I’m quite pleased with how my card front as well as the coordinating envelope, back of card and card inside turned out using the techniques from class. I actually ended up using gold embossing powder rather than gold foil but believe that it would have turned out quite similarly had I used foil. There were a few simple techniques that added a bit extra to the card as well. First the scoring of a few lines with the scoreboard to add a bit of texture to the card front. And then adding a wee bit of water to some ink and using a paint brush to splatter a bit of ink on the card front. I also did some spattering on my coordinating areas. I didn’t take a photo of the stamping portion, but I did have to use masks when creating the images since the flowers and leaves overlapped. Even though I didn’t end up using foiling on this card I did a lot of experimentation and will definitely be finishing a lot of cards using the backgrounds that I made using that technique.
After stamping the outline images with versamark ink I used gold embossing powder. I really like the simplicity, ease and look of this technique. I watered down a bit of ink with a bit of water from a mini spritzer and used a paint brush to splatter it. This seems to work a lot better than the white and black sprays that I have tried recently, so I can foresee a lot more splatters happening on some upcoming cards now that I have a technique to do it that I find easier to use.The coordinating envelope, back of card and insert for the inside of the card turned out well. I do like how the small black inked sentiment adds a pop of contrast on the card front.You can see how nice the gold embossing looks coupled with one layer of colour that just highlights a bit of the flower.
100DayProject Day 28
I haven’t done any actually cardmaking today, but I did spend over an hour talking with Shelli about making cards. And I did get the card I made yesterday posted today. Maybe I’ll pick the die that I’m going to use tomorrow to try a faux letterpress technique before heading up to bed.
So many options to choose from to try out a new-to-me technique for Lesson 4 (Faux Letterpress / Embossing) of Altenew Clean & Simple Boutique Cards course. The class card uses a beautiful ‘Happy’ die cut to make a Happy Everything card. My Happy die is nice but perhaps not as nice as some of the other dies I pulled from my stash as potentIials. I may end up experimenting with a few.It’s kind of crazy the photos we can take with our phones these days. I love this close up of the centre of one of the orchid blossoms on the plant that Louise game me about 6 weeks ago on the day of my mom’s Celebration of Life. It’s also kind of crazy how long orchid blossoms last. I am glad that I have a few friends that will take my orchid plants once they eventually lose their blossoms. While I love flowers and plants I don’t actually love tending to them that much (or as much as I like some other things so my poor plants get neglected).
Sweeping Saturday
We left home about 7:40 for the Rideau Curling club for our three 5-end game Bonspiel. No early morning walk with Luna today. The first game was at 8:30 then 11:45 then 2:00. We stayed for quite a while after the final game since the prizes were awarded after the 2nd draw finished. We placed 8th of the 20 teams with a win, a loss and a tie. We zipped out between our first 2 games to pick my car up from the garage where it had regular scheduled maintenance yesterday but we didn’t have time to actually pick it up yesterday. I called Shelli on the phone on my way home about 7:20 and just finished the call about 8:40. Lots of fun crafty talk. She’s busy working on some SCT C&C cards. It’s going to be a while before I can work my way through those classes. We spoke about a fun colour scheme system called Color Cube which Vicki recently bought. I think we’ll start doing the weekly Color Throwdown Challenge together. I’m going to quickly finish this post and head to bed, hopefully before I get overtired.
I still don’t have a finished card 17 to report. But I did have a great lunch and crafternoon with Ivana, Vicki and Josee. We did fit in a bit more experimenting with foiling, stamping with metallic inks and embossing. Definitely more things learned and more things that I’d like to try.
