random reflections

Big Birthday Wishes

 Here's one final card for the CASual Friday Birthday Bash celebration.

 

This is one of those cards that had multiple iterations before it was done. I wanted to use the new Wonderful Words: Birthday die as well as the patterned papers from Lawn Fawn's Daphne's Closet that came with the Simon Says March card kit. I tried a lot of different ideas, but finally ended up with a birthday banner and a card I'm quite happy with. The card stock (all Bazzill except for Neenah Solar White) came from the kit as well. 

The banner dies are Papertrey Ink's Countdown banners folded in the middle, and I selectively stamped Big And Wishes from two different sets:  Birthday Bash and 2012 Birthday Tags. 

Spring has finally sprung here, and it's simply gorgeous. I've managed to walk over ten miles in the last several days, walking when I normally would have driven---to the library on Friday, a walk through the park on Saturday, to breakfast with Tracy on Sunday, and to meet a friend for lunch this afternoon. So good to be outside again instead of on the treadmill!

 

Happy Birthday Betsy!

This week was Betsy's birthday, and her main gift was a gift certificate. I used one of the Fancy Pants envelopes in the April Simon Says kit to create a card for her. This turned out to be one of my favorite cards created with the kit. 

Using the patterned papers from the kit, I die cut the flower with Papertrey Ink's "Beautiful Blooms 1" and the leaves with "Tender Leaves" by Memory Box. I love the way the leaves are embossed at the same time they are die cut. The button from MME "Follow My Heart" wasn't in the kit, but was just the perfect center for the flower and I threaded it with a thin black ribbon. The border was another of the patterned papers and a bit of black cardstock. The sentiment came from "Birthday Basics" by Papertrey Ink.

I'm linking this up to Simon Says "Anything Goes" and to CASual Friday's Birthday Bash challenge. (That challenge couldn't have come at a better time for me!)

52/50: Signs of Spring

We've had several days of warmer weather, and it looks like spring has arrived. These photos were taken on Monday when I walked to the park to see what was in bloom. Tracy and I walked through the park again today, but I had my wide-angle lens on so none of today's photos will work for this project. It's amazing, though, how much more has blossomed in just a few days.

Our street dead-ends at the Colgate Divinity School property, and I often walk across their lawn on my way to the park. Not many signs of spring here, but I love the way the beautiful building stands out against the clear blue sky.

Not many of the magnolias were in bloom on Monday, but almost half of them were today.

The current challenge at Image City is to take a photo with the camera no more than four feet from the ground. I'm finding it a very difficult task. These daisies are very tiny IRL.

Here's this week's pick. Highland Park is known for it's extensive collection of lilacs. They are just beginning to bud, and should be right at peak the second week in May when the Lilac Festival begins. I'm linking this up at P52.

 

Retro Sketches #60

Here's another birthday card, this time based on this week's Retro Sketch challenge. I had some flowers stamped from this project, and this sketch seemed perfect for them.

I tried a couple different patterned papers for the right-hand side of the sketch, but they all seemed too busy, so I did a partial embossing with the Cuttlebug Polka-dot embossing folder. I couldn't find any good way to add a bow either. I tried twine, thin ribbons, and twine, but my CAS style won out on this one.

The flowers are stamped with Papertrey Ink's Rosie Posie and Rosie Posie Step 2 stamp sets, and the sentiment is from Papertrey's Daydreamer set. I die cut the circle with a Spellbinders Small Circles die. The inside sentiment reads, "Hope all your birthday wishes come true."

Linking this to CASual Friday's Birthday Bash challenge and Simon Says Anything Goes.

Amazing Birthday

Here's a second card for the CASual Friday Birthday Bash challenge, as well as the Simon Says Challenge this week:  "Anything Goes."

The calendar for the end of April, May, and June is packed with birthdays and anniversaries, so I set a challenge for this week to get some cards created using the April Simon Says Card Kit. I love the mix of yellows, grays and blacks so it was easy to do. You'll be seeing several cards with this color scheme this week.

All the product for this card except the wood veneer star (Studio Calico) which I painted yellow, the banner die (also Simon Says), and the rickrack from my ribbon stash came from the April kit. These kits are a great value. You received a full set of stamps (which retail for $14.99), a mix of patterned papers, cardstock, and embellishments for $19.95. There's easily enough product to create a minimum of ten cards without raiding your stash (though I usually do add a few items) which is certainly cheaper than Hallmark.

Inside I repeated a strip of the Washi tape, and used some Papertrey Ink products for the inside sentiment. (Tremendous Tags die, and 2012 Birthday Tags stamp).

