random reflections

Summer Scavenger Hunt: Part 3

How can it be the end of July already? The summer is flying by far too quickly, and it's time for the July wrap-up of Rinda's Scavenger Hunt. I have four more photos to add, and just five left to find. They, of course, are the hardest ones. I'm pretty sure I can find three of the five, but two are seeming pretty difficult right now. Maybe I'll get lucky!

Here are the latest captures: #3 Birds on a wire. This proved a bit more difficult than I expected. We found a huge group of birds on a wire driving home from our camping trip a couple of weeks ago. Tracy pulled over a good distance from them. I got my camera ready, but as I walked toward them, most of them flew off. These were the brave ones.

 #9 A bakery. A new bakery and cafe just opened up near us. Sarah, Caleb, Tracy, and I ate lunch there on Tuesday.

#11 A horn. I actually have several images to share, all taken at the Antique Boat Museum two weeks ago.

 

And last, but not least, #21 A photo of you with soemting representing the season. Here I am relaxing at our camp site (definitely a summer-only activity in western New York) with a glass of wine before dinner.

By clicking on the Summer Scavenger Hunt logo on my sidebar you can find all my scavenger hunt photos in a SmugMug gallery. I'm off to discover what other finds have been made around the globe for this fun, summer project!

Zoom In, Zoom Out on the Cherry Trees

Apples are the crop I most associate with western New York, but cherries are big here, too. I recently rediscovered my love of cherries, but years ago, a friend and I picked several baskets of them, pitted them, and canned them for pies. No picking or canning this year, but the cherry trees are lovely.

Other offerings for Helena's meme can be found right here.

Sad Time

It's been a tough week. Betsy's mom passed away last Tuesday after a brief bout with cancer. She was just 65. In April she went for a routine physical, having no symptoms, and within a few days had a diagnosis of stage 4 cancer. Sally was one of the most positive people ever, and always thinking about everyone else, right to the last minute. She will be missed so much.

I've made cards for Betsy, both of her sisters, and her dad. Paul's card is a duplicate of one I've made before so I'm not posting it again. I tried a new watercolor techniques for two of the cards. I've always thought sympathy cards needed to be simple, and watercolor seems to fit the bill. 

Both of these cards were stamped with a light Distress Ink which fades into the background as you watercolor the separate petals. The key is never to watercolor two petals touching one another so you keep the definition of the flower. Although it takes some time and the outline of the stamps is still more visible than I think it should be, I'm happy with the first attempts.

The last card uses my favorite watercolor technique: a white embossed image that is then watercolored. I've learned to do it in a window so I can see the outline of the white embossing.

We made a quick trip to Chicago this week to bring Sarah, Caleb, and Sadie (their dog) back to Rochester. Adam is in Cuba on a mission trip. When he returns this weekend, he'll drive to Rochester, spend a few days with us before they return to Chicago. We're always glad to have lots of time with family, so this makes a sad time easier.

Art Journaling

My friend and I enrolled in an online art journaling class in April. Overall it was pretty dismal. I wasn't inspired by the artist's final pages, and none of the techniques I tried pleased me in the least. I'm fascinated by mixed media, though, and didn't want to give up on this. I've been following The Documented Life Project for awhile, and just as I decided I wanted to give that format a go, both Cheri and Alexa published posts about their journals. My reasons for starting the project are a bit different than theirs. I already keep a daily diary of activities to help me in my Project Life spreads, so daily documentation isn't the motivating factor. My interest is in the mixed media aspect, and I've decided to do it a bit differently. Instead of using a Moleskine planner, I've created my own using a Dylusions journal I already owned. And for now, I've decided not to add the "tip in" pages until I know if I'll need one. (A special thanks to Cheri, Roben-Marie, and Lorraine Bell for all their help in getting hooked up to the FaceBook page for the DLP.)

I created a template for the left-hand pages with a piece of lightweight cardstock and gessoed the first couple of spreads before starting the work.

Here's the first week:

One of the issues I had with the art journaling class was that none of the pages were my "style," which we all know is basically clean and simple. So for this first week, I stuck with some watercoloring, and wrote out some of my goals for the journal. The prompt for this week was to add a small photograph. The prompts are another reason I like this project; they give me a focus for the week. I kept my dates the same as my daily planner since I've been using that format since January. It's off by two days since the new prompts from The Documented Life Project arrive on Fridays. That's OK, it's easy to be two days behind!

I was a bit more adventuresome with the second week, layering a variety of stencils I inked with Tim Holtz Distress Inks. The prompt was to make a wish list, and I listed three. I ran out of room for all the places I'd like to visit on my Bucket List!

I've already learned a bit in the process. I neglected to gesso one page and had to perform surgery on the journal for Weeks 3 and 4. But so far, it's satisfying my need to play around more, a bit outside my comfort zone.

ETA:  I'm entering this in the Simon Says Monday Challenge which is J . . .  for Journal and July in this case.

 

Zoom In, Zoom Out at The Antique Boat Museum

There were lots of opportunities for Zooming In and Zooming Out this weekend. First a nest of ospreys near the end of the dock at the Antique Boat Museum.

The fireplace in the dining room on the Bolt/McNally house boat.

