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Project 64: Salmon

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Project64

  Week22 Salmon

Like several others who have posted before me, this was one of the hardest week’s yet. I didn’t seen anything quite this color all week, although now as I type this I think my tee shirt would be a pretty close match. Oh well, I went with two photos from our recent trip, both of which look pretty close when I hold my colored square up to the monitor. They look a bit dull compared to the logo for the week, however. The flowers this hummingbird is after are a good match although the light was a bit bright.

Hummingbirdw

And here are the beautiful colors of the Painted Desert.

PaintedDesertw

I hope next week’s color is a bit easier!

Book Reviews

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Ever since Rinda published her summer reading list, I’ve been meaning to do a book review post. Over the last several months, I’ve read several excellent books and thought I’d share them. I’m not going to write a long summary of each, but I will add the links to the Amazon reviews. If you click on the book it will take you there.

ParisWife

I didn’t read this on my Kindle but I posted that image since it was the cover of the one I read from the library. When I was in my 20’s and 30’s I read most of what Ernest Hemingway wrote. I especially loved A Moveable Feast about his years in Paris. This is a fictionalized account, most of it told in his first wife’s voice, of their marriage and the years in Paris. It was a quick and enjoyable read with lots of little details about Paris in the 1920’s and the literary greats who lived there.

Breaking night

I did read this on my Kindle, and my requirement for an e-book is that it be compelling and easy to pick up if you don’t read it every day. This certainly fit the bill. If you’ve read The Glass Castle, this book is the same gene, a story of beating the odds when you are born into a truly disfunctional (but nonetheless loving) home. I heard Liz Murray interviewed on PBS and knew right away I wanted to read this book. I wasn’t disappointed.

Boy

This is our current book group book. We’ll be discussing it next week. It’a memoir about a boy who grew up in Malawi. His fascination with physics and the great needs of his village compel him to build a windmill from spare parts he finds over time in a junkyard. But the story is more than that; the description of the famine in Malawi is heartrendering. This is another book about the resilance of the human spirit as well as one of a very inventive mind!

Maisie

Sarah recommended this series of mysteries to us. I’ve read just the first in the series. I think Sarah has finished four of them and my husband has finished the first three. Maisie is a dectective in London. The series begins just after the first World War, and much of this book is Maisie’s back story that takes place during the first World War. This was a very quick read. I like mysteries, but I especially liked this one because of the historical background and details of the time.

Faith

Jennifer Haigh will be one of the speakers at the 2011-2012 Arts and Lectures series here. I needed a book for the Kindle for our flight home last month and this was perfect. I could barely put it down. It’s fiction, and the narrator is the sister of a priest in Boston who has been accused of child molesting. It’s a riveting story of a blue-collar family from South Boston as well as a look inside the workings of a Catholic church and diocese.

RoomI

I finished this book yesterday afternoon. It was one of the most profoundly moving books I’ve read in a long time. Little Bee comes to mind as the last book I read that was so moving (although some of my friends did not like that novel at all). Both books had sections that were very disturbing and hard to read. This book has a more hopeful ending, however. This is another author I heard interviewed on PBS, and it’s worth listening to if it’s on podcast somewhere. The narrator is a five year old boy who has been living since birth with his mother in captivity. The captor is a mean-spritied, evil man who abducted the mother at age 19 and has kept her locked up in a room he built in a shed in his backyard. It’s based on a true story (but totally fictionalized) that took place in Ireland, but there are too many stories like this woman’s here as well.

So what’s on my list for the summer? It’s a short list. We’ll be away again this summer, and yesterday we signed a contract for a new kitchen. If all goes well with the local planning board, the demolition will start late this summer as well. I started Caleb’s Crossing last night. I already know I’ll like this book. It’s by Geraldine Brooks; her People of the Book is one of my all-time favorite reads. I have Cutting for Stone on my Kindle, and I’ve read about 150 pages of the 688 pages. My friend, Peter, who we visited in Tucson (a former member of our book group) said it was the best book he’d ever read. It’s been on my radar for a long time, but I never put in on my short-list because of its length. I’m glad it’s there now; it will take me awhile to finish it, but it’s exceptionally well-written and fascinating. Our book for July’s book group is Freakonomics, not a book I would choose to read, but that’s why I love my book group. I’m guessing that will be it for me this summer, although I do have a cross-country flight again for our summer trip. That’s always good for a lot of reading time.

