random reflections

Summer Findings

For a very long time I've wanted to use The Greetery "Curio Divider" and "Curio: Summer Findings" which I purchased at the end of last summer. I decided on using my metallic watercolors with a few stamped images as well as the die cuts.  I must admit this took awhile, but I totally enjoyed watercoloring the different elements, and deciding on the arrangement.

I chose a couple of sentiments to include. One is from The Greetery's " Pretty Postmarks" and the other from Papertrey Ink's "Just Sentiments: Summer." Both were embossed in Rose Gold. The other stamps both stamped in a light brown are also from the "Pretty Postmarks" set as is the die with the postmarks on it. I created a pseudo shaker with the pretty bottle, glueing the Rock Candy Glitter behind the acetate on the bottle.

It's easier to see the shine of the metallic paints in this photo. The two starfish are actually stickers I found in my collection and painted with the metallic paints. Both the starfish are attached with some dimensional tape, and I tucked a tiny piece behind one of the blue leaves. 

There wasn't a rich purple color in my metallic watercolor set, but I found a jar of Radiant Pearls that was just perfect for this gorgeous dragonfly. 

I'm entering this in two challenges: Addicted to Stamps and More: Any Occasion and Fusion: Beach Tiers as well as a last minute entry to the July NBUS.

I'm adding this to two challenges:

I'm hoping I'll have time this week to create a few more summer themed cards. We're (hopefully) off to Scotland on Saturday for a two week tour that was scheduled for 2020 and paid for in 2019. We're going with good friends who are flying out of Washington, D.C. We're flying from Toronto. Given all the travel woes I've read about we'll all be grateful to meet up in Edinburgh. We scheduled our arrivals for the day before the tour starts so we do have a little wiggle room. Hopefully I'll have a couple of blog posts scheduled to post while we are away, but I don't intend to publish any directly from Scotland. If I do post photos, it will be on Instagram. You can find my profile here.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

It's our 49th anniversary today---hard to believe, but true. Tracy spent the morning on the golf course, and I had lunch with a friend. We're going out to dinner out in a bit, but that's the only celebrating for today since a week from Saturday we'll (hopefully) be on our way to Scotland with friends for a two-week tour that was originally scheduled for 2020. It's not often that I go 10 days without a blog post. It's taken me awhile to settle in after our two weeks with Sarah and her family, both here and at Chautauqua Lake. Crafting as definitely taken a back seat, and although I'm busy getting some future posts ready, there won't be a lot of crafting in August either. 

I did make a very CAS anniversary card for Tracy. There's no sentiment on the outside. I tried (and failed) to get a photo of the inside sentiment which reads, "Love you with all my heart." Indeed.

The card base and all the layers are die cut from Fresh Snow Linen card stock. I cut a series of squares with Ellen Huston's Essential Squares and added a gold metallic heart cut with Hero Arts Infinity Hearts. 

Since we're celebrating our anniversary, I thought I'd take the time to share a few family photos from the last two weeks. If there's anything we're most proud of it's our kids and grandkids. First off some photos from Chautauqua Lake. The cottage there was the smallest we've ever shared, but we made it work, and there was a lovely covered patio overlooking the lake. Like some of the Finger Lakes, Chautauqua Lake is a bit murky due to seaweed. The best swimming was in the middle of the lake, off the boat we rented for several of the days we were there. 

Here's Hannah, ready to go! She would have been in the lake every minute if she'd had a choice.

And Caleb would have gone tubing every single day if we'd had a boat for the whole week!

Watching the sunset (and the moon rise) was right up my alley!

Once we got back to Rochester, it was cousin time. It's always so wonderful to watch the five cousins reconnect in just a few minutes each summer. 

It was really hot while Sarah and her family were here. Matt and Betsy have a blow-up waterslide that cooled everyone off in a hurry!

Better yet, Betsy's dad has a fabulous pool in his backyard. Here are the dads, the kids, and Grandpa floating along.

One big change this year, is the willingness of the kids to let Grandma get a photo of all of them. This was the last night with dinner at our house.

And another one, because I couldn't decide.
Back row: Ella 7, Caleb 10, Skylar (almost) 11
Front row: Maddy 6 and Hannah 5

I know it's REALLY HOT for many folks right now. I hope you're able to find a cool place to hang out. It's warm here, but not oppressive for which I am grateful.

 

Seize the Birthday!

The blog's been pretty quiet recently, but we've returned from our week on Chautauqua Lake, and I've got just enough time to enter a couple of cards made for some guys in the family using the current challenge at Seize the Birthday: Metallic!

