random reflections

Papertrey Ink September 2017 Blog Hop & Time Out

As soon as I saw this month inspiration for the Papertrey September Ink Blog Hop, I knew I wanted to participate. I love the colors and the way they pop against the black background.

Although it's certainly not necessary to use a bird as the focal point, I turned to one of my favorite PTI sets, "Songbirds," and used some of the same colors and elements seen in the inspiration piece.

There are no wing dies in this set so I drew and fussy-cut one for the little bird. I sponged some "Honey Nut," "Cocoa Bean," and a touch of "Terracotta Tile" on the bird after die cutting it with Rustic White cardstock. I trimmed one branch from the leaf dies after they were cut from New Leaf and Green Parakeet cardstock. The little flowers were punched from very old punches in my collection. The banner and sentiment are both part of the "Songbirds" set.

 

Before adhering the black piece to the Pure Poppy card (love red and black!) I adhered a piece of fun foam to the back so it's popped up a bit. I'd love to have a stamp set that features the bird and flowers in the inspiration piece, but "Songbirds" will have to suffice for now.

I'm linking up to Papertrey Ink's Blog Hop and also to the Time Out Challenge:  "Paint The Flying Spirit Of The Birds Rather than its Feathers."

 

 

 

Happy 6th Birthday, Skylar!

It's been another busy week and one filled with celebrations. Skylar turned six on Thursday, and the family gathered for dinner and cake at Matt and Betsy's.

I love this photo of Skylar and Ella right before  Skylar blew out the cakes on her cake. The theme for Thursday's celebration was Emoji's.

There was no school in our district either Thursday or Friday because of the Jewish holiday. I picked Skylar up around 10:00 on Friday morning; we made cookies and opened up one of Skylar's gifts from Sarah and her family--a science lab kit. We did one of the experiments which demonstrated that acids (lemon juice) will make a "dirty" penny shiny again, but water has no effect.

After lunch at Moe's Southwest Grill, we returned to make Skylar's favorite berry smoothie from a cookbook we gave her at Christmas. She took cookies and some smoothie home to share. Later that afternoon, we met up with everyone again at the Jump Club for her friend's party. A good time was had by all!

The birthday girl is in the blue dress, and Ella is in the pink one. They were both wearing dress featuring Trolls, the theme of this party. There were organized games and contests as well as time to play on the equipment.

 

When Skylar opened her card on Thursday night, she commented that I always give her a special shaker card, which seems to be the case!

The September Simon Says Card Kit was just perfect for creating a card for a six year old. Everything except the dies and the twine came from the kit which featured patterned paper and 3-D stickers from Doodlebug as well as special shaker tags from Jillibean Soup.

Saturday night we hosted a party for Tracy's 50th Reunion Committee. The reunion was a year ago, and it was fun to get the group together again. Tracy finished the new patio area on the lower level for the fire pit that afternoon. This was an area totally overrun with weeds and junk, so it's exciting to have it looking so nice. The red Adirondack chairs were purchased after we encountered pairs of them scattered among the Canadian National Parks when we visited a couple of years ago. The Buddha was a birthday request of Tracy's several years ago, and finally has a respectable home. 

There were too many folks at the party to sit around the fire pit, and frankly, it was too hot! We did sit on the patio, however. This has been one of the hottest stretches of the summer. We broke 90° today---the hottest day of 2017 so far. They're predicting two more days of the heat wave before we return to more typical fall weather patterns.

 

 

Stemmed Statements and A Floral Challenge

The days are flying by, and blogging seems to be at the bottom of the "to do" list; not intentionally, but by the time the day ends there's not much creative energy left for a blog post. I did get some crafting done over the weekend: a few cards, and another month of Project Life completed. Before I share those, however, I thought I'd share some more cards made with "Stemmed Statements." I think this might become a go-to set for floral cards. I have two sets of cards to share. The first with pansies and an ombre stamped background with the "Cover-up: Diamonds" background stamp. Both the "Stemmed Statements" and "Cover-up: Diamonds" stamps were in my July Papertrey Ink order. 

I used some of the Altenew mini-cube ink sets to stamp the ombre pattern for the background. The ink pads come in sets of four coordinating, and increasingly darker shades which really speeds up the process of creating an ombre pattern. The pansies and clovers were colored with Copics. I cut the background with a "Stitched Rectangle" die and added a trimmed "Double-ended Banner" with the sentiment.

