This is my fourth attempt to post from my iPad. I knew it might be tricky, and indeed it is. There's an app for the iPhone (which I'm using now, but no Typepad app for the iPad. Writing a post isn't the problem. It's getting photos up that are sized appropriately.

All the photos for this week's color were taken at the Denver Botanic Garden, just a few blocks from Matt's new apartment. He found a great one, but can't move in until Friday. We're leaving tomorrow morning for Santa Fe, and will be at Tracy's brother's in Phoenix by Friday.

Today is Deb's mother's birthday! (Hi, Marti!) I'm a proud member of Team Teal, a blogging and personal support group as Marti battles her cancer. My mom also fought cancer, though of a very different kind.

Although I sent Marti a totally different card, I thought I'd post a card I made for Scrap-Mart from the new pennant dies by Spellbinders.

Creating a card from the Lacey Pennants wasn't as hard as I thought it might be. I used a two-sided paper from American Crafts, so the inside matches the smaller pennant on the front cut and embossed with the Nested Pennants. The sentiment is from the Just Right "Happy Everything" set which has ended up being a very versatile set. All the other elements are from my stash.

I don't typically post twice in one day, but I totally forgot about the blog hop until this morning. Since my April order arrived on Friday, it was the perfect opportunity to break out the new stamps. This month's release and the theme of the blog hop is masculine cards. I didn't order many of the new stamp sets, but I did love the Out of This World stamps, and knew I could use them for a variety of occasions.

I was pleased to discover the sentiment I wanted to use fit inside the larger cloud die. All the product in this card is Papertrey Ink except for the cardstock (Bazzill), the patterned paper (October Afternoon), and the Twinkle Stars (A Muse Creative Candy).

It's been a while since I've played along with any of the many card challenges available on the web, but as soon as I saw the current Embellish challenge I knew what I wanted to do with it. As a member of the Scrap-Mart Design Team I was lucky to receive quite a few new Lifestyle (Quickutz) dies that have just been released at CHA. I love this pennant set which comes with two different "clotheslines" and three different styles of pennants. They are designed so you can use them on a scrapbook layout, but they can easily be adapted for a card. Here are the colors for the challenge–not ones, I admit, that I might choose, but they definitely work together.

And here's my card. It's not specifically a valentine, but I think it's going to be used as one.

Cardstock: Pure Poppy, Select White, Simply Chartreuse, Hawaiian Shores, & Hibiscus Burst (Papertrey Ink); Stamp: Simple Sentiments (Papertrey Ink); Twine: The Twinery; Dies: DIY Banner (Lifestyle Crafts); Heart punch: EK Success; Gems: Hero Arts, KaiserCraft, Reflections; Button from stash.

This week's prompt for Team-up Thursday was "behind," and our photos couldn't have been much different! Nancy's cute photo of her grandson hiding behind his piece of pizza is colorful and playful. My photo of some of the war graves in the Mt. Hope Cemetery is somber and dark. I really liked the way the flags from the grave sites peeked out between the gravestones when I photographed them from behind.

I finally got around to doing some updating to the blog sidebar where you'll now find links to some of the challenges I'm hoping to participate in this year as well as Kat's wonderful Exploring with a Camera series. Her blog is definitely worth a read if you're at all interested in photography.

Kat also has a wonderful series "Lessons from Abroad"* that I would highly recommend. One article in particular,"Step Out of Your Comfort Zone," really resonated with me. I've joined the local camera club and submitted photos to their competition next week. That is really out of my comfort zone!

 *The link takes you to the last of the series where Kat has links to the first four articles.

"Stacked" was this week's prompt for Team-up Thursday. I am always looking for ways to practice with my new macro lens so I piled up some Honey Nut Cheerios. I'm really happy with the focus on these, but Tracy says they're ugly. So be it. I'm relatively new to manual focus so I don't care if they're ugly or not! Nancy's stacked produce is courtesy of Wegmans food markets. One of the great advantages to living in Rochester is to be in the home city of one of the best food markets in the country. It's something most of us don't take for granted. "Thank goodness for Danny," is not an uncommon remark! (Danny Wegman is the founder.)

Have a great day!

Black & white was the prompt for this week. We finally had a day that got above freezing so I went for a short walk in Highland Park. There's always something interesting to shoot there, and I got a few shots to play with in Kim Kassen's "Photoshop the Essentials" class which started this week. Here is Nancy's and my shots for Black & White. Mine from the park is on the left. This is the fence that runs around a reservoir at the park. I liked the light on the horizon, and have a color version I like as much, if not better. Nancy's mailboxes give you a glimpse of the amount of snow we've had around here.

Nancy and I "fell off the wagon" when it came to Team-up Thursday during the fall. Nancy was doing a lot of traveling, and then the holidays were upon us. We're back at it, and our photos really represent two different seasons. Nancy's colorful bikes make me wish for spring or summer. It's been snowing here all day, and we have at least another foot of snow. I got a shot at the birds at the birdfeeder, but decided on the icicles hanging from the kitchen window since it was much easier to make a diptych when the photos are in the same orientation.

But for fun, here are two shots of the birds at the feeder in the front yard. They've been swarming there all day.

And the birds in a row.

In Rinda's last post about turning 50 and being fabulous (she's fabulous, for sure!) she asked how we felt about our age. I have long since passed 50, but I must say I am very happy being the age I am. Being retired has opened up so many new possibilities, and opportunities for new experiences. So we're off again. My mother-in-law had a hip replacement in November. Reluctant to give up her annual three month vacation in Florida, but recognizing she shouldn't sit in the car for so many hours, she came up with a plan. Tracy and I are driving her van with all her needed supplies for an extended vacation to Fort Myers, Florida, and then we'll fly home in a couple of weeks. We've left a week early so we have time to stop and visit friends and family along the way. We're just south of Pittsburgh, PA this morning and will be with friends in Charlotte, NC for the next two nights. Matt is home taking care of the house, so it's just a perfect little road trip. We're hoping to visit friends in Asheville, NC, Hartwell, GA, and Stuart, FL. We'll spend a day in Atlanta visiting favorite spots from the the many visits we made when Sarah was in seminary there, drive down the coast of Florida, and spend a few days with Tracy's mom in Fort Myers before we fly home. Although we left in lake effect snow showers, it appears to be clear driving the rest of the way to Charlotte.

Before I left I needed to get a few projects completed. One of them was cards for three guys who have birthdays shortly after we return. I totally cased a card of Nicole Heady's and made three of the same card. I'm really happy with it (of course! I love Nicole's designs) and it would work for almost anyone.

We also purchased thank you gifts for the people we're staying with on the trip and I wanted to make some tags for the gift bags. I used my new Love Lives Here stamps. As I suspected, they're going to get a lot of use.

And, finally, a notepad for a seamstress we're visiting.

Time to hit the road if we expect to be in Charlotte for dinner. I'm not sure if we'll have internet access the next few days, but if not, I'll be around to visit your blogs on the weekend.