I'm making good progress with the Rinda's Summer Scavenger Hunt, although not quite a good as Amy! Here are a few more:

#14 Bocce Ball at the church picnic last night

More ball playing at the picnic

#7 A fife and drum group practicing in the park

A group playing at the Farmer's Market this afternoon

#20 A hammock (I love the ivy that climbs up our friends' trees and frames this hammock.)

#11 Our shadows as we went on our walk

#13 Our library stacks

#18 A movie poster (The only movie we've seen this summer.)

I have just three more photos to take, and I'm expecting to find them before summer's end. I have more than one for several prompts, and I think I'll continue to collect them as I see them. I have an idea for a project at the end, and multiples will work just fine.

When I finished the travel journal, I had a pile of duplicate photos laying on my desk. (Don't ask how that happened!) I've been wanting to use this Sunday Sketch from the Studio Calico blog for a long time now, and these photos worked perfectly. All the supplies except the alphabet (also Studio Calico) came from the June Studio Calico kit. 

Here's the sketch:

I followed the sketch almost exactly, changing only the size of the layout to a 12 X 12.

One thing I've forced myself to do recently is to cut up sheets of patterned paper for layouts. I used to hesitate to do that but I think it was Shimelle who encouraged using the papers you love as you need them. This time to save as much as I could I cut the 12 X 12 sheets down to 8.5 X 11 so I have a another base for a layout if I want it, and then cut the strips.

I started with a sketch for the next layout as well. One from Lisa Day's class at BPC called "28 Days of Sketches." It was one of many courses that I wasn't able to keep up with, but I printed all the sketches and put them in a notebook to use later.

The journaling which talks about the bond Caleb and Matt made during their first visit is on a journaling card tucked behind the right-hand photo.  All the supplies here came from various Studio Calico kits, most from May and June. It feels good to make use of these kits in a timely manner. 

Once I finished the layout, I had some scraps laying on the table, and got a birthday card for a friend (male) completed. I still have some more scraps, so you are likely to see another similar card soon. 

The card base is a ready-made Hero Arts card. The rest is from Studio Calico except the twine and the sentiment (both Papertrey Ink.)

Before we left for Oregon, I pulled out an Amy Tangerine Sketchbook to use as a travel journal. I decorated the cover, but didn't do much else since the pages are already designed for you to some extent. One thing I've learned after two attempts to scrap as I travel:  I don't. It helps to have it ready when I get home, but there's no point in taking it with me. 

I found the sketchbook a bit difficult to work with. Some of the pages are so small, and I wasn't sure what to do about the photographs. Then I found a digital template by Jennifer Wilson that had 12 Polaroid-type frames. They worked perfectly. I also found I had to work both from the front and from the back to be sure I had everything laid out in chronological order. Editing and printing the photos took the better part of my creative time on Day 7. I don't think the photos need much explanation so here's a photo-heavy post of  most of the project.

This is the front cover, and the inside of the back cover. I made a pocket to hold the postcards I purchased.

In the end, I was pleased with the project. I have another slightly larger sketchbook of the same design which I will use, but I probably wouldn't purchase another one. 

It was a busy day, and I just barely managed to get this layout done before I crashed! (All digital although I'll probably print it out and put it on a piece of cardstock for my album. I used a template from Kitty Designs that I adapted.) We leave tomorrow for Washington, D.C. so I'll be "off the grid" for a few days, although I'm hoping to have some blog reading time with my iPad.

Journaling is just a list of the photos: 

1.Started the day with a long list. 2.Finished the Faces project. 3.The current book. 4.To the gym. 5&6.Planted pansies. 7&8.Signs of spring. 9.Birthday lunch at The Cheesecake Factory with Debbie and Karen.10. Packages and letters to England, Arizona, and Rochester.11. Card made.12. Daily journal.

I finished the layout for the March 365 photos on Tuesday.

All the supplies came from the April Studio Calico kit and the title and tag were cut with the Silhouette. Quick and simple. The tag holds the journaling about March:

Typically, March is my least favorite month. It’s been a long winter, and I am so ready for Spring. This year, however, spring came early. We had a week with temperatures in the high 60’s. We rode our bikes 45 miles in March, the magnolias bloomed in Highland Park, and the lilacs are budded. 

 We met with Cheryl Bailey and planned an August vacation with Sarah, Adam, and Caleb, spent Tracy’s birthday in Niagara-on-the-Lake with Karen and Mike, and started weekly dinner dates with Betsy and Skylar.

 Lots of photo ops:  the canal path, the orchid show at Sonneburg Gardens, a trip to Lamberton Conservatory, walks through the park, a dinner date with Mary along the Genesee River, and Tom’s birthday party.  Food photos were more prevalent since I perfected the art of using the Paprika app,and we’re trying lots of new recipes.

 Mary and I attended one of the best Arts & Lectures events of the past several years, a talk with Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone. I spent a day at Presbytery with youth from Geneseo, and spoke at a Resource Saturday for the TCC. 

 All in all, March was quite a fine month, and I didn’t feel the need to leave town at all!

