Walkless Wednesday | 100DayProject Day 60 | Card 43a+b

100DayProject Day 60 | Card 43a+b

Phew, I stayed up way too late (it’s now almost 11:40), writing this post then deciding to finish off Cards 43a and 43b. I was pleased with how the ‘gold dipped’ effect on the bottom of my hello sentiments turned out using foil applied over the dried transfer gel. I had a sort of pinkish foil which turned out to go quite well with each of the pink colours as well as with the goldish/bronze of the pen that I had used to draw over the stitches on the die cut pocket as well as the stitches I drew in with a ruler around the edges of the cards. I should have used an uncut top cutting plate because the texture from the cutting plate came through onto the foil when I ran it through my die cut machine to better press the foil into the dry but still tacky transfer gel. It is also quite difficult to capture the foiled portions of the sentiment on the cards in photos, especially since I don’t yet have a new overhead light in my basement craft room.

I am using the Altenew blog inspiration challenge colours as well as the Color Throwdown challenge blog colours for inspiration as I make my way through the homework for my Altenew AECP classes. I’ve include the links to the April Altenew and the Color Throwdown challenge #831 blog posts in case you’re curious.

Card 43a | Altenew Let it Shine course | Lesson 6 | Foils | Altenew Inspiration Challenge colours

Card 43a | Altenew Let it Shine course | Lesson 6 | Foils | Color Throwdown Challenge #831

Walkless Wednesday

Heidi did a lovely job arranging the tulips that I bought for Jane’s retirement lunch tomorrow.

I fell back asleep after my 7:00 alarm went off this morning so didn’t have time for a walk with Luna before Roland and I set off for our 8:00-10:00 Pickleball. Roland did take her out for a short loop before we left and I did a wee bit of cleaning up of dead leaves and ornamental grasses that I had recently cut down to get a few minutes of sunlight into my eyes close to first thing in the morning. I did some some crafting when we got back. After lunch I went out with Roland to continue some yard cleanup, and boy did (and still does) our yard need a lot of cleanup. Lots of nutrients likely soaked into the soil in the portion of our backyard where all the leaves were still sitting since the fall. We definitely need to get on with a better, no maintenance backyard solution. The grass doesn’t grow that well in the shade of our trees so we are planning to put in a bit of a patio and some mulched areas. Just as we were calling it quits for the yardwork some neighbourhood friends, Donna and Jon, were finishing a chat with our neighbour so we had a great catch up talk with them. Roland put on my summer tires (and found a nail which luckily didn’t make the tire go flat over the winter but which I hope I can get repaired tomorrow) and I baked a date square then we had a quick dinner before heading to the RA centre for 7:00 for an Arctic Canoe presentation hosted by the RA’s Canoe Camping club (which used to be the Y Canoe Club – which we actually did a few white water trips with way back when). Our cottage neighbour, David Pelly, who will be a guest speaker on our upcoming September Arctic cruise with Adventure Canada spoke at the RA as did the owner of Jackpine Paddle. They both shared many stories and photos of the interesting landscape and people of the Arctic.

Of course I had to go up to look for a photo from the whitewater trip we did on the Petawawa with the Y Canoe Club back in June 1994. That’s Roland in the stern. I portaged that rapid and someone else went in the bow.

Happily, I didn’t end up actually having a walkless Wednesday because I took Luna out for a quick loop around the block while Roland gathered up a few things to head to the cottage tonight. I have a few things on for tomorrow (including a retirement lunch for Jane for which Heidi kindly arranged the bouquet of tulips that I bought when I was out at Costco buying desperately needed yard waste bags this afternoon) so I will head up to the cottage in the late afternoon tomorrow. As I took my selfie for today, I realized how impressive the night photography capabilities of our phones are these days. Crazy. And on the walk, I realized that while I love walking and do really feel off when I don’t get a good walk or two in during the day, an afternoon spent outside working on yard work goes a long way to compensating. And that I was still very happy to have a ‘less walking’ rather than totally ‘walkless’ Wednesday.

The date squares I made turned out pretty well. I think it was a recipe I got from Elaine years ago. I checked with Diane and it’s not the one that she got from our mom, so you can be sure I’ll be making another batch of date squares once she sends me a copy of that recipe when she’s back from her Florida golfing trip.

