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 831Card 42a | Altenew Let it Shine course Lesson 5c (Metallic Papers) | Altenew April Inspiration Challenge ColoursThis 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.
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)
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.
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 #830I 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 #830Card 33b (take 2) | Altenew Let is Shine course Lesson 1b Glitter | Color Throwdown Challenge #830Card 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.
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.
The lesson had a few great ideas for decorating a clear acetate box which I want to try when I have the materials at hand. It also suggests some decorative ways to wrap a stack of cards to give as a gift which I will also eventually try. But for today I opted to make and decorate a box which is my favourite way to give away cards. In addition to sharing my process for creating a box to hold A2-sized cards I’ll share how I create envelopes for A2-sized cards. And then, of course, I had to make a coordinating card to go with the box and envelope I created. I will add the photos for the envelopes and card to this post tomorrow.
Forest on Friday
I slept in since I had stayed up way too late last night so I missed the morning walk with Luna and Roland. Roland came home saying that Luna loved her time in the forest. Plan A had been to go on the road but he reported that the forest was free of snow so they walked there. I was thinking about making my theme for the day Free of Snow Friday, but it actually isn’t free of snow, there’s just a lot of it’s gone on the south-facing side and the rest was frozen but not slippery so easy to navigate. So, my theme for the day is Forest Friday because I really enjoyed my excursion in the forest with Luna around lunch. We took our time and tried to find a few interesting things.
The stream had some very pretty ice formations and while I was admiring them and trying to take a few photos Luna did some stick foraging.
It won’t be long before some fiddleheads appear but for now just the green of last years ferns do a nice job of brightening the forest floor.
It will definitely be quite some time before any mushrooms are popping up from the forest floor but there are always interesting fungi to be found on the sides of trees.
Since I had won a buffalo plaid hat at the Rideau Bonspiel last weekend I was keen to see how well it went with my buffalo plaid cottage jacket. Luna wasn’t keen to be close to me in that attire.
My mother of pearls? plant that Sheela gave me last summer is still alive! It’s growing slowly but surely.
100DayProject Day 33
Happily I have made some progress on my 100DayProject. I finished Card 18 (and made a second slight variation of it) as well as started and finished Card 19. I’ll have 3 days up here at the cottage so I think I should be able to make some pretty good progress on some of my project.
That addition of the black inked Friend is a really nice contrast to the teal faux-letterpress Hello that I created and wrote about several days ago. I put the card into my ‘spray box’ to add some splatter as they had done in the sample card.I’m starting to like the splatter process. This time I put a few drops of ink along with a few drops of water from a watercolour brush for 3 colours of ink in my mini palettes. Then I tapped on the brush to splatter the ink onto the card front. I like working with ink directly from a reinker rather than pressing the ink from a stamp pad out onto a block but that’s a great option if you don’t have reinkers.Because my ‘hello’ faux-letterpressing was visible from the inside of the card, I added a card insert into both sides of the inside of the card. I just added a floral stamped image on the back of the card. I added splatter to both inner card panels. I like how the black centre of the flowers adds a nice contrast. The stamp set is from an old SCT class or kit of some type (I am pretty sure).I adjusted the design slightly for the 2nd card that I made from my my trial ‘hello’ faux-letterpress impression. My sample cardstock scrap of paper had to be trimmed down smaller than a full cardfront and had an uninked faux-letterpress impression in the top right hand corner that I needed to cover up with some flowers. I quite like how this card came out, too. You can’t really notice in the photo, but this trial ‘hello’ impression actually had better indentation than the one I made into my first card. You can sort of see it where the ‘friend’ black ink overlaps with the teal ‘hello’ impression. You may also notice that I was able to get rid of most of the teal ink above the end of the ‘o’ in hello and the black ink in the middle of the ‘h’ using a very fine sandpaper from Roland’s stash. I’ll definitely be keeping some sandpaper around to remove future spots of ink that inevitably end up where you don’t want them. Apparently rubbing a pencil eraser after the sanding can help to smooth the cardstock.This was my original trial ‘hello’ faux-letterpress attempt. You can see that there is an extra impression near the top that I had to cover up. And because it was just done on a scrap of paper I had to trim it down. But I think it ended up working out well. You can really tell in this photo how much darker the envelope and the flowers I stamped to add to the card front were because I reinked my Aqualicious ink cube with Teal Cove ink. Oops!By mistake I reinked my Aqualicious ink pad with a darker colour of ink (Teal Cove) which I realized after I stamped the envelope. So, I tried to rub most of the ink out of the block onto paper towels (which I will try to convert into card fronts) then reinked again with the proper colour of ink. You can see that the colour of the flowers on the back of the cardbase is almost back to the Aqualicious colour that is on the single flower on the inner layer. These are all of the pieces of my second card. You’ll see how I die cut then trimmed the flowers to cover up that texture in the top right corner, then I added partial flowers in a few other spots as well. I tried to create a visual triangle with the black by having just two of the 3 black flower centres showing along with the black friend.Lots of ink came out of that ink cube that I mistakenly reinked with Teal Cove rather than Aqualicious ink. I think these will make interesting card fronts. I just need to do a bit of research about the best way to turn inked paper towels into card fronts. Perhaps a thinned out glue on the card front to adhere the paper towel to the cardstock as well as to covering the surface of the papertowel.Luna was lying on the floor in the usual spot that I use as my photo background when I am taking photos of my finished cards when I am in the basement. She’s so cute!
