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Pairs: Part to Whole

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When I flipped my birthday calendar over to May, I was somewhat taken aback to see that I needed 12 birthday and anniversary cards, and only one or two appropriate ones in my file. I took some time off from Project Life and got busy. The first night, I grabbed a stack of scraps from my pile and die cut a whole group of "happys" with Papertrey Ink's "Wet Paint" die.

  Happy

Then I set to work designing some cards. I finished all twelve, but can't post all of them yet, since some of the recipients read my blog regularly. Here are four–three are a variation on a theme.

CardCollage

All the cards are in their envelopes with the dates they need to be mailed, so today I'm back to working on Project Life. I don't have many commitments this weekend, so even though tomorrow is May 1, I'm still plugging along, hoping to catch up soon!

Songbirds

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When I need a quick card, I often reach for my Songbird die cuts. When I first purchased this stamp and die set, I die cut multiple pieces and can usually put them together to make a quick card. 

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The folk art nature of these dies seems to lend itself to kraft cardstock. I love the pop of bright yellow gold and orange against the brown.

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For the second card, I die cut the Phrase Play #6 in kraft and layered it on a cream card base. Then I tied a piece of twin (from my very cool antique-looking twine holder) and layered a branch with a bird with dimensional tape.

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The sentiment also comes from Phrase Play #6 (Papertrey Ink.)

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Both cards fit the current Virginia's View challenge of Layers and Dimension, but I'm just linking up this last one for now.

Layers and Dimensions

 

Just Sayin”

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Switching from a concentrated effort on Project Life to card making proved to be more stressful than I anticipated. This card doesn't even begin to match the idea in my head when I started to make a birthday card for a good friend. I even switched stamp sets in the end. But I am happy with this card, and it gave me an opportunity to use a die that arrived in the mail about a week ago—Sentimental Splits. I resisted ordering it when it first came out, but broke down when I placed an order during Papertrey's April release. No regrets. I think it will get a lot of use.

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I created the watercolor background (on Tim Holtz Watercolor paper) for the original card, but it came in handy when I moved to creating an ombre butterfly (die cut from "Life is Beautiful") similar to the ones Laurie demonstrated in a Papertrey Make It Monday. I ended up using just two colors of ink, and sponged it on the die cut directly. I die cut a piece of vellum with the Scribbled Circle die and added a few Pretty Pink Posh sequins to finish it off. The sentiment is from Simon Says "Friendship Messages" and continues to the inside with "Happy Birthday." The "gems" on the body of the butterfly are Papertrey Ink's rainstones.

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I'm linking this up to the CAS-ology challenge: OMBRE.

Week 143 - Ombre

Project Life: September 2014

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Although we made our annual weekend trip to the Adirondacks, the big event in September was Skylar's third birthday. I had a lot of fun embellishing the birthday pages, using stamps and die cuts from my card making supplies.

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I added a die cut and a stamp from the Monthly Moments set by Papertrey Ink to a photo this month. I like it a lot. The other noteworthy event from the month was going to our first Food Truck Rodeo at the Public Market. I don't know how we missed these all summer. This was the last one, and it was a lot of fun. There were probably 20-30 food trucks set up around the perimeter of the Public Market downtown. The choices were amazing—wings, Thai, Chinese, barbecue, sandwiches, Cuban . . . We finally decided on comfort food: mac and cheese because we'd heard so much about Mac'Rollin. It was a bit of a wait in line, but worth it. There's live music, too, and the crowd was as diverse as the food offerings.

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I found the digital stamp by Katie Pertiet to create this filler card for the Food Truck Rodeo.

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I recently purchased two Market Kits from Papertrey Ink: Party Pops and Clipsters. Both came in handy. The candles and banner on the title card (from the Midnight edition of Project Life) came from the Party Pops kit. I wanted to document the transformation of the swing set from a pile of boards to the completed, and truly enjoyed, final product. And I scanned both sides of the invitation to include in the layout.

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 The photo of Skylar before the party is one of my favorites from the whole year. By the time the party was over, she'd had enough of photos, but I loved this one of Matt and Betsy, even if Skylar is hiding.

