it's like magic!

So, my birthday was Tuesday... not sure yet how I feel about being 45-  how does that happen?!? It seems like just yesterday that I was somewhere in my thirties... Anyway, this afternoon I was doing some magic after work in our front yard: 

(you should be able to click on any of them to make them larger)

Magic Trick #1

Magic Trick #2

Magic Trick #2b

Magic trick #3

Have you figured it out yet? Tom's birthday present to me was something totally unexpected, and quite thoughtful- I said a couple posts ago that I'd kind of like a macro lens for my camera, and now I have one! He didn't even read that on the blog, he just knew I was getting more interested in close-up photography of insects, flowers, and the like, and thought I might like it. And he was right! (Now I just have to figure out exactly how to use it... although the little bit of messing around with it that I've done so far is pretty cool, I think.)

The#2 photos are of a smallish saguaro cactus (about 2 1/2 feet tall) in our front yard. The first one is the very top of the cactus, where all the new growth happens, and the second one is an older established grouping of spines farther down the plant. These areas on a cactus, when looked at closely, make some really neat abstract patterns. (fyi, from my internet searches, the spines on a cactus help to shade the plant from the sun-- and protect it.)

This is #3: a flower off our spruce cone cactus.
The photo above is a close-up of the pollen grains
 (pollen grains!!! how cool is that!!) inside the flower. 

I called it 'like magic' because with this lens, I can see things that I can't (or don't really pay attention to, at the very least) with the naked eye. I've always been fascinated with stuff like that, even when I was little- I spent plenty of time outside in our yard: laying in the grass watching ants, examining maple tree helicopters, acorns, and the like, and carting home pockets full of rocks that didn't really look special at all, except, I guess, to me. I don't remember how old I was, but Mom and Dad even got me a microscope set one year (for Christmas, maybe?) and I remember spending lots of time looking at what was in a drop of water from a puddle, that sort of thing. This is kind of the 'grown up' version of that, I guess- I can take a photograph of something and look even closer at it than I'd be able to otherwise (especially with the limitations of my bad eyesight). 

This is the zoomed-out version of what's in pic #1;
it's a withered-up flower from the golden barrel cactus.
Not all that interesting, maybe, except for in the close-up
it takes on a more abstract sort of form. 

He also gave me two bottles of Vitamin D gel-caps, which was also quite thoughtful, since I needed it- and it made me laugh, besides! 

Hopefully you liked my 'magic tricks' and hopefully I'll have more of them to show over the coming months!

more random pics from the Arboretum, March 2014 (and some history)

William Boyce Thompson was an American mining engineer and financier who lived from 1869 - 1930. He was born in Montana during a time when Montana was experiencing a mining boom and was sent to the East Coast for schooling as a teenager, but didn't enjoy school at all-- he left the Exeter Academy without graduating. He enrolled in the Engineering program at Columbia (apparently back then you didn't need a diploma to enroll, lol!), but left after his freshman year. He returned to Montana and got married in 1895, then moved to New York City in 1899 to start invest in mining stocks. By 1906, he was a self-made millionaire. In 1907, he purchased the Magma (Copper) Mine in Superior, AZ, and had built a 67-room Gilded Age estate in Yonkers, NY. (this is kind of sad; apparently his NY estate was abandoned for many years: read the story here.)

another wildflower close-up

In the early years of the 20th century Thompson had much success on Wall Street and was involved in many different endeavors including philanthropy and humanitarian causes, politics, being a political envoy to different countries including Peru and Russia, and working with the Red Cross. After World War I, he decided he disliked politics and devoted more time to the winter home (Picket Post House) he was building in the hills near Superior, AZ. He originally didn't even own any of the land where he was building his winter home; the Forest Service owned it as part of the Crook National Forest. He had to get a special permit from them just to build the house. 

a winter visitor I was really excited to see- a male Hooded Merganser duck.
Not the best photo, but he seemed kind of shy so this was actually pretty good.
(thank goodness for the long camera lens!)

