Where this blogger creates

For several years I’ve wanted to join in with Karen of My Desert Cottage for her annual blog party but have missed it due to busy schedules. This year I finally made it!

So without further ado….Welcome to Halle’s Hobbies!

I’d like to introduce myself for you first time visitors. I’m Halle, which is pronounced Holly. I know..it’s different. I’m am a self taught mixed-media artist from Minnesota. I’ve been crafting since I was a kid. Over the years I had played around with a little bit of everything…plastic canvas, embroidery, painting plaster ornaments, quilting and even tried scrapbooking when I had my first child. It wasn’t until I discovered altered art in 2005 that I realized I had a passion for art. I started blogging in April of 2007 on Blogger then eventually purchased my own domain and moved my blog to WordPress. So here we are today.

On with the tour…

I have a couple of creative areas in our house. I’m am very lucky that the family puts up with my creative chaos.

I’ll start with my art space.

It’s not fancy or sweetly decorated but it’s mine! Although I do share my space with the laundry, deep freeze and utility room. Don’t get me wrong….I’m not complaining. I’m lucky because I have room to spread out and bonus, I have a sink to wash hands and brushes! I also have tons of storage for all my bits of this and that. Somehow I still find that I’m running out of room!

This is the view to the left of the previous shot. I keep my guillotine cutter on the clothes dryer. It happens to be a perfect height. The top of the file cabinet and the deep freeze have become storage spots as well. I’ve been organizing and purging bit by bit. Slowly but surely I’ll get it finished.

Remember I mentioned my family being patient with my creative chaos…

This is my sewing table that resides in a tiny corner in our family room. I tend to sew a lot so having a space that is constantly at the ready is key. Beyond creating and repairing basic utilitarian objects, sewing finds it’s way into my art as well. Currently, I have a feature article in Sew Somerset where I share my technique for collage cards.

And where would a blogger be without her computer…I love my big monitor. It makes photo editing a dream!

My “office area” sits in a nice little nook in the game area of our family room.

Truth be told, my desk is usually covered with papers. It’s just how I work best. I can’t explain it but it works for me unfortunately it drives Mr. G crazy. Thankfully he is tolerant.

Thanks for coming along on this little tour with me. I hope you’ll stop by again.

Blog

art space

20 Comments

halleday

201507/07

T Tuesday: week in review edition

We had a busy week leading up to the July 4th holiday weekend. I barely touched my computer for days… I totally missed 2nd on the Second that Elizabeth our T stands for Tuesday also hosts. I didn’t even realize I missed it until the 5th. How’s that for being out of touch!

Lets start back on Tuesday of last week…

after writing my T post, we headed off to my inlaws to check out the damage to the garden and their house. The garden was a wreck. Leaves and plants ripped to shreds and beaten into the mud. I cleaned up as much as I could and will just hope for the best. At least we have a thriving garden here at home as well.

Wednesday and Thursday were a blur… I can’t even remember what we did.

Friday evening was spent at the carnival in town. The kids had a great time. I had a great time too. I wasn’t looking forward to going this year but I’m glad I did.

I don’t know if you can tell from the photo (upper left side) but we’ve been effected by smoke from the Canadian wild fires here. The sun at times is just a red glow in the sky. Yesterday after our heavy rains ended it was so hazy and the air smelled really bad. I found out later that we were under an air quality warning. Our air quality was worse than Beijing, China yesterday. Thankfully today it has cleared out.

EDIT: I can still smell the smoke but at least the sky is clear.

On to Independence day…

Before the parade I walked over to the hockey rink at the Elementary school to check out the chalk drawing contest entries now that they were complete. Amazing work! The girl who drew Uncle Sam was 14 yrs old! Wow!

And now parade time….

The annual flyover by a T6 Texan squadron announces the start of the parade. Then we have another good 30 minutes before the parade reaches our seats. That’s ok…we sit with a group of about 55 people in a friends back yard along the parade route. Can’t beat that!

It was a hot and steamy day…my drink of choice…

Ok I didn’t get that fancy that day…I had to take one for the team yesterday for dramatic effect on the post. *grin*

After the sticky day it was time for a dip in the neighbors pool.

And then some fireworks…

We are back to a normal schedule I think. Errands, hopefully knitting and visiting my T friends are on the list for today.

What are you doing?

Blog | Outdoors

gardening, Holidays, T Tuesday

13 Comments

halleday

201507/06

SOC 5: week 5

What?!?!? How is it week 5 of The Summer of Color hosted by Kristin of Twinkle, Twinkle. Seriously…time goes by way too quickly!

This weeks colors are…

1 green+ 1 green + 1 pink

I went very basic this week. I spread some thinned out light green along the bottom edge of the book then sprayed with water. I then tipped the book to get a good flow going in an upward motion to simulate foliage in the background.

I almost feel like I want to do another page in these colors…something abstract. But this was where my mind was at this morning as the rain poured down outside. Dreaming.

Art | Blog

SOC 5: week 4

I was very slow to get a clue with these colors for this Week 4 of The Summer of Color hosted by Kristin of Twinkle, Twinkle. Between that and a busy holiday week I just didn’t get anything accomplished.

20150705_8140

1 red+ 1 red + 1 metallic

I decided at the last moment to throw in the black scribbles and splatters of India ink. They made the page feel a little more grounded.

Looking for to seeing what tomorrow holds for colors…

Art | Blog

T Tuesday: Juneberry jam edition

Welcome to yet another edition of T stands for Tuesday hosted by Dr. E aka Elizabeth, caretaker of Bleubeard and Squiggles.

