random reflections

End of Summer Get-away

Sarah and her family spent a week with us in Rochester, and then the six of us took off for Intermediate Lake in Michigan where we had rented a cottage for a week. The weather was much cooler than we anticipated, but it didn't keep the kids out of the water, and by the end of the week it had warmed up. It was, gratefully, sunny every day.

The cottage was set back from the lake. The only disadvantage to that was the view from the cottage was more limited than it might have been.

We rented a boat for the week, and got out on the lake every day. Caleb (as you will see) loves tubing, and wished for a faster boat. Hannah wasn't interested in tubing this year, but loves driving with Grandpa. 

Hannah did like kayaking. The cottage had several we could use, and Sarah tied Hannah's kayak to hers. Hannah paddled continuously so I don't thing the rope did much except keep her with Sarah.

We think we may put this photo on a tee shirt for Caleb on his birthday!

The kids talked Adam into tubing. The rest of us passed on it. 

And that's the way we spent most of the days--on the water. I don't have any photos of Hannah in the water, but the water was shallow enough that she could easily play in the water which she loved. We also played board games, read, and napped. A pretty fine way to spend one of the last weeks of the summer.

After Sarah and her family left for Wisconsin, we stayed on for a couple of days to meet up with a couple we met on our tour of Spain and Portugal. Candy and Ralph live in northern Indiana so we had met them for lunch earlier in the year on our way home from Wisconsin. This time Ralph got us rooms at one of the wineries near Traverse City. It was gorgeous, and so relaxing. We had lovely rooms, but also had the use of a very large living area and patio. Traverse City is one of their favorite get-aways. 

One morning they took us to Fish Town--an old fishing village that now offers boat rentals, fishing excursions, and shops. 

I was excited to finally see a Wood Duck. There was a whole flock of them.

This is a view from one of the wineries we visited. The grounds were beautiful, as were the ones where we stayed.

All in all it was a wonderful trip. We returned to a very busy schedule which is finally winding down this week. Two weeks from Saturday we'll be off again. I don't expect to do more than try to keep up with email during that trip, so I hope to get a lot of crafting and posting done in the next week or two.

 

 

Happy Father's Day

It's unusual, but here is a second post for the day. The new Color Hues Challenge started today as well; scroll down for that post. Last year I purchased Concord & 9th's Greatest Hits. During one of their recent sales, I picked up the accompanying For the Record.  I combined parts of both sets to make Father's Day cards for Tracy and Adam. Since I used For the Record last year for Matt's card, his card was a totally different design this year. These three guys are really the best. dads. ever.  

Adam and Tracy's cards were essentially the same, and both are a CASE of Carissa Wiley's intro to the set on the Concord & 9th site. I made my background much cleaner and changed the colors, but the basic design stayed pretty much the same. 

I love the way Carissa layered the main sentiment. It makes for a pretty thick card, but this year neither card needed to be mailed. We just came home from a trip to Washington, D.C. with Caleb, our 12 year old grandson, so I left Adam's card with Sarah when we left yesterday. Here's a close up:

The orange is layered with the blue and the gold. The gold record is attached with a brad and spins around. Here's a look at the inside of the card:

The record die cut with glossy black cardstock is from Greatest Hits and the sentiment is from Pink and Main's Special Day.

Matt's card is a totally different design with one of my favorite color combination - they work for almost anyone:  red, gray, black and white.

I started by die cutting strips of four colors with The Stamp Market's 1/4" Quick Strips and starting at the bottom, adhered them on a diagonal. The Pinkfresh Adore Alphabet is one of my favorites. The sub-sentiment was from the Concord & 9th Greatest Hits.

I'm sending these off to Addicted to Stamps and More: Die Cuts and Inspired By: Pops.

 

 

Happy Birthday, Caleb and Hannah!

Just five days after Christmas Caleb and Hannah celebrate their birthdays. We've only missed this celebration twice--once when we came a bit later so we could all go to Disney World together in January and then a year later during the worst of the pandemic.

Not surprisingly, Hannah was up and ready to get the festivities underway earlier than her brother. Sarah excels at decorations for their birthdays and at writing and publishing clues for the scavenger hunts that have become a tradition. Both kids woke up to decorations hanging in their doorway. Here is Hannah, posing in the doorway with a shirt Sarah made with the Circuit which she also used to create the colorful decorations as well as all the clues for both scavenger hunts.

Here's Caleb reading one of the clues which were a bit harder to decode than he would have liked. His involve lots of codes to decipher.

But the clues were nothing compared to the final gift! He received a handmade (by his dad) box that was secured with screws. Hannah was more outraged than Caleb when it turned out the big box revealed another smaller box with the same problem.

