random reflections

Featuring Gina K Designs

The Simon Says Wednesday Challenge is "Anything Goes." There's always a product focus on these challenges, and I don't usually have anything to share. This time it is Gina K Designs. The warehouse and very lovely retail store are located in Greendale, WI, about 35 minutes from Sarah's. A good friend of mine's sister also lives near there, and Nancy and I got together for lunch during our early March visit. Afterwards I made a stop at Village Paper and Ink. I didn't buy a lot, but I did pick up two small stamp sets. I used one to watercolor these hydrangeas from Heartfelt Hydrangea when we were at Sarah's. Since we've returned, I needed a sympathy card, and these seemed appropriate.

Since the image was already watercolored, it was just a matter of choosing a card. I had both a purple and a dark navy Memory Box card, and the navy looked much better than the shade of purple I had. Having added blue to to the flowers, this worked out fine. 

The sentiment is from a Papertrey Ink set, Sending You Comfort.  In addition to the Simon Says challenge, I'm entering this one in the Time Out Challenge: Purple as well. 

The weather today is wild. To avoid the predicted rain, we took our walk around noon today following our church's worship service on You Tube. Just as we came home, the sun came out, and less that 15 minutes ago, I went out on the patio to see if it were warm enough in the sun to spend some time out there. It was too breezy for me, so I came in. Tracy, however, went out to do some yard work. In less than 10 minutes, it started to pour. Blue skies vanished immediately! It's the beginning of a cold front---a drop from near 70° today to the 40's tomorrow. Ahh, March!

Start with a Sketch

I don't often start with a sketch. In fact, it's a rare event. One of my card-making friends excels at this, but I've always struggled a bit with it. When I saw the new sketch at CAS Colours and Sketches, however, I immediately had an idea, (and having plenty of time on my hands) pulled out a new stamp set by Memory Box called Wild Rose Stem.

At about the same time, a new challenge appeared at Time Out: use a little or a lot of purple, so that determined the color scheme.

Here's the card that resulted from the two challenges:

The Wild Rose Stem stamp set includes a very large double bloom with stem and this single bloom. Since the CAS Colours and Sketches challenge calls for a "clean and simple" card, I opted for the single bloom, which is still quite large. After watching a video the other day with watercoloring with watercolor markers, I pulled out my Zig Clean Color markers. It took a bit to get adjusted to them. They definitely don't react the same way my pan watercolors do to a wet on wet technique, so I had to be ready quickly to pull the color out with a damp brush. I used just two purple markers and a touch of a blue one on the petals.

Since I had gold embossed the flower and leaves before coloring them, I decided to back the Nordic Frame by The Greetery with some gold paper for a subtle shine and elegance. I also gold embossed the sentiment from The Greetery's Sentiment Suite: Birthday.

After mounting the flower on the frame, I adhered it all to a card made from Gina K's Wild Lilac cardstock. It appears a bit darker in the last photo than it is IRL. 

Hope you are finding satisfying ways to keep busy in this time of seclusion. I've managed to cross two LONG overdue projects off my list. More on that at the end of the month when I write up my OLW post for March.

 

Watercolored Flowers: Take Three

This is card #3 from my watercoloring session last week. It's another birthday card, but I couldn't find the perfect Happy Birthday to fit in the oval, so I chose a sentiment from an older, and not much used set, by Papertrey Ink, Scripted. Now that I've "found" it again, I think you'll see more of it. One of the items on my list of things to do during this time of forced seclusion is to use newer stamps and dies, and older less used ones. Of the three cards I made, I think this is my favorite. It also caused the most trouble. Just after I glued the beautiful Geometrix: Oval frame to the card front, the stamped message smeared. I can't remember the last time that happened, but it required starting over. Fortunately, the flowers had not been glued.

For all three cards, I used a wet on wet technique for watercoloring. I'm happiest with the shading that happened on this one.

I also used a Gelly Roll #10 white pen to add some accents on the pistils. 

