Ageless Style is a monthly style challenge and link up for women of all ages. Each month we pick a different theme and style an outfit based on that theme. This month's theme is "Winter Blues" and was picked by Joanne.
This month Joanne picked "Winter Blues" as our theme which could be interpreted one of two ways; either by color or something you would wear if you had the "winter blues". Now I do get the "winter blues" every year, but not this early. Currently, I'm actually enjoying the coziness of winter. I am soaking in the rest after a busy gardening/harvest season and Christmas. But come March or April when all my southern friends are posting spring outfits and showing all their beautiful blooms in their neighborhood while I'm still buried in a foot of snow, I will be going out of my mind with "winter blues" 😁
So, because I currently don't have the "winter blues" I decided to show you winter blue colors. This is actually a sweater I've shown you in a previous post from four years ago: "How to Wear Pale Blue in Winter". In that post, I'm sitting in the same corner of my house, with different furniture, but I'm wearing skinny jeans! Since skinny jeans are trending out, I decided to update the look with straight leg jeans.
Just changing out the grey skinny jeans for dark blue straight leg denim really updates the look. I'm still surprised how many women still wear skinny jeans, although it's appearing a smaller and smaller number all the time. When I compare the two photos of me, the older photos do look so out dated to me.
I wore this outfit to church. It was an icy day so I chose brown combat boots for my footwear. They have a sturdy rubber sole which is perfect for walking on ice.
A trick to making a sweater and jeans look a little more fancy is to add some jewelry. For this outfit, I chose a silver necklace and silver drop earrings.
Before I leave, I have to share this photo I saw on Instagram showing "Winter Blues" in Wisconsin. I couldn't agree more.
So what about you? Do you get the "winter blues". I'd love to hear from you!
Next month's theme is "Pinks and Reds" and was picked by Jennifer! If you want to join us, just email me a photo before January 15 and I will include you in the post (email address located on my "contacts/follow" page in the side bar) .
I am so excited to be a guest designer with Elliebelle's Corner this month. Each month, Ellie and her co-host Pauline pick their favorites and feature the cards on the blog and then the designer of the card is asked to join them in next month's challenge. My Stitched Sunflower card was picked by Pauline in last month's challenge.
This month's theme is "Something with Feathers or Fur". Well even though I love all of God's creatures, I am partial to birds, so I have not one, but two bird cards to show you. My first card is the one that will be featured on Ellie's blog. The second one is just an extra.
Peacock Card
My hubby, whose love language is not gifts, always gives me money for my birthday and Christmas. I've always found this hysterical since we have a joint bank account and if I wanted money I would take it out myself. I usually just buy other people stuff with the money or pay bills, but this year I did spend a little on myself. Spellbinders had a huge Black Friday sale so I bought quite a few new toys. I hadn't updated my paper crafting supplies in a while, so it was time. Styles change in the paper crafting world just like they do in fashion and home decor, and if you want to stay relevant in the paper crafting world, you have to purchase the new toys! ha ha!
The biggest changes I noticed in paper crafting was less stamped images and more die cuts, 3D embossing, and stenciling, so I invested in a lot of dies, embossing folders, and stencils.
The dies today are so much better than my old Cuttlebug dies. They are all so detailed with embossed features and come in so many layers/pieces. In the old days, a die was just one shape, now a die, like this peacock die, can come in 11 pieces or more. It does make assembling and card making a more tedious process, of which I'm still getting used to, but the results sure are beautiful.
To make this card I used "Spellbinder's Kaleidoscope Peacock". I cut all the pieces out of the DCWV "Royal Garden Matstack " solid and designer packs, then I assembled the peacock and put it up on dimensionals onto a white panel cut with a Spellbinder's Nestability. Gems were added for embellishment. The sentiment is from Crafty Secrets "Mouse Party" and is embossed in gold to match the gold foil designer paper.
Bird House Card
My next card uses one of Spellbinder's large dies sets called "Snow Capped Holidays". This one is currently sold out so I can't provide a link for you. Spellbinder's large die sets are HUGE. One die set fills up an entire card and contains so many dies. This card truly was a labor of love, but I sure do like the result.
To make my card I first embossed a light green background with a "Forever Green" Spellbinder's embossing folder (sold out), then I swiped a white ink pad over the raised parts. All the pieces from the set were then cut out. I ink blended and/or colored some of the pieces with Copic Markers. Sometimes I think it's quicker and easier to just cut the little pieces (like the bird beaks and berries) all in white card stock and then color them in. It can take a lot of time to cut all the little pieces in different colors of card stock. I then assembled everything, and popped the bird house up on dimensionals. The sentiment is from Spellbinder's "Winter Wonderland" sentiments.
I hope you enjoyed all my "Something with Feathers..." cards today. If you're a card maker, we'd love to have you join us in the "I Spy with My Little Eye" link up this month.
