Altenew

Wintery Wednesday | 100DayProject Day 53 | Card 32 | Card 33a+b+c

100DayProject Day 53 | Card 32 | Card 33

I realized that I forgot to post the finished photo of Card 32 which I completed on Sunday. And I finished Card 33 which I started yesterday. These were both for Lesson 1 (Glitter) of the Altenew Let it Shine course.

I am continuing to try to use the current colour palette from the Color Throwdown Challenge when I am making my cards. CTD830 colours are lavender, mint green and yellow.

Card 32 | Altenew Let it Shine course Lesson 1a Glitter | Color Throwdown Challenge #830
I tried a lot of different ways of adding ink and glitter and shine on the 3 versions of Card 33.
Card 33a (take 1) | Altenew Let is Shine course Lesson 1b Glitter | Color Throwdown Challenge #830
Card 33b (take 2) | Altenew Let is Shine course Lesson 1b Glitter | Color Throwdown Challenge #830
Card 33c (take 3) | Altenew Let is Shine course Lesson 1b Glitter | Color Throwdown Challenge #830

Wintery Wednesday

The theme for today didn’t arrive until we (Roland, Heidi and I) were out for a rare family walk with Luna. It’s definitely back to feeling wintery rather than spring-like.

I did get out for a quick walk with Luna this morning before meeting Flora at Brewer at 8:00 for a swim. There were a lot of people there, but we did eventually get settled into a lane that didn’t involve too much passing, especially once the number of swimmers lessened. We had a sauna again today after our swim since it’s back in working order. Then I went over to her place for a smoothie bowl and coffee. Then it was home to get my craft supplies organized for 1:00 Crafty Crew. Just 3 of us today but we pretty much finished getting the 2 bee-themed card kits together. Then I went to get gas at Costco on Blair and went in to buy the play water table to send to Collingwood with Louise for her granddaughter’s first birthday / Easter gift as well as a Lego race car set for Charlie. I dropped them off at her place and just had a few minutes at time before heading to Golf-o-Max for our 5:30 virtual golf. Just 5 of us tonight. As usual, I got my money’s worth. Vicki and I were more than 30 over par after 14 holes. Diana, Flora and Karen just did 9 holds but were 1 over par. I continue to get my money’s worth when playing golf. My goal is to be able to drive 100 yards by the end of the summer. Then the quick family walk since it felt quite wintery and I’m getting my blog post done.

Picture This Year | Prompts 105 (brush) | Prompt 106 (cover)

Picture This Year prompt 105 (brush). Photo taken yesterday for yesterday’s prompt.
Picture This Year prompt 105 (brush). Photo taken yesterday for yesterday’s prompt.
Picture This Year prompt 106 (cover). Photo taken tokay for today’s prompt. Roland has the covers off off our washing machine that has a leaking seal (it was dripping down through the light fixture in my craft room). He’s definitely been working hard at trying to resolve this issue but most YouTube videos declare it nearly impossible to access the area and even when they replace the seal it still leaks. So I foresee the purchase of a new set of stacking washer and dryer soon. Clearly we made a mistake buying an all-in-one.

Stay at Home Saturday | 100DayProject Day 49 | Card 31 | Card 32 (started)

100DayProject Day 49

Card 31 (Pop Art)

I started and finished my card for lesson 5 of the Altenew For the Guys course in which we were to make a Pop Art inspired card. I searched for some images and used one as inspiration for the card. I used Gina K masking strips to create the grid then ink blended the red grid.

Card 32 (Glitter) (started)

The first lesson of the Altenew Let It Shine course is entitled, Glitter. The lesson demonstrated making your own glitter cardstock. It was the first time I tried to do that. And will likely be the last. I actually had to have two attempts because I decided to try to burnish the glitter by running it through my diecutting machine rather than just using a bone folder/spatula. The adhesive of the 2-sided adhesive paper beneath the glitter ended up sticking to the printer paper I had put over the glittered cardstock before running it through. The next attempt I put a piece of acetate over the glitter before burnishing it in the die cutting machine then ran it through again with my hello die. Clearly I shouldn’t have put a piece of printer paper over it even after I had it burnished.

I am only partway through putting the card together. There were a few other techniques in the class including stamping the floral image on vellum and colouring the image on the wrong side with alcohol markers. All of my alcohol markers are at the cottage so I thought I’d try to colour ink by mixing some ink with some Simple Solution Acrylic Medium. I’m not sure if that’s going to work. I’m letting it dry overnight.

