As most tourists in New Orleans, we spent quite a bit of time walking in both the French Quarter and the Garden District. The two areas have very distinct personalities which you’ll see more clearly in later posts, but there are beautiful wrought iron fences in both. 

Interestingly, both districts have a cornstalk fence. The one in the French Quarter sits in front of The Cornstalk Hotel, and was erected in 1840. According to a tour guide we overheard, the same story about the owner building the fence to ease his wife’s homesickness for her home state of Iowa is told about both fences. I think this one is more beautiful because of the painted posts and gorgeous gate. 

The mansion in the Garden District was built in 1860. The fence was created by the same company that built the fence in the French Quarter. 

There’s one other cornstalk fence. It was built 1858 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Linking up, as always, with Helena and off to see what other SNAP offerings there are this week.

Tracy and I had a Groupon that was about to expire for a new-to-us restaurant last week. I’d heard great things about it, and we were not disappointed. It’s a small place, but the service and the food were both exceptional. On one wall were three pieces of cutlery, and I immediately thought of the Winter Scavenger Hunt even though I’d already taken a photo of our cutlery at home. Then I spotted another photo of cutlery—a graphic design on the window as you came into the restaurant, and realized I had (with one more photo from another favorite restaurant) my four photos for SNAP.

If you look carefully at the bottom left photo, you can see Tracy looking at me as I take the photo, and the cutlery on the wall inside as well. The only way I could get our cutlery in the template was to put it in sideways, but fortunately the soup spoon is at least right-side up. The top right photo is the graphic design for a great restaurant a few blocks from us called Orb—they specialize in meatballs. 

So here are the last of the scavenger hunt items. I’m still hoping for a better photo of a robin, but I’ve found the required items for the hunt.

11-Your favorite pudding. This was made easier once I was assured “pudding” was synonymous with dessert. I splurged and purchased my favorite cake to take to friends- chocolate raspberry ganache.

12 A fancy button. Here are three I cut off a favorite dress once it went out of style. I have several of each, and hope someday to find some way to use them.

14 Afternoon tea. I usually have my tea in a mug, but for this occasion (a photograph) I used one of the fancy tea cups I inherited from my great aunt.

21 Your own handwriting. I’m keeping a gratitude journal this year and so here are a couple of pages from it. I’m trying to find a quote each week to “illustrate” as well.

And a page from my daily journal. Keeping a daily journal is critical for me especially when I’m so far behind in my Project Life pages.

So that’s it for the Winter Scavenger Hunt. My other finds are here, here, and here. I know I’ll still be looking in case I find some more good candidates. Linking up with Helena for SNAP, and with Joy and Eileen for the Winter Scavenger Hunt.

 

I finally got my June and July Project Life pages completed. Most of June had been done quite some time ago, but I was waiting to figure out who took the photo of Karen, Debbie, and me at Karen’s retirement party. Just a few weeks ago, I was texting with Karen’s sister in Wisconsin, and discovered she had the photo I wanted. July has taken so long because there are SO MANY photos. I had most of them printed locally with a white border, and had started the pages in October and November. The whole project got sidelined when I took on doing a Christmas Journal, and then we were gone for several weeks. Now they’re done before we head off again for nearly all of March. In the next few days I’ll get the July pages posted. They’ll need to be divided up into several posts. Now my goal is to be caught up over the summer. We’ll see how that goes.

So here is June:

We took an unexpected trip to Chicago in the middle of June to help Sarah, Adam, and Caleb move to a new house. It’s only five minutes away from the old one, but five minutes or an hour, the packing up, preparing the new house, cleaning the old house, and getting it all moved is still the same amount of work. On our way, we stopped for dinner with my cousin, his wife, and my aunt in Ohio.

 

As always, the focus is on the photos and the story, and there’s minimal embellishment. I’ve recently realized I opt not to tell longer stories, and I think I might begin to do more of that in the near future.

Right after we got home from Chicago, we took off to Hyde Park to meet my grand-nephew, Finn, and to attend a really special wedding where our neighbor’s daughter (who we’ve known since she was in preschool) married a soccer buddy of Matt’s. They are both artists (a fashion designer and an animation designer) so the wedding had lots of special touches.

And lastly, a page with Miss Ella and Miss Skylar, and my friend Karen’s retirement party.

Karen (in the middle), Debbie and I spent three years together working in a blended classroom (1/3 special education students). They were the best four years of my 37 year teaching career.

Back tomorrow with the first installment of July’s pages.  

 

Unfortunately, there’s also going to be a couple of February Editions as well. Despite my best intentions, the Christmas Journal still has some pages to go. On a positive note, they are all planned out, so it’s just a matter of printing photos, journaling, and embellishing. (Well, that is quite a lot!) The following pages were actually completed in December, and I thought I had posted them but have recently discovered that was not the case. So here is the next installment.

Most amazing of all, is that we’re in the midst of another warm spell right now. Yesterday I went to the store without a coat!

In order to accommodate the spread for December 13, I needed a filler page.The top is a piece of gold dotted acrylic with some Thickers added. For the bottom slot, I used a piece of Papertrey Ink’s “Stars Scribbled” paper and added some letter stickers, then adhered it to a piece of gold foil paper.

