June 2012..getting away...Cape Cod

 

Friday, June 15th., I left to spend 4 days visiting with my cousins, on Cape Cod and I returned late this afternoon, June 18. As always we drove to several of the Cape's beaches. I just LOVE the BEACH!!!

Friday..Gray's Beach..osprey and chick on nest in the salt marsh

Saturday we stopped at several yard sales. I found several items that just had to come home with me and didn't spend much money at all. I bought a bird feeder for the window that can be filled from indoors, and we can watch the birds without them seeing us for $5.00.  Now Tom has to attach it to the window. This feeder will probably drive the cats crazy.

 

Several nice cookbooks...50 cents each.   A nice Kensington metal square cake plate..50 cents. One of my aunt's had given everyone in the family one of these cake plates many years ago.  I picked up a book for my brother for 50 cents..Restoring Model A Fords. Paul has a convertible Model A, and so I thought he would enjoy the book. The book had lots of photos, diagrams, and info. Also, I found 2 new 9 inch glass pie plates, a big copper canning tub minus the cover. My mother has pictures of my older brother brother and I when we were real little cooling off in one of these copper tubs on a hot summers day.  I'm not sure what I will do with this yet, but I wanted it.                                                                                                                                                                                                          I also bought 2 board games for 50 cents each..Scrabble, which I always pick up when I see one. I use the letters in my art projects. The second game was a Wizard of Oz board game that I bought because I liked the game pieces  and cards that were in the game.    

box cover of game

game board

  stand up pieces

We took rides everyday..twice we went to see the seals at the Chatham Fish Pier. I love watching the seals and thankfully there were no great white sharks in the area. There were lots of seals both days, but most were too far out to get a good photo. When the fishing boats are in, unloading their catch there are plenty of seals around the boats near the pier.

surfacing for air and a look around

 

Wind surfing taken at Chatham Beach near the lighthouse.

         

   in the shoals lots of seals could be seen bobbing in the water in the distance as it was low tide. I couldn't believe people were swimming as it was windy and cool that day.

In Dennis, on Route 6A,  I took a picture of a male bluebird that landed on the telephone wire. The bird kept flitting from one side of the road to the other in the same area. There must be a nest nearby.

Bluebirds are so beautiful. Wish there were more of them around. I also saw lots of other birds in the Mulberry tree in my cousins back yard. The birds love eating the  berries from that tree.

On Sunday, we spent hours walking along Main Street, Hyannis looking at all the vintage cars. Model A ...one of many vintage cars on display along the Main Street.

Sunday afternoon while we were riding along Rte. 6A we stopped at Kate's and got some clam fritters. Kate's clam fritters are  so very good.

While at my cousins I dug up some money plants in the back backyard to plant in  my flower garden.

 

The plant will change from green to papery brown when ripe, and the pod will peel and the seeds between the layers will drop out to reseed themselves.

Roses were in bloom everywhere..so very pretty.

      

Green Holly berries already on the holly trees.

Hydrangea were blooming..a month earlier than they usually bloom.

         

raft of geese swimming in the ocean

In the mornings and early evenings we saw baby bunnies everywhere we went. The photo looks like a full grown rabbit, but I used my zoom lens to get the photo of the baby bunny.

Today before coming home we went to Heartbeat Quilts, Hyannis and then to Orleans to Murray's Fabric's . I bought some fabric and took a picture of this Betty Boop in Heartbeats.  I took this picture of her, because I signed up for a swap and I am using Betty Boop. I will post a picture of my post card soon.

I took a lot more photos, but I am having issues with the computer right now, and having difficulty uploading photos. Hope you enjoyed what I did manage to share.

    Elaine

Military Goodie Care Package

I have put together care packages for our service men and women in the past, sending out packages to the troops in Desert Storm, Bosnia, Iraq and Afghanistan. This time Jeri, the list mom of a group that I belong to...An Affair with Art suggested that any who wanted to participate it would be nice to put together goodie packages. We have a soldier that we will be sending our boxes to and he then shares the contents with others.

I went to the post office yesterday and picked up the large  flat rate Priority box. The box is 12 x 12 x 6 and to send it out is $15.95, but I was told if mailing to the armed services in this box the postage is reduce by $2.oo.

 

When I was filling the box this morning, I found it wasn't big enough to fit everything in that I bought. I removed packaging and put individually wrapped items in zip lock baggies to take up less space.  But, I will need to pick up another priority flat rate box to send the rest of the items.

To fill my goodie box...I bought crossword and search a word books, pens, paper, envelopes, sunscreen, wet wipes, lip balm, batteries, Gold Bond powder, playing cards, peanuts, several bags of candies that are individually wrapped, chewing gum, Slim Jims, breath mints, individual packages of ice tea,  pink and yellow lemonade mixes, Q Tip swabs, Rice Krispee treats, granola bars, peanut butter crackers, Blueberry pop tarts. For food..Velveeta mac n cheese, complete Hormel dinners.spaghetti with meat sauce, steak tips with mashed potatoes, Chicken Alfredo with ziti.  I still have a couple of magazines to put in to complete my care package.

 

The box is filled to the brim and very heavy, that's why I went with the flat rate priority box. I hope the box will be enjoyed.