Having a hot foil machine has definitely increased my production of cards with metallic shine. I particularly like the many geometric designs that can be used for backgrounds. They're great for masculine cards.

This one uses the Art Deco hot foil plate from Pinkfresh Studio, foiled in gold. I die cut it with a square die from the Essentials line by Ellen Hutson and added it to a black card base.

The gold embossed sentiment from The Greetery's Everyday Labels is one of my favorites.

Next up is a navy and silver foiled card using Spellbinder's Skinny Stripes Background.

Foiling on colored cardstock can be a problem, but I've found that the cardstock from The Paper Source is quite smooth and foils easily. 

The sentiment die cut in silver and layered onto a vellum shadow die is also from Pinkfresh and layered onto a Crimped Circle Die from The Greetery. 

My daughter and her family came home with us to spend a few more day visiting with family before heading back to Wisconsin. It's the first rainy day we've had in quite some time. Needed not only by the plants and flowers but all of us as well!

Color Hues #45

Welcome to the next round of the Color Hues Challenge. Kristie is our hostess this time around, and she chose Peach and Gray.

When I first saw the color combination for this Color Hues Challenge, I immediately thought of watercolored florals. I chose a favorite of mine, Honey Bee's "Winter Anemone." I didn't let the "winter" in the title discourage me because I think these are beautiful any time of the year.

I used Karin Watercolor Brush markers for the florals, and added some more detail with Polychromos pencils for the florals and a black Glaze pen to add some dimension to the stamens.

Once the florals were die cut, I chose two shades of gray cardstock. I embossed the darker panel with a new Spellbinders embossing folder, "Plaid Company." The sentiment was embossed in silver from the Pinkfresh Studio "Perfect Sentiments" set.

The last touch was the addition of a few silver metallic pearls.

As always, you'll find a wonderfully diverse set of cards using Peach and Gray at the Color Hues Challenge, created by the Design Team as well as our two Guest Designers this round Caroline and Joyce.

I'm adding this one to the July NBUS Challenge--another new product used!

Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt 2022: First Link-in

The Summer Photography Scavenger Hunt is on. I was trying to remember how many years I've participated, and it took me awhile to figure it out. The first scavenger hunt was posted in June of 2011 and was organized by Rinda Ontiveros who no longer blogs. When she gave up the endeavor, Mary-Lou of Patio Postcards took it on. So that makes 11 years! You can find this summer's list right here. There's still plenty of time to play along if you'd like. Photos can be taken anytime from June 1 to September 30. 

Like last year, I got off to a slow start, but Hannah provided me with two more photos yesterday. We're renting a cottage on Chautauqua Lake for a week. We've rented a boat for two days, and both grandkids were excited to go swimming and tubing. It was a beautiful day, but a bit windy.

So here are the eight photos I have. I may find better ones for some of the prompts, but it's a start.

#1 Path

#2 Peek-a-Boo  This wasn't posed exactly. She poked her head around and said "Peek-a-Boo,"
and did it again so I could get the photo.

#7 Leaf Vein - I have no idea what kind of tree this is, but I admire the leaves every time I walk 
down this street--which is frequently on my daily walk.

#11 Yellow and Blue Together

#12 Fuzzy Wuzzy Texture-this little guy was on the Brickyard Trail

#16 Oh So Colourful

#18 In the Distance - A respectful distance!
This skunk was headed in the other direction toward the sidewalk
 as I was walking last week. I had no desire to get too close, but pulled out
my camera to take a photo. With that, he retreated into the bushes, and I only got the tail!

#20 You Grew It, Made It
Last year we moved all our peonies which hadn't produced many blooms
in the past 10 years. They love the new spot, and this year we had plenty of beautiful flowers.

Alt B: Sunset 
I think I'm likely to find a better photo for this prompt, but this was the sunset the first night
we were here at the cottage, and I thought I'd better capture one when I saw it.

Many thanks to Mary-Lou for the wonderful (and occasionally, challenging) list for this year's hunt. It always turns out to be a family and friends project when we're traveling, which makes it even more fun.

 

 

 

Precious & An Unexpected Holiday

There was wonderful news at a recent extended family gathering--a baby boy is expected this winter! It's a long hoped for event, and I wanted to send a card of congratulations.

The sweet images are from Waffle Flower's "Little One Baby," which I borrowed from a friend for this card. I colored the images with Copic markers and used the coordinating dies to cut them out. I paper pieced the grid pattern from a scrap of patterned paper in my bin.

