random reflections

One Little Word: 2017

I’m a month late with my One Little Word post. I originally thought there’d be two posts, one a reflection on 2016’s OLW, and then this one. But I’ve decided that although I’ve done quite a bit of reflection, it’s too late to justify two posts.

My 2017 word literally leaped out at me in November while reading a blog. I lived with it for several weeks, and time and again I’d find another reference to it that resonated with me. So I’ve been living with it for awhile, and for many reasons, believe it will be a significant talisman for the year, particularly give the political climate in the United States.

I purchased and framed this print for my office.

JOY is the word for the year. For me it flows easily from SIMPLIFY and MINDFUL, my last two One Little Words. The kind of joy I’m speaking of is not the stuff of dictionary definitions, but joy that is rooted in gratitude. Our church chooses a theme for each year, and in September we began a focus on “reconciliation.” Again, it seems a remarkable choice given the divisiveness that is so rampant now. Our pastor gave a sermon on “Reconciliation and Joy” in December---one of the many connections that occurred after I chose my word. In it he quoted a theologian, Daniel Hardy, who wrote that, “Where there is vulnerability and sorrow [joy] still appears, but adversity alters its character to . . . trust and perseverance.” It speaks to me, but I’m under no illusion that it will be an easy task.

The only book I finished in January was The Book of Joy by The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. It, too, speaks to the ability to find joy regardless of your circumstance and has a wonderful section at the end of daily practices. Last year as part of my Mindful practice, I took a course in mediation and did quite a bit of reading about it. I never did establish a daily practice, but I do practice some mindful techniques on a daily basis, not the least of which is I’ve pretty much abandoned trying to multi-task. Many of the meditative practices in this book seem very doable to me. Now that I’m back into routines at home, I’m hoping to give a couple of them a try.

The best definition for joy I’ve found so far is “Happiness is an emotion and temporary; joy is an attitude of the heart.” (Randy Alcorn) So I’m off to try to find joy in the every day through reading, photography, volunteering, and creative pursuits. I’m going to struggle through the hard times, remembering how very grateful I am for my many blessings. And I’m going to move on with both SIMPLIFY and MINDFUL, because they too have proven to be good words to live with.

Memos, Mail, Me: Refreshed!

Happy Monday! Waving to Sian and the Monday Memo Makers. It's been just one week since we returned from Chicago, and much to my surprise, I have completed a nearly total purge and reorganization of my office/craft room. I anticipated that it would take several weeks, but once I started, I devoted the better part of every day to the project. Shortly before the holidays I started scouring the internet for a set of affordable bookcases to replace the ones I purchased at Target ($25 a piece) nearly 15 years ago. They were literally falling apart. I found some I liked at Wayfair (50% off), but had to wait for a restocking. They arrived at Matt's while we were away and it was a huge motivator to get ready to have them assembled and in the office. 

I ended up with two boxes and three stuffed shopping bags of materials that I donated to the charity craft shop, a bag for a friend, and several larger items I'm saving to see if another friend might be interested in them before I donate them. I have LOTS of stamps (I've been at this for 25+ years) still to go through and repackage if I decide to keep them. Here's a look at the new set-up. I did take before photos as well, but really, no need to see them! :-) There was a mish-mash of storage containers and stuff stuck in and around. I had a couple of the gray CD holders from Target, and fortunately, they still carry them. These bookcases are wider than the old ones, and we removed a CD cupboard that held my Papertrey Ink stamps that were, for years, packaged in CD cases. Now the boxes hold stamps, paper pads, embellishments, kits, and stamps that need to be repackaged. I must say, I get a lot of pleasure out of having a color coordinated storage system.

For many years, I resided in a tiny bedroom at the back of the house, but after Sarah moved into an apartment, Tracy encouraged me to move to the front of the house to a much larger space. I resisted for a couple of years. Why, I can't tell you, because it's just a wonderful spot! There's a built-in bookcase and desk in the front corner. It used to hold my sewing machine, but when I had to replace my printer the only one that had a top feed was a wide-format printer which no longer fit on my desk. The sewing machine is now in the guest room, and the result is I rarely put it to use. 

I still need to go through the book shelves here, but for the most part, I think I'll keep much of what is there. Next to the filing/die cutting station is a chair that folds out into a single bed. We don't often have to use it, but it's come in handy a few times, and it's a great place when someone "visits" me for them to sit down and chat.