And one of the displays of antique boats.

You'll find more examples of zooming in and out right here.

Weekend Camping Trip

Warning:  It's a long post, but mostly photos; not too wordy. We left Saturday for Selkirk Shores, a state park on the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. We've been camping with our friends, Bob and Cathy, for over 20 years. We used to go to the Adirondacks with our four kids, and climb one of the 40 High Peaks. Then, after the kids left home, we missed a few years. Now we go nearly every summer, but rarely do we hike. This weekend was no exception.

We did wander down to the lake after dinner on Saturday, but spend most of the weekend in Clayton, NY.

Some views of the beach:

One of the main reasons we went to Clayton was to visit the Antique Boat Museum.

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I had no idea how much I would enjoy it. I took LOTS of photos, and think I may make a small soft cover book of them. 

The museum itself is a treasure, and the gardens are gorgeous.

 There are four or five buildings and we were able to take a tour of the Bolt/McNally house boat.

The curating of the displays was excellent, but it was the details of the restored boats that I enjoyed photographing the most.

And a final view of the St. Lawrence River from one of the boat houses.

The town of Clayton is lovely as well. We had fabulous pizza (pulled pork and a BLT) at the Wooden Boat Brewery before heading downtown.

 

My friend, Clara, and her husband have their names engraved on the yellow chair in honor of their 50th wedding anniversary. Clara's sister is the mayor of Clayton.

 

There are a number of wonderful murals painted on the sides of buildings, but this one was my favorite.

I managed to capture three more items for Rinda's Summer Scavenger Hunt, but I'm saving them for the end of the month recap. I'll be back tomorrow with some Zoom In, Zoom Out photos from the weekend as well!

 

 

 

 

Sending Sunshine

Last night when I should have been packing for our camping trip, I came across the new ColourQ challenge, and thought it would be perfect with the current CAS(E) This Sketch challenge. And I had the perfect (new) stamp set to put to use:  "Doodlie Do" by Papertrey Ink. Here are the challenges:

And here's my interpretation:

I love these bright colors! I embossed and masked the flower, then the leaves and colored them with Copics. The sentiment is from the same set. And it's another one for my encouragement card stash.

I'll pop this into the Curtain Call Anniversary challenge, "Anything Goes," as well. 

In about an hour we're off to Selkirk Shores on eastern Lake Ontario for two nights of camping with our friends, Bob and Cathy. It's supposed to be pretty decent (80's during the day), but chilly at night (50's), with a chance of showers on Sunday.  I had lunch with a friend on Tuesday who recommended driving up to Clayton, NY on the St. Lawrence River. There's an antique boat museum and a classy new hotel that just opened up as well as some "cute shops." Not sure the guys will be interested in the latter, but I think Clayton's the plan for Sunday afternoon.

Card Set

Alexa once again shared her photo and digital gifts with a download this week. As soon as I saw these delightful typewriters, I knew I'd make some simple, one layer cards. Sadly, I'm in almost constant need of encouragement cards, so it's nice to have a little stash.

After printing the typewriters on Lumijet Fine Art Ink Jet paper, I stamped each with two sentiments I cut apart from Hero Arts "Everyday Sayings." Then I found color coordinated cardstock in my scrap files to match each of the typewriters, and adhered it all to top folding cards made from Papertrey's Rustic White cardstock which almost perfectly matches the Fine Art Ink Jet paper.

I just love these, and there are four other colors yet to print and use for another set of cards. Thanks, Alexa, for sharing your gifts!

I'm linking these up to the Curtain Call Anniversary challenge "Anything Goes."

Zoom In, Zoom Out: Week 29

I saved these photos from my earlier post about the Corn Hill Arts Festival for this week's Zoom In, Zoom Out. Check out the others here on Helena's blog.

Every year the display from Hurd's Orchards is one of the most beautiful displays at the festival. This year was no exception.

 

Corn Hill Arts Festival

There are several wonderful art festivals during the summer in Rochester. One of our favorites is the Corn Hill Arts Festival. Each year the organizers ask an artist to create a design that is used for posters and tee shirts.

The festival takes place in an historic, residential area about 2-3 miles from our house.

It runs for two days, and luckily we chose Saturday. The weather was perfect, and because we were there early, it wasn't overly crowded. According to the Sunday paper, over 90,000 people visited on Saturday. Sunday morning was overcast and rainy.

You can find just about any kind of art work.

 

 

This booth was a new one. Although the little girl in the center doesn't look particularly happy, I'll bet this was a "must-see" if you had a young girl with you.

The last few years, we've walked the entire festival (several hundred booths) and bought very little. This year we purchased several things. I loved the botantical illustrations in this booth, and bought two packs of note cards.

Our big purchase, however, was a fountain for our shade garden just off our patio. We've been looking at these for several years, and finally "bit the bullet." Hopefully, Tracy will get ours installed this week, and I'll post a photograph of ours. They come in two sizes. We bought the smaller one on the right.

Sometimes we've walked from home, but the last two years we've parked on the far side of the river, and walked across the Ford Street Bridge to the festival.

We had our RunKeeper app on, and by the time we got back to the car, we'd walked three miles. I was glad I didn't have another mile and half to go to get home!