random reflections

Freshly Made Sketches

This week's challenge at Freshly Made Sketches is pretty wide open---make a slimline card. I made my first slimline card earlier this month. Slimline cards are the rage right now, and I have just two dies for them. The first card used the Lawn Fawn Lift the Flap die and today's card uses a beautiful die from Pinkfresh Studio.

I started out by ink blending some Distress Inks on white card stock and then die cut it with the Braided Circle die. The butterflies from the Simon Says "Beautiful Butterflies" were colored with Copic markers. This was the set for the June Card Kit, and it's going to see a lot of use. It includes six beautiful butterfly images and twelve sentiments in a variety of lovely fonts. 

For this card, however, I opted for a sentiment strip from Taylored Expressions. I fussy cut the butterflies since I don't have the dies. On the black card stock behind them, I scored three vertical lines which I could not get to show up in a photograph. I'm off to see what other ideas have shown up for the challenge.

 

 

 

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today is our 47th anniversary. So hard to believe---it's gone by pretty fast! But there's no one I'd rather spend time with than my husband, and after all these years we're still very compatible---though, different, for sure! The pandemic has really emphasized how important compatibility is; we're spending WAY. MORE. TIME. TOGETHER! And, fortunately, enjoying it tremendously.

We didn't expect to do anything special today, but a new restaurant with an outdoor patio opened up just a few weeks ago on Canandaigua Lake. Two sets of friends have already been there for dinner, and said it was wonderful, and every safety precaution has been observed. 

It is, for sure, a beautiful setting, and it was a gorgeous warm evening. The food was good, and our waitress was charming. There were, however, some details about the occasion which were less than ideal so it's unlikely we'll make the drive to eat there again any time soon. Nonetheless, neither of us regretted the trip tonight, and it definitely was a setting for a celebration. Here's an unobstructed view of Canandaigua Lake.

And our version of a selfie:

During one of the OCC Spring Card Camps, one of the techniques was Faux Dip Dye. I originally created this card for that class, and decided right then it would make a great anniversary card, given the sentiments. We're not regular bike-riders, but we do enjoy it. When I pulled the card out a few weeks ago, I realized the stamping of the bike was not as accurate as it should have been, so this is a recreated version of the first card. I'm not as happy with the faux dipping, but the bike is much improved. 

The bike and the sentiment (I love the font!) are both from an older Papertrey Ink set, "Pedal Pusher." Here's the inside sentiment, which was the deciding factor in making this our anniversary card:

Here's hoping the next anniversary isn't celebrated with masks on!

In My Thoughts

I seem to need many more "thinking of you" cards during the pandemic. I have several friends who live alone, and don't have much (or any) family nearby. I try to get cards out every now and then in addition to checking in with the phone or email. Among my many blessings during this difficult time is to live with my best friend!

The current challenge at AAA Cards is for a CAS design:

I decided on a window card this time, using one of my favorite dies by My Favorite Things, the "Rectangle Peek-a-Boo Window." I love the stitched lines around it. 

This time, I'm playing along with the optional challenge of including flowers. These are from Pinkfresh Studio's "Fancy Blooms" set. I colored them with Copics, and fussy cut them since I don't own the dies.

I added a few clear drops to the inside of the card surrounding the sentiment from Papertrey Ink's "It's the Thought." 

It's been an almost ideal weekend in terms of weather, sunny, breezy, and warm. Well, today would qualify as hot, but we got a lovely walk in earlier this morning before the temperature got too high. Even now, though, on the patio it's very comfortable in the shade, thanks to the breeze. Yesterday we took our bikes to the Lehigh Valley Trail and did one section of the trail we hadn't covered walking. Just one more section, and we'll have covered all 25 miles (times 2.) 

 

Color Throwdown

I'm not sure I've ever managed to make a card for a challenge on the day the challenge went live, but today I did. As soon as I saw the colors, I knew what I wanted to do. Here's the new Color Throwdown inspiration.

I have a lovely stash of colored images from the #100DayProject, and knew there were some bright yellow and orange flowers, and spring green leaves. They're all from Simon Says "Spring Flowers" line. I have two of the sets, but I think there may be four or five now. 

I die cut the front of the card with an oval die cut and backed it with a piece of patterned paper from the Papertrey Ink "Lovely Lace" pack. It went with one of their Make It Market kits. I never owned the kit, but purchased one of the paper packs when there was a huge sale. I was actually looking for something else when I found this which is much better than my original idea. 

