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Summer Photo Scavenger Hunt

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I'm ten days late in getting this post up. You can find the other link-ups here at Mary-Lou's blog who generously provides the list as well as a link to others participating. I always enjoy these summertime hunts. Although I was slow to get going, I've ended up with photos for eight of the prompts.

#3ColorsOfFlag

Caleb with his decorated bike for the neighborhood Fourth of July parade: #3 Something with the colours of your country’s flag.

#6Triangle

This bridge on one of our hiking trails is constructed of multiple triangles: #6 Something in the shape of a triangle.

#8Leaf

This leaf is definitely bigger than my hand. We found it walking around a gorgeous neighborhood in Racine. #8 A leaf longer than your hand.

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One day when we were out walking, Adam and the kids passed us on their bikes. #14 Something with wheels.

#17NaturallyRound

This peony is naturally round as are its buds. #17

#18IntheWater

Also found on one of our hikes at home near the Irondequoit Bay were folks out in their kayaks. #18 Something that can go in water.

#19Rocks1

This might be pushing the prompt a bit (#19 A rock with color in it.) These are rocks with color on them. Caleb, Hannah, and I painted rocks with alcohol inks while I was visiting.

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And finally, for the first link-up, Alternate C: Something with four sides.

It's not too late to join in the hunt if you're interested. Photos must be taken between the 1st of June and the 30th of September, so there's plenty of time to play along. Here's the list if you're interested. (I copied and pasted the list, and can't get it to center with the numbers! One of Typepad's idiosyncrasies.)

                        Summer Scavenger Hunt

  1. A favourite piece of jewelry
  2. Something with or in a knot
  3. Something with the colours of your country’s flag
  4. A toy you play with
  5. Something you have more than one of-stamps
  6. Something in the shape of a triangle
  7. Something that displays a rule(s)
  8. A leaf longer than your hand
  9. Something that starts with the initial of your name (first or last)
  10. Something smaller than a paper clip
  11. Something you need to throw away
  12. Something that holds your favourite beverage
  13. A rubber band/elastic in use
  14. Something with wheels
  15. Something inherited
  16. Something with rough texture
  17. Something naturally round
  18. Something that can go in the water
  19. A stone/rock/pebble with some colour in it
  20. Something with the number 7 in it

Alt A. An animal statue
Alt B. Something heavier than your shoe
Alt C. Something with four sides

Maddy’s Fourth Birthday

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Today Maddy turned four. There can't be a friends party this year, but the family gathered to celebrate. To make it seem special, an ice cream truck arrived. To make it as safe as possible, Leon was the only one who interacted with the server. Maddy was quite excited, and we all enjoyed great ice cream from a Rochester local ice cream store. Here are the three cuties posing for me before their ice cream.

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Then it was on to opening presents. I don't think I've ever seen anyone as excited as Maddy who exclaimed over each and every gift. "It's what I've always wanted!" "Look, Mom, it's a rainbow dress!" 

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And, of course, there was the birthday cake. Maddy insisted she blow out the candles without help, and proudly announced, "That's the first time I've ever done it all by myself." Maddy took off her birthday dress so it wouldn't get dirty during dinner.

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Here's the card I made for her. When I saw this slimline die for a peek-a-boo windows by Lawn Fawn, I knew I'd find plenty of uses for it. I ended up using a number of stamp sets to complete it. Many of the images came from a Hero Arts Monthly kit from December 21018. I've only purchased two of the Hero Art kits, but they both had wonderful images, and come with the dies and lots of embellishments.

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I started by using the Simon Says "Falling Stars" stencil in a light pink and also stenciled the business envelope as well. I masked around the three flaps and then stamped images on each flap: Hero Arts fairy, sentiment from Papertrey Ink's "Balloon Bash," and the rainbow and cloud Simon Says "Best Ever", and the cake with four candles from My Favorite Things, "Birthday Bears." 

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Under the flaps, all the stamps came from the Hero Arts sets. Everything was colored with Copic markers. I added clear glitter pen to the fairies' wings and the icing on the birthday cake. Three small purple pearls were added to the flowers.

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This turned out to be a great sentiment for a slimline card. It's from the Winnie and Walter "Wish Big" set, and there's glitter on all the alphabet flags.

Maddy's card turns out to be a good entry for the current AAA Birthday Challenge: 3-D.

