My new plants

Finally, time for my garden post... to share my newly planted perennials, and hopes for them all to come back strong and healthy in the spring. Unfortunately, my garden joy is tempered by a bout of very early snow :( We had near a half inch when we woke up Saturday morning. It melted off, and today it snowed for about 8 hrs or more straight. Much of that has melted as well, but more snow is predicted Wed. through Fri. It is really hard to enjoy your fall when there is already snow!

Here are some pics, possibly with the right name under them, and a few more names without pics.First off, in this little garden we made under the birch tree...

Meadow buttercup

Centurea Montana

Forget me nots

Valerian (Red Valerian?)

Lambs ear (which I have a tendency to call elephant ear!)
Also, daisies, and probably a couple other things.

Over by the mailbox I planted peonies and a trumpet vine. In front of the house are a purple coneflower and black-eyed susans.

Under the bay window we have hostas along with red and yellow creeping sedum.

And in the corner of the walkway, a Nishiki willow bush- very similar to the Flamingo willows we had at our last place and loved. The leaves change colors depending on how long they've been out of the bud. It is very interesting to watch.
Then on to the back yard. The perennials in the back are along the fence, to the right of the evergreen in this picture. I had to put a short fence around them, because my dog Toby thought I was making a obstacle course for him to roll his ball in, and Sasha thought I was making a bed for her.
Black-eyed Susan

Columbine (Honeysuckle)

Gooseneck Loosestrife

False Dragonhead - this one had a few flowers still on it, and the bees found it within minutes of being planted. They were just small enough to climb down inside each flower and suck out the nectar.

Monarda (Bee Balm), also Joe Pye Weed, Veronica, Liatris, Queen Anne's Lace

Many of these plants I had never heard of until the day I bought them. I am very excited to have plants ready to go for next summer already.

Additionally, we planted apple and plum trees, a couple maples, a weeping willow, raspberries and blueberries. If everything works out, we should have lots of exciting things going on in our yard next summer!

New treasury

I finally caught the treasury when it was open. I had a great selection of abstract art in my poster sketch, but yesterday, I went to check on the items, since I saw the treasury would open after not too long, and they were all blank. So instead I made another circus themed treasury, and I'll have to collect the art ones again for next time. To visit this treasury, click here.

Front page!

It turns out you can miss a lot when you are crazy busy. I was checking in on my google analytics today for my Etsy shops, and I saw a huge spike in views from September 21. I went over to Craft Cult, and searched through the front page treasuries from that day, and wah lah! My pastel piece The Thicket made it on the front page!
Thanks StudioElan!

(I was also an alternate in this front page treasury October 4. It's been an exciting week for me!)

Treasuries!

What a treat when I logged in to Etsy today... Two of my shops are featured in treasuries simultaneously! First up is a pine cone treasury by CaitlinSainio featuring a photograph from TholeImagery.etsy.com. Click here to visit this treasury.


Next up is a national parks treasury by dayinthepark, featuring one of my Yellowstone drawings from SarahThole.etsy.com. Click here to visit this treasury.

busy busy...

Wow, the month of September has been so busy for me. In addition to my day job, I helped photograph a wedding, have been working on processing those photos, had a family event, hosted a large event, babysat several times, and did a lot of landscaping at our new house! I'm pretty exhausted. I hope October is slower. I want to share some photos of the perennials I planted, but they'll have to wait another week, until I'm done with these wedding photos.

September here was exceptionally warm and dry the first few weeks. It was lovely. Today, the weather changed. It was cool, really windy, with rain coming and going, alternating with patches of sun. The wind was so strong, we were afraid our birch tree was going to go right over.

I hope everyone else is having a lovely fall!

Treasury

FuriousDreams has included me in a treasury with some other great artists on Etsy! Click here to visit and get a closer look!

Getting back to work

Well, we've been settling in at our house here. It's wonderful. We spend a lot of time out in the yard playing with our dogs. We finally have a big enough, fenced yard so they can actually run! When we have time to relax, it's a really great place, and we are thrilled with it.

Last Thursday, I drove to work, and due to a major accident on my route in, I was delayed over a half hour. Then, on my way home, I went to pick up a lovely sewing table I found on craigslist, and then my car wouldn't start. I couldn't get a hold of anyone I thought likely to rescue me, so I quickly hiked over about a mile to where I was most likely to be able to catch a bus downtown. That bus got me downtown with about 5 seconds to spare to catch the last bus of the night out to our new place. I narrowly missed having a long night on the town. Luckily, the car only needed a new battery, so we got it working again.

That was enough stress for my week though, and I decided that the weekend would consist of de-stressing. We barbecued both days, which was lovely, and I worked a lot on my digital art, which felt wonderful.

Here is another in-progress update of my digital painting I plan to hang in our new living room. Now that I've had a bit of a break from working on any of this stuff, and I'm doing it again, I feel really comfortable and natural at it. I feel like I really know how to manipulate my colors, shadows, filters, etc. to get what I want. It feels great! I've also been working on a digital wedding portrait as a gift, which I am super excited about.

And lastly, here is another in-progress piece I haven't shown yet. It's a bit of a different style. It's an architectural piece from San Remo, Italy. I've had the drawing part of it done for a while, but couldn't decide if it was sufficient as-is, or if I should add some color, so I figured I might as well add the color to try it out. I'm doing the color in a light, sketchy style. The beauty of digital is that you can always go back if you do your layers right! Please feel free to let me know what you think of these pieces.