« January 2010 | Main | March 2010 »
It's a rare three post day. Matt turned 27 today. We decided to eat at home instead of going out since he's taking the Graduate Record Exam tomorrow. We'll celebrate both tomorrow night at his favorite restaurant.
The birthday cake never varies: a cookie cake from Wegmans. This year I forgot to order one ahead (gasp!) so it has a bit more frosting than usual.
And his gift:
Cosmos Cricket "Boyfriend" had the perfect paper for a card:
I've been thinking about Rhinda's Alice in Wonderland challenge, and really didn't have any idea what to do, but finally decided to give it a whirl. I ended up with this card, just in time!
I used my Maya Mist for the very first time on sticky back canvas, and then stamped three different watch stamps for the background. I ran a Jillibean "Repair Tag" through my corrugator (haven't used that in years) and added a quote from Alice in Wonderland. The image was a download kindly given to us by Rhinda. A Heidi Swapp watch finished the card front.
We're waiting, but the weather is not cooperating. We've had about 8-9 more inches of snow since I took these photos yesterday morning.
Fortunately we've not lost power, and the snow hasn't prevented me from getting to a concert at the Rochester Philharmonic last night, or to a Church Leadership Conference this morning. Tracy used the snow blower three times yesterday, and again this morning.
The Friday challenge on my photo board this week was "vintage." I used an antique cup that belonged to my great-aunts and put it on a beautiful hand-embroidered tablecloth that was made as a wedding gift to my parents. I used it as an opportunity to work on the fourth Develop on Friday lesson on changing your angle. Here are my two favorites.
I'm way behind in reading blogs, so I know there's new Develop on Friday lesson ready to try this week. I've just about finished all the lessons for Jessica Spragues's Wacom Tablet course. I didn't do the layouts since I'm not interested in doing that kind of total digital layout, but I will certainly use many of the techniques she demonstrated. One of the lessons was on photo editing a portrait, and the results were incredible. I have to say her courses provide a lot of "bang for the buck!" My goal was to learn to use my pen and tablet, and I've been using them exclusively since the first week of class.
Tonight is the February Blog Hop for Papertrey Ink. The challenge was to choose one of the designers who is an inspiration to you, find a project they've completed, and make it your own. I could choose almost any of the Papertrey designers, and I get lots and lots of inspiration from their blogs. I chose Debbie Olsen whose work blows me away time and again. Her coloring with Copic markers is the very best, and details in her cards are amazing. I spend a lot of time on her blog looking at her techniques. Here's the card I chose from Debbie's blog:
It's a perfect example of her beautiful work. I chose to replicate the paper-pieced violets from Papertrey's new stamp set "A Year of Flowers: Violets," but chose to stamp the smaller violets in the set.
The shape of my card is also a "lift" from Debbie's blog seen here. I used Papertrey's "Perfect Pastel" papers to piece the violets and mounted them on a piece of Memory Box "Gossamer" paper. The ribbon and safety pin are from my stash. The sentiment on a Quickutz tag is from "Vintage Picnic Sentiments" (Papertrey).
In January, I was the lucky winner on the Papercrafts blog of two Anna Griffin binders for storing clear stamps. They have worked out wonderfully.
Shortly thereafter, I won a set of Jillibean embellishments on Bean Talk. Jill emailed me a couple of weeks later and apologized for not getting it out right away, but said she was waiting for some more samples to arrive. Well, the package arrived today, and she absolutely stuffed it with new Jillibean products. I can't wait to get busy creating with them.
There are three sets of clear stamps, four sets of Journaling Sprouts, five cards of ribbons and twine, canvas flowers, tags, and buttons. Oh, my!
And then, my Papertrey Ink order arrived today as well. I hope I can find some extended creating time in the next few days!
I recently acquired the Cosmo Cricket Mini-Decks for both Material Girl and Garden Variety. The papers are so bright and cheerful; just what's needed on these cloudy February days. And they seemed perfect for all three challenges as well.
The first is the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger. This is the first time I've played along with this challenge. The inspiration piece was this:
I took the yellow and gingham and used some papers from Garden Variety:
Pure Poppy (PTI), Quickutz tag and rub-on, Hero Arts "Big and Little" flower stamps, ribbon and safety pin from stash
The next challenge is CPS 155. This is one of my favorite challenge sites. Here's the sketch:
And my take on it:
Cosmo Cricket "Material Girl;" Summer Sunrise, Dark Chocolate & Terracotta Tile (PTI); stamps by Judith and PTI ("Take Note"); Jeni Bowlin journaling spot.
