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Project 64: Blue Violet and LSNED 9.9-9.12

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Project64

The color for Project 64 last week was Blue Violet. I thought I had captured a few, but when I uploaded the photos, only the violet from my study window was the right color.

Week 36 blue violet

As you can see, the color of the wrapper isn't exactly the color of the crayon. In the sunlight my violet more closely matches the wrapper, but away from the sun it is a good match, I think, for the crayon color. The blues and violets seem the hardest to match up. So here's this week's link-up:

Violet2w

Next, are four more pages in my LSNED album, the above photo being one of the photos.

9.9Book

9.10Book

9.11Book

9.12Book

Off to the dentist and two more appointments!

 

Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger: Garden Glory

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This week's Tuesday Trigger at Moxie Fab World gave me an opportunity to use my new Bloom Builders #3 die. As soon as I saw this delightful image, I knew what I wanted to do.

Garden Glory

I used Papertrey's Background Basics: Retro stamped in Brilliance Thyme to mimic the pattern in the chair cover and the color from the gorgeous flower pillow for the flower on the card. The center of the flower is an old button from La-Di-Dah. I often struggle to line up the background images, but this time it lined up perfectly the first time. A sentiment from Teresa Collins Celebrate finished it off.

TuesdayTrigger

LSNED: Days 5-8 & Kitchen Construction

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Here are the lastest additions to my LSNED Macro Photography project:

9.5Book

I learned I need to keep spare batteries for my remote cable release on hand. I had to run to the camera store to buy new ones. (And a set of spares!) Most of the photos require shutter settings of several seconds, so there's no way to handhold the camera. I added the camera settings to the tag after I took this photo.

9.6Book

I bought some flowers at the Farmers Market so I'd have some good candidates for macros. It's been dark and dreary here all week, so the only light I had came from the overhead light in the dining room. It proved to be quite uneven, so I should have tried to set up some more focused lights. I'm really happy with the sharp focus in this one, though.

9.7Book

No matter what I did, I couldn't get a sharp focus across the whole image in this one. I was at my smallest possible aperture for this lens, so I'm not sure what the problem was. Maybe light . . .

9.8Book

It takes me a LONG time to set up the camera and compose a good photo while using a tripod. I'm not used to manually focusing every image either.

The photo for September 5th is a jar of canned salsa. We had quite the haul from our garden this weekend, so I really needed to make some salsa. Since I don't have a stove, it was a challenge. I thought I'd take this opportunity to share some photos of our kitchen construction.

  Kitchen9.3w

This was the way it looked this weekend. The drywall stacked against the wall kept us from getting into the kitchen from inside the house. We had to go out the front door and around to the side entrance. We must have amused the neighbors since it was raining, and we were going back and forth carrying supplies with an umbrella.

Canningw

Here I am chopping veggies for the salsa . . .

SalsaCampingStovew

. . . that we cooked on the camp stove.

FrontofHousew

The front of our house isn't all that pretty either. There will be a big bay window here when the project is completed. I can't wait to have more light in the kitchen.

DiningRoom3w

Most of the time, we're cooking in the dining room. Our refrigerator is there as well as the microwave.

DiningRoom2w

And the toaster oven, and lots of the stuff we had to move out of the kitchen.

DiningRoom5w

Needless to say, a lot of furniture from the dining room is now in the living room. I really thrive on a neat and clean house, so this is quite the challenge. One month down, at least another to go.

SinkSidewalkw
On Monday and Tuesday we were without a sink. After the drywall went up, the sink came back in, and tonight my new stove was hooked up. I'm very excited to have a real stove (I've been cooking on a very small cooktop for 26 years). Tracy didn't get home until really late tonight, so we went out for pizza, but tomorrow I'll be cooking on the new stove!

 

 

Card Making

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I'm not getting as much crafting time as I like these days. I seem so busy, but at the end of the day there doesn't seem to be a lot of concrete evidence. I have, however, gotten some cards in the mail.

AnniversaryBJ

This was inspired by a much-more detailed card on Debbie Olsen's blog.

HarvestBerries

I'm really happy with this card. I don't often overstamp images, but I like how this came out. After I stamped the sentiment and the leaves, I overstamped with a background text stamp in Dazzle Versamark.

HarvestBerriesInside

I love how the sentiments from two different sets seem to complement one another.

HomeCard

I recently got the Teresa Collins' World Traveler 6X6 pad and couldn't wait to use the gorgeous papers.

Notepad

An accompanying notepad.

Dreams

I finally inked up my new "Happy Trails" set for this quick and easy birthday card for a friend.

