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Happy 6th Birthday, Skylar!

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It's been another busy week and one filled with celebrations. Skylar turned six on Thursday, and the family gathered for dinner and cake at Matt and Betsy's.

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I love this photo of Skylar and Ella right before  Skylar blew out the cakes on her cake. The theme for Thursday's celebration was Emoji's.

There was no school in our district either Thursday or Friday because of the Jewish holiday. I picked Skylar up around 10:00 on Friday morning; we made cookies and opened up one of Skylar's gifts from Sarah and her family–a science lab kit. We did one of the experiments which demonstrated that acids (lemon juice) will make a "dirty" penny shiny again, but water has no effect.

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After lunch at Moe's Southwest Grill, we returned to make Skylar's favorite berry smoothie from a cookbook we gave her at Christmas. She took cookies and some smoothie home to share. Later that afternoon, we met up with everyone again at the Jump Club for her friend's party. A good time was had by all!

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The birthday girl is in the blue dress, and Ella is in the pink one. They were both wearing dress featuring Trolls, the theme of this party. There were organized games and contests as well as time to play on the equipment.

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When Skylar opened her card on Thursday night, she commented that I always give her a special shaker card, which seems to be the case!

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The September Simon Says Card Kit was just perfect for creating a card for a six year old. Everything except the dies and the twine came from the kit which featured patterned paper and 3-D stickers from Doodlebug as well as special shaker tags from Jillibean Soup.

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Saturday night we hosted a party for Tracy's 50th Reunion Committee. The reunion was a year ago, and it was fun to get the group together again. Tracy finished the new patio area on the lower level for the fire pit that afternoon. This was an area totally overrun with weeds and junk, so it's exciting to have it looking so nice. The red Adirondack chairs were purchased after we encountered pairs of them scattered among the Canadian National Parks when we visited a couple of years ago. The Buddha was a birthday request of Tracy's several years ago, and finally has a respectable home. 

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There were too many folks at the party to sit around the fire pit, and frankly, it was too hot! We did sit on the patio, however. This has been one of the hottest stretches of the summer. We broke 90° today—the hottest day of 2017 so far. They're predicting two more days of the heat wave before we return to more typical fall weather patterns.

 

 

Stemmed Statements and A Floral Challenge

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The days are flying by, and blogging seems to be at the bottom of the "to do" list; not intentionally, but by the time the day ends there's not much creative energy left for a blog post. I did get some crafting done over the weekend: a few cards, and another month of Project Life completed. Before I share those, however, I thought I'd share some more cards made with "Stemmed Statements." I think this might become a go-to set for floral cards. I have two sets of cards to share. The first with pansies and an ombre stamped background with the "Cover-up: Diamonds" background stamp. Both the "Stemmed Statements" and "Cover-up: Diamonds" stamps were in my July Papertrey Ink order. 

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I used some of the Altenew mini-cube ink sets to stamp the ombre pattern for the background. The ink pads come in sets of four coordinating, and increasingly darker shades which really speeds up the process of creating an ombre pattern. The pansies and clovers were colored with Copics. I cut the background with a "Stitched Rectangle" die and added a trimmed "Double-ended Banner" with the sentiment.

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This card is nearly a duplicate, stamped in a blue palette. I wanted to have a couple cards ready to send when I hear of someone in need of cheering up!

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The second set of cards use the geranium image in the set. It's one of my favorites. Once the geraniums were colored, this card came together quickly, thanks to the patterned paper (also PTI) from the Lovely Lace kit. I didn't purchase the kit, but a friend recommended getting the paper pack, and I'm glad I did. Once again, a "Stitched Rectangle" die that I adhered to Simon Says Smoke cardstock. Their three gray papers are my favorite grays. The banner die is an old Spellbinder die, stamped with a sentiment from "Stemmed Statements."

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I added three rainstones to the card for a bit of sparkle.

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This time some pink geraniums mounted on a Spellbinders Oval die cut from another piece of patterned paper from the "Lovely Lace" pack. I made six score lines down the side of the card for some texture on the Fresh Snow Linen cardstock, and tied a bow from the white silk ribbon Papertrey Ink used to sell. I wish I had stockpiled a couple of spools of it before they discontinued it.

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I think this card qualifies for this week's challenge at Addicted to CAS: Florals so I'll be linking it up there.

ATCAS - code word florals

 

Monday Memo

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It's been awhile since I posted a Monday Memo, but I did have some great mail this week, so I thought I'd do a quick recap of our weekend which was a particularly busy one. Friday night we attended a wedding for a good friend's daughter. It was held in a barn, and was absolutely lovely!

