random reflections

Woodblock Wednesday-August

The fourth Wednesday is always Woodblock Wednesday, and this month the last Wednesday in the month. I read an Opinion piece in the New York Times recently saying that although most people see Labor Day (Monday) as the end of the summer, you don't have to buy into that. Most of my adult life Labor Day was the last weekend of summer because it brought the beginning of the new school year. I actually loved the start of a school year, but this year I'm going to try to hold on to that summer feeling for a few more weeks. 

We got home last yesterday from a fun week on Intermediate Lake in Michigan and two days with friends in the wine country of Traverse City. I'll have some photos up by the end of the week. Luckily, I made my Woodblock Wednesday card before we left, and you can see that summer was definitely on my mind. 

This is another old woodblock that's been in my collection for years. The manufacturer was Fred B. Mullet, and I have no idea where I picked it up. I stamped it on watercolor paper and water colored it with Distress Oxide Inks. Both the narrow frame and the card base were created with woodgrain papers from Simon Says.

The sentiment is from Colorado Crafts' A Fox's Life which a friend gave me. It's never been used so it's off to Darnell's NBUS.  Thanks, as always, to Amy Tsuruta for hosting Woodblock Wednesday! 

Color Hues #93

Tracey has chose perfect summer colors for the new Color Hues Challenge.

I pulled out an old favorite for some bright and cheerful Coneflowers by Honey Bee. The layers and size of the florals make a big impact on an A2 sized card.

Catherine Pooler's Chic Chevron coverplate made a good background for the florals. I added a sentiment stamped in dark brown and fussy cut from Pinkfresh Studio's Friendship Blooms stamp set. 

The colors in the photos are quite a bright as they are in real life--a too frequent result of living in an old house with limited light. I added a few yellow enamel dots was the only embellishment. 

I hope you'll join us at the Color Hues Challenge. The gallery is open until August 29th so there's lots of time to create with us! 

 

Pinkfresh Studio August Challenge

I was excited to see the theme of the Pinkfresh Studio Challenge this month: Washi tape. I immediately knew what I wanted to use, but had to wait until my friend received the card before posting it.

I hadn't pulled out the beautiful, gold enhanced Pinkfresh Studio Washi tape, Sunflowers, in a very long time. They are perfect for a summer birthday. I used a card design I learned from Anett Gelencsér during the Create & Connect event held in February. It creates a middle portion that "pops up" when the card is released from the envelope.

To create the card, we used two of the Notched Corner Frame dies as well as the Stitched Octagons coverplate. I did some light yellow ink blending on the coverplate die and chose two dies from the washi tape collection to decorate the frame. You can see the dimension better in the photo below.

The sentiment is also from Pinkfresh, Perfect Sentiments, hot-foiled in gold. 

I have more Pinkfresh Studio washi tape, but my crafting time for August is just about up, so another entry is probably unlikely. We're off to Michigan this weekend with our daughter and her family, and then to visit with friends we met on our tour of Portugal and Spain last year.  So many ideas, so little time!

 

Harvest Mice

The Double D Challenge theme is Harvest, and it was the perfect opportunity to pull out a My Favorite Things which I have owned (and never used) for so long that it is no longer available to purchase! I love these little mice so I'm not sure why they were so neglected.

I wanted to use the Waffle Flower Postage set again, so used the Postage Collage Coloring Stencil to color the background. I cut the stamps apart, and then set out to stamp, color, and die cut the cute little mice with their haul of pumpkins and apples. I placed the die cuts in four of the postage stamps, and arranged them on a woodgrain card (Simon Says.)

The sentiment from Papertrey Ink's Happy Fall is generic enough that I could use this for a fall birthday or even a fall anniversary. The little heart on the sentiment stamp is a red glittery sticker. 

This card is off to Double D as well as Darnell's NBUS challenge.

 

I have a crafting companion today, who worked very hard to create this card for her cousin who like crafting as much as she does. Here's Hannah with her card.

I had made a card for one of her birthday gifts that featured crafting supplies so that's what she wanted. She was pleased to see that I had a new (another NBUS) set by Gina K, Crafty Notes, and picked out the images she wanted to stamp. It took her no time to master the MISTI and she carefully colored the crafty tools with Tombow markers. She definitely wanted them to be "bumped out." 

When Hannah arrived from Wisconsin on Saturday she brought her watercolors with her and has created several wonderful paintings. After she colored the card and envelope, she noted that she was coloring the marker with one of the colors she used on the card. I think she's got this!

We're sending this off to NBUS as well. 

 

Summer Fence Line

I pulled this stamp set out of the "Summer" box to decide whether I wanted to keep it or not. It's been years since I used it. I found a design on Pinterest for inspiration, and set about creating a card. I'm usually not a fan nor particularly adept at using layering stamps or scene building. But I'm pretty happy with this (almost) one layer card. The stamp set went back in the box. 

The scenery stamp is Summer Fence Line by Papertrey Ink. The sentiment is from The Greetery's Sentiment Suite: Birthday, always a favorite.

I die cut the panel with Simon Says Stamps Stitched Rectangles and layered it on a dark brown card base. 

I'm sending this off to the Paper Players where the challenge is: Beach Time, to Time Out: It's Always Summer Somewhere; and The Four Seasons: Anything Goes Summer.

Color Hues #92

Another month has flown by, and we're at the top of August already: time for a new Color Hues Challenge. Stef has chosen:

Last month, Jill Foster for Penny Black presented ten videos in a series call "Permission to Play." Each video featured a different layout design, and I chose the layout from the second video.

You'll quickly realize I made one major change, using a circle frame rather than an oval. Much to my surprise, I didn't have any decorative oval frames, and no circle ones that I was happy with either. I ended up creating my own using one design from Pinkfresh Studio's Braided Circles and using one of the Ellen Hutson Essential Circles.

I've always love Penny Black's hedgie images, but only own one set. This cute critter rushing off with his package is from the Critter Delight set, and is one I've owned for a long time. Jill Foster used watercolors for all the images in her 10 video series, but I chose Copic markers for this guy.  After adding some ink blending to the background circle, I added the frame with dimensional tape.

The sentiment from The Greetery's Inflated Sentiments was curved to fit inside the frame (and doesn't look as close to the frame IRL.) I added a small butterfly (an embellishment used by Jill on several of her cards.) I didn't have a small die so fussy cut this one from an older Papertrey Ink set, Life is Beautiful. 

There's lots to see at the Color Hues Blog so hop over and take a look at the creative designs by the Design Team.