Stay at Home Saturday

We stayed home last night and today since Heidi is having some friends up to the cottage. We definitely had a slow start to the day and eventually got out to walk Luna then we went to the Cottage Show at the EY Centre. We bought a few new decor items for the cottage which are still in the car so I’ll photograph them tomorrow. We also bought some date humus as well as some soup mixes. It’s always fun to try out some of the interesting food and to support local small businesses at events like that. We were a month too late to buy end of season cross country skis at Fresh Air Experience. We’ll head back there in early December. We also went to Bushtukha to look for some hiking boots for Roland and some light hikers for me. But it was quite busy there so we’ll go back another time. Roland has had a very frustrating time trying to put in a replacement part into the leaking washing machine. He went to Princess Auto to buy a wrench but still had no luck getting it apart. So he went to Metro and got some nice steaks on sale for his dinner to bolster his mood. I did some cardmaking while Roland watched some curling.

Picture This Year

I’m going to try to start following along with Tracey Clark’s Picture This Year 2025 prompts now that I have discovered them.

Picture This Year prompt 101 (bag). This was Friday’s prompt and I took the photo on Friday. I love this bag that Heidi gave me for Christmas. The other side is the outline of the lake that our cottage (which we bought in 2001), is on. Heidi did a great job with our cottage logo, which like the lake image is also on the matching sweatshirts that she gave us all for Christmas.
Picture This Year prompt 100 (stack) | This was actually Thursday’s prompt. I had the idea on Friday and took the photo today. I had Heiid’s Bananagrams game out because I had borrowed it to play at our girls getaway near Montebello. Even though you don’t actually play with the letters stacked I thought the game would be a helpful prompt for this photo prompt.
Picture This Year Prompt 103 (out). This is actually the prompt for tomorrow and the photo was taken today. While I was taking the photo for Prompt 100 (stack) I realized that the Bananagrams game would be helpful for this prompt as well. In fact, I like it better than my stack idea.
Picture This Year prompt 97 (vibrant). This was Monday’s prompt and I took the photo Monday night just as I was heading to bed. That was the evening that I had discovered the challenge. These bright pink (can we say vibrant?) laces were calling out to me to be photographed when I caught a glimpse of them out of the corner of my eye as I was reading through the April prompts which I had printed out to review in bed. I’m not sure whether I’ll go back and do some of the past prompts, but I do hope to continue doing many of the daily prompts for at least April and May.
Picture This Year prompt 98 (bird). This was Tuesday’s prompt and I took the photo on Tuesday. The birds in the conservation area were quite elusive on my walks so I decided to use this photo of the bird card that I’m making to cover off this prompt.
Picture This Year prompt 99 (line). This was Wednesday’s prompt this photo was taken on Wednesday. Everyone was very good about lining up on the woods while I got my phone camera set up in the ‘Y’ of a branch with a timer setting. It was such a fun afternoon with all these friends in the woods near Montebello between Ottawa and Montreal where we met to celebrate a recent 65th birthday as well as a recent retirement.

Less Tech Tuesday | 100DayProject Day 45

Less Tech Tuesday

It has been an easy day to use technology less; I have hardly been at home with extra time to spend on my phone or computer. It’s 10:00 p.m. and I’m just starting to write a few words. No early morning walk nor swim for me today. But I did have a wintery wonderland walk with Roland and Luna. It was magically beautiful and I loved it. I’m in a very small majority; almost everyone else I know is so ready for winter to be over.

I did do a wee bit of crafting before my 10:30 online class. I had forgotten to press send on the reminder email last night so my participants had reached out to me at 10:30 to check if it was still on. We made 2 cute cards that Vicki had created for us. I haven’t yet had time to address them and to get them out into the mail but I will do so later this week. Then I picked up Louise to bring her to pick up her car at the garage. Then I had a quick lunch before driving to Vicki’s for our road trip out to Scrap en Masse in Planteganate. It’s an amazing paper crafting store, very well stocked with great staff. Vicki was picking up some online orders and I really enjoyed browsing and couldn’t resist picking up several products. Then it was a stop at Costco to buy some flowers and food and home for a quick Costco shrimp taco dinner with my brother Kevin, Heidi and Roland. Then 7:00 walking with Luna and 3 friends. Then picking up Karen for some grocery shopping for our 3-day/2-night ladies getaway near Montebello to celebrate Sheela’s retirement and Karen’s birthday.

100DayProject Day 45

I decided that I’ll put a ‘wobbler’ behind a perched bird for my interactive card lesson of my Altenew For the Guys course Lesson 4 (which will be card 41). The class made a very cute wobbler card by coiling up jewelry wire and hot gluing behind a stamped image of two of those wacky wavy inflatable arm-flailing tube men (tall boys) (did you know they apparently were invented for the 1996 summer Olympics). I only got as far as die cutting, ink blending and assembling the bird and the perch as well as inkblending the ‘bamboo screen’ background. Those are Spellbinders products from my most recent SCT Crop and Create event supplies. I still need to make some flowers for the background using some of my Altenew products and to make the wobbler. I am using the colour scheme from the latest Color Throw Down challenge (mauve, mint, yellow). And I have a new stencil that I’m going to use in the card that I’m making for the Pop Art inspired lesson (which will be Card 42). I haven’t yet figured out what I will make for Lesson 6 which is themed Gaming.

