balloons in the desert (photo heavy)

last October, one long weekend, Tom and me on a a road trip to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Staying up late, getting up (insanely!) early, standing in the freezing cold dark, waiting for sunrise, and taking well over a thousand (yes, over a thousand!) photos... I still haven't edited most of them (plenty of them really should be deleted, too, but I can't bring myself to do that yet), but here are some that hopefully give you an idea of what it was like to be there.  Most of my pictures aren't 'real-photographer' quality, but they do give a pretty good sense of what it was like to actually be there.

Okay: after looking at and editing some of the pictures, this post is only going to be the Friday afternoon and evening we arrived when we got to see the  'Special Shapes Glowdeo' Balloon Glow, which was the where they featured specially shaped balloons at dusk. Check out pictures of some of the balloons here, on the Balloon Fiesta Website. (you really should click on the link- there are some really fun shaped balloons!) It was Visual Overload, for sure!! (it was visual overload all weekend long, actually.)

(And as usual, click on any of the photos to see them a bit larger!)

just a couple shots to show you how many people were there... It was packed! But the launch field is 78 acres, so it didn't feel too cramped... until the balloons started going up, that is! 

here goes one of the first ones- not sure what it is, yet!

they are sooo much bigger in person! Members of the launch team hold the
opening in the 'envelope' open to fill it with air (with a fan) before turning
on the hot air to make it rise.

here it goes! it's a clown! (see the moon, near the clown's nose?? lol!!)

the 'whoosh' of the flames is really impressive!!

you can just walk around, and they're actually going up all around you-
it was just crazy, and sort of surreal!

here's a longer shot-- the Sandia Mountains can be seen
just along the right-hand side of the photo.

Tom, posing amid a few of the balloons.
Everywhere we turned, there was something interesting to see!

The 'Little Bees' Joey, Lilly, and Joelly. (two of these are from Phoenix, I think)

I was close; I got two of the three while they were glowing!

nope, not that time!

closer! 

whoops- missed again!

whew- finally!! 

This is Pigasus, or Mr PUWP (for 'Pig Under Wing Protection')

he was happy to be here! (this one was made by a company in Brazil)

an Angry Bird!! (we were happy to see him!)

Ham-let: When Pigs Fly! 

 The Glowdeo was a static event, where they only lit them up; they didn't actually go up at night (I'm guessing that wouldn't actually be very safe). We had to wait for Saturday morning to see the balloons actually lift off- but seeing them glow like that? That was pretty darn cool whether they went up or not!!

A really good fireworks show topped off the night. Then it was off to get a little sleep before getting up at 3 am (yes, I agree that was absolutely crazy!!) in order to see them lift off at dawn the next morning. 

It was an amazingly cool experience, and I really would love to go again! (and I'll definitely take gloves and a hat next time, lol!)

photo heavy post- last weekend's food and garden tourism

A week ago Saturday, Tom and I headed south to Tucson, for lunch. Yes, lunch! (and a bit of sightseeing, in addition to eating.) It was a beautiful day for a drive, and we headed out early...

our destination

We got to the restaurant  in South Tucson at about 10:30 am to wait
for their 11:00 lunch opening. And we were not the first people there- it was a good thing we left home early!

The restaurant is 'Mi Nidito' which means 'My Little Nest' in Spanish;
it's been serving food in Tucson since 1952, and was featured
on the Travel Channel show Man vs. Food.

We waited with some very nice people out front of the restaurant, and got a booth when the restaurant opened... our waitress asked, 'do you need a menu?' (apparently they get a lot of regulars who know what they're going to order!) Us, now, we needed some time to check out the offerings on the menu, so we could narrow it down. The couple in the booth behind us didn't need menus; they ordered straightaway, and were giving us a bit of advice about what was good. In talking to them, we found out that was because they've eaten lunch at Mi Nidito every Saturday for the past 20 years! Now that is definitely a ringing endorsement! One of the restaurant's other 'claims to fame' is one of their previous customers: former President Bill Clinton- they even have the President's booth marked in the restaurant! (and no, we didn't sit in it... lol!)

Our table: we had no idea we were going to get this much food!!