Apparently he used some of his Wall-Street deal-making abilities with the Forest Service, though, and in exchange for him buying and giving them some land they wanted in Northern AZ, they gave him ownership of 400 acres of the National Forest around the house he was building. He chose someone from the University of Arizona to establish the Boyce Thompson Southwest Arboretum on a portion of the 400 acres; its mission was to study the plants of desert countries and make the results available to the public. 

a small lizard, warming himself in the spring sunlight.
He's actually quite colorful, as is the lichen-encrusted rock he's sitting on.

One of his philanthropic endeavors back in NY was also plant research, to study plant physiology with the goal of ensuring a stable food supply for the growing US population. He had developed an interest in plants after his Red Cross visits to Russia during WWI, where he came to understand how important plants are for humans as a source of food, clothing, and shelter. Apparently his original Institute for Plant Research site- which was across the road from his NY estate- is abandoned also; see the story here with more photos. (kind of creepy, actually.) FYI, the Institute is still functioning, and today is housed on the campus of Cornell University.

fruit tree blooms of some sort.
Not sure what kind of tree it is, but the salmon-pink color is gorgeous!

In one part of the arboretum, there is a very old stone cottage that's tucked right up next to a vertical cliff face (the cliff wall actually forms one wall of the cottage). This cottage was lived in years before Colonel Thompson bought the property, and its grounds contain planting beds including an herb garden, roses, and a small orchard area. (unfortunately I don't know my fruit trees either- without the fruit on, lol- and didn't think to look for tags on the trees.)

a view of the Queen Creek from a small suspension bridge that crosses it.
Picket Post House isn't visible in this photo, but it's on top of that ridge,
right above / behind that bright green tree.

The Arboretum is Arizona's oldest and largest (at 323 acres) botanical garden, was the first purely botanical institution in the inter-mountain states, and is the fourth oldest botanical garden west of the Mississippi River. It houses over 600 kinds of cacti as well as rare and endangered plants from around the world totaling more than 2,600 species altogether. It is an Arizona State Park, a National Historic Site, and in conjunction with the University of Arizona, a scientific research facility. It's a very beautiful- and picturesque- place to visit, and well worth the drive. (It's about an hour's drive from Phoenix, and just under two hours from Tucson.)

a bee, quite intent on loading up his pollen baskets.
They really don't pay any attention to me at all as I'm taking pictures;
they're too focused on the task at hand (so to speak, lol).

Sorry this post got sort of long; I started out with random photos then went down a bit of a rabbit hole, looking up the history of the Arboretum. I hope it was interesting, though- it was really interesting to research!

This blog post was made possible with information from the Arboretum's History Page, (here), the William Boyce Thompson page from the Yonkers Historical Society website (here), and the Wikipedia entry for the Arboretum (here) as well as various other websites including the AZ National Parks page.

it's all about scale... seeing the details

March in Arizona is prime wildflower time... the spring weather, warmer temperatures, and (hopefully) a good amount of winter rain all work together to make the short span of time between winter and the summer heat quite beautiful. Some years more than others, of course (that whole 'rain' thing is important!), and it helps if you know where to look, too. (The state parks department posts updates on their website to let people know when and where to go!) 

When we were hiking at the Boyce Thompson Arboretum in March, along with the gorgeous vistas and beautiful scenery, there were quite a few wildflowers blooming. Here are a few pictures I took along the way (we'd be walking along, I'd see one, and yell ahead to Tom to 'hold up!!' till I took some pictures...) it made for some slow hiking! That's because some flowers are big, bright, and showy, but not all of them; some of them you need to look pretty carefully to see. 

These plants were growing out of a pretty-much-vertical hillside.
(the green arrows are pointing towards one individual clump.)