InsideDreams

The inside was inspired by this card.

Supplies:
Happy Anniversary:
Cardstock:  Spring Rain (PTI)
Patterned paper: from stash
Stamps: Everyday Sayings (Hero Arts); Iconic Images (PTI)
Dies: Garden Variety (PTI)
Twine and Button: PTI

Harvest Berries:
Cardstock: Vintage Cream & Dark Chocolate (PTI)
Stamps:  Harvest Berries, Birthday Basics, Background: Text Style (PTI)
Cord:  Beaux Arts

Home Is Where the Heart Is-Card and Notepad:
Cardstock: Fine Linen & True Black (PTI)
Patterned paper:  World Traveler (Teresa Collins)
Stamps:  Love Lives Here & Take Note (PTI)
Twill, twine, button, & felt (PTI)
Dies:  Inverted Square (Lifestyle Crafts) & Half and Half -trimmed lengthwise (PTI)

Let Your Dreams:
Cardstock:  Simply Chartreuse (PTI)
Stamps:  Happy Trails (PTI)
Copic markers, Sakura glitter pen, corner rounder

Project 64: Melon

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Week 35 melon

When I first saw this color at Project 64, I thought it would be a difficult one, but I didn't have much trouble finding it at all.

ZinniaCenterw

You can see it in the middle of this zinnia. Here's a close-up photo that was taken with my iPhone.

  Zinnia2w

Another iPhone photo of a zinnia found on our daily walks around the neighborhood.

Flowerw

I'm not sure what this flower is. If you know, please leave a comment.

Rosew

A stunning rose; wish it was in my garden.

Sunsetw

As I was editing photos from our trip I came upon this sunset taken on the ferry between Victoria and Vancouver. Since I submit so many flower photos, I'm linking this one to Project 64 this week.

LSNED: Day 2, 3, & 4

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I'm loving the way this themed project is coming together for this class, especially since it's something I've wanted to focus on for awhile, but has just slipped down on the "to do" list way too often. It's easy to come up with a simple statement of something I learned each day. Not so simple to come up with a satisfactory macro or close-up photograph! Here are the latest three pages:

9.2Book

These flowers are actually very small. I'm guessing the photo is 1:3 or 1:4 which makes it a true macro. I used the tripod and manually focused which took a lot of patience. Of all the ones I took, this was my favorite. IRL you can see the tiniest of "hairs" on the flowers.

9.3Book

This is close-up photography taken with my Tamron 28-300mm lens at the Ithaca Farmers Market on Saturday. I don't even think about manually focusing when I'm out and about. Something I ought to do, I'm sure. I find it difficult to spend the kind of time I should in a setting like this.

9.4Book

This was taken with my new Canon S95 point and shoot. I wanted a point and shoot that would give me more flexibility, and a friend highly recommended this one. I took about half my photos in Alaska with this camera (which fits in my pocket or purse) and you'd be hard pressed to tell the photos from this camera from the ones taken with the my Canon Rebel. The only drawback is the zoom lens. I would never have gotten any decent wildlife photos in Alaska with this camera. The animals were just too far away. But I was pretty happy with this close-up of tomatoes from our garden.

Learn Something New Everyday

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Although I've "taken" Shimelle's course for several years, I don't think I've ever come close to completing it. This year a comment Rinda made on her blog gave me an idea. I've had a 60mm macro lens for nearly a year, and although I've used it occasionally, I've never really explored its power. So this year I'm devoting LSNED to macro and close-up photography. In conjunction, I'm planning to read Bryan Peterson's book "Understanding Close-up Photography: Creative Close Encounters With or Without a Macro Lens." I've already learned a lot the first day, and you can see the tips I typed up below on the first page of the little book I've prepared to save my efforts and thoughts on the process.

Here's the cover which I made from cardstock and covered with a Bo-Bunny camera-related patterned paper as well as a sticker border and round sticker from an accompanying set of stickers.

Cover

Here's the first page with the photo tips I typed up from the first chapter. I've already broken a couple of "rules" with my first photo. I didn't use my tripod or focus manually. Probably not a good start to the effort, but hopefully, we'll see an improvement tomorrow! I'll probably decorate the back side of the cover later.

PhotoTipsPage

Each page is a 4X6 piece of card stock and I snipped the ends off the left-hand side to match the tags that will separate each of the photos and serve as a quick journaling spot. As Shimelle suggested, I'm not binding this until the end, but my intent is to use just one book ring since the tags have one hole already. I think this will work since the pages aren't very big.