The sentiment strip is from Taylored Expressions "Simple Strips." I resisted purchasing that for a long time, but so glad I decided to buy it as I reach for one of them over and over again.

The Flower Challenge-Summer Flowers

The current challenge at The Flower Challenge is just too good to pass up so here's another entry. I colored this floral design early in the #100DayChallenge, but didn't make it into a card until recently. It was in a pile of previously stamped images, and once I colored it I rescued the stamp from the "donate pile." It ended up in that pile because I hadn't used it in so long. But I loved coloring it, and was glad it hadn't gotten out of the house yet. It's going to be back in rotation now.

The stamp is an older Hero Arts cling stamp, "Large Blossom." The rubber stamps do stamp beautifully, and I love the black background. 

It was colored with Copic markers. The sentiment is from one of The Greetery's Sentiment Suite sets: Birthday. I love all the different fonts Betsy includes on these sentiment sets.

Hope you're having a good start to your week!

 

Five in Five: July Edition

I'm late this month in joining Sandie in her 5 in 5 minutes meme. Seems that travel knocked my schedule out of whack! Yesterday, however, I was in our front yard admiring our hydrangeas, and took 5 minutes to walk around and photograph some of them. They're blooming later than usual this summer, but are also more prolific than they've been. We have seven in our front yard, several in the back yard and around the patio, and one new one that somehow we planted in my cutting garden. It's one of my favorite, and I cut the two blossoms and brought them inside before I decide on this theme for 5 in 5. But although inside it, too, was taken in the 5 minute time limit. We'll start with that one.

I absolutely love the color of this one. We're doing some major renovations around our patio, and next year I'll move this one up there---hopefully with a few others.

When Matt redesigned the landscaping in our front yard a few years ago, he planted this hydrangea tree. It starts out pure white, and you can see it changing to pink in this photo.

Also in the front yard are six hydrangeas that don't grow quite as tall as many of the others. They are just beginning to bloom, and usually produce blooms in pinks, purples, and blues.

For the last several years we've only had 1-3 blooms on this hydrangea which is just outside our dining room door. These make a wonderful bouquet,
and I have a pitcher full of them inside.

This hydrangea is behind the previous one, and is probably close to 5 ft. tall.

These are my favorite summer flowers because they bloom all summer, make wonderful bouquets, and some of them dry beautifully as well. For the last two winters, I've had a vase or two filled with the dried hydrangeas from our front yard. 

A Second Two Challenge Card

This might be one of my favorite birthday cards---so clean and simple---and yet classy enough for a very special birthday!

A very good friend turned 90 while we were away, and I made sure this card arrived on time. I started with the navy blue shimmer card and then die cut the numbers from a scrap of silver metallic cardstock with The Stamp Market's "Skinny Upper Numbers." 

The sentiment is from a Papertrey Ink set I've used over and over again, "Big Birthday Wishes." It has all kinds of great sentiments designed to accompany whatever year is being celebrated. 

And I must say, that if I had a photo of my friend, you would never know that he was 90 years old!!!

This card is for the CAS on Friday Challenge: Anything But White, and the Seize the Birthday Challenge: A Non-neutral Card Base.

 

 

 

 

One Little Word: A Very Late Update for June

Our trip to Racine to see Sarah, Adam, Caleb, and Hannah spanned two weeks from the end of June to the beginning of July. It threw me off totally in terms of evaluating my OLW intentions and setting some new ones for July. 

I did keep up with a photo every day, although I took some liberty with this collage, inserting the three little girls' "last day of home school" photos over the course of three days. Betsy had them get dressed up as if it were the last day of school and they were happy to oblige. Had school been in session it would have ended for the elementary students on the 17th. Skylar "finished" third grade; Ella, kindergarten, and Maddy is still in preschool. There's no word here, yet, of whether schools will open in September and, if they do, what they might look like. Then, of course, parents have to make a decision whether or not they feel the options available are safe. I don't envy any parents that decision. Sarah and Adam are already wrestling with it. Caleb's Montessori school is set to reopen for five days a week. Wisconsin, however, continues to see a surge in Covid-19 cases, and there is a general unwillingness of folks to wear masks. We didn't enter any stores while we were away, but Sarah and Adam have taken to ordering almost everything online to be delivered or picked up curbside. Many other photos are from our hikes, and some of the fun we had in Racine. You can see Caleb taking one of his Tae Kwan Do classes via Zoom on the 26th. Dad is helping out as he practices his kicks. I documented our daily lunch at home on the 12th. If the weather permits, we eat on the patio and play a game of cribbage while we eat.