 

Lucky Me & Card Patterns 117

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I was the lucky winner of a gorgeous stamp set from Skipping Stones on Danielle Flander’s blog recently  It’s called Heartsong, and I love the images in it. The darling bird seemed perfect for the sketch challenge on Card Patterns this week. Here’s the sketch:

Sketch117

And here’s my take on it:

  Heartsing

I love this sentiment from the same set, “You make my heart sing.” The set also comes with a music stamp, but it wasn’t quite wide enough for my card so I used Papertrey Ink’s Background Basics: Sheet Music. The cardstock and twill are Hawaiian Shores (PTI), and the patterned paper is from 7Gypsies paper pad, Conservatory. The brown strip came from the scrap folder, and it’s a better match IRL than in the photo. I stamped the bird on watercolor paper and colored him with my watercolor pencils. It’s been awhile since they’ve seen any action. The circle is a Nestabilities which I distressed with Tim Holtz’s Broken China Ink while the paper was still in the die.

Ivory and Lace

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This week’s challenge at Mark’s Finest Papers is ivory and lace. I needed a wedding card to take to a reception yesterday afternoon and this was the perfect inspiration. The flowers in Lorraine’s birthday package were just perfect for it. I’m sure I’ll use this card design again. It was quick to make, and is quite elegant, I think.

WeddingCard

Cardstock: Vintage Cream (PTI) and a green scrap; die: Branch with Leaves (Sizzix); flower (Prima); lace from stash; stamp: Delightful Dahlias (PTI)

Project 64: Yellow Orange

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Project64

Yelloworange color

It’s a happy color at Project 64 this week. My favorite mechanical pencils just happen to be yellow orange.

Pencilsw

This wall at Tohono Chul is also the perfect color.

Potsw

Here’s my favorite image of the pots.

2Potsw

Have a happy day!

Two Challenges

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I’m back with a second post today as promised. First off, a card for the Simon Says Stamps challenge. I placed my first order with them last week and was amazed at the fast service. I’ve never looked at their blog before this week, and there’s lots of inspiration there. This week’s challenge is for Stars and Stripes. I had several new products I was anxious to use and was able to use some favorites as well. As I created the card, it occured to me that it would be a perfect birthday card for my MIL. She doesn’t read my blog, so it’s safe to post it here. Her birthday isn’t until July 5th, but it’s nice to be ahead!

Stars&stripes

One of the products on my list when we were traveling was the Tim Holtz mini-rosette die. I never found it so it was one of the goodies in the Simon Says package. I love how easy it is to create these fun rosettes and they are much flatter than the ones I’ve tried on my own. I stamped the stars for the centers with a Teresa Collins stamp, Free Style. The sentiment frame is also from that set, and the sentiment is from the new Papertrey set Tag-its #4. The Tag-it stamps are just $5 and I get a lot of used from the sentiments as well as the tag frames. The striped pieces are from a new stamp set, “Daily Junque,” by Pink Paislee. I saw Danielle use it on three fabulous cards last week, and when I saw that Simon Says carried it, that pushed me to click on the purchase button!

Here’s a closer look at the rosettes which I cut from some cute October Afternoon papers from the Campfire line.

CelebrateDetails

There are some great stamps in the Daily Junque set, so I decided to stamp an envelope as well. All the stamps except “July” are from that set.

Envelope

And now to Amy’s photographic challenge. She asked us to photograph five things we think will be gone from our homes in five years. It turned out to be pretty easy.

First off, my cook top from the 1950’s. It is probably the only live pilot cooktop in our town. But it will definitely be gone as we purchased a new stove on Friday. These green counters will also be gone.