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We got home from Sarah's last night so we'd be here for Maddy's birthday. Making the trip during the pandemic seemed a bit daunting, but driving straight through didn't turn out to be as bad as I thought it would–helped, of course, by good weather. We stopped only for gas, to change drivers, and to get lunch which we ate in the car. Not our preferred way to travel, but as safe as we could make it. It took us about 11 hours each way. Once we were there, we stayed at home, as do Sarah and her family. They order most of their groceries, although Adam did go to the store once or twice while we were there. It was great to see them, and the grandchildren were thrilled to have us there, and sad to see us leave. It was also good to give Sarah and Adam some relief as they both work from home as well as entertaining and trying to provide enriching activities for Caleb and Hannah. It will take me a few days to settle back into routines here, but it's good to be home.

Blue Watercolored Florals

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Seize the Birthday's challenge is watercolors this time around. I had several (missed) opportunities to get a card up on their challenge site, but finally got one of the watercolored florals I created for the #100DayProject made into a card.

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For my birthday, I received a couple very generous gift certificates from my children to Pinkfresh Studios. In my first order, the "Keep Going" stamp set arrived with this beautiful floral image:

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I watercolored the image with the Karin brush markers. I've discovered, that for me, swiping the brush on a palette and picking it up with a brush or a waterbrush works much better than applying the watercolor directly on the image. I didn't purchase the die for the set, so I fussy cut it before adding it to a Mix and Mat Oval frame by Papertrey Ink.

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Recently, in one of my perpetual reorganizing efforts, I came across this beautiful, subtly striped gray cards. I'm guessing they are from Memory Box, but I can't be sure. I loved the blue and white against the gray. A simple sentiment strip from Taylored Expressions finished it off.

One Corner

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AAA Cards has a new challenge: one corner.

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I was coloring some more Simon Says "Spring Flowers" for my #100DayProject, and decided to design a card with the floral elements in one corner. Here's what I came up with:

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I colored the images with Copic Markers and fussy cut the flower. I used the accompanying dies to cut out the leaves. The sentiment is from Altenew's "Floral Frame."

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I ended up needing to take the photos in two different locations which explains the difference in lighting and backgrounds. Not ideal, by any means. 

Happy Father’s Day

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Today is Father's Day in the United States and I'm happy to honor three absolutely fabulous dads. I had a lot of fun making these three cards. Tracy's card was inspired by one I saw on the Minted website. It wasn't possible to link to the specific card, but it was a lot less colorful than the one Tracy gets today. It did incorporate the retro feel and an arrow that I knew was part of an older Papertrey Ink set. In the end, I didn't use the arrow at all, but used both Retro sets: "Retro Style: Graduation," and "Retro Style: Birthday."

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In fact, I ended up using more than my usual number of products: The background was created with My Favorite Things "Radiating Rays" stencil, and the cityscape from MFT's "You're Super."

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The sentiment came from the"Retro Style: Birthday" set as well as W+9's "Super Star" set. After trimming down the focal image panel, I adhered it to a Hawaiian Shore card base, and die cut a narrow black frame with Simon Says "A2 Thin Frames."

Both Matt and Adam's cards are very similar and use the same products.

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I used Distress Oxide inks to ink blend a background, and then added some water drops to simulate stars and objects in the sky. I also applied a heavy coat of glitter with the Spectrum Noir clear glitter pen. I tried several angles, but couldn't get a good photo of the glittery effects. After die cutting circles from the top panel, I adhered a slightly larger circle cut from the ink blended paper behind it. The top layer of letters is also die cut from that paper  with Papertrey Ink's Block Alphabet dies, and layered on two more die cuts from dark blue paper. 

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The images, colored with Copic markers and fussy cut, and the sentiment are from My Favorite Things "Out of This World" stamp set. 

I hope these three guys have a great day—they all devote a LOT of time and give a LOT of love to their families!

One Layer: Take Two

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There are actually two challenges that overlap by just a few hours that are both featuring a one layer challenge. This will be my second entry to AAA Cards, and my first to Addicted to CAS.

AAA#167 ATCAS - code word ONE LAYER

I actually needed two anniversary cards and altered them only by the color of the cardstock I used. Only one of them qualifies as one layer, though, because I added a few pearls to the pink card.

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After stamping Altenew's "Flower Vine" in light ink, I colored both images with colored pencils, and then embossed the images in gold. This works as long as you keep the stamp in your MISTI. I'm always a bit nervous that the card won't be in quite the same place.

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The sentiment from The Greetery's Sentiment Suite: Love was also embossed in gold.

I'll be back tomorrow with the Father's Day cards I've been working on this week.

 

The Flower Challenge: Navy plus One

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I have a sympathy card to share for The Flower Challenge–Navy + One. In my case, it's navy plus gray—a neutral (white) is also allowed.

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Aside from the stamped image from Pinkfresh Studios, everything on the card was die cut.

