Signs of Spring

 The buds on the tree at my balcony promise the arrival of Spring and warm weather. I check them out every day, eager to see the first tender leaves unfurl. Green grass, bless it, arrives early,  when the first thaw begins. Grass greening up at the very edge of a melting snowbank never ceases to amaze and delight me.

The second picture shows another harbinger of warm weather, which some call Street Repair Season. Soon, the city's potholed arteries will be almost as easy to navigate as a mine field. Translation of the sign for the French-challenged; "Road Work/Saint Foy Road/May." I hope the calender's month of May and the city's have the same number of days. I shall try to think of street repairs as adventures; they make us discover streets I never knew existed.


In spite of street repairs and rainy, windy days, I love Spring, for the same reason I love mornings; they both speak to me of hope. They whisper to me that discouragement should have no place in my heart, because road repairs mean improvement, rainy days promise new blooms, and I've learned from Winter that out of death comes new and brighter life.

Over the Rooftops and Into Tomorrow

 The wind has finally run out of breath and left. The weatherman promises the weekend will be sunny, but that's a few days away, and I need some sun now. I dug out this card I made a few years ago, because it makes me feel like summer inside.

When I was a child, my backyard swing was a magic carpet. I could touch the clouds or treetops with my toes or fly over the house. Some years ago, watching my granddaughters on their swings, memories of magical swinging were brought vividly back to me, and inspired the poem on this card.
The stamps  are all from the same company, but as they are unmounted with no name attached, I can't recall whose they are. If anyone recognizes the images, please let me know.

Who Has Seen the Wind?

No one, of course, can see the wind, only it's effects, which are all too visible outside my window. It began boldly blowing during the night, and is supposed to continue through tomorrow. I can't remember ever experiencing a wind like this.
It keeps attacking the lids of the dumpsters in the apartment parking lot, howling around the building like a banshee, and is trying to tear off the branches of the trees just outside my windows. It's accompanied by rain that's trying to melt the snow from the past two days, but not succeeding too well.
The cats, wisely, barely stuck their noses out the patio door this morning; when the wind goes up their ears, they turn tail and head for comfy, warm corners. I hope the weather is kinder where you are.
The cards are the answer to a challenge on the Inkstainers Facebook page, "Use Your Newest Stamp." The tag is my answer to Inkstainers' "Make a Tag" challenge. The stamps are from the Fresh Vintage set by Stampin' Up;  the little owl was made with the Stampin' Up Two-Step Owl punch.

Anything Goes...

...Almost! I missed out on participating in the Art With No Boundaries challenge, "The Eyes Have It," but this fortnight's challenge, "Anything Goes," allows me to make up for that. The central image is from Third Coast, the Palm frond is Stampington, the two masked ladies and the sentiment are digital stamps from CS Designs. The ink is SU Wild Wasabi. For some reason, Blogger has cropped this card; it actually has a green border on all four sides.
Using so much green helped brighten up the day. Would you believe that I awoke yesterday morning to a snow fall? It was still on the ground this morning, so the only green visible is this card! Living in Québec City means that one can't let the weather influence one's moods. A joyful life has to be built on something more solid.

Happy Easter!

My Easter joy will have to come entirely from the meaning of the Day, because the weather is not joyful! No problem!

To all my friends and family dropping by, I wish you joy at Easter and always.

Recycle, Re-purpose, Re-invent!

The title of this post is also the name of a CS Designs blog, sister to their Art with No Boundaries blog. The brand new Recycle, Re-purpose and Re-invent site  challenges us to dig into our stashes and recycling bins to come up with fresh ideas for our art. Check the right side of this blog for a link.
To answer RRR's first challenge, Anything Goes, I'm using cards I made for a CST (Canadian Stamp Talk), card mingle. Last year, CST challenged us to use tissue boxes as material for our mingle cards. I hopped on board, because I've got a drawerful of flattened tissue boxes I've been meaning to use, but needed a push to get me going.
I saved the box used on these cards because the colors, flowers and design elements appealed to me and are similar to  some of Stampin' Up's colors and one of their stamps.
SU's Build-a-Bird punch was used on the first two cards, along with stamps from the SU set, Warm Words. The background is not printed cardstock, but part of the tissue box. SU Baroque Motifs was used on the third card, beneath the tissue box strips. The card base and other cardstock used on the cards are SU.
For the Bonus Round of RRR's April challenge, one must answer the two-part question, "What’s the strangest thing you have been hoarding for the
purpose of using it in your art and how do you plan to use it?
I had a hard time with this, because one artist's weird is another's normal, no? I finally decided on a piece of the birch bark I've been saving for years. I intend to use it on a card.
The bark comes from birch trees used for the wood-burning stove at the Chabot family cabin, which is on a lake three to four hours driving distance from Québec City, plus a hike up a hill. Since my deceased husband and I spent part of our honeymoon at this cabin, the bark has a particular meaning for me.