Corrie Kinkel

C = Cherry

I did week 22 still in May, my weeks start on Monday.

This week was all about saying goodbye to our car. As some of you know I can't drive anymore due to my eye condition and now my husband quits driving too. For him it was a tough decision and we had a lot of difficult conversations about it but I'm so glad he does quit. The last couple of years we had some near miss accidents and I was in constant fear that one of these days it would turn out to be a serious accident! Our car was already a rather old one, so we were glad the garage that does the maintenance was interested and bought it. On Wednesday afternoon we brought the car and went home on foot; it's only 15 minutes at the most. Now we have the whole summer to get used to the fact that we have to use bike, bus or train. In the Netherlands that is not a problem, we live 5 minutes from the train station and in 8 minutes we are in the city that has all the amenities like a hospital that our village doesn't have. I had to make a photo of our trusted companion of the last 8 years; it is parked on the parking spot behind our house.

For the Bingo I went with the 5th vertical row: Snowflake, Paperclip, License plate, Ticket, Glitter gel. I already had created a California license plate for my photo album and only had to change the text on it. A have several paperclips done before and of course the ticket was done with my own script (I had never thought that I would use that so much). Snowflake and glitter gel were done with tutorials, but for the glitter gel I used a preset shape instead of drawing it by hand; I'm terrible at drawing! As a starting point for the layout I used the template Lab 14-02.

Mary lovely layout and a good use of that photo circle script. I love that script and have used it for 2 of my intro pages for my photobook.

@ Julie, Sue and Bonnie Ladies thank you so much, it means a lot to me, especially because it took me some time to figure out how to use the DIY template without changing all the elements.

Bonnie this is so cute! Have you showed or given this layout to your friend?

I live in a fairly large village and there are incidents happing throughout the village. Like houses set to fire to settle an argument, criminal related of course, drug problems, problems with addicted persons, shootings once in a while. Luckily we never had such serious things going on in the street were live. However circa 15 years ago, in our old house, we had a neighbor who had a nephew that was a drugaddict, convicted for petty crimes and homeless, so he took him in. That started the problems because that nephew had friends that were the same as he was and they gathered in the front yard where they openly used drugs, fighting amongst each other, lots of yelling and they started selling drugs to schoolboys. Of course I spoke to my neighbor but he was unable to stop it. At one point, in the backyard under the covering they made a fire on the barbecue and put grass and old clothes on it and left it unattended. My husband was seriously ill and just home after 3 weeks in hospital, unable to do anything; every time I came home I had to pass those guys and had to ask, or command them to remove their bikes that were blocking our garagedoor. I had spoken to the police before and they talked with my neighbor, which didn't help. So now I called the police again because I was really scared they would set fire to the whole block of houses and this time they came to investigate and interview us about the situation. That helped, my neighbor had to come to the police station to get his nephew out. That guy was put in a closed institution for a while, but later when he was out again and visited his uncle I was frightened that the whole story would start all over. Since 7 years we live in another house in a very quiet street and until now. nothing has happened

A bit late but I had so many other things to do first, like the card workshop and the photo album about my trip. Both are finished now, my album is at the print service and they estimate it will be ready on Saturday. I like the DIY challenges so I did this about the visit to Yosemite National Park. The waterfalls were spectacular because in Spring they carry a lot of water from the melting snow. The background is a full size photo of one of the falls with a heavy blur and the blendmode color, the paper underneath was a muted green. On the rectangle with the word Yosemite I used a holiday punch from Carole because when I was there we had snow as well as rain and sunshine. The 2 smaller rectangles are papers glued together with some washi tape by Marissa Lerin which I have in my stash. I gave the dots a color and a slight bevel.

Carole it already is such an old logo! It is approximately 20 years but I like it and all my family and friends always look for it on the back of my cards. I only change it for X-mas.

And here is card 7 and already the last one. It is said before but I have enjoyed doing this workshop for the 2nd time and a refresher is always a good thing. Inevitably there are things that I have forgotten! I have loved seeing all the different cards made from the same templates and the inspiration they provide. Carole thank you for hosting this class again. This card is made for a friend who will turn 75 next month. I did a background as well because I want to print it as a double card. The photo I took some time ago from a bouquet I got. The lace comes from my stash, I think it was a freebie by Carole and I placed it on some sort of a ribbon for better visibility. The corner is a brushset of 4 floral corners that I found somewhere a very long time ago.

I have just a small workspace and if it gets too cluttered it interferes with getting things done. Hence the pinboard and I have a small chest of drawers behind me where I have my ordners with all the paperwork, old fashioned dictionaries, print papers etc.