I forgot to photograph the inside before I sent this off, but it says "is on the way," from another borrowed stamp by Lawn Fawn. I liked these images so much I stamped and die cut a bunch to save for the next time I need a baby card---which admittedly, isn't very often.

This is off to two challenges: Inkspirational: Precious, and Addicted to CAS: Grid.

      

As I said in my last post, we had quite the weekend. We had planned to spend this week driving back and forth to a cottage on Canandaigua Lake to spend time with Tracy's family and a few friends. Just before we arrived at the cottage on Saturday, we received a phone call saying Tracy's sister had been scammed and the cottage was not rented to us! We were planning to celebrate the 4th with a boat ride to watch the fireworks on the lake, celebrate my mother-in-law's 93rd birthday on the 5th, and enjoy gorgeous views of the lake. In addition to renting the cottage, my sister-in-law plans all the meals for the week, and buys most of the food in advance with any average of 10 people at every dinner. 

After talking with the sheriff it became clear that there is very little recourse to such scams. It's not an unusual scam and the perpetrators are most likely not even in the country. We decided to make the best of a bad situation and are in the process of rotating dinners among the three houses where my mother-in-law can navigate with a wheelchair. So the 4th was celebrated at our house. We had a wonderful time despite no lake views and no fireworks.

I should have waited until the table was filled with food before taking the photo!

Last night we celebrated Ellie's birthday at her condominium with grilled oysters, steak, baked potatoes, green beans, salads, and a chocolate cake.

  

It certainly wasn't what we expected, but we're having a lovely week at home.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Many Thanks

I have a set of thank you note cards I created with Pinkfresh Studio's Beautiful Blooms I'd like to share before one of the challenges closes. 

I decided to leave off the sentiment on the white notecard. I liked it just the way it was and knew writing a thank you note inside didn't really require a sentiment on the front. 

All four notecards are A4. The smallest of The Greetery's Crimped Frames is the perfect size for that. The Pinkfresh die set for Beautiful Blooms stamps and cuts three floral images at once which I love. I stamped and cut multiples of them so I have a nice stash for a quick card when I need one.

The sentiment here is from The Greetery's Spring Mix and uses one of my favorite fonts. 

This sentiment was one in my prestamped basket, and I'm not 100% sure where it's from. The banner die is from My Favorite Things.

Finally, this sentiment is also from Pinkfresh Studio's Beautiful Blooms. All the flowers were watercolored with Zig watercolor brushes.

I'm getting these in just under the wire at CAS on Friday where the challenge is Thank You, to the new Flower Challenge: Clean and Simple, and to Happy Little Stampers Watercolor: Anything Goes. 

We had quite the holiday weekend, but it's a long story, and I'll be back tomorrow with that  and another card to share.

 

 

Color Hues #44

It’s the first of July, and time for a new Color Hues Challenge. I’m the hostess this time around, but the colors were chosen ahead of time. Our Design Team has accepted a gracious invitation from Michele of I Card Everyone to be her guests on her series “Playing Cards with Friends.”

The colors are perfect for the upcoming holiday, but are also very versatile for any time of the year. 

For this challenge not only are we using the Colors RED and Blue, Michele asked the Design Team to incorporate STARS and or STRIPES in our designs.  I've got both--a very patriotic birthday card for my mother-in-law who turns 93 on July 5th.

Now, since Color Hues is strictly a Color Challenge, the stars and stripes are NOT going to be required from our participants, but if you want to add them in you certainly may!  

Like many crafters, I keep an assortment of already stamped, embossed, colored, or need-to-be-colored items. I file them in clear envelopes by type. Recently, I found a white panel with a die cut circle and a white piece that had been run through an older embossing folder from Cuttlebug with stars. That was the beginning of the idea for today’s card. 

You can see that it evolved from there. I had one last piece of red and white striped paper from a My Favorite Things paper pack I used as the background for the card. I used the white panel with the stitched die cut circle I had found earlier, but embossed the stars on navy card stock, and then ran a brayer with white ink over the panel to make the stars more visible.

The sentiment embossed in white on red card stock is from Altenew’s “Sentiment Strips 2” set, and die cut with one of The Greenery’s “Pretext Banner” dies. After photographing the card for the blog, I decided it needed a bit of sparkle, so added some tiny rhinestone stars to the centers of the stars in the circle. 

We’ll be celebrating my mother-in-law's birthday at a cottage on Canandaigua Lake, and all five of her children will be present so it's sure to be a festive day!

Now go take a look at the fabulous Red and Blue cards by the Design Team, and when you are done with those, go check out Michele's amazing card!!!