random reflections

Merry Christmas!

Posting on Christmas Day is a bit of a novelty, but today is also Woodblock Wednesday for December.

Since I'll be on the road tomorrow, it's best to post and link to Amy's blog today. This month's woodblock stamp turned out to be a bit of repetition. It's another of the beautiful Magenta stamps, but with a very similar feel. Since I already had put it on my table for Woodblock Wednesday, I decided not to overthink it. I needed a thank you note so that's the route I took.

A sign of the season is the fact that I took a photo of the card without including the woodblock stamp that I used. And, of course, the card is already in the mail since it went to a stamping friend who gave me a beautiful flower arrangement the last time we were together. The card design and colors didn't vary much this month either, but this is the first of the Magenta stamps that I've colored with Copic markers. The stitched border is from Waffleflower's Lacy Layers. The lacy layer was a bit much so I kept it simple. 

The sentiment from Altenew's Sentiment Strips 2 is gold embossed and trimmed down to create a small banner. I used some black dimensional foam to it for a bit of interest.

We celebrated with Matt and his family yesterday afternoon. They'll be back for a visit with Tracy's family who will be here for dinner. There's just nine of us now. One Christmas, we had twenty-seven! Tomorrow we'll head to Wisconsin for another Christmas celebration as well as Caleb's and Hannah's birthdays on the 30th. 

If you celebrate Christmas, I hope it is a joyous one. Thanks for taking a look, and best wishes for a healthy and happy New Year!

Woodblock Wednesday-November

Woodblock Wednesday snuck up on me this month. It's been hard to get to everything that needs to be done after being away for 10 days. I'm making progress, but had to hop to it to get this card made. Fortunately, the image didn't need any coloring. It took several tries to get a good stamping, so I tried both Copics and colored pencils on some the rejects, and decided this woodblock print was best left alone.

This Magenta stamp has no name printed on it, and is almost as big as the card! I have no idea where or when I purchased it.

I chose two narrow mats--one dark green and another gold, and layered them on a red mini-slimline card. It's been quite awhile since I've made a mini-slimline card but it was perfect for this stamp. 

The sentiment is one of Memory Box's Black Greeting Tabs. I tried to purchase another set of them this year, but was only able to find a "Happy Holidays" version. They're just right so many times! 

This is off as my second entry into the Festive Friday Gallery--it's just a perfect list of elements for a Christmas card. This time I used red, green, gold, and a Christmas sentiment. The gold mat probably qualifies as glimmer as well. 

If you celebrate Thanksgiving in the U.S. I hope the gathering is one of laughter and love! I have so many blessings to be thankful for. 

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! 

Woodblock Wednesday: July

July is definitely flying by. I did think that time would slow down a bit now that we're home for several weeks, but not so. I chose another woodblock stamp from the Lockhart Stamp Co. for July's Woodblock Wednesday. This bright red Adirondack chair reminds me of the red chairs we encountered in random places throughout the Canadian Rocky Mountains National Parks when we visited. After we returned we bought our own red Adirondack chairs. 

I used a Taylored Expressions Masking Stencil to create the blue background. The image was colored with Copic markers, and then die cut with Simon Says Stitched Rectangles. I added a second square and with dimensional tape added it to a square card.

The sentiment is from a My Favorite Things set: Itty Bitty Basics embossed in white and die cut with MFT's Itty Bitty Strips. In addition to Woodblock Wednesday, I'm sending this to the Four Seasons Blog: Summer and Shop Your Stash, also Summer.

Woodblock Wednesday: June Edition

I look forward to Woodblock Wednesday every month, and actually wish I had saved a few more of my woodblock stamps. I got down to the wire this month, just finishing this last night. The stamp is a Magenta one that I used over and over before the stamping world exploded with acrylic and red rubber stamps. I was in the mood to watercolor so got out my Daniel Smith palette and mixed up a bit of yellow, green, and blue.

The sketch is one I saw on one of the recent videos by Jill Foster for Penny Black, a series called "Permission to Play." All her sketches utilize embossing folders, and this is a new one of mine: 3-D Checkered Squares by Altenew. I cut a narrow strip of the watercolor paper to add a border where the watercolor and the embossing folder meet. 

The sentiment also comes from a new set: All Occasion Script from The Greetery. I'll be tossing this in the fabulous gallery at NBUS to celebrate using another two new products, along with one of my oldest!

Woodblock Wednesday: May 2024

It's time for a new Woodblock Wednesday! I'm throughly enjoying going through the collection of wooden stamps I've kept. I wish I'd saved a few more. When I went through them looking for an image for April's Woodblock Wednesday, I pulled out the two stamps I knew I wanted to use this month. They've been sitting on my desk, patiently waiting. Both stamps are from Uptown Design Co. and designed by Holly Pond Hill.

I don't have any memory of purchasing them, but I'm quite sure my daughter and her love of chocolate cake was a motivation for the purchase. Since she doesn't read my blog, it's likely this will be her birthday card this year. In some cases she has a great memory for things given to her many years ago, so I wonder if she'll have any recollection of it. Luckily for me, both stamps stamped perfectly the very first time. I pulled out my Prismacolor pencils to color the cute little mouse.

After trimming the card down and adhering it to a light gray card base, I cut three Double Scalloped Stitched Frames from Poppy Stamps and layered them for some dimension before adding them around the image. It's another CAS card as it needs no embellishment. 