{a closer view}
This entire clump was, maybe, as big as my blue Pyrex mixing bowl??
(that's about 6 inches in diameter, and maybe, 4 inches high)

{closest}
I'd estimate that this pale purple flower was about as big as my thumbnail.

This plant was growing pretty much right out of the rock.
The clump of greenery was about the same size as the plant above,
but with bright red flowers on multiple flower spikes.

 

{closer}
This isn't the same exact plant, by the way.
That plant was on the edge of the rock overlooking the creek below,
but there were more growing right next to the path we were on.
(close proximity to the path made for much-less-scary picture taking!) 

{closest}
The flowers are quite complex, up close. By the tubular flower shape,
this plant is probably pollinated by butterflies or hummingbirds.

  

I didn't take a picture of this plant in its 'natural habitat' unfortunately.
I don't remember, but there probably wasn't too much interesting about it;
the (very!) tiny yellow flowers caught my eye, though.

{close-up}
This close, you can also see that the foliage is kind of 'hairy'

This view is along one of the paths,
where the tree on the left and the agave bloom to the right make a sort of 'arch' over the path.
(the plant I'm concerned with is the magenta flowers at the very bottom left edge of the picture.)

{closer}
Another low-growing plant with tall flower spikes.
This plant (+ flowers) was maybe, as tall as my knee, or taller??
(I don't remember, exactly.)

{closest}
These are a purplish-magenta color, and shaped a bit different than the red ones.
This one is probably pollinated by butterflies or hummingbirds, too.

I think the plants with the flower spikes are probably some sort of Penstemon, although I'm not sure exactly what kind. I don't know anything about the other ones- unfortunately, I haven't learned too much about Arizona wildflowers yet-- other than the fact that they're pretty!! They're also very ephemeral, too. There's a pretty short window of time when the conditions and temps are right for this sort of plant to do their thing: grow, bloom, and reproduce, so the seeds can wait through the summer till the next wildflower season.

It looks like this website: Sonoran Desert Wildflower Report has some good information about dates, blooms, names, and information about what plants bloomed when. I'll have to check it out myself, before next spring! (and also, maybe to get a macro lens for my camera, in order to get better, very close, close-ups.)

retro scrapbooking!

to be truthful, this post is mostly because I haven't edited or printed any of my more recent photos lately. So, no pages with recent photos have been scrapbooked! Even the last SB page that I made was photos from over 10 years ago, taken and printed from my film camera. I seem to have difficulty getting my digital photos from the computer onto photo paper so they can be scrapped, lol! Plus, I do think it's kind of interesting to see how my style of scrapbooking has evolved through the years. Anyway, for your enjoyment, here's a couple 'retro' scrapbook pages from my early days of scrapbooking:

I really like the photos on this page- my house back in Illinois had some beautiful plants in the yard. Unfortunately, I don't exactly like what I did with them on this page... at least I didn't cut the photos themselves with the fancy scissors! It looks like I had an aversion to journaling, too- I apparently didn't know what to write about these photos after I made the page, so I thought it was better to write nothing at all. (I think I have a lot of SB pages like that- what's with that, anyway?!? I guess I thought it had to be award-quality novel writing, or something, I don't know!) 

I spent quite a bit of time 'fussy-cutting' this bouquet of apple blossoms out of its photograph... I should see if I still have the negatives for these photos, and get them reprinted sometime. I'm sure they're there, somewhere in my photo boxes. (yeah, right- like that will happen, lol! I have quite a few newer photos to do something with, first.) So, since it probably won't happen, I'm glad to have them safely in my photo album, even if the page is lacking a few elements. (like journaling! at least I can fix that one!)

This page just makes me sort of sad, to see what I did to these photographs. The page is photos of some of the first plants in the flower bed at my house-- the flower bed was about 45 feet long by about 5 feet wide, so the first plants looked kinda sad, in all that space, till they grew and filled in the space. And, this page looks kinda sad, too, with the weird shaped photographs and all that empty space. (I didn't do it on purpose, though.)

