Eugene Park Tour: Cottage Grove Lake

At the end of September, our Tuesday Travels took us to Cottage Grove Lake. Our map showed us that there is a nice cluster of caches spread out around the water.

What we hadn't realized is that there is an entire series of small parks and campgrounds around the lake that are maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers. The parks are open mid-May to mid-September, so they closed about a week before we visited. We were able to park near the entrances long enough to walk in and snag the cache.

Our first stop was at Riverside Park, located right where the Coast Fork of the Willamette River enters the lake above the dam that creates this reservoir.

The geocache is located up this trail. Dale and I went a ways, but the ground got muddy and the blackberry bramble was thick. We gave up when we started slipping on the hillside and getting scratched up.

We sure enjoyed the views, though.

We found a cache at Shortridge Park. 

More lovely views.

I can imagine having a restorative Summer picnic at any one of these parks.

Finding caches that day was sporadic. There's a cache owner out there who makes some very tricky finds. We wanted to have fun, not work hard. So we passed on looking for their hides after trying a couple and coming up short.

No matter. It's great exploring our state! I love how geocaching lures us out into the countryside to enjoy the scenery and teach us more about the land.

Summer of "P" - revised

My intention for the Summer of P was to pay attention to some things:

• Patio
• Parks
• Picnics
• Past
• Purple

Dale and I have been doing better than expected with patio. We're at the point with the new furnishings where we enjoy spending time out there every day. 

I've been noticing lots of purple and find myself taking photos of all manner of objects. Few are worth editing or are blog-worthy.

But we've not visited many parks. We've taken no picnics. And we've visited no museums (past). Dale was on the grand jury for a month, and our travel fun time was sporadic. We lost our rhythm.

Now that jury duty is over and we have only one more month of summer, I hope we can visit at least one more park and take a picnic lunch. It's been hot, and now the wildfires have begun, so picnics at parks may not be all that fun.

And for past? Instead of visiting museums, I'm going to revisit some photos I've taken in the past and enjoy them all over again. I'm starting here.

Our granddaughter Melody when she was just over two months old. 

Smile!

I don't have bandwidth for much today ... so have purple Kool-Aid and smile.

Summer of P - Purple!

The Reveal

My daughter Jodie rang the silver bell with the correct answer on her first guess. I was making a 25th wedding anniversary card. Ta-Da! 

The front

The inside

Here are some of the highlights. (A little pun there. I used so many shiny surfaces that this card was difficult to photograph).

I made lots of use of a embossed silver gift bag for the background to many of the elements and three of the hearts.

I embossed white card stock with two different designs for the front of the card. The "25" is made of gem stickers.

The pink heart has silver glitter flowers. The paper was a scrap I squirreled away from an old birthday card.

The leaf springs were die cut from an iridescent piece of wrapping paper. They're quite delicate. The lines above and below the "Happy Anniversary" are made from 1/8" black tape.

I stamped and signed the back of the card, adding one more silver heart. Then I lined the envelope with more of the silver gift bag paper.

Time to pop it in the mail!

Thrift Haul

My friend Karen and I spent a couple hours together at a thrift store yesterday. I had two things in mind that I was keeping my eyes open for, but those were not to be found. I did, however, score some nice objects -- nothing that I NEEDED, but some nice finds none-the-less. Check out this haul!

When I go thrifting, I can't resist all the pretty glassware. Most of the time I don't allow myself to purchase any because I have plenty. But this vase is special. This detailed tulip relief pattern is on both the front and back of this octagonal vase. The overall size is approx 8.5" wide x 5" tall x 4.5" deep. It's a gorgeous shape that should work well on our rectangular coffee table. The sticker on the bottom says that it's 24% lead crystal from the Czech Republic. And yes, it does ring when I plink it with my finger. Gorgeous. It was something like $5 or $7.50. Incredible.

Next, I found a "lady of the evening." It's been a while since I've increased the inventory of my beaded handbags. This one is in decent shape on the outside, but quite stained (with crayons ... and rust) on the inside. It's also missing it's chain handle. However, it's fully beaded on both the front and the back with rows of vertical bugle beads alternating with spirals of seed beads. On the bottom, strings of seed beads are woven in a delicate pattern. This handbag was made in Hong Kong and priced at $8.99, but I got an additional 30% percent off.

Then I found some fabric. The blue-with-white-stars appears to be about a fat quarter of cotton quilting fabric. It has nice body. The purple fabrics were bundled together in a plastic bag. When I unpacked them, I learned they are taffeta. I was assuming they were a cotton/poly blend. Now I'll have to be creative in how I use them. I love the purple combination of solids and prints.  (Ooo! Summer of "P" purple fabrics!)

