random reflections

Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt: August Link-up

It's the last day of August, and in some ways it still feels like the end of summer which it surely was all the years I taught! Officially, we still have a few weeks before the end of the Summer Scavenger Hunt, and I have two items left to find. Fortunately, Mary-Lou offered up a couple alternate items which may be easier to find than the last two I need. We'll see. I have posted earlier finds here, here, and here.

For August, I have three new offerings and one more for Mellow Yellow:

On our weekend trip to the Adirondacks, I found two more items.: #12 Bells and #16 Something that Could Be From a Favorite Book or Movie. Both photos of bells came from the Old Forge Hardware, one of Tracy's favorite haunts.

At the Wild Center in Tupper Lake, we found this web which immediately made me think of my very favorite book from childhood, Charlotte's Web.

Last, #15, Out of the Blue--gorgeous hydrangeas.

One of our neighbors has this sign posted. It's so sad that such a sign is necessary in this country, but it speaks to one of my biggest concerns--the lack of tolerance and lack of civility in our country. 

Thanks, as always to Mary-Lou for creating the hunt and hosting the link-ups!

Watercolor Basics and Beyond: Part 3

Back again with another project from Altenew's "Watercolor and Beyond" class. This has been such an easy class to keep up with. Jennifer's video's are short and to the point, but with enough detail to easily understand the concept she's teaching. I have just two more lessons to complete---the one that failed the first time (I think now I know how to correct my problems), and the last lesson of the class which I watched this morning. I should be able to meet my self-imposed goal of being done by the weekend.

This lesson was about coloring a detailed embossed image with watercolor. It's a technique I've used before but not with such a detailed image. Jennifer used the new Altenew "Needlework Motif" set. I'd seen a lot of beautiful projects using the stamp during Altenew's release week, and ordered it. It was sitting on my desk awaiting this opportunity.

I'm very happy with the results. I took my time and used a very small watercolor brush, following the advice to move around the image letting one area dry before watercoloring the area next to it. It's advice I've read many times before, but haven't always heeded. It's clear it's advice worth following. I stuck to four colors of blue and two colors of green all from my Gansai Tambi watercolors. I do think I'm about to splurge on the Altenew set because of it's compact size and the wide range of bright colors. I embossed the image with rose gold embossing powder which is so lovely. Here's a closer look.

We're off to lunch with our couples book group--discussion of Killers of the Flower Moon at one of the member's home afterwards. Later this evening, we're going to the Food Truck Rodeo at the Public Market with good friends. It's our first of the rodeos this summer. Although summer days are waning, the heat and humidity are not, so it still feels like summer for sure. 

Watercolor Basics and Beyond: Part 2

The next lesson in Altenew's watercolor class was on using watercolors as ink. It's important in this technique to use concentrated amounts of watercolor which you apply directly to the stamp, and then lightly spritz the stamp with water before stamping onto watercolor paper. Following that you can use a small brush to distribute some of the watercolor and enhance some of the details. I don't have a lot of Altenew's layering stamps (it's a technique I'm still learning to master), but using the detail stamp for the layering was recommended. Actually, the "Build a Flower" Magnolia" worked out pretty well for this technique.

I actually had a lot more trouble turning the piece into a card than I did executing the watercolored flower. I added some black and gold splatters after stamping the sentiment (from Altenew's "Floral Frame" stamp set) and let them dry for over three hours. When I went to adhere the watercolor piece to a card I weighted it down and when I picked it up, some of the black splatters had smeared in the upper left-hand corner! I finally found a Spellbinders die that was the right size to incorporate the flower, the sentiment, and eliminate the smeared splatters. What a pain! I added a gold border and used a Memory Box licorice card. Here's a closer look at the gold border and splatters.

 

I'm halfway through the videos for the class, and hope to finish it before the weekend. The next technique we learned was watercoloring an embossed sentiment. Looks easy, probably should be easy, but three attempts have hit the circular file. I'm moving on, although I'll probably come back later and try again.

 

Watercolor Basics and Beyond: Part 1

On a whim, I enrolled in Altenew's "Watercolor Basics and Beyond" class this week. It's designed to showcase Altenew's new set of 36 watercolors which look lovely, but I don't own them (yet). It doesn't matter, as I'm already enjoying the class, and have several sets of watercolors to choose from. In lesson 2, Jennifer Raza introduced watercolor washes. I've done these for a variety of card backgrounds, but she added a twist I would never have thought of on my own: pressing a stencil into the watercolor wash and letting it dry. I can tell you when I set it aside to dry overnight, I did not have high hopes for it. It appeared to be a hot mess. It's weighted down with an acrylic block.

