My "Garden"

What is currently growing

Ridiculously large beetle!

So beautiful!

See the Praying Mantis?

     Early this spring, I decided to put flower seeds in one of my raised garden bed. I bought this handy, easy "roll" of wildflowers--you roll out this fibrous green matt embedded with seeds, you water it repeatedly and let it go. It was extremely slow to start and looked very unremarkable most of the time.  Slowly sprouts started and throughout the summer, I've had flowers!  They have been very beautiful.  As the summer progressed, the tall stems started to die and I figured it was nearing it's end.  The other morning I opened my curtains and peeked at the garden and was completely and thoroughly BLOWN AWAY at what I saw! What a gift!  Did you ever know that daisies come in such an amazing purple??? I rushed outside to admire, take pictures, and cut some flowers to bring in. 
     I could not help but praise the Lord for such an amazing and beautiful sight! I almost missed it by not taking the time to look--a lesson learned.  I walked around the flowers, oohing and ahhhing and taking pics with my iphone.  THEN more amazing things happened (hey, I'm easily amused)-- A Praying Mantis was plopped right smack in the middle of one of the purple flowers, as though he knew a photo opportunity awaited!  So I obliged him, happily.  Then as I circled around, I witnessed THE MOST GIGANTIC BEETLE I have ever seen in my life.  Okay, get this: he is not only huge, but emerald green, and metallic. And he's just chillin' out on a pink flower.  I'm beginning to feel like I've fallen down a rabbit hole or something. I snapped as many pictures as I could of him--he wriggled a lot and was such a fatty on the pink flower he kept weighing it down as he crawled. He flew away shortly after and he sounded like a lawn mower as he flew by.
     I'm kicking myself for not using my fancier camera to take pictures! It would have been nice to have some sharper detail as to possibly paint some of this revelry.
     I hope you enjoyed this moment in my life--it seemed worth sharing! Have a great weekend.

Miss August--The Portrait Club

Okay, here is the next lovely lady in The Portrait Club, Miss Julianna! To those who haven't stopped by in a while, The Portrait Club is a fun project some of the gals at the The Swell Sister Society are up to lately. Each participant adds some photos of herself for the month she is assigned, and the participating artists get to interpret her artistically any way they choose.

As I mentioned on the last post, I have decided to re-visit my dear friend, Photoshop. I had such a great time with the last challenge, I can't wait to start the next one! Stay tuned--I will not post the finished product till after the next meeting in September (it's fun to keep it a secret until the unveiling!).

But until then--I will be posting other adventures so please continue to stop by!

Okay, here is my updated Photoshop version of Laurelin! I'm very happy with the way it turned out. I find my self loving Photoshop like I love painting. Magical things can happen and it makes me very giddy! Tee hee ! Whoo hoo!

The beautiful Juliana will be next! I will post her "before" picture in the next couple days.