StoveTopw

My relatively recent refrigerator will also be gone from the kitchen, but probably moved to the basement. We’re waiting for the final estimates, but expect to have a new kitchen by the end of the year. I’ve never had room for a full-size refrigerator, and I am absolutely thrilled with the one we bought this weekend (on close-out at a great price, to boot)!

Fridgew

So, in fact, my whole kitchen will be gone. These cupboards will be replaced as well. It’s not a terrible kitchen, but the cupboards are over 50 years old and hard to keep clean. I stripped and refinished them 20 years ago, but it’s time for a new look. The best part is we’ll have a new arrangement, and it should be much more efficient, and I hope to have lots more counter space, even though we’re not expanding the size of the kitchen.

Kitchenw

Matt’s room, now the guest room, will also have a new look. Hopefully, that won’t take five years. I’m on the lookout for new bed linens and when Tracy has worked his way upstairs with his painting project this room will no longer have dark green woodwork, which I notice now doesn’t appear in the photograph.

Matt'sRoomw

And, finally, my laptop. It’s already several years old and is used enough that some of the letters are wearing off the keys. I’m not anticipating replacing it in the next year or so, but I doubt it will last five more years.

Laptopw

This was fun, Amy! Thanks for throwing down the challenge.

Memorial Day

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It’s Memorial Day in the U.S. today—a time to honor those who have died in the far too many wars we’ve engaged in. It’s also known as Poppy Day in the U.K. and we, too, honor the veterans by buying paper poppies to support Veteran Assistance Programs. I learned more about Poppy Day this week when I volunteered in a classroom and the students were reading about how the paper poppies originated. You can find some information here and here about the traditions associated with the poppies as a symbol of remembrance. Today was my post for Scrap-Mart. When I put my donation in the jar on Saturday, the veteran handed me several poppies, and I thought they’d look great on a card, and be an appropriate post for the holiday.

PoppyCard

I used a piece of patterned paper from the Sassafrass Lass “Ellie’s Tale,” stitched and adhered to a piece of textured cardstock. I cut and embossed a Classic Rectangle Nestability and added the new Nestablings that fit perfectly within the embossed edge.

Close-upPoppy
I love the smaller gem in each corner. The sentiment is from WPlus9.

I hope you’re having a good holiday weekend. We had a fun trip to Ithaca on Saturday and then dinner and a wonderful performance of The Music Man with good friends. Yesterday I finished two big projects and we got about 2/3 of our vegetable garden planted. We’ve had so much rain, it’s been hard to get into the garden. It wasn’t bad yesterday, but we came home with muddy sneakers. We hope to get the planting finished at the community garden and get going on ours here today. I’m also hoping to be back later with five photos for Amy’s challenge.

 

Embellish with Text & Make It Monday

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It’s not often that I combine challenges, but this week’s Make-It Monday at Papertrey Ink was to create a sympathy card, and the color/text challenge at Embellish seemed like a good color combination. I wouldn’t have interpreted the one color as Ocean Tides, but one of the designers listed it as one of the colors and it’s clearly used on the designer cards at Embellish.

Text_ColorTrends

It’s been awhile since I inked up Take Three: Summer. I love these simple, but elegant, floral designs and they seemed appropriate for a sympathy card.

PTI:Embellish

Except for the sentiment (Savvy Stamps) and the scrap of gray card stock, everything is by Papertrey Ink. I stamped one strip of Background Basics: Text Style in black and the three floral designs in Ocean Tides. The gray die cut panel is attached with dimensional tape. Then I adhered it to a mat of Ocean Tides before adhering it to the card base.

Happy Mail

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I celebrated my birthday while I was in California at Sarah and Adam’s. My favorite treat there comes from Nothing But Bundt cakes. We bought four mini ones, and one was free because it was my birthday. They are so yummy. I wish we had one here, but it’s probably for the best.

BDCakew

When I got home, I found this pile of birthday cards waiting in the mail. What fun to open them all up at the same time. On the top, you can see a beautiful photo card from my Team-up Thursday partner, Nancy.