And lastly, my desk. When I moved into this room, I purchased the desk and the filing cabinet from an inexpensive, put-it-together yourself, furniture store. It's held up very well. and works for me. The iMac was a surprise Christmas/Mother's Day/birthday gift from Tracy, and was just replaced with a newer model last year when I ran out of memory. This one has the new higher resolution screen. After editing photos on my tiny laptop for three weeks in Chicago, I had a new appreciation for it when I returned.

I am, I know, spoiled by such a lovely space, and I never take it for granted. When I first moved in here, Matt was still living at home, and his comment has stuck with me. "This is the best possible use for this room. You should have moved in here a long time ago," he said. "After all, you live in here." There's some truth to it. Until Tracy and I started our morning reading time together by the fire in the living room a year ago, I spent almost all my time in here.

So, now you know how my week went. Tracy put the bookcases in on Friday night, and Saturday I celebrated by doing some card-making. And that's where the happy mail comes in. I received my February Simon Says Card Kit last week, and it stayed in the box until I finished cleaning.

The first card I needed was for a friend in hospice, and the stamp set and stickers weren't appropriate. I did, however, want a card that was bright and cheerful, so used the cardstock, patterned papers, and one of the epoxy hearts to create the card.

The basic design of the card came from the inspiration sheet that is also included each month with the kit. The papers are from Doodlebug, and the sentiment from Papertrey Ink's "It's the Thought" set. I hope it brings a bit of cheer to the recipient. The dies are both from Simon Says:  Stitched Circles, and Stitched Banners. The banner die I've had for some time, but broke open the package for the first time. I'm entering this into the NBUS challenge, which I need to participate in more often.

I made several other cards as well this weekend, so they'll be popping up on the blog soon. 

Hope your week is off to a good start. I have lots of fun engagements scheduled for this week, so I'll be squeezing crafting time in-between breakfast, lunch, and coffee dates as well as book group and bridge! It's good to be busy during these gray days of winter.

JANUARY 2017 BLOG HOP CHALLENGE

Today is the January Blog Hop at Papertrey Ink. I wasn't sure I'd have time to get a card made for the hop, but I loved the inspiration piece, and finished a card for the hop on Monday night.

What attracted me was the black background, white accents, and pretty, bright flowers. I went a slightly different way, choosing one of my favorite sets, "Lovely Layers." It was easy to tell I'd been away from the crafting table for a few weeks, as there were a lot of pieces that ended up in the circular file before I was finished. In the end, I had a card I liked for my friend who celebrated her birthday while we were away. We celebrated yesterday at breakfast.

I stuck with the pinks and white of the inspiration piece for the sentiment. I used a "Swoosh" dies, and the rest of the sentiment came from "Birthday Cheer, " which was embossed in white. I used a Spectrum Noir Clear Glitter pen for the center of the main image.

The main ink colors were Leaf Green, Summer Sunrise, and Hibiscus Burst with accents inked with Pinefeather, Orange Zest, Terracotta Tile, and Raspberry Fizz. The blog hop almost always produces lots of inspiration which you can access right here.

Memo, Mail, Me: Monday---Home!

We were in Chicago a little over three weeks, and drove all the way home yesterday. So very grateful for dry roads; the only challenge was fog through all of Indiana, again near Cleveland, and very dense fog in Erie. Nothing that really slowed us down, and if the weather forecast is right, we made it home just in time. A winter storm watch starts tonight at 10:00 and up to six inches of snow is forecast by noon tomorrow.

Although I'm already missing everyone in Chicago, I'm glad to be home. It's taken most of the day to get things semi-organized, get groceries, run errands, and pay bills. By the end of the week, I hope to be back into regular routines, and to have started another purge of my studio.

Right before I left Sarah's, I had another chance to visit with Alexandra from Art, Scrap, and More, who invited me to lunch. If you know anything about Alexandra you know that in addition to beautiful card making and scrapbooking, she is a fabulous baker. We sat down to a lovely (and very elegant) lunch of quiche, salad, a glass of wine, and fruit for dessert.

It was delicious, and once again, we had no trouble with conversation, sitting at the table for nearly two hours! Another distinct pleasure was meeting her daughter, Gabrielle, who kindly took our photo (much better than the selfie we attempted in September.)

You can imagine that the pile of mail was a bit overwhelming after being away three weeks. 

I sorted it last night before I went to bed, and opened any bills, but the pile of catalogs will have to wait a few days before I'll get to them. Today I opened personal mail, and the packages. Among the happy mail was a New Year's card from Rinda, and a stamp set I purchased from My Favorite Things. (Another set for grandchildren. I have one card in mind already!)