I apparently thought photographs of flowers needed 'flower' patterned paper, and I wanted to match up the edges of the photographs to make them like a continuous larger picture. So I cut out the extra stuff in the corners to make them really odd shapes? (what the heck was I thinking?!?) I soooo wish I hadn't done that! And, I guess, since the only flowers you can really see are yellow, I decided bright yellow was the perfect choice to accent the photos? (not!) I'm not even sure I could do ANYthing to make this page look any better, so I'll probably just leave it alone, and try to do justice to my flower garden by making better SB pages with some of the other photos I do have printed.   

(although I'm tempted to start re-working that top page with some washi tape and label stickers... I should probably leave well-enough alone, though, and just be content with adding some journaling to it.)

a scrapbook page takes shape-

amid the clutter and chaos that is my normal manner of working on a craft project!  I was trying for the 'artsy, messy' style of scrapping that's popular right now, where you add freehand-cut layers of matting underneath your photos, maybe some misting or splatters of color and ink on the background page, things like that:

Turns out that no matter how hard I tried, I just can't do the 'messy layered' look... it just isn't comfortable for me, design-wise. I can't do things 'crooked and freestyle' at all; I have to have things lined up, and straight on my pages. So, instead of 'messy layers' on my page, all I got was a messy scrapping space on my desk! 

The photos above and below are both of my discards- things I thought I might use on my page, but didn't, or things I did use, and now need to put away. A lot of work for one 12x12 inch scrapbook page and two photos, isn't it?!? lol!!

Seems I can't narrow down the choices when making a page without having lots of options to choose from... nor can I decide on a color scheme, apparently, since there's blues, purples, red, pinks, greens, and yellows in the discard pile! And, you can't tell this by the photos, but I don't work very fast, either-- I have to sort of 'ruminate' on my decisions for a while, from the very start of the page. I technically started the planning process for this page a week or so ago, when I tried out a new color of spray ink.  From there, I made two changes in what photos to use on the page, and last night I worked for over two hours on the bulk of the actual 'page design' to crop and mat the photos and design the actual 'page' itself. So, without further ado, here it is!

old-fashioned flowers are the best kind.

I really love this page, even more now that I'm seeing it in the photograph, I think!! (That's a good thing- sometimes I'm not so happy with them after seeing them photographed!) These two pictures are about 10-12 years old, and are of the flowers in my garden back in Illinois. The background is pink spray mist along with some gold ink splatters, which I think turned out really nice, if I do say so myself! (that's one of those techniques I really haven't mastered yet, so it's sort of like gambling to try it, for me... you don't always know what you're going to get.)

This photo is a close-up of the upper left area of the page- it shows how I mix  'new and old' materials on my pages. I'm not consciously trying to do that, or anything- it just happens! The wood veneer butterfly is new (and trendy), the chipboard letter stickers are new (picked up at a clearance store, for a fabulous price!), the blue background papers are at least a year old (from my local scrapbook store's garage sale), and both the green paper that I used to mat the photos and the pink vellum in the background are from my stash (and both of them are at least 10 years old).

This photo shows the lower right area of the page: another wood veneer butterfly (they're just so cute!), and a bit of a screen-printed transparency. I wasn't originally going to use that transparency on this page, but it was laying in the discard pile next to the page, and I decided it would add an extra bit of 'dimension' to the page. I guess this goes to show that some good design accidents can happen out of the chaotic way I work! (this photo also shows a bit of the gold color shine splatters, though the photos don't do it justice at all... trust me, this gold is beautiful, and if you don't have any of it in your stash, go to Michael's right now-- it's by Heidi Swapp, and it's buy one, get one 50% off!) 

a scrapbooking do-over... sort of.

so, last night I made a scrapbook page. (sort of.) Last spring, I started taking a scrapbooking class offered on the website 2 Peas in a Bucket... I made a couple layouts, one of which I never really liked, but I couldn't really figure out why. Here it is below:

Flower Garden: before
(the colors are a bit off, since I took it with the flash.)