9.1

I don't have any idea how the prompts will work with this project, but when they are appropriate I'll try to find a photographic subject that goes with the prompt. I'm hoping this will be a fun and productive month!

Project 64: Blue

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Week 33 blue

Blue, bright and clear, was the color of the week at Project 64. I found two good examples this week, and have a couple from our trip to share as well.

GreekFestPoster

We walked over to the Greek Orthodox church Saturday night to eat at their annual Greek Fest. The poster for the event was under the plastic table cloth. I took several shots of it with different iPhone apps, but this one is my favorite. This also qualifies for Rinda's scavenger hunt, but I'll have more photos for festival later.

Veggiesw

Vegetables laid out for sale at the local Farmer's Market. This is the photo I'm linking to Project 64 since it seems to be the better match of the two taken this week.

Balloonsw

We celebrated our 38th wedding anniversary while we were on the cruise. They decorated our door, and the balloons hung there for the whole cruise. Made it easy to find our room!

Pipelinew

In Fairbanks, we got a chance to visit a spot where the Alaska pipeline runs. It goes from above ground to underground at this spot. The map was another great example of "blue."

Wish Upon a Star

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It's been a long time since I've participated in a challenge. I really like the sketch on the Simon Says Challenge blog, so I decided to pull out some new papers as well as some new dies and give it a go. Here's the sketch:

Doc9

And here's my card, ready for a September 5th birthday:

WishUpon

I used the new Lifestyle Craft Nested Stars for the main image, creasing them from the points to the center to give them a bit of dimension. For the sentiment, I used the LSC nested scalloped rectangle, and trimmed it to fit the sketch. The papers are all from MME "Lost and Found: Rosy" 6X6 paper pad. The sentiment is PTI's "Star Prints," and the cool "pyramid stud" is from 7 Gypsies that came in a recent Studio Calico kit.

Happy Birthday

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A quick post of a birthday card I made last week for a friend. They invited us for dinner to help Bill celebrate his birthday. We're getting quite a few invitations for dinner now that we have just a sink in our kitchen. I'll be posting some photos of the kitchen redo later this week.

BillBD

Supplies:
Cardstock:  Kraft (PTI)
Patterned paper: Library Ledger (PTI); others from scrap drawer (Bo-Bunny and Simple Pages, I think)
Chipboard alpha:  American Crafts
Stamps: old wooden mount stamp (can't read the manufacturer's name)
Dies: Spiral Notebook Page (PTI)
Tab:  Basic Grey

Baby Album

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My son and his long-time friend, Betsy, are expecting a baby girl in October. Today was Betsy's baby shower. Her name will be Skyler Rose and I decided to make a first year baby album, based on the one I saw here on "pine is here." Most of the embellishments were stamped and cut out.I'm quite pleased with it, and I'm pretty sure Betsy is too.

I chose the papers based on the motif of the crib sheets and accessories Betsy chose on her registry:  brown with pink and green polka-dots. I'm a huge fan of polka-dots so I had lots of papers in my stash. The Nestability Label Eight is the perfect size for a wallet-size photo each month. I left the left-hand side empty so journaling or more photos can be added there. The pages that appear to be plain are actually white with tiny pink polka-dots. I didn't realize that they didn't show in the photos until I'd already put the album inside the gift box with the other presents.

Cover

1-2
3-4

5-6

7-8

  9-10
11-12

It's hard to tell from the double photos, but lots of little pink pearls were used as embellishments. I haven't had much luck recently with uploading bigger files so you can click on them for a closer look, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

Here's the baby card that accompanied the album. The card base is a card from Impress Stamps that I've had for years and years. I love the pale pink vellum envelope that comes with them.

BabyCard

Supplies:
Cardstock:  Sweet Blush (PTI)
Patterned paper: Bitty Dots (PTI); others from SEI, Basic Grey, and a couple          unknowns
Chipboard alpha:  Basic Grey Chocolate
Stamps: Bitty Baby Blessings & Baby Button Bits (PTI); Baby (Fiskars)
Dies: Small Scallop & Banner Builder (PTI); Labels Eight (Spellbinders)

Project 64: Green Yellow

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I'm not sure why I'm so late in getting these linked up to Project 64. I've been busy with a project (check back tomorrow), but it's been one of those weeks where I seem to have been doing more running around than accomplishing things at my desk.

Green yellow week 33

As you can see, it's much more yellow than green. I thought these leaves were the perfect match:

  Leaves-RedFlowersw

And the trees in the back on the left-hand side:

Treesw
More Green Yellow is here.