I'm entering this card in these challenges:

The Flower Challenge: Anything Goes

AAA Birthday: Flowers

Time Out: Birthday 

CAS on Friday: Birthday

Here's a look at all three cards I've posted over the last few days. One thing I love about a versatile stamp set is the very different looks you can achieve by changing the color and the design of the cards. 

Watercolored Flowers: Part 2

I'm back with the second of the watercolored flowers from my afternoon of playing with the Altenew 36 pan watercolors. Like yesterday, the images are from Simon Says Delicate Flowers set which was part of the May 2019 card kit.

The sentiment is from a relatively new Ink to Paper set called It's a Sign: Birthday. I'm a fan of orange and gray so created a top-folding card from PTI's "Soft Stone" cardstock. The sentiment was stamped with Smoky Shadow ink.

After die cutting the flowers and leaves with the accompanying dies, I popped up one of the flowers with dimensional tape for a little interest.

I'm entering this in three challenges:

The Flower Challenge: Anything Goes

AAA Birthday: Flowers

Time Out Challenges: Birthday

 

Playing with Watercolors

As part of my OLW, COMMIT for March, I'm still playing with watercolors. Over the next three days, you'll see three cards that resulted from one afternoon session. I'm learning quite a bit: I need to work more slowly, and I'm better off with a good #4 watercolor brush. Patience, too, is important. Waiting for one section to dry before moving on is also important. All the flowers I watercolored came from the same Simon Says set, Delicate Flowers, which was part of the May 2019 card kit. 

Here's the first card, another for the birthday stash.

I used Altenew's 36 pan watercolors for these flowers. It's one of my favorite watercolor sets for painting flowers. Almost no mixing needed since the colors are so fresh and bright.

Because I wanted to play along with the Addicted to CAS challenge: Circle, I used a PTI Shape Shifter Circle #2 die as a backdrop for the flower. I think most CAS blogs now accept a color as the "white space" and this one is Spring Rain, also from PTI. The blue cardstock is its truest color in this photo.

I'm entering this in the Addicted to CAS Challenge: Circle.

The Flower Challenge: Anything Goes:

And the AAA Birthday Game: Flowers:

 

We made an early grocery store run this morning, needing to purchase a gift card for RAIHN (Rochester Interfaith Hospitality Network). My friend and I provide dinner each time our church hosts families from RAIHN. Needless to say, during this time of seclusion, we are not hosting families. We are, however, providing dinners for a family that is residing in the RAIHN apartment. We arrived just as Wegmans opened, and were pleasantly surprised to find the shelves reasonably full. A week ago there was no meat except for a few packages of hamburger, no salad dressing, no bananas . . . you get the picture. Today I was able to pick up ingredients for several of our favorite meals as well as some cleaning supplies we needed. It was relatively easy to stay appropriately distant from other shoppers, too. We go to the Wegmans flagship store which has wide aisles and ample cashiers so I feel as safe as I could be under the circumstances. We won't need to return again for at least a week, if not longer. I am a fan of fresh produce so am likely to make a quick run once every week or 10 days.

Hope you are finding good things to occupy your time. Sarah gave Tracy a 1,000 piece jigsaw puzzle for his birthday, and in three days, he's just about completed it. I'd like to say I helped, but if I put in 50 pieces that would be saying a lot. Granted, I also have not put in the time!

Stay safe!

 

 

The New Normal

We arrived home from Wisconsin two weeks ago Sunday afternoon. By Monday morning, news of the coronavirus had become dire enough that we began cancelling all the moving parts of a planned 17 day vacation to California and Hawaii. It’s taken almost two weeks to get everything taken care of as best we can. As disappointing as it is, it pales in significance to the people whose lives have been totally disrupted and upended by the virus. My prayer list now includes all those whose livelihood is jeopardized by the closure of almost all businesses and cancellations of major events, those suffering from the virus, and the many, many health care workers and caregivers offering their skills and risking their lives to those who are ill.