Cardstock seems to make a difference. I think the one that I used was too light.Or I left the transfer gel on too long or put on too much of it. I was trying to make cover a full cardfront so that I could use the ‘negative’ of a foil that I already ran through my foiling machine, but the paper was a soggy mess when I lifted it to pull off. I also think I made a mistake in trying to roll the gel on right on the paper. In my next attempt I rolled the gel onto the brayer then rolled it onto the paper.Here I am trying to roll the gel out first onto the brayer before rolling it onto the paper – it seemed to work better.But it did take a while to get the texture that you see on the brayer (which also transferred to the paper at first) smoothed out on the cardstock. I forgot to take a picture of the texture showing in the early stages of braying on the cardstock and of the relatively smooth final surface on the cardstock. There was definitely not any ridges like I had from the palette knife yesterday.I tried to put some on a pre-ink blended piece of cardstock through a stencil using a palette knife. I think the thickness of the stencil makes a difference, as does the tool with which you’re applying the transfer gel. As you can see I had troubles getting it totally smooth using a palette knife. I don’t yet have a scraper which Vicki had seen used in some videos but we did try with the edge of a piece of cardstock but it wasn’t that effective. I wonder if using a sponge brayer might yield better results – smoother and less thick. It’s going to be interesting to see how this turns out when I run it through the heat foil machine. Maybe I’ll cut this paper and half and try half of it using pressure to try to transfer the foil and the other half with the heat transfer technique.In this example I tried to use a brayer to remove some of the thickness of the gel after I had applied it with a palette knife. There seems to be quite a lot of texture to the gel; it’s not nearly as thick as when I didn’t try to remove some of it with the brayer, but there still seems to be quite a bit of thickness in spots. This is a full 8.5 x 11 paper so I’ll cut it into 4 pieces to try a few different ways
Vicki also delivered some 2023 Spellbinders Advent Calendars that she was able to get on sale; instead of just me and Shelli working our way through the 24 doors of products, 5 of us (Vicki, Ivana, Shelli, Nancy and I) will gradually work our way through. The plan is to open 1 door each week starting in June after I finish my 100DayProject. I’m not sure if I’ll continue with my blog posts after that project but if I do you’ll see some more cards using Spellbinders products.
Thesaurus Thursday
This morning as I stepped out of the house, I was greeted by a symphony of bird song. So many different ones singing at the same time and it sounded lovely. I wondered if there might the a word that I could use as my theme for today. The closest I came was troupe, it’s not a ‘th’ sound at the beginning so doesn’t go quite as well as I like for my theme for today. But I did use the thesaurus to find a word similar to symphony. As I am trying to write more, I find myself using my phone to look up words, so thesaurus seems like a very good theme for today.
I similarly wondered if there might be another word for the V formation that the Canada Geese utilize when they are flying. So I looked it up. Apparently it is referred to as a skein. I don’t quite understand how it looks like a skein of yarn. But it was interesting to know that that V formation is not just about the shape of the V but also about the timing of the flapping. When you take some time to observe them flying it really is quite an orchestration of the flapping and flow of their flight paths. Beautiful and amazing really. As I struggled a bit to pass someone in my swim lane this morning, I realized that it is amazing how they keep up their formation for such long periods of time. Apparently they use their honking to maintain flock cohesion, coordinate shifting of positions and encourage each others during long flights. It’s also interesting to learn that a group of geese isn’t called a gaggle when they are flying but rather a skein, a team, a flock or a wedge and when they are flying close together they’re referred to as a plump. It seems high time that I’ve learned a bit more about Canadian Geese. So glad they were part of the symphony that greeted me as I set out for my walk this morning.
Don’t forget that it’s also a Thankful Thursday and a Thinking of You Thursday so you can always take a few minutes (at 3:00?) to jot down a few things for which you’re thankful, or send a thank you card or send a thinking of you message to someone. Happy Mail and messages are always nice surprises for the recipient.
Throwback Thursday:
I have 2 sorts of Throwback Thursdays today. First a copy of my blog post from 20 March 2010 (15 years ago – yikes) and then some photos that Roland has been scanning in from old negatives.
2010 03 20 – Provincials: Day 3
Saturday: Lots of uncertainty about whether our 2-2 record so far combined with our upcoming 2 games today would lead us to mini-game tie-breakers for the final spot in the semi-finals tomorrow. Things become more clear after our 2-6 loss in our 9:00 game against Burlington. We’d need to win our 6th game plus two other teams would need to lose their 6th games for us to advance. Luckily (?) we opted to check out between games since we ended up losing 3-6 to Forest in our 2:00 game. It was a well-played game, but things just weren’t going that well for us. Turns out those 2 other teams won their games, so even a 3-3 rather than 4-2 record wouldn’t have had us advancing. We had a quick stop at the McEwan’s gas station about 15 minutes out of North Bay to fill up on gas and stock up on junk food; unfortunately the ice cream cone that I’d been looking forward to all weekend wasn’t to be: turns out the store only has ice cream cones in the summer (which we always get on our way to Castle Oma (Roland’s parents’ cottage on the Pickerel River)). The drive home was uneventful; we got home about 7:00. Roland and the children watched some hockey and other sports on TV while I caught up on my blog. While it’s too bad the girls didn’t advance, we were thrilled with their 2 (unexpected) wins (pretty good for team ranked 9th among the 10 teams). And, now that we’re home, it will be great to have a full day here tomorrow before heading back to school and work. Sadly, except for a year-end party (and hopefully having the girls over to scrapbook), that’s it for ringette for this year. Heidi’s lucky, her ringette season was a month longer than Stefan’s hockey season which ended on February 19th, the night before we left for Mexico. Now we’re all looking forward to spring and summer – soccer, paddling, cottaging and that ice cream cone on our way to Castle Oma!