All the effort was worth it, however, when he discovered he's been given a video game he had long wanted and did not expect to get. Hannah was pretty interested in it, too.

Good friends arrived for cake and ice cream. Both kids choose their cakes which means there are lots of leftovers! Hannah wanted a cake with a dog on it--the dalmatian was pretty cute. Caleb wanted a mint chocolate ice cream cake.

 

Hannah is currently very invested in anything with dogs. She got the cutest dress with dogs all over it, and of course, her birthday card had to have dogs on it as well.

I've used the My Favorite Things Woof Pack so often for Hannah's cards that I'm surprised she hasna't commented on it. Reverse Confetti's Pierced Round Top die made a great tag for the three puppies.

I went with a music theme for Caleb this year. The Concord & 9th Greatest Hits works well for guys and almost teens.

The card design was a CASE of one created by Rebecca Keppel. The record looks so realistic die cut with glossy black cardstock.

Both kids get subscriptions for their birthdays. In the past, Hannah got one to Kiwi Kits which were fantastic. This year she asked for a "Grandma Subscription" for art supplies. Caleb has had one for books for several years. He lets me know what book he'd like that month, and I send it to him. For Hannah, it will be an art supply. She's an amazing artist for a seven year old. Here's the subscription card:

I started with The Greetery's Curio Divider card and then added stamped images from a variety of different stamp sets. And here she is with a new art kit busy drawing.

I love this Concord & 9th Book Shoppe dies. This card was also a CASE from Laurie Willison who designs wonderful CAS cards. The sentiment is from Sugar Peas Book Club stamp set. This year Caleb requested alternating months with a book one month, and one of our Audible credits the next month. He's enjoying listening to books even more than reading them.

We're off to Milwaukee tomorrow morning for brunch and to see the Beyond King Tut exhibit. Then Sarah's co-pastor and her family are coming over to celebrate New Year's Eve later in the afternoon.

 

 

 

 

Holiday Gift Card Holders

Now that all the gift cards have been given, I can share some gift card holders I made with My Favorite Things, Money Card and Gift Card Pocket dies. I could have made my own, but picked these up on sale and they certainly speeded up the process. 

First up, one for my daughter-in-law. She's reads lots of books on her Kindle, so an Amazon gift card seemed just right. 

I love this bright pink paper from Gina K, and the striped paper from My Favorite Things' Christmas Cheer pad matched perfectly. The die cut snowflake is also from Gina K--from the Sparkle and Shine kit. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things' Best Gift Ever.

For some sparkle, I added some Iridescent Drops from Pinkfresh Studio which are so beautiful when the light catches them.

Next up is a gift card to a great golf course near us. It's one of the more expensive ones to play so a gift certificate to Ravenwood is always appreciated.

The patterned paper for this card was in my stash of unmarked papers. The images were stamped with an old Papertrey Ink set, On the Links, and the letters from their Headliner Alphabet.

The last gift card was for LL Bean. I didn't have any appropriately themed stamps so went with a Christmas theme, using stamps and a die from My Favorite Things Jingle All the Way set. It has some of my favorite images of Santa. I popped up Santa on an image from Simon Says  Ornament Options stamp and die set, 

This time I used patterned paper from an old American Craft pad. I couldn't find the name of the paper but it was printed in 2016 which is probably when I purchased it. When I went to add the stitched panel to the stitched rectangle from the Gift Card Pocket it would have covered up all the cool images in the patterned paper, so I embossed the sentiment on another die from the Money Card dies.

The last one was a gift card to a nail salon, and the gift certificate was on a heavy cardstock the size of a business envelope. I found a bright pink slimline envelope that worked perfectly and added three die cut nail polish bottles from My Favorite Things Iconic Beauty set. It was another purchase during a sale. I figured with four granddaughters I'd have plenty of opportunity to use it. And, as it turns out, it' great for an adult as well.

The sentiment is from My Favorite Things Best Gift Ever set, and I coated the polish bottles with Nuvo Crystal glaze for a more realistic look. I CASEd the glittery labels from one of the images on the MFT's site. 

As luck would have it, My Favorite Things has a  Show Me the Money Challenge, so off three of these go.

 

Merry Christmas!

It's been a little over two weeks since I've written a blog post. I've been busy creating and getting ready for today in many different ways. I have lots to share and will try to get the holiday projects shared before New Year's, but I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas if it's a holiday you celebrate.

One of my favorite projects this year was a limited edition Christmas card. I suspect I'll make a few more next year. They were a lot of fun to put together.

I started with The Greetery's Elegant Entrance Arches die cut from black cardstock. I added door handles with gold paper and mounted it on Simon Say's Fog cardstock. I was careful not to add any glue to the bottom portion of the door so I could add the Oh, Christmas Tree from The Stamp Market to the inside.