We have gone from one confirmed case of the virus in our county last week to a total of forty-six this afternoon. The governor of New York and our local officials have moved swiftly and consistently to the current situation where people involved in non-essential services/businesses are required to stay home. We are allowed to leave our homes to get groceries, go to the pharmacy, and take a walk---as long as we stay appropriately distant from anyone we encounter. It’s all transpired so quickly. A week ago Thursday night, my interfaith book group met here. No one would consider such a meeting today.

On Monday we felt comfortable walking outside with Matt and the girls, but now even that level of contact is gone. We cancelled Tracy’s birthday dinner celebration, and are relying on video contacts now even though they live just over a mile away.

Walks are the saving grace. It’s good to get out of the house once a day, and we’re accumulating steps in numbers we haven’t seen in a long time.

We try to find a new route each day. Monday it was the Brickyard Trail with the girls.

Betsy had given Skylar (8) and Ella (5) a list of 10 things to look for on their walk. All the schools in New York are closed indefinitely, and both of my children are now homeschooling their children. Sarah is also trying to work from home, so it's a challenge. Her church (as well as ours) is also closed indefinitely, but both churches are providing worship experiences for their congregations online. Our church is live streaming a service each Sunday. My Lenten Study Group met via Google Meet on Tuesday.

Maddy (3) walked part way, and rode part way.

The end of the trail.

On Wednesday, we walked the Erie Canal path from the Jewish Community Center to the lock on Clover Street.

Not a sign of spring on this walk. You can see the lock in the distance.

Thursday, we took our longest walk. We walked to Mt. Hope Cemetery. Frederick Douglass (famous abolitionist) and Susan B. Anthony (women’s rights activist) are both buried here.

Yesterday the temperature was in the 60’s, and we took an early walk before the high winds and rain began. The high today is not quite 30°.

There were, however, some signs of spring walking through the city neighborhoods.

It’s taken me some time to adjust to the new normal, and get productive. I finally made a list early this week of creative projects to work on and as part of my OLW, COMMIT, decided that working on two different projects each day would be a good start. So far, so good, so there will be some blog posts coming more regularly now.

 

 

Five in Five & the OLW March Editions

Today's the fifth of March, and for once, I am ready with my Five in Five photos for Sandie's meme. The task is to take as many photos as you can (or want) in five minutes and post just five of them. Knowing I needed to publish my intentions for March, I thought I'd photograph some of what I've been working on while we're visiting Sarah. My creative intention this month is to spend some time exploring watercolors. One way I'm doing it, is with this book:

I've purchased other books on watercolors, but this is the best one, by far! I've read and reread some of the introductory pages, and just started some of the exercises. Here's one of the first:

The author recommends buying a set of student grade watercolors, but I've owned some Daniel Smith, professional grade watercolors for a long time. The next exercise requires some mixing, and it will probably take me some time to figure out the "recipes" for the specific colors we're going to need for later lessons. The smaller palette in this photo was a recent purchase the bottom six wells were prefilled with colors I didn't own, and I filled the top three with new colors I'd recently bought.

I discovered this lovely brush and pen holder on a calligraphy blog I follow, and it's perfect for traveling.

After playing around yesterday, and throwing out quite a few experiments that didn't pan out, I had an urge to paint something that could eventually become a card. This lovely hydrangea by Gina K fit the bill.

I"m also watching some Altenew videos in watercolor classes I've subscribed to and never finished. So there's the five in five and the major intention for March.

In addition, I'll be trying to finish one book from my unread shelves. I'm in the midst of Lenten devotional reading (Lent in Plain Sight: A Devotion Through Ten Objects and The Hope of Glory: Reflections on the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross) as well as reading two library books, so I'll be grateful to get just one book off the unread shelf. And because I enjoyed the photo-a-day project last month, I'm planning to continue that as well. 

OLW: Commit-February Recap

I'm really enjoying setting intentions on a monthly basis. For February, I started out with four, and added a fifth shortly after the month began.

1. Complete the Simplified Photos class: I watched all the videos. Frankly, I knew 85-90% of the material presented. I did learn about a new iPhone app called Color Story. No surprise to me, I already had it on my phone and had never used it. I’ll be giving it a try, but most of the time I upload the photos to my computer and edit them in Lightroom and/or Photoshop Elements.