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The bride and her father

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The bride and groom–sadly not the sharpest of iPhone photos

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The barn before dinner

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The favors: a Mason jar mug with chalkboard labels—used for our beverages and ours to keep

The bride did all the decorating and planning. She's a wonderfully creative girl, and the wedding invitations were spectacular and all handmade. 

On Saturday I helped a friend who is moving to New Mexico pack up his library. We packed 30 boxes of books, and he still had two more bookcases to go! That afternoon, our street had a neighborhood picnic. I only took one photo, and got only a fraction of the folks who attended. It was pot luck, and the food was great. It was also a good chance to meet some new neighbors and connect with those we don't often see.

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Sunday, after church, was a bridal shower for Betsy's sister who is getting married in Boston over Columbus Day weekend. Once again, I didn't take many photos, but I did get one of the table where all the gifts were placed. 

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I do, however, have a couple photos of the card I made for Karen.

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I started by using the "Falling Hearts" stencil by Simon Says with three different shades of pink ink from Altenew. I stamped the umbrella from Papertrey Ink's "Dress-up Dolls: Rainy Day" (I knew this little $5 set would come in handy), fussy cut it, and colored it with Copics. The sentiment was computer generated and cut with banner dies from PTI. I added a silver heart and a few sequins at the end.

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And then there was the mail. In one day, I received a pretty new skirt that was 70% off (no photo), this gorgeous hand-decorated envelope and card from Nan, and three items from the latest Altenew release.

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Today was a busy day. I went to the gym before breakfast, and it's a good thing I did because once I left the house, I was only here for a few minutes between one event and the next. I finally got home about 8:30 tonight. Tomorrow is much the same, but Wednesday is clear and I'm hoping to put these new Altenew products to good use. 

Lastly, today is September 11 and a day to remember all those who lost their lives 16 years ago as well as remembering all those who worked so hard to rescue and provide help to the victims. Like most Americans, I know exactly what I was doing when I heard the news. Sadly, the world was forever changed, and I fear not for the better. In addition, I'm thinking and praying for all those in Houston who are trying to rebound from Hurricane Harvey and all those who have been in Hurricane Irma's path. Not a day goes by that I'm not aware of my many blessings, but days like these remind me how very fortunate I am.

Color Throw Down Challenge

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This week's Color Throw Down Challenge is my favorite color combination: red, black, and white. I have a quick anniversary card to share, and may be back before the challenge ends with another card. One of my favorite paper packs from Papertrey Ink was Black and White All Over. It's no longer available, and when they had their big paper sale back in February it was sold out before I got my hands on some more of it. 

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This giant XO was one of the papers, and I was never quite sure what to do with it. . . until now. I cut it down, used a corner punch on the top corners, and adhered it to a Pure Poppy card, cut a banner for the sentiment which I adhered with foam tape, and added a puffy heart sticker from Bella Blvd. The sticker was a dark pink so I colored over it with a red Copic marker. I made two of these since there are two sets of friends are celebrating their anniversaries. Now I wish I had a couple more pieces of this paper. I'm quite happy with the card, and it went together very quickly.

Stemmed Statements

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A friend and I were talking about our process when working with a new stamp set. I don’t vary the process much. I think about what card I need, who the card is for, and then try to design it from there. My friend, on the other hand, lays out the stamps, and just starts playing with them. I purchased “Stemmed Statements” from Papertrey Ink because I just loved the flower images, and liked the small sentiments as well. I decided to “just play.” I stamped a lot of images, colored them with Copic markers, and die cut them all. Here they are laid out on my craft mat after I arranged them into clusters I thought might work on a card.

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I ended up with eight cards, some of which have gone in the mail already, and several are ready to mail out in September. I thought I’d share a few today, and will share the rest later when I know the recipients have gotten them.

The first two use the Nasturium image. When Papertrey had a paper sale during their February anniversary release I picked up the Woodblocks prints pad. This beautiful orange pattern seemed perfect as a backdrop for the nasturiums.

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I layered a couple of the Infinity Frames and added a tag from the Stemmed statements. The patterned paper was die cut with the Stitched Rectange die from Simon Says and it was all adhered to a Terracotta Tile card.

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In order to cut the stitched rectangle from the patterned paper for the card above, I was left with a narrow frame of the paper, and didn't want to throw it in the trash. I layered it on white cardstock after embossing it with an old embossing folder.