I also kept up with the #100DayProject, doing two coloring pieces a day when I missed a day due to travel. 

There was lots of reading time in June, both on the patio, in the morning, and in Racine. I read seven books:

(There was an issue with Typepad formatting these books this time. It's never been a problem before. I couldn't get to left-justified margins without these sentences. Who knows?)

I really enjoyed both Marilynne Robinson books. I'd read Gilead years ago, but was glad to have reread it. It's the first of three linked books about two ministers and their families during the 1950's in Gilead, Iowa. Not a lot happens, but both books are beautifully written and the NYTimes described Gilead as having a "spiritual force that's rare in contemporary fiction," and indeed, I wished at the end that I had underlined major portions of it. Sarah was reading I'm Still Here . . . while we were there, and I picked it up as soon as she finished it. I've since ordered my own copy, and our church is sponsoring an online book group about it that starts Sunday evening. The Pull of the Moon was my book for The Unread Shelf. It was a quick read, but not particularly satisfying. I wasn't a huge fan of The Bookshop, our couples' book group choice, but most of our group seemed to like it a lot. Such a Fun Age wasn't as engaging as I expected it to be. Tracy always says that movies and books that get rave reviews rarely live up to the expectation. In this case, that was true. I also loved Rebecca Solnit's memoir. Memoir is one of my favorite genres, and this one has a very unique take on the genre, but one I really enjoyed. Solnit is a historian and activist who writes extensively on feminine issues and the environment. She's had a fascinating history.

I'm not planning any big changes for July. The #100DayProject ended a few days ago, but I had already started my second 30 Day Coloring Challenge hosted by Kathy Racoosin so I'll finish that up. There's the usual stack of books, many more photos to purge, and some online classes I'd like to take.

Mostly, I'm trying to stay as positive as I can as the virus spirals out of control without any serious leadership from the federal government. Fortunately, our county has remained pretty stable, and in NY everyone is required to wear a mask before entering any indoor establishment. I've read of instances where folks have refused, but in the few places I've been I've not seen anyone without a mask. We returned from Wisconsin just a week before rates there went up enough that anyone coming into NY from Wisconsin must quarantine for two weeks. The list of states for which that is true is updated almost daily. Now people coming to NY on public transportation are met by officials and must complete a written document so that contact tracing can take place if necessary. I hope it helps contain the virus, which is beginning to rise statewide again. There doesn't seem to be any end in sight, and I find it incredible that there are still people who believe it's a hoax, and won't take it seriously. 

Ah, well, here's to the health and safety of all of us during the rest of the summer. I'm so grateful to be secure, safe, and have access to beautiful outdoor spaces during this lovely time of year. May the same be true for you.

 

 

One Card; Two Challenges

I have a card for two challenges: AAA Cards: Made in Minutes and The Flower Challenge: Summer Flowers.

It's not often I can make a card in just a few minutes, but this one came together very quickly, and is one of my CAS faves. I should have made multiples in different colors!

It's a simple watercolored flower from Altenew's "Sketched Flowers" die cut, attached to white card cut with a "Stitched Rectangle" from Simon Says, and then to a Lovely Lady (Papertrey Ink) card base.

I wish I had more sentiments with this font, which is a favorite of mine. It's from Papertrey Ink's "Never Enough Thanks" set.

 

The Flower Challenge: Summer Flowers

The Flower Challenge is for summer or winter flowers, depending on which hemisphere you live in. It's definitely summer here, and I am grateful. The stay-in-place restrictions are so much easier to endure if you can be outside in your garden or on your patio. 

 

I made this card for a friend who now has possession of it, so it can be shared on the blog. I used a newer Pinkfresh Studio set "Keep Going," which I've used several times during the #100DayProject. Today was Day 100, and I have a stack of cards, and an even bigger stack of colored images ready to be made into cards. I enjoyed the challenge, and have 15 more days of coloring ahead of me in order to finish Kathy Racoosin's current 30 Day Coloring Challenge. This is the second one she's hosted since the pandemic started. 

I colored the beautiful flowers with Copic markers and trimmed down the left side of the panel. I added a strip of black and white striped paper from My Favorite Things and a narrow strip of black cardstock to the white card base.

The sentiment is from Altenew's "Floral Frame" stamp set. There are still a few days left for this challenge, so I'll most likely be back again more quickly than usual.