random reflections

Project 64 and Happy Birthday

Let me tell you how excited I was to see that my photo for indigo was the winner last week on Project 64! Totally unexpected and totally delightful! I had lots to choose from last week, but this week was a different story.

This is lavender, although almost no one I've talked to this week would give this pinkish crayon that label. When I went to the box of crayons to look for my idea of lavender, I pulled out wisteria. Perhaps purple mountain majesty would be close, or even mauvelous. This seems way too pink, and it's a strange pink. I've carried the crayon around all week again.

As it turns out I was staring at some lavender all week without it registering. Several of the flowers in my Valentine's Day Bouquet are very close. By the time I realized it the flowers were fading, but I had taken an earlier photo.

Then Saturday night as we were leaving to go to dinner at friends, I noticed the cap to the Woolite for Dark Clothes.

It's nearly a perfect match. But my favorite is the tulips I bought for the kitchen table. And yes, I held the crayon next to them in the grocery store. I wonder what people think . . .

 

Today is Matt's birthday. Happy Birthday to one of the kindest, nicest men I know. He's . . .

Cardstock: Simply Chartreuse & Pure Poppy (PTI), navy from stash; patterned paper: "Campfire" (October Afternoon); dies: Numbers (PTI); stamps: Big Birthday Wishes (PTI), Williamsburg Numbers and Punctuation (Technique Tuesday); star punch; Chamomile Tea Dye ink (PTI)

 

 

 

Redo

I had nearly finished this post, when the internet connection went and everything disappeared. I have to say it doesn't happen often, but it certainly is frustrating when it does. I'm way behind on my blog reading, and just wanted you to know if I haven't visited in a while, it's not disinterest by any means, just a bit too much on my plate right now. I've also taken some time out to spend with Tracy. We've watched three movies this week on our new TV and spent a day on a local roadtrip---a bit of antique shopping (another post to come) and a wonderful meal at our favorite Mexican restaurant. I hope to catch up by the end of the week. I thought I'd share some photos of our dining room/living room redo.

When you live in a house that was built in 1930 the walls are plaster, and about every 10 years or so they begin to crack. So a repainting job that some could do in a weekend took nearly six weeks here. Every crack has to be opened up, filled, taped, spackled, and primed before you can paint.

It's a tedious job, but Tracy has done it often enough that he knows exactly what must be done.

Here's a look at one of the dining room walls that has been scraped and some of the cracks taped. This was one of the worst walls, but there weren't any that didn't need attention.

An advantage of an older house, however, are the built-in cupboards and bookcases. This is the china closet in the dining room scraped and primed.

And here it is, painted with most of the china back in place.

There's no way to tell from this photo, but one of the things I like the best about the living room is the reorganized shelves. We took everything off the shelves, donated over 150 books from six different bookcases in the house, and then placed good hardcover books and reference books in the living room. All the paperbacks are now upstairs. I also took down many photographs and left just a few special family ones. Now there's a shelf for my vintage cameras which I really like having on display.

Here's our concession to the high-tech world. I like it a lot more than I thought I would since I wasn't sure how it would fit into an older home. The media cabinet is new, as well, and came from Crate and Barrell. We saw it in November when we were in California and didn't even look locally for one. The older one has been moved upstairs in the den where it looks fantastic. The entertainment center from there was given to the Volunteers of America. So, actually, three rooms got a new look and five bookcases were reorganized.

This is the last addition to the living room. We had a watercolor done of our house by a watercolor artist (Irene MacKenzie) we love in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. We picked it up in October, but just had it framed and matted a week ago.

Tracy's taken a week off from the painting, but expects to start again next week on the hallway which is a two-story affair and will require scaffolding. I expect it will take even longer, but we'll be in the best shape we've ever been in here once it's finished. That project won't affect our daily routines much. That's a good thing, but it also means there's not quite the incentive to get it done. Hope you've had a good weekend.

Papertrey February Blog Hop

This is my second Papertrey Ink post of the day---a bit unexpected. Maybe it's this:

 

Or perhaps I've just lost track of time, but today is the Papertrey Blog Hop, and I nearly missed it. Fortunately we're snowed in so I had time to get my card made. The photo above was taken about 9:00 this morning and it has yet to stop snowing. Matt's been plowing since 7:00 am and says there's no end in sight.

Here's this month's challenge:  

This month we decided to dedicate the Blog Hop to scallops!  We want to see your best use of scallops, of any sort, on a project!  This can include scalloped borders, offset-scallops, stamped scallops,  scalloped mats, scalloped frames, layered scallops, scalloped tags or anything else you can dream up! You can use dies, patterned scissors or even circle punches in a row to achieve your special look.

Here's my take on it:

I made a shaped card with the large scalloped Nestability dies, then used a piece of MME's Stella & Rosa patterned paper pad that I picked up yesterday for the mat. It was cut with a square Nestability and then punched on the corners. The checked scalloped (Papertrey small scallop die) border is also from the MME's collection. I die cut a Fillable Frame #4, stamped the border and message with Brilliance ink, and added the butterfuly from Love Lives Here with a bit of the Harvest Gold twill taped behind the heart. The rhinestones are from Hero Arts.