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For the sentiment, I used an old favorite PTI die Double Ended Banners cut from Terracotta Tile. The sentiment is from Banner Sentiments which I partially masked to get just the three words.

Next up for today are the cards created with the poppy image. I love red poppies so decided to color them all in red. I'd seen a card during the release of Stemmed Statements with the poppy image on kraft paper, so that's where I started.

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I die cut the Horizontal Stripes die from kraft as a subtle background for the poppy, and tied a bit of twine to it for an accent. I also added three black enamel dots. 

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Next up might be my favorite from the Stemmed Statement play date.

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Red, black, and white is always one of my favorite color combinations. I die cut the black "frame" from the Mix and Mat: Pretty Brackets die, adhered it to Fresh Snow Linen cardstock and added the poppies and a small tag from Stemmed Statements.

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That's it for today. We have a very quiet weekend. Matt, Betsy, and the girls are coming for dinner tonight, but there is nothing else on the calendar. I'm hoping to get the desk cleared off, and get back to my long neglected Project Life pages.

CASology: Juicy

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A quick post to enter a couple of cards in this week's CASology challenge: Juicy.

Week 260 - JUICY

One of my go-to kits for quick cards is the Papertrey Ink: Still Life-Summer kit. When I saw this challenge, and needed a couple of thank you notes, once again, it filled the bill.

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I scored a pattern onto some white cardstock, added a strip of patterned paper from the kit and four die cuts. A quick, easy, and cheery thank you note.

Recently, I've been attracted to bright colors on dark backgrounds, so for the next card, I made essentially the same card but with a black background. The all black was too stark, so I layered it on a Raspberry Fizz card. Bright and cheery, even on dark cardstock.

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The cherries reminded me of one of my favorite treats in the summer:  Rainer cherries—expensive, but oh, so sweet.

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Hope your day is bright and cheery, too!

Happy Anniversary

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Today is our 44th anniversary, and my card says it all.

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Wonderful husband, best friend, fabulous traveling companion, amazing dad and grandfather–Tracy is the best! 

As soon as I saw this amazing "Mountain Majesty" cover plate released this month at Papertrey Ink, and the gorgeous card Nicole Heady created, I knew this had to be my anniversary card for Tracy. He loves the mountains, and has hiked to the top of most of the 49 High Peaks in the Adirondacks. My card is a shameless copy of Nicole's with just one change, but it was too perfect to mess with, so I hope she takes it for what it is—a tribute to her wonderful design skills. Also my thanks to a friend, who loaned me both stamp sets. 

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The sentiment is from "Quoted: The Most." There are three interchangeable sentiments that can be used. Instead of a heart Nicole used as an embellishment, I embossed the interchangeable sentiment on a red banner which I popped up with dimensional tape. I did add the glitter to the mountains, although it was rarely snowing when Tracy was hiking. 

We're off to Toronto tomorrow to celebrate. It's been years since we've been there. We have tickets to the Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum. The exhibit closes on Sunday so we're getting there at the last moment. (In fact, there's no more mention of that exhibit on the website. I'd be nervous, but we got a lovely email yesterday reminding us we have tickets for the exhibit tomorrow.) We have dinner reservations at Eastside Social, and will spend the night before heading off to the McMichael Museum on Sunday morning before we head home. We've never been there, and I'm looking forward to exploring the exhibits as well as the grounds.

CASology Balloons and Color Throw Down

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It's CASology's fifth birthday, and they're having a party! You can find the blog hop right here. The word for the week is "balloon."

Week 259 - Balloon

It was the perfect opportunity to get a birthday card ready for an upcoming birthday, and to use a combination of old, but loved, and brand new products. The "old, but loved" is Papertrey's Balloon Bash set. This set is a fave for it's birthday sentiments, but this time I pulled out the three balloons. The Balloon String dies (PTI) are also a favorite. The new product is Papertrey's "Infinity Frames," which was just released this month. When I purchased the die, I had lots of ideas, but ended up using them in a totally unexpected way to create a white on white background for the pretty balloons.

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The sentiment from "Initial Sentiments: Birthday" (PTI) was embossed in white on black, cut out by hand, and popped up with dimensional tape. I chose the colors of the balloons from this week's Color Throw Down Challenge. Although I've been aware of the challenge for awhile, this is the first time I've played along.

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I used Raspberry Fizz, Bright Buttercup, and New Leaf inks to stamp the balloons before die cutting them. They seem to be a perfect match!

