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Our drive from Atlanta to Denver included stops in Birmingham, AL, and Little Rock and Bentonville, AK. I'll be back in a week or so with some vacation posts and some photos of what we did and saw along the way. For the last four days we've been in Colorado. Saturday afternoon to Monday night, Matt, Tracy, and I enjoyed Boulder, CO and the Rocky Mountain National Park. The park is simply spectacular, and we had perfect weather for hiking and driving the Trail Ridge Road. Today we're relaxing at our friends' house in Denver. Tonight we'll have our last meal here with Dan, Nikki, Matt, and Stevie and head out for New York tomorrow morning. Dan and Stevie's parents were also here for most of our stay so we've really had a great time.

We're anticipating a four-day drive home with stops in Amana, Iowa and Lancaster and Amanda, Ohio (where I grew up.) But we can decide along the way if there are other things we'd like to see or do, or if we'd just asoon drive a little further and get home earlier. So nice to have the time to decide. Here are two cards I made before I left. I have to say, I'm itching to get back to the craft table, and have a few new projects I want to tackle this fall.

Often I have a recipient in mind for a card, or I'm making a card for one of the challenge blogs. But before I left on our trip, I spent some time just playing with some products. I love this die from Memory Box, but have never used it. Once I finished the card, I remembered the sentiment from Papertrey's "Love Lives Here" set, and thought it would make a good anniversary card. 

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And here's yet another Lovely Layers card. I used the Gridlines paper from Papertrey to help organize the stamps to create the background. Until recently, it's not a technique I've used often. I think next time, I'd use the smaller image to create the background, but I'm happy with this as I have been with just about every card I've made with this set. I don't have anyone in mind for this one yet, but it's always good to have a few birthday cards stashed away.

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Although I've kept up with some of your blog posts, I haven't taken the time to comment as my internet time has been very limited. I'll be back soon to catch up, and I'm looking forward to getting reconnected.

Best Buddies

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At the last minute I had time to scrap these strip of photos I printed a week or so ago. Larger versions of them have been on our kitchen bulletin board for over a month. Caleb just gets cuter and cuter. I can't wait to get my hands on him on tomorrow night. Tracy and I will have him for nearly 12 hours on Monday while Sarah and Adam are involved in a Fund for Theological Education conference in Atlanta. I hope he still likes us!

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These photos seemed like the perfect place to use the Studio Calico quote bubble stamps. The red background paper is from "American Made" by My Mind's Eye, the title and the border strip are also MME, the "Good Day Sunshine" line. The heart is very, very old Heidi Swapp chipboard.

Here's a closer look at the cute photos of Caleb and Sadie, who really are best buddies. I just loved the quote Adam put on Facebook for the first photo:  "Hey Sadie, look at me! That's me!" Caleb is now able to recognize faces on the iPad when we do Face Time. I hope he remembers us tomorow.

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Ten on the Tenth: Summer Road Trip

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We're leaving today for a three week road trip, so I thought I'd share 10 things I'm looking forward to seeing in August. I'll be linking this up with Shimelle's 10 Things later today when I get some wi-fi.

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So here are the 10 Things in the order that we'll be seeing them. (Not necessarily in the order in which I'm excited about them.)

#1. Our good friends, Carol and Gordy. I have no recent photo of them although we've seen them both in 2011 and 2010. I'll be sure to get good photos this time around. We'll be staying with them two nights, and if the weather is good, will be enjoying Gordy's boat on Lake Norman on Saturday.

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#2 Sarah, Adam and Caleb

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We'll be meeting them in Atlanta on Sunday. On Monday and Tuesday, we'll be babysitting while they participate in The Fund for Theological Education conference. We last saw them in early May, so we're due for a good visit.

#3 The Atlanta Aquarium. It's been a few years since we visited, but Caleb loves to look at new things, so we figured a trip to the aquarium might entertain him (and us) for a few hours on Monday.

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#4 Hilton Head Island

Following the FTE Conference, the five of us will be heading to Hilton Head for five days. We haven't had a beach vacation in several years, so I'm looking forward to family time and some time on the beach. 

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#5 After we leave Sarah, Adam, and Caleb in Atlanta to travel home to Oregon, we're headed to Birmingham, AL where we hope to visit the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute.

