my photo to three or four different people who are supposed to know about bugs.  The latest one said that it's probably a Wolf spider {don't look if you're squeamish!}.  O-kaaaay...but he also mentioned never seeing a triangular marking like our spider had.  WHAT?!  HO-WEE-KWAP...I'm still not convinced that it's not a maneater!

THE BIG SNOW 2010

I'm assuming that this will be THE big snow of this winter season....There just can't be MORE!  Really!  I'm about snowed out this year.  Here are few pix from yesterday while it was still snowing.  I need to take some more today as we try and dig out...it's really pretty and white and the sky is sparkling blue.  A winter wonderland!

This one just screams, "AVALANCHE!" to me!

And here's my little sunflower sculpture that stands in the front garden.  How unusual that the snow could find even the smallest edge to build upon.

REAL BALD EAGLES!

Today the kids were out of school so my mom and I took the little boy up the road to CONOWINGO DAM. The Conowingo Dam (also Conowingo Hydroelectric Plant, Conowingo Hydroelectric Station) is a large hydroelectric dam in the Lower Susquehanna River.  It's really close to where we live and it seems as though the eagles like it too.  A large number of bird watchers come out daily with those gigantic lenses on their cameras.  I got so excited when an actual bald eagle flew overhead that I didn't get a picture of him.  I did, however, snap a few of some of the immature eagles fighting over a fish and that was pretty cool.  The pretty adult bald eagle here was in a tree behind us and he was pretty happy just to sit here and survey his surroundings.  I zoomed in as far as I could but it still took some zooming in digitally at home to show him up close.  Be sure and check it out if you're in the Baltimore area!

CAUGHT UP IN THE FRENZY?

Did anyone else get caught up in the frenzy of those new Copic Marker colors last week?  I mean, I got an email a few weeks ago from my LSS and they were taking preorders for the 12 new markers but they weren't even supposed to arrive until late summer at the earliest.  I decided to resist.  I'd wait until they weren't new anymore and get them then.  "What's the hurry, right?"  That's what I said to myself. 

THEN, last week, more emails...this time from ELLEN HUTSON's store and from ECLECTIC PAPERIE.  Jeesh...those daggone markers were in NOW!  LIMITED SUPPLY!  Could I really resist?  I had them in my cart and then I'd walk away.  But then it looked like they might already be gone...ALL SOLD OUT...at one of these places.  The frenzy took hold of me.  I had to order...AND NOW!  Did I get the best price?  Um...maybe not.  But I do have to say that when I got home from my vacation my special package from EP was right there in the mailbox.  YES!  NEW MARKERS IN MY HOT LITTLE HANDS!  (And did you notice that I couldn't resist the new Basic Grey paper pads too?!  I've got a lot of problems....sheesh!)