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Another morning of steady rain here. It was a good day to stay inside and craft, so I'll have more to share very soon.

Papertrey July Blog Hop Challenge

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I've been so busy recently, that I didn't even realize it was the 25th of July until I got on the computer this morning. Luckily, I had time before I set off on errands and to the refugee center to volunteer, to make a card since I loved the inspiration post. Now that I'm finally home, I can get it linked up to the July Papertrey Blog Hop Challenge. 

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Soft blues and white, clean and simple design. I really like the lovely leaves, so started with the leaf diecut from Songbirds in two colors: Aqua Mist and Ocean Tides. I wasn't sure where I wanted to go with them so I cut quite a few. Once I laid two of them on a white card, I knew I wanted to try the new Mix and Mat: Postal as a background. I must say I'm a fan of the new Mix and Mat die cut sets.

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Just two of the leaf clusters was all I needed. I backed the open part of the Mix and Mat die with a soft blue vellum that's been in my stash forever. The sentiment is a die from Still Life Summer Mini-Market kit. I sponged some ink on the bottom of it to create an ombre effect to set it off. 

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Since this card is totally die cuts, no stamping at all, I'm also entering it into the current Less is More Challenge: Anything But Stamping.

 

 

 

Mini-Market Kit: Herb Garden

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When I need a card in a hurry, I often turn to the Papertrey Ink Mini-Market kits. They're typically a great value, including patterned papers, stencils, die cuts, and stamps. Thanks to a lovely gift certificate Sarah gave me for my birthday, I didn't hesitate to order the latest kit released in June. And it came just in time, to create two needed thank you cards.

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This kit was a perfect match for a much older set, "Garden Variety," which I've always loved. I stamped and die cut the seed packet from "Garden Variety," and added two die cuts from the "Herb Garden" kit. Each of the herbs included in the set comes with a sentiment showcasing the herb's meaning. Finally, I stamped "Parsley" and adhered it to a piece of patterned paper from Echo Park cut with a stitched rectangle die and adhered to a white card base. On the first card I stamped the word with New Leaf ink, but decided True Black really looked better as it balanced the black of the die cut at the bottom of the seed packet.

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I used some dimensional tape to add the parsley die cut to the seed packet. These cards went off to two college friends. We celebrated birthdays late this year.

There hasn't been a lot of time to create since we returned from vacation. I made these just before we left, and have another post from that session to put up soon. This week looks more promising, but you just never know what's going to pop up on the calendar.

Happy Birthday, Ellie!

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While we were away my mother-in-law celebrated her birthday, and she turned a young 88! We actually celebrated her birthday last month, when the whole family was at Honeoye Lake. Sarah and her family arrived from Chicago in time for the family portrait.

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Ellie is smack in the middle of this great family portrait with family from Texas, Arizona, Illinois, and Louisiana as well as many of us who live in New York, and one of Jill's best friends from Australia. 

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Nothing makes her happier than time together with her family. She had a beautiful birthday cake, and a wonderful flower candle that was supposed to drop its petals when you lit it. Instead it burned like a torch! We think it was the wind coming in the windows. Fortunately, there was no damage to the cake.

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I didn't give her a handmade card at the lake. We had a group card and group gift so I waited until her birthday in Vermont to give it to her. 

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Her card (made on the same day as Jasmine's wedding card) is a close CASE. I couldn't find a patterned paper I like, so I decided to emboss the sentiment from Reverse Confetti's "Simply Sentiments" in the same gold as the floral arrangement from Simon Says' "Floral Bliss." Once again a narrow strip of metallic paper separate the focal point from the sentiment. Like the wedding card, it's pretty simple, but the black and gold make it festive.

We arrived home on Tuesday night to three days of rain. It finally stopped long enough yesterday for the lawn to dry out to and be mowed. It was beginning to look like a jungle! There's lots going on, as is typical after being away for over a week. We're off again today with a good friend to go to the Ithaca farm market and visit a few wineries. I managed to squeeze in some time last night to make a card for a friend's surprise birthday party coming up this weekend, too. I'll be back with that once I get it photographed. Lots of photos from the trip to upload and edit, too. 

Happy Birthday, Madelyn!

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Yesterday was  Maddy's first birthday, and we're lucky to be celebrating with her on Nantucket. Spending time with Matt, Betsy, Skylar, Ella, and Maddy is simply wonderful. Maddy was ready to celebrate and so were her sisters. Her tee shirt reads "The Party Has Arrived."

