papercrafting

Step Back Saturday | 100DayProject Day 56 | Card 36 | Cards 37a+b

100DayProject Day 56 – Card 36 | Card 37a | Card 37b

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 36 | Altenew Let it Shine course Lessons 2 + 3; embossing powder and embellishements | The lesson featured a nice gold frame embellishment. I didn’t have one so improvised by die cutting a few circle dies out of gold foil cardstock. Overall I’m pleased with the way the card turned out. | Color Throwdown Challenge #831
Card 37b | Altenew Let it Shine course Lesson 3b | Embellishments and gradient blending | I had an extra white background so I decided to make another similar card. I changed it to portrait, heat embossed the friend sentiment on vellum and added a narrow black matting behind the white background. | Color Throwdown Challenge #831
Card 37a | Altenew Let it Shine course Lesson 3b | Embellishments and gradient blending | I was quite pleased with how the gradient blending on the hello die cut turned out. And how nicely the friend looks. I stamped it with black ink and heat embossed with clear powder, It is big enough to look great even though it was then run through the die cutter with an embossing folder. I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to do for the back of the card, inner layer and to decorate the envelope but I was happy with how the gradient ink blended grid stencil turned out. | Color Throwdown Challenge #831
I did some prep for Cards 58 and 59 and decided to make quite a few extra packages using that stamp set. I just used a variety of black, silver, clear, gold and white embossing powders. It will be great to have the envelopes, inner layers, back of card base as well as an image pre-stamped and ready to go to make the card fronts for tomorrow’s and future projects. Kind of a few steps forward today to go along with my step back.

Step Back Saturday

I took Luna out for a short walk on the road when I got up; there was a bit of sprinkling but luckily not too much rain. I did quite a lot of crafting today, including some during a great catch-up call with Nancy who had been away travelling and whom I am looking forward to seeing on Wednesday for a retirement lunch for Jane. I started my crafty time taking a step back from creating and instead focused on organizing. For a long time I have been wanting to reorganize my Altenew products in a better way (the same envelope system as I’m using for my other supplies). I’m keeping those products separate because I need to have them all handy since the AECP (Altenew Certified Educator Program) does want cards that feature Altenew products which totally makes sense. We can use other products as well, but they do want the cards to look like they are Altenew cards. I am so much happier with how they are organized now. I haven’t actually numbered them yet, I’m just storing them in alphabetical order. I also got some other products that I recently acquired (Scrapbook and Cards today classes as well as purchases on the recent outing to the wonderful paper crafting store in Plantagenet, east of Ottawa with Vicki. I actually have long neglected my organization system and have a lot of new product to get organized (and a lot of product that was previously organized that need to get filed back into their proper storage location). I will be taking more steps back to organize rather than craft in the coming days. I am getting very frustrated with my crafting disaster areas (as is my family). I waste way to much time searching for products. I could do a full 100DayProject just on organizing.

I am so glad that I took a step back from making cards to spend some time better organizing my Altenew supplies. For now I’m keeping them in alphabetical order rather than mixing them in with my other products which I simply assign a one-up number as I put them into an envelope and include them in my catalogue.

Roland and I took Luna for quite a long walk on the road to the bridge in the afternoon, again missing rainy periods. It ended up getting reasonably warm so I was down to short sleeves by the end of the walk. We bumped into our neighbour, Laurie, who invited us for wine and cheese about 5:30 where we met an interesting woman, Andrea, from Australia who is house and dog sitting for other neighbours. We’re looking forward to seeing Laurie and her husband, David, in town on Wednesday evening for a presentation on the Arctic. Those are the friends who will be guest speakers on the Arctic cruise we are doing at the beginning of September. Heidi stayed with Luna who doesn’t like to be left alone at the cottage. Our stuffed turkey breast (that we won at a Christmas Bonspiel) was ready when we got home along with some veggies and potatoes (take 2 since the first ones that Roland had peeled and got ready earlier in the afternoon had boiled dry – the pot is still out in the woodshed – I’m not sure if the pot will be salvageable).

Picture This Year | Prompt 109 (float) | Prompt 110 (sign) | Prompt 96 (three)

Picture This Year prompt 109 (float) | today’s prompt, photo taken today | There is definitely still lots of ice floating on the lake, and lots of debris from the trees mixed in.

I was a bit disappointed that there didn’t seem to be any of the very interesting shards of ice that often form in the melting ice at this time of year, but there was definitely still lots of ice floating that I could use as the subject of today’s prompt which is float. There were definitely starting to be some signs of spring on our walk with Luna this afternoon. The dandelions seemingly appeared out of no where and seem to be everywhere along the ditches at the side of the road, especially where there is a southern exposure. And, Roland changed the road signs from saying ‘winter conditions – 4 wheel drive only’ to ‘private road – use at own risk’. I wasn’t quite on the ball because the change over sort of would have had a dual meaning for tomorrows Picture This Year Prompt 110 (sign). I was busy taking some dandelion photos as my sign of spring photo in advance for tomorrow’s prompt. Maybe I’ll come up with something more creative for that prompt tomorrow. I did realize that I had taken a photo of 3 dandelions before I decided that I should be trying to do 2 prompts a day and gradually work my way back through the first 96 prompts since I only started the challenge on prompt 97 on 7 April. Interestingly enough prompt 96 was 3 so I can use that photo.

