birthday

Throwback and Thankful Thursday | 100DayProject Day 40 | Card 28 | Card 29

100DayProject Day 40 | Card 28 | Card 29

Card 28 | Altenew For the Guys Lesson 2 Artistic Techniques

I started this card a few days ago. There were a few vector images of the Ottawa Skyline that I really loved. This is one of them. I was inspired by the curve when I created the stenciled skyline on the envelope, back of card and inside of the card. https://stock.adobe.com/ca/images/vector-ottawa-city-skyline-design/117472716

And this is the one that I used to cut out my silhoutte. https://www.vecteezy.com/vector-art/17518445-outline-ottawa-canada-city-skyline-with-modern-buildings-isolated-on-white

I used a Spellbinders die cut for my sentiment. I had been looking for a ‘welcome’ die cut sentiment because I thought I could give this card to a university friend who lives in Texas now who is coming to visit us in the summer, but I came across this ‘from me to you’ banner sentiment which I think is perfect for this card. I will definitely make some more of these in the future, with this particular sentiment this card will be perfect to send to friends and family who live outside of Ottawa. I also do want to try to make it with that curved lower edge and reflecting upon water with fireworks stamped in the sky and reflecting in the water. But that’s way more ambitious that I currently have the energy, creativity or time for right now. I’m only on Card 28 on Day 40. I’m hovering at about 70% on keeping up. So, I’m off now to watch lesson 3, Cards for Boys, of the Altenew For the Guys course.

Card 29 | Altenew For the Guys Course Lesson 3 Cards for Boys

Between game and when I got home from the curling club, I was able to make Card 29. I was definitely not feeling very creative when I made this one, but it is kind of cute. While I think it is totally suitable as a card for a boy, I actually made it with Heidi in mind. Teal and purple are the City of Ottawa Ringette Association (CORA) colours. While she’s currently playing for the Gatineau NRL team, CORA is where she spent most of her many, many years playing (and coaching) ringette. So, I think this cute fellow giving hugs seems appropriate to make for her since she’s approaching the end of an era.

End of an Era

Nancy dropped me off at Brewer after we walked Luna (of course I forgot to take my usual photo in the morning since I was so busy talking with Nancy while we were out with Luna). I had about 1/2 hour swim and was ready at the pool entrance at 9:00 for Roland to pick me up to head to Ray Friel for Heidi’s team’s quarterfinal game against Montreal. It was a good and fairly close game, but unfortunately they lost 7-5. That was a team they had played several times during the season, most of them being very close and with one win against them. So her team moved into the consolation division and will have another quarter final game in that division against their most frequent opponent, Nepean.

Her team’s loss against Montreal really brought home to Heidi that the very long, very important chapter of her life in which she’s a competitive ringette player is really quickly drawing to a close.

It would have been nice had they been able to win another game or two in the championship side of the tournament playoffs and we certainly believe and hope that her team has the talent, ability and hopefully remaining energy to win the consolation side of the tournament. Regardless, we will definitely enjoy watching these upcoming games. It was a very close game in the evening against Nepean which Heidi’s team won in overtime, 9-8.

Roland and I stopped at Loblaws to buy some Canadian made dog food since Costco, where we usually buy her food, only carries brands that are made in the States. As an individual I mostly feel powerless and that I can’t do very much to help the current and upcoming tariff situation, but working to shift our purchasing habits to try to buy more Canadian products is at least a small thing that we can do. And so we’re trying. Then we went to the curling club to join our fellow Learn to Curl classmates after they came off the ice. I guess that would be referred to as après-curl. We were able to book 1/2 hour of ice for tomorrow afternoon to practice a bit since we missed being on the ice tonight and we have the first game of the Navy Curling Club Bonspiel Friday night.

Throwback Thursday | 2010 04 02 Birthday Celebrations

Friday: Oma and Babu left Toronto about 10:30 and, unfortunately, ran into lots of traffic. The Carrancos joined us for dinner (BBQ shrimp and baked salmon; very tasty). We took advantage of being together to celebrate Heidi’s and Babu’s birthdays early. Babu loved the framed photo from Mexico of the children with he and Oma. Heidi was absolutely thrilled with her early birthday gift: a laptop. She’s been using the computer a fair bit for school work and the old laptop was either slow or its screen wouldn’t work. After dinner we watched the excellent video that Kurt had made of our Mexico trip; what a great vacation it was. Stefan commented on how the travel video is better (than others Babu has made) since he’s in it (meaning that he’s actually been there too).

