Happy Halloween, Happy Fall!

Happy Halloween!  I've been hangin' on to this photo since last summer when we went to Six Flags, St. Louis.  It's from a poster, advertising their Fright Fest for this month.  Don't you love it?!

Ahh, fall.  I've been going through some photos on my camera and phone and I'm posting a few here.  This is a beautiful walk in one of the parks in our town.  I couldn't resist taking pics of the berries.  I'm glad I had my camera. 

Works-in-progress.  I'm trying to remember to take more of these types of photos.  The "drink me" bottle  was a little painting I made for my daughter's birthday/Halloween party invitations.

Rainy day, but I'm still taking pictures of the great backyard makeover.  This was taken from the back door (because I'm a big baby and didn't want to get wet). You can see the neighbor's garage in the background.  I love when those huge burning bushes start turning red.  We had a fire going in the fire pit a couple of nights this fall.  It's great to get more use out of the backyard.

 

 

I found a photo of Lucy kitty.  You THINK she wants you to pet her when she's laying like this, and it's sooo hard to resist.  But cat owners know better. :)

And what would Halloween be without a raven?  This was a fun (and scary) one I painted this year!

Summer's over already? Nope, not yet!

I'm starting to see things like mums and little round, pumpkin-like squash trickling into the stores this week. So it has me wondering, where has summer gone?  I have to admit, the image of pumpkins and falling leaves stirs some excitement in me.  Fall is definitely my favorite time of year, however I'm just not quite ready to give up on summer.  Yet.

 

I've been going through the photos on my camera and found some very summery pics.  These were from a day trip to Carlyle Lake, the lake in my home town.  We try to get there at least once a year for some sand castle building.  

 

 And of course I always seem to find my way to the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis at least once (okay, several times) a year.  This summer was particularly a good one, because the Gardens began selling some of my hand painted pendants in their gift shop! (yay!).   

 This year they have a Chinese Lantern Festival at the Gardens.  It's truly amazing to see and well worth the trip. 

 

 

 

 I've included some photo samples of some of the hand painted pendants I sent over to the Missouri Botanical Garden's gift shop.  It was a fun challenge to create some new pieces for them.

I also found this photo on my phone.  It's interesting to see just what I can find on there, sometimes random pictures of sidewalks, etc. show up and I have no idea how they got there.  Although, there are lots of times I think I'm taking a picture and it turns out to be a video.  Phones can be so fun.  Anyway, I thought it would also be fun to include these "before" drawings of some summer items I painted and scattered throughout this post.  Some I painted in watercolor, some are acrylic.  Actually, there might be a mix of both here and there as well.

So for those of us living in Southern Illinois, close to St. Louis, MO (hey, that's me!), we know how August temperatures and humidity tell us we aren't even close to being into fall yet, no matter what the stores are selling.  Of course, come September 1st all of that changes and mums and pumpkins are fair game, no matter what the temp is!

Paris In Springtime

It's springtime, so these days my thoughts keep turning to Paris.  I was inspired to paint and create this new Springtime in Paris pendant, and I love the colors so much I leave it out in my studio and glance over at it every day!

I was even inspired to paint these macaroons with watercolor paints.  I've never actually had a macaroon, but the photos and colors make them look so yummy, I like them before I've even tried them!

I remembered this time to take a photo of my pendant in the middle of painting it.  For some reason this is something I don't usually think of.  In this case it kind-of looks like wintertime in Paris.

We actually had the opportunity to visit Paris about 9 years ago.  We were only there for almost 3 days, and believe me that's not nearly long enough!  We did get to visit the Eiffel Tower and rode to the top.  As you can see, it was a little foggy that day but still just as exciting as ever.

Not quite France, but these pink tulips are still all spring.  This is a new pendant that will be added to my Etsy shop soon.  I can't wait to see the real ones in bloom in the backyard!

Happy Spring!