BDcardsw

Also in the mail was this fabulous envelope and bookmark from Cheri:

CheriCardw

This beautiful photo card from Deb:

DebCardw

And then on Wednesday, I received an amazing card and a box of goodies from Lorraine:

LorraineBDcard

BDStashw

I’m in love with these Prima flowers and butterflies. You’ll be seeing some of this show up on cards very soon! Thanks Cheri, Deb, and Lorraine! I am blessed by my many blogging relationships, and this happy mail is “above and beyond!”

 

Vacation Recap

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Warning this is a long post and there are a lot of photos!

We’ve been home just a week, and it’s time for a vacation recap. I’ve finally been through all the photos once and chosen those I think I might want to print. I deleted a few, but must go back again and get rid of all the duplicates. Yesterday I managed to edit the ones you’ll see here.

We were gone nearly 3 weeks. I took over 1100 photos, we drove through four states (Tracy drove clear across the country, but I flew from NY to Colorado), we visited three national parks, four sets of friends and family. I read five books, but sadly missed meeting up with three blogging friends I hoped to meet. Aside from serious pain issues, it was a great vacation. As some of you know, I had surgery in early March and was left with some serious, undiagnosed, and untreatable pain which made walking very difficult. It went on for 10 weeks, and really impacted my lifestyle, and sadly, our vacation. Miraculously, the day we left to come home it disappeared, and I’ve now been painfree for a little over a week. I have new appreciation for chronic pain, and don’t know how you get accustomed to it. I never did, and I was worried that this would be a lifetime affliction. The surgeon has now diagnosed it as an impacted fibroid, but the truth is none of us are quite sure what it was. But yeah, it’s gone!

So, on to vacation. We started in Denver where Matt has taken a new job, which thankfully, he seems to love. We found him an apartment, but weren’t there to help him move in, but our friends did. I’m still waiting to see photos! But here’s the apartment building. He’s on the fourth floor and on a clear day, can see the mountains.

M'sAptw

He’s just two blocks from the Denver Botanic Gardens where we spend a couple of hours one afternoon.

DenverBotanicGardenw

When we left Denver, we drove to Santa Fe and spent an afternoon in the downtown area and visiting a fabulous photography gallery. We were here ten years ago, and would love to spend more time again.

SantaFew

Tracy much prefers state roads to interstate highways, so on our way to Phoenix to visit family we took the long way and got to see El Morro National Monument where Native Americans and pioneers left their marks on the rocks. The earliest are petroglyphs, but I was amazed at this beautiful script carved into the rock.

MorroNMw

And we drove around the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Parks:

PaintedDesertw

In Phoenix, we visited Tracy’s brother, here with his beautiful daughter, Lena. I was terrible about getting photos of family and friends. Not like me, I’m blaming it on the pain, but I’m so sorry I don’t have better photos. (Or in some cases, any.)

Scott&Lenaw

We also got a chance to visit Taliesin West, Frank Lloyd Wright’s western home. Thanks to Deb, I also did a little shopping at Scrapbooks, Etc. and sent myself a box of scrapping goodies which I can’t find locally.

TalisienWestw
From Phoenix, we drove to Tucson. We’d never been here before, but had a lovely time. We visited Saguaro National Park . . .

SaguaroNPw

the absolutely fabulous Desert Museum . . .

Entrancew

Tohono Chul . . .

TohonoChulw

the beautiful San Xavier Mission . . .

Missionw

and the fabulous Center for Creative Photography as well as having dinner with old book group friends from Rochester.

On our way to California to visit Sarah and Adam, we stopped for a day at the Joshua Tree National Park,

JoshuaTreew

Spent a night at Morro Bay:

MorroBayw

And visited San Simeon, William Hearst’s castle on a hill overlooking the Pacific. The gardens and walkways were my favorite part.

HearstCastleStairsw

But this shot of the indoor pool, gives you a better idea of the ornate and elaborate house.

IndoorPool1w

And finally, we ended up with Sarah and Adam for five restful days of family visiting. I did get a great family photo here (and you’ll see it later), but I love this one of Sarah and her dog, Sadie.