This card is nearly a duplicate, stamped in a blue palette. I wanted to have a couple cards ready to send when I hear of someone in need of cheering up!

The second set of cards use the geranium image in the set. It's one of my favorites. Once the geraniums were colored, this card came together quickly, thanks to the patterned paper (also PTI) from the Lovely Lace kit. I didn't purchase the kit, but a friend recommended getting the paper pack, and I'm glad I did. Once again, a "Stitched Rectangle" die that I adhered to Simon Says Smoke cardstock. Their three gray papers are my favorite grays. The banner die is an old Spellbinder die, stamped with a sentiment from "Stemmed Statements."

I added three rainstones to the card for a bit of sparkle.

This time some pink geraniums mounted on a Spellbinders Oval die cut from another piece of patterned paper from the "Lovely Lace" pack. I made six score lines down the side of the card for some texture on the Fresh Snow Linen cardstock, and tied a bow from the white silk ribbon Papertrey Ink used to sell. I wish I had stockpiled a couple of spools of it before they discontinued it.

I think this card qualifies for this week's challenge at Addicted to CAS: Florals so I'll be linking it up there.

 

Five in Five: September

It's very warm and muggy here today. The effects of Irma seem to be much warmer weather and a higher level of humidity. A small price to pay given the destruction she reeked on Florida and some of the southern states. Until yesterday it has been, however, much cooler than normal, dropping into the 40's at night. I'm beginning to see leaves turning color and signs that fall is upon us. The flowers in my garden and on the patio are still going strong. Usually by now I would have replaced many of the summer planters with mums, but not this year. 

For this month's, Five in Five, I decided to capture some of those gorgeous blooms. I'll be missing them soon enough.

Actually the focus is on our new glass hummingbird which hangs with the basket of impatiens which are still going strong. We can see this from our kitchen window and are enjoying the new addition.

The hydrangeas in our front yard were planted last fall, so this is their first blooming season. These were a deep purple just a few weeks ago. This beautiful transformation was certainly unexpected.

We're even getting new buds and blooms in the patio planters.

One reason I love geraniums is their long-lasting nature. They just keep blooming and blooming, both in our pots and in our patio bed.

The ornamental pepper plant adds a huge pop of color to the patio.

I'm linking up with Sandie at itchifingers who kindly hosts this meme each month.

Monday Memo

It's been awhile since I posted a Monday Memo, but I did have some great mail this week, so I thought I'd do a quick recap of our weekend which was a particularly busy one. Friday night we attended a wedding for a good friend's daughter. It was held in a barn, and was absolutely lovely!

The bride and her father

The bride and groom--sadly not the sharpest of iPhone photos

The barn before dinner

The favors: a Mason jar mug with chalkboard labels---used for our beverages and ours to keep

The bride did all the decorating and planning. She's a wonderfully creative girl, and the wedding invitations were spectacular and all handmade. 

On Saturday I helped a friend who is moving to New Mexico pack up his library. We packed 30 boxes of books, and he still had two more bookcases to go! That afternoon, our street had a neighborhood picnic. I only took one photo, and got only a fraction of the folks who attended. It was pot luck, and the food was great. It was also a good chance to meet some new neighbors and connect with those we don't often see.

Sunday, after church, was a bridal shower for Betsy's sister who is getting married in Boston over Columbus Day weekend. Once again, I didn't take many photos, but I did get one of the table where all the gifts were placed. 

I do, however, have a couple photos of the card I made for Karen.

I started by using the "Falling Hearts" stencil by Simon Says with three different shades of pink ink from Altenew. I stamped the umbrella from Papertrey Ink's "Dress-up Dolls: Rainy Day" (I knew this little $5 set would come in handy), fussy cut it, and colored it with Copics. The sentiment was computer generated and cut with banner dies from PTI. I added a silver heart and a few sequins at the end.

 

And then there was the mail. In one day, I received a pretty new skirt that was 70% off (no photo), this gorgeous hand-decorated envelope and card from Nan, and three items from the latest Altenew release.