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#6 From there, we're headed through Memphis, TN (not sure if we'll have time to explore or not) to Little Rock, AR where I'm looking forward to visiting the National Historic Site at Central High School. Our neighbors highly recommended a stop at the visitor's center there. They also recommended a stop at the Bill Clinton Library, but I'm not sure we'll have time to do both.

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In preparation for the two civil rights stops, I'm reading Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock. It's an excellent book, and since I was pretty young at the time these events took place, I don't have any strong memories of them. I know I'll get a lot more out of both stops because I've read the book.

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#7 Next on the agenda is a stop in Bentonville, AR to visit  Crystal Bridges, an art museum and park built by the Walmart heiress. Everything we've read about this place sounds wonderful!

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#8 Then we're off to Denver, Co (via Wichita, KN) to spend some time with Matt. We last saw him in June, so it's time for a good visit.

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#9 While we're in Denver, we're staying with our long-time friend, Dan, and his wife, Nikki. We haven't seen them in over a year so it will be good to catch up with them.

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#10 One of the things we've always wanted to do in Colorado is visit Rocky Mountain National Park. Matt is taking the second part of a national landscape certification exam on Saturday. As soon as he's finished, we're headed to the national park for two days. Although he's been in Denver for over a year now, he hasn't had the time to visit the park either.

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Given that any month when I see both of my kids is a good month, and that I love road trips and new experiences, I'm really looking forward to this trip!

 

 

July Photo of the Day

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Before we head out on our road trip, I thought I should get my POTD layout completed. I printed differently (by accident) this month. The plus is that the photos are larger, but it seemed more difficult to scrap.

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I used a few Papertrey Ink dies on this one: Heart to Heart #6, Clouds 1 and 2, and the Block Alphabet. I hand cut the banner. I love the little button on the tag that says "Here's the Story" . . . and here it is:

July started with a birthday cruise on the Erie Canal to celebrate Ellie’s birthday. Greg and Sonora were here from Texas, so it was a bigger family group than usual. We left on the 4th for Hyde Park to celebrate Stephanie and Kevin’s wedding on the 6th. All the festivities were wonderful! We had an early breakfast with Dane on the 7th, and arrived home in plenty of time for Dane and Jen’s wedding here that afternoon.

Other fun events:  the Giant Panda concert at Highland Park, camping with Bob & Cathy at Keuka Lake, Mati’s baptism, and a day in Niagara-on-the-Lake with Dane who came for a three day visit. It’s not often we see one another twice in one month. We entertained our bridge group, attended a film at The Eastman House on the Lost Bird’s project, and went to the Third Church Picnic.

On the 28th, we celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary. Amazing how time flies! It’s still great after all these years!

Our neighborhood had it’s first-ever book group and the author attended. He gave us some advice on how to create a more active, caring, and interesting neighborhood. I had lovely meals and visits with Nancy & Karen, Chris, Mary & Jean, and Tina. It’s so nice to have the time to really catch up with friends.

 I finished three books:  Canada by Richard Ford, The World Without You by Joshua Henkin, and The Cost of Hope by Amanda Bennet. I liked them all. I started and abandoned John Irving’s new novel. After 80+ pages, I hadn’t become invested in the narrator’s story. There are just too many books I want to read to finish one I don’t care for.

 I have all but two of the photos for Rinda’s Summer Scavenger Hunt, created 13 cards & 2 layouts, and made great progress in another purge of unused/unwanted supplies in my studio.

Hopefully, I'll have time to schedule a post or two before we leave tomorrow morning. We're lucky to have a friend's daughter living here while we're away, a young couple who will harvest the vegetables from our community garden, and neighborhood kids who will water plants and mow. I'm quite sure time at the computer will be sporadic, but I'm hoping to visit blogs occasionally, and perhaps do a post or two from the road. I'm so looking forward to time with my kids!

Liberate Your Art

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Last year I read with interest about Kat Sloma's Liberate Your Art project, but didn't do anything about participating. This year I signed up early, but let the printing of the postcards sit on the back burner for too long. I finally ordered 4 different prints from Zazzle, and I have to say their customer service has been wonderful. Nonetheless, the order came in two parts, and I was nervous enough that I got the first set in the mail to Kat before the rest arrived. The very next day, of course, the remaining postcards arrived here. In the end, I'm happy with the photo that I sent along with a greeting from my garden. 