How this compares to today: Sadly it has been a bit more than a year since Kurt passed away, so there will be no more shared birthday celebrations for Heidi (whose birthday is in May) and Babu (whose birthday is in April). We still have the Carranco’s as great neighbours although we tend to not see them quite as often as when the children were growing up. That trip to Mexico is still the only family trip that we’ve taken south. And family trips are far less frequent than they used to be. I do want to try to get both children to commit to coordinating a family trip every couple of years. While we do have time together on weekends in Ottawa, Toronto, at our cottage and at Castle Oma, it’s not the same as all being away together on vacation. It’s been a while since we’ve watched any of the videos Babu made. In addition to scanning in old negatives, Roland is gradually uploading old videos to YouTube which is great because it will make watching them so much easier. It’s kind of crazy how lazy we have become and would prefer to simply stream rather than load in a DVD.

And a photo from the ones that Roland has been scanning from his parents’ old negatives. I am pretty sure that given the yellow forsythia’s and a cake on the table that they are celebrating Kurt’s birthday. How fun that the photo from April 3, 2010 was also a photo of Kurt celebrating his birthday.

Thankful Thursday

Since it’s also Thankful Thursday I made sure that I wrote a Thank You card and have it all ready to pop in the mailbox tomorrow morning. I also got an Easter card ready to mail to my brother. I am so lucky to have a huge number of cards designed by Vicki in my stash. She generously makes so many card kits for the classes that I give for the Dementia Society. Usually she makes the kits by herself, sometimes we work on the kits together, often we work on the assembly instructions together and always I really enjoy putting my copy of the card together in class. And the best part is actually getting around to sending the finished cards to someone.

Words on Wednesday | 100DayProject Day 32

Words on Wednesday

I printed out 2 copies of the words from a Google Docs file. I had them in 6 rows of 5 words on a page in a table with the line size set to zero. Then I punched them out into heart shapes. I used an opened paperclip to make a hook and used double-sided tape to adhere the 2 copies of each word together

Today was the day I (with help from Flora) finished and delivered (with Stacey and Diana on our way to a virtual golf night – 10 of us playing tonight at Golf-o-Max) a 65th birthday gift for our friend, Karen. Taking inspiration from an idea that my friend Shelli’s husband had for her 60th birthday, I reached out to Karen’s friends and family to attempt to gather at least 65 things that we love about Karen. I compiled the messages for Karen to open and read one a day. And we assembled then disassembled into 65 chunks a 1000 piece puzzle and packaged them into small decorative boxes from my ever-growing box stash so that Karen can do a 15-16 piece portion of the puzzle every day for the next 65 days. And we portioned a Lego set into 65 envelopes for Karen to assemble a small portion of each day for the next 65 days. In each envelope we also included a word or two (typed onto heart shapes) for Karen to hang on the spring floral stems. So many great words describing all the things we love about Karen were compiled. Maybe you’ll take inspiration from the idea sometime in the future for a special birthday for a special friend or family member?

This wide assortment of decorative boxes that I have been accumulating for years came in handy to hold the sixty-five 15 or 16 piece puzzle sections. Karen will be able to make one section each day for the next 65 days. I told her she can’t open the wrapped box with the puzzle box until after she’s finished the puzzle.
Such a wonderful collection of words representing so much of what we love about Karen.
I had already sent Karen a birthday card in the mail so I used this card that I had on hand to wish her happy birthday again and to describe a bit about what the gifts were all about.
These are the spring stems onto which Karen will be able to hang her word hearts each day.
I’ll be able to reuse the envelopes in future card kits after Karen has finished assembling her Lego project. I adhered the hearts using repositionable tape.
While the puzzle boxes are numbered, they actually don’t need to be done in order. The pieces within each box go together, but the sections don’t necessarily attached to each other in any specific order.
The collection of birthday gifts that we delivered to Karen.

So, lots of craftiness but no progress on my 100DayProject yet today. Actually, I think I’ll count the envelopes I stamped as a 100DayProject activity because I’ll use some of them for envelopes for cards that I’ll make as part of the project (as well as using some for future card kits). I’m now going to watch a few lessons before I head to bed once I get this posted with a few photos.