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(photo courtesy of Pam Adams)

Recently, I commented that often my initial vision for a card doesn't translate into the final product. But this is another one that did. Once I found the "right" patterned paper in my stash, the card came together quickly.

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The only stumbling block was finding the right sized number 1, but thanks to Sarah, the problem was quickly solved. I've owned a Silhouette SD (no longer manufactured) for many years. The software has been upgraded so many times, and the cutting blade reconfigured so that I always felt overwhelmed at the prospect of using it. Sarah has the newest model, and while she was here, she installed the new software, inserted the new cutting blade, and gave me enough instruction that I didn't even have to watch a video to get the number cut out.

I found the patterned paper in a Pink Paislee pad appropriately titled, "Birthday Bash," die cut it with my fave stitched rectangle die, and then die cut the heart from the middle with a die from My Favorite Things. The little bear and present were stamped, colored, and fussy cut and popped up next to the heart. 

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I added some clear glitter to the number 1 and the bow on the package with Spectrum Noir's Clear Sparkle pen, but it doesn't show up in either photograph. 

Today we went on a Critter Cruise with the little girls. Last year, we babysat Maddy while Skylar and Ella went. This year w all went, and we had a great time. They "caught" crabs, giant snails, a lobster, and many fish. Tons of fun, and I'll have photos later.

It’s a Celebration!

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Greetings from the Common Grounds in Vermont on an absolutely gorgeous Fourth of July! Our niece was married here yesterday afternoon in a lovely ceremony. It was a fabulous wedding. It began on Sunday afternoon and extends through most of today. I'd call it a community supported wedding, where everyone who wanted to, pitched in to help. I was on the photography team, and helped set up and decorate the dining hall for dinner after the ceremony. Jasmine and Hollis have the most amazing group of friends. Twenty-four of them were the Core Team, and worked so hard and joyfully to make sure the whole event was well-coordinated and stress-free for everyone. The weather was spectacular and you can see from the photo that the setting was gorgeous. I'll have more to share later, but here's one photo from the ceremony.

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Here's the card I created for their wedding.

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I began by embossing this beautiful floral arrangement from the Simon Says June card kit, "Blissful" onto a Vintage Cream card. I added a piece of black and gold metallic paper from MME's "Fancy That" paper pad to the bottom of the card with a narrow strip of gold metallic paper to define the parts, and stamped one of the sentiments from Papertrey Ink's "Keep It Simple: Wedding." Simple, but elegant.

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We're off on the next leg of our summer journey. We're spending the morning with family and then heading out to Portsmouth, New Hampshire for two nights. We've never been there, and I'm looking forward to exploring.

For those of you celebrating:  Happy Fourth of July! I hope you've had a wonderful long weekend.

 

One Card: Three Challenges

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I'm trying to get all the cards I need for the month of July completed, and I started with three challenges for an anniversary card for my niece and her husband. The first is Addicted to CAS: White on White,

ATCAS - code word white on white

and the second is The Card Concept with this beautiful photo inspiration.

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And third, the Time Out Challenge for Celebrations.

When I saw the challenges, I immediately had an idea for using another new Papertrey Ink product:  the "Mix and Mat-Pretty Brackets" dies. I used two of the dies on this card, taping them together before running them through the die cutting machine on the front of the card. 

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I layered another piece of linen cardstock behind the open die cut but only attached to the edges of the card so there's a bit of dimension. I added a small red heart since the inside sentiment is "Happy Anniversary." Here's a closer look:

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It's a great match for The Card Concept and Celebrations at Time Out, and looking at the Design Team's submission at Addicted to CAS, it appears one little pop of color also works for that challenge. The Card Concept asks you to choose a style, and although there is a bit of layering here, I'd label this one "Clean and Simple." I love when a card comes out exactly as you envisioned it. It doesn't happen often enough. I'll be relying on this design for another wedding in September.

CASology Challenge: Fly, Take 2

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CASWeek 255 - Fly

As promised, I'm back again with another card for the CASology Fly challenge. And it's another feather card, this time a very quick and easy one created with one of the patterned papers from the "What the Doodle Feather" set by Papertrey Ink. The feather was already printed on the paper, and just needed to be colored with Copic markers. I die cut the sentiment from Raspberry Fizz with one of the "Scripted" sentiments also by Papertrey Ink. All it took then, was to mount it to a True Black card.

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The sentiment was die cut and layered three times to add a little dimension to the card.

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You can check out the other entries to the challenge right here.