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Make-It Monday 2

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MakeItMonday

My intention is to make a card for Papertrey's Make-It Monday challenge each week. We've been so busy finishing the work on the dining room and living room that I didn't even start the card until after dinner tonight. I wanted to try Nicole's technique of shadowing with the Copic markers as well as using the vellum sentiment strip. I'm happy with the shadow technique but only mildly satisfied with the overall card, but that's not a surprise since I'm doing this at the last minute! I scored a frame around the Raspberry Fizz cardstock with my Martha Stewart Scoreboard and used a piece of striped vellum from my stash for the sentiment. The pearls are Memory Box, but all the other supplies are from Papertrey Ink.

Sweetpeaw2

 

Team-up Thursday: Blue

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Teamup
I keep a little list on my desk of things I think I'd like to photograph. Blueberries has been there for awhile, and although we usually have some in the fridge I hadn't gotten around to it. "Blue" was the perfect excuse, and you'll see another shot of blueberries soon for a second challenge. Nancy took this shot of her brilliant blue pitcher in front of a photograph she took of blue flowers.

BlueDiptych

Now, I'd like to see a bright blue sky, but although we have much warmer temperatures forecast for the next two days, there's no sun in the forecast.

 

 

One Little Word–Finish

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I decided to do a mid-month update for my One Little Word project for this year. This week I've finished a project that's been in the works for at least five years. About five or six years ago, I took every photo we had out of the old albums (some in damaging magnetic albums) and sorted all of them by event or subject.We're talking hundreds and hundreds of photos. I have over 900 of them now in photo albums and the rest are sorted into boxes waiting for a scrapbook home.

When the sorting was done, I started a birthday album for Sarah, but got bogged down when I couldn't identify all the guests, and when I realized there weren't enough photos to scrap (or the photos were totally missing!) for some birthdays. (I'd like to know what happens to those missing photos. They remind me of socks that disappear down our laundry shoot. I know we had them, but they can't be found!) This scrapbook was exactly why I chose the word "finish" for this year. 

So this week I finished about four layouts that just needed some journaling or a list of guests. I gave up on the lists since neither Sarah, her babysitter, nor I can identify everyone, and replaced that spot with a journaling spot, a decoration, or another photo. Then I completed several last layouts for the birthdays for which I had enough photos. I've left room in the album in case photos reappear, but for now, I have more than half her birthdays documented. As she got older, we no longer had big parties, and there seem to be few photos. Anyway, I was feeling pretty good about this project and went to my tag book to mark this project done. Imagine my surprise when I realized I never listed this as one of the projects I wanted to finish! What was I thinking?

I was too lazy to take the layouts out of the album, but thought I'd share a few of the pages here. The title page was done yesterday after I punched out some 2X2 squares of extra photos. It's interesting to me that my scrapbook style has stayed relatively consistent over the years–pretty linear and a good amount of white space.

Title

1w

2w

6w

7w

MysteryDinnerw

20w

The page on the right here was done as a Make & Take at CHA last July. I later ordered some of the Teresa Collins papers so it was easy to add the second page.

Sweet Shot Tuesday and P52

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Sweetshotbutton

I'm using the same shot again for Sweet Shot Tuesday and P52, and yes, once again, it's a photo of a flower. I can't help it, they're the only thing around here that has any appeal by mid-February. This rose was part of a larger bouquet I bought at Wegmans, the local grocery store. Tracy surprised me with a beautiful arrangement of many different kinds of flowers yesterday, so I'm sure there'll be another one next week!

  RoseMacro2w

Here's a shot of the whole bouquet. These are such a bargain and last for days!

Bouquetw

P52-125

Project 64: Apricot

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Wk6 feb7_13_Apricot

I carried this crayon around with me for several days wondering when I would discover something that was apricot. It's an odd shade and there's nothing in my closet or jewelry box that comes close. The first thing I thought of was my great-aunt's china which I inherited. And, yes, one of the flowers is pretty close.

Chinaw

When I opened a package of dried apricots, they really looked too orange, but when I put the crayon next to them, it's not bad.

DriedApricotsw

Then I was at the mall, and noticed the banner Anthropologie had hanging outside their store. VERY close, I'd say.