Luna looking a bit stricken as she waited for Roland to come back out to the car to head up to the cottage.

Picture This Year | Prompt 113 (pinch) | Prompt 91 (window)

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 113 (pinch) | today’s prompt and photo taken today | I was hoping that the date square recipe called for a pinch of salt so I could (legitimately) use this for today’s photo. It actually called for a teaspoon, but I added a pinch for good measure.

Picture This Year | Prompt 91 | April 1 prompt, photo taken today | I had thought about making a card featuring a window for this prompt, but who knows how long it would take me to get to making such a card, so I just took a photo of my kitchen window. You may recognize some of the flowers that I’ve been photographing lately. I’ve decided to keep up my Swarovski crystal ornaments year round because they are so pretty, especially in the morning when the sun hits them and they reflect the light and cast rainbows on throughout the kitchen. I love looking at the stained glass ornaments that Josee has made. The backyard is now mostly free of the vast collection of leaves that were on that side of the yard over the winter.

Posted on April 21, 2025
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Melting Monday | 100DayProject Day 58 | Card 41a+b

100DayProject Day 58 | Card 41a+b

It’s not so great that I remembered that Altenew has a monthly colour challenge on their card blog. Now I’m going to want to make cards using the Altenew 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 41a | Altenew Let it Shine course Lesson 5a | Metallic Paper | using Altenew April Inspiration Challenge colours

Card 41b | Altenew Let it Shine course Lesson 5a | Metallic Paper | using Color Throwdown Challenge #831 colours

starting Card 42a | Altenew Let it Shine course | Lesson 5a |Metallic Paper | using Color Throwdown Challenge #831 colours

starting Card 42a | Altenew Let it Shine course | Lesson 5a |Metallic Paper | using Altenew April Inspiration Challenge colours

Melting Monday

Luna was very happy that her favourite spring pond is now completely melted. She’ll have to enjoy it while it lasts, because it disappears again by summer. She likes being in water, but only when her feet can still touch the ground – she is a good swimmer (when tossed in) but never ventures into water deep enough to swim by herself.

Everything is continuing to melt at the cottage. There is still ice on the lake as well as the occasional patch of snow on our lot and in the woods. Luna takes advantage of the snow to roll in and it was handy to clean off the soles of my boots after I planted the ferns I dug up yesterday from the side of the road. I had an early morning walk with Luna and an early afternoon walk with Roland and Luna. She was thrilled to discover that her favourite spring pond is now completely melted. I did some crafting at the cottage and some more at home. Heidi went home last night and to a coffee shop to get some marking done. Roland helped her with some multiple choice this evening. I enjoyed a nice catchup talk with Ivonne when she came over to get some of our extra cilantro, mangos and jalapeno peppers. I’m glad that her volleyball is over and she’ll restart walking with us on Tuesdays.

Picture This Year

Picture This Year prompt 111 (ribbed) | today’s prompt and photo taken today | It has been ages since I used this crimping tool to add some dimension and interest to the front of a card. I haven’t yet finished the card front, but I did at least get enough done to be able to take my ribbed photo for today. I did get all of the ink blending done on the envelopes, inner layers and back of the 2 cards.

Posted on April 20, 2025April 20, 2025
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Shadows on Sunday | 100DayProject Day 57 | Card 38 | Card 39 | Card 40a+b

100DayProject Day 57

Card 38 | Altenew Let it Shine course Lesson 4a | Shimmer and Sparkle Pens | Color Throwdown Challenge #831

I made reasonable progress today. 40 cards within 57 days has put me back up to just over 70% completion rate. I am beginning to accept the likelihood that it will take me well over 100 days to make my 100 cards. There was a lot of colouring on my first two cards. The third card had no colouring at all so it went more quickly, although I did make 2 versions of Card 40 so that added some time. 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 39 | Altenew Let it Shine course Lesson 4b | Shimmer and Sparkle Pens | Color Throwdown Challenge #831

Card 40b | Altenew Let it Shine Lesson 5a | Metallic Paper

Shadows on Sunday

It was lovely and sunny this morning when I took Luna out for a forest walk. I took a few photos squinting up into the sun then decided that it would be better to position myself in the shadow of a tree. Shadows can be a good thing. They can make interesting photos. Many years ago when I was following some photography blogs there was a Shadow Shot Sunday challenge that I did for a while. I still remember some of the photos that I took, perhaps because I also posted them on my blog at the time. But it has made me a lot more interested in capturing some shadow shots from time to time. I am fortunate that my family and friends are generally quite tolerant of my requests for shadow shots. It is a nice alternative to selfies to get yourself into a photo. No timer and running back into the shot involved either.