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 This card gave me a chance to include one more photo of the birthday girl and play with my new goodies. The same banner from the previous page, and one of the Clipster clips.

I've taken a couple of days break from Project Life, but am four months down, and five to go. That's pushing it to be done by the end of the month, but I haven't given up!

Pairs: Cart and Basket

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One of the few flowers beside bulbs that can withstand the fickle spring weather in Western New York are the pansies. We really needed a shot of color on our stoop so we bought a few pots of pansies this weekend.

Here they are in the cart at The Garden Factory:

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And in the baskets on our front stoop. (It's too small to call a porch.)

Baskets

I had some fun editing this photo on my iPhone with the new Enlight app. It's a paid app, but I'm quite sure if I can figure it out, it will be well worth the money. For this photo, I used the "mask" tool which works much like Photoshop. I converted it to black and white and masked the flowers so they would remain in color.

I'm linking this to Helena's weekly meme: Pairs.

Project Life: August 2014

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I've continued to make good progress on catching up with Project Life; not quite as good on getting the pages photographed for the blog. August found Sarah and Caleb still here; Adam joined them a few days later when he returned from his mission trip. All three stayed through the rest of the week and we spend most afternoons and early evenings with Tracy's family for the annual vacation at Conesus Lake.

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Again, I kept it pretty simple with the Simple White photo templates, a couple Tiny Templates (#4) from Cathy Zielski, and a wooden veneer from my stash. The patterned paper for the title card is from a paper pad "Print Shop" by Studio Calico, the camera sticker is from a collection by Simple Stories, and die cuts from Papertrey Ink.

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I seem to have a fondness for photos of Caleb walking away from us. This is another fave.

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Those of you familiar with Rinda's Summer Scavenger Hunt will remember this photo of Tracy's family creating a parade for me. It ended up being one of my favorite photos from the summer.

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The last page documents our excursion to the Strong Museum of Play in downtown Rochester. An awesome place, and there will be more photos from here later in the year. At the end of August I helped organize a picnic for the Urban Presbyterians Together, a group dedicated to supporting the ten urban churches in our Prebytery as well as incredible efforts to improve the City Schools.

 

 

Pairs: Open and Closed

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I had a doctor's appointment this morning. It was a bright, sunny day so I asked Tracy to drop me off at the doctor's office so I could walk home. I hoped I would find some inspiration for Pairs since I hadn't prepared anything in advance. It's just beginning to look like spring might arrive here. There are a few snowdrops, some tiny yellow flowers, and crocus. We've never had crocus in our yard, but have decided that will change next year. We're planning to plant bulbs under both of the trees in our front yard. I just love them. I walked by some pretty purple ones under a tree, and then about three threes ahead there was another group of three. The first ones were open and the second group was closed. Here they are:

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Another block or so down the street, I came to this cluster. They seem to be a smaller variety, but what caught my attention was the wonderful backlight.

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You can find other Pairs at Helena's blog here. Today she has a beautiful pair of bright yellow flowers.

Happy Birthday, Adam!

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It's been a long time since I posted a new card here. I made all the cards for March/early April birthdays and anniversaries before I left for Florida, and got this one done between our two trips. I love that the Retro Graduation and Retro Birthday die cuts/stamps work so well with the Zappy Birthday dies I bought a few months ago. This card is a birthday take on one Betsy Veldman created as a graduation card for the Papertrey release last month. It's a fun set that will work for almost anyone, but especially good for guys, teens, and kids (three of the harder groups to create for.)

AdamBD

I started with a piece of paper from the Comic Strip paper collection and cut two images of the skyline from black cardstock with the Zappy Birthday dies. The rest of the card was made with the Retro Graduation dies and Retro Graduation and Birthday stamps. I stamped the lined image on the main area of the sign with an old Hero Arts wooden stamp. The little stars were die cut with the Star Border die from Papertrey.

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This gives you a better view of the dimension. 

Happy Birthday, Adam! I hope you have a great day!