This is part two of a travel series to Yellowstone and the Grand Teton National Parks. If you'd like to start at the beginning, go HERE!
Grand Prismatic Spring
After visiting Old Faithful, we continued up the lower loop to the Midway Geyser Basin to see another feature Yellowstone is famous for: The Grand Prismatic Spring.
As you can see in the map below, the next stop was not too far away; about 10 miles. But now it was about 1:00 pm and the crowds caught up to us. The roads were lined up with parked cars for quite a distance on both sides, the parking lot was full, and there was even a line just waiting to get into the parking lot! I couldn't believe it was this busy during the off-season. "What must it be like during the busy season?" I wondered. We decided rather than park miles down the road and walk in, to just get in the parking lot line and wait for an opening. It looked horribly long, but surprisingly, it wasn't that bad of a wait for an open space, maybe 20 minutes?
The Grand Prismatic Spring is located in an area called the Midway Geyser Basin which actually contains three other points of interest which I did not know about prior to visiting the park: The Excelsior Geyser, the Turquoise Pool, and the Opal Pool.
But first we had to walk from the parking lot to the basin, and this was our view: The Firehole River again! This river keeps on giving scenic views! We first saw it at the Kepler Cascades and Old Faithful, and now here!
We were amazed to see the hot water overflowing from the basin into the river.
The hot water from the hydrothermal features left such beautiful color on the rock surfaces from the minerals they precipitate.
A cute boardwalk and bridge takes you right over the Firehole River, but hang on to your hat as it is breezy!
Here is a 25 second video showing the water flowing from the Excelsior Geyser into the Firehole River. You also get a view from the bridge and can see a bit of the boardwalk. It's interesting just to even hear the sound of the water pouring into the river.
The Grand Prismatic Spring
Rather than me just repeating information all about the hot spring, you can just click on the photo above to enlarge it to read all about it.
There are two ways to see the spring, one is a 0.8 mile boardwalk that takes you right on top of it where you can see it on eye level. That is the viewpoint this post will focus on. BUT there is also another view, where you can see the spring from above. That trail offers the best view, but unfortunately due to traffic congestion because of a buffalo jam (which you will read about at the end of this post) we were unable to see it. 😢
If you'd like to see photos of what the Grand Prismatic Spring, Earth Trekkers has an excellent post on the trails, the parking lot issues, and times of day it is best to view the spring.
This next photo tells you all about the colors of this amazing hot spring.
Even though we didn't get to see the Grand Prismatic Spring from above, it was still cool to be right on top of it. If you have time, and you can find a parking spot, I would recommend doing both for the full experience.
The color this spring produces is amazing! It's impossible to take a bad picture!
I do have to mention that one of the reasons this spring was so crowded was because of the time of the day. If you really want to see the brilliant colors you must see it around mid-day because in the morning it is too misty.
I will say I was a bit nervous walking on the boardwalk as there were so many people I was afraid I would lose my balance and get knocked off into the spring. I think where the boardwalk is located in relation to the spring, the person wouldn't get hurt if they fell off the boardwalk, but microorganisms would certainly be affected.
We were surprised to see a buffalo on the other side of the hot spring. They are everywhere in Yellowstone!
Fun fact: Did you know the Grand Prismatic Spring can be seen from space? It sure can! Google it!
Excelsior Geyser
The second big attraction of the Midway Geyser Basin is Excelsior Geyser. You can read all about this geyser in the photo above by clicking on it to enlarge it.
I was awestruck by this geyser. The turquoise water was absolutely beautiful!
There are viewing decks overlooking this geyser all connected by boardwalks as you can see in the photo below.
Turquoise Pool
And finally, two other smaller attractions in this area are the Turquoise and Opal Pool. Both are much smaller, but still quite pretty.
Opal Pool
Now that we finished the lower view of the Grand Prismatic we wanted to go see the upper view, but there was a traffic jam just trying to get out of the parking lot due to a herd of buffalo clogging up the road. There is a separate parking lot for the upper view and hubby felt it was too congested to try and make it over there, so he just made the decision to head out of the area. I was extremely disappointed, but I understood. Plus, I've seen so many photos and videos of the far away view of the springs, I knew what it looked like (but I know experiencing it person is different). The close up view, I got on the lower viewing decks, I can't experience only through photos.
You can click on the video below to see the buffalo.
We were surprised to discover that they have a "Wildlife Traffic Control" system in Yellowstone. When animals block the road, causing a significant traffic jam, a truck appears lights and sirens a blazing, to clear the animals off the road. You can watch the video below to see it in action.
For more information on Yellowstone National Park, check out my Old Faithful post.
I hope you enjoyed this week's Yellowstone post. Next week I will cover a pleasant unexpected surprise, and one of my favorite Yellowstone experiences: Firehole Lake Drive.