The tree was die cut with Concord & 9th's Evergreen cardstock, one of my favorite dark greens. I splattered some gold metallic paint on it before adding the garland cut from gold glitter cardstock. The garland has places to add gems (as ornaments) and I used a variety of Pinkfresh drops.

Once again, the Memory Box gold foiled black "Merry Christmas" tabs was the perfect sentiment. (Best seen in the top photo.)

There are still some challenges out there looking for holiday themed projects so I'm sending this on to The Card Concept: Christmas Cheer where the inspiration is the evergreens and the Christmas colors., to Inkspirational: Celebrate (indeed we did!), and to NBUS as this was the first time I used the arched door and the Christmas tree. The Card Concept asks you to select a style for your card. It's not often I would choose Classy and Elegant, but in this case I think it's the best fit.

We celebrated with my son and his family yesterday before the Christmas Eve service at church where we were both ushers. That turned out to be more involved than usual since it was the candlelight service. Today Tracy's local family and in-laws came for an early dinner. Everyone brings a dish so it's not an overwhelming task to get dinner on the table. Years ago there were 27 of us for dinner (four tables). This year there were nine at one table, and my brother-in-law spoke for all of us when he said he misses all the kids. We are, however, so very grateful to be healthy, happy and to have family nearby. We're on our way to Wisconsin tomorrow afternoon. We take two half days to drive there. It makes for a much more pleasant trip. We have dinner reservations at a favorite restaurant near Toledo tomorrow night, and will arrive in Racine on Wednesday. I expect to be a much more frequent blogger in the next few weeks.

I hope you've had a wonderful weekend and a happy holiday!

Happy Halloween (Part 2)

Halloween has never been a favorite holiday of mine, probably due to the fact that elementary school students (regardless of grade level) were rarely very attentive on Halloween--or the day after. I do, however, enjoy making Halloween cards for my grandchildren. When I took these down to my granddaughters last night, I was very pleased to discover that the oldest has kept many of the cards I've given her. I never thought they'd last much beyond a day or so, but she ran upstairs and came down with about 20+ cards for various occasions. The Halloween pile was, in fact, the largest. Here's this year's edition:

Just about everything on these cards came from The Stamp Market. I purchased just one die set this year, the Shaker Ghost, and also bought the sequin mix for the shakers. The "eek" was part of last year's stamp & die set, Happy Halloween. 

The orange cardstock is The Stamp Market's Melon, and the cardbase was made with Spellbinder's Brushed Black which has a subtle shine. The eyes and mouth were die cut from some black glitter paper in my stash. These were fun to make and all three girls seemed quite pleased with them (as well as the small cash enclosure.)

There's still one challenge open for Halloween cards--especially ghosts: Inspired by Boo! I'm also sending this over for the last day of the NBUS site since this is the ghosts' first appearance. 

We rarely get many trick-or-treaters--our street has no street lights, few sidewalks, and is a dead-end street on both ends. I hope the tinies that live on the street show up again this year. They were absolutely adorable last year and arrived as one group with all the parent in tow. 

 

Happy Birthday, Skylar!

Today is the 12th birthday for my oldest granddaughter. You couldn't ask for a nicer young lady--serious about school and passionate about horseback riding. We gave her a gift certificate to the local tack shop which is loaded with all kinds of things for horseback riding. I'm sure she'll find something she'll like. Unfortunately, my stamp collection does not include images of horses. Well, there's one wooden stamp but I forgot about it when I was making her card. She also loves rainbows and pretty colors so I went with this:

I was lucky a month or so ago and won the Sneak Peek kit from Waffle Flower that included this Stacking Cake Die.  I used glitter paper for the frosting, and purple and bright pink for the candles--adding a bit of glitter to them with a Nuvo glitter pen. The sentiment strip was also included in the kit. For the background I used the Pinkfresh Studio Layered Sunburst stencil which I ink blended with a variety of Pinkfresh Studio inks.

I'm sending this off to the Seize the Birthday challenge without the topping this time. The colors of Skylar's card match pretty successfully with the STB logo designs. And also to NBUS since this is the first time I've used the stacking cake die. 

Hope you're having a great day! Sun is shining here which is always a mood booster!

Many Thanks

I’m basically in recovery mode after a very busy and emotional weekend. My MIL’s memorial service was on Friday. It was a beautiful service and brought the entire family to Rochester—all 38 of us from six different states, including, of course, Sarah and her family. Sarah was the liturgist for the service, and it was wonderful to see her participating in a service in the church where she grew up and was ordained.  We had a dinner Friday night and gathered together Saturday at the Air B&B my brother-in-law rented for his immediate family of thirteen. We hired a professional photographer who did a fabulous job of capturing every possible family configuration! She sent us over 100 photos. Here's one taken of the whole group. It was supposed to be a very rainy day, but the rain held off until late afternoon allowing for photos outside and lots of running and playing by the kids.

