Corrie Kinkel

This weekend we went to San Luis Obispo and highway 120 that we had to follow is the historic El Camino Royal. In the hills above San Luis Obispo we stayed in a cabin on a camping and because there is no light pollution, the night sky was so clear with the stars much more visible then at hone. I stood a long time outside looking at the sky! The next day we took a scenic route and came by Soda Lake an alkali wetland with a salt crust that was already used in earlier times by the indigenous people of the area. We followed a winding road along part of the San Andreas Vault and you can see the difference in the landscape where the vault runs through. Our next stop was at Daou vineyard where we had a tasting of their wines, that is my son in law and I, my daughter was driving and the girls are to young. The story of the vineyard and the explanation of their wines was very interesting and they served nice food to go with the wines as well. 

Week 16 and I have arrived safely in California and of course it was fantastic to see them all standing at the airport to welcome me! At home there were 2 exited dogs to greet me as well. In the first weekend we got to see some of the flowers in bloom on the meadows. It wasn't quite the superbloom of last year, but nevertheless still pretty impressive to me. I took a lot of photos and I have no doubt that those will come to good use in the months to come. 

Week 19 marks the end of my stay with my family. I have enjoyed being there and taking part in their daily lives as well as going on some weekendtrips together. I spend some quality time alone with each of my granddaughters, which we both cherished. I even did some volunteer work in the class of my youngest granddaughter where they could use some help with the bookinterviews! The children had to tell about a book that they had read and they had to answer some questions about it. I got a list of questions to ask depending on the kind of book and I was very impressed how eloquent most of them were! Now I'm slowly adjusting back at home where my husband is glad that I came back in one piece😉.

My week 18 is about Yosemite National Park where we stayed for the weekend. It is very imposing with the granite rocks and the waterfalls. It was still early in the season, so there were no crowds, but we have had all kinds of weather, including snow! At first it started to rain in the afternoon and when we were having diner the rain became snow. The temperatures dropped below zero and the snow blanketed the roads, which were closed to all traffic. Only one road stayed open and we had to use that one to drive to the camping where we had a cabin. It meant we had to take a detour of over an hour to get there in the dark on winding roads; luckily my daughter had rented a 4-wheel drive because of the weather predictions! The next morning there was a layer of approximate 5 cm of snow but is was sunny and the park rangers had cleared the roads with snow ploughs. When driving along a road we could see some cars that were stuck there and the people in them had been evacuated by the rangers; they had a busy night! It was quite an adventure in conditions that doesn't exists in the Netherlands.  

Oops Michele I hope there will be a solution to your problem. Because I am away and don’t have my laptop with me I hope it will restart when I got home in a couple of days. I like this new font and although I probably don’t will participate in this challenge I shall certainly use later on. When coming home I have so much to do, after sleeping off the jetlag I have to install all the goodies of the birthday sale. I have downloaded the zip files on my iPad and have to transfer them to my pc where I can open them finally! The next step will be making the missing layouts for the P52 project, watch the last masterclass, go through all my photos and select which of them I want to use for making a photo album! When all that is done I will resume making layouts for all the different challenges. I admit I am starting to miss you all. Hopefully I see you at the Q&A coming Sunday if I can stay awake that is.

S = Swim

B = Backyard pool

Ann, Christina, I love both your pages. At the moment I am still in California and I just checked in to see what the new month brings. I am pretty much occupied here with all kind of things. Made a lot of flower photos, visited interesting places, enjoyed family time and helped with book interviews in the class of my youngest granddaughter! Coming weekend we will be going to Yosemite National Park and on Tuesday I will be flying home. So end of next week after my jet lag I am back in the Campus, albeit a bit sad after saying farewell to my dearests. See you all soon!

P = Primrose

I have no photos of pets because we never had one. When I grew up I lived in postwar Rotterdam and in the new apartment building where we lived it was forbidden to have animals (cats and dogs mostly). Once I had a hamster but that wasn't a great succes either. Later when I was married my husband wanted to have an aquarium with some fish and we had that for a couple of years. One summer we went for a holiday and couldn't find someone to feed the fish. So we dropped them in the little pond we had in the garden fully convinced they would not survive in the "wild"! To the delight of the children they survived and had made babies! They stayed there and we had many offspring over the years until the one day a grey heron had discovered there was a nice meal to be had in our garden. Both of our children are allergic to cats and dogs and nobody had ever heard of a labradoodle in those days. Luckily my daughter has overcome her allergies and there are 2 dogs in her family which my granddaughters love very much. I enjoy them when I visit there and it was quite funny when I visited last year the dogs suddenly realized that I had come and they went a bit crazy to great me and begged for a cuddle and a treat. I think they will do something similar when I arrive on Tuesday! I haven't time to search for some photos or supplies for this theme but wanted to tell my story anyway.

21 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

Should this be your last project, then I would say, that you have ended on a grand note.  The page is perfect.  I initially thought you had created the heart  paper, using  the exploding cutout , from the lab 13-9 (I think) I suppose you could have  selected some of the  hearts, promoted to a layer, then delete.  Just a thought.  

