The most recent Online Card Class, Coloring Challenge Road Trip, Online Version taught by Kathy Racoosin, took up the better part of my free time Monday-Wednesday of this week. It was time well spent. I learned a lot, and have lots to practice. On Thursday, I had time to do my first practice piece, and although there is still plenty of room for improvement, I'm quite happy with the result. I chose my colors based on the Altenew January Inspiration Challenge, which I've been following for some time, but have never entered. 

The floral image was stamped with Altenew's Wallpaper Art stamp set, masking the flower to add the leaves. It was colored with Copic markers. After coloring the image, colored pencil was softly added to the nooks and crannies with Polychromos colored pencils. It's easier to see the purple center of the flower in this closer look.

The sentiment from Sugar Peas' Everyday Sentiments, was embossed in white on black cardstock and adhered with dimensional tape. I mounted the image onto a pieces of purple Bazzil cardstsock and then to a green card. You can also see the Copic markers I used to color the image here.

In addition to the Altenew challenge, I'm entering this into the Seize the Birthday challenge, without the toppings option.

Once again it's snowing here. No one seems too sure how much we'll get. I've seen estimates as low as 3" and as high as 8". I'm hoping for the lesser amount–enough to be pretty, but easily dealt with.

As I was looking through the list of current card challenges, I found the current Card Concept Challenge to post your favorite card of the year. Since I just posted nine of my favorites, I decided to designate one of them as #1. It's interesting that the one that rose to the top came about through an error in technique. Although I intended to dry emboss My Favorite Things Rectangle Peek-a-Boo die onto the front of the card, the die machine cut through the card front, so I had to devise an alternative, which in my mind turned out to be better than the original plan. 

I like the CAS design, and also the muted colors. I'm not sure why I colored the sprig of leaves from Altenew's Weekend Doodles in shades of gray, but it was in my stash of pre-colored and die cut images when I set out to make the card. Overall, I think it's a design that will lend itself to a variety of cards for different occasions.

One more faves post inspired by all the favorite card collections I've seen on Instagram as well as my favorite books of 2019 which I neglected to add to my post about my OLW. 

If you've followed my blog for long you know that card making is my hobby of choice. I don't often look back to choose some favorites, but I did this week and chose nine to share. Sometimes it was the design I particularly liked, and sometimes it was a technique that turned out well.

My reading goal for 2019 was 50 books. I surpassed that by two, and always enjoy seeing the graphic Goodreads provides for each year. This is the third year I've participate in the Goodreads' Challenge, and I read 1,300 more pages this year than last, and about 650 more pages than in 2017 (the year I read the Bible cover to cover.) I'm keeping the same reading goal for 2020–5o books. On days we don't head to the gym as soon as we get up, we routinely read for an hour–in the winter next to the fire. If I leave reading to bedtime, it's likely not many pages get read before I nod off. My volunteer work and social calendar keep me pretty busy during the week, so it's unlikely I'll find a lot more reading time in 2020 than I did in 2019.

I went through the 52 books and chose eight favorites. If you look at my list of books, you will see only one book that received 2 stars. If I'm not invested in a book by the time I've read about 50 pages, I have no trouble abandoning the book. There are just too many books I know I'll enjoy reading. This year I did finish Ross Gay's The Book of Delights which I did not enjoy. I don't regularly write reviews, but I noted that although I loved the idea of the book, I didn't find many of the delights "delightful," and although I'm not often offended by language, I was too frequently offended listening to this one. (It's also unusual for me to "read" an audio book, but I recently finished Save Me the Plums shifting back and forth between Audible and the Kindle. That worked very well on our road trip to Wisconsin. When I give a book 5 stars or choose one as a favorite, it's because the book caused me to think about the content well after the time I finished it.

