cards

Trim on Tuesday 100DayProject Day 59 | Card 42a+b

100DayProject Day 59 | Card 42a+b

I didn’t end up crafting as much as I had hoped today but I did get Card 42 completed which was using metallic papers.

When I am making the cards for homework in my Altenew courses, I’m continuing to take my colour inspiration from the Altenew blog monthly inspiration challenge colours as well as the Color Throwdown challenge blog colours. I’ve include the links to the current Altenew and the Color Throwdown challenge blog posts here in case you’re curious.

Card 42a | Altenew Let it Shine course Lesson 5c (Metallic Papers) | Color Throwdown Challenge 831
Card 42a | Altenew Let it Shine course Lesson 5c (Metallic Papers) | Altenew April Inspiration Challenge Colours
This is the card that we made in my Dementia Society class today. Vicki put together these kits. I am looking forward to making some more cards similar to this design in the future.

And I got a bit of a start on Card 43 which will be using some foiling. It seems like an interesting technique to add foil to create a ‘gold dip’ look on a die cut. The lesson showed ink blending the sentiment in place within the piece of cardstock you cut it from which you temporarily secure into place with low-tack tape (I expect putting them both onto a sticky mat would work well too). Game changing tip. I was always so frustrated trying to ink blend die cut sentiments in the past.

Starting Card 43 | Altenew Let It Shine course Lesson 6 (foils) | The tip of ink blending a sentiment with it in place within the cardstock from which it was cut was so helpful!
Starting Card 43 | Altenew Let It Shine course Lesson 6 (foils) | You can see the transfer gel I applied to the bottom portion of the hello. Tomorrow after it had dried, I will add foil to it. Fingers crossed it turns out okay.

And I got started on a ‘denim’ card because that’s my Picture This Year prompt for today and I don’t own anything denim because I don’t find jean that comfortable. So I had to clean my denim textured background stamp (which had white Stazon ink on it because last time I used it I couldn’t find my Stazon cleaner), get out some Dapper Denim ink and create some denim cardstock that I’ll use for my card background as well as to die cut out a cute jean pocket. When I saw the prompt for today I thought I might have a finished card to photograph for my denim prompt, but that’s not meant to be.

I may make some gray ‘neutral’ denim tomorrow and figure out how I can do some foiling so that I can have the cards that I make be part of my Altenew Let it Shine class homework as well as part of the colour challenges which do allow neutral colours such as gray.

Trim on Tuesday

Luna wasn’t thrilled that she had to wait for me to draw a flower using the sidewalk chalk that had been left behind in the park.

As I took my selfie on my walk with Luna I was again reminded of how much my hair needs a trim. So that became the theme for the day. Fortuitously I had a hair appointment this afternoon, so at least my hair trim was taken care of. While I walked I thought of all the things in my life that could use a bit of regular ‘trimming’ but sadly I didn’t end up clearing out any clutter from my home or calendar. But I do think I should trim some things back so it won’t be the last time I ponder this and hopefully actually execute some trimming on future Tuesdays.

I had a good swim then had 10:30 card making class, where we made a lovely sympathy card that Vicki had created for us to assemble. And we put together a few simple cards that I had created for which I didn’t actually end up with the kit to make one myself. We had a fun time catching up about Easter activities amongst other things.

You can find the apple crisp recipe here.

My hair appointment was at 1:45 then Roland and I took Luna for a walk then I went for a short 2k run. It’s been ages since I’ve run so I’m easing back into it. Then it was off to Metro to buy some potatoes and a few other things for dinner. I made an apple crisp for dessert as well as a banana bread. Kevin was over for dinner then I was out for a walk with the ladies at 7:00. A good group tonight, 7 of us plus 2 dogs.

You can find the banana bread recipe here.
There were so many of these tiny flowers on a few of the lawns on this evening’s walk.

Picture This Year | Prompt 112 (glow) | Prompt 92 (denim)

I’m continuing to follow along with Tracey Clark’s Picture This Year 2025 photo prompts. I only started on April 7th so I’m also slowly working my backwards through the 96 prompts before I started.