SarahSadie1w

If you made it to the end, you deserve a treat!

Project 64: Asparagus

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This is my second post today. For the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop, scroll down one post.

Project64

This week’s color at Project 64 was asparagus. Of course I had to photograph the vegetable since roasted asparagus is probably my favorite vegetable.

Asparagusw

And then I have two photos from the Denver Botanic Gardens. All three plants have asparagus green leaves.

Heleborusw

Heleborus

 

Peonyw

Peony

You can find a  lot of photographic inspiration on the Project 64 blog.

 

Papertrey May Blog Hop

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Bloghoplogo

For the second month in a row, I came close to missing the Papertrey Blog Hop–one of my favorite events each month. Fortunately, last night I realized and had enough time to complete a card set for this month’s challenge to create with flower images. On Monday, my May PTI order arrived, so I was happy to break open the Year of the Flower Collection set. I love these smaller versions and know I’ll be using this set often.

BlogHopSet
MorningGlories

SweetPeas

LilyoftheValley

All three cards are just the same except for the focal image and the color of the doily mat. It was interesting to me to see how different the focal images looked as I changed the color of the mat. The Morning Glories looked best with Ripe Avocado, the Sweet Peas with a Bazzill scrap from my file, and the Lily of the Valley with a Simply Chartreuse mat. The cards are pre-made, I think from Paper Source and the narrow green ribbon is also from Paper Source. The focal images were stamped on Vintage Cream and colored with Prismacolor pencils. The dies are both Papertrey:  Limitless Layers and Doily Details. I’m in need of several note cards for thank you notes so I’ll probably use these myself.

If you’re looking for card-making inspiration, this blog hop is always a good place to look!

CASE Study Challenge

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I’m in need of quite a few cards for June birthdays. One of the recipients is a singer, so when I saw the featured card on the CASE Study blog, I knew I wanted to play along. Here is the card by Sarah Martina Parker:

CASE

Sarah excels at these shabby vintage cards, but it’s not a natural for me. I am, however, pretty pleased with the card I came up with, and I think my friend will like it, too.

WishBigCASE

I’ve been admiring the double bows Melissa Philips and Debbie Olsen make, so I thought I’d try my hand at one, and I knew I wanted to use this pretty Prima flower I picked up in Phoenix, thanks to Deb’s recommendation of a scrapbook store. All the rest of the products are Papertrey Ink:  Hibiscus Burst cardstock and ribbon; Background Basics: Sheet Music, and Tiny Tags stamps and die; Vintage Cream and True Black cardstock.

I’m still doing catch-up after our long trip. I’ll soon be around to all your blogs which I read (even though I didn’t comment) while I was on the road, but haven’t managed to get to this week. The next few days look a little less hectic. It’s all been good, but it’s been busy!!

 

Project 64: Cerulean Blue

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  Project64

Time is definitely getting away from me this week. There’s been so much to do and so many appointments/obligations on the calendar since we got back. Last week’s color for Project 64 was Cerulean Blue. I found two good examples on our trip.

BlueJarw

This beautiful blue jar was at the Denver Botanical Gardens.

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Sarah bought this gorgeous dish in a Guatamalan shop in Boston the year she went to B.U. It’s prominently displayed on their shelves. I’ll be back tomorrow or Monday with the next color:  asparagus green.

CR84FN Color Challenge

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A very quick post since this challenge ends in just a few hours. I love red and yellow, but I could certainly tell I’ve been away from my crafting table for a few weeks. This is at least the fourth version of this card! Here’s the color inspiration from CR84FN:

CR84FN28+Graphic

And my card:

AllStar

Cardstock: Pure Poppy (PTI); Patterned Paper: Circa 1934 (Cosmo Cricket); Star & Banner dies: PTI; Stamps: Just the Ticket (PTI); Twine: Jeweler’s Natural (Michaels); Chamomile Tea Ink for distressing (PTI)

There’s lots to share from our three week trip, so I’ll be back again soon with photos of the cool places we got to visit!