The Frilly and Funky Challenge for July 5, 2017 is "In the Good Old Summertime" and we are asked to "create a vintage or shabby chic project that shows what you love best about summer. Use summer colors in your project. Be sure to tell us in your post what you love about summer, and how you've represented that in your project."
Well, I'm not sure exactly what are considered "summer colors" and, looking at my card, I'm pretty sure there aren't many in it but... it is a depiction of what I have loved about summers in the past.
Road trips were always a family thing --- a long drive, broken in the middle by a picnic at a table on the side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I don't think they are even there any more!) from Ohio to New Jersey to see the grandparents was an annual thing and THAT was summer vacation for us when I was a kid. It entailed lots of good food (both sets of grandparents had HUGE vegetable gardens and one also kept chickens), the "shore", and the odd family reunion (odd in more ways than one --- we kids didn't know ANY of these people except our grandparents!).
When I married my husband and we graduated from university, we drove across country from Ohio so we could go to graduate school in Los Angeles, California, camping in State and National Parks along the way. Road trips to the Sierra, to Mt. Shasta, to the Grand Canyon (a day trip!), to the desert (Joshua Tree and Death Valley), to San Diego (the zoo) and even to Mexico were on the book during our three years in Los Angeles.
Then it was graduation time again, and we drove (this time, with my brother-in-law and two cats) back to Ohio, by a different route, this time staying in motels, and then on to Florida (sans brother-in-law but back to camping, in the pouring rain int eh Smoky Mountains) ) for Doctoral studies. Florida offered a plethora of road trip possibilities (and some camping) from The Keys and the Everglades to Sanibell Island, from the Panhandle to Mobile, from Jacksonville to southern Georgia! And that doesn't count the annual night-drives back to Ohio for the holidays each year.
Another degree led to another cross-country road trip, back to California (San Francisco this time) for a job. More explorations of California and Nevada were followed by another job-related road trip to Houston TX, where we spent a lot of time in Hill Country, in the Rio Grand Valley and in Galveston --- all by car!
Our time in England also had road trips all over the Island of Great Britain but we got out of the habit in China and Saudi Arabia (a lack of decent roads was a cause in China --- it was MUCH easier to fly; and crazy mad drivers and a lack of tourism sites in Saudi were the main reason). But when we got back to the US, it was back it the car again with road trips annually to my husband's daylily conventions (Asheville NC, Atlanta GA, and Louisville KY), using these as excuses to visit friends in Florida, North and South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. No camping on these: it was motels/hotels along the way or spare bedrooms in friends' homes.
We are planning another few road trips, one of which may happen in September (to Montana, with National Parks along the way), and the others are far off, in the future (UP of MI, VT , and TX are candidates).
OK, so that is what I think of when I think of summer --- long drives, with a destination (or two or three) along the way. I tried to portray these road trips in a card:
Forst, I made a background using papers from the Authentique Collection "Abroad":
Well, I'm not sure exactly what are considered "summer colors" and, looking at my card, I'm pretty sure there aren't many in it but... it is a depiction of what I have loved about summers in the past.
Road trips were always a family thing --- a long drive, broken in the middle by a picnic at a table on the side of the Pennsylvania Turnpike (I don't think they are even there any more!) from Ohio to New Jersey to see the grandparents was an annual thing and THAT was summer vacation for us when I was a kid. It entailed lots of good food (both sets of grandparents had HUGE vegetable gardens and one also kept chickens), the "shore", and the odd family reunion (odd in more ways than one --- we kids didn't know ANY of these people except our grandparents!).
When I married my husband and we graduated from university, we drove across country from Ohio so we could go to graduate school in Los Angeles, California, camping in State and National Parks along the way. Road trips to the Sierra, to Mt. Shasta, to the Grand Canyon (a day trip!), to the desert (Joshua Tree and Death Valley), to San Diego (the zoo) and even to Mexico were on the book during our three years in Los Angeles.
Then it was graduation time again, and we drove (this time, with my brother-in-law and two cats) back to Ohio, by a different route, this time staying in motels, and then on to Florida (sans brother-in-law but back to camping, in the pouring rain int eh Smoky Mountains) ) for Doctoral studies. Florida offered a plethora of road trip possibilities (and some camping) from The Keys and the Everglades to Sanibell Island, from the Panhandle to Mobile, from Jacksonville to southern Georgia! And that doesn't count the annual night-drives back to Ohio for the holidays each year.
Another degree led to another cross-country road trip, back to California (San Francisco this time) for a job. More explorations of California and Nevada were followed by another job-related road trip to Houston TX, where we spent a lot of time in Hill Country, in the Rio Grand Valley and in Galveston --- all by car!
Our time in England also had road trips all over the Island of Great Britain but we got out of the habit in China and Saudi Arabia (a lack of decent roads was a cause in China --- it was MUCH easier to fly; and crazy mad drivers and a lack of tourism sites in Saudi were the main reason). But when we got back to the US, it was back it the car again with road trips annually to my husband's daylily conventions (Asheville NC, Atlanta GA, and Louisville KY), using these as excuses to visit friends in Florida, North and South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia. No camping on these: it was motels/hotels along the way or spare bedrooms in friends' homes.
We are planning another few road trips, one of which may happen in September (to Montana, with National Parks along the way), and the others are far off, in the future (UP of MI, VT , and TX are candidates).
OK, so that is what I think of when I think of summer --- long drives, with a destination (or two or three) along the way. I tried to portray these road trips in a card:
Forst, I made a background using papers from the Authentique Collection "Abroad":
Something of a vintage look, don't you think?
Next, I used two sets of Sizzix Thinlits dies to create an automobile (photo was too fuzzy to print), our house (at least the colors are right) and a destination "motel":
Next, I used two sets of Sizzix Thinlits dies to create an automobile (photo was too fuzzy to print), our house (at least the colors are right) and a destination "motel":
I embellished the background with a "road" using a Distress Marker and a white gel pen, and placed my buildings, my car and some vegetation along it:
The final card had the die-cut words "Road Trip" placed along the roadway:
Products used in the making of this card were:
- Dies: Sizzix Thinlits "Cityscape, Commute" (661809), "Cityscape, Suburbia" (661811) and "Vacation words: script" (661288)
- Inks: Distress Markers "Chipped Sapphire", "Barn Door", "Black Soot", Pumice Stone", and "Hickory Smoke"; Signs Uniball "white" gel pen
- Papers: Hot Off The Press Paper Flair Card "ivory" (HOTP 7402); Authentique Collection: Aborad "Dart" 2-sided paper; various scraps of glittery red and steel grey, light and dark green, and white
- Adhesives: Scortape; Xyron 500 sticker maker; Distress Collage Medium
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