Picture This Year | Prompt 92 (denim) | April 2 prompt, photo taken today | I had hoped to have a finished ‘denim’ card, but I only got as far as making some ‘denim’ cardstock for my card backgrounds and to die cut out a pocket.
Picture This Year Prompt112 (glow) | Today’s prompt and photo taken today | There is always a nice glow in the kitchen with the overhead lights off but the blue and red growing lights still on and casting a blue/red glow over the plants on my windowsill.

Face the Future Friday | 100DayProject Day 55 | Card 34 | Card 35

The flowers Louise dropped off yesterday are all buckled in with the seatbelt for the ride up to the cottage this morning.

100DayProject Day 55

Today I worked on Card 34 and Card 35 for the Altenew Let it Shine course. The 2nd lesson class focused on using heat embossing to add some shine. The 3rd lesson class focused on adding embellishments for shine.

Instead of using coloured embossing powder I knew that you could first stamp with a coloured ink then stamp with Versamark on top of that then emboss with clear powder. I learned that you can actually simply ink up your stamp with Versamark first, then ink it up with a coloured ink then stamp and emboss with clear powder. This seems to save a step and doesn’t require a stamp positioner (like a MISTI). I tried it out on some of my sentiments. It’s good to know for future reference but I think I will usually continue to use a MISTI and stamp the coloured ink and the Versamark separately then emboss.

I also assembled a sample card for an upcoming Dementia Society kit and added the black jewels to each kit. So those bee card kits are completely ready for one class. I still have to create some more types of cards for other cards. I hope to make another class kit this weekend. Vicki has also been working on kits. My students already have a kit for this Tuesday’s class but I have to deliver new kits before the class on April 29th.

I am continuing to try to use the current colour palette from the Color Throwdown Challenge when I am making my cards. CTD831 colours are sage green, yellow and coral.

Card 34 | Altenew Let it Shine course | Lesson 2a + 2b Embossing Powder

You can see the nice sheen that the clear embossing powder adds over the black Versafine ink in the ‘Spring’ sentiment. I like how the vellum ‘Celebrate’ coloured with alcohol markers allows the colour of the polka dots to peek through. The ones that I coloured in with acrylic markers don’t allow the colours beneath the vellum to show through.
Card 34 | It’s a bit hard to tell, but the sentiment on the envelope has a nice sheen from clear embossing powder over an image inked first with Versamark then with the coloured ink. There is also a bit of extra shine in the flower centres where I applied some Nuvo crystal glaze. | Color Throwdown Challenge #831

Another Card Similar to Card 33

Today I finally tried this with black polka dots and a red sentiment since I had created one with red dots earlier this week. | Color Throwdown Challenge #831
This is the card that I created on Tuesday because I had wanted to create a card using the cute ladybugs with a polka dot stencil similar to the bee cards I had made using a honeycomb stencil. This had become the inspiration for my Card 33 which was made using an Altenew floral image rather than this Stampin’ Up! one.

Card 35 | Altenew Let it Shine course | Class 3a | Embellishments

Card 35 | Altenew Let it Shine course| Lesson 3a | Embellishments. It’s not easy to see, but there are some black jewels as well as black stenciled polkadots.
Card 35 | Altenew Let it Shine | Lesson 3a |Embellishments | Color Throwdown Challenge #831

Dementia Society Class Kit

I assembled this sample card for an upcoming Dementia Society class and added the black jewels to each of the kits. Now all they need is the instructions to be written, printed and added into each kit.

Face the Future Friday

The tulips Heidi had in her classroom and brought to the cottage look gorgeous with the light coming in from the front window.

I have been thinking about this as a Friday theme for a few weeks now, ever since listening to a recent Mel Robbins podcast episode. The doctor on the episode had a great acronym for the fundamental things women should be doing to age well; to have a long health span as well as a long age span. It focuses on 4 areas of finess: Flexibility, Aerobics, Carry a load (strength training) and Equilibrium (balance). So I am setting up a challenge for the next 12 weeks leading up to my 62nd birthday.

