random reflections

Five in Five: September

Today's photos were taken yesterday---on the 5th---always my intention, for Sandie's Five in Five monthly meme. We are on vacation in the north woods of Wisconsin with Sarah and her family and the internet connection has been shaky at best. It's taken awhile to get the photos to download. We spent most of the fifth on the road, arriving late afternoon for a week on Catfish Lake, near Eagle River. We're closer to Lake Superior than to Lake Michigan which is only a mile or so from Sarah's house in Racine. The weather forecast is not been great for the week, but instead of cold and rain today, we've had sunny skies and warm temperatures. Here's hoping the good luck lasts. We were up this morning in time to see the sunrise right out our bedroom window. There will be photos of that later. 

The five photos in five minutes were taken yesterday when we arrived, a glorious warm day. Adam, Hannah, and Caleb all were in the lake before dinner last night, and again today. I don't think there's much chance my swimsuit will leave the suitcase this week. The lake water is way too cold for me!

The property here is beautiful. The owners have 950 ft. of lake frontage. Here's a look:

The view from the patio in front of the house.

The house is quite spacious, four bedrooms, a large living room, a "lounge" as  Caleb has dubbed it the round room on the left side of the photos with windows on three sides,) and a large, eat-in kitchen. There's also a bunk house out back. If we had teenagers with us, they'd love it.

The boat house and dock, three kayaks, and a rowboat. There's also a shuffle board and all kinds of water equipment. If the weather holds, we're planning to rent a boat the end of the week. Catfish Lake flows into Cranberry Lake and there's lots of shoreline to explore. 

The fire pit. Looking forward to a fire and making S'Mores.

The lake front. We've all spent a good amount of time outside today reading, fishing, and just enjoying the views. 

Linking up with Sandie. I have a few posts ready to go if the internet allows, so I may be back again soon.

 

 

 

Happy Day

I have a bright and bold floral to share today at two challenges. First at Seize the Birthday: Add Gold, and also at Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Stamp It in STAMPtember! The annual STAMPtember celebration is underway and the inspiration both on their blog and on Instagram is quite amazing!

 

The flower and colored leaves from Altenew's "Wallpaper Art" were gold embossed and colored with a loose watercoloring technique and then die cut with the accompanying dies. The flowers were one of my experimental exercises during the #100DayProject.

I then stamped and gold embossed some solid leaves from the same set. Before arranging them, I die cut a large circle with the Essentials: Circles by Ellen Huston from a piece of Soft Stone cardstock and added the panel to a white card base. I also die cut the circle again from gold paper as the Essentials dies cut a circle and a thin frame at the same time. After adding the frame, it was time to arrange the floral elements.

The sentiment from Pink & Main's "Special Day" was gold embossed on a vellum die cut banner (Neat & Tangled "Skinny Strips.") Finally I scattered a few gold sequins around the floral cluster.

 

 

Fall Leaves

The current challenge at Time Out is Season, and multiple interpretations of that word can be used. 

The first thing that came to my mind was Autumn. Although there are aspects of the upcoming season I love---fall colors, sweater weather---I'm always somewhat ambivalent about its approach. In Western New York, autumn typically precedes a long, cold, and frequently dark winter. This year I'm dreading it more than usual since the pandemic will require us to move back inside where we'll be more isolated than ever again. We've had fabulous summer weather and have spend a lot of time outdoors---walking, biking, and social distancing with friends on our patio or their decks. I'm not ready to give it up! 

However, this soft, muted card says Autumn to me:

Except for the Stitched Rectangle die by Simon Says, most of the ingredients for the card are from The Greetery. The background was stamped with the "Window Pane Plaid" in Fine Linen ink (PTI). The arrangement of leaves and berries are from "Sealed with a Kiss," stamped and enhanced with Polychromos pencils.

Once the leaves were arranged, I tied some twine around the panel and attached a birthday greeting from "Sentiment Suite: Birthday" on an accompanying "Sentiment Suite" tag. 

Finally, it was all adhered to a card base of Fine Linen cardstock by Papertrey Ink.

I'm also entering this in the CASe This Sketch challenge. The sketch was designed by a good friend, and although I took some liberty with it, I think it shares the basic elements.

 

 

 

 

Another Butterfly

I'm back with another butterfly card for the Just Us Girls Challenge.

This is a pretty atypical card for me, and sadly, one that doesn't photograph particularly well. It's much prettier IRL than in the photographs. I don't often use patterned paper, and rarely use patterned paper as a starting point for a design as I did here. Having recently reorganized and purged my 6X6 paper pads, they are now much more visible. I spotted this geometric paper with gold accents from an older Simon Says Card Kit, and decided to use it with a NBUS cover plate by Reverse Confetti, the Center Circle die.

After die cutting the cover plate, I tried a variety of colored cardstock, and interestingly, this Smoky Shadow by PTI looked the best. The gorgeous butterfly die is an oldie from PTI from the Life is Beautiful set. I die cut the solid image in a brilliant gold paper and overlaid the smoky shadow butterfly after applying a good coat of clear glitter with SpectrumNoir pen.

The sentiment, from Altenew's Sentiment Strips 2, was gold embossed on a strip of matching cardstock. The gold embossing and the gold paper for the butterfly match the gold triangles in the patterned paper perfectly. Just good luck! 

And my first entry for the September NBUS Challenge.

Color Hues #1

The very first Color Hues Challenge has been posted! Every two weeks there will be a new challenge focusing on two colors. Any gradient or hue of those colors along with a neutral can be used in creating your project. The first colors are yellow and green:

Since I chose two simple flowers for the focal point of the card, I decided to start with a stenciled background, using Pinkfresh Studio Sunshine ink with a Hero Arts stencil, "Tweed." 

I stamped the two doodle-style flowers and leaves from My Favorite Things, "Buildable Bouquet" over the top of the stencil, and watercolored them using Altenew's 36 pan watercolors. 

I played around for awhile trying to decide whether to add some embellishmentsm, sequins, clear drops . . . but decided in the end they were too distracting and left the card very clean and simple. I die cut a very narrow frame with Gina K's "Master Layouts 1" from The Stamp Market's Leafy green cardstock which was a perfect match for the watercolored leaves.

The sentiment strip and die are from Taylored Expressions "Simple Strips."  I hope you'll hop over to the Color Hues blog to see what the rest of the Design Team has come up with . . . and join in the fun!