Some things are the same and some are different since 2010: Heidi is still playing ringette. She plays in the National Ringette League now so her team will be going to Nationals (rather than Provincials) the first week of April which will be held here in Ottawa this year. Her team isn’t ranked particularly high this year either so (not to jinx them) I don’t expect they’ll be advancing to the finals in the year end tournament this year either. Stef isn’t playing much hockey anymore; just a few fundraiser games on a TD team against some other financial instituation teams. We still look forward to icecream on our way to and from the Pickerel River just at a different ice cream store. I still refer to Roland’s parents’ cottage as Castle Oma. I haven’t been doing much scrapbooking for years because I’ve been focused on cardmaking, but I do hope to get back into it. There are so many other ways to keep memories these days such as our social media feeds and blogs. That was our one and only trip to Mexico, definitely no family traditions of trips south.
And now for a few of the photos from the negatives that Roland’s been scanning:
Camping with cousins Peter and Blair likely at Bon Echo.Roland’s dad was a great photographer. This is Roland and his mom.And Roland with his dad.And Roland on the ice. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen one of those mouth guards!
One and a half cards complete (since I stared Card 15 yesterday) to bring me up to 16 cards in less that 24 days so I’m getting closer to 67%. Still a long way away from 100% progress. Tomorrow I’ll be finally getting out my Gina K Fuse machine to try foiling. I am looking forward to it. I have had the foiling machine for maybe a year now and keep meaning to try but somehow haven’t gotten around to it.
Card 15b
When I got into my craftroom this morning and saw the 2 partially made cards on my worksurface I decided that they were good enough; there was no sense in starting them over for this lesson assignment even though there were some things that I’d like to try if/when I use this technique again. I realize that I’m rather rigid/structured in my card designs, this technique of building up an arrangement with random flower and leaf images is definitely out of my comfort zone. In the end, the black sketching and adding a sentiment seemed to finish the cards off well enough for me. As Gina K likes to say on her crafting videos, it’s better than horrible. I preferred the less bold letters on the sentiment.
I used the same technique on the envelopes, back of card and inside of the card.This card is very similar to the first card, I just used a darker in on the pinky/orange flower on this one.
Card 16
I think I prefer to flowers all to be coloured the same colour.
I was pleased with how these cards came out. I made 2. Actually I stamped the cards and envelopes to make 6 of them. I am sort of thinking ahead to the 6th Lesson in the Altenew Clean and Simple Boutique Cards class which has to do with packaging cards. However, I ended up putting the other 4 cardbase / envelope sets aside because I really should progress on my lessons rather than make extra of each card. Although I really do like colouring with my watercolour markers and had hoped to make a set coloured with each colour. I tried a multicoloured bunch but think I prefer the single colour per bunch.
The dark colour near the bottom was definitely too dark, I would have preferred to have repeated a colour. I think it is nice to have different coloured bunches, but I’m not sure if I like the different colours within one bunch.
Mystery Monday
I haven’t quite decided my theme for today. As I did the shorter loop with Luna on the very icy path, I was considering misstep as a theme. I was really trying hard not to take a wrong step and fall down and break a wrist. Grippers would definitely have been handy but they are all up at the cottage. Luckily my only misstep was stepping off the trail onto a grippier snowy area and getting a soaker. And so I have on a new pair of socks. It is a Mail It Monday so I plan to write a few cards. If you don’t like mailing cards you could also merely make it a Message Monday and send an unexpected Just Thinking of You message to a friend or family member. Maybe I should rename my Mail It Monday? But a bit of breakfast and 8:00-10:00 Pickleball followed by a lunch with some friends await so it’s time to pause my writing. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!
I’m not quite sure which buttons I pressed on my phone today when I was sending this photo to a few friends as a ‘Memories on Monday’ text message, but the effect is interesting. You’ll have to imagine them sitting on our dock boat with the lake in the background.