 It started out okay (4 quadrants of patterned paper, a cluster of horizontal strips, one photo, and journaling), but it just never looked 'right' to me. I've been spending a lot of time online (on 2Peas and individual scrapper's blogs) studying what makes a good scrapbook page, and I finally figured out what it was about this layout that made it 'off' to me... it just looks unfinished to me, and that's kind of because it was. The title stickers are sort of lost in the pink paper, and there's nothing 'interesting' about the page at all... just the flat borders and labels above and below the photo. 

I spent quite a bit of time yesterday afternoon thinking about this, and last evening I sort of gave myself a 'do-over' on this page to see if I could improve it. I didn't start over from scratch, but I did add a number of elements to the page.  I used quite a bit of Un-Do to get the title stickers unstuck so I could rework the title (thank goodness for Un-Do; I love that stuff!!) by adding a paper doily behind the title stickers, rearranged the border section a tiny bit, and added some buttons as embellishments. 
The re-done page is below:

Flower Garden- after

 The doilies help to take away some of the 'pinkness' from that quadrant of the page, so you can read the title a bit easier... the top border sticker was moved to the left a bit so it now overlaps the edge of the patterned paper This allowed me to have the right-hand doily overhang the edge of the patterned paper, as well. I added another bit of sticker border (the wood-grained scallop), which I think helps to bring together the brown photo mat with the rest of the colors. I re-did the two small tags near the photo in a blue patterned paper, and added the pink button flower and leaf embellishments. The button flowers add more dimension to the page, in addition to 'framing' the photo with a visual triangle. (All things I've been reading a lot about the past few months.)

Above and below are a couple close-ups showing the added embellishments pink button flowers, with leaves I punched from green cardstock. I added white crafting floss to the flowers (I tied it in the back) and glued them to the page.  I don't like the look of buttons without thread through the holes; it just bothers me... so, even though it takes a bit longer, I usually add the thread. (Plus, that way I didn't have to punch holes in my layout to actually sew the buttons on.)

Usually when people say 'I don't like my pages and I want to re-do them' my first instinct is to say no, don't do it. And I don't think I'd ever take a page totally apart and start from scratch (although I'm not sure, now- I guess I should never say never, right?). But, I think in this particular case, my changes are quite an improvement. What do you think?? 

I have another layout sitting on my desk right now that I never did quite finish... it's a 2-page spread that's missing some of the design details that make a layout interesting, so it's getting a makeover next!  (and then, maybe my room will be cleaned up enough to make a scrapbook page from scratch; we'll see!)

wow!!

This amaryllis is just out-of-this world with flowers-- I've never seen one have this many blooms at one time, so I had to take some more photos:

a different vantage point (from a few days ago)

Every night, the flowers go into the pantry for safekeeping from the kitties (I don't trust them with indoor plants!). The amaryllis has to go up onto the top shelf (it's the only shelf tall enough to hold it) , and when I placed it up there I realized it was a really good view of all the blossoms, so I got the camera and snapped a pic.

7 flowers open at once, now... (this was earlier today- Sunday)

I think the first couple are almost done blooming, but the overall bloom time should be at least another week.

same vantage point again, this afternoon (Sunday).

These flowers are beautiful, and have really brightened up our kitchen this winter. I am really glad I picked this plant up (on a whim) when I was at the grocery store. (I just hope it doesn't get so top-heavy it tips over!!)

more random Jerome

More random photos from our day trip to Jerome:

Survey marker V28

We happened upon this marker quite unexpectedly as we were window shopping. (it was imbedded in the sidewalk; it pays to look down as well as in the shop windows, I guess!) It's a geodetic survey markers- these markers are 'objects placed to mark key survey points on the Earth's surface. They are used in geodetic and land surveying. ' (paraphrased definition from Wikipedia)

Survey marker 5153

Then, we happened upon this one two streets away as we walked back to the car- cool!! 