Make-It Monday 3

 

I'm a bit more timely this week with the Papertrey Make-it Monday challenge which called for using Scor-Tape to create glitter strips on the card.

Select White cardstock (PTI); Stamps: Make a Wish and Make a Wish Additions (PTI); Brilliance inks; rhinestones by Kaiser Craft.

Team-up Thursday: In the Distance

We've been really busy cleaning, organizing, and purging. The living room and dining room are repainted, the new TV is installed, and we're really enjoying the new look! It's meant there hasn't been much time in the studio except for the photography challenges.

This week's prompt for Team-Up Thursday was "in the distance." I laughed when I saw Nancy's photo last night. In Rochester, when there's a clear day and it's above freezing, the line at the car wash is always very long. Nancy's comment read, "In the distance, there will be a clean car!" I took advantage of the clear day as well and drove up to Cobb's Hill last night after dinner to take a photo of the Rochester skyline "in the distance."

 

 

Sweet Shot Tuesday and P52

It's the day to choose the best shot from the last week. My favorite shots are, again, of flowers. Tracy gave me a beautiful bouquet of flowers for Valentine's Day. It was filled with gorgeous flowers and each side of the bouquet was different. Nonetheless I feel like that's all I post (with the exception of the Project 64 photos) so I chose this one for Sweet Shot Tuesday and P52 this week.

I made apple and walnut pancakes from this mix on Sunday.

It's time for another trip to Ithaca as there's not enough left for another batch. We had it with our favorite Boar's Head bacon cooked in my beautiful red cast iron skillet that Tracy gave me for Mother's Day last year.

Fortunately for our waistlines this is a pretty rare treat, but the perfect breakfast for another cold, snowy Sunday morning.

And because I can't resist, a few photos of the Valentine's Day flowers.

 

 

Project 64: Indigo

 

This week's color at Project 64 is indigo. Indigo has always been one of my favorite colors. It was very easy to find in our house:

 

1. Our couch 2. Bowl from Mexico 3. Ornate bowl my father bought for his mother when he was stationed in the Coast Guard during WW II 4. Our mantle decorations: indigo candles from Target, indigo in the quilt; indigo pitcher 5. My mother's indigo cut glass vase 6. Jug with indigo design and indigo flowers 7. Indigo and yellow vase

And another indigo bowl with blueberries:

Truth is there are other examples in nearly every room in the house. I doubt there'll be another color that's so prevalent here.

Make-It Monday 2

My intention is to make a card for Papertrey's Make-It Monday challenge each week. We've been so busy finishing the work on the dining room and living room that I didn't even start the card until after dinner tonight. I wanted to try Nicole's technique of shadowing with the Copic markers as well as using the vellum sentiment strip. I'm happy with the shadow technique but only mildly satisfied with the overall card, but that's not a surprise since I'm doing this at the last minute! I scored a frame around the Raspberry Fizz cardstock with my Martha Stewart Scoreboard and used a piece of striped vellum from my stash for the sentiment. The pearls are Memory Box, but all the other supplies are from Papertrey Ink.

 

Team-up Thursday: Blue

 

I keep a little list on my desk of things I think I'd like to photograph. Blueberries has been there for awhile, and although we usually have some in the fridge I hadn't gotten around to it. "Blue" was the perfect excuse, and you'll see another shot of blueberries soon for a second challenge. Nancy took this shot of her brilliant blue pitcher in front of a photograph she took of blue flowers.

Now, I'd like to see a bright blue sky, but although we have much warmer temperatures forecast for the next two days, there's no sun in the forecast.

 

 

One Little Word--Finish

I decided to do a mid-month update for my One Little Word project for this year. This week I've finished a project that's been in the works for at least five years. About five or six years ago, I took every photo we had out of the old albums (some in damaging magnetic albums) and sorted all of them by event or subject.We're talking hundreds and hundreds of photos. I have over 900 of them now in photo albums and the rest are sorted into boxes waiting for a scrapbook home.

When the sorting was done, I started a birthday album for Sarah, but got bogged down when I couldn't identify all the guests, and when I realized there weren't enough photos to scrap (or the photos were totally missing!) for some birthdays. (I'd like to know what happens to those missing photos. They remind me of socks that disappear down our laundry shoot. I know we had them, but they can't be found!) This scrapbook was exactly why I chose the word "finish" for this year. 

So this week I finished about four layouts that just needed some journaling or a list of guests. I gave up on the lists since neither Sarah, her babysitter, nor I can identify everyone, and replaced that spot with a journaling spot, a decoration, or another photo. Then I completed several last layouts for the birthdays for which I had enough photos. I've left room in the album in case photos reappear, but for now, I have more than half her birthdays documented. As she got older, we no longer had big parties, and there seem to be few photos. Anyway, I was feeling pretty good about this project and went to my tag book to mark this project done. Imagine my surprise when I realized I never listed this as one of the projects I wanted to finish! What was I thinking?

I was too lazy to take the layouts out of the album, but thought I'd share a few of the pages here. The title page was done yesterday after I punched out some 2X2 squares of extra photos. It's interesting to me that my scrapbook style has stayed relatively consistent over the years--pretty linear and a good amount of white space.

The page on the right here was done as a Make & Take at CHA last July. I later ordered some of the Teresa Collins papers so it was easy to add the second page.