Thank you Sue! I had thought about those options but hadn't time enough to do so. This last week has been a bit crazy with all that I had to take care of. There came some unexpected problems, like a tumble dryer that went brook as well. Maybe I'll take a look at it when I'm back. At least I'm happy with my color scheme.

10 hours ago, Ann Seeber said:

Well done, Corrie! Everything fits so well together. Interestingly cute little bloom! You might want to correct the spelling at the end there... widely available to gardeners... needs an "e".

Ann I didn't noticed it and apparently my spelling checker overlooked it too. So thanks and I'll rectify.

22 hours ago, Bonnie Ballentine said:

A belated birthday wish for you, Corrie. Wishing you a year filled with all that you hold dear.

During one of your visits, I'll head that way so we can meet and break bread together. Travel safely and have the best visit ever!

Thank you Bonnie and may a meeting be possible in the future. I would be over the moon if that came to be......

J = Jade plant - Crassula Ovata

I'm finishing all the projects I was working on; I want to leave with nothing unfinished and find that when I return in May. At that point I certainly won't do so anymore. The wood elements are a wooden background from the Behold Spring by cpjess, a wooden token I did sometime ago and the letter S is made by cass-Stacked alpha script. I have the same wood texture and used that for the other letters, all with the font Book Antiqua. I used the notebook paper, done after a tutorial in Lab 14-03, to write my story about this little gem of a flower. The paperclip I have done so long ago that I have no idea from what lesson or masterclass it stems. The heart paper is in my stash and I don't know where I got that one. In making the folds I assumed the paper was identical on fore- and background. Of course the photo has a white background.

Ladies thank you all so much for the good wishes for my birthday and upcoming travel. I hope to bring back lots of photos for use in future projects. It is unfortunate that there is no one from the Campus anyway near where I'm going, I would have loved meeting someone in person.

2 hours ago, Susan Ewart said:

This is new to me.  I started at the campus in May 2020.  thank you for re-posting. it.  It's stunning!  I'm really quite blown away by it. And of Ann's friend's shot.  You magazines are so real, I've mentioned before, when I started I thought you were a photographer for a magazine...that what I told my husband.  BTW...my guess is that 'rump' is a gopher?  On my grandfathers farm they had guns set up to shoot them....how HORRIFYING!  

Just as Susan I joined in April of May 2020 and haven't seen this particular layout in a magazine challenge. It is stunning, you know so much about nature and lucky for us you show those photos and educate us here as well!

D = Dahlia

I'm a bit early too but the "highlight" of my week was my birthday. I have no photos of the occasion that I can use here. Just some of family and friends that I will have to blur and I don't like that at all. It are all people that matter to me but for here not very interesting. So I made myself a birthday cake with sprinkles on top (tubes made by me and Carole). The 75 is cream piping, freebie by Carole; just as the doily and greenery with extra roses. The candles are from Marissa Lerin and the rest comes from my stock.

The rest of the weeks in April and the first week in May will come as I'm back from California after I have recovered from the jetlag; I don't take my laptop with me. I will leave here coming Tuesday, so bye for now and see you in May. I will check in on the Campus when I have some moments when everybody is at work/school and it is just me and the dogs. In the weekends we will take trips.

20 hours ago, Sue Thomas said:

I'm two days early posting week 15.  I  read that Susan is waiting for the Robins to return to her area.  Several arrived  over this past weekened, along with several  small flocks of Juncos,  a Male Northern Flicker, and  a handful of  Song Sparrows.  The long awaited  songs of birds has once again begun, breaking the long silence of winter out in the trees.  Shot taken on Monday afternoon.  On their arrival, I promptly put out blueberry jam, and  berries.

Beautiful photo of that Robin. Over here the birdsong has started now in full force after we had a couple of nice sunny and much warmer days. I can see them busy with little branches and some moss or grass to build nests. It is a pity I can't come near enough to take a good shot of the nests. The crows are in turmoil, the trees they have been nesting in are taken down, because that little area is turning into a building site for new houses. So far it has been a nice hidden gem with a little pool and a lot of overgrowth among the tall trees amidst a populated area. That's called "progress"😢................! 

Y = Yellow Coneflower

9 hours ago, Ann Seeber said:

Following Sue Thomas' lead, I did the grid challenge from the webinar and created two templates. This is the first, showcasing some spring flowers from Warwick. The lower right is just clipart from Jessica Dunn. Very plain, no shadows or overlapping embellishments.

Ann this shows that plain can be lovely in its own right!

12 hours ago, Michele said:

I'm hoping to find time to create something new, but here's something I created several years ago. See how Cass's corner punches can make plain paper look so pretty?  The font is Ernesthuge from CF. The centerpiece took many steps, but if you want them, just ask.

 

I have those corner punches too and I love them, they are so versatile and you used them well. I like the idea to use the same punches on the 2 papers!

U = Urtica Dioica  - Stinging Nettle, it is native to Europe and known for its sting. In my country it is considered a weed and you can find it almost everywhere. in patches of unkept grass, between some stones, in gardens etc.

I = Impatiens