random reflections

Happy Halloween

Halloween has never been one of my favorite holidays, but now that I have grandchildren excited about trick or treating, I've started to make a couple of  Halloween cards each year. This year I used an old stamp set from Papertrey Ink that I've always loved, Friendship Jar:  Fall Fillers. They recently released some dies for the stamps, and I couldn't resist. The two cards are somewhat similar, but clearly one is for the girls (Skylar and Ella) and one is for the little boy.

I made a shaker card for  Skylar and Ella. In addition to the Friendship Jar: Fall Fillers, I used the original Friendship Jar stamps, the friendship jar shaker die, and the Night Sky Cover Plate. The patterned paper is a tiny piece of an old Doodle Bug paper as well as a glitter border sticker from the same line. The sequins are a mix of ones I purchased at Michael's and online.

I used some of the same supplies for Caleb's card, but instead of a shaker, I used another image from the Friendship Jar: Fall Fillers---the candy corn. All the images on both cards were colored with Copic markers.

The border on the bottom of this card is also from Doodle Bug as are the stars (which are also glittery.)

Caleb went with me on my run to Paper Source in Evanston. (There's a bakery with great cookies a few doors down.) He saw all their Halloween craft supplies, and we picked out one that made some Halloween ornaments. Let me just say this was NOT a craft for toddlers! It took me most of the morning to get the four ornaments put together, and ready for Caleb to finish them when he came home from preschool. He thought getting all the eyes, hair, spider legs, etc. on the ornaments was fun, so it was definitely worth it. I've saved another set for Skylar for next year; there isn't time for us to get them made this year.

And right before we left, Caleb and Grandpa picked out a design for the jack o' lantern, and Grandpa got it carved. A bit scarier than anything I would have chosen, but Caleb was delighted!

We're going out trick or treating with Skylar for awhile tonight. Don't know whether we'll give in before she does or not!

Pairs at the Zoo

We spent Friday morning at the Lincoln Park Zoo. It's a lovely place, and we had a great time. I'll be back with another post about our week in Chicago (and more zoo photos) but here are three pairs from our morning at the zoo.

We were among the first people to see the new red panda cubs. They were just allowed outside for viewing on October 15th. We were early enough that it was easy to get a good look at them, as well as their momma. I don't believe I've ever seen a red panda before.

I have two photos of this pair to share with you. These birds were fascinating and we watched them for quite awhile. We're quite sure we've never seen one species cleaning a bird of another species, but that was exactly what was happening.

But this pair is my favorite, and it won't surprise you at all!

I'm linking up with Helena's Pairs which you can find right here.

Papertrey October 2015 Blog Hop

This month's inspiration piece for the Papertrey Ink blog hop is just gorgeous, and although I am so not ready to think about Christmas, I really wanted to create something for the blog hop.

Right before we left for Chicago, I grabbed a little time and sat down to make a tag. It gave me the perfect opportunity to use the new Mini Market Kit:  Holiday Folk. From the inspiration piece, I used the tag, and the color combination---Pure Poppy and New Leaf.

I picked up a pack of these beautiful gold embossed tags in August at The Paper Source thinking they'd be great for the holidays. I stamped the tree and the sentiment embellishment from the Holiday Folk set, and the sentiment from the 2009 Holiday Tag collection. I colored the berries with a red gel pen and covered the stars with some glittery stars from my stash.

I also added some Clear Star Gelly Roll along the branches and outlined the sentiment embellishment and put a dot of gold in the tiny stars with a gold pen. It's a bit easier to see here than in the first photo. You can check out other Christmasy creations right here on Nicole Heady's blog.

Texture Pairs

On our way from Rochester to Chicago we stopped in Elkhart, Indiana to visit the National New York Central Railroad Museum. Tracy and his best friend have spent many hours creating a model train layout in Pete's basement, and now Tracy has started a very small one at our house as well. There were several interesting displays, and a very large model train display, but truthfully, I was most interested in all the textures I found on the box cars as we walked through the outdoor railroad yard. I didn't have my better camera with me, but the iPhone camera proved to be quite good. So here are two pairs of textures from the railroad museum.

I'm linking these up (a day late) to Helena's fine meme, and off now to check out the other pairings for the week.

