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Surprise!

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I just had to do a layout about finally getting decent fireworks shots, even though I didn't expect them.

SurpriseLO

I started with white textured cardstock from American Craft. The banner is Quickutz’s DIY Pennants. I cut the pennants from Pink Paislee’s "Starlight" and Reminisce “Liberty Stars” and just attached them at the top so there’s a bit of dimension. The camera is a rub-on and the caption is a stamp from Lawn Fawn. Bright red American Craft Thickers and a few punched stars took care of the title. I love the Grand Large Labels from Spellbinders which make perfect journaling mats. Both were cut with my Grand Calibur.

Here's a better look at the journaling:

SurpriseJournaling

Seeing 3-D

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Who knew there were 3-D glasses for watching fireworks? Let me tell you they are amazing! Every firework turned into a kaleidoscope and if you’re wondering about some of the overlit photos, the flash on the camera had the same effect. My niece works for a credit union who passed out the glasses to their customers. It made the Fourth more fun than ever!

3-D LO

This is a pretty simple layout. I started with the bright blue textured cardstock, and used American Craft glittter Thickers which seemed so appropriate for the Fourth. The star border was cut with my Silhouette SD, and then I added some little letter stickers and a few rhinestones. A much more glitzy layout than I usually create, but it seemed appropriate for the occasion.

Project 64: Wisteria

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  Week 29 wisteria

The wisteria was beautiful here this spring, but it's no longer in bloom, but there are plenty of flowers similar in color. All of these were (once again) taken with my iPhone on our morning walks. I don't know the names of all of them, but all are fairly common in this area.

This is the one I'm linking at Project 64. I like the composition of this photo the best. These flowers grow along my MIL's fence. We walked over there this week to water her plants while she is staying at the cottage.

Flowers:Fence2

Clematis

Clematis, also growing along the fence at my MIL's.

Ageratum

Ageratum (not sure of the spelling here.)

MilllionBells

Million Bells in our patio planter

Hostas

Hostas (a bit blurry, sadly)

There will be more wisteria at Project 64.

Project64

 

 

Holiday Gift Exchange

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It's been a busy week. Aside from packing for a rather lengthy vacation, we're also packing up our kitchen so the contractor can begin to rip out the ceiling and old cupboards while we're away. We've been driving to Consesus Lake every day to visit with Tracy's family. His mom has rented a cottage, and all of us try to gather for dinner (at least) every day. It's been over 90° every day this week, so it's been great to be at the lake. The last several years, we've taken the opportunity to draw names for the Christmas gift exchange during this week since everyone is together. I make gift tags, and if they want, the family can save them for the packages come December. (Mine is in a little dish on my dresser so I don't lose it!)

Here is this year's version:

HolidayGiftTags

I kept it pretty simple this year. I colored some Avery tags with Tim Holtz Distress Ink (Broken China), punched some snowflakes and outlined them with a glitter pen, and added a coordinating gem. The snowflakes are popped out with a 3-D adhesive. The back was stamped with WPlus9's "All Occasion Tags."

This is probably my last blog post before we leave for Vancouver, BC and Alaska. It appears internet connections will be iffy, so I doubt that I'll be able to do much blog reading or commenting (not that I expect to have much time for that), and I'm quite sure posting will be a challenge. I'm hoping to keep up with Project 64, but we'll see how it goes. I do have a few posts pre-scheduled, and I'll be catching up with you on my return. We're very excited to be going on our first cruise, and to be going with good friends of over 25 years. Should be fabulous!

Project 64: Mac & Cheese

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This week's color at Project 64 was certainly easier for me than last week's Sea Green! And I managed to get another photo for Rinda's Scavenger Hunt (see the left sidebar) as well. I love orange, and as soon as I pulled out my little card for Mac & Cheese, I checked my orange J. Jill shirt from a couple of years ago. Perfect match, and now I have a self-portrait (taken with my Hipstamatic app) for the Scavenger Hunt. And I'm submitting this one to Project 64 which is a pretty gutsy move seeing how much I hate self-portraits.

SelfPortrait

All the rest of the photos were taken on just one morning walk with my iPhone.

Marigolds
Marigolds

  RealtorSign

A realtor's sign

Rubekia

Rudbeckia

RibSign

Sign for a Ribs and Blues Fest

 

 

Fanatical About Botanical Challenge in the Moxie Fab World

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I have a card for the new Moxie Fab World challenge, botanicals. The Garden Variety stamps by Papertrey seem a perfect match for the Pink Paislee Butterfly Garden papers. Edited to add this to the Simon Says Anything Goes Challenge.