On the 13th, we heard Poulenc’s Gloria in church, sung by our amazing choir, led by an equally amazing director of music, as well as our “new” assistant organist who is uber-talented. (It helps to live in the same city as the Eastman School of Music!) That afternoon we went to see “Brooklyn,” which I loved, and I used the journaling spot to record a list of the many movies we saw from Thanksgiving on.

At this point I was still committed to a page for every day (I later gave that up!) and chose to write about my intention to capture photos of my day out with my friends, but it just didn’t happen. My niece, Grace, did seem to like her scarf.

The next day I was out on the canal with another group of friends. We make it look like it was very cold, but actually it was just really windy.

This will go down as one of my favorite spreads. Betsy is sitting on a board for a charitable organization, and a group of them meeting once a month for an early morning meeting. I get to be there to play with the girls when they get up, get them breakfast (if they want it) and just enjoy a laid-back morning. Skylar and Ella get along so well together, it just a pleasure to babysit. The selfie was Skylar’s idea and it might be one of the first I’ve ever taken that I thought was pretty good!

I’ve got way too many “irons in the fire” right now, but finishing the Christmas Journal is at the top of the list! Hope to be back soon with more. 

The inspiration piece for this month’s Papertrey Ink Blog Hop was a bit of a challenge. The colors are not ones I would typically gravitate toward, although I find them striking. And there is no clear focal point, just a variety of shapes.

I started with the colors and chose Tropical Teal and Terra Cotta Tile as the closest I could get to the colors above. Then I remembered I’d purchased the dies (but not the stamps) for “Sketched Shapes.” I cut out two sets of the dies and chose the triangles and the circles. I lay them on some black card stock and started moving them around, and this is what I came up with.

Classic Kraft ended up being the best choice for the card base, and matches pretty well the background color on the largest shape in the inspiration piece. I was pretty happy with this card, but then noticed that some of the shapes in the inspiration piece were darker on one half, and thought I’d try stamping the one half of the circles with the corresponding inks. I ended up using one of the pattern blocks in “Bitty Background Blocks.”

And I like this one even better. Here’s a better look at the stamped circles.

The sentiment from “Stylish Sentiments:  Birthday” was embossed with gold. Both cards went in the mail as soon as they were completed since I needed two birthday cards for weekend birthdays. Fortunately, both live locally so I’m pretty sure they arrived on time. 

One of the fun things about visiting Santa at the George Eastman Museum is watching him come down the Grand Staircase in George Eastman’s mansion. Here’s Santa at the top.

And greeting some children at the bottom.

I’m linking up to Helena’s meme “Pairs,” and delighted to see that she has plans to host another weekly photography meme in 2016.

I hosted a dinner for my daughter-in-law’s family this weekend. I was delighted that her youngest sister was here visiting from Boston. The original intent for Pairs was to have it be Before and After, but by the time I remembered to take the After photo, most of the dishes had been cleared away. Luckily, I took a During photo for my Christmas Journal. So here they are:

BEFORE:

I always love this view from our dining room table into the living room, but especially at Christmas. I also love these snowflake plates I bought at Target several years ago.

DURING:

José is missing from this photo. He had to work late, but arrived in time to eat his dinner before we started on dessert! I love my DIL and her family, and are glad they are all willing to gather around our table.

Joining in with other Pairs at Helena’s blog. We’re so near the end of another wonderful year of photographic fun!

I found this the Ten on Tuesday meme through Honore’s blog, but have only participated a couple of times. This week’s prompt was so timely I decided to play along. 

10 Things You Put In Your Travel Tote Bag

We hit the road again yesterday, so I just finished packing the tote bag. There are definitely more than 10 items in there, but here are the essentials:

1. Glasses case with glasses and sunglasses
2. Umbrella
3. Plastic zip envelope with articles, cards to mail while we’re away, important documents
4. iPad
5. Kindle (I could probably get away with just the iPad, but reading in bed with the Kindle is just easier!)
6. current novel
7. sketchbook
8. watercolor markers
9. pens and pencils
10. Contact solution

My current tote is a Baggallini that a friend recommended when Sarah and Adam lived on the West Coast and we were flying back and forth several times a year. It still looks like new and fits over the handle of my rolling suitcase. I just love it. What’s in your travel bag?

We’re of the age that many of our friends are dealing with the illness and death of parents. This week a friend lost her mother. Betty lived a long and happy life, but the last few months were very difficult. For some reason I never seem to have a stash of sympathy cards ready to mail, but since I had just watched the Papertrey Ink Make-it-Monday video I had an idea. I don’t often stamp a background. Except for changing the ink color, I copied the background design Dawn created on the video. The neutral colors seemed perfect for a more somber card.

I used both Soft Stone and Fine Linen cardstocks and inks in creating the card. The die cut is the “Christmas Label” which I haven’t used in a long time, but will remember it for times like these. The sentiment is also from a set I haven’t used in a long time, “Boutique Borders.”

The pearls from A Muse Creative Candy were the perfect color. I purchased a lot of these before A Muse went to a private party format, and I’m glad I did. This card seems perfect for the current Virginia View challenge, Ombre and Monochromatic.