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Embellish Nautical Challenge and Summer Card Camp

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Earlier in the spring, I was the lucky winner of a new stamp set from Craft’s Meow called “It’s a Shore Thing.” When I saw the Embellish Nautical Color Challenge, I knew I’d found a way to use these cute stamps.

Nautical_ColorTrends

Although someone named the colors as brown, red, navy, and light blue, the darker blue is not quite navy in my book. Fortunately, I found an Adirondack ink pad (Stream) that was exactly the right color.

FloatBoat

This is Week 3 of Summer Card Camp, and I’m actually on track with my first card with the new color combination which seemed perfect for my niece’s son who is turning two.

Week3-colors

Here’s my card. I was happy to get to use these fun Papertrey Ink products.

Two

It’s a bit hard to see but both the red mat and the taupe circle are cut and embossed with Nestabilities.

InsideTwo

Supplies:

You Float My Boat
Cardstock:  Neeah Solar White, Memory Box light blue
Patterned Paper: Bitty Stars (Papertrey) & clouds cut from Quite Contrary (MME)
Stamps:  It’s a Shore Thing (Craft’s Meow) & Tiny Treats: Valentine (Papertrey)
Light Blue marker:  Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Pen

Look Who’s Turning Two
Cardstock:  Dark Chocolate, Pure Poppy, Kraft (Papertrey) & scrap from stash
Patterned Paper: “Night Light Jack” (October Afternoon)
Nestabilities: Classic Rectangles & Small Classic Circles (Spellbinders)
Die:  By the Numbers (Papertrey)
Impression Plate: By the Numbers (Papertrey)
Stamps:  Birthday Bash & Big Birthday Wishes (Papertrey)
Twine: Pure Poppy (Papertrey)
Star punch; McGill

Celebrate with New Shoes

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FotoFlexer_Photo-CFC10

I thought it would be fun to play along with Casual Friday’s challenge this week. I quickly found a shaped card I could cut with my Silhouette, and I know just who will get this card in the fall for her birthday.

HighHeels

The Silhouette cards come together so quickly. The only challenge on this one was to figure out how to get the sentiment on the inside. I printed the sentiment on coordinating cardstock on my computer and then used the “stencil” that was left after cutting the card to trace around the shoe. I handcut it and adhered it to the inside. The shoe was cut with white cardstock and then covered with patterned paper on the outside. I hand cut the high heel from more textured cardstock. The Prima flower was colored with a BG11 Copic marker and distressed with chalk inks. Wish I could wear shoes that look like this!

Rinda asked what kinds of adhesive I use on intricate die cuts. On this card, I used the Xyron sticker maker with repositionable adhesive. Frequently I use permanent adhesive, but I knew positioning all these die cuts would take more than one try. On this card, I used my American Craft This to That dotted tape runner. I’ve never found a tape runner I like as much as this one, so I always have a supply of them in the closet. For the leaf border, I just applied adhesive selectively along the border so some of it appears three-dimensional.

Supplies:
Cardstock:  American Craft & Memory Box
Patterned Paper: “Home Grown” (3 Bugs in a Rug)
Flower:  Prima
Chalk inks: Quick Quotes
Copics

Moxie Fab Border Challenge

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I have a more shabby chic card than usual for the current Moxie Fab Border Challenge that ends tomorrow, but I’m quite happy with it. The challenge asks that you use a border in an innovative way. I usually think of borders as going across the card horizontally or vertically, but in this case running the die cut border diagonally proved to be much more pleasing.

JustANote

 I started with a cream card and die cut the Leaf Border by Lifestyle Crafts from textured cardstock. I decided it needed a dark mat and used my favoriet dotted patterned paper by Bo Bunny. The sentiment is from Just Rite’s “Charmed” die cut with the matching dies from Spellbinders. I  distressed the mat with some chalk ink as well as the three Prima flowers. The green ribbon is from my stash.

Summer Scavenger Hunt

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Rinda is hosting a Summer Scavenger Hut on her blog. I signed right up and have found a few things on the list. First on my list is the rooster. I have a little red rooster that sometimes sits on my kitchen window.

  WoodenRoosterw

Then this weekend I saw this handsome fellow walking around the yard of one of my brother’s neighbors.

Rooster1w

Tracy and our contractor had to present the plans for the new bow window in our kitchen remodel to the town’s Architectural Board, so here’s a photo of a town meeting. The plans were approved, and we hope the process will begin early next month.