Have a great weekend!

 

The last six colors from the crayon box went up all at once a week or so ago at Project 64. It's taken me some time to find what I needed, but I haven't missed a week, so I wanted to be sure to finish. I'm thinking of collecting an image for each color and having a small photo book printed. So here they are:

VIOLET:

One of the pansies I bought for our front porch (which I still haven't planted).

TAN:

This funny chicken sits on a shelf in our kitchen on a tan egg.

GRANNY SMITH APPLE:

Of course I had to do the apples, but I'll be linking this one with the Granny Smith Apple green stripe:

One of my favorite pitchers.

MAUVELOUS:

I found the perfect ribbon in my stash, but I think red onions are a pretty good match, too.

CORNFLOWER:

It's way too early for cornflowers here, but these tiny blue flowers are in almost everyone's yard.

PEACH:

This one was the hardest, but I finally found this beautiful bouquet in the grocery store on Monday. Thank goodness for the handy iPhone!

Well, that's it. I've enjoyed the hunt, and have ended up with an interesting assortment of photographs, and a bit of practice, which was the whole point to begin with.

Welcome to the Virtual Pot Luck dinner and specifically to my home in western New York! Should you be unaware of this fabulous event organized by Deb, go immediately to Paper Turtle so you can get started with some drinks and appetizers.

If you've been journeying along you've come from Karen's kitchen in the UK. By now you must be rather full if you've journey through all the previous stops. Hopefully you've saved room for some Chicken and Wild Rice. Many years ago, a friend served this for dinner and graciously shared her recipe. It's now my stand-by recipe for pot-lucks (which have become infrequent in real life) and when I need a dish that travels well to someone in need of a meal (quite frequently.) Hope you enjoy!

Here are the ingredients:

4 boneless chicken breasts or chicken tenders (I used about two packages of chicken tenders this time)

1 package Uncle Ben's Wild Rice (any wild rice mixture would do)

2 cans cream of chicken or cream of mushroom soup

1/2 c. milk

1/2 c. sherry or white wine

1/2 c. Parmesan cheese

1/2 c. slivered, toasted almonds (optional)

I chose not to use the toasted almonds this time since I was taking this to my friend who just had a new baby, and I wasn't sure the older kids would like almonds.

Sprinkle half the rice mixture into the bottom of a 9X13 pan.

Whisk together the soup, wine, and milk and pour half of it over the rice.

Arrange the chicken over the rice and soup mixture. 

Then repeat with the remaining rice and soup.

Cover tightly and bake at 350° for one hour.

Remove cover and sprinkle with cheese (and almonds if using). Put it back in the oven for 30-45 minutes.

Enjoy!!! This dish freezes very well, and I've made it for the freezer at our church where they keep a ready supply of meals for congregation members who suddenly need some meals. Left-overs are great, too.

Now you're off across the ocean to Ruth's kitchen for one last main dish before dessert. I know it will be delicious!

I'm getting close to the end of this class, and I do believe I will have 29 layouts in 29 days. It's been a lot more fun than I anticipated, and I've scrapped a lot of stories that I wanted to tell. Here are three more:

This one was based on the day's prompt:  a birthday from the past. I knew I had a great photo of me and my friends with our mother's hats on, but I didn't know I had a copy of the birthday invitation in my mother's handwriting. It was a great find!

Another prompt-based layout. I had just organized some of the old photos by theme so I knew right where all these photos were. I discovered (happily) that a really faded color photo was easily scanned, color-corrected and then turned to black and white with just a few clicks. I used a Cathy Zielske template for the photos and journaling. The journaling reads:

Getting dressed up ws always a big deal growing up. My father loved to shop and I always had several nice dresses. When I was a bit older, I went with him to choose the dress. I had a Sunday dress for church and an even fancier dress (often velvet) for the theater. None of these photos are taken with little white gloves which I remember as an essential element for dressing up, especially for Easter. I remember the purse in the photo on the left. I imagine my mother kept it for awhile and that's why I remember it. I almost cropped the radiator out of the last photo, but decided it spoke to the times.

And indeed she is. I have a lot of scrapping for both Skylar and Caleb yet to do! The template is a Keri Bradford Storyboard.

Sky Blue is the color being posted at Project 64. I wasn't sure what I'd be able to find, but one day I brought my new Five Year Memory Book into my studio and the color card for Sky Blue was a perfect match.

And then I remembered the little necklace I ordered on a whim before the holidays. Another good match.

You can find more inspiration with Sky Blue here.

I'm back again with a second post (Ten on the Tenth is posted below) and another valentine, thanks to the ongoing challenges at Papertrey Ink as they celebrate their 5th birthday. Today's challenge was a sketch challenge, and if you visited yesterday, you'll notice the same color scheme. I had scraps laying on my desk and went from there. Here's the sketch:

And here's the valentine. I almost have all the valentines I need now, thanks to all the PTI challenges.

Everything on the card is from Papertrey Ink except the heart buttons which I've had in my stash for years. I love the Wonderful Words dies and stamps and used both for this card. A very CAS card, my favorite kind.