Today was a busy day. I went to the gym before breakfast, and it's a good thing I did because once I left the house, I was only here for a few minutes between one event and the next. I finally got home about 8:30 tonight. Tomorrow is much the same, but Wednesday is clear and I'm hoping to put these new Altenew products to good use. 

Lastly, today is September 11 and a day to remember all those who lost their lives 16 years ago as well as remembering all those who worked so hard to rescue and provide help to the victims. Like most Americans, I know exactly what I was doing when I heard the news. Sadly, the world was forever changed, and I fear not for the better. In addition, I'm thinking and praying for all those in Houston who are trying to rebound from Hurricane Harvey and all those who have been in Hurricane Irma's path. Not a day goes by that I'm not aware of my many blessings, but days like these remind me how very fortunate I am.

Color Throw Down Challenge

This week's Color Throw Down Challenge is my favorite color combination: red, black, and white. I have a quick anniversary card to share, and may be back before the challenge ends with another card. One of my favorite paper packs from Papertrey Ink was Black and White All Over. It's no longer available, and when they had their big paper sale back in February it was sold out before I got my hands on some more of it. 

This giant XO was one of the papers, and I was never quite sure what to do with it. . . until now. I cut it down, used a corner punch on the top corners, and adhered it to a Pure Poppy card, cut a banner for the sentiment which I adhered with foam tape, and added a puffy heart sticker from Bella Blvd. The sticker was a dark pink so I colored over it with a red Copic marker. I made two of these since there are two sets of friends are celebrating their anniversaries. Now I wish I had a couple more pieces of this paper. I'm quite happy with the card, and it went together very quickly.

Ah, September!

It’s Labor Day, and the start of the school year tomorrow for most students in Rochester. Caleb started kindergarten in Illinois two weeks ago. September has always seemed like a second restart to me. I’ve been living with my One Little Word for eight months, and the list of intentions I wrote in January.

It’s a good time to reassess. Actually, I started the process in August when I became frustrated with my ability to get to some of the projects I love and have committed to, and printed out a new copy of my tracking sheet. It’s rather amazing how well this works for me.

I finally finished my #100DayProject, and only sketched once after that. My card making fell into a string of days when I made sure to have the cards I needed for August and early September.

And finally, at the end of the month, I got going on Project Life. I was nearly a year behind, but have finished all the pages for 2016 and have the title page for 2017 completed.

A lot of advance planning for the next several months is also done. I gave up on my Christmas Journal, and decided to include the holidays in the Project Life album. I think that’s probably the path of the future as well. The mail brought a package from Gossamer Blue this week. They had a Half Price sale so I bought one full kit as well as a Life Pages kit. This is only some of the goodies. I put away the stamps and several other items before I thought to take a photo.

Exercise was the biggest improvement. I scheduled a meeting with my personal trainer and started a new routine at the gym. That plus walking meant that there were only a few days in August that I wasn’t active.

Journaling didn’t happen, and it’s on the list for September. I’m trying a new eating plan which I added to the list for September and a 4 week shopping ban---only groceries, gifts, and necessities. I’ve had some serious issues with my feet, and have purchased several pairs of good shoes which allow me to wear new orthotics which were prescribed by the orthopedic surgeon. Somehow that seemed to give me leeway to go on a shopping spree.

You can see that I only missed one day of reading, and it paid off with seven books read in August, possibly the most I’ve ever read in a month. Two of my favorites were theology-based, but I can recommend two novels.

The first is our September book group book, A Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit. It’s a compelling story of a young man who parks his car on a dirt road, throws the keys on the dashboard, and walks into the Maine wilderness. The next time, he emerges is 27 years later. How and why that happens is the plot of the book, but much of what I loved was the author’s inclusion of the research and history of solitude. How is it that one person can thrive on total solitude, but it drives most people crazy? (Sometimes literally.)

The second book is Gail Godwin’s Grief Cottage. It’s a ghost story of sorts, but also a meditation on loneliness, solitude, memories, and grief. I've long been a fan of Gail Godwin, having enjoyed Father Melancholy's Daughter, Evensong, and Flora, among others.

We’ve had a busy weekend. We were invited to a lovely Shabbat Dinner on Friday evening, entertained two couples here on Saturday, and went to a Fantasy Football picnic yesterday. Today has been very quiet, but there are more good things coming in the week ahead.