Roland and I took Luna for a forest walk in the afternoon once it had warmed up more; it had become quite windy after my morning walk which made a walk less enticing. I grabbed a shovel and a few buckets because I wanted to transplant a few of the tall ferns that grow along the side of the road near where we start our forest hikes. Unfortunately those ferns totally dry up rather than staying green and there are no fiddleheads appearing yet so I’m not 100% certain that I dug up the correct plants. Maybe I just have some weeds that I won’t actually want in my garden. I’ll plant them tomorrow. What reminded me to dig some up was that photo prompt 95 was ‘plant’. Roland took a saw up into the forest and started clearing some downed trees while I dug up my ferns. I helped him haul away some branches. There still needs to be another trail clearing session with a chain saw but we made some good progress. Luna was pretty bored sitting around waiting for us.

Heidi and I made shrimp tacos for dinner with mango salsa and grated cabbage. They were pretty good. Next time we will try to figure out a nice coleslaw recipe to slightly soften up the cabbage a bit and/or we’ll figure out a better creamy sauce recipe. Heidi headed back home after dinner. Luna was not pleased that one of the three new smoke detectors that Roland tried to install seemed to be faulty because it kept blaring. Roland had to entice her with peanut butter get come back inside. She is so afraid of sounds like that, thunder and fireworks since there was a particularly loud finale fireworks at Stefan’s cottage birthday cottage about 4 years ago. Before that she didn’t cower at all from such sounds, now she is terrified. That fireworks night she ran off into the woods and it took more than an hour of us all up on the roads nearby looking for her.

Picture This Year | Prompt 95 (plant)

I didn’t bother to take another photo for today’s prompt 110 (sign) because I decided yesterday’s photo was good enough. So I just took a photo for the plant prompt. After I took that photo I looked back to see what prompt 94 is; it turns out to be ‘hole’ which will be quite handy for me since I’ll have to dig a hole to plant those (hopefully) fern plants that I dug up today.

Picture This Year prompt 97 (April 5 prompt, photo taken today). I dug up some fern plants from a nearby ditch to transplant along our driveway. I hope these turn out to be the ferns that I want and not some type of weed that I don’t want.

My shadow on the rock reminded me of the old Shadow Shot Sunday photography challenge that I did for a while way back in 2011-2012. I have enjoyed taking shadow shots since then. I’ll try to keep an eye out for shadow shot opportunities on Sundays again.

Shadow Shot Sunday – Throwbacks

Since my theme today is Shadows, I decided to look back on my old blog to find some photos that I took as part of a Shadow Shot Sunday photography challenge.

2011 03 30 | Just a few days after discovering Shadow Shot Sunday I was brushing my teeth in the bathroom and noticed my shadow on the wall, and the reflection of that shadow in the mirror. I wish I’d had more time to experiment with creative photos of these shadows

2012 01 15 | Another beautiful day for a walk – clear and crisp. I fit my walk in the neighbourhood by Jim Durrell before Stefan’s hockey game

2012 01 12 | I was so happy that Roland and Heidi took a few photos of their brief visit to the cottage (since they were sort of in the vicinity) after Heidi’s ringette game in Buckingham. I would have loved to be with them, the snow-covered forest looks so magical against the brilliant blue sky.

Posted on April 17, 2025
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Throwback Thursday | 100DayProject Day 54

100DayProject Day 54 (started Card 34)

I didn’t get very much crafting done. A bit of a start on Card 34 for Lesson 2 (embossing powder) of the Altenew Let It Shine course after watching that video last night in bed before I turned the light out. I did package up some lemon squares to bring to Ivana’s in some boxes I had previously made. One was already decorated but I did colour in the flowers on the black box – those are the same flowers I’ll be using on Card 34.