I haven’t written or mailed any cards yet, but I did make my Card 16 as well as finished my Card 15b. And I sent out some Memories on Monday photos to some friends as text messages when I had to sit out a few times in Pickleball. Our numbers seem to have risen again and there were lots of spares today. Roland has been scanning in a few old photos so I have one of those to share as a Memory on Monday as well.
One of the photos from him parents’ negatives that Roland has been scanning recently. Cutting our ‘Congratulations on your Engagement’ cake at Roland’s parents’ house about 30 years ago. We got engaged on a Marchish? kakaying trip in Belize and got married in August of the same year. As Stefan commented when he saw the photo, purple squad. Memories on Monday is a good day for this memory to have surfaced.
Roland and I played on opposite teams at 7:45 curling tonight. His team creamed our team. They seemed to get almost all of their shots. We seemed to miss almost all of our shots. Thus the 12-1 score for the 6 end game. But it was still very enjoyable.
I finished Card 14 this morning at the cottage before heading to Heidi’s ringette game. And then I did some more card making at home in the late afternoon and evening around taking Luna out for a walk and having some dinner. Card 14 was the last project for the All About Layering 4 class. So I’m moving onto making the cards for the 6 lessons in the Clean and Simple Boutique Cards class. Like the lessons for All About Layering 3 and All About Layering 4, I had watched the videos quite a while ago. But I rewatched Lesson 1 of this new class and will also rewatch the other videos as well.
Card 14
I am quite pleased with how the card came out. I didn’t have any diagonal striped patterned paper like the sample card from class had but I did find a diagonal stripe on the packaging of a pack of patterned paper. I quite like the bit of extra contrast that it adds.As usual, I like to have the image from the cardfront featured on the envelope, on the inside of the card as well as on the back of the card. It’s definitely a lot more work, but makes for a very nice look for the finished card.Having a coordinating die makes it so much easier than fussy cutting out the floral spray.I inkblended the light aqua colour to help ‘ground’ the floral image that I was adding to the card.I often like to use old cardboard (rather than foam squares or craft foam) for dimension behind elements of the card.The card before the sentiment was added.All ABout Layering 4 Lesson 6b – This was the design inspiration for today’s card
Card 15a
This card is actually not at all like the card sample from Altenew Clean and Simple Boutique Cards Lesson 1 (Simple Styling), but I was trying to get the effect of a mix of colour and black outline that was in the sample card. I do like how my set came out. I later got started on making Card 15b which is using the technique from Lesson. I’m not totally loving my card 15b so may restart that card tomorrow.
I created 6 cards. 2 with this purple wine colour as well as one each of turquoise, crimson, sunkissed. The first card I created was a mix of purple wine and crimson which I didn’t really like, so I changed it to just crimson.I also decorated the back of the card, the inside of the card and the envelope.
Card 15b
This technique involves somewhat random stamping of mostly solid image flowers (a few with an extra layer) and leaves, then going in with a black marker around the leaf images. The class sample is very nice. I’m hoping I can achieve a bit of a better design when I have a few more tries tomorrow. Once I add a sentiment it will likely look a bit better. I think it makes a big difference if you have a nice variety of flower and leaf images; I may dig into some of my non-Altenew stamps to give me just a bit more variety of images. And I may do some masking.
The black stetch lines definitely help the look of the the card. Adding in a sentiment tomorrow will also help. But I think that I will try a new one using a few more flower and leaf stamps as well as some masking.
Soggy Sunday
As forecast, a lot of rain arrived today. Which meant no walk for Luna. A lot of other potential themes for the day arose starting with sleepy and slumber. It was definitely a tough morning to get going. I was feeling quite sloth-like. There were lots of splashes as the rain hit the deck and the roof and as we drove to the Slush Puppie Centre in Gatineau for Heidi’s final regular season game. The first week of April will be Nationals which are here in Ottawa this year. There were definitely some slippery spots on the sidewalks where the ice hadn’t yet melted. My boots that need repair have squeakysoles which let in water leading to stinky socks. I’m going to throw them in the washing machine then bring them in for repair. Because it was a feature weekend, there were some young ringette players out on the ice with Heidi’s teammates for the singing of the national anthem as well as lots of players in the stands. I love it when there are young players around. Of course there was lots of skating, shooting and scoring by Heidi’s Gatineau team. It’s nice that their goalie, Stephanie, got a shut out against Nepean. I hope you’ve enjoyed all the S words I tried to include. I just had a snack even though it’s 9:50 p.m. Not a good idea from a sleep-perspective but the left-over cake that Chris brought for dinner last night called out to me when I peeked in the fridge.