Then some hearts found me! The stamp is a good size, about 3.5" across at the widest part. I'm pretty sure I have an identical stamp that is stained red. This one has never been used and was about 35 cents.

Then I found three rolls of ribbon. The "It's a Girl" ribbon is 3/8" wide. The spool is partially used. The Other two rolls are unopened. They're both 5/8" wide and 3 yards. If new, they'd be $2 a pop. I purchased them for about 35 cents each.

Then I found a jackpot of heart-shaped buttons! All of these were squished into a 2" x 2" baggie. There are also 4 thimbles. The two little ones look like they could have been pieces from a Monopoly game. The large thimbles each have a unique design. Seems like I've accidentally gathered quite a collections of old thimbles.

The last thing I picked up was an unopened package of college-ruled notebook paper for 45 cents. Always useful.

My entire haul cost less than $30. On ebay, that same vase is listed at $60!

Gosh, it had been years since I got to rummage around a thrift store like that. Karen got a great haul, too, including her favorite finds - books! Now that I have another thrifting buddy, we can do more exploring together in Eugene's many thrift shops. Whoo-hoo!

2021 Year in Review

Well, that was a year!

On January 1st last year, I had lots of plans. Unfortunately, most of the ideas and goals didn't pan out. My creativity went dormant, so trying 21 new artforms was a no-go. A  few months in, I switched things up and revised my goal to re-create 21 photographs that I found online. I got a gold star for that.

My Word of the Year was Explore. The pandemic kept me inside most of the year, so I didn't go out much to learn more about my new town and state. Two years into living in Eugene, I still am a bit confounded as I try to find my way around. Thank you, GPS!

But here are the stats for what I did manage to complete in 2021:

Word of the Year - Explore: 16 new places

Artforms: 4 tried

Books/Audiobooks: 44 consumed

Online classes: 3 completed

Crafts: 29 completed (This surprises me since I've felt so creatively depleted!)

Geocaches: 27 found

Keto recipes: 1 tried

Letters/Cards: 0 (A huge sign of my mental health status. It's so unlike me to not reach out to others.)

Minor holidays: 1 celebrated

Movies & Series: 100 watched

Podcasts: 28 series

Puzzles: 47 completed

21 Goals for 2021: 21 #tryittoosday photo recreations. Here they are:

Happy New Year!

Try It Toosday: Finger Puppets

It's time for another Try It Toosday! The day I attempt to recreate a photograph that caught my eye. This is the final photo recreation needed to complete my 21 Goals in 2021.

It's just a couple fingers with facial features drawn in Sharpie, and hair scribbled in the editing process, right? Super simple.

Not.

Here's my (older, wrinklier fingered) version:

Here's my inspiration photo. I don't know the name of the photographer. The image caught my eye in February of 2012. I've been toting this around for nearly a decade!

In all honesty, I had two more complex photos in mind for my final #tryittoosday attempt. The first photo, saved in 2007, is a garden where all the flowers are balloons. I bought all the supplies and made some test "flowers." I even lined up some help with blowing up balloons! But my yard isn't big enough ... and I'd have to borrow some kids (which is hard to do in a pandemic). This idea is on hold. I still might find a way to use those 100 balloons.

The second is a box covered in woven lines of toilet paper. There are a lot of tricky parts to this photo. In my analysis, I recognized toilet paper that tears far too easily, to very specific and stark lighting, to figuring out that the photo was very likely flipped 180 degrees in the editing process. I got about half way through the construction of this photo before I gave up. It's a wickedly cool photo by Nick Albertson!

As I worked on trying to recreate these wonderful images, the difficulty factor kept increasing exponentially. If I learned anything this year by doing this project, it's the ingenuity of the original photographers. Even simple photos like the one I did today are more difficult and take hours longer to recreate than you'd think! 

Gathering the supplies, crafting and construction, getting the correct angles for the composition, proper backgrounds and lighting, photographing, and editing all take time. The brain energy that goes into trying to figure out the original photographer's process can be enough wattage to light an entire city. I've thought about several of these photographs for months before attempting to make them. 

It's an excellent exercise. I can recommend it to other photographers that want to test their skills and learn a lot along the way.

I admit, though, that I'm glad I challenged myself to only twenty-one photos!

Try It Toosday: For the Littles

It's time for another Try It Toosday! The day I attempt to recreate a photograph that caught my eye. This is number 20 of the 21 I hope to complete this year.

This kooky photo is for my grandkids. I love to make them laugh.

My version:

I saved this inspiration photo last March. I think I found it on Instagram, and don't know who the original artist is.

I've got only one more #tryittoosday photo to create to complete my 21 goals for this year. Yeah!