random reflections

CASology: Cherish

This week's challenge at CASology is "Cherish," and I have a quick and easy card to enter. The striped background with the metallic heart is actually a the card front from a pack of inexpensive cards I bought ages ago at Michaels. I cut down the front of it with one of the Simon Says "Stitched Rectangle" dies, and mounted it on a card made with Papertrey Ink's True Black cardstock.

All that was left to do was to die cut Papertrey Ink's "Wonderful Words: Love" die which I did three times, and stacked them.

Even with the striped background, to me this is clearly a CAS card---hope it fits with the CASology standards!

Monday Memo: The Chicago Grandchildren

We arrived in Skokie on Friday, and have been enjoying time with Sarah and her family before she leaves tomorrow for a week-long retreat outside Little Rock, AR. Once she leaves Tracy and I will be busy helping with Caleb and Hannah while Sarah is away. It's hardly a chore as both are happy, cheerful children most of the time. We hadn't seen them since June, and I knew Hannah would have changed a lot, but even Caleb has grown at least an inch taller. 

Hannah is crawling everywhere (and she is fast!). This weekend we put up gates so that she can't beat any of us to the stairs! She's pulling herself up and inching along the edge of tables and couches. Today she was playing with Grandpa's phone and having the best of times.

Caleb is really enjoying kindergarten. We picked him up at school today (just two blocks down the street) and got to peek into his classroom. We'll still be here on Halloween and will get to go to the Halloween party and parade. Here he is at dinner tonight, enjoying a bit of ice cream.

It was nice over the weekend, but today turned chilly and rainy. The forecast is for much the same for tomorrow. Hannah is home on Mondays, but goes to daycare Tuesday-Friday. We're planning a trip to IKEA and The Container Store tomorrow, and hoping for one nice afternoon to visit the Botanic Gardens. On Friday we're having lunch with a friend who lives just north of here. We'd given some thought to trying to get into Chicago for a day, but I don't think we really have time for that. Both of us brought projects to work on, and we need to be available if one of the kids needs to be picked up. I brought some card making supplies, and hope to get a head start on the Christmas cards. 

The Heart Desires Halloween Challenge

I have three Halloween cards to share, one of which I'll enter in this month's challenge at The Heart's Desire.

It was Nan who inspired me to get going with a few Halloween cards. Luckily I had a stash of already die cut and colored elements, a couple of new dies to play with, and a little bit of time. 

I started off with a pile of papers and elements on my desk, and two dies I've never used: MFT's "Essential Cover-up: Vertical" and Memory Box's "Group of Ghosts." I also had a Hero Art's stamp and die set I purchased last year, but didn't end up using, "Witch's Feet." True Black and Orange Zest cardstock make for the perfect Halloween combination.

This card uses the MFT's framing die, a scrap of scrapbook paper, and the Hero Art's Witch's Feet set. I die cut the feet, stamped them in black, and colored them with an orange Tombow markers. The hat is from a sticker sheet filed in my "Fall" sticker folder, but I don't have the manufacturer's name. It's been there at least a year. The sentiment also comes from the Hero Art's set.

Last year some of my Halloween cards used the Papertrey Ink "Friendship Jar: Fall Fillers," and this image is one I die cut and colored last year. The PTI Cover Plate: "Horizontal Stripes" was in a folder of precut dies---how nice that there was an Orange Zest one. The sentiment came from the same sticker sheet as the witch's hat in the first card.

For the first card, I die cut the MFT die from the scrapbook paper to get the insert for the focal image. This time I used the frame which worked out perfectly. I had two sets of the Happy Halloween sentiment in my stash which I had cut last year with the Silhouette, and didn't use. The ghosts I die cut this year (2 sets of them) and the "EEK" is another one of the stickers. Thanks to saving my die cuts from last year, this year's cards came together pretty quickly.

I'm off to check out the other entries in the Halloween challenge and to look for some inspiration for next year's cards.

Five in Five: October with the Penguins

When we were in Boston for the wedding, we spent Saturday morning at The New England Aquarium. My favorite exhibit (as well as my oldest granddaugher's) was the penguins. It was easy to get five photos in five minutes for Sandi's monthly meme: Five in Five.

You can check out Sandi's excellent collection as well as other participants right here.