AnthroBanner2w

But finally, on Friday night, we went to the George Eastman House for an opening of the new Civil War photography show. While we were there we wandered into the mansion where the annual Dutch Bulb Collection is in bloom. I have no idea what kind of flower this is, but the veins are definitely apricot, and it is a lovely, lovely flower.

ApricotFlower2w

So in the end, I found quite a bit, and had some fun in the looking. I'm really enjoying this project, and both Tracy and Matt are on the lookout with me for the color of the week.

Project 64

Happy Valentine’s Day

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Happy Heart Day to those of you who celebrate! This was my father's favorite holiday, and he always spoiled us with lovely gifts on Valentine's Day. I thought I'd share a couple of things I made for Valentine's Day. The classroom where I volunteer is for special needs children, some of whom have very special dietary needs. They can have gummy worms, but frankly, I'm tired of filling treat bags with the same icky candy. (Even though they love it!) So I was excited when I found these water bottle labels. All the kids keep water bottles on their desks, so I know they'll get used. I tied a Valentine's Day pencil to each one as well. Pencils are always a big hit.

WaterBottles1w

WaterBottles2w 

One of the projects I made for the Scrap-Mart blog was a fry box filled with Hershey kisses. I decided to make three more. The new die from Quickutz goes together really quickly, and the boxes hold about 25 kisses.

4FryBoxesw

Tracy and I went out to dinner last night with good friends and I have a special dinner planned for tonight. We're not exchaning gifts since we just splurged on a new flat-screen TV which will be installed on Wednesday. But here's a Valentine for you . . .

JustForYouw

Whether you celebrate or not, I hope you have a lovely day. I so appreciate the community that has developed here and would hand deliver these sweets to you if I could!

PTI Anniversary Party: BIG Challenge

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I'm enjoying these Papertrey challenges. Today's was to create a card with a BIG sentiment, focal point . . . I don't have a lot of large stamps but I do have Big and Bold Wishes and used a similar repetition from an earlier challenge. I find I'm wanting to stamp in bright and cheerful colors to counteract the dreary snow and cold here.

WishBig

Cardstock:  Select White & Hawaiian Shores (PTI) and Romani (Basic Grey); Stamps: Big and Bold Wishes (PTI), Ribbon: Celebrate It (Michaels) and dotted from stash; Birthday candle (unknown).

Tags and Frames

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Today Papertrey Ink introduced new tag and frame stamps designed to coordinate with products they already have on the market. I love the versality of stamps like these. The challenge was to combine a tag with a frame. It's been a very busy day so, fortunately, I had a tag and a frame already die-cut as well as a cute Teresa Collins star. It didn't take too long to stamp and put it altogether. Eventually, I'll probably put this on a birthday card.

TagFramePTI

Except for the star and ribbon from my stash, all Papertrey Ink:  Pure Poppy and Select White cardstock, Fillable Frame #5, twine, Pure Poppy button.

PTI Button Challenge

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Today was the first day of the new release at Papertrey Ink. I absolutely love buttons and use them all the time in both cardmaking and scrapbooking, so the stamps and dies really appealed to me. The challenge today, then, was to use buttons. Betsy Veldman's project this morning used fabric which inspired me to go buy some interfacing and try fabric with the Love Lives Here dies. I'm very happy with the way it worked out.

PTIButtonCard

Along with the Love Lives Here dies, I used a sentiment from the same set, a small kraft card by Paper Source and three heart buttons from my stash. I scored two lines between the die cuts and the sentiment. The fabric came from a fat quarter I picked up at JoAnne's since years ago I got rid of almost all the fabric I had when I gave up sewing on a regular basis.

Team-up Thursday: Celebration

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Another interesting mix this week for "celebration." I decided on Valentine sprinkles (haven't made the cookies yet) and Nancy photographed one of Highland Ave's snow sculptures. Thank goodness for folks who celebrate the winter around here. We need a few bright spots during the long, cold, snowy winters in Rochester!