Tournament Tuesday | 100DayProject Day 38 | started Card 28

100DayProject Day 38 | started Card 28

I haven’t done much on my 100DayProject today. The 2nd lesson of the Altenew For the Guys course is entitled Artistic Techniques. The instructor made a beautiful ink blended galaxy / starry sky background which she then fussy cut into the shape of a city skyline silhouette that she had stamped. I don’t have such a stamp set but did search for images of an Ottawa skyline. I took a few screenshots and printed them out. My plan is to print them on the back of a piece of cardstock and create my galaxy / starry sky background on the other side then cut it out. I don’t think that would be violating a copyright of the images to use it in that way.

My ink blending before adding any white splatters, black ink and white/stickles splatters.
My background after adding white splatters, black ink and white/stickles splatters. The inspiration card just had a skyline silhouette but I like the idea (inspired by the images I found on the internet) of having a reflection on the water somehow, perhaps with a fireworks burst above the skyline because that is how the skyline looks on Canada Day. It shall be interesting to see if I can transform this galaxy background into a nice card. My splattering techniques still need a lot more practice!

I did write 3 thank you cards today. And of course had lots of crafty chatting with Vicki when I was at her place.

Tournament Tuesday

Roland was up early for another volunteer shift that the ringette tournament. I slept in, but still walked Luna before heading to the pool for what ended up being only a 10 minute swim. But I’m still glad that I went. In the photo I took this morning, Luna seemed to be anticipating her displeasure of being left at home for quite a bit of the day because we were going to be away from the house to watch Heidi’s 2 tournament games today. Luna did get out for a second walk with Roland and me after he got home from his morning volunteer shift. We were able to go in the conservation area because the snow/ice was still frozen. As usual, I like to see how the stream at our usual turnaround point has changed since the last time. It’s totally clear of snow and ice now except for along the shore. After tonight’s game I considered changing my theme to two win Tuesday. Both games today were very exciting; very close games. They played Saskatchewan and BC. I visited Vicki who lives in Orleans near the arena after the first game. It was great to see a lot of Heidi’s teacher colleagues out cheering her on, complete with handmade signs. And to talk with Jenna, whom Heidi played several years of ringette with but whom she had first met when Jenna coached her starting way back when she was 11. Heidi’s likely retiring from NRL next year and will play on Jenna’s team. I couldn’t make my usual Tuesday evening walk but did get to see a friend briefly to pick up her prescription paperwork and drop off her filled prescription. I’m glad that the schedule worked out such that I could get to the pharmacy for her. And Luna got her third outing of the day with Roland while I ate my dinner.

Sleet on Sunday | 100DayProject Day 36 | Card 25 | Card 26

100DayProject Day 36

I made 2 cards today: Card 25 based on Lesson 5 of the Altenew Easy Ink Blending Techniques which covered Faux Watercolouring. Card 26 was a slim shaker card using the technique in Lesson 6 of the Altenew Easy Ink Blending Techniques course entitled Putting it into Practice. Since it’s almost 11:00 p.m. already I won’t be posting the details of how I made the cards. I do hope to get those posted tomorrow since I’ve been trying to use the colour scheme in the Color Throwdown Challenge #289 to which I can link my cards using that colour combination until tomorrow.

Card 25

I have been using my Gardenia Duo stamp set quite a bit lately for my class assignments. I need to get busy making thank you cards to send out to everyone who so kindly made donations to the Dementia Society in my mom’s memory. I have quite a few nice card designs featuring the Gardenias that will be perfect for those cards. Gardenias were my mom’s favourite flowers.

At 26 cards made by the end of Day 36 I’m at about 72% completion rate. I definitely have some catching up to do, both on making cards as well as posting about them. If I continue to do 2 a day for the next week that would put me at 40 cards by the end of Day 43. Definitely an ambitious goal! I did get one lesson from my next course, For the Guys watched entitled Geometrics.

Card 26

Sleet on Sunday

As forecast, there was freezing rain today. Luckily it turned to just rain later in the day and we didn’t get nearly as much freezing rain as they had been forecasting earlier. We opted to take Luna for a short walk on the road followed by a short walk in the woods when we realized that it wasn’t raining too hard and that it was actually slipperier on the roads than on the forest, especially because we stopped back at home and put on our spikes. We definitely had a sluggish start to the day. And Luna came back rather soggy from our walk. We packed up and headed home before lunch in case the roads got icier. I did some grocery shopping at Costco and Farm Boy for Heidi who has a big week coming up with her ringette Nationals here in Ottawa starting tomorrow. I also made her some pasta sauce and will make a few more things including some soup early in the week. I’ve got the carcass from a Costco chicken boiling with some celery, carrots and onions overnight. She had a practice this morning and did some school work before opening ceremonies then had lots of laundry and other prep for the week to tackle before making her egg bites, getting her smoothie ingredients packaged into baggies and back into the freezer, boiling her pasta and assembling pasta and sauce containers.