We had a relaxing, slow start to the morning. Cathy left about 10:00 after a simple but delicious breakfast of granola, yogurt and fruit. Danielle left closer to noon then the remaining 4 of us walked over to the Chateau, the trails through the forest and along the river are very pretty with snow still covering a lot of the ground and the paths not too messy from the melting yet. We came back for a simple lunch of soup, veggies, cheese, crackers and cookies. Flora and I walked into town for coffee and milk while Karen and Sheela stayed back to read. We had a delicious soft taco dinner inspired by the delicious dinner that Nancy had served us last Wednesday at bookclub. Flora whipped up some mango salsa to go along with the roasted cauliflower, the fried halloumi cheese and the avocado dip. We had no room for dessert. We played Bananagrams as well as Code Names. A great day filled with lots of activities and friends.
Throwback Thursday – 2010 04 10 – Hide and Seek
Saturday: Roland and Heidi had soccer practice from 9:00-11:00. I took Stefan out to Embrun for his 11:40 game (we took a bit of a scenic route since I missed a turn). Another loss. After the game, Stefan had lunch with his team out in Embrun and I headed home for Heidi’s 1:00 book club. She baked cookies and the other girls brought lots of goodies. They spend more time eating and chatting than discussing the book (Sketches by Eric Walters). I sent them out to do some sidewalk chalk art (which was in the book) since it was a beautiful afternoon. Roland went out to see Stefan’s second game. After book club, Joanne drove Heidi, Emily and Emma to South Keys for a movie. I picked up some veggies which we brought with us to the Jordan’s where we had a fun filled evening with friends including the Mortimores and Lams. After dinner and watching the ceremony for Daniel Alfredson’s 1000th game) the boys played XBox while Emma and Heidi (dropped off by Rosemary after the movie) watched a video in the basement. By the time I got around to seeking the boys out for my picture of the day they were playing hide and seek. A great day filled with lots of activities and friends.
And a photo from his parents’ negatives that Roland has been scanning.
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.
AECP Card 4: Altenew All About Layering 3 Lesson 4
I was very happy with how this card came out. I had done the ink blending over the embossed image a few days ago. Then fussy cut it out another day as well as pondered how I would like to lay it out. So, all I had to do tonight was to actually trim and glue the flowers onto the card front and add a sentiment. And, of course, I like to add an inner layer with a stamped image to the inside of the card, to stamp the back of the card and to decorate the envelope. The stamping involved creating masks for the flower and leaf images. I opted to use some removable doublesided tape on the back of the masking paper rather than to peel off the backing. It seems to mask well and I think makes the masked image more sturdy and reusable.
The first placement on the card front. Then I trimmed off the extra to be used on the other side of the card.I tried the sentiment on the right side, but opted for the left side to enable some of the flowers trimmed off from the top to be added to the side.I preferred the sentiment on the right-hand side because it allowed me to add move flowers down the left-hand side of the card.I had to create some masks to make it easier to add leaves to the stamped images on the back of the card as well as the inside of the card and onto the front and the back of the envelope.I ‘cheated’ and just stamped one image on the envelope. It’s big enough that some of it was on the front of the envelope and the rest of it was on the back.The inspiration card from All About Layering 3 Lesson 4. I do like the bigger, bolder sentiment as well as the black outline on the staamped images. It definitely looks different than the card that I made. It has a different type of dimension created by layering die cut leaves behind the die cut flowers whereas the card I made gets its dimension from the 3D embossing folder.
Shovelling on Sunday
Many hands make light work. Although it may have seemed like it was a lot of work to shovel out one of the non-4WD cars that had parked out by the mailboxes on the municipal road, it actually went very quickly and didn’t really feel like work with all of us chipping in. A few of us walked the few kilometres out on the cottage road while 2 drove out with the shovels. And, before we knew it the car was cleared and all evidence of the snowplow snowbanks that had surrounded the car had been tossed into the snowbanks and it looked as if we hadn’t even parked a car there.
The beautiful snow is definitely worth the effort it takes to clear off vehicles, shovel off driveways and dig out from around cars when necessary; especially when working as a team together. In addition to some walking, shovelling and snowshoeing we also did a bit of yoga and made a bit of progress on the jigsaw puzzle. And had a delicious breakfast and a late lunch before everyone except me heading home. I opted to stay up at the cottage and did a bit of cardmaking and will soon to heading straight to bed.
Many hands makes light work!I didn’t get into the photo with enough time to get into the right position. It was fun to do a class YouTube yoga class together.Of course there were flowers to celebrate our friends’ recent retirement!
main products: sequins from door 18 and door 9 of Spellbinders Advent Calendar along with bee from door 6; Brutus Monroe honeycomb stencil, Stampin’ Up! Friendly Hello stamp set (flower and sentiment), ‘Altenew Dew Drops and Honey Drizzle inks, Wink of Stella glitter pen.
I must admit that when I opened door number 18 last night to find sequins my cardmaking energy rapidly dwindled. I was not feeling like making a shaker card even though I always love them once they are complete. I took some inspiration from some Sending Hugs cards that I had made a long time ago but had not sent. I used them as a model for some cards that we made last Monday at my in-person Card Crew class at the Dementia Society. I had 5 participants plus 2 caregivers and that was a really fun card design for us all to work on together. Some punches, some die cuts, some stamping, some glueing, and a nice message – who doesn’t like to send and receive hugs?
Originally I thought I might use the sequins to intersperse amongst some hearts, but in the end the You are Sweet card that I had made with that cute spellbinder bee behind door number 6 called out to me more as a starting point to use sequins on a card.