 

Monday Memo: Way Late

I really intended to do a Monday Memo post a week ago yesterday. It. didn't. happen. Here's why: when we got back from the wedding in Boston, my volunteer commitments were heavier than usual. One of the biggest ones was planning and preparing for a volunteer luncheon that will actually happen while we're in Chicago next week. It's for the volunteers at a local food pantry. There are a huge group of volunteers who work the Monday, Wednesday, Friday food cupboard, volunteers (some are the same) who work the mobile food pantry (fresh produce, dairy, etc) every other Tuesday, and another group who work in the Foodlink garden which supplies produce for both food operations in the summer. We're hoping to build community among the volunteers as well as thank them for all their time. 

Since most of the volunteers are also clients of the food pantry, we purchased gift cards. I made a set of gift card holders, cutting them with the Silhouette using some of my two-sided scrapbook papers. Then I die cut and stamped a frame from "Fillable Frames #11," and added a stamped frame and sentiment from "Fillable Frames Additions #2." It's amazing how often those "oldies but goodies" come in handy.

The gardening crew are neighbors of the church where the food cupboard is located or members of our congregation. We purchased gardening gloves and wrote notes to each of them. I bought seed packets and attached them to the front of the cards. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's "Garden Variety."

Yesterday I finished all the shopping and ordering for the luncheon itself. Tomorrow Tracy and I will get the tables to the church that are needed for the luncheon, and I think I'll be done. I'm really sorry to be away when it happens, but we're on babysitting duty in Chicago next week while Sarah is at a week long retreat. 

Now for the content of the intended post. Two weekends ago we were in Boston for the very elegant wedding of my daughter-in-law's youngest sister and her high school sweetheart. They went to college in Boston, and have never left. Leon's family is from China, and ten of his relatives came from China for the wedding. None of them had ever been to the United States before. I think they had a fabulous time. Friday night, Paul hosted a dinner primarily for them as well as the rest of the family. It was held on the 52nd floor of the building where Leon works. Here's the view we had of Boston, the river, and Cambridge beyond.

On Saturday we took the little girls to The New England Aquarium.

I'll be back soon with more photos for Sandi's Five in Five meme that I took at the penguin exhibit. The two older girls had a fun with the sculptures as well as the real animals and fish.

The wedding was on Sunday. Most of the day was taken up with preparations. It was a big wedding party. Karen has a large group of very close friends from both college and growing up here in Rochester, so preparations took awhile. Pictures outside the hotel (where the wedding took place) started an hour and a half before the ceremony. Luckily, we had great weather. Here are my favorites from the photo sessions before the wedding. All three little girls "walked" down the aisle. (Actually Dad carried Madelyn, and Ella held her mother's hand. Skylar walked with her cousin, fourth from the right in the photo below.) 

No photos were allowed during the ceremony which I totally understand. I'll be looking forward to seeing the professional photos. The photographers were wonderful. 

We had a great weekend. We had a little time to wander around on Saturday afternoon, visited Faneuil Hall, and had breakfast twice at Flour Bakery where I had the best breakfast sandwich I ever had. Thanks to Nan who recommended the bakery. A box of sticky buns came home with us as well on Monday. 

On that delicious note, I'll sign off! Hopefully, it won't be so long between blog posts, but with another trip in the offing, it may be November until I'm back on a regular schedule.

 

 

 

Less Is More: Watercolour

One more challenge before we head off for the long weekend. This week's challenge at Less is More is Watercolour, and I'm always happy to pull out some paints.

This card was inspired by this pin that I pinned to a board quite some time ago. I chose to use a piece of Simon Says Woodgrain cardstock, and used just three of the leaves, also a Simon Says stamp set, "Explore Nature." It couldn't be much more CAS, and it came together quickly once I'd embossed and die cut the leaves. It was so quick, I made a second to have on hand.

The sentiment, also by Simon Says ("Thanks") was embossed in white on True Black (PTI) and trimmed out. I used the Zig Kuretake Gansai Tambi watercolors which are so beautiful.

There is already lots of inspiration at the Less is More site. You can check it out here.

 

 

NBUS #3

It's the last day of the NBUS Challenge over at Darnell's, so I pulled out two new items in my stash:  the October Simon Says Card Kit and a stamp set from Clearly Gina K. The stamp set includes a large, stunning image of a calla lily but also a wonderful set of sentiments. It's my first purchases from Gina K. and I'm impressed with it.

