Toledo & Fremont

I have been on a 20 day visit to the United States.  During that time I took around 830 photographs and you will be pleased to know that I'm not going to share all of them with you today.  Or at any time really!

My plan is to share photos of various parts of my trip starting with Ohio.  My friend Mary lives in Toledo.  I flew from Birmingham to Dublin, Dublin to Chicago, Chicago to Detroit where Mary picked me up and took me to her house.

The next day we went on a walking took of Toledo - in particular the Warehouse District.  The sky was blue but it was quite chilly.  However I had taken clothes appropriate for the weather!

This was outside an art materials shop - which of course we visited!

I love this sculpture of children peeking through a whole in the fence to see inside the baseball stadium.

This is a stunning mural

Another sculpture - this time inside the stadium.  I took the photo through the railings.

I loved this mural of Venice

And this photo is definitely going in my Venice project sketchbook

The gate to the stadium.

Over the long weekend we also visited Michaels, Jo-Anns, Hobby Lobby and Dick Blicks.  What can I say!?!  We like art materials.

On Friday we returned to Detroit airport to pick up two ladies who had flown in to attend a retreat that Mary & I had booked to attend.  Refine {The Retreat} was held from Friday evening to Sunday morning at an old convent in Fremont, Ohio.  Mary wrote about her experience on her blog Found on Brighton.

There was an amazing art room which we could use almost any time.  Plus there was a two hour art session led by Christine Hiester

This is the journal page that I did.  I journaled on the page first and then painted over it.  Christine had provided various photos to use.

On our way home I wanted to see the river in Fremont.  These signs were along the path to the river.

Some interesting questions!  Presumably addressing some community point or behaviour.  Not sure really.

It was a bit of a murky day but that didn't stop these folks from fishing.

On my last day in Toledo we spent a relaxed morning doing arty things.  I worked on pages in my travel journal.

Mary took me to Detroit airport and I flew to Orlando for the next stage of my trip.  More about that on Monday.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

Reading Books

I used to love spending time reading books.  I'm not sure why I don't do it as much as I used to.

I saw a blog post about needing a reading area to trick yourself into reading more books, but actually I didn't think it particularly applied to me but the post was interesting.

I also read about a 17 for 2017 book challenge.  But I didn't accept the challenge because I thought setting a number might set me up to fail.

I have a Kindle App on my iPad and I download lots of free books - particularly fiction - but don't necessarily read them.  I tend to buy non-fiction books, particularly craft related ones, but then look at the pictures rather than read the words.

So what have I bought so far this year.  And how much have I read of them!!!??

Stitching the Textured Surface by Lynda Monk & Carol McFee

Read quite a bit of it.

Reclaimed Textiles by Kim Thittichai

Dipped in and out for various techniques!

 

Born to Create by Theresa Dedmon

Working through it slowly

Craving Connection from (in)Courage

Unopened!

The Daniel Plan 365-Day Devotional 

Unopened!

Adventures in Seeing by Kim Manley Ort

Working through it slowly with a group on Facebook

For Roger's birthday in January I bought him

Map Addict by Mike Parker

Roger's still reading it

The Wild Rover by Mike Parker

I've finished it!

For Christmas I bought him

The Pie at Night by Stuart Maconie

I've finished it!

This is my most recent purchase
Globejetting by Dave Fox

However I have read about 6 novels on my Kindle.  I like crime stories and have been taken lately by the books of Wendy H Jones.

So basically I've read 2 proper books in just over 3 months.

What sort of books do you like to read?    How many have you read this year?   Let me know in the comments below.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice

One Little Word: March

The task for March was to make our word visible through a type of vision board or vision pages.  Although the actual description was to find images and words or phrases we like and make a collage or 4 and that's what I did.   It may not seem on first glance that these pages are anything to do with my word {Connect} but they are.

This picture of Cragside with words Building Dreams really appealed to me.  I added the other words.

I used a piece of scrapbook paper that looks like watercolours dripping down.  The words I found for this are to encourage me to be more intentionally creative.

This page is also about connecting with creativity.  I used a page from a Stampington magazine as the background.

And lastly, this is a photo of Corfe Castle from the National Trust magazine with some positive thoughts for life, travel and exercise.

I put some stickers on the front and back of the March binder divider.

Thanks for stopping by.
Bernice