Ten on Tuesday

I found this the Ten on Tuesday meme through Honore's blog, but have only participated a couple of times. This week's prompt was so timely I decided to play along. 

10 Things You Put In Your Travel Tote Bag

We hit the road again yesterday, so I just finished packing the tote bag. There are definitely more than 10 items in there, but here are the essentials:

1. Glasses case with glasses and sunglasses
2. Umbrella
3. Plastic zip envelope with articles, cards to mail while we're away, important documents
4. iPad
5. Kindle (I could probably get away with just the iPad, but reading in bed with the Kindle is just easier!)
6. current novel
7. sketchbook
8. watercolor markers
9. pens and pencils
10. Contact solution

My current tote is a Baggallini that a friend recommended when Sarah and Adam lived on the West Coast and we were flying back and forth several times a year. It still looks like new and fits over the handle of my rolling suitcase. I just love it. What's in your travel bag?

A Card for Two Challenges

It's been awhile since I've entered a card in a challenge, although I do keep track of them in Feedly. Yesterday I saw two different challenges, and knew immediately what I wanted to do. (Rather unusual, I must say.) The first is a "word" challenge and the other is a sketch challenge.

For once, the card materialized just the way I envisioned it. It was a quick one, once the watercolor background dried.

I started with a piece of Tim Holtz watercolor paper and spread some Kertake watercolors around. I have several different kinds of watercolor, but these seem to work best for this technique. All the stamps are from a small Simon Says set, "You." Usually I use the coordinating die, but this time the word in the different fonts worked perfectly for the sketch. The last part of the sentiment was white embossed on black paper, and it was all mounted on Orange Zest and then on a Summer Sunrise card. I decided I didn't want the star covering part of the sentiment so I took a little liberty with the sketch.

You can check out the other entries for CAS(E) this Sketch here, and for Caseology here.

 

 

Pairs of Fall Treats

This morning Tracy needed to purchase treats for a committee meeting tonight, so we drove out to Schutt's Apple Farm for cider and donuts. They have the BEST cinnamon sugar fry cakes.

In case sweets aren't your thing, Honey Crisp apples are my all time favorite. Matt introduced me to them several years ago when a professor of his at Cornell brought a different kind of apple to each field trip (they were foraging mushrooms, I think). He called me to tell me to get some to try. Most of the ones at the grocery store come from Washington state, but more and more New York apples growers have them now as well. 

Knowing it would be unlikely that any donuts will come home after the meeting, we bought two of the cinnamon sugar donuts to eat on the way home. Apples later . . . .

I'm linking this up to Helena's blog. Check out the other pairs, and Helena's attractive new haircut!

 

Playing

I took some time earlier this week to pull out a few new stamps to play with. I'm not totally sold on these cards, but I think the stamps will prove to be versatile.

I started with a stamp set I've only used once or twice, "Brushed Off," and combined it with a new set, "Choose Joy." What I really wanted to try out were two Hero Arts ombre stamp pads I picked up months ago and hadn't touched. I got mixed results, but ended up with three cards. I couldn't for the life of me, get the ombre to work effectively with the orange pad. I'll be going back to this soon to try and figure it out, but I decided with the addition of some enamel dots they'd made acceptable cards.

 

I love the sentiments in this set, and think they'll be good for a variety of occasions, or even as a card set for a gift.

The ombre effect worked much better with this teal stamp pad; can't figure out why one was so easy and the other so difficult.

I passed up on the next stamp set, "Twig Wreath," when it was released, but reconsidered later. It just arrived this week. The card didn't come out the way I intended, but I'm happy with the end result. I tried another card, but need to find a new gold ink pad to make it work.

I love the fall colors which are making themselves known here very quickly. I was surprised at how much the colors had changed in just a week on the canal.

We took our weekly walk on the canal yesterday, and it was so warm by the time we finished, we had breakfast outside! It was glorious, and I hope it wasn't the last day that's possible.

Fall Road Trip

It was a beautiful weekend to be on the road, and I thought I'd share a few photos, and a story about our day in Manchester, VT. It's one of our favorite places to visit in the fall. The colors aren't at peak quite yet, but it was still lovely.

We were up early enough to catch the sunrise as we drove from my brother's in Pleasant Valley, NY to the Taconic Parkway.

Our first stop is always Up For Breakfast. Although I've tried a couple other items on the menu, I long ago gave up experimenting and stick with their Morning Glory pancakes---basically carrot cake in pancake form. With real Vermont maple syrup and sausage, it's a breakfast that can't be beat.

After breakfast, we walked up to Orvis, a high end sports clothing and fishing equipment store that has its flagship store in Manchester. Their fall displays are always beautiful.

This is a stained glass window on the second floor of the store:

After visiting Orvis, we walked back to the main shopping area, primarily outlets with great prices. Both of us did a bit of shopping, and I was quite pleased with my purchases. (More about that later!)

On our way out of town, after lunch at a great new (to us) Mexican restaurant with local ingredients, we stopped at the Equinox Valley Garden Center. We were charmed to find a group of artists who had set up easels around the garden center.

We struck up a conversation with this lovely lady who had traveled from Florida to attend a six day workshop. Her husband was off taking photographs of the area.

The displays and flowers were gorgeous. I had a great time taking photographs with a new Sony point and shoot I recently purchased for traveling. I got so tired of hauling my DSLR and multiple lenses up mountains this summer that I was determined to get a smaller and lighter camera for travel. I thought I'd buy a mirrorless camera, but when I discovered the lens I wanted cost more than the camera, I reconsidered. The Sony has a long zoom with a set aperture, and I think it's going to be perfect.

One final photo from the trip. We often stop to take photos at the Tomhannock Reservoir. It's such a lovely spot right on the highway.

And if you've held on for this long, I have a story to restore your faith in human nature. When we got home Monday night, and unpacked the car, I was shocked to discover that one of my bags was missing. It had a sweater and scarf that I purchased at a local store in Manchester. The sweater was on sale, but this is not an outlet store. I was so disappointed, as it was my favorite purchase of the day. Neither Tracy nor I could imagine where we'd lost it. Tuesday morning I called a couple of stores, but no one had seen it.

Finally, I decided I'd call the store where I purchased it and see if I could order another sweater. (I thought I'd pass on replacing the scarf.) When I reached the clerk, she remembered me, and was delighted to hear from me. Someone found my bag, and returned it to the store. The clerk, of course, had no way to contact me, but was willing to send it on to me. Needless to say, I was thrilled, although I still don't know where we left the bag. She said she'd weigh the package, and call me back with the cost for postage. In just a minute or so, she called and said the manager told her they would send the package at no cost! It arrived yesterday (sent by priority mail), and last night I made a thank you card to send to them.

The card uses another of Papertrey Ink's "Back and White All Over" papers, and a stamp from a new set called "In the Bag." I think I'll be using this design again. Quick and easy, but striking, I think--and in my favorite color scheme:  black, white, and red. 

 

We have a pretty quiet weekend ahead:  lunch and the movies with friends tomorrow and church on Sunday. Hopefully, I'll get back to my Project Life pages. I got a good start on them a week or so ago, and they are piled up on a table in my studio.

 

 

 

Pumpkin Pairs: Garden Center to Stoop

We had a lovely weekend. On Sunday we drove to Hyde Park for the baptism of my grand-nephew, Finn Robert, and spent the night with my brother. It was a beautiful ceremony, a gorgeous fall day, and a lovely party afterwards.

Finn was not particularly enamored of the whole event, but the rest of us enjoyed it. My two nieces are on the left, Momma Stephanie next to the priest, and Kevin and his sister on the right. The two sisters are the godparents.

Although it's hardly "on the way home," we decided to drive to Manchester, VT on Monday. When we were working, we frequently drove to Manchester on Columbus Day weekend. We arrived in time for a late breakfast at our favorite spot, "Up For Breakfast," where we had Morning Glory pancakes (carrot cake in pancake form---delicious!) 

We spent the better part of the morning and afternoon walking and shopping. Manchester is an outlet center, and they have some lovely stores with good prices. We also spent an hour or so at Northshire Books, our favorite independent bookstore. I always find titles there I haven't seen before, and my "want to read" list gets even longer.

On our way out of town, we stopped at the Equinox Valley Garden Center to pick up some pumpkins for our front porch. We'd never been there before, and will definitely return. I think it deserves a short blog post of its own. 

But, finally, here are this week's Pairs for Helena's meme.

Pumpkins at the garden center.

 

Pumpkins on my front stoop.