All the rest of the supplies came from the Simon Says kit:  beautiful papers from My Mind's Eye from their Blush collection, a piece of Burnished Rose Mirrored cardstock, cream cardstock, and a jar of SSS Steel Navy embossing powder. 

This angle highlights the bronze paper and bronze stripes in the patterned paper. You can almost see the sheen of the embossing powder which is really lovely. This is the last card I need for October birthdays and anniversaries. I need to start thinking about a Christmas card design, and be sure I have the beginning of November covered. There's a huge collection of cards linked to Darnell's challenges---plenty of inspiration here.

Time to Party & More NBUS

I have another entry into the NBUS (Never Before Used Stuff) Challenge hosted by Darnell. In my last PTI order I received a new stamp set called "Hey, Stacks." It's a great set with lots of options for sentiments and a variety of stripes of different weights. The MISTI came in really handy again in order to get vibrant colors for the stripes. Lining up the lines and sentiments wasn't as hard as I originally thought. I drew two light pencil lines and was able to line everything up pretty effectively. I'm thinking I'll find lots of uses for the set.

I chose orange, navy, and a lime green color combination which seemed like good party colors. As I often do, I die cut the focal panel as well as the navy panel with a stitched rectangle die from Simon Says. This was actually my second card. I had some black ink on my hands when I stamped the sentiment the first time and got a smudge on the card. I solved that problem by cutting the smeared section off, and ended up with this:

I don't like it quite as much, but I was happy to salvage it. Both cards could easily be sent to either a man or a woman, though both of these are off to guys!

NBUS Challenge and Monday Memo

Sho 

I've missed the first eight days of the NBUS Challenge, but I'll have entries for the last few days, I'm sure. NBUS stands for "Never Before Used Stuff," and I have plenty of that. Today is my sister-in-law's birthday, and I used the new Papertrey Ink "Sunflower Harvest" stamps. The stamp set was released in August, but this is my first play with it. I must admit that multiple step stamps do cause me some frustration, even with the MISTI. But in the end, I was happy with the outcome.

In addition to "Sunflower Harvest," I used the "Mix and Mat: Postal" die to cut a piece of MFT "Gingham Galore" patterned paper and adhered it all to a kraft card base. 

We had a lovely week. Our neighbor has a cottage on Tar Island in the 1000 Islands, and invited us for a couple of days. He has no internet access, and almost no cell access, so I'm way behind on emails and blog reading. We had beautiful weather, and it was a very relaxing few days. On Thursday, Paul and Tracy golfed. I stayed behind and spent the morning reading in the beautiful sunshine. I finished both books for tonight's book group, as well as Elizabeth Strout's Anything is Possible. I read her earlier novel, My Name is Lucy Barton, and although I enjoyed it, it wasn't as good as I had anticipated. Anything is Possible is a group of short stories which provides fascinating background stories to people mentioned in My Name is Lucy Barton as well as Lucy herself. The collection is much like the linked stories in Olive Kitteridge which I loved. Yesterday I picked up a copy of My Name is Lucy Barton to skim through now that I know so much more about the characters. 

Later in the day, another couple from our church arrived, and Paul took us on a boat tour on the St. Lawrence.

This is Boldt Castle which was built in the early 1900's by George Boldt for his beloved wife, Louise. Sadly she died before the castle was completed, and George left it unfinished.

It's now owned by the Thousand Island Bridge Authority who have renovated the grounds and are beginning a restoration of the interior as well. Neither of these photos show the beautiful flowers and landscaping that they have installed.

This is the boat house! The grounds are a popular tourist attraction, and the destination for many boat tours from Alexandria Bay as well as Rockport, Ontario near where we were staying.

Along the banks of the river is a statue of St. Lawrence himself.

Here are some photos from Paul's cottage. Both mornings we were awake for the gorgeous sunrise.

Thursday morning

Friday morning

And a few photos from the property Paul owns.

I played my first bocce game ever on Friday. Sarah (our friend) and I were way ahead for most of the game, but the men came back to win by one point. Nonetheless, it was great fun, and I've finally found a game where I am reasonably competent!

We're here just a few days before taking off again for a wedding in Boston, but I hope to be back the next three days with some more NBUS!

Shortly after I wrote this post, I heard about the terrible shooting last night in Las Vegas. Words escape me, as these events seem to be happening more and more often around the world. But my thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims as well as all those who experienced this tragic event, and all those who responded to the violence, risking their lives to help those in need.