And last, but not least, the sketch from Sweet Sunday Sketch:
And my card:
First of all, the Weekly Gratitude pages for the last two weeks. I'm not sure why last week's never got posted.
And this week's--I used just the journaling part of the Weekly Gratitude template so I could put it on the back of last week's page. I'm liking how flexible this album is turning out to be.
Now for my favorites from this week's Project 365. Despite my "note to self," once again I didn't take as many photos as I'd wished. I'm taking "Moving into Manual" at Big Picture Scrapbooking now. There are just two assignments this week, both of which I've done previously to help you evaluate the light in different settings and to see the effect of changing the ISO in a setting with the same lighting. I'll do both again because every time I work with the photographic triangle of shutter speed, aperture, and ISO I learn a little more.
1. I finished two books this week. Both were memoirs, one of my favorite genres. They couldn't have been more different, and I really enjoyed reading both of them. 2. A vintage-style phone at Donut Delite. 3. Ice Dancing during the 2010 Olympics. 4. Shrimp and vegetable chowder from a new Crock Pot cookbook. 5. The beautiful sky taken from inside my car as I drove down the street one night. It's hard to see in the collage but there's a sliver of a moon just above a tree in the middle of the photograph. Taken with my point and shoot through the windshield. I'm always amazed that this works.
And last, but not least, two scrapbook layouts, neither of which photographed straight. Sigh.
I did get my hot cross buns, and they were delicious!
Tracy and I spent the afternoon on Friday with his best friend and his wife in the Finger Lakes. We had a wonderful lunch in Hammondsport, and visited three of our favorite wineries.
I'm finally getting the hang of the hybrid layout. The first uses a digital template from Cathy Z. I used only four of the layers before printing it out. The second uses Katie Pertiet's clustered frames. I've seen Paula Gilarde use these over and over on her blog and decided to give it a try myself.
It's been a busy, but fun-filled couple of days. Thursday I spent the afternoon with two friends crafting. Yesterday Tracy and I went to the Fingerlakes region with two good friends for lunch and a visit to a couple of favorite wineries. I'm hoping to scrap a few photos from the trip this afternoon. I've also been watching a lot of television thanks to the Olympics. Because it's hard to me to just watch TV, I've been making some cards as I watch.
Cardstock (Rustic Cream & Ripe Avocado-PTI), stamps (Memory Box "Vintage Notes" & Cavallini "Birds & Nests"), Antique Linen distress ink, Prisma colored pencils, Amuse Creative Candy, ribbon from stash
Cardstock from stash, Midori ribbon, "In Bloom" stamp (PTI), Copic markers, Hero Arts pearls, Bitty Dots patterned paper (PTI), Nestabilities scalloped circle
Raspberry Fizz cardstock (PTI), Patterned papers ( Soup Staples-Jillibean), gems (Michaels), AC Thickers fabric alpha
Pure Poppy & Vintage Cream cardstock (PTI), Early Bird patterned papers (Cosmo Cricket), sentiment from "In Bloom" (PTI), Amuse Creative Candy, rickrack from stash
And a card I made earlier for the Scrap-Mart Design team with the new Impressability plate and Spellbinders die.
Sentiment "Everday Button Bits" (PTI), Core'dinations cardstock (embossed and sanded), Nestabilities oval and scalloped ovals, ribbon from stash.
And last, but not least, a long overdue photo for Rhona who wanted to see the quilt that hangs over our fireplace. I bought it over 15 years ago in Pennsylvania when we were visiting Amish country.
I haven't participated at 2 Sketches 4 You for awhile, but I wanted to play around with some sticky-back canvas and used this Week's sketch 46 as a starting point.
I rotated it 90° to better suit my image.
Kraft Cardstock (Papertrey), yellow cardstock from stash, patterned paper (Bella Blvd), stamps (Through the Trees-Papertrey, celebrate-Amuse), sticky-back canvas, inks (Antique Linen Distress-Tim Holtz, Vintage Cream-Papertrey), button (Making Memories)