The food was delicious, and the portions were quite generous: we brought home plenty of leftovers!  We got a Tostada with chiles as an appetizer (which is sort of like a Mexican pizza), I got chicken enchiladas with red sauce, and Tom got a beef chimichanga. The chimichanga (which was the size of a pillow, lol!) was made with their house specialty: a shredded beef called birria. Birria is brisket which is slow cooked with chiles and spices, then shredded. Neither of us could place the flavors in the shredded beef, but luckily we happened to see the television show episode again last week- turns out that the 'secret ingredient' in the shredded beef is pickling spices, which gives it a really complex, mellow flavor! The food was all delicious, and we'll definitely be eating there again.

After we ate lunch, we headed back north to do some sightseeing at a cactus nursery we'd heard about from some friends who live in Tucson. (On the way, we saw an estate sale, so we stopped for a quick look. Turns out it's a recurring sale, and there was so much stuff that a quick look wasn't possible- so I'll save that one for another time, lol!)

The cactus nursery was total visual overload-- I definitely want to go back again, and maybe bring at least few plants back home with me. I'd love to have (at least) one of everything, but we don't have nearly enough room! For now, I'll have to settle for admiring the plants in the photos and post just a few of the many pictures I took to give you an idea of the scope of the place:

one of the (huge) cacti right at the main entrance-
I don't know what kind it is, but I'd love one!

 The property is on approximately 10 acres, and contains rows and rows of nursery plants and greenhouses for propagating cacti- check this out!  (and don't forget, you can click on any of the photos to make it larger.)

one of the many propagation houses on the property

I can't even begin to imagine how many hundreds of plants are in this greenhouse, let alone in all of the greenhouses on the property- there had to be at least 10 or 15 greenhouses altogether (the actual number is 24, according to their website). Looking at the pots in these houses closer, it's even more amazing to contemplate:

teeny, tiny baby cacti

Some of these cacti are so very tiny that you can't even see any of the plants themselves; all you can see are the feathery cactus spines. I had to add in the quarter when I took the photo just to add a sense of scale to the picture.

I don't even know what kind of cacti this is, but I
thought it was really cute, since it was so tiny!

As we wandered around on the property, we came upon a 'cacti compost heap' of sorts. We both would love to figure out some way to bring this impressive Saguaro skeleton home with us... unfortunately our family room isn't big enough for it, nor was it for sale (and even if it had been, I'm sure we couldn't have afforded it, lol). But wouldn't it make a striking accent piece in a room, preferably with a spotlight on it?!?

A view from the nursery's property off to the east. These are either the Santa Catalina mountains or the Rincon Mountains- I'm not sure which. (geography was never my strong suit.) Regardless of what mountain range it is, it's a gorgeous view. That's one of the things I love most about living in the desert, the expansive vistas and the fact that you can see around you for miles.

A really cool looking aloe plant in the main greenhouse!! he looks kinda mean,
doesn't he?!? I definitely would love to have one of these for our backyard!

a close-up of the individual flowers in the aloe flower cluster-
I bet the hummingbirds would love it, too!

A view of their main display garden... cacti can definitely make
an eye-catching presentation when you landscape with them!

A few (very large) containers in the display garden area. 

a sea of Golden Barrel Cacti in the main greenhouse area

I have tons more photos from the nursery- we were only there for a couple hours, but I took close to 100 photos in that time. This place was amazing, and we probably didn't even see half of it in the time we were there! If you want more info about it, you can Google it: Bach's Cactus Nursery. Since they don't ship plants, they don't have too much of a website, but if you click on this link: Danger Garden blog post about Bach's nursery you can read a very nice blog post written by a gardener /  blogger that contains many more photos of the place. (and I'll post more of my cacti photos soon!)

Hoover Dam SB Layout- updated & finished!

two posts in one day!! don't count on it happening very often, but I didn't want to wait any longer to post this:

I finished the Hoover Dam 2-page scrapbook layout! It took me a few weeks of mulling things over and working on it a bit at a time-- to be honest, there was more mulling than working till yesterday afternoon, when I worked for a couple hours straight and finally got all the elements stuck down. 

Here's the finished updated layout (click on any photo to see it larger):

I added quite a bit of lighter colored paper to get rid of the plainness of the kraft- a distressed ledger paper on the left-hand page under the title and at the top of the right-hand page; I also added manila shipping tags around the layout for grounding the embellishments.

 I added quite a bit of texture and interest with chipboard and 3-D foam tape- the 'before' title was flat (boring) stickers, so I re-did it using chipboard letters (see the photo below for an explanation). You can see in these detail photos that I edged all the light colored papers with Distress ink (in 'Vintage Photo' ) to give them added dimension.

yellow chipboard alphabet stickers (American Crafts Thickers, maybe?)

