random reflections

One Photo and Twenty Words

 

There's nothing finer than a beautiful summer Saturday morning,
a walk with Tracy to Park Avenue, and eating breakfast outside.

Linking up with Abi's meme One Photo and Twenty Words.

Celebrate!

A quick post to share a card that uses, yet again, a new die for the first time and links to two challenges. I ordered the Block Talk die from Papertrey Ink last month, but haven't had a chance to pull it out until today. "Celebrate" is just one of three words included with the die.  

I cut the die twice--once in gold metallic and once in silver metallic and inserted the silver strips into the gold die. The stars came from two "matching" dies from Simon Says:  "Holiday Shapes" and "Large Holiday Shapes." Those dies get lots of use! The beautiful, slightly textured purple paper is (I think) from Bazzill that I picked up during Archivers going-out-of-business sale in January. The silver metallic paper is from Paper Source, but I'm not sure where I purchased the gold paper.

This is another entry to Virginia's View Die Cut Challenge.

And it will be my first entry to the Moxie Fab "Wonderful Words Challenge," which was to include a die cut word in your project. 

Zoom In, Zoom Out: Flower Garden

Our lettuce and zucchini are being eaten by some critter in our vegetable garden. We're having a hard time figuring out how that's possible, since our plot in the Community Garden (fenced) is fenced again, but somehow it's happening. Fortunately, my perennial bed is doing well, and we're enjoying bouquets of flowers from the garden each week.

I'm joining in once again with Helena's wonderful meme Zoom In, Zoom Out.

Happy Anniversary X Two

My niece and her husband celebrated their second anniversary this weekend. Their wedding was one of the most fun weddings I've ever attended, and the two of them couldn't be sweeter! Here's a more elegant verson of the anniversary card I made for friends a couple of weeks ago.

You need to see it up close to get a good look at the metallic papers.

The embossed silver cardstock came from Michaels, and the gold is from Paper source. I used Simon Says woodgrain again for the Phrase Play #5 die cut from Papertrey Ink. The stamp is from the same set. I couldn't seem to get a good picture of the sequins, but there's a pretty clear sequin from Pretty Pink Posh nestled into a larger gold one from Michaels.

The inside sentiment is from Papertrey's Delightful Dahlia's Additions. The hearts on both the front and the inside are from the Hearts and Arrows die from Savvy.

The next card was inspired by the current CAS-ual Friday challenge to create a card with hearts in summer colors. 

I die cut the Tic Tac Toe Hearts into the front of the card, then colored the hearts with my Copic markers and laid them back into the original die cut. The sentiment comes from two Simon Says sets: Happy, and Color and Sunshine. 

It makes for a nice one-layer, flat card that will be winging its way in August to friends on the west coast.

I'll link both up to Virginia's Die Cut Challenge as well.

Before I go, I thought I'd share a few photos (all from my phonte) from our Fourth of July birthday celebration.

We had bruschetta chicken, and orzo salad with spinach and feta, potato salad, a green salad, and rolls for dinner. I didn't get a photo but we had chocolate mousse cake from Joey B's for dessert. My mother-in-law requested it, but didn't expect we'd be able to get it direct from the restaurant. It was delicious.

Here we all are---a couple folks are looking rather serious, but I only took one quick photo so the food wouldn't get cold.

After dinner we drove to Canandaigua Lake, boarded the Canandaigua Lady, and watched the fireworks from the lake. It was a bit chilly, but we were well-prepared, and the fireworks were wonderful. We got a beautiful sunset as well.

 

 

Red, White, and Blue

Happy 4th of July! I'm grateful every single day for the freedoms I have living here. It's an extra-special day for us because we're celebrating my mother-in-law's 85th birthday today. Tomorrow is the actual day, but everyone is coming here for dinner and then we're headed to Canandaigua to board the Canandaigua Lady for a tour on the lake and to watch the fireworks. It's quite cool here this morning, but clear and sunny!

I have three red, white, and blue cards to share. I'm entering all three cards in the Fusion Challenge this week:  Red, White, and Blue. The last one fits both the color and the sketch challenge.

The first is the birthday card for Ellie. Once I created the anniversary cards here, I knew this die would make an awesome shaker card. I ended up taking the first card apart and redoing it. I folded a piece of clear cardstock, sealed two sides with Washi tape, and dumped the star sequins inside. Then I sealed the top when I adhered the white background. It makes for a much flatter and neater card.

The die cut and sentiment are both Papertrey Ink, and the cardstock is Simon Says Lipstick Red and Soft Navy. I think I found the stars at Michaels, but it was awhile ago. 

I'm entering this one in the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge:  Shake It, and Virginia's Die Cut challenge.

The next two cards use the July Simon Says Card Kit. This kit is going to get a lot of use! The first one is for friends who received some tough news this week. We're hoping it will all work out, but I wanted to get a card of encouragement out to them ASAP.

Absolutely everything on this card came from the kit. I love all the patterned papers, and managed to get five of them on this card!

Even the inside message came from the kit.

The last card was inspired by the Fusion Sketch and this card by Shari Carroll. 

More yummy patterned papers from the kit, as well as a Lifestyle Crafts embossing folder (never used before) and a die cut from Papertrey's "Bubble Talk" with an embossed sentiment from PTI's "Faux Ribbon" (one of my oldest PTI sets).

If you're celebrating today, I hope it's a wonderful and safe holiday!

Zoom In, Zoom Out: Week 27

One of the many things that seemed to get off track during June was regular exercise. About a week ago, I got back to more regular walking, and I'm in the process of finding a new personal trainer to set up a weight-lifting routine for me. My previous trainer has left the gym we belong to, so that hasn't helped much either.

When I walk I always have my iPhone and use an app called Runkeeper to track the time and distance. Thus I always have a camera as well. The other day we were walking through Highland Park---a regular route for us---and I looked over to see this tree.

I immediately saw a lioness' head. Tracy thinks it looks more like a rabbit. What do you see?

Linking up with Helena's Zoom In, Zoom Out meme here.