I’m committing to 4 workout sessions each week addressing these areas. My aerobic activities will include swimming, cycling and running with the addition of some sprints (4 x 30 seconds on 2 minute repeats). For my flexibility I will get back into doing CARS (controlled articular rotations) and will do a short 10 minute stretch or yoga routine. For my strength I have a goal of being able to do 21 full pushups (as it turns out I think we should be able to do 11 but I thought it was 21 so that’s my aim). I also want to be able to hang for 90 seconds (just a basic hang, not a flexed arm hang). And I want to be able to jump higher. Back when I did a bit of cross country dryland training in the fall, I was shocked to see how little my feet come off the ground when I jump and thought I should work on that. Here I am 6 months later and finally committing to working on my jumping. I’m also going to work on my core strength which I should always be doing and my recent back issues reiterated my resolve to get back into working on my strength. For my balance I am thinking about some type of challenge of putting my socks on and off several times since I find myself taking the easier way out and sitting down rather than standing up. In particular I noticed that I wanted to hang onto something when putting on my spiky grippers on my boots this winter. So, stay tuned, I plan to report on my progress on Fridays.

Capture This Year | prompt 108 (stitch)

Picture This Year prompt 108 (stitch). It’s high time I get back to crocheting. I brought my project over to Ivana’s to show her yesterday. I haven’t worked on this since December. It was a good reminder for me that I should get back into crocheting more regular. It worked out well that I had dug this back out since today’s prompt was stitch. Notice our cute new moose ottoman.

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.

Mail It Monday | 100DayProject Day 51

Mail it Monday

Roland was up early and went with me for part of the walk with Luna before he went to Pickleball. I skipped that today since my back had been bothering me since mid-last week, perhaps due to Pickleball last Tuesday. It’s mostly feeling better now but I didn’t want to reaggravate it since we have our last Monday curling tonight, and one more curling on Thursday so I may skip it this Wednesday as well. I did get out for a swim which was great. We also went into the (now fixed) sauna afterwards for a while. I had my Card Crew at the Dementia Society from 1:00-3:30 then an appointment with a dentist to have my night guards checked. Fortunately I haven’t been having any jaw issues (knock on wood) since I had a ‘rinsing’ surgery several years ago. It was such a nice day that Luna got some extra walks before and after my card making class.

These are some of the 5 cards that I mailed out today. The first one is the one that I used for inspiration for the cards that we made at Card Crew at the Dementia Society today.

This was the inspiration for the cards we made today. Unfortunately I couldn’t find the die for the wispy circle shape so I had to use a more solid circle which worked reasonably well.
I send out 4 of these cards. It’s nice to mix up the embossing folders. I couldn’t find this stamp set so we didn’t make any of these cards at Card Crew today but I hope to find it before next class because I think it is a very cute spring card too.
Slightly different stamping on the envelope for this and the other 2 of these cards that I sent out today.

Card Crew

There was a great group out at card making. 2 of my regular ladies were not there, but 1 (very independent) lady as well as another lady with her caregiver were there. Plus there was a new wife with her husband who has dementia plus two new ladies with their daughters. I was glad to have the help of two volunteers but I was pretty busy getting the papers cut out and the die cuts made. Hopefully the new participants all enjoyed it and will come back again. My aim is to not have too much prepared in advance and to have the participants and volunteers using the tools for most of the steps themselves. That being said, I should make sure to have more sample cards available and/or photos/instructions for the sample, and possibly at least a few kits available for those who aren’t as interested or able to make their projects entirely from scratch.

My class at the Dementia Society made a lot of cards today. Here is a sampling. One participant made 4 cards, the other 4 participants and their caregivers (4) made 2 cards each.

I love the look (and ease) of using patterned paper on cards. It’s been a while since I’ve made cards using patterned paper but I think I will definitely have designs using it more frequently in Card Crew classes.

Picture This Year

Picture This Year prompt 104 (stick). Prompt for today and photo taken today. Luna was actually not very interested in stick play today so it was a bit of a challenge to include her in a stick photo today.
Picture This Year prompt 104 (stick). We have no shortage of sticks at the front door. Now that both Roland’s hockey season and Heidi’s ringette season are over I think it’s time to move the sticks into the garage to make room for the spring umbrellas!

100DayProject Day 51

Unfortunately all the personal crafting I had time for today was to watch the rest of the video for the Day 1 class of Altenew Let it Shine course entitled ‘glitter’. There are a few more good ideas for adding glitter to cards which hopefully I can try out tomorrow. I know I definitely won’t be making my own glitter paper anytime soon!

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.