        2. Take a photo-a-day. Accomplished! Here are 29 of them; there were several more.

It's a good mix of wintery photos, home activities, a couple family events, and quite a few wildlife photos which surprises me some. 

3. Complete the Colored Pencil: Jumpstart class. Also done; I learned a lot in this class and will be applying what I learned over many months. I started a sketchbook for practice images some of which I’ll probably use for cards.

4. Read one book for the Unread Shelf Project. I finished five books in February and three of them were from my unread shelves: Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table, A Pilgrimage to Eternity: From Canterbury to Rome in Search of a Faith, and Hashtag Authentic: Be Your Best Creative Self via Your Instagram Online Presence.

               

I enjoyed all of them, but I particularly liked Timothy Eagan’s A Pilgrimage to Eternity which includes among many other things, a wonderful history of Christianity and Europe—much of which I didn’t know well. I also got a lot out of Hashtag Authentic. I don’t post much on Instagram, but much of the information in the book was a wonderful refresher about photographing the mundane and the everyday.

In addition to the unread shelf books, I read two new books I borrowed from the library Hill Women: Finding Family and a Way Forward in the Appalachian Mountains, and Miracles and Other Reasonable Things: A Story of Unlearning and Relearning God. After reading the last book, I enrolled in Sarah Bessey’s email subscription program. I’m already using her Forty Simple Practice for Lent and am enjoying the emails she sends with links to many fascinating and inspiring articles and videos.

   

5. After reading about Honoré’s LOAD (A scrapbook Layout A Day) project, I decided to do a card-a-day. By the end of the month I had completed 29 cards—most of which have been mailed or are ready to be mail in the next month. I didn’t made a new card every day, but some days I made several. You can see some of them here, here, and here. And more will be posted once the recipients have them in their hands.

All in all, it was a great month for the the OLW commitments. March will be much lighter in intentions as we are only at home for 12 days, and most days are pretty packed with appointments, volunteering, meetings, and of course, some social engagements. 

Happy Birthday X Three

Here's another entry for Seize the Birthday's current challenge: Sentiment as the Focal Image. It also uses the same tall skinny alphabet used on my first entry. 

I've been trying, when I could, to make multiples of cards so I have a few in my stash ready to go. It doesn't always work, but in this case, I had to die cut five different colors in order to made the card so I had the opportunity to make five cards. Since I layered two letters of each color to give them a bit of height, it took a little longer, so I only managed to complete three cards. I saved the letters, though, so there's the possibility of two more. 

 

So that the HAPPY was truly the focal point, I centered the word on a navy 4-bar card from Paper Source. 

All three of these cards are headed to men whose birthdays are upon us. I think it would be just as appropriate for a teenager, or a woman---a very versatile design. 

Card Supplies:
Cardstock: Color Crush (The Stamp Market), True Black (PTI), Paper Source A4 card
Dies: Skinny Upper Alpha (The Stamp Market)
Stamp: Birthday Basics (The Stamp Market)

I'm also entering this in the Wednesday Simon Says Challenge: Anything Goes.

A Big Happy Birthday

The new challenge at Seize the Birthday is "Sentiment as Focal Image." I have the perfect card to share for this challenge. The sentiment is all there is to the card. It's already been gifted to my daughter-in-law's niece who just turned 18.

This card, like yesterday's, uses some new-to-me products from The Stamp Market. Tracy gave me a gift certificate for Christmas, and top on my list was the tall "Skinny Upper Case Alpha." Die cut from metallic gold paper they really make a statement. Although hard to see in this photo the card itself is black shimmer paper adding just a bit more sparkle. "Hooray" was embossed in silver on black cardstock and then die cut.  It's also from The Stamp Market.

Here's a better view:

I used the tall skinny number dies for the inside sentiment along with a die from Papertrey Ink's "By the Number Suffixes." The stamped greeting is from The Stamp Market's set called "Hip, Hip, Hooray."

One last look:

The card got high marks from the teenager---always a good sign.