Picture This Year prompt 110 (sign) | tomorrow’s prompt, photo taken today | dandelions are a sure sign of spring and they were abundant along the side of the road on this afternoon’s walk with Luna to the bridge. I wasn’t lucky enough to capture any of the water drops that were dripping from above but I do like the glistening backdrop to the flowers.
Picture This Year prompt 96 (three) | photo taken today, prompt from 6 April. I decided today that I would start working my way back through the 96 prompts I missed since I only started the challenge on 7 April at prompt 97. The insects are already hanging out on the blooms.

Happy Thankful Thursday

We Must Celebrate

Main Product: confetti from door number 9 of the Spellbinders Advent calendar.

I made two of these shaker cards to give to two friends (Karen and Diana) a few weeks ago on the occasion of their retirement. Retirement is definitely something that we must celebrate. That sentiment came from a Stampin’ Up! set that I really like. It seemed to fit very well onto the banner die cut that had been behind door number 4. The vase was behind door number 8. This card design seems to hold the record of using products from 3 doors. Actually I just realized that the flowers on the vase came from doors number 3 and 6, so I used products from 5 doors. Maybe I’ll be able to beat that record sometime before the whole advent calendar has been opened.

I had a bit of a problem with the sequins on some of the sequins sticking to the top edge within the shaker window. I’m not quite sure what happened – but I had jostled the card before I got it properly assembled so some of the adhesive from the foam behind the card perhaps got onto some of the sequins. Or the sequins are just sticking to some of the adhesive on the foam – I have heard of a trick of running the powder from an embossing buddy along the edge of the foam to try to prevent shaker elements from sticking to the foam, but that seems a bit risky – knowing my luck I’d put too much powder down and the card wouldn’t hold together and all the shaker elements would fall out.

It may have been better to use a bit of a thicker foam since I had die cut elements rather than just stamped elements on the inside of the shaker window. The added thickness seems to cause the sequins to get wedged in place rather than to always shake freely.

But, as Gina K likes to say, it’s better than horrible.

Happy Thankful Thursday

It has been ages since I have written anything for a Thankful Thursday.

I am so thankful that I had written a Thankful Thursday email almost every week for about a month. I loved the habit of creating that email every week. In that email I had mentioned some of the things that had happened in the previous week for which I was thankful, I included a few photos and I talked about some of the things that were happening in Creative Treats Club. I posted a link to many of those emails on my blog. It’s kind of fun to go back to look at what was going on in my life at that time. You can check out some of those emails at:

I am so thankful that I had written a blog post several times a week for several years back when the children were younger. I loved the habit of taking a photo a day and sharing a bit about that photo as well as some of the things that were going on in my life at that time. I highly recommend embarking on a Photo365 project. It’s kind of fun to go back to look at what was going on in my life at that time. You can check out that blog at: I have to grant permissions for that blog – it was back before everyone was sharing almost everything on social media and I was sharing photos of my children and other people’s children so I didn’t open it up broadly.

I am so thankful that I fully participated in the 100 day project last year. I had half-heartedly tried doing the project a few times which was still a good thing, but I was very glad that I stuck with it for the full 100 days last year. I loved the habit of crocheting every day. My friend, Vanessa, had shared photos of a baby afghan that she was crocheting in the round for her each of her grandchildren. While I don’t have any grandchildren on the near horizon, our son Stefan was going to become an ‘uncle’ because his girlfriend, Georgia’s, sister Olivia was having a baby (a girl who they named Amelia). And so, I ordered some beautiful graduated yarn, enlisted the help of my friend, Ivana and learned how to crochet in the round. I was really pleased with the result. And more importantly, I loved the process. I ended up making 3 baby afghans. I was able to give one to a friend, Karen’s, daughter Anna’s baby Lennon. And, I have an extra pink one that is awaiting a baby girl to born. I tried out 3 different patterns, which I need to find again because I still have some more balls of yarn to turn into circular baby afghans. I’ll share the links here once I find the patterns. And, if you want to learn to crochet your own, let me know; I’m happy to pass along my basic knowledge. I’m so glad that my grandmother (my dad’s mom) had taught me to crochet many years ago. I made many rectangular afghans using the same (now lost) pattern. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed crocheting. I have 2 unfinished afghans from many years ago. Maybe for a future 100 day project I will dig them back out, figure out what size hook I was using and get a crafty friend to help me figure out what pattern I was using and finish them off. I do want to set up a monthly needle crafting session with friends. Let me know if you want to join that monthly session. Who knows, maybe I can make some progress on those half-finished afghans once I get that going. I’ve included an inspirational afghan photo below, as well as a photo of one of the ones I made. It was crazy how little yarn I had left after finishing the scalloped edge. I’ll save the photos of the other 2 for another blog post. I used a graduated yarn so you don’t get the effect of the separate sections, but I do want to try one of those soon – so that I can buy the Dr. Seuss book to give with the afghan.

Screenshot

The start date for this year’s 100 day project is Sunday 23 February. I can see a “Start It Sunday” post coming our way soon! I won’t be crocheting this year. I will be making greeting cards and writing blog posts. Maybe even making an occasional Instagram or Facebook post or making a YouTube video. But the main goal of this year’s 100 day project is to work my way through the Altenew Educator Certification Program (AECP). There are 3 levels. Each of the first 2 levels has 10 courses. Each course has 6 lessons. And I’ll be making a card after each of those lessons. That means 60 cards for level 1 and another 60 cards for level 2. I think we have to take 5 courses for the final level 3 which I think means another 30 cards. And we will be assigned a special project at the end of each level. I’m not sure how many cards / paper-crafting projects the special project will entail, but suffice it to say I won’t be finishing my AECP program during my 100 day project. But I will definitely make some progress on it. And that’s what I’m looking forward to: the process of learning and applying what I’m learning.