GardenVarietyMercy

The butterfly is part of the patterned paper, but I added some stamped grass to the bottom of the frame and some gems for some dimension.

Supplies:
Cardstock: Rustic White (Papertrey)
Patterned Paper: Butterfly Garden (Pink Paislee)
Stamps:  Garden Variety (Papertrey)
Die:  Seed Packet Frame (Papertrey)
Ribbon: Paper Source
Gems from stash

Project 64: Sea Green

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Week 27 Jul4_10_sea Green

I've put this post off as long as I can hoping something better would show up for last week's color. Sea Green was the hardest one yet for me. Several folks posted sea glass, and I have a jar filled with sea glass from our first trip to California fifteen years ago. None of my sea glass is quite right, but the jar itself is the closed thing I have to sea green. Since it's nearly translucent, it's harder to see in a photo. It's much closer to the crayon sample than the crayon wrapper.

SeaGreen2

You can find more Sea Green here.

Project64

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 Card Camp

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This  is week 2 of the Summer Card Camp, and I've barely had time to read the pdfs, to say nothing of watch the videos. Hopefully, I'll get to the videos this afternoon or tomorrow. I do love this week's colors, so I had to sit down and get a couple of cards made. I already have receipients for both cards, so I "killed two birds with one stone," so to speak. Here are this week's colors:

Week2

They translate into Papertrey Inks cardstock easily:  Summer Sunrise, Orange Zest, Pure Poppy, Simply Chartreuse, and New Leaf so I decided to use up some scraps and do some die cutting.

Happy

For the first card, I die cut five words from the Wonderful Words die from Papertrey. In the photo, it's a bit hard to see the bright colors of the words. Here's the inside, stamped with Wonderful Words Additions.

InsideHappy

For the next card, I die cut five little houses from Love Lives Here (Papertrey Ink). It's one of my favorite dies. The sentiment is from the coordinating stamp set.

MyHome

The twine is from Divine Twine and the button from my stash. Here's the inside, also stamped with Love Lives Here.

InsideMyHome

Back to the To Do List. Have a great day!

 

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

 

 

 

Happy Fourth of July!

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Yesterday  Tracy and I took nearly a three mile walked around my brother's neighborhood in Hyde Park, NY. It was drizzling most of the way and since I didn't think I had any great fireworks photos to post, I was looking for Fourth of July decorations for today's post. First I saw this:

July4bunting

I love the way the bunting was reflected in the puddle. Then we came upon this:

July4Lawn

The little doggie ornament is holding a flag as well.

Then last night I uploaded photos from my point and shoot (above) and my photos from my SLR from Saturday night's fireworks. In frustration, I had pointed my camera to the sky and took about 20 photos with my remote, not expecting anything. Imagine my surprise when I saw these:

Fireworks3

Fireworks6

Fireworks8

Edited to add: I'm submitting this one to Sweet Shot Tuesday:

RedFireworks1

Just four of ten decent photos of the fireworks. What a pleasant discovery! If you're in the U.S. have a wonderful holiday! My brother and Tracy are off to golf this morning, and I'll be hanging out with Stephanie. There's a cookout planned for tonight. Early tomorrow morning, we'll be headed home.

 

 

Summer Card Camp Take 2

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Week1-colorsOne of my former fifth graders graduated from high school a week ago. I'm missing her party because we're traveling this weekend, but I wanted to get her card and gift to her before we left. The high school colors are pretty boring for a delightful young woman full of energy and enthusiasm, so I decided to use this week's camp colors to create a card for her.

HoorayForYou

For those of you in the class, you can easily see my inspiration from Kristina's card sketch and video. I wanted to try the faux stitching with the white gel pen, and was very pleased with how easy it was. It's something I'll use again for sure. Here's a peek at the inside:

InsideAmy

We're in Hyde Park for the holiday weekend visiting my brother and nieces. Last night was the New Paltz fireworks display, and I hoped to have some awesome photos from it. We got there early, asked where the fireworks would be set off, and got the tripod and camera set up for a site beyond some trees in the distance. Imagine our surprise when the fireworks erupted right over our heads! It was an awesome display, but we were far too close for any great photos. One of my nieces works for a local credit union and had 3-D glasses for the fireworks. They were amazing, turning the fireworks into kaleidoscope displays. It was lots of fun, but I'll have to wait for another opportunity for my fireworks assignment in the Night Photography class.

Supplies:

Cardstock: Select White, Hawaiian Shores (PTI)
Patterned Paper: Lime Twist (MME)
Stamps: Wonderful Words Additions, Star Prints, For the Graduate (PTI)
Dies:  Stars, Wonderful Words (PTI)
Pearls (Hero Arts)
Ink: Brilliance