Woodblock Wednesday: April 2024

Having been away for a week, April has disappeared more quickly than usual, and here we are at the last Wednesday. It's time for Woodblock Wednesday.

This month I chose to CASE a card I made in a class over 25 years ago! I replicated the card multiple times for several years, but it's been a long time and as soon as I saw the stamp I decided to create an updated version.

The layered lighthouse scene is layered much the way it was on the original card. I changed a very dark purple card base for brighter cardstock, added an embossed background, some yellow for the light in the lighthouse as well as a sentiment on a tag. The original had no sentiment on the front and a tag with a charm hung from the top left side of the card. The wooden stamp is from Paper Parachute, and the embossing folder is from Lifestyle crafts. The embossing of the stars was almost too deep, but die cutting the panel with Gina K's Master Layourt #1 flattened it just the right amount. The sentiment is from Simon Says' Your Light set.

Even with a closer look, it's hard to see that I added a bit of metallic gold to each of the circles in the border as well as the centers of the stars in the sky.  The little tag for the sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Tag Creations: Modern Gift. In addition to the dimensional tape added to the layers in the scene, I added a layer of dimension behind the embossed panel. This was a really fun project!

I'm just in time to add this to the Can You Handle the Pressure Challenge where using an embossing folder is a requirement. The card is also going to the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge: Anything Goes.

Woodblock Wednesday: March Edition

It's the last Wednesday in March so it's also Woodblock Wednesday, kindly hosted each month by Amy Tsurtua. 

It's still going to be awhile before butterflies appear here. Today's another mild day, but the temps go down again tomorrow. I'm hoping that a month from now we'll be in full bloom with Spring flowers and a few butterflies. This woodblock butterfly is from Lockhart Stamps. I gave away or sold a huge portion of my wooden stamp collection, so it's interesting to me how many Lockhart stamps I saved. The copyright date on it is 2009.

It had been awhile since I used my colored pencils, so I pulled out a sheet of Stonehenge White paper which works well with colored pencils. I also pulled out three cards from my Color Box 2. I knew I wanted to use purple, and the cards helped me choose the additional colors. I'm enjoying the Color Box. It gives me color choices I might not have chosen on my own.

Of course, I didn't use all the colors, but it's easy to find the ones I did use. After coloring the butterflies, I fussy cut them. I die cut two rectangles from The Greetery's Crimped Frames, and added dimensional foam behind both of them before adding them to a purple card base. 

I also added a strip of dimensional tape behind the body of the butterflies, so I could bend their wings a bit for more interest. The sentiment was white embossed on black with My Favorite Thing Itty Bitty Strips, also mounted with a bit of dimensional tape. Despite all the dimension, the card still fits in an envelope easily. 

In addition to Woodblock Wednesday, I'm posting this with two other challenges. When I enter The Triple B Challenge (Birds, Blooms and Butterflies) it's almost always blooms. This time it's a butterfly, and I could have entered a bird as well if I had only thought about it! I'm also sending this to the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge where it's Anything Goes.

Woodblock Wednesday

It's the last Wednesday in February (and our son's birthday!), so it's also Woodblock Wednesday hosted by Amy Tsuruta.

I'm in need of thank you cards, so I decided to pull out a favorite woodblock stamp by Paper Parachute and, for inspiration, five cards from the Color Cube which I've owned for several months but never used. As you can see, each card features a photograph (and inspiration for photography) as well as five colors drawn from the photo. I chose three of the colors from each card to color the floral design with Copic markers. I was a bit apprehensive trying to color such a small image with Copics but it actually went pretty well. I ended up with five thank you notes.

All five cards use the same products, so I'll just share them one by one. Some of the different color schemes produce cards with a different vibe which is nice when deciding which one to use for a note.

I'll be back later tonight with a birthday post for Matt. I'm hoping the girls will be receptive to a photo with their dad. Either way, I'll be back to share his birthday card. 

 

 

 

November Woodblock Wednesday

These months fly by. As I have in the past two months, I took this opportunity to make another Christmas card for Woodblock Wednesday. I chose a very old Magenta stamp that reminds me of vintage woodblock prints. (In fact, when I tried-unsuccessfully-to see if this stamp had a name many of the Magenta stamps I owned are now listed as vintage!) When I took the stamp out of the drawer I thought I'd used colored pencils with it, but I decided the image needed no color whatsoever. I remembered that Sunday Stamps' current challenge is a color challenge, and chose the colors for the card and layering from this palette.

When it came to choosing the card design, I was happy to discover that one of the Simon Says Stitched Rectangles was the perfect size for cutting the image. That made layering it on the red cardstock so easy.

The red came from my scrap file and the sentiment is, once again, from Memory Box's Greeting Tabs. They've been the perfect size for quite a few of my Christmas cards this year. 

The lighting (always a challenge in an old house) on the close-up produced a brighter green than the actual card. It's evergreen from Concord & 9th. I think I'll be out of it by the time the holiday roll around.

I'm also sending this to the Triple B Challenge-where your card must have a bird, bloom and/or a butterfly. Their November challenge inspiration board features lots of beautiful fall images, but there doesn't seem to be any requirement to get your inspiration from the photos. 

I'll be back on Friday with the new Color Hues Challenge--I think you'll love the color combination Nancy has chosen!