Card6-Extra For this card I followed the tutorial to make a folded card with a text printed inside. Although the card isn't square for me that isn't a problem because my printer and so do I, use European A-4 paper which is better suited for rectangle layouts. I used a photo of an Echinopsis flower and the ribbon is from Chanthalia Desig. The backgroundpaper has an overlay of a honeycomb that I made some time ago. The other papers are colored and one has a little flower again from CD as a pattern, the other a blinds texture. The font is Better Brush and on the inside Berlin sans. The flying bee comes from my stash,

Nice card Michele and I like that font too and I have it as well. No surprise there as I live in the Netherlands and Amsterdam is the capital!

With hindsight a lucky shot!

I have no photos of this week, very unusual for me! We have had bad weather with lots of rain and we had to make some alterations in the house that were waiting until I was back from California and had slept off the jetlag. Therefore I decided today to make a photo from my workspace where I do all my scrapping; I already had decided to have that idea as a backup for when there really wasn't anything else going on.

Nice card Michele and I like that font too and I have it as well. No surprise there as I live in the Netherlands and Amsterdam is the capital!

Card5-Extra This time I wanted to create a card for my family because they told me they would go camping this summer. I have no camping related photos but I found this clipart on clean png. Papers and ribbon are from Marisal-sweet moments; the papers have a slight texture but that is almost invisible in this reduced version. The letters H and C are made with cass-Stacked Alpha script and use Arial just as the rest of the text. The greenery is from my stash and all the colors are chosen from the clipart. I'm going to email this card therefore it isn't a problem that is a square card, for printing I wouldn't use it because that doesn't go well with my printer and A-4 paper.

Day 4 For this card I used a flower bouquet clipart from my stash (I suspect it was once a freebie by CF), but instead of the hearts I used a flower and a leaves corner by Lyleya; the font is Mimosa script. I needed a more generic birthday card and this one is not with a specific recipient in mind. Like always I keep one version as a psp-image to change text or colors when needed. I will probably, at a later moment, use the extra template, but for now this should do because I'm working to make my album at the same time as well.

I wholeheartedly agree with Sharla, plants in pots/containers are always a risk and sometimes it is a mystery or a miracle. Nowadays we only have plants in containers and we try to give them shade or sun according to their needs. But that is only a rule of thumb and some experience from our gardening days.

Card 3-Extra I have used the normal template so often for X-mas, Easter, New Baby, Birthday and Thank you that I now choose the extra one. However I used some of the ideas like the lines on the background and some sort of frame. My photos with white flowers and I gave them a little bit of shadow, just as the strip behind them. The heart is from Chantalia Design but recolored; the fonts are Crocus Monogram and Clarissa stories and both have a inner bevel to let them stand out a bit better. The Dutch word sterkte means you wish somebody courage with a particular situation, for instance this card is meant for a friend who has to undergo an unpleasant medical treatment. It has a backside and in this case I will write something inside by hand not printed.

Sharla I wonder does your acer well in a container, do you have it in a fairly big container? I would like to have one and it must go in a container, we only have a small patio. However our local gardencenter is advising against it, so I would like to hear how well yours is doing. By the way the leaves are gorgeous.

Michele that is very unlucky, I hope you recover soon.

I was struggling to make an intropage for the photos I took from the daily life and things I did at home. After some thought I concluded that there was one item that covers it all: the place where they live! So I used the cass-photocircle template script again, this time with hearts and photos I took in Los Altos plus the seal of the city (thanks to google). The family photos will come on the next photo pages in the album. I wrote a short story about the place, of course in Dutch, but roughly translated it says: "Los Altos is a nice city in Santa Clara County in Silicon Valley and ca 40 mile from San Francisco. Downtown, the compact older part of the city has a lot of nice shops and restaurants to eat outside. Many of the streets have big trees that provide shadow". The background is a photo with reduced opacity of the frontyard of their house.

Workshop day 2 This time I used the original template and it is again a birthday card, probably all my cards will be for birthdays and this one goes by mail. It is intended for my cousin who likes butterflies very, very much; she has butterflies on her plates, cups and saucer, posters, photos, bracelets, brooches etc. Every year I try to make her a card with butterflies or send one that a bought when I come across one. I indeed need a double card so that's what I made and show here. The text is in Dutch but I kept a psp version for use with a different language. The butterflies are a bunch of watercolor cliparts that I have for a long time in my stash, I knew that one day they would come in handy. The font is Calligraphy and I it often because it is easy to read.