Celebration Diptych

PTI Anniversary Party: Color Challenge

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This is my third post of the day since each challenge card for the PTI Anniversary Party requires a separate post. Today's challenge is a color challenge. I wanted to get the card done right away since I'll be out this afternoon. If I'm lucky I'll have time to get another one done before the deadline. All these challenges are adding to my card collection so I should be well prepared when birthdays and other occasions come along. I chose Erin Lincoln's colors: Ripe Avocado, Ocean Tides, Vintage Cream, & Dark Chocolate. Sadly, I seem to need a lot of get-well cards recently so I went to one of my favorite sets for this–"Chair-ished." The sentiment comes from the "On My Couch Additions" set, and the papers are all from the Green Tea Leaves collection.

PTIRecovered

 

PTI Anniversary Party: Make It Monday-Take 2

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Scroll down one post for an explanation of this Papertrey Ink Anniversary Challenge. For this Go-To Sentiments card I decided to fill the Friendship Jar with thank-you messages. I stamped and cut a piece of Clearly Creative cardstock and fit it on top of the stamped messages. Sadly, it's not too easy to see in the image.

JarofThanks

All products by Papertrey Ink: Cardstock: Kraft, Clearly Creative, and Select White; Twine; Dark Chocolate button; Stamps: Autumn Tags, Autumn Abundance, Beyond Basic Borders, Vintage Picnic, Take Three Summer, Mat Stack #3 Collection, Friendship Jar, & Year of the Flower: Violet

PTI Anniversary Party: Make It Monday-Take 1

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More fun at Papertrey Ink. They've started a biweekly challenge with video. This week's is a Go-To Sentiment card where you stamp multiple sentiments from different stamps sets to create a card. My first one is a birthday card and uses sentiments from six different PTI stamp sets. I used Brilliance inks which have a bit of sparkle to them and colored the cute cake stamp (which has been in my collection for years!) with Copic glitter markers.

MakeItBirthday

Stamp Sets used: Round & Round, Blooming Button Bits, Mat Stack 1 Collection, Make a Wish, Birthday Bash Sentiments, Enjoy the Ride

Project 64 and Sweet Shot Tuesday

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Project 64

It's time to post photos for last week's Project 64 color and Sweet Shot Tuesday. Brooke made a comment about the purpose of Project 64 this week that sums up why I enjoy these challenges. "After all," she said, " . . . this project is all about having fun, learning and improving though practice!" I took 106 photos one day this week. I probably looked closely at about 30 of them, and edited many fifteen for a variety of projects, but I'm learning more and more about my macro lens and having a good time thinking about composition and struggling (as always) with lighting in my very dark house. In winter, especially, photographic projects are essential or I would only have my camera out to take photos of papercrafting projects.

Wk5 Jan31_feb6_Gray

Papersw

Gray Papers

SpoolsofGray2w

Spools of Gray

GrayRibbonw

Gray Ribbon

GrayButtonw

Gray Sweater (the photo I chose to submit)

And Sweet Shot Tuesday (as well as Project 52):

    Sweetshotbutton
P52-125

I think this is turning out to be the Year of the Flowers. They're my favorite thing to shoot this time of year. I bought my first paperwhite kit from Target just after Christmas, and they've started to bloom this week. Here's my favorite shot of the week:

Paperwhitew

And a different view:

Paperwhites2w

 

 

Thanksgiving Mini-Book

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The week before CHA I received some great new dies from Scrap-Mart so I could develop some projects for their blog. As soon as I saw these Grand Nestibilities–Creative Book Pages–I knew just what I wanted to document.

CreativeBookDies

I used all but the largest one to make the mini-book and documented the amazing take-out dinner we had for Thanksgiving. One of the best things about the dies is they were designed to be bound with the Bind-it-All. I bought one with a coupon several months ago, but hadn't had a chance to use it. I was delighted to find out easy it was. Here's the book in pictures:

MBCover

MBJournaling

MBPick-up

MBPrep

MBMenu1

I really like these cascading pages. I started using different sized page protectors in all my scrapbooks a couple years ago, and like the flexibility and the way it looks.

MBMenu2

MBMenu3

MBTable

MBFeast

MBPerfectEnding

MBDone

MBFamily

I'm not sure why these photos seem to have a bluish cast on the blog. They seemed to be fine in PSE when I processed them. Sigh. All the materials for the album came from my stash. Most of the patterned papers are Teresa Collins or Basic Grey, and the Kraft is all Bazzill. Thanks for looking!