It was very slow going colouring in the already die cut hello (on beige adhesive backed paper) using my blending brush. So I opted to first try to ink blend the cardstock before die cutting which is easier. But even easier is to just rub the ink cube over the cardstock before die cutting!I was back to using my reinker ink with a bit of water to colour my images. For the card front, back of card, inner layer as well as the envelope. The diecut flowers I coloured yesterday but added the Fresh Yellow watercolour brush centres today.I am quite pleased with how the silver foil paper looks die cut with the coverplate that I got from a Scrapbook and Cards today kit.A closer up view of the card (and my blue thumb. Would a crafting session be complete without ink coloured fingers?And an even closer up view.
Throwback Thursday
We’ll start with a few photos from the negatives that Roland has been scanning in. It’s so fun to see photos of him and his parents from way back when.
Saturday 27 March 2010 – Birthday Balloons Finally Delivered
Stefan had soccer tryouts in Gloucester at 9:00 so I took advantage and brought the birthday balloons that we didn’t deliver on Thursday over to Kevin’s (and had a nice, although somewhat short visit with Kevin and Lynne). I also dropped by the Scrapbox to pick up my ‘free’ magazine and (of course) couldn’t resist buying a few (not free) things. Roland and Heidi went out to Navan to volunteer at the CORA-run Bunnyfest ringette tournament after her 9-11 gym soccer tryout. I made some lemon squares and homemade turtles (yum!) to bring to Dulce’s and some chocolate macaroons (here) for Heidi to bring to Emily’s for her sleepover then I went for a bit of a run in the afternoon after walking Stefan over to the Foerster’s where he hung out with Andrew for the evening. Stefan had spent most of the day with Luka (first here playing Monopoly, then at Luka’s, likely playing video games). Roland dropped Heidi off with Emily and Emma after the Bunnyfest, send out emails for his first soccer tryout cuts (before tomorrow’s session), then joined me (who got a lift with Mark and Rosemary) over at Dulce’s. One of her friends had the thoughtful idea to put on a fundraising dinner (Dulce’s brother, a police officer in Mexico) was injured when he was shot in the leg several times while on duty; limited medical coverage makes it a very trying time financially for his family). It was fun to see some of the Mexican and paddling crowd. When we picked Stefan up on our way home, the girls were busy creating their Facebook accounts.
now for the 2025 thoughts on that post: I saw Kevin today for lunch. I wish I had looked up the Throwback Thursday post before he arrived and I would have thought to have some belated birthday balloons for him again this year! We did enjoy burgers for lunch. The Scrapbox store is long gone. And the other local brick and mortar papercrafting store, Multicraft, will also be gone at the end of April. But, I still enjoy the Scrapbook and Cards Today magazine. I have a paid subscription and really enjoy looking at current and past issues which are available free online. And I love all their events. Stefan still plays a bit of soccer but indoor co-ed adult instead of outdoor competitive youth soccer. Heidi was a teacher coach at her high school team’s ringette tournament yesterday so while she’s no longer coaching for the City of Ottawa Ringette league (which is what the Bunnies team she was coaching back in 2010 was), she’s still coaching ringette!
Thinking of You Thursday
It’s another Thinking of You Thursday. And yet, I did not get to sending out any thinking of you cards today. It’s 11:00 and I’m just starting to write some words and to get my blog post done. We had curling tonight and have just arrived up at the cottage afterwards. With Roland driving, of course I had a nap on the way up. It would have been better to just crawl into bed upon arrival, but here I am typing instead and will likely be well overtired and find it difficult to get to sleep when I do get to bed. I’m turning off my alarm while I think of it.
The particularly good news up here at the cottage is that the weather has finally been warm enough to thaw the pipe between our septic tank and the septic field to which we have to pump the liquid. It was a cold early winter with little snow and we weren’t the only ones who had this problem. Our interim solution was to ‘convert’ our septic tank into a holding tank and we simply had it pumped when it became full. This summer we’ll get a heating line installed that we can turn on when/if it ever happens to freeze again.
Luna’s hanging out with me while I finish up my blog post here at the cottage.
It’s now 12:50 so I’ve been up way too late working on this blog post (I did post it just before midnight but have been adding updates). And, since it was Thinking of You Thursday and I didn’t get any cards sent out, I did send out my Thinking of You Thursday photo to several friends as emails and texts. Did you reach out to anyone on Thinking of You Thursday?
Creative Treats 