This next photo is  some of the artwork above our table at the restaurant where we had lunch.

Drinking Bird

Mom, do you still have the drinking bird we used to have?? (It used to be stored in one of the kitchen cupboards, as I recall.)

These two photos were taken in the small playground that was smack in the middle of town; there was quite a view of the valley from the swingset!

memories of childhood- mulberries

 I was delighted to stumble onto this tree as we went up the stairs; I haven't seen a mulberry tree, especially with fruit on, since my childhood home back in Illinois! There was one in the empty lot at the end of our street, and I, along with the neighbor kids, spent plenty of time picking mulberries during the late spring. It took an awful lot of these to make a pie (and your fingers would be stained purple for quite a while), but I do remember my mom making at least one pie with them. (the berries tasted just as good as I remembered, too!)

mystery flower

and this one, I took because I have no idea what kind of plant it is... any ideas? (It was planted in a pot, as a standard... it was about 5 feet tall, with these really frilly flowers) It's really pretty, but I know better than to try and grow plants/flowers like this here. I've tried once or twice to grow potted plants, indoors and out, and unless it's a cactus, I kill it very quickly. (Apparently my green thumb didn't move with me to AZ.)

thanks for coming along on my photographic tour!! 

random photo catchup--

just some photos to catch up on the last couple weeks of my surgery recovery, and  some additional ones taken since I started back to work:

 this is a beautiful 'get-well' flower arrangement sent from the folks at Tom's office: an assortment of flowers in gorgeous pinks and purples, displayed in a pink and white teacup and saucer. The photo above was taken when a ray of sunshine came through the window just right and spotlit it-- gorgeous!

 the photo above is the same flowers, edited with a 1960s-ish type of color filter, just as an experiment. (I think I like the naturally-lit photo better, actually.)

 While I was recovering from the second surgery, I didn't feel up to any 'really serious' art-making sessions, but I did eventually feel good enough to have a lot of fun with one of my most recent coloring obsessions- a $4 (gotta love those 50% off coupons!) student-grade pan watercolor set from Michael's. It was a really good choice, actually: enough colors that I don't have to mix my own, and simple enough that I could easily create some colored art-journal page backgrounds without needing too much in the way of supplies- just paper, water, brushes, and paper towels.

another great recent purchase was this 5x7 inch notebook (only $5!!) that I picked up at a local art store... I wanted something to mess around in with my new watercolor paints, and this is a smaller size than the two previous journals I had worked in, which looked interesting to me. 

So, just to recap: $4 watercolor paints + $5 spiral-bound notebook + $2.50 for a set of 3 brushes = countless hours of creative fun: priceless! (In the next couple posts, I'll show you some of the pages from this new journal, along with more pages from one of my earlier journals.)

 Random photo of Ariel: she likes to snuggle right up to the window-- so she can prop herself up, upside-down, I guess? But, apparently, the light was too bright for her, here?!? she's a crazy kitty!! 

Just a shot of a random outdoor temperature from a couple weeks ago- summer is finally here! 

and since summer temps are here, so are the dust storms. I got to drive home through this one (last Wednesday, my first day back to work). It's really sort of eerie to see them approaching like this... it was also sort of weird to see the local television channel helicopter hovering out in front of it, shooting footage for the nightly news!

Driving through one of these storms is sort of like driving through a snowstorm; visibility is greatly reduced. (And, unfortunately, there were just enough raindrops to wreak havoc on my freshly-washed car: insert frowny face here.)

Yesterday afternoon, I hauled my spray inks, stencils, paints, etc. out onto the patio... 100+ F temps makes for really quick paint-drying times! 

and lastly, a photo from Tuesday afternoon, when we had rainclouds and rainbows (but sadly, no rain). The rainbow was huge, and we could see the whole arc in our backyard; if you look closely, you can even see a second rainbow (which we could see better in real life).