 

Road Trip Album

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Before we left for Alaska, I managed to complete the album I started after subscribing to Ali Edward's "Scrapbook on the Road" class. I took a little bag of goodies with me on the trip, but didn't find too many opportunities for working on the album while we were on the trip. Having constructed the basics before I left, however, motivated me to be more conscientious about picking up memorabilia that I might want to include in the album. Here are some shots of the album:

Cover

I followed Ali's directions for making the cover; painting over letter stickers and the embellishments with acyrlic paint. I'm quite happy with the result. It took several coats.

Denver

A combination of memorabilia, stickers, chipboard, journaling, and photos. All the supplies for this album came from my stash. I have a 12X12 envelope with travel papers & stickers that I save for these projects.

Denver:NM

I love the different sized pages you can create with the Spellbinders Creative Book Pages dies. The right-hand side shows a smaller page with one of the larger ones peeking out behind.

TaliesinWest

Here I used a pocket on the right-hand page to hold a stack of photos from our visit to Taliesin West. I rarely cut a shape from a photo, but I did on the left page, and cut a section from one of the memorabilia pieces on the right.

DesertMuseum

Here I included the tickets to the museum and another envelope with photos. The Desert Museum was one of our favorites from this trip.

Tucson

On the left-hand page, I made a little pocket and stamped the silverware to hold business cards from some of the restaurants where we ate in Tucson.

PacificCoast

Here you can see three different sized pages with photos from our drive up the Pacific coast and our night in Morro Bay.

FinalPage

The End!

This represents a fraction of the pages. It ended up being quite thick, and I had to order the largest size ring for my Bind-it All. Although I knew I wouldn't attempt anything like this for our Alaska trip, having completed this made me more aware of the kinds of things I might want to bring home with me from our most recent trip. I'm planning to made a photo book (we got a great deal on one through Groupon), and will probably do a one or two page layout for each of the major stops and events on our trip. Still haven't finished editing our friends' photos as I've had several other projects in the works as well. I'm always surprised by how long the editing process takes.

Summer Scavenger Hunt: Part 2

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While we were away, I kept my eye open for items on Rinda's Summer Scavenger Hunt list. I was really hoping to find a pirate but aside from a boat named Pirate I didn't see one, and I missed a shot of the one campfire we saw. I still have a unicycle, a beehive or ant farm, a festival, and a homemade roadside shrine to find. I know I can come up with at least two of these, and I'm hoping for a few others as well.

Here's what I found on the trip:

Handlettered Sign:

TalkeetnaTripodw

A tripod of handlettered signs in Talkeetna

Tripod2w

HandletteredSignw

A museum:

MuseumAnthrow

The stunning Museum of Anthropology in Vancouver on the UBC campus

MuseumNorth1w

 

MuseumNorth2w

Another fabulous museum; in Fairbanks

Woman sketching a totem:

WomanSketchingw

Rain on the train:

Rainw1

Graffiti Art near the Granville Island Market in Vancouver:

GraffitiArtw

A wooden bridge:

WoodenBridgew

At the Nitobe Memorial Garden in Vancouver

A forest:

TrainKlondikeSummitw

The train climbing to Klondike Summit outside Skagway

A building made of glass and steel:

VancouverAirportw

The Vancouver airport

GlassSteelw

Downtown Vancouver

I promised to resize and crop all the photos our friends took. They bought their first digital camera for this trip, so aside from some gardening and a major crafting project, I expect to spend a few (or more) hours at the computer this weekend. Hope you have a good weekend!

 

Project 64: Cadet Blue, Forest Green, and Raw Sienna

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I had no way to post during our vacation, but occasionally I was able to get on the internet long enough to read email. If it was the weekend, I checked the color of the week for Project 64 so I could keep my eye out for the colors.

Project64

The most recent color was Cadet Blue, which is really as gray as it is blue. On our last day in Fairbanks, we took a paddleboat tour down the Chena River until it meets the Tanana River. Since glacier deposits color the Tanana River a steel gray color (Cadet Blue) there is an interesting marbling effect where the rivers meet.

MergingRiversw

Our lovely guide at a recreated Athabascan Indian village wore a native dress (I didn't write down the name of it)–also in a print that was mostly Cadet Blue. Here she is demonstrating a horn used to call moose into the area.

BriannaHornw

Forest Green was everywhere in Alaska. This photo was taken outside of Skagway on our way to Klondike Summit.

KlondikeSummitRd1w

Raw Sienna was also evident in lots of places. Here it is in a woodpile ready to heat a home during the long, cold Alaskan winters.

Woodpilew

And a pair of snowshoes and a pelt hanging on the front of a log cabin.

Snowshoes-Peltw