I am quite happy with how the Hello Friend card came out. I used wink of stella pen mixed directly with a few drops of Altenew inks directly from the reinker bottle to colour in the flowers. I popped up the bee with foam for a bit of dimension. I could have popped up the flowers too, and I think I would have like to have had a bigger third flower so should have stamped an extra one rather than just using the bit that I had trimmed off that was hanging over the edge of the card. I might have used a heavier weight cardstock or could have blended the honeycomb stencil onto a front panel rather than directly onto the front of the cardbase.
You are Sweet
main products: bee from door sweet die cut from Scrapbook and Cards today Sampler pack, flower stamp from a Stampin’ Up! set, honeycomb stencil, Altenew watercolour brushes to colour flower.
I like the slightly messy look of the honeycomb stencil. I might have preferred to have the stemp of the flower going off the right hand side of the card rather than randomly just ending mid-card. I like how I popped up the bee. I wish I hadn’t smuged black ink on the card front but, as Gina K says, the card is better than horrible. And that’s good enough. I really like the big sweet die-cut sentiment but wish I had taken a bit more time and stamped the ‘you are’ straigher and used my MISTI so that I could have inked it a few times to make it nice and black like the ‘sweet’.
Sending Hugs
I don’t want to emphasize that the hugs were supposed to be Valentine’s Day hugs. In hindsight a more generic hugs sentiment would have been better. In reality, it doesn’t matter that much; I can send Valentine’s Day hugs any time of the year. I think they will still be appreciated. And, I hope to actually get around to sending some of them out very soon. They have been sitting around for way too long. And it has been way too long since I’ve had a regular practice of actually sending out my cards. Hopefully I’ll have a big stack of cards to send out on an upcoming ‘Mail it Monday’.
This is a really fun card design. I like the mix of kraft and white and pink. I like the swath of mini hearts stamped across the card and the randomness of the pink and kraft hearts scattered about. I enjoyed using my Quickutz texture plates to emboss the hearts with a nice variety of textures. It is a fun and easy card to put together. Perhaps it would have been nice to include some glitter or shiny hearts and perhaps to pop some up for a bit of dimension. Using a stencil with tiny hearts along with some coloured embossing paste rather than stamping the mini hearts would have been a fun (but messy) way to have added some more dimension and texture to the card.
Friendship Friday
I got the idea for having a theme for the day from Kessonge when he was hosting Radio Headspace. For a week he opened his episode something like It’s a Marvellous Monday. It’s a Terrific Tuesday. It’s a Wonderful Wednesday. You get the idea. And I liked the idea. It kind of reminded me of wishing a colleague a good morning when you crossed paths with them at the hall in the office. Since I had then already been retired for a few years, I realized that I wasn’t having nearly as many chance encounters with people. But that I could intentionally reach out to friends to wish them a good day. And, although I wouldn’t be seeing them face to face, I could send them a photo of me as if I was wishing them a good day. Who knows, maybe it is kind of jarring for my friends to see a photo of me when they open our text thread and they’d rather just receive a few words, a couple of emojis or a gif. But, I choose to believe that they appreciate my goofy gesture. I know it always makes me smile when I receive a selfie from a friend. It’s not quite as good as seeing them in person, but it definitely helps start my day off in a fun way.
Today might have been a Fantastic Friday, a Fabulous Friday, or even another Finish it Friday. But I really felt today’s theme should be Friendship Friday. Because I’ll be seeing some friends today. One of them, Anne, is from out of town. I met her more than 30 years ago playing hockey back when she was living in Ottawa. She moved back to Oakville a few years later, but we’ve kept in touch. She makes the trip up here to Ottawa almost every winter for an annual cross country ski in Gatineau Park and a skate on the Rideau canal. To spend time doing some of her favourite actitivies with her Ottawa friends. I so appreciate her making the trip. I so appreciate her friendship. While it’s great that we text each other, and that we have some ‘walks and talks’ taking our respective dogs out for a walk and that we had quite a few Zoom calls during Covid, it is so nice to see her in person. Either when we’re down in her neck of the woods, or when she’s back up here in mine. Or when we’re somewhere else together on a hiking or kayaking adventure.
Here’s a photo from today with Anne, Andrea and Flora. And a photo from 1993 with Andrea, Anne and Laura, from back when we wondered if we’d still be skiing together when we got into our 60’s. I am so glad to report that we are. I will eventually get around to putting together a collection of photos of all of the years that we have cross country skied (and skated on the canal) together. But that’s a story and a project for another day. It’s time for me to head back over to visit with Anne and her aunt, to take advantage of the time we have to spend together in person.
We had two television screens showing photos of mom doing the activities she loved with the people that she loved. I’ll include the links to those slideshows here (a shorter slideshow and a longer slideshow) once I have them uploaded. In the meantime I’ve included them as collages here.
We had a colourful program that included a list of the activities we had planned for the day along with the photos that were featured in the shorter slideshow. The program also contained a word search puzzle that we created in her honour. I hope you’ll download a copy to do yourself. It can also be solved online on the website that we used to create the puzzle.
I finished created the version 2.0 of the word search puzzle, which includes the words that others added to the long list of words that come to our mind when we think of Alice. The link is below.
When I was speaking with Heidi, Stefan and Georgia after the Celebration of Life, they commented on how nice it had been to see so many people come together to celebrate Grandma’s life. I agreed; people are so nice. It is wonderful to be surrounded by friends and families as we navigate the bumpy road of living without a loved one. I told them about a National Public Radio (NPR) audio series called ‘This I Believe’. I listened to them many of them several years ago. And while I enjoyed them all, only two episodes stuck with me after all of these years. I’ve linked them below. They are both worth a listen. Always Go To The Funeral and Be Cool to the Pizza Dude. This I believe. I’d love to hear what you believe.
Creative Treats 