Junction City Pond

Beautiful day on the pond.

Photo straight out of camera, unedited.

Red-on-Red

The rhododendrons are coming into season.

This single bloom, rescued from the pavement on my morning walk, came home with me.

Abby's Cache I

Jodie and I have begun to place a series of geocaches called Abby's Cache. We got the idea from a man in Post Falls who placed hundreds of caches in the Spokane/Coeur d'Alene area in the name of his granddaughter, Caitlyn. We've placed three caches for Abby so far, but two of them already were "muggled." They disappeared.

So a couple weeks ago Jodie and Abby and I returned to Eastgate Woodlands to replace Abby's Cache I.

The cache is hiding in a tree (not this stump) in the woodlands that border the Willamette River.

It was a cloudy day, and the river was running swift and high. It felt good to walk in a park between rain showers.

Nearby, the wildflowers were just starting to bloom, as well as some daffodils.

This flower grew alone from a single bulb at the base of a huge pine. Unusual!

Now that Abby's Cache I has a new home that's more secure than the original placement, we hope many geocachers will seek it out and exchange treasure.

Sailing

 ♫  If the wind is right you can sail away and find tranquility ...  ♫

I found this painted rock under a magnolia tree at Ruff Park yesterday. 

... many magnolia photos to come.

p.s. This makes me itch to paint rocks again!

Signs of Spring: Magnolia

The magnolia tree in our neighbor's front yard is in full bloom. Magnolias are such odd ducks - all limbs with flowers hanging out at the end of each branch. No leaves at this time of year.

With all the rain we've been having, the flowers don't quite know what to do. Some are in bud.

Some are in curly full bloom.

Some are strewn on the ground like a white carpet. 

All are finding a way to survive in the rain.

When I see this tree in bloom, I know it's time to drive to the magnolia arboretum in Springfield. That sounds like a delightful outing for our upcoming Tuesday Travels.

Bustling Flower Market

I needed a puzzle break, so chose this colorful 500 piece jigsaw. It was pretty fun to put together, so I didn't rush it. I took my time with it over 2 or 3 days.

I purchased it on a recent trip to Dollar Tree. 

The least pleasant feature of these little puzzles is that the full image is quite small on the back of the box. So I usually take a picture of it on my phone, and magnify it to identify the details.

I like how multicultural this scene is along with the way the perspective is as if I'm in a flower stall looking through bundles fresh blooms onto the scene of lots of people mingling and buying flowers.

Blossom Ornaments

Last week while putting my thrifted craft supplies away, I got inspired to start some new projects. That often happens when I "pet my stash." In a spurt of activity on Wednesday, I prepared a papercraft, two letters, a jigsaw puzzle, and a counted cross-stitch piece. I've finished/mailed the letters, completed the jigsaw puzzle, and created this papercraft. So I guess it's time to blog about them.

Now that I've tucked away the St. Patrick's Day decorations for the year, I'll decorate for Spring for a couple weeks before I add in the Easter decor. Each year I like to add one more handcrafted item to the decorations. I chose to make some new ornaments for our lighted tree in the entryway. Here's what I pulled together:

The base is created with a 1-1/2 inch scalloped hole punch

and this pink parchment cardstock. Fun fact, this cardstock in my stash is left over from the wedding invitations Dale and I made nearly 34 years ago! I keep the good-sized scraps left over from making greeting cards.

It's easiest to place the paper in the punch correctly if I hold the punch upside down.

I decided to make 20 little double-sided ornaments.

I used a 1/8" hole punch for the hanging ribbon.

These paper flowers from Dollar Tree were in my sticker stash. I used four colors in two designs. 

When I went to stick the flowers to the pink bases, I learned that these flower are not stickers. So I grabbed some pop-dot 2-sided foam adhesives to adhere the pieces together. I put a white flower on one side of the ornaments, and a pink flower on the other.

Those pop-dots give the ornaments an extra 3-D effect.

I pulled these two shades of pink ribbon from my stash. I didn't have enough of the dusty pink narrow ribbon, so I used the brighter pink ribbon on the last four ornaments. I'll admit that tying the knot with these short strands took a bit of patience. But the shorter loops look best on the tree.

A-n-d ... Here they are in place. So sweet.

It's pure joy to craft when the idea in my head comes together simply and easily. It was a lovely way to spend an afternoon.