Americanah was one of the longest books I read this year. I had read many wonderful reviews, but wouldn't have picked it up because of its length had our couples book group not chosen it for September. It took me all month to read it (we were on the road three weeks), but I'm still thinking about it. The Dearly Beloved was the most enjoyable read. A character in Americanah comments that American fiction primarily focuses on dysfunctional characters, and I think there's some truth to that. In the Dearly Beloved, the characters have their issues (don't we all?) but no one is truly dysfunctional. Both Grace Will Lead Us Home and How to Be An Antiracist are two books that are helping me understand racism in the United States and to deal with my white privilege and unintended thoughts and actions that might appear painful to others. I belong to an interfaith book group, and Holy Envy was definitely our favorite book of the year. Both Lost and Wanted and Where the Crawdads Sing were satisfying reads with lots to think about. A Woman is No Man was a difficult read, but an important one, helping me better understand the immigrant experience. (Americanah was also important there, as well.)

So that's a wrap for 2019. Onward to a new year of crafting and reading!

(If anyone knows how to improve the resolution of the Goodreads screen shots, I'd love some advice.)

I thought I’d join in with the tradition of looking back on some of the highlights and faves of the year.

We had a great year which began with a trip to Disney World with Sarah, Adam, Caleb and Hannah. Sarah had a week long conference to attend in January so it seemed like the perfect opportunity to take the kids to Disney World. We all had a fabulous time.

In April, I traveled to Washington, D.C. with a group of five others from our Presbytery for the Ecumenical Advocacy Days. It was five days of inspirational and motivating workshops and speakers. On our final day, we were able to meet with the staff of our legislators to advocate for two bills. A wonderful side benefit of the trip was meeting Honoré for dinner one evening. After several years of being blogging friends it was wonderful to discover how much in common we have—and how much fun we’d have if only we lived closer to one another.

Tracy’s mother celebrated her 90^th birthday this summer. Her children hosted a wonderful party for her and about 75 of her family and friends. Here she is with her five children and two step-daughters.

We spent five days in Nantucket with Matt, Betsy, and the girls. It’s always a wonderful time. They live just a mile or so away from us so we see them frequently, but this is the only time in the year we get extended time with them which makes this trip even more special.

In August, we were invited by a friend to spend four days at the Chautauqua Institute. The theme of the week we were there was Grace: A Celebration of Extraordinary Gifts. Krista Tippet of On Being was the host of the morning lectures and we heard some thought-provoking and entertaining interviews, all of which were recorded for the On Being podcast. The afternoon speakers at the Hall of Philosophy were also extraordinary, including one of my favorite theological writers, Barbara Brown Taylor.

Our last big trip of the year was a three week road trip through Washington and Oregon. In the middle of the trip was the beautiful and moving wedding of our nephew, Mason, and his beautiful bride, Molly. And I had another opportunity to meet up with a blogging friend. Vicki and Jim Hein met us for coffee one morning as we drove from the Oregon coast to Ashland.

From top left: Overlooking Seattle, the Seattle waterfront, Atop Hurricane Ridge on the Olympic Peninsula, Heceta Lighthouse on the Oregon coast, Molly and Mason, the Hoh Rainforest, Jim & Vicki Hein & Tracy & me, Mt. Rainier, Diablo Lake in the North Cascade National Park.

And a year end review just wouldn’t be right without some photos of my grandchildren who grew so much this year. We made four trips to Wisconsin to visit Caleb and Hannah this year. We wish they were closer, but we’re grateful they’re within driving distance.

Top row: Caleb and Hannah
Second row: Madelyn, my one chance to capture all five together–a total fail, Ella and Skylar
Third row: Skylar, Madelyn, and Ella; Skylar; Caleb and Hannah

Happy New Year! May you be blessed with good health, time with family and friends, and wonderful adventures in 2020!

 

The current challenge at CASology is Appreciate. Thank you notes are probably the second most frequent card I make during the year after birthday cards. 

This card was made to thank friends for a delicious dinner and a lovely evening of conversation.

I started with a card made from Papertrey Ink's Weathervane paper and added an oval from the A2 Noted die collection cut from white cardstock. The silverware image is from Papertrey's "Friendship Jar: Fillers" stamp set colored with Copic markers and fussy cut. 

The sentiment was die cut from True Black cardstock with a die from the "Swoosh" set, also by Papertrey Ink. It makes for a simple but effective thank you note for an excellent dinner.

I did add a bit of Nuvo glitter to the silverware which adds a bit of shine.