Hoping to be back creating very soon as well. Waving to Sian and other Monday Memo Makers! 

A Trio of Cards for CASology "Cut" Challenge

One of the criteria for the CASology challenge is that the card should be "quick and easy to recreate." Once the main image was fussy cut, the cards were, in fact, easy to recreate. I started with an Altenew "Persian Motifs" image that I gold embossed on watercolor paper and colored with my Zig watercolor markers.

I used a Simon Says "Stitched Rectangle" and adhered it to a cardstock color that coordinated with the painted image, and gold embossed the sentiment below it. The card on the right is actually navy blue, though it appears almost black in the photo. The cardstock in the middle is actually more purple (much closer to the painted image) but didn't photograph quite as accurately as I hoped.

I'm entering these in the CASology "Cut" Challenge for this week. You can find other entries right here.

 

 

Memos, Mail, Me: It's Monday

Waving to Sian and the other Monday memo makers! I thought for sure I'd be without any mail to share since we're still in Chicago, but then I remembered that thanks to Amazon Prime, I've received two pieces of mail this week. Of course, I think they're interesting because I ordered them! 

On top of the book is a new memory card reader. My old one is at least five times bigger, and I haven't traveled with it in years. Tracy's laptop has a memory card slot so I was using it, then transferring the images to my laptop to edit or post them. Last week I wondered if perhaps there might be a better answer, and here it is. It cost all of $7-8, and works like a charm.

The book I ordered on Saturday night and it arrived early this morning. John Berger passed away recently, and last week I read two blog posts about him here and here. I was so interested that I decided I wanted (and needed) to read it. I've decided to put a bigger focus on photography this year after backing off during 2016. Although Berger's book deals primarily with paintings much of what he writes about can be applied to photography as well.

Thanks for all your comments and emails wondering how Sarah and Hannah are doing. Both are doing well. It will be a while yet before Sarah gets her energy back, but considering where we were two weeks ago today, it's been a quick recovery. Caleb is quite smitten with his baby sister and is very affectionate.

Today was Caleb's "friends" birthday party. His fifth birthday was mostly spent at a friend's house since that was the day Hannah was born, and Sarah had her second surgery. Today he hosted 14 friends at a "Jump Zone," a wild place with inflatable bouncy houses and slides. Let me just say, the five year olds were in heaven!

The birthday boy on his way home. It was the perfect day for a party---cold, wet, and dreary---even the parents were glad to have a place for their kids to run around for an hour or so. Caleb had both sets of grandparents there today as Adam's parents are here for three days on their way to England. As amazing as it was that Hannah was born on Caleb's birthday, Adam's sister who lives in England had her third child the day before Hannah was born. Lots of excitement in this family!

Variations on a Theme

Maile Belles designed a series of stamps this past year called Splits for Papertrey Ink. They're very small, inexpensive sets but so versatile. I've purchased three or four of them, but my favorite is "Best Wishes." What's particularly great about them is that all the sentiments from the different sets are interchangeable, but many sentiments from other sets also work. I've posted several cards using Splits before here, here, and here. I needed several cards recently, and "Best Wishes" worked for all three of them, and I didn't use the sentiment that came with the set for any of them.

The sentiment wasn't from the Splits set, but I don't have my notes with me in Chicago, and can't find the set online. The cardstock is a shimmer aqua from Papertrey adhered to a silver card.

You can see the color as well as the silver embossing and gems more clearly here.

Next up is the anniversary card I made for Matt and Betsy in December. For this card I used gold embossing on white shimmer cardstock.

This time I added some black gems as an accent.

Finally, a thank you card I made for the professor of my Old Testament course this fall. The design was white embossed on gray cardstock with some white pearls for accent.

It was great to pull out just a couple of stamp sets and get all three cards made in one sitting. Now that I have a stamp collection built up over 20 years, versatility is the #1 criterion for a new purchase. (Well, to be honest, I recently purchased several new sets with grandchildren in mind! But now there are five of them, so I guess that's justified, too.)

January 5 in 5

I'm joining in with Sandie at itchifingers for her 5 in 5 meme again this year. We took Caleb to the Museum of Science and Industry today to see the Brick By Brick (Legos) exhibition. It was amazing, and Caleb and his Grandpa were in heaven. I'll be sharing some photos from that in the near future. We had some time to kill after lunch today before our tickets for the movie on the National Parks (also wonderful) so we headed to the Art of the Bicycle exhibit.

