Patriotic Picnic

I hope you are continuing to enjoy this holiday weekend. I heard, but didn't see, huge fireworks from every direction last night while my cats hid in the basement.

Yesterday's Inspiration Challenge at Splitcoaststampers was a poster website. I did a search for a picnic poster because I have some picnic invitations to make. I was lucky enough to find one with ANTS on it so I could use my Fiskars ant punch. I scalloped the striped paper with a Martha Stewart edge punch and made the custom "picnic" label with the top of a tag punch on each end. My word stamps are limited, so I PC-printed the caption onto metallic cardstock, then embossed in black to prevent smearing. Metallic c/s doesn't take printer ink very well, so embossing also makes it much bolder. The fruit stamps are by Anna Griffin - I watercolor-penciled around them after I stamped on white c/s.

See my inspiration here.

Happy Independence Day

Happy 4th, Everyone! Despite a bit of a headache and threatening rainshowers, I went with C to a free outdoor concert at Walker Art Center's Scuplture Garden. The rain held off and we sat on the grass to listen to Haley Bonar give her last local performance before she moves to Oregon. The famous Spoonbridge and Cherry sculpture was looking good after a recent paint job. The cherry was actually detached and taken away by crane to a paint shop. It's hollow and large enough for several people to fit inside!

Haley's the one on the left. I would have cropped it differently if the tent pole hadn't been dead center! C went on to Taste of Minnesota and another concert. I took the bus home and relaxed most of the day. Our family picnic is tomorrow.

Nine More Candles And Birds On A Wire

Here's the second version of the nine-candles card in the previous post. I switched the colors and ribbon for wire, making it more of a boy's card.
I thought the wire idea would be simple - like a spiral-bound notebook. But because the card is a folded piece rather than loose sheets like a notebook, it presented problems. I finally settled on an "artistic" wire embellishment.

As I struggled with my wire, these birds sat outside my window mocking me.

Nine Candles And A Heron

Happy July, everyone! I have several more versions of this card planned - at least 5 cousins-once-removed were born nine years ago this Fall! So, the Splitcoaststampers sketch challenge was perfect for their cards. This week's Clean-And Simple challenge was to "make it sparkle", so I stamped the candles on glittered cardstock and punched out the circles. My PC-created checked paper is the background.

Walking around Lake H last Sunday with C, I spotted this heron high in a tree. Pulling out my trusty Canon, I zoomed in and captured his picture. If I had a log of animals seen at the lake, it would include a deer, an eagle and a loon, not to mention the wild turkey a few blocks away.

Blue Sewing Needle

Every time I tried to get close enough to take "his" picture, this little dragonfly flitted away. I could have run inside for my Konica with the longer zoom, but I might have missed the shot altogether. I wouldn't have minded if he'd landed on my arm so I could have gotten REALLY close. Reminds me of how afraid I used to be of most bugs and how my childhood girfriends and I used to call dragonflies "sewing needles". Now, I'm rather fond of them since they are so colorful and often found around water. Unfortunately, my cats also love dragonflies from a catch-and-eat point of view. I've seen them leap four feet in the air to bring down a tasty snack!

I walked around Lk H last Saturday before the heat set in. This tree on the north side is loaded with fragrant flowers, but I'm not sure what it is - a Linden? Let me know if you know (click on the photo to enlarge it).

Sending Sunshine

This was the card I made for Virtual Stamp Night/Weekend at Splitcoaststampers. The color scheme was the challenge - the colors of a potato with cheese, bacon bits and chives, with a dash of paprika! The sketch is my own. Stamps used are the "sunshine" and the postmarks; everything else is punched or cut out, with some inked or sponged edges.

We have plenty of sunshine and the heat to go with it, so my blogging and crafting have slowed down with my energy. But my reading is way up! I just finished my third book this month: Dance Hall Of The Dead by Tony Hillerman. Riding the bus gives me the time to read that I didn't have before and Hillerman's books are so captivating that I'm continuing on with the rest of the books already in my own library. When those run out, I'll check out the public library to see what they have. Maybe I'll be inspired to make a few more cards based on the book covers, like the one I did last month.