TownMeetingw

Next is Warner Castle, currently home to the Rochester Civic Garden Center. It’s on a street near Highland Park, where we walk nearly every morning.

WarnerCastlew

Finally, for today, a commerative United States flag hanging on a city house on one of our walking routes.

Flag

Project 64: Red

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This week’s color is my favorite color:  red! So I took a few photos and put them into a collage.

RedCollage

And then this weekend, I found this rooster wandering about the yard of one of my brother’s neighbors. I just love his red comb.

Rooster1w

You can find more red here:

Project64

 

 

 

Three Months: One Little Word (FINISH)

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Even though I was three months behind in recording my progress for OLW, it was easy to do. I keep records of all the cards and layouts I do as well as any crafty projects. My reading list at Shelfari is almost always up to date, and this little tag book is probably the best record-keeping device I’ve ever made.

We’re now half-way through the year, and I have finished five of the twelve projects I listed in January. I have to admit that I don’t have much enthusiasm for a couple of them, but perhaps I’ll get motivated again come fall. One of my goals was to seriously limit the new classes and projects I took on. I’ve done reasonably well until June when I signed up for three new classes: Night Photography, Copic Coloring, and Summer Card Camp. Frankly, I don’t regret signing up for any of these, as I’m enjoying all of them. But there’s not time enough to do all I’d like to do for those classes to say nothing of getting going with the old ones! I’ve finally edited all the photos from our April/May trip, so I hope to get the Travel Album done by the time we leave on our next trip (just 3 1/2 weeks from now). I don’t expect to make much progress on old projects until at least September.

April

May

June

Nonetheless, there have been quite a few accomplishments on other fronts, some of which I’ve recorded above. The biggest one is a fitness goal that just got established when I finally recovered from surgery and the sprained ankle. By the time all that was over, I had twelve pounds to lose (eight of them have been a constant battle for the last three years). I finally got really serious and I’ve lost 5.5 pounds in June, and Tracy and I’ve walked 53 miles! I’ve also starting a new weight lifting routine at the gym, focusing on upper body strenght. Considering the diet and the amount of exercise, I’d hoped to see a few more pounds go by the wayside, but I know the older you get, the harder it is to get that metabolism going!

No one ever told me how hard it would be to prioritize all the things you want to do in retirement! Maybe a few less hobbies and obligations would help, but there’s nothing I’m willing to give up quite yet, so it will continue to be a balancing act.

 

Project 64: Goldenrod

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Week 25 Jun20_26_Goldenrod

It’s hard for me to believe that we’ve done 25 weeks at Project 64. This has been the one photography challenge that I’ve stuck with week by week. I’m so far behind in Picture Inspiration, I wonder if I’ll ever catch up (although I do have a few photos to share for that as well this week.) Whenever I hear the word “goldenrod” I think of the years my husband suffered from hay fever. I think just the sight of goldenrod blooming along the road was enough to set off a spate of sneezing! It was a lot more fun to find goldenrod on our walks this week. This is a first, but these photos were all taken with my iPhone. We’ve been keeping track of our walks on a great little app called RunKeeper, so I always have my phone with me. I must admit our pace/mile suffers when I stop to capture a photo. But here’s what we saw this week:

Hydrantw

All the fire hydrants here are goldenrod. I was surprised to see hydrants painted other colors in area where we were traveling.

SchoolBusw

I decided I rather liked this blurry photo of the school bus going down the street. Last week was the final week of school here, so it would be much harder to find one this coming week.

Liliesw

These were captured in someone else’s yard; ours are budded but not in bloom. You can see the water droplets on the leaves which I love. We’ve walked in the rain several days this week.

  CoreopsisFencew

And, finally, coreopsis poking their heads through a fence in front of an apartment building. You can find more goldenrod at Project 64.

Project64

Papertrey June Blog Hop

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Bloghoplogo

It’s the 25th of June already, and that means the Papertrey Blog Hop. This month’s challenges was a color inspiration challenge.

PapertreyInk

All these beautiful colors inspired me to create a card with the new Mehndi Medallion stamps that arrived this week. I was also inspired by the design of the little bag I got as a bonus at the Clinque counter this week.

Clinque

I started with the color palette from the Papertrey inspiration piece and pulled out a pile of Brilliance inks, most of which have a sheen to them which adds to the look of the card IRL. Then I used the design from the cosmetic bag, but rather than overlap the images I left some space between them and filled in with some of the smaller designs. The sentiment is from Botanical Silhouettes and I love how it just seemed to enhance the overall design of the card. So, finally, here’s my interpretation of the two.