Not the best photo of me trying to get the image of Heidi that is on the big sign on the side of the Slush Puppie Centre featuring Heidi and 2 other of her teammates. It is always neat to see that sign when we go to watch her games.Roland took this photo of the very soggy lake this morning.It was my turn to get my photo taken with Hieid’s sign today. I was envious of the photos that Roland and Stefan had taken with Heidi’s sign yesterday.
Card 11 | Altenew All About Layering 4 Lesson 5a. I just used a marker to make the white dots, but they aren’t really random like ink splatters.
I made Card 11 (2 versions) and Card 12 today. I’m still quite a long way from being caught up. Hopefully I’ll continue to be able to make 2 cards a day for the next week or so. While I am loving learning how to use a big variety of Altenew products and am quite liking the resulting cards that I create, I must say that I find them quite time consuming to make. All the the layering takes a lot of time. I think I will definitely consider Stefan’s suggestion of selling some of these cards. He was mentioning how expensive store bought cards are these days. It would be nice to raise a bit of money to put towards the materials that I use when making the card kits for the Dementia Society and it would be even nicer to have some extra money to buy some things to donate in Treat Boxes to Debra Dynes Family House. But that will all be a project to consider after I complete my 100DayProject. And after I have better mastered getting almost all of the work done for creating the kits by my Crafty Crew volunteers.
I think I actually prefer the white edge around the diecut images rather than the version of the card that has the white edges coloured black. I’m still havne’t figured out how to get white splashes of ink looking at all similar to the sample class card.
Card 11 | Hugs | Altenew All About Layering 4 – Lesson 5a
This is the design inspiration for Card 11 from the Altenew All About Layering 4 lesson 5a.
I have some other photos as well but will edit the post tomorrow to add them in.
I started this card yesterday but opted to abandon the idea of using a turquoise rather than black background and started afresh today with new (red) flowers as well as a black background.
Card 12 | Sending Hugs | Altenew All About Layering 4 – Lesson 5b
Card 12 | Altenew All About Layering 4 Lesson 5b. I used the Chocolate Flowers Zero Waste die for my flowers and leaves. The backgroun was created using a Concord & 9th cover plate and coordinating die which I ink blended to get a look somewhat similar to the stenciled embossing paste background of the class card.
I have some other photos to add but will edit the post tomorrow.
The inspiration from Altenew All About Layering 4 Lesson 5b. Unfortunately I didn’t have any embossing paste or a suitable stencil at the cottage today so I didn’t use that technique on my card. I also didn’t have a stamp set with vines. I do like the look of the mixture black and white images as well as some coloured ones so I will try to make a more similar card when I have the appropriate supplies on hand.
Frozen Friday
It is 9:38 p.m. and I am just starting to write some words for today. I am definitely very far from my goal of getting my blog posts done before dinner! Even skipping my afternoon nap wouldn’t have helped the cause today.
The snow was nice and frozen this morning so I was able to step off the path and go down to the river’s edge a few times. For most of the winter the snow has been deep and soft so wandering off the path hasn’t been a great idea unless you want a lot of snow to get into your boots. I always enjoy seeing the different perspective of the views along the river when I get off the path.
I expect that the freezing and thawing cycles of spring have been triggering good flows of the maple sap. A friend usually taps his maple tree and makes some syrup. While I like the idea in theory and actually bought (and subsequently misplaced) a few taps, I opt to buy maple syrup from an old work colleague whose inlaws make maple syrup. I am so glad to live in an area where maple syrup is readily available. All this talk of maple syrup has me craving some; so I expect I’ll make some pancakes or French toast tomorrow morning for breakfast.
Another benefit of the freezing and thawing cycles is the ever changing beauty of the icy falls in the small stream on my walk. Through my Headspace app and their great collection of videos I am gradually learning to embrace the mindfulness attribute of impermanence. Like so many things in nature, our thoughts, feelings and the things that are happening around us are everchanging. At this time of year in particular, I love to see how the stream looks different each day.
The cold nights have helped to make walking on the lake at the cottage possible as well. I went for a few walks with Luna and Roland. It may be too soft for the next few days since it isn’t going down to freezing over the next few nights. I really love to see how the dark colour of the leaves (and the occasional feather) causes the ice to melt in the bright sunlight and creates small watery holes into which the leaf or feather sinks.
Creative Treats 