Sharing some photos I took this morning.

pretty Dogwood..taken at the Town Hall in Duxbury, MA.

Bird seed bandit eating food that had fallen to the ground under the feeder

isn't this male cardinal eating a seed on the ground under the feeder beautiful?

Our cranberry bogs are in bloom, a month early this year due to the warm winter and warm spring.

At the local Dollar Tree I found 8 ounce containers of Duke's mayonnaise that so many of my southern friends rave about. We bought a big 32 ounce bottle when I was in Orlando in March. This is a great size to take camping or for cookouts.

Elaine

Coffee Break

 
coffee cup and saucer earrings and necklace
 
 
coffee cup/saucer earrings and necklace. Hard to photograph, but the cups have handles. The centers of the cups are brown to look like they are filled with coffee. The earrings are the size of a penny.
This is my second post today. I didn't feel like going out on this dreary, cool day, and I decided I would make some earrings. 
I bought the coffee cup charms  several years back at a bead store on the Cape in Falmouth. When I saw them, I bought all of what they had.  I have seen other cup and saucer charms, but none like these.
When I came across them in one of my bead boxes this morning I decided to make them into earrings and a necklace. Aren't they cute?
  crystal earrings..beads are a light turquoise with iridescent purple

Elaine

Katie's Big Day

3rd from right

Sunday, June 3rd was my oldest granddaughter's graduation from Bridgewater-Raynham Regional High School.

big smiles     

going up for her diploma

getting her diploma

                             

We had a lovely day celebrating with Katie, friends and family.

Elaine

Graduation Themed Photo album

hard to see but I put a B and an R (for Bridgewater Raynham High School) on the corners of the 2012 layered accent piece on the cover.

Yesterday afternoon I decided if I was going to give my granddaughter, Katie a handmade graduation themed photo album, then I better get on the stick and stop procrastinating. I had thoughts of creating this album for months and I had been buying themed paper and stickers for quite sometime, but I just never got it started.
I thought I had finally finished my project late last night, but this morning I remembered that I had bought a couple of sheets of Bridgewater Raynham High School themed paper from the scrapbook store in Bridgewater before it closed.  The photo journal has 9 pages for now. Depending how many photo's Katie wants to put in her album I can always add more pages.                                                                           The book is 9  3/4 x 6 1/2 inches. I made a rectangular book so more photos would easily fit on the pages. BR's school colors are red and white. I didn't take photos of the plain red pages in the album. I left the pages mostly blank, but I will decorate the pages as the photos are added. I didn't find a lot of graduation themed papers when I was looking, and I'm glad I had bought some last year.
I plan on bringing my photo printer to hook up to my camera so I can print out pictures as I take them and add them to the album at the party this afternoon.
cover
inside front cover left side
page to the right
next page- left side
Bridgewater Raynham page- right side page
  BR page- left
  page to the right
  to the right of this page is a red page
double page of hats..special memories
hats off on the right, red
page to the left
page to the left, hats off to the left like the paper above
The graduate paper on the left side
     inside back cover
The back cover of the book is red.
I went to a frame shop and bought scrap pieces of mat board that I cut down to the size I wanted for my pages.
I'm glad the album was finished in time. What do you think of it?
Elaine

Rainy Saturday

It has rained off and on all day today, which is a good thing. We needed the rain, and it has washed away all of the yellow pollen.
This afternoon I started working on a project that I should have completed a long time ago, but the procrastinator that I am, here I am rushing at the last minute. I will share photos tomorrow of my finished project.
Late this afternoon, I had to make a quick run to Michael's to pick up a few more scrapbook papers and stickers. While at Michael's I bought all the UHU glue sticks they had on clearance..the small normally $1.99 glue sticks were marked down to 49 cents..I bought the 6 they had left. I also bought the last 10 of the large UHU glue sticks that normally sell for $3.99 each for $1.99. I love UHU glue sticks and I'm hoping that this doesn't mean Michaels will no longer carry these, as they are the best glue sticks.
When I got back from Michaels I had just closed the door, when I heard a commotion from birds outside. I opened the door to see 5 baby tufted titmice learning how to fly for the first time. The were landing on my SUV, but sliding off the side of the roof into puddles, landing on the wires on the side of the house, the broom on the porch. I tried to get pictures, but it was raining hard, the wind was blowing and I had a hard time zooming in on the little birds as they were flapping all over the place.  See photo below.

The babies finally all flew into the big cherry tree and the parents found them. What a racket the parents and babies made. Then, after all of the little ones were in one spot, quick as a flash they all flew off, and I haven't seen them since. I think it was a good thing that it was raining and no stray cats were around at the time, or those babies might have been in big trouble. I was thrilled to able to see their first flights and watch as they tested their little wings and then fly away with the parents.
The other day 2 adult cardinals came to my feeder, and I heard noise..there were 4 fledgling baby cardinals sitting nearby in the Rose of Sharon tree squawking to be fed. So darn cute! I couldn't get a photo, because when I went outside they all flew off.

Yesterday, Fluffpuff went back to the vets to get his 2nd set of stitches removed. This time he had healed nicely. Fluff was happy to get his soft collar off.

Well, I need to get back to work to finish up my project and get things ready for my granddaughter's high school graduation tomorrow.
Elaine