There's been quite a bit of blog conversation about what reader to use once Google Reader disappears this summer. I've been using Feedly for a month now, and can highly recommend it. I have it on my desktop, iPhone, and iPad, and blogs read seamlessly on all three. I can actually say I prefer it to Google Reader. I love the small photos and summaries of the posts on the desktop, so if it's a blog where there are only certain posts I read carefully, I can work through them very quickly.

I also switched my browser to Chrome which I like as well. Safari was giving me a hard time about comments on several blogs, so I moved to Chrome to see if things would improve. It's very fast, and the only feature I miss from Safari is the ability to "save" blog posts or websites to read later without having to add them to your bookmark system. On my agenda is to set up a bookmark folder in Chrome for that purpose (and to clean out the old bookmarks I no longer want!)

 

Papertrey April Blog Hop Challenge

Today is the monthly blog hop at Papertrey Ink. I couldn't participate last month since we were in Oregon, so I really wanted to play along today. Here's the challenge:

Papertrey Ink is frequently right on top of trends, and tilted is definitely one I've seen around the internet for the last couple of months. I managed to get two cards completed for today's blog hop. The first one was a get well card for a dear friend who had eye surgery on Monday. She is required to keep her head face down forty-five minutes of every hour for at least a week, and most likely two weeks. She has a special chair, but to say it's uncomfortable is to put it mildly. Fortunately she isn't in any pain.

I haven't place a PTI order in awhile, but I did this month and ordered "Rosie Posie Step 2" stamps for the "Rosie Posie" set. I've always loved "Rosie Posie," and the second stamping brings the flowers alive. The patterned paper is an old one from my scrapbook stash: Basic Stripe by Reminisce, and the sentiment is from "Communique Sentiments." I colored the pearls with a Copic marker. Here's a closer look at the flowers.

Last night after dinner, I tried used another of my new purchases, the "Wonderful Words: Birthday" die. I cut thin strips of Orange Zest, Summer Sunrise, Simply Chartreuse, Hawaiian Shores, and Raspberry Fizz, and layered them diagonally on Select White cardstock. "Birthday" was cut from True Black and the Happy is stamped from "Birthday Bash Sentiments." The pearls are from Michaels.

You're sure to find lots of inspiration for beautiful cards here today. Edited to add a link to this week's CASual Friday challenge: Birthday Bash!

Wish Big

One of my favorite card designers, Cristina Kowalczyk, recently posted a challenge on her blog to create a card using one of the smallest stamps in a given stamp set. It's a technique I've wanted to try for a while. I chose Mama Elephants "Trifecta" set, chosing one of the small triangles.

I stamped it multiple times using three Fresh Inks from Impress:  Ginger, Celery, and Sky Blue. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's "Stylish Sentiments: Birthday," a set I find myself using over and over.

I'm linking this to the CASual Friday challenge: Birthday Bash.

52/50 and Elderberry Pond

The weeks are flying by, and I'm not feeling nearly as productive as I'd like despite the fact that I feel like I'm busy all day. As I type this, it's snowing/sleeting outside and the wind is howling. We had several warm days last week and there are beginning to be some signs of spring, but then after a couple of days we're back to winter again. Frankly, I've had enough; I want real, sustained spring! I've been admiring beautiful floral photography from other parts of the world, and want to get out and take some photos of spring myself.

But not quite yet for western New York. Here are the photos for 52/50 this week.

I took this out my studio window one night and was surprised at how well it turned out.

Aside from a few daffodils, all I could find in our yard this week (beside the Helleborus) were these few violets.

I had one of my old cameras out for another project and decided to play around a bit with angles and perspective. This was my favorite.

Although there's not a lot of difference, I thought I see what it looked like in black and white. I'd be curious to know which you prefer.

I decided to choose this photo from yesterday's road trip to Elderberry Pond to post on Kent Weakley's P52.  Tracy and I needed to go to the outlet mall in Waterloo yesterday. I'd seen ads for Elderberry Pond in the Edible Fingerlakes magazine, and was curious to see what it was like. This shot is of the pond looking toward their Country Store which won't open until June. Elderberry Pond specializes in local foods and produce. In the summer, much of the food comes from their farm, and you can purchase some here. I'm hoping to get back this summer to check it out.

It's wasn't a particularly beautiful day, but we had a lovely lunch. The food is first-rate, we had a charming waitress, and it's a beautiful setting. We'll definitely return, although it turned out to be a bit more of a trek than we expected

.

We ate in the sunroom.