ThinkingOfYou

Cardstock:  Select White, Pure Poppy & Orange Zest

Hats Off to the Grad!

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I needed three graduation cards this weekend, and was able to combine them with three different challenges. I used the same stamp set on all three, one reason why I love stamping. Just one set can give you quite different looks. The first card is for the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger and the Casual Friday color blocking challenge.

Here’s the Tuesday Trigger called Rainbow Bright:

RainbowBright

And the Casual Friday challenge:

FotoFlexer_Photo-CFC7

And the first of the graduation cards:

ColorBlockGrad

And a peek at the inside:

InsideColorBlock

The next card, for my nephew, is based on the CPS Sketch for this week.

222

And my card:

RoadTripGrad

The last card is probably my favorite, and it’s not for any challenge. I cut the card itself on the Silhouette, and then finished it off with my stamps and dies.

SilhouetteGrad

And the inside which holds a gift card. The message pulls out for a handwritten wish for the graduate.

InsideSilhouetteGrad

I’m posting this late tonight instead of tomorrow morning because my friend and I are off to Buffalo early in the morning to the CKC Convention. I wasn’t planning to attend, but Mary was interested in going, so it didn’t take much to convince me. I’m taking one scrapbook course, one technique course, and one products-based course, all by companies that I admire. There’ll be a recap in a few days!

Supplies:

Colorblock Card:
Cardstock: Pure Poppy, Hawaiian Shores, Summer Sunrise, Orange Zest (Papertrey Ink)
Stamp:  For the Graduate (Papertrey Ink)
Die: Mat Stack 1 (Papertrey Ink)
Gems: Kaiser

CPS Card:
Cardstock: Terra Cotta Tile (Papertrey Ink)
Patterned Paper: Road Trip (Papertrey Ink)
Die: Seeing Stars (Papertrey Ink)
Stamp: For the Graduate (Papertrey Ink)
Chamomile Tea Dye Ink (Papertrey Ink)

Gift Card Holder:
Silhouette
Cardstock: Summer Sunrise (Papertrey Ink)
Patterned Paper:  Lime Twist Out of the Blue (My Mind’s Eye)
Stamp: For the Graduate  & Big and Bold Wishes (Papertrey Ink)
Die:  Seeing Stars & Fillable Frames #1 for the top of the inside sentiment (Papertrey Ink)

 

CR84FN Color Challenge

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I love this week’s color combination for CR84FN. I’m getting this challenge in just under the wire, but missed the Waltzing Mouse Sketch challenge by just an hour or so! Here’s the color challenge:

CR84FN31 Graphic

And the sketch, even though it’s too late for the challenge:

WMSC51_thumb[1]

Here’s the card. No one specifically in mind for this one, so it will go into the stash. I pulled out a thank you note and a sympathy card this morning and sent them on their way. It’s good to have cards ready to go when you need them.

Enjoy

Supplies:

Cardstock: Select White (Papertrey Ink)
Patterned paper:  A Muse
Dies: Labels Four (Spellbinders)
Butterflies: Prima
Gems: Reflections (Michaels)
Sakura Jelly Roll Clear Glitter pen (for butterflies’ bodies; hard to see in the photograph)

 

 

Project 64: Guest Blogger

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Project64

 

I’m so honored to be a Guest Blogger at Project 64 today. You can find my captures for Olive Green here.

 

Thanks!

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I have two thank you cards to share tonight. The first one is for two challenges, first a “fruity” challenge at the Simon Says Challenge blog and also for this week’s Make It Monday at Papertrey Ink. It’s been a few weeks since I’ve been able to play along there, and I’ve missed it. The technique this week is rock ‘n roll stamping. You can check out the video here.

ThanksABunch

I stamped the bunch of grapes (Fruit Fusion: Grapes–Papertrey Ink) first with Lavender Moon ink and then “rolled” it in Memento Grape Jelly ink. (How appropriate is that?) I painted on some Glossy Accents to give the grapes dimension and finished it off with the sentiment from the same set. The cute paper is from the MME’s Lime Twist “Happy Go Lucky” paper pad and the ribbon is from my stash. The premade card is from Memory Box. I love these cards because they have a white inside which makes it easy to write your note.

The next card isn’t for any challenge. I had some scraps laying around on my desk a week or so ago, and decided to put them to good use. It’s always good to have thank you notes in your stash.