Happy Summer - Happy Father's Day

We're enjoying a warm, humid, could-rain-at-any-time First Day of Summer here in Minneapolis. Wishing all the dads out there a Happy Father's Day! I decided to post this summer photo taken more than 50 years ago, and since I didn't post a photo of Mom on Mother's Day, it seemed like the right time. Ok, so I'm biased, but aren't they the cutest couple? This was taken before they were married. [edit: this is the same photo posted a few weeks ago, but I found a better copy on the disc David had made and deleted the first one].

I haven't been a very good blogger, but I did manage to make some cards yesterday and will have them posted soon.

Welcome To The Neighborhood

Last week Taylor Van Bruggen of Taylored Expressions announced that she and her husband were moving from California back to Iowa. So, for her Friday sketch challenge, I decided to make an Iowa-themed card, and welcome her back to the Midwest!

I used the sketch vertically instead of horizontally and also flipped it - all to accomodate the shape of Iowa!

Starting at the bottom -

Blue-sky-with-clouds patterned paper - DCWV

Dragonfly, frog and bird punched out of glittered cardstock by DCWV. First 2 punches are Marvy Uchida, the third is Martha Stewart

Two shades of green cardstock -for the grass - direct-inked and clipped with decorative scissors

Picket fence punch by Martha Stewart

"Rope" edge punch by Fiskars (green cardstock), edges inked, and I hand-trimmed the straight side to match the design

Sunflower circle punch by Fiskars - slightly patterned paper by Provocraft, sponged with ink

Iowa shape was found on the internet - I reduced it to the size I wanted, traced it on patterned paper, then stamped with Hero Arts flag and Stampin' Up! watermelon and grapes, attached over thin cardboard for dimension

"Iowa" stamped with individual letters (Inkadinkado) on terra-cotta colored cardstock, punched with a square and snipped the corners, inked the edges and attached over thin cardboard

The "Welcomes You" sign was PC-printed, oval-punched, edge-inked and layered over thin cardboard. I added tiny round punches of cardstock for "rivets".

If I forgot anything, let me know. It was a fun card to make and one that probably turned out a lot like I'd envisioned. Oh, and Happy Birthday, Taylor!

Memories Of Dad

The week flew by and I was not able to work on the planned memorial tribute to Dad, Frank Robinson, who died at the age of 64 - 25 years ago today. But my brother David sent me the following wonderful memories, some of which are different from mine (mostly car stuff), so that's a start. This November would have been Dad's 90th birthday, so I invite all of you who knew him to send me your memories or photos for posting here, and I will put together a tribute to his life. Thanks, David, for getting the ball rolling on this.

Dinner time:
I remember many times being near the house when Dad got home from work. We all knew about what time it would be and when he got home, we always ate. Sometimes in the fall he would throw the football around with us for a while. Sometimes he’d haul off and kick the thing as hard as he could. It would go as high as the tallest tree across the street in Liesdons yard. It looked like it went out of sight, but it was probably 40 ft or so.

Changing tires:
Many, many times when Dad needed to change tires on a car, we would change them ourselves. We would take the wheels off, remove the tires with a bumper jack and a tire iron and then put the other tires back on the rim with tire irons and soap.

Early 1977:
When I was close to graduating from St Paul Vo-Tech (as it was called at the time) I was looking for a job to use my training. Dad mentioned several times how I should apply at the Highway dept. because the pay and benefits were so good. I do not think I realized how much of a compliment that was that he wanted me to work at the same company as him.

Cars Dad owned (Primary transportation)
1917 Chev touring. (his first car)
1934 Ford Fordor. (Stan and Dad)
1936 Ford (so he told me, never saw any pictures of this)
1941 Ford
1949 Ford 2 door convert, Blue
1952 Ford
1957 Ford 4 door, Blue and white
1961 Ford 4 door ,Tan (Sold this one to Lenny Haverberg)
1965 Chev wagon, Blue
1969 Chev wagon, Blue
1974 Ford Gran Torino, Yellow
1979 Mercury Monarch, Silver ( Dad Sold this one to Dick VanBramer)
1983 Mercury Marquis, Blue-green, (Mom sold this one to Cheryl in 1995)