This is the main dining room. There's also a patio that's open in the summer.

We made two other stops on our trip. One to Normal Bread in Geneva. We've been there twice before and the bread is fabulous.

And to Sauder's Amish Market in Seneca Falls. The meat, cheese, and home canned goods are wonderful here, and the prices are exceptional. I love their tiny pickled beets in a salad.

Last night we had dinner with friends, tonight there's an engagement party for Tracy's best friend's son, and tomorrow the Walker clan will celebrate a belated Easter dinner since most of us were traveling on Easter Sunday. I'm looking forward to church tomorrow as well since the chancel choir is performing a Bluegrass Mass. I'm hoping to get lots of crafting done today since the number of birthdays and anniversaries in the next month is quite something. Hope your weekend is filled with good things.

Congratulations!

A friend of ours recently moved into a new apartment. She's just starting out, so we wanted to send her a gift card for Target, knowing you always need something you didn't count on when you planned your move. 

I started with a Hero Arts envelope, cutting out a partial circle with a circle punch. I paperpieced the little house with papers from my scrap drawer, and stamps from "Love Lives Here" by Papertrey Ink. The sentiment is from Papertrey's "Enjoy the Ride." The twine is from Paper Source.

March Art Journal

Thanks to Alexa for the template!

One of my goals for choosing to do my monthly recaps in an art journal was to try new techniques and materials as well as using some of the art supplies that have been lanquishing in my closet for years. This month I decided to try some patterned paper collage and brought out some Gel Medium that I purchased this summer in anticipation of this project. 

I wrote my journaling first, and that determined the theme for the pages. My first project was to create the five photos for the page. I decided to change two of them to a dark brown, and desaturated the colors in the other three photos. I used a Papertrey Ink Framed Out die and sized my photos to fit.

The next step was to choose some papers from a variety of 6X6 paper pads. The colors originated with the paper I'd chosen for the frames.

Next I randomly cut up the papers in strips and rectangles and started assembling them on the pages, using gel medium to adhere the papers as well as coating the tops of the pages.

Arranging the elements onto the pages turned out to be a relatively easy.

I used my vellum envelope to hold the journaling and typed up the quote using the American Typewriter font. (Wish I had an old typewriter to use!) Once I decided to use the Studio Calico Wood Veneer letters, I thought another piece of Wood Veneer on the first page would provide some balance. Aside from the collaged pages, it's a pretty clean and simple layout.

A closer look:

These pages weren't as spontaneous as last month's, but I'm quite happy with the way they turned out. Here's the monthly recap in words:

March turned out to be family month---always a pleasure. Matt was home to visit for a long weekend the first of March, and to celebrate his 30th birthday. Then we spent the second half of the month in Ashland, OR with Sarah, Adam, and Caleb. It couldn't have been nicer. The first ten days we were invited to stay in the home of one of the members of Adam's congregation. It's a stunning Arts & Crafts home, and we loved every minute of our stay there. The weather was terrific. While Rochester was still buried in snow and experiencing winter temperatures, Ashland was in full bloom. Pear and other fruit trees were in flower and daffodils, hyacinths, and other spring bulbs were up all over town. The last weekend we were there the temperatures were in the 70's and 80's, and we took advantage of the warm weather with visits to North Mountain Park, the ice cream parlor, and a day trip to Crater Lake.

Caleb is in day care four mornings a week, and loves it so we didn't want to break his routine. That gave me lots of time to read and finish the "Bloom Your Blog" course with Jessica Sprague. I finished reading Istanbul: The Collected Traveler---a fabulous book filled with so much information and our April book group book---The Given Day by Dennis Lehane. As part of the course, I redesigned the blog, and before we left, made nine cards.

Before we left for Oregon, we finalized the plans for our biggest adventure yet. In May, we're off to Istanbul to visit a friend and her husband for five days, then to Athens for two days, and finally a few days on Santorini---long on our bucket list. This is a BIG birthday year for both of us, and our 40th wedding anniversary, so it seemed like the perfect way to celebrate.

Two home improvement projects were finished this month. We had pull-out shelves made for two cupboards in the kitchen and new lights were installed in my studio and studio closet. What a difference both projects make on an every day basis!

We spent a day in Niagara-on-the-Lake with Karen and Mike, played duplicate at the O'Briens, and had Rick and Marcy to dinner (who shared lots of good information about our upcoming trip.) Mary and I heard Frank Delaney speak at Arts & Lectures, and I participated in an interview process for the youth delegate to Synod at Presbytery. All in all, a busy, fun, and productive month!