Much to my surprise the next morning, I discovered quite a lovely background which was fun to use in creating this card. 

As I often do, I die cut the watercolored piece with the largest of Simon Says "Stitched Rectangles." The die cut sentiment is from Mama Elephant, and the white embossed sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's "Blue Skies." After they were added to the background, I mounted it all on a True Black  top-folded card.

It's definitely a technique I'll try again, although I didn't seem to have many stencils that I thought would work for this technique. 

Take Three Thursday: Hydrangeas

A quick post at the end of Thursday to join Mary-Lou in her Take Three Thursday meme. I commented to Maggie the other day that the flowers in my cutting garden are nearing the end of their bloom. Not so the beautiful hydrangeas Matt planted in our front yard last year. In the first photo, you see just half the landscaping of the front yard, and three of the six hydrangeas bushes.

The hydrangeas in the back of the house haven't done as well this year. I usually cut some of those blooms to put in a vase in the house. I can't quite bring myself to cut any of these. Last fall, the flowers on these bushes turned a beautiful burgundy color and I let them dry in a vase. They were lovely all winter long. 

Me on Monday--August 20

We've had a special trip on our calendar for a long time, and we were afraid Tracy's illness was going to keep us from it, but over the last week he made steady improvement, and now seems to be almost completely recovered. So on Friday, we drove to the Adirondacks to meet up with our very close friends for a memorial hike. Tracy's backpacking partner passed away a year and a half ago from cancer. Before he died, we told Bob we'd like to take some of his ashes to the high peaks in the Adirondacks where he and Tracy hiked every September. Even before Tracy's illness we had agreed that hiking to the top of Giant Mountain (our original plan) was probably overly ambitious for at least some of us. None of us, truthfully, had been on a trail for several years, and for four of us it had been a very long time. All of us hiked together when the kids were young, and during that time, we climbed several of the 46 High Peaks.

Saturday we hiked Mt. Jo, one of the shorter trails with a bit less incline, and not one of the 46. Nonetheless, the trail was more strenuous than any of us remembered. All of us had hiked it many years ago when our kids were quite young. But we did great. 

Here we are at the summit of Mt. Jo--me and Tracy, Cathy, Rachel, and Sarah---Bob's wife and two daughters. 

It was a cloudy, overcast day, but the clouds had lifted from the summit by the time we arrived. We had a lovely view of Heart Lake. The trailhead leaves not far from the lake.

We were, not surprisingly, not alone at the summit, but were able to hike into a clearing and have some quiet time to remember Bob and all the wonderful times we had with him on these mountains. We all agreed, it was just as we hoped it would be, and we knew Bob would be pleased. We spent two nights near Whiteface Mountain, and enjoyed our time together there as well. 

On Sunday after a wonderful breakfast at our favorite diner in Lake Placid, Tracy and I headed off for the Wild Center. For many years, while Tracy and Bob hiked, Cathy and I had a girls' weekend in the Lake Placid area. When the Wild Center opened up, we spent a wonderful morning there, and then returned with the guys several years later. Since that last visit, they've built and opened the Wild Walk, an elevated walkway among the treetops of the forest which Tracy was anxious to see.

It does give you a very different perspective, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time there. The Wild Center also houses a wonderful interpretive center. Since we had previously spent a lot of time there, we walked through more quickly this time.

We drove home through Old Forge where we had a late lunch and visited the Old Forge Hardware---one of Tracy's favorite establishments. I have a photo from there for the Summer Scavenger Hunt (as well as one from the Wild Center), but I'll save those for the SPSH link up at Mary-Lou's on Friday.

 

Anniversary Cards

Sarah and Adam as well as two sets of friends celebrated anniversaries in the last several months. The cards went out on time, but were never posted. Like the Fence Line post a couple of days ago, these cards are variations using the same stamp.

Both cards use the Simon Says "Center Cut Heart" which has become my "to-to" stamp for anniversary cards. The center heart pops out of the stamp so you can stamp it separately which I did here. First I embossed the outer portion in gold on Papertrey's Weathervane cardstock. Then I gold embossed the center heart on True Black. After watching multiple videos on Yana Smakula's blog using Polychromos pencils on dark cardstock, I decided to give it a try. I trimmed down the outer edge of the stamped piece so a thin black border would appear when I adhered it to the card.

I took a different approach to Sarah and Adam's card, and ended up just using the center heart. 