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And all of the die cuts come from The Greetery: Nordic Frames, Inside and Out Berry Branches, and Fit to be Tied. 

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I layered the Nordic Frames, cut in white, on one another, and then adhered to a dark navy card. The berries and leaves were die cut from the same navy cardstock and two colors of gray card stock, with some shading done with colored pencils.

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It's always a challenge to create a sympathy card. I'm averse to bright florals for sympathy cards, but don't want the card to be too dark either. This seems to hit a good balance, and I can see using the design again.

A One Layer Card

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It seems like it would be easiest to make a one layer card, but actually it's pretty difficult not to put a simple frame, layer, or embellishment on a card. I was playing around with colored pencils a few nights ago for my #100DayProject and ended up with a card that worked for me, so I'm entering it in the AAA Cards Challenge for one layer cards. I'm not using the optional photograph for inspiration.

AAA#167

It had been awhile since I used colored pencils on kraft cardstock, so that's where I started. I stamped Altenew's "Needlework Motif" in black ink on a kraft card base. 

OneLayer

The next step was to color the entire image with white pencil so that the colors will appear bright as well as providing some highlights. Given the nature of the stamp, choosing colors was clearly personal preference, and I liked the pinks, oranges, and bright greens together.

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The final step was to choose a sentiment. I wanted one that would balance the design on the top a bit since I had decided not to stamp anything from the opposite corner. Papertrey Ink's two-step sentiments from "Scripted" worked well.

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Time Out: Let Us Be Grateful

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The quote for inspiration at Time Out is one of my favorites:

Time Out Challenge 163

In the top five things I'm grateful for are a list of friends, some of whom I've know for over 40 years now. This card went to one of those long-time friends.

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She's a country girl at heart and decorates her home with lots of country-themed accessories so I thought this mason jar and the gingham check would be perfect for her. I die cut the gingham paper from My Favorite Things with the Papertrey Ink Shape Shifter Oval, and tied a piece of twine around it, finishing with a bow. 

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I fussy cut the flowers from Simon Says "Mandy's Flowers" and popped it up with some dimensional tape. The card base is PTI's Summer Sunrise. Tulips are done here, now, but we're blessed with lots of flowers both in our yard and in pots in the front of our house and around the patio. Here's a peek at some near the front door.

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The sun is out, and although it's exceptionally cool today, we've had lovely weather and have spent a lot of time outside walking, hiking, and sitting/eating on the patio.

Color Throwdown—Week 3

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For the third week in a row, the Color Throwdown Challenge has called my name. I love these bright party colors:

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And it was a perfect opportunity to play with some new products from The Greetery's latest release. Admittedly, I'd change a couple of things about this card if the challenge didn't end in just an hour or two, but it's colorful and cheerful, and I love Betsy's new pinwheel stencils. I purchased the dies as well, and have lots of things to try with this set as well as the "Birthday Blooms" set which I used for the sentiment.

ColorThrowdown

I added just a couple enamel dots as embellishment as well as using some dimensional tape for the centers of the orange pinwheels and the die cut sentiment. Betsy's die cut designs for the sentiments in "Birthday Blooms" are sheer genius!

Pinwheels

Hope your week is off to a good start! The weather here is cooler than it's been, but just about perfect in my opinion—warm enough to eat on the patio, but not too hot to walk a couple of miles without sweating.

 

Five in Five on the 5th: Peonies in the Park

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Today is June 5th, and time for Sandie's monthly challenge, 5 in5,  to take five photos in five minutes. With that challenge in mind, I took a series of photos in Highland Park of the gorgeous peonies. Although we live just a short walk from the park, our peonies are just budded. Sadly, there aren't a lot of buds on our peonies again this year despite applying some fertilizer twice this spring. Not a problem for the peonies in the park which are just gorgeous.

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And finally, my favorite.

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And as always, thanks to Sandie for hosting this meme which has sent me off with my camera every month for several years now.

 

Card Concept: Bright Flowers

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The Card Concept photo inspiration is bright and colorful. 

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I had stamped all the flowers and the vase from Pinkfresh Studios Fleur 2 and decided to pull them out, color them with Copic markers, and arrange them in the vase for a friend's birthday card.

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I arranged everything on a Nordic Frame from The Greetery and then to an Aqua Mist (PTI) card. The sentiment is from Taylored Expressions Simple Strips.

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The Card Concept identifies a series of card styles from which to choose. I think this one falls under Clean and Layered. There's still lots of white space, but there are a lot of flowers layered as well as the beautiful Nordic Frame layered on the card base. 