Picture This Year

I didn’t take a particular photo for today’s prompt with was focus. Nothing specific came to mind. I did try to make the focus of this photo the lovely bright yellow centre of the flower so if I don’t come up with an alternate photo in the next few days I actually think this will do. I should learn how to better focus on just part of the image when taking photos with my iPhone; something to investigate for another day.

Throwback Thursday

It’s 9:50. Heidi and Roland just left for the cottage. I’m quite tired and still have to get a big batch of Italian soup into the freezer and organizing my craft things to bring so I’ve opted to drive up separately in the morning. I had an amazing lunch at Ivana’s (see the photos of the delicious open faced sandwiches she made (I want to invite her to teach me and some of our friends how to make these in the fall)) then we went to Multicraft to peruse what they still have left at 50% off since they’re closing. I came away with about 3″ of basic patterned paper for $20 and some alcohol inks. Then I made the soup, did a bit of crafting and it was time to head to the curling club for our last curling of the season. We got home about 9:25.

I enjoyed my early morning walk then had another long walk with Roland and Luna on which we bumped into Dulce and Gonzalo so we had a great visit with them on the walk back. And we saw Louise on her way out to Collingwood after she dropped off some flowers, chocolate and nice napkins for Easter. She’s kindly bringing up the water play table we bought for Amelia’s first birthday and a Lego set of Charlie. I had a great catchup call with Stefan on his walk home from work when I was making the soup.

Throwback Thursday to 2010 04 17

Saturday: Roland took Stefan to his 1:30 game in Gatineau then dropped him off at Sam’s. The boys had a blast in the spring forest and enjoyed dinner back at the Jordan’s afterwards. I had to pick him up before the party ended for his 6:45 game, but atleast it worked out that he could make a lot of the party (and bring along a nice full bag of food to contribute to the food bank – which I think is a great idea; our children certainly don’t want for much). I enjoyed going to Guertin arena – it brings back memories: of going with Karen in high school to watch her cousin Mickey play there against the Hull Olympiques; and of me playing there sometimes when I played a few years of ringette with the Hull team after graduating from university. As I write this 12 days later, it says Heidi had soccer practice 1-3, but I think she and Roland must have skipped it since Heidi had her first ringette tryouts at 5:00 out in Goulbourn. I baked lemon squares to send over to Ivonne’s since their family was celebrating her birthday (we dropped by later for the black forest cake).

And a few photos that Roland has been scanning in from his parents negatives.

Posted on April 13, 2025April 13, 2025
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Stacking on Sunday | 100DayProject Day 50

At the summit of one of the hills on our hike. Such a gorgeous day!

Stacking on Sunday

As I start writing at 10:12 p.m. the original theme for the day is slipping my mind. So I’ve changed it to Stacking on Sunday. We had a wonderful hike in the forest with Luna this morning. She’s taking advantage of there being a lot more snowy patches at the cottage than here in Ottawa so she did a lot of snow angels on route. For the most part we didn’t have troubles navigating the snowier sections where there isn’t as much sunshine, but Roland did get a soaker when his boot went through the snow and into a puddle well over the top of his hiking boots. I got a photo of Roland and Luna at the top of one of the hills and as I scrolled through my photos for the day I remembered my original theme of Summiting on Sunday – which had me thinking about progress on some goals because I am now half way through my 100DayProject. Do you have any goals that you have accomplished? It also makes me think about getting out hiking – ’tis almost the season for that so I hope that you’re finding opportunities to be outdoors.

I did a bit of crafting while Roland finally got the chainsaw going. It turns out it needed fresh gas to run properly. Which makes me think of a theme for a Friday – because I know that, like a chainsaw, I run better on quality fuel and it’s high time I make a few changes in my eating habits. But, back to the Stacking on Sunday theme. Once he got the chainsaw going he cut a few trees that had fallen earlier this spring into logs. I helped him to stack the logs and branches, adding to our already good collection of logs for our summer campfires.

We had gone to Costco on our way to the cottage to buys some chicken thighs to make Honeyed Chicken in the evening. We also picked up a bike trailer since we’re getting new bikes and want to be able to bring Luna with us on outings. Louise came by at 7:00 and we really enjoyed our evening making the chicken together. I thought that would be a lot more fun that just sharing the recipe with her. Which is was.