I really liked these particular chipboard sticker letters for the font and size, but they're yellow-- so they got sanded, base-coated with gesso, painted with two coats of barn red acrylic paint, then sanded and trimmed around the edges... voila, red chipboard letter stickers that match my layout! (that was part of the reason it took a couple weeks to finally finish the layout- but I think the result was worth it.)

A look at the updated title section and the 3-D 'America' embellishment. I added a couple pennant flags with sticker letters, some additional punched stars, and used 3-D foam tape for interest. Much better! I also 'grounded' the whole area using the manila tags, so it wasn't just 'hanging out in space' any more. I added the polka dotted deco tape to each of the long borders for a bit of extra dimension and to bring the light blue into those areas.

This photo is the upper-right side of the two-page layout showing one of the other embellishment areas. A few more punched stars and red and blue label stickers give it some added color. I added short captions for each of the pictures to the journaling tag. If you read it, you'll see I made a spelling error on the. very. first. line. (drat!!) but I just left it alone. I didn't want to mess around trying to find something else to use for journaling, and I figured anything I did to cover it up would just bring more attention to it.

Above is the bottom right embellishment cluster: more manila shipping tags, red and blue label stickers, and more punched stars. If you look at this photo and the one above, you can see that I only really used one blue sticker (round) and one red label sticker (the rectangle). I cut both of them in half and overlapped them so you can't tell they're only partials, a clever trick I learned from watching Shimelle's scrapbooking videos. (Actually, all of these embellishment ideas are ones I learned from Shimelle; she has a wealth of design information available, both on her blog and in her 2Peas videos.)

The photo above shows how I labeled each of the photos to go along with the journaling captions- I typed the numbers on the same ledger paper, punched them out with my circle punch, and inked around the edges of each circle to match the rest of the paper.

And here it is again, just for reference: the 'before' layout in all it's unfinished plainness and boringness.

I quite prefer the 'After" layout.  I think I'm going to add a 6 x 12 insert to this layout so I can add some historical facts about the dam, maybe with some additional detail photos of the architectural features-- so I'm not done scrapping this visit after all. But I'm really happy with how this layout turned out!

Minnesota memories journal pages

and now for a couple more 'serious' art journal pages, featuring memories of childhood vacations to Minnesota. Every year growing up, we went on vacation to a resort on a lake (Loon Lake, in Ottertail County) in northwest Minnesota for a week of fun, fishing, and relaxing. My dad went there with my grandpa for a 'guys' fishing trip' even before any of us kids were born, maybe even before my mom and he were married? (I'll have to check with Mom on that one.) Anyway, those trips have been on my mind recently, because we would always go at the beginning of August. So, I painted and collaged my way into recording some of those memories:

Map to the Past:  I found a topographical map of the lake on the internet,
and printed it out a couple of different times at different zoom levels.

This page spread marks places I remember, like the cabins we stayed in, the bay where we always went to pick waterlilies, some of our 'tried and true fishing spots' (right out from the Lutheran Church across the lake is one I remember), things like that. This page was sort of inspired by techniques from Jill Berry's Personal Geographies book... she taught a class at Artfest when I was there that involved some of these map-related techniques, and I saw some of the student work at Show and Tell night.

close-up of the left-hand map, showing the entire lake. 

#9 was turtle town, where we could always find plenty of turtles sunning 
themselves on downed trees; #14 is a spot where I remember (very vividly) seeing a loon swimming underwater right next to the boat. #11 is the fishing spot across the lake from the resort cabins. 

another page of Minnesota memories

the Minnesota map on the page above marks Vergas, the town nearest the resort. The loon statue is the largest in the state (Minnesota is known for large statues of all sorts of things); we'd always have to go into town at least once and stop by the loon statue for a photo op. 

my work space (plus a nosy dog trying to horn in on the photo- lol!)

This is a photo of my usual work space, which isn't really much of a defined space, at all. If I'm painting or spraying something, it's done either in the kitchen or out on the patio, but the collage and 'finishing work' is usually done in the family room, in front of the TV. So, I sit on the floor in front of the love seat and spread everything out around me, effectively 'walling myself in' until I get it all picked back up again. I've tried sitting on the loveseat or couch, but I work better with everything spread out... Michelangelo had his work space issues, I have mine- lol!