Continuation of rusty bells and.....Painting etc

This is going to be a lengthy post so you had better grab a java or something and hope that it ends soon.
I hope I am not boring you with all my pictures but since I need to do a bit of blogging catch up from days and weeks that I go silent this is what has been keeping me busy.
First of all I want to show you the results of the rust recipe that I posted last post and here are the bells to show you. Now I put them back in for the third time today because I wanted a tad bit more rust and well that was this morning and they are still sitting in the jar so I will get to them tomorrow. Today was busy with a preparation of some canvas and I won't be going into that in this post. So.....here are the bells. As you can see there is a rusty nail on top just to show you that I think it helps the process if you add a nail or two. If I find another rusty nail I will be throwing that in as well.

Next I just finished these two items in the last few days, another breadboard with a Painting with Friends chicken pattern that my blogger friend Lynn from Painting Thyme Needfuls painted  along with Terrye French. I chose one chicken then did a distressing background with a paint stain of John Sliney's over the Antique white background. Looks all runny and stained and turned out just the way I wanted it to. I still have to add the bow at the top.

And next is a wooden salad bowl my MIL found for me and I painted of course a Terrye French pattern  in the center. I just loved this pattern and it was a lot of fun to paint. I wonder if I should paint the edge of the bowl a different colour, I was thinking the same red as the Santa hat but I would appreciate any ideas from you. Just seems to need something else on that edge.

Next are some gardening photos to show you.

This year I decided I wanted to plant some gourds and dry them and paint them. I bought a pkg of bottleneck gourds as I have seen them painted up as snowmen and they look really cute. I guess I won't be doing any for this year as the gourds have to dry out before you can paint them so that will be something to look forward to next year.

My friend Becky over at Country Lane Folkart showed me a gourd she finished painting on Facebook and it is darn cute. Thanks for showing me Becky and the instructions on how and what to expect while the gourds dry.

This is one of the gourds I found and has been growing like mad the last couple of weeks and there are a lot more to come......

and along the rail fence is the gourds that have attached themselves to the fence with runners and oh my they have really spread, this is on one side of the fence and there are more on the other. I thought planting 5 plants would maybe be enough??? what was I thinking????I had no idea about gourds, I feel like I am Jack and the Beanstalk only horizontal.

And next a sunflower

I have these incredible almost burgundy and some are almost a light pink in colour, rusty ones and the standard yellow. Some are short, some are almost 8 and 9 feet tall . So as you can see I have been keeping very busy  especially this month as the garden is ready to harvest. Tomatoes have been beautiful, the beans are over now but have been delicious, then there is the beets, a continuing saga about the beets. I still have to do more pickling but that will probably be either Friday or the weekend.

And one more pic of my Rosie, she was on the porch today catching some rays. She isn't too keen on the camera so I caught her napping and relaxing outside in her sphynx position. She is my Rosiecats, orange and white, nice and fat, she's Rosiecats. =^..^=

Til next time, thanks for dropping by.

L