I'm linking up with Virginia's View Challenge. I totally missed out on last month's since we were on the road, but I do love her challenges. This month it's Layers and Dimensions. This certainly fits.

Layers and Dimensions

 

 

April: Project Life Catch-up

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Rinda has been working on one creative project each month, and I decided to designate April as Project Life Catch-up. I have the layouts mapped out by the number that need to be completed each week, and if I can stay the course, I'll be caught up by May 2.

It's not hard to reconstruct our months. My Lightroom library keeps all the photos organized, and I keep a daily journal. I have to admit, I rarely have to consult the journal. As soon as I see the photos, the stories come right back. I've decided not to worry about filler cards and embellishments. What matters to me are the photos and the stories. If I come across the right embellishment I'll use it; otherwise I'll stick to photos and journaling.

Here's June 2014:

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I'm using the Papertrey Ink Monthly Moment dies and stamps to create the title cards for 2014. I have a different plan when I reach 2015. I also used the Monthly Moment stamps "celebrate" and "4th of July." Other supplies on these two pages are Tracy Larsen's Simply White templates, Cathy Zielski Tiny Templates, a template from Sahlin Studio,a die (remember) from Paper Smooches, Stitched Rectangle die (PTI), a Simple Stories 4X3 card for journaling, and a bit cut from the brochure from the Antique Boat Museum.

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I'm not quite sure where the "hello summer" card came from. It was a freebie, and if anyone knows who to attribute it to, I'd love to know. The two journaling cards came from Monthly Moment card packs. I only have two sets, and plan to order some more now that I have a template all figured out for getting my journaling exactly on the lines! Both bits on the journaling cards are from Crate Paper: "The Open Road." 

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The importance of scrapbooking became even more apparent this week. About six weeks ago, a dear friend who was 92 passed away. She'd been in a skilled nursing home with dementia for nearly two years, but was surprisingly alert on occasion. This week her husband (of 67 years), and one of our former pastors, also passed away. It seems this is often the case where one death leads rather quickly to another, and I will miss both of them tremendously. I've been helping their son go through some of their belongings this weekend, and we came across a scrapbook of sorts that includes photos of my family going back 35 years. The first photo of Sarah is when she is about two, and there are a few of Tracy and me before that. In addition to our photos, there were photos of so many couples we know from church. Some of them have changed a lot; others hardly at all. It was so much fun to go through them. Like my photos, a single photo can conjure up quite a story.

Pairs: Seek and Find

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We've been home from Chicago for a couple of days, but didn't leave until after church on Easter Sunday. Grandpa is the ultimate scavenger hunt creator for the Easter Bunny. Years ago, when our two kids were teenagers we were vacationing on Easter Sunday. I had taken Easter basket goodies with me and Tracy hid the baskets. When the kids got up, they wanted to know where the clues were. When Tracy told them we didn't have a scavenger hunt this year, they sat down, and said, "We'll wait!" So they did, and Tracy created a hunt for them.

Sarah and I found little bunny prints at Party City, and all the clues for Caleb were photographs of familiar places around the house. The hunt took him to several rooms, the pantry, and finally the basement where he found his Easter basket in the dryer.

Seek and Find

Seek&Find

 

After church, Sarah's church hosted an Easter egg hunt. Caleb had a grand time.

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As always, I'm linking up to Helena's fine meme, Pairs. You can see the others right here.

Pairs: Back and Forth

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We've had several nice warm days in Chicago. The crocus are blooming in Sarah's backyard, and on our walk to the playground yesterday afternoon we spotted several robins hopping about in yards, and lots of daffodils and tulips pushing up through the ground. Sarah and Adam live just a short walk from a wonderful school playground which has a section designed just for younger children. Caleb loves to go, and his favorite activity is the swing. I did a series of Burst photos on the iPhone and thought Back and Forth would make a good pair for this week.

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As always, our time here has flown by, and we just have two more full days before we head home. Today it's cloudy, but the forecast for tomorrow and Easter Sunday looks lovely! (The forecast for home, however, is not anywhere nearly as lovely when we return. Good thing I have lots of inside work to do!)