(special interest cars)
1941 Plymouth Business coupe, 6 cylinder flathead
1960 Chev Impala, Convert, Baby Blue
1960 Chev Impala, 2 door, white, 348 powerglide, (Sold to Craig)
1961 Ford Galaxy Starliner, Black, 352 automatic. (Mom still owns this one)
1963 Mercury Meteor. 260 V8

1965 Ford Thunderbird (sold to Cheryl in 1977) [added by me, Cheryl]
1977 Chev 1/2 ton pickup, Sierra Classic, brown and white (sold to me)
1981 Ford 1/2 ton pickup, bought from Don Leisdon and had for a short time.

Memories of Dad.

He would always be whistling or singing. He had a fantastic singing voice. He sang the first few lines of “When Irish Eyes are Smiling” or those kind of songs. I don’t believe he ever finished any of the songs though.

He stated several times that he wished he had a Mac Truck so he could run over some of the crazy drivers on the road.

He loved to watch sports even though the rest of us were generally not interested. As I remember, he liked football and Indy car racing mainly

Special words he liked to use:
· Slumgullium: used to describe food when he didn’t know what it was.
· Dinky Donk: use to describe a fool or an idiot.
· He would say “Ioway” for Iowa
· Tee’d off
· Felt like the “wreck of the Hesperus”
· “Pardon my French” meaning “sorry for swearing”

He would exclaim how “that sounds too much like fun” when he didn’t really want to do something.

He always liked cats, he was the main reason we had cats at all.

He mentioned several times how all the guys at work complained because they could never take off 2 weeks every year like we did for a vacation. We were only able to because he was able to budget his vacation time and money so it would work.

Guys dad used to work with: Emil Tulke, Matt Lang,

He read the paper a lot and always complained about how things were being done in government. The rest of the family did not really get into that so he really had no one to argue with about his ideas. When we visited with the Roes, he would always argue with Walt about the US vs Canada. Even though Walt was originally from the US, always defended Canada to the bitter end.

Dad had a bad knee that he had since WW2. They were playing baseball and some guy threw a block into him to knock him off the base he was at. This messed his knee up pretty bad and forever after that, if he twisted wrong or moved wrong it would “come out” of joint. When this happened he could not stand on it at all. Mom got pretty good at pulling and twisting it back into position while Dad braced himself against something and grimaced.

Dad was always looking at cars. He was either figuring out what car to buy next or he was going to dealers to get the best deal. I remember going to dealers with him and eating hot dogs and mixing up my own special soft drink from what was available. They just put the dispenser out there and let you pour your own, even if you were just a kid.

In WW2 he said he was in the intelligence library first in the states and then he was shipped to the Burma-China-India theater to serve there. He was on the flight crew on the ground when planes came in. He never really talked about that too much. I guess I assumed he saw some pretty bad crashes or shot up solders during his time.

6/6/09 Now, long after he has been gone several people remind me of him and I wonder if he modeled himself after these people. Bing Crosby, Gene Kelly, Axle Torgerson.

Neighborhood Sculpture

What a beautiful morning! The temperature was just right and the breeze was beckoning me to go for a walk. So, I walked around Lake Harriet and through the neighborhood just above the east shore. I don't remember these sculptures from last year, but the spheres don't look new. The black metal forms a modern trellis over the front walk.
Reminds me of the song "Aquarius"..."when Jupiter aligns with Mars..."

Closer to home, these are some of my favorite flowers - alliums. They grow 3 feet tall and turn to silver in the fall.

My own poppies are stunning this year! This probably looks like the same picture I took last year, but I couldn't resist.

Back at home, I whipped out this card based on two SCS challenges - using buttons, and taking inspiration from a book cover. I'm reading "The First Eagle" by Tony Hillerman, set in the Four Corners area of the southwest U.S., so I decided to use the cover as a starting point. The black paper was cut with a Martha Stewart edge punch. I was trying to cut a simple pinked edge when I remembered this punch that looks very "southwestern", and the dots match the buttons as a bonus! The sentiment is stamped from a set of word rubber stamps, maker unknown.