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Kat has over 150 participants in this year's swap. I can't imagine trying to organize all those packages, but I'll be excited to get my postcards from other participants when I get home from our road trip. I made a card for Kat, and wrote a note thanking her for doing this. Now I have three sets of postcards I can use for thank-you notes or encouragement notes. I would never have done this without the push a new project gave me.

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Almost all the products on this card are from Papertrey Ink. The exceptions are the patterned paper from Teresa Collins' World Traveler paper pack, and the camera stamp from Studio Calico.

We're having too good a time to spend much time trying to edit photos, but rest assured there are a lot of cute baby photos to come!

Extending Sympathy

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I've recently had two occasions to send sympathy cards. One to a friends whose mother passed away, and another to Sarah's mother-in-law who lost her father last week. Both of the deceased were in their 90's, and both were ready to go. Nonetheless, it is always hard to be the ones left behind. I know that they have many happy memories to help ease the loss.

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I actually created this card for one of the challenges in an online class, "Stretch Your Stamps." I've only seen one or two days worth of the wonderful videos in this class, so I'll be working on it again in the fall. The stamp is one of my Hero Arts cling stamps that doesn't get enough use.

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Once again Lovely Layers came to the rescue. This stamp set seems destined for a record number of uses. It looks so different depending on the colors you use. I also used my new PTI Impression Plate, "Stripes," which will also see a lot of use. Both cards used a sentiment from Botanical Silhouettes (PTI). 

Summer Scavenger Hunt Link-up

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It's time for the mid-summer link up for Rinda's scavenger hunt. I'm nearly finished and you can find my previous posts here,  here, and here. Last week, I got one of the three final photos:  border. Actually I got a lot of different shots as we waited on the bridge to get into Canada.

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Here's the official Boundary Sign about three-quarters of the way across the bridge.

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We frequently have a long wait to get back into the states, but this was an unusual sight approaching Canada, espcially on a Thursday morning.

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There was a slight drizzle that morning and you can see the raindrops on the window. The U.S. flag was flying at half-staff in honor of the victims in the horrible Aurora shooting.

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We got out our passports as we approached the inspection booth. The bright red cover was given to me by a friend for my birthday one year. We travel to Canada together at least twice a year.

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And finally, the welcome sign once we were through the inspection station.

We were on our way to Niagara-on-the-Lake for the day. My brother was visiting and had never been there. We knew he'd like the Irish Harp for lunch, and we visited some of our favorite wineries. We both brought back a few bottles of our favorites.

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The town itself is charming, and we walked off our lunch with a stroll down the main street.

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Two of my favorite guys!

Happy Birthday, Sarah!

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Today is Sarah's birthday, and I would typically be feeling rather sorry for myself that I am so far away on her special day, but a week from today we'll be heading out to meet Sarah, Adam, and Caleb in Atlanta. Sarah and Adam are involved in a Fund for Theological Education conference there, and we are happily babysitting while they are busy at the conference. When they finish, we're all off to Hilton Head for five days, so I am sending birthday wishes across the country today, but don't have long before I can present them in person!

Her package was sent by UPS, and ended up taking much longer to deliver than I expected, so I made an extra card (forgot to photograph the one in the package) so she'd have something to open on her birthday.

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I've seen so many lovely cards made with the Daydreamer set by Papertrey that I ordered it last month. I combined the sentiment and flowers from that set with the jar from Friendship Jar: Summer to create this card. The patterned paper is also Papertrey, and the card is a Memory Box card I cut down a bit.

Happy Occasion Cards

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I never shared the wedding card I made for my niece. It's a close copy of one by Maille Bells that she created for the release of the Gracious Vases stamp set by Papertrey. I love the simplicity and elegance of it.

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Cardstock:  Select White ; Die: Mat Stack #5, Impression Plate: Diamonds; Stamps:  Gracious Vases and Delightful Dahias; Silk ribbon. (All by Papertrey Ink); Copic Glitter pens; Clear Dimensional Magic.

Last week we attended a baptism and luncheon for a friend of ours almost three year old son. I didn't want to do a religious card, but wanted something I thought he'd enjoy.

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Cardstock: Select White and Summer Sunrise (Papertrey); patterned paper: Summer Sunrise pack (Papertrey); stamps: Clear & Simple & Lighten Up Sentiments (Papertrey)