First Day of Autumn Picnic ~ I'm bringing some chewy chocolate chip cookies for the picnic! It seems that a fellow blogger Marianne had a fantastic idea. She decided to have a picnic to celebrate the first day of Autumn! On Kim's blog I see that she is bringing some delicious Cafe au Lait and Andrea is bringing some lovely colorful french macaroons, check it out and see you at the picnic!

Don't throw that away! ~ I looked in the back of Rob's pickup truck (on the way to the dump) and barely rescued this old coal bucket that came from his late Grandma's house in West Virginia. I grabbed it out and bought and planted some flowers in it yesterday. Whew, I'm glad I saw it before he pulled out of the yard and it sure made a purty planter!

Black Cat Smiley ~ I did a funny painting from Puddin's photo (in my post below). This is for a themed contest (nibblefest art contest) and the theme this month is 'Smiling black cats'. I couldn't resist this one! I painted this in acrylics on 4 x 6 inch 140 lb. watercolor paper. I hope everyone is having a great weekend. Babs, I know you are visiting KC this weekend but I got so excited with my oreo seed vine. It now has a purple bloom! I'll get a picture for you! :)

Here's what I did with my last 3 ACEOs. They are finished now and I put some crystal glitter in the snow.

Here today, gone tomorrow ~ Yesterday I found this little guy popped up in the front yard after we had finally had some rain. Today, he was shriveling up but more around him are popping up all around to take his place. I could almost picture some elves nearby!

Playing in the Snow ~ I hope it's not too early to be playing in the snow but I had so much fun painting ACEOs last year with winter scenes. This is 3 that I'm working on now but I keep thinking I need to add a touch of red somewhere or put a finishing touch on them. Ick, I took the picture with a flash tonight so I'll get some better pictures outside after I finish them.

Passion Flowers (kudzu) vines ~ I brought some passion flower bulbs here to Virginia from Kentucky about 8 years ago. They come up (and come up and come up) everywhere as soon as the weather warms here. I love the flowers, but I have to pull up over a 100 vines sprouting up in the grass everywhere nearby. :o I believe next year I am going to save a bulb or two and try this vine as a potted plant and hopefully I won't have to pull vines sprouting all summer long! Arrgh, I'm tired of pulling them up every year LOL!

My thoughts and prayers are going out to those down in Galveston, TX tonight and I listened on the news in disbelief that many thousands are not evacuating down there, yikes!!

Puddin wanted to say "Hi" ~ Today I was trying to take a picture of the painting in my last post, and yep I did work on it some more. Puddin kept trying to jump up on the bench where my painting was laying so after I got the picture, she jumped up and I got her picture too. LOL, look at her teeny tiny feet down there! Janet, from A Planet Named Janet gave me the idea for the title. Thanks Janet because I'm just calling this one 'The Peacock Tree'.

Lazy Dog Days of Summer ~ It was 96 degrees here today and I just can't get up enough energy to do much of anything...or maybe it's just me and not the weather :o I've been working on this painting but I'm not sure if it's finished or not though. It's 5 x 7 inches, acrylics and black sharpee pen on watercolor paper.