These two cards were made last week prior to the memorial service to thank our pastor and organist for their participation in the memorial service.

I pulled out one of my all time favorite Simon Says stamp sets, Be Kind. After stamping the leaves on white cardstock I colored them with Copic markers, using two blue markers that I blended with a yellow marker. I'm really pleased with how it worked.

The sentiment is from another favorite set, Thank You Kindly, by Papertrey Ink.

These cards fit two Clean and Simple Challenges open now:  Less Is More: Anything Goes and Addicted to Stamps and More: Any Occasion.

 

 

Happy Birthday, Caleb & Hannah!

Caleb turned 11 today, and Hannah turned 6. Their birthday celebrations began as they usually do with scavenger hunts. Hannah's clue were photographs, and Caleb asked for "really hard" coded clues. They were, indeed, very hard and it took him awhile to find his gifts.

Looking for the next clue in the Christmas tree.

All in all, it was a fine day. Caleb received a fabulous Lego set with over 1200 pieces that he assembled before he went to bed, and lots of kitchen play items for Hannah--a mixer, a blender, a coffee pot and a Playdough kitchen set as well. Friends came over this afternoon for cake and ice cream. 

One of Caleb's gifts from us was another year of Grandma's Book Club. Each month he gives me a title or two and I send him the books. As I did with the three girls, I made him a gift card holder. I wasn't thinking when I chose the gift card as it's a Christmas theme rather than a birthday gift card, but he never noticed.

Both the nifty book dies and the sentiment are from Waffle Flower. The gift card holder is from Pinkfresh Studio.

Here are the cards I made for them this year.

This very fun stamp is from Jane's Doodles, and it's the first stamp I've owned from that company. I had a lot of fun coloring it with Copic markers, but had to fussy cut it as I don't have the dies. I used a full-card die from Reverse Confetti for the background as well as a couple of cloud dies from Papertrey ink. 

I added a bit of sparkle with a glitter pen as well as some white dots to some of the gifts on top of the car.

I've owned this stamp from Colorado Crafts for ages, and never used it. Like Hannah's, it was also colored with Copic markers. I wasn't quite sure what to do with the background, but decided on the star die from Simon Says which I backed with metallic silver paper. I added a few of the stars that were die cut to the card front as well.

We had no difficulty getting to Wisconsin. The NY Thruway was still closed, but we took a southern route and encountered no bad weather at all. Tomorrow we're off to Milwaukee for a musical presentation of Bluey, and then to neighbor's for a New Year's Eve celebration. 

I hope your year is ending on a high note! I'll be back with a new Color Hues Challenge on New Year's Day.

 

Merry Christmas!

Yesterday we celebrated Christmas with Matt and his family. I think the girls were genuinely pleased with their gifts—more so than any other year I remember. Here they are before our pizza and salad lunch and the opening of gifts. We’ll see them again this afternoon when they stop to say hello to all of Tracy’s family.

Skylar (11), Ella (8) and Maddy (6)

Our Christmas celebration with Tracy's family will be subdued this year. Two weeks ago, his mother fell and was in the hospital just a week before she died. She was in excruciating pain before the fall, and the family had been working with a palliative care doctor to try to increase her pain medication so she could more fully enjoy life. After the fall, it was clear she would not be able to go home again. The palliative care staff at the hospital were wonderful, but they also had difficulty managing the pain until finally, the decision to medicate through an IV was made. Just three days later she passed away peacefully. Ellie was 93 and beloved by her family. Her presence will always be missed, but it will be a gaping open hole this Christmas. 

Tomorrow we hope to head to Wisconsin to celebrate Christmas once more with Sarah and her family. The Thruway remains closed from here to the Pennsylvania border. We have an alternate route if it’s clear through Erie, but that’s uncertain at this point. If all goes as planned (we always have our eye on the weather) we’ll be there about ten days before returning home.

Finally, here is a Christmas wrapping project. I always have great intentions to use my papercrafting supplies to wrap gifts. This year I purchased a couple of products from The Greetery’s All Wrapped Up collection and felt compelled to put them to use. I love how the gifts turned out, but only had time to do three of them. On the other hand, yesterday was the first Christmas Eve Day when all of my wrapping was done! Hopefully next year I’ll get to this a bit earlier. 

Warm wishes from bitterly cold Rochester for a wonderful Christmas if you celebrate it and a Blessed New Year!