So what’s a Juneberry you ask? I love putting words in your mouth…makes me feel all powerful and full of myself.

But seriously…ever heard of a Juneberry? How about a Saskatoon berry? Or perhaps a Serviceberry? Until recently I didn’t know that they all happen to be the same thing. And even more so…we have a tree in our yard. Wish I’d realized that 12 years ago when it was much smaller!!

Of course they are much tastier when left until they are a deep purple…but you have to fight the birds for them.

I found several recipes online for Juneberry jam but decided to go with this low sugar version.

Isn’t it pretty!?! I ended up with a partial jar that went into the fridge for immediate consumption.

I’m not a big sweets girl…(unless it’s chocolate…which I’m allergic to but I’m willing to deal with the consequences occasionally but that’s a whole other issue)…so a slightly tart jam suits me just fine. Honestly I haven’t tried it on bread yet…just the spoon. Slightly tart and quite full of seeds. It will depend on if anyone else likes the jam if I bother with all the tedious picking again. It would be interesting to know if you could make wine or mead or some sort of adult beverage from these berries. More research I guess.

Speaking of research…can anyone help me with the name of this flower?

I believe it starts with a “C” but I threw out the handy dandy marker that came with the plant. I want to write it down so I can remember to purchase more next year.

I’m not sure what’s on the docket for today other than talking to my in-laws. The Twin Cities area got hit with some pretty big thunderstorms yesterday…large hail, winds and heavy rain. We got very little hail here and not much of it so the garden is fine. We heard reports of two inch hail in their area though. UGH..that would be awful!

I have to show you my rouge bean plants too…I did not buy climbing beans but 4 of my plants have decided to climb.

I’ll be putting in some bamboo stakes today.

What are you doing today?

Blog | Kitchen | Outdoors

frugal living, gardening, jam, kitchen, T Tuesday

12 Comments

halleday

201506/24

SOC 5 week 3

The colors for this Week 3 of The Summer of Color hosted by Kristin of Twinkle, Twinkle gave me some trouble. I wasn’t sure how I wanted to proceed so I didn’t until today.

1 purple + 1 purple + 1 yellow

I happened upon an image of a little girl all in yellow in a magazine ad. I figured she’d work perfect for the yellow portion. I used gel medium to adhere the magazine image to some printer paper so she’d have a little more stability as I cut around her.

For the background I once again decided to use gelatos…

So far they haven’t failed me. Although I was surprised at how pink the lavender gelato appeared on the page. I decided to just press on since the tube was clearly labeled lavender.

Instead of doing a straight up checker board I went with random rectangles. The blending gave a slightly dreamy quality in my eye.

I searched through my collection of phrase fragments until something came together.

These colors definitely had me stepping…or perhaps leaping outside my comfort zone. That’s what challenges are for, right?!?!

Blog

challenge, found text, gelatos, SOC5

22 Comments

halleday

201506/23

T Tuesday: tour edition

Welcome to another edition of T stands for Tuesday. Come with me for a little walk around the yard today. You won’t believe how huge the tomatoes are!! FYI…picture heavy post

We’ll start were we left off last week. The former playset.

The sand box has been removed and all that’s left are some bare spots in need of a load of dirt and grass seed.

I got a little carried away with flowers this year but I’m really enjoying them.

Of course many of them are perennials which suits me perfectly.

Here’s one of the crazy horseradish plants along with some tiny cucumber plants. Only one survived the transplant to out doors after our strange spring. I just replanted some seeds. It remains to be seen if they ever get big enough to produce.

Here’s the same deck box garden from a different angle. Those are my yellow pear tomatoes.

Remember where they started this year??

Hey look…there’s the playset in the background.

And we can’t forget the obligatory beverage for T stands for Tuesday. Ice water for the humid afternoon we had while taking these photos. Heavy rain early in the day gave way to a sticky afternoon.

Continuing my backward progression around the house we come to this sad bucket of dirt.

There are seeds in there…I set it in the sun hoping they’d germinate. If not I’ll throw something else in there…perhaps some daisy seeds for a splash of texture and color.

The big garden or shed garden or perhaps deer feeding station.

Some things are doing wonderful like my peppers and a rouge carrot. My beans not so much. I’ve replanted seeds twice now after only a handful came up.

The herbs I transplanted from a Trader Joe’s herb pot are getting really big. Behind them is the other horseradish plant we inherited.

I have beef steak tomatoes in this garden…nice thick stems and blossoms. Hooray!

One of my Egyptian Walking Onions is starting to look real interesting. I inherited these with the horseradish.

Not surprisingly the clover is looking fantastic. *grin*

I picked up these great hanging pots at Walgreen’s of all places. I couldn’t pass them up for the price.

The front walk pots aren’t looking the best this year. I was a little late in planting them.

I do really like these ones though. I picked up with watering can half filled with dirt at a garage sale this spring for $2. It’s a nice edition to my eclectic bunch.

It wouldn’t be Tuesday without a full to-do list for me. I’ll be around to visit my T companions at some point…have patience.

What are you doing today?

Blog | Outdoors

day in the life, gardening, T Tuesday

16 Comments

halleday

Halle's Hobbies

A peek into my eclectic life

Where this blogger creates

T Tuesday: week in review edition

SOC 5: week 5

SOC 5: week 4

T Tuesday: Juneberry jam edition

SOC 5 week 3

T Tuesday: tour edition