The Friday Five Good Things

Five good things that happened this week.

1. Spent the weekend with Reggie learning the Carolingian hand. Halfway through the course.

2. The Young One's prescription was changed from a powder mixed in food which she hated to pills. No more fussing!

3. Had a Skype session with Nan.

4.  Dinner at Five Guys

5. A car slammed into a tree across the street at the New Girl's. Thankfully, no serious injuries.

How was your week?

Throwback Thursday - The Notebooks

To clear up some confusion, the Notebook passages posted on Throwback Thursday were written by my father and found by me after he passed away. They were his attempt to tell the family history. He was in his late 80s or early 90s when he wrote them. Today's chapter:

My fourth year was like my Junior year. I was on the honor roll. Charlie got fired and for a while, things looked bad for him, but he landed a job to establish the Boys Club of Waltham. (Before Halloween)

One of the first things he did during the beginning of his term, he learned that Halloween was just a night in which clotheslines were cut, store windows smashed, street lights shot out with BB guns, etc. He suggested to the business association that they hold an event, that they supply the chalk and pay $25.00 to the artist who chalked the best work and down to $5.00. Halloween came and went and it was a success. No windows were broken. The first time in years. He got good publicity and the business sector was happy.

Wordless Wednesday

T Stands for Mary Cassatt's The Tea

Last week on T Day we visited Matisse's model, Lorette. She was relaxing and having a cup of coffee. I'm sure American artist, Mary Cassat, wouldn't mind those who prefer tea to join her ladies having tea in her painting, The Tea.

The cup with the blue rim reminds me of the tea cup I use to make and store my shell gold.

Drop by hosts, Bleubeard and Elizabeth's blog to find out what the rest of the T Stands For gang is up to. If you want to play, include in your Tuesday post a beverage or container for a beverage. Don't forget to link your blog to Bleubeard and Elizabeth's page.

Monogram

One of the assignments for the 26 Seeds class was to do a gilding project, a design, initials or a quote as a finished project. One initial had to be a Roman Cap variation.

I decided to do a monogram. I got the idea to "frame" it in the center of a saucer that was missing its tea cup. The monogram was done on a 2 inch round of Diploma parchment. The "K" was gilded with 23 karat gold over a base of Robersons Water Gold Size. It's more forgiving and less fussy than the Instacoll used in class. The "C" and the "R" were painted with shell gold for contrast and then tooled with some designs.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Chocolate likes the grass close to the sunroom.

Three hawks were cruising the area looking for lunch. I was only able to get one in frame.

Interesting weed growing by the slider.

The sunflower is almost ready to bloom.

Area in bloom behind the Zensical garden. I hope to add more native plants for this to become a meadow. The bunnies like to hang out here.

Not sure what the yellow flowers are, but they were busy with small bee like insects and the yellow swallowtail butterfly. This is why I want to keep this area like a meadow as it is a bustling area.

Heath asters in bloom.

 Morning glories continue to climb in Ink's garden. Still no blooms. No rain totals to report this week.

How does your garden grow?

Vintage Copyright Free Images

I've talked about sites for copyright free images like Morguefile and Pexels. Suppose you want a vintage image.  Where do you go? You can now go to the British Library's Flikr page.

These vintage, copyright free images are taken from the library's books from the 17th through the 19th centuries. You can do whatever you like with the images. Use on your blog, website, or in your artwork.

The images are arranged in albums by category. There are two downsides to this site. There doesn't seem to be a way to search the albums. You have to scroll through pages and pages of images. A happy, little, time waster if you have time to waste. Second, you don't need to be a Flikr member to use the site, but if you don't sign in, or sign up, you get an annoying pop-up nag to follow the British Library on each page. Maybe a small price to pay for vintage images.

You can read an article about the library offers here.