My First Watercolor Painting, Buttons, and Gardens

This lovely Summer is pasting way to quickly. I have spent endless hours in my gardens this year. Creating new ones and adding lovely plants to the old ones. I am also in the process of creating my first patio block walk way. It has been a bit of a challenge but it is coming along nicely. I had blood vessel break in my right middle finger from lifting all the heavy patio blocks which has delayed me a bit.Oh, it was so swollen, black and blue and so very painful. But hopefully I will be back at it this coming weekend.


Along with all the gardening I have found some time for stitching too. Sometime ago, I fell in love with Karen Raune from "Contemporary Embroidery" lovely work which she is so well known for around the world. Karen creates the most beautiful unique embroidery creations I have ever seen. Please have a look at her lovely blog, "Comtemporary Embroidery"! I bought some lovely things from here awhile back. I wanted to create something special for my Dear Friend Lyn whose birthday was at the end of July. Because Lyn also loves to do stitching too, I decided to try and create some embroidery buttons for her pressie. I have been stitching for a very long time but it took 4 attempts to create these buttons for Lyn. One is supposed to be a Hydrangea Flower and other a BE Daisy. Not as pretty as Karen's work but Lyn loved them.

After watching the movie Miss Potter, and admiring Laurie from "Laurie's Charming Designs", lovely watercolor hearts and roses and other wonderful creations, I decided I would like to try and learn how to do watercolor paintings. Well, this is much harder than it looks. After 4 classes this was the result. It is suppose to represent the Lake Michigan Beach with its lovely beach grasses not far from my home. Of course it is not done yet, and hopefully I will get back to it oneday and finish it. But I truly think I will stick to stitching. LOL

My August Gardens this year are truly lovely. I never saw my Asiatic Lilies bloom last year because the deer ate all their buds. But NOT this year thanks to my wonderful Sweetie who has been the protector of the gardens this year. Thanks sweetie for all your endless efforts they have results in endless lovely blooms to admire this year. This photo is an up close look at them. Aren't they truly gorgeous? Click on the photo and it will get much bigger.

Another photo of my Asiatic Lilies and in the background my new Limelight Hydrangea.

A couple of weeks ago our local quilt shop at a small quilt show. I love stitching and this was the only quilt that had lovely Twilling added to it. I do not know how to do Twilling but it is on my list of things to learn.

A lovely American Robin searching for food in our lawn.

A Black-capped Chickadee searching for food at our bird feeder.

I planted this Summersweet Clethra just a few weeks ago and it is already blooming. It loves the shade and I could never get anything to grow and bloom in this spot until now. Love it.

I have several places in my garden where I have Lavender Blazing Star blooming. They are so beautiful.

My Butterfly Bush is now blooming in all its glory.

More Lillie's along side a Red Butterfly Nesting Box that my Sweetie build for me.

In a couple of weeks I will be celebrating my Third Year of Blogging. It is amazing how quickly the time has passed. I had no idea what a wonderful experience I would have blogging or how many lovely and kind friends I would meet along the way. I have made some special things to give away so I hope you all will come back and see what I have created for this event. I will be posting some photos by the middle of August and the drawing will be at the end of August.

I hope everyone is have a lovely summer or winter. Have a great weekend everyone.

Hugs,