Celebrate Card with Heart Balloons

Remember that yesterday I told you I dropped sequins onto my heart project? It occurred to me that, in addition to being a pretty piece of art and a functional set of swatches, I could also use my color chart as a fun way to randomly pick a color palette for a project to challenge myself. Sort of like throwing darts, but without putting holes in the wall. 

Once I had my color palette, I made this card.  

Celebrate Card with Heart Balloons (affiliate link)

So how exactly did I pick my color palette? When I dropped the sequins, one landed on a pink heart with a teal background. (Kuretake calls those colors "Rose Madder" and "Turquoise Deep Green.") The other sequin landed on "Imperial Violet." I was really happy with that trio of colors. Pink, teal, and purple are beautiful together. That would be an easy challenge. 

Too easy. So I decided to add the next closest color to the sequin ("Lemon Yellow") to make it harder. I went through my cardstock to find the closest matches I could to the four colors. I used the teal as a background, punched a bunch of hearts from the yellow, pink and purple, then arranged them into a bunch. I added embroidery floss strings and glued a pre-cut sentiment over the top. I thought I was done at that point and scanned the card...

... but I decided later that my balloons needed highlights. After a few quick marks with the Posca pen, my card was done. Much better. 

I had a lot of fun with this challenge. I will definitely be using my color chart as a color selector again in the future!

Heart Art Color Chart

Check out my latest heart art! Isn't it pretty?

Each of the colors I used for the project is in its particular place for a reason. I didn't choose the colors, nor where I placed them. Why? My heart art is actually color swatches from my newest paint set, Kuretake Gansai Tambi (affiliate links here and below). The hearts are the first four rows of paints, in order. The background squares are the next four rows of paints, in order. (For this project, I didn't swatch the last row, which is white and three metallics.) 

Gansai is a type of Japanese watercolors. It comes in large pans (perfect for the large brushes used in Japanese painting) and is designed to work well with Japanese rice papers. There is a wide range of colors so that the artist doesn't need to mix their own. Although they are water-based, gansai don't behave like other watercolors. They require very little water and are designed to stay in place instead of flowing on the paper. There are different brands of gansai, just like there are different brands of western watercolors. Kuretake's brand name combines the word gansai (watercolor paint) with the word tambi (aesthetics).

I had never tried gansai before, so I thought this project would be a fun way to experiment with my new paint set. I started by using 1/4" painter's tape to create a grid on a 9" square of watercolor paper. You can eyeball it, but using a centering ruler makes it really quick and easy to get perfect squares. Be sure your painter's tape is pressed firmly to the paper so no pigment sneaks underneath and spoils your white lines. 

Now fill in the squares with the paints in rows 5-8. So pretty!

While the base is drying, use a heart squeeze punch to make 16 hearts from watercolor paper. 

Paint the hearts with the colors in rows 1-4. Beautiful!

When the paint is completely dry, glue the hearts onto the background. 

I plan to hang my project on the wall so I can both enjoy it and use it when I need paint swatches. But first, I put it onto the floor and dropped two large sequins onto it. 

Why? I'll tell you tomorrow. 

An Update on Brayden and Tulip

Today's layout features the photo from the first time Brayden and Tulip met. 

 

This page earned three points for my Bash Bowl team, Twisted Scissors: 1 point for the tags, 1 point for the full-length border, and another point for using three or more words. Once again, I opted not to use metal on the page just to claim the extra points for that and using punches. I could easily have used metal grommets on my tags, but I don't want that bulk in the album. 

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I'm way overdue on an update about Brayden and Tulip. Bonding rabbits can be a long and difficult process, which we knew going in, but we never expected it to be this difficult. We had high hopes at first that we'd get them bonded after a few weeks. After a month of us working with them with no progress, my anxiety was sky-high. It was clearly time to try something else, so we ended up hiring a professional who has tons of experience bonding rabbits. She boarded them for a week and worked closely with them, during what she calls a Bunny Moon. They were showing progress, albeit very slowly.

Unfortunately, as soon as Brayden and Tulip returned home, there was a fight. I got bit trying to separate them, which obviously made me even more anxious about the whole process. The buns returned for a Bunny Moon #2. Again, there was some progress, but once the week was over, they were nowhere near ready to coexist. We brought them home to separate spaces. It was disappointing, to say the least.

When we traveled to Southern California, she took the buns again in hopes that a final intensive stay would do the trick. They made progress, snuggling happily together for significant blocks of time (supervised). Each day we got a report and it was sounding better and better. Brayden and Tulip clearly like each other and want to spend time together, but they never got to a point where she felt comfortable leaving them together unsupervised. 

Again, we brought them home to separate spaces. However, this time we completely rearranged our furniture so that they wouldn't be living in what was Brayden's territory when he was an only bun. Our hope is that they can learn to get along in the neutral territory. 

The separate spaces are fine for now, but it's not what either of them deserve long-term. We're trying to stay positive and keep up hope that they'll eventually be bonded. We obviously want what is best for both rabbits.

Jones Family Photos

When the Estajonesiers get together, we are pretty good about taking group pictures. We're especially good at taking photos of my parents with all three of their grandchildren. But it's been 19 years (!) since we took a picture with just my parents, me, and my sister. I used that photo, plus two others from 1981 and 1995, to make this layout. 

Jones Family (affiliate link)

Here's a closer look at each of the photos, along with a few others that I didn't use on the layout. 

1981 

1986

1988

1991

1993

1995

2024

I made this page for Game 2 of Bash Bowl. 

I earned three points for Twisted Scissors: the tabs, the full length border, and the words and phrases. I didn't feel like adding metal to the page just for the point, even though that actually translated to a loss of three points (if I'd added metal, I would have been able to count the two points for the touchdown technique since I used a punch). Ultimately, I have a layout that I like and that's obviously what's most important.

Biodiversity Museum Day 2025

On Saturday, Steve and I attended Biodiversity Museum Day on the UC Davis campus. 

 

Biodiversity Museum Day is a free annual event that serves as an open house for the many biology-related museums and departments on campus. Trevor and I attended last year and had a great time. Steve had to miss it due to a Scout event, so he was eager to attend for the first time this year. 

We started our visit at the California Raptor Center, where we bought a CRC t-shirt.... for the person who sold it to us. 

We spent some time looking at all of the Ambassador birds. This is Kalli. She's one of my favorites at CRC. 

Several of the birds were out on the glove. I think this is Whistler. 

This is Sul Wita, CRC's first glove-trained bald eagle. Billy was casually feeding him while speaking to the crowd. 

Our next stop was the Robert Mondavi Institute. This facility houses a winery, a brewery, a food research plant, a milk processing lab, the UC Davis Olive Center, the Honey and Pollination Center, and a lot more. We started by learning all about microbes. They are much more adorable in stuffed form than in the microscope. 

This was absolutely fascinating. Have you ever heard of yeast art? Yeasts naturally have different colors, so you can "paint" tiny amounts onto an agar plate and then allow them to grow for a few days to reveal the pattern.  

Next, the brewery tour. It's an impressive facility. 

  

Then we toured the winery. It's also very impressive. 

Did you notice the open doors at the back of the winery? They lead out to the vineyards. 

We made a short stop to view the Nematode Collection...

.... and learn about sampling for the Herbarium at the Center for Plant Diversity. 

Then it was over to the Botanical Conservatory. It's most famous for the corpse flowers, but there are many other interesting and beautiful plants to see. 

  