 

One Little Word: May Recap

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Stay-at-home restrictions continued so taking on the #100DayProject was a good decision. I’ve enjoyed the excuse to pull out one of my coloring materials to use every day. I have an unusual stockpile of cards and an envelope of colored images for new cards, and I’ve sent a lot of cards as well.

I kept up with a photo-a-day. As you can see below, the majority of the photos were of flowers and the parks. No wonder! Winter kept a grip on us for the beginning of May, so green trees (not until after my birthday mid-month) and flowers were a very welcome sight. There are a couple of photos of the many birds that keep us entertained outside our kitchen window. We're always glad to see the rose-breasted grosbeaks who only stay for a couple of weeks. Fortunately, the beautiful Baltimore Orioles stay most of the summer. We've seen a few hummingbirds, and have regular visits from two kinds of woodpeckers. The yellow finches, catbirds, and nuthatches also enjoy our feeders.

MayPhotoCollage

I also set a goal to walk every day which we did, sometimes in the snow, and once on a 90° day. The extremes were rather amazing. According to our Runkeeper app, we totaled a little over 74 miles for the month.

I read five books, none of which I rated with five stars although I enjoyed most of them. I particularly liked Rebecca Solnit’s Whose Story Is It? –a group of thoughtful essays about feminism, discrimination, and power, and Eric Larson’s lengthy, but well-written, intimate portrait of Winston Churchill during his first year as prime minister during WWII.

  Longings Knife Splendid

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I intended to continue purging photos from my computer, but that fell by the wayside, so I’m taking that up in June with more concrete goals. I didn’t get back to my Copic Jumpstart class either, and know that will have to wait until the #100DayProject is complete.

As if the pandemic wasn’t enough, the month ended in tragedy and chaos—another Black life taken at the hands of the police resulting in peaceful protests that turned violent in over 140 cities, including Rochester. Our federal leadership does more to incite violence than calm—no sign of empathy or compassion. I fear for our future.

My June goals are much the same. I’ll continue with the #100DayProject, I have six books I want to read, and my study group is beginning our third project which would be book #7 for the month. I’m planning to set aside three times each day to tackle the reading. I want to purge another 5,000 photos (11,000 were purged by the end of April), and Tracy wants to reach 50 days of continuous walking. We’re planning a trip to Wisconsin at the end of the month which always alters our daily rhythms, so I hope to be particularly productive the first few weeks of the month.

 

Walking in the Park

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We live just a short walk from one of the nicest parks in the county. It's especially beautiful in the spring. During a normal year (which this is definitely not), there would have been a 10 day long Lilac Festival. But the truth of the matter is, had it occurred, none of the lilacs would have been in bloom, and it would have been nasty and cold. May's weather has been bizarre. We walked in the snow twice, and this past week it was 90°. But . . . the park is now in full bloom. Earlier in the week the lilacs were at their peak. The park was too crowded for our tastes, so we walked among the lilacs and stayed off the sidewalks. It was easy to stay a good social distance apart. 

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We're at the park every year, and yet, I don't think I've ever come across this variety ("Sensation"). It's one of the most beautiful in the park.

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Later in the week, many of the lilacs had started to fade, but there was still lots of beauty to be seen. Only about 50% of the rhododendrons are in bloom, but this one is gorgeous.

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I think there is only one of these trees in the park, and it's the first time I've seen it in bloom. It's called a Goldenchain tree—perfect name!

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Most of the magnolias have come and gone, but this beauty was still there.

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This is always one of my favorite spots in the park. The azaleas are in full bloom.

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These rhododendrons are beautiful, too.

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And this is our parting view as we walk down a set of steps to the street that takes us back to our neighborhood.

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I hope this tour makes up for some of my bitter complaining this spring when all the beauty seemed out of our grasp. It certainly lifts my spirits!

 

 

Going Around in Circles

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The Monday Simon Says Challenge is Going Around in Circles. One of my projects for the Online Card Class Spring Card Camp 2 was to create some watercolor washes. This one was done with Tombow markers which I never would have used for this technique. (That's why I love these classes. All kinds of little tidbits and new ideas are introduced.) Once it was done, it was very vibrant, and I wanted something to tone it down a bit. I found this circle coverplate by Papertrey Ink, and I love how it turned out.

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I know just who it's going to. A friend of mine is scheduled for a bone marrow transplant next month, and I'm thinking this might brighten up one of the many days he has to spend in the hospital.

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The sentiment from Simon Says "Hello Darling" set was stamped on Gina K Melon cardstock and cut out with a circle die, then backed with a slightly larger black circle. Off to link up with the challenge:

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