 

Tracy and I managed to get to the park late last week before the rains came. We expected to see forsythia . . .

I'm not sure what kind of flowering bush this is. Highland Park is very good at identifying their plants with small signs, but we couldn't find any indication of what this might be.

The big surprise of the walk was finding the early magnolias in bud and in bloom. 

I've been playing with the portrait mode on my iPhone recently, and love the blurred effect you can get. The trick is remembering the aspect ratio on the native app is not 4X6, so if you aren't careful you end up having to crop more than you want. I'm used to filling the frame with the composition I want, so this is taking some practice.

Magnolias are among my favorites this time of year. We had warm, sunny temperatures again yesterday, so I'm guessing even more has burst out since Friday. You can see an increase in green every day now. I love the first days of spring!

We're home, and we brought the freezing temperatures with us. The city schools closed for today, and several school districts have now closed for after-school and evening activities. The wind chill is -14°; not as cold as Chicago or Racine, but pretty bitter. Makes for a good day for crafting.

I have four cards to share today; no stamping in sight. While we were away, PinkFresh Studios had a wonderful release. One of the dies I ordered was the Gatsby. As soon as I saw it, I knew it had great potential for masculine cards. There are two dies, meant to be layered one on the other, although the top layer is lovely on its own. I die cut them from a variety of shimmer and metallic cardstock and came up with four variations.

The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's "Good Times" set. The stamp set came in an odd size, and so it's stored at the back of my box for birthday stamps, and I often forget it. Over the weekend I organized dies, and started to inventory them, and rediscovered it.

I think this is my favorite. I found this card in a box; I'd already trimmed the front and added a black border to the inside of the card.

Gray, silver and black

White, bronze and black; I die cut the sentiment twice and layered them for a subtle shadow.

Black and silver; only the top layer die cut. This card proved to be very difficult to photograph!

This week's challenge at Simon Says Wednesday Challenge is "Anything Goes." Perfect!

This week's sketch at Freshly Made Sketches is perfect for the season.

And a perfect excuse to use the new "Floral Fantasy: Christmas" stamp set. Despite the fact that I didn't make all of my Christmas cards this year, and I certainly didn't need any more Christmas stamps, there were three sets (by three different companies) that proved to be too great a temptation. "Floral Fantasy" was one of them. The nice thing about this set is there are many images that can be used throughout the year. But for these two cards (variations on a theme) I used a Christmas image–perfect for the sketch.

I silver embossed the tree onto Weathervane cardstock by PTI and die cut it with a Simon Says "Stitched Rectangle." Then I adhered it to a top-folded card made from the most elegant silver cardstock I've ever seen. I bought several sheets of gorgeous metallic cardstock at a lovely shop in the Third Ward District in Milwaukee when we were there in October. Finally I added a few rainstones (PTI).

 

Next up, a variation–same papers, slightly different design:

This time I silver embossed a sentiment from the same set onto a piece of vellum that I wrapped around the top layer.

I have a third variation of the card in a different color scheme, but I want to be sure the recipient has it in her hand before I post it. 

The CAS Watercolour Challenge has been on my to-do list since the day they posted it. It took me until the very last day of the challenge to get the card made.

I wanted the Essentials by Ellen "Mondo Holly" from the moment I saw it, but waited until there was a sale. I knew it was just waiting to be watercolored. 

I got out my Daniel Smith watercolors for this since I wanted to mix the right greens and reds. They are lovely watercolors, and I should keep them on my desk! 

Fussy cutting the holly on watercolor paper took awhile, but it's such a large image, that seemed like the best alternative. Once that was done, I looked around for a base, and found the Papertrey Ink "Scallop Stackers-Small" which I had never used before. I layered it onto a Pure Poppy top-folded card, after stamping the sentiment which is from the same stamp set.

Last, I added some Nuvo shimmer to the berries, and a few Rainstones from Papertrey Ink. I think this might be the first Christmas card I've completed, although I have multiple in the works. I don't need nearly as many this year, as we had photo cards printed for family and friends who know our family. They came yesterday, and I am really pleased with them.