 

ManyThanks

Cardstock: Pure Poppy (PTI); Patterned paper: Circa 1936 (Cosmo Cricket), journaling card (Jeni Bowlin); flower (Prima), sprayed with Mr. Huey mist (Studio Calico); star pins (Maya Road), one colored with Copic R29; die: small scallop (PTI); rick rack from stash.

One Layer Framed

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I needed a thank you note, so I thought I’d join in at Less is More with this week’s challenge for a one layer card with a framed image. The Friendship Jar series at Papertrey Ink has several wonderful flower images that are easy to adapt to a frame. The last time I used this technique I used the tulips, this time I picked the daisies. Mine in our garden are budded, but not quite in bloom yet. They’re one of my favorities because they bloom for a long time, and last a long time in a vase.

ManyThanks

This is my second post today. You can find my shots for Project 64 here.

Cardstock: X-Press It Blending (Copic)
Stamps: Friendship Jar Additions, Framed, Take Three: Summer (Papertrey Ink)
Copics: Y15, Y17, YG 93, YG 95, YR 24, E 09
Ink: Memento, Chamomil Tea Dye (Papertrey Ink)

 

Project 64: Timberwolf

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Project64

This has been an interesting color. My husband and I have been walking every morning in Highland Park and a couple of mornings I’ve taken my camera and colored card with me on our walks. When I threw the card on this bench, it was a near perfect match.

ParkBenchw

And it’s not a bad match with Brooke’s sample, though it tends to be a bit more brown. And that’s how several of the photos looked when they went up on the computer.

Week23 timberwolf

These, however, are a perfect match with my colored card, but seem a bit gray with the swatch above. It’s a puzzle.

LightPolew

A light pole. I’d never give this a second glance on an ordinary day, but the texture is quite interesting.

Squirrel&Benchw

The squirrel’s fur around his neck is a good match and so is the bench behind him.

RockWallw

A rock wall along someone’s garden.

DBRocks&Flowersw

And the rocks and the flowers, my favorite.

DYI Smashbook

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I said I wouldn’t (twice, even), but I broke down and made a Smashbook, and I’m already glad I did. I first saw this on Rinda’s blog and then on Mel’s. Both times, I said, “not me.” But after watching some of the videos linked on Rinda’s blog and the Counterfeit Kit site, I had an idea for a somewhat different version to meet my somewhat different needs. So here it is. I decided I wanted a three-ring version so I could add, subtract, and move my pages around. I started with a lovely binder that I bought nearly five years ago, and never found a good use for. I kept the cover simple, add some American Craft Thickers and stickers from my stash. (In the spirit of the Counterfeit Kit Challenge, all the supplies were from my stash.)

Cover

Then taking a selection of bright, cheerful Papertrey Ink papers, I created dividers and tabs. The tab punch I had was way too big, so I die cut six tabs from a Nestability Labels Eleven die, and adhered them to the back of the dividers. Most of the divider headings came from one of the Smashbook videos.

Dividers

Next I raided my stamps for images that seemed to fit the divider topics. Inspired (Stampers Anonymous; Labels–Jeni Bowlin):

InspiredDivider

Jotted (Take Note-Papertrey Ink; Alice in Rubberland; Stampa Rosa):

JottedDivider

Saved (Odds & Ends–Tim Holtz; Daily Junque–Pink Paislee);

SavedDivider

Photo Tips with an Ansel Adams quote (A Girl & Her Camera–Unity):

  PhotoTipsDivider

Quoted (Labels–Jeni Bowlin; Daily Junque–Pink Paislee; Take Note–Papertrey Ink):

QuotedDivider

And Random (Freestyle–Teresa Collins; Postage–Papertrey Ink):

RandomDivider

The notebook came with lined paper, but my favorite paper is graph paper so I cut and punched a lot of graph paper to use as well. I stampd a few pages and added some quotes to get started. (Stamps: Insightful Meadows & Authentic Man; Kit of the Month–Unity)

LinedPaper

GraphPaper1

GraphPaper2

And then look what showed up in this month’s Studio Calico kit. I’m sure I’ll be able to incorporate some of this into the notebook as well.

SCSmash

One of my reasons for creating the notebook this way was to have a place to record information I don’t want to forget. I always carry a tiny Moleskin notebook in my purse and keep one by my computer. I have two filled notebooks and need to go through them to see what I need to hold onto. I’ll just add the information in the correct section. Today when I started going through the beautiful cards on the Papertrey June Release blogs, I started a page in the Inspiration section with ideas for little details to include on cards. Here’s a look at one of them.

CompletedPage

So thanks, Mel and Rinda, for giving me the inspiration to get organized.