After coloring it with the Polychromos, I carefully cut it out and layered it on a Reverse Confetti Pierced Round Top die. The sentiment from an old Papertrey Ink set, "Fillable Frames #8" was gold embossed below and the pieces added to a Bazzill textured red card. I think I purchased this at a wonderful scrapbook store near Phoenix, AZ the last time I was there (it's been at least 10 years!) I rounded the top two corners of the card to complement the round top die.

I was hoping the textured cardstock which is subtle but so pretty would show up better with this view, but it didn't happen. This is my favorite of the two (and the reason it went to Sarah and Adam!)

Fence Lines for Inspired By . . . Seascapes

A generous friend gave me a gift certificate to Papertrey Ink for my birthday. I saved it for something special, something I wouldn't ordinarily order. When I saw the Fence Line: Summer stamps and die sets I knew I'd found the perfect way to use the gift certificate. I don't usually buy stamps that are so specific to a season, but I really love these, and I love how the cards turned out.

The first card went to my friend so she could see how I had used her gift certificate.

After I had stamped and die cut the elements from Fence Line, I die cut the outer two pieces to the Shape Shifters: Oval 2 die. The Shape Shifter dies are among my favorites because they are so versatile. Using a stencil brush, I added some Salty Ocean Distress Oxide ink to the top of the oval fro the sky, and some Fossilized Amber for the sand. Since I was writing a note I decided not to add a sentiment to the front of the card.

The second card is a top folded card. I like that you can use these elements in both a horizontal and a vertical format.

When I made this card, I had just finished watching all the videos for Kristina Werner's "Simply Watercolor" class. It was the week Sarah and her family were here. I was able to watch the videos, but had no time to play with the watercoloring techniques she demonstrated. Both the sky and the sand were done with watercolors, and I used Kristina's technique to create a sky filled with white clouds. Right as Sarah left, Tracy came down with what appeared to be a virus (and was diagnosed twice as such), but turned out to be mono. Who knew a 70 year old could get mono? It's the sickest I've ever known him to be. At any rate, he is still slowly recovering, so time in the craft room has been very limited. I'm hoping to get to Kristina's other lessons in the next week or so.

On top of the watercolored "sand" I stamped the sand image from the set to add some texture. Once again I used the Shape Shifter: Oval 2 as the canvas for the card. I did stamp a sentiment on this card which was given to my daughter-in-law for her generous invitation to stay with them in Nantucket in July. I used the MISTI and stamped it two or three times, but in retrospect wish I had used a die cut for the sentiment instead.

Unlike the first card, I didn't bother to "punch out" all the little die cut pieces from the frame. I think it works well either way.

I'm linking up the first card to Inspired By . . . Seascapes.

Masculine Birthday Cards

Recently I posted a card for a sailor who is about to turn 60. His avocation prompted the theme of the card, and it was one of the easier cards I've made for a man recently. Usually I struggle with masculine cards but I have two more to share today. Both are CAS cards, and were also very quick to make. I still have one to make sometime before the 25th for a close friend who is turning 70. I have something in mind, but it's likely to be a bit more involved.

This card uses one of my favorite patterned papers ever--"Black and White All Over" by Papertrey Ink. Sadly, it's no longer available. The paper is exactly the size of an A2 card, and I added a border of True Black, two thin pieces of Pure Poppy, and a die cut from "Penned Elegance" to complete it. It truly was a quick and easy card with one of my favorite color combinations: red, black, and white.

Next up is another card that uses patterned paper from another of Papertrey's sets, "3 Piece Suits." It appears to have been discontinued as well.

I used one of the Simon Says "Stitched Circles" to die cut a piece of the patterned paper, and added it to a piece of Smoky Shadow cardstock that I had scored every 1/2 inch. The same die cut sentiment from "Penned Elegance" fit into the circle perfectly, and I used a piece of fun foam behind the Smoky Shadow before adding it to a white top-folded card.

I love that the stitching in the patterned paper echoes the stitched die cut for the sentiment. I'm entering this one in the Addicted to CAS challenge: Masculine before the challenge closes on Friday.

 

 

Five in Five: August Sunflowers

The fifth of the month always takes me by surprise, and although Sandie gives us to the 25th to post our five photos taken in five minutes, I think it's fun if I manage to do it on the 5th of the month as well. This month it paid to be late because this weekend the field of sunflowers just south of us is at its peak, and the weather was perfect. I drove out just before dinner last night, and although I managed to get photos without other photographers, there were lots of folks, some with professional photographers, getting photos of themselves with the sunflowers.

This first photo also qualifies for two prompts on the Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt: #10 Field of Plenty and # 20 Mellow Yellow. I've already posted images for those, but I like this one a lot better.

Off to link up to Sandie's meme: Five in Five.