I'm counting this one as the title photo, not one of the five. I loved the graphic look of this piece. Rather than take photos of whole bicycles, I chose to focus in on the elements that attracted me. A couple of these work for prompt 13, cogs/gears, in the Winter Photography Hunt, as well.

I loved the shadows this bicycle cast on the wall.

This was a wooden bicycle, and one for the WPSH.

I'm always a fan of red!

More cogs and gears.

And although this also is a candidate for the WPSH, it was the bright green that attracted me here.

It turns out that a museum exhibit is the perfect place on a cold, gray day in Chicago to find five photos in five minutes. Thanks, Sandie, for hosting this in 2017!

 

Two Cards and the WPSC

I've been seeing a few posts for Eileen's Winter Photography Scavenger Hunt, and knew it was time to get the few I had posted. I'm going to start with #14 Repetition. I needed a birthday card for my brother in December and one for my nephew in early January, and did a riff on the first card for the second. Both employ repetition. Here's the card for my brother.

I thought it would be easiest to use my MISTI to line up all these sentiments, but it turned out I did a better job eyeballing them. The sentiment comes from Papertrey Ink's "Colorful Words." Once I stamped the white panel I used a piece of white fun foam to create a bit of dimension.

For my nephew, I used a slightly different approach.

This time I colored in one of the words with Copic markers, added an accompanying sentiment from the same set, and a small enamel arrow.

Next up on the hunt is #8, a seasonal treat. First off, one of the gingerbread houses from the Eastman Museum.

And gingerbread teddy bears. Skylar was "icing" their pants with chocolate frosting.

Next up, winter weather, not a hard thing to find in Rochester. We had 12 inches in just one day in mid-December. 

Number 11 was a photo taken outside at night. Driving home from dinner on Christmas Eve, we passed this house. It was the perfect subject for the hunt.

The next two are my favorites, #15--Hands.

Caleb's hands with his beloved Legos.

And Baby Hannah's hand in Grandpa's.

Number 20 is cold. When Baby Hannah left the hospital it was 9° with a wind chill of -3°. We had her all bundled up laying on the hospital bed, and Caleb wanted his photo taken all bundled up next to her.

And finally, hygge, a cozy sense of well-being, and one we get in our living room in front of the fireplace. Last year, we splurged on converting our fireplace to gas, and it was one of the best decisions ever. We turn it on every morning when we sit down to read, and again in the evening while we're watching the news.

That's a third of the items on the list, and I'll have to be diligent to find the rest. Thanks to Eileen for providing the list and the link-up. I need all the motivation I can get to have my camera out during the winter. (Although I must admit, finding subjects to photograph while we're visiting Sarah has not been an effort!)

 

Memos, Mail, Me: Monday

Sian has had another brilliant idea for a Monday post. The idea is to incorporate a piece of happy mail (snail mail, catalog . . . something that arrived in the mail during the week that captured your interest.) Since I'm visiting Sarah, I have no mail from the last week to share, and most of my recap was posted yesterday, but I do have something to share.

Right before the holidays I got a catalog from The Company Store. It's full of inspiration, and there are always multiple products that I'd love to have, but most are out of my price range. This time, however, I pulled out a page and saved it. As soon as I saw the add for a beautiful pillow, I had an idea for a card. While we were waiting for Sarah's call about the baby, I got the early January birthday cards made, and a number of thank you cards that I wanted to get in the mail before we left. One of the thank you cards was inspired by the pillow in the catalog.

You can see the page from the catalog behind the card. The "Winter Hills" stamp set from Papertrey Ink came immediately to mind when I saw the pillow. The little bird is from "Through the Trees." The trees were embossed with white and platinum embossing powder. I had to emboss the birds on separate paper and fussy cut them since the red embossing powder didn't show up well on the dark gray card. I embossed a few snowflakes between the trees as well.  The photo above shows the card before I added the sentiment.

I added the simple sentiment to a vellum banner, and hid the adhesive behind a silver enamel dot.

While I had the "Winter Hills" set on my desk, I made several more thank you cards (all the same design.) These were based on a card I found on Pinterest, simple and fast when you need several cards in a hurry.

As for me, it' still going well with Sarah and Hannah. Adam, however, had an accident on the way home from work today, and their Yaris was totaled. Fortunately, no one was hurt, and the driver who caused the accident took full responsibility for it from the start. They've been planning to buy a new van which will more easily accommodate two car seats, so this will most likely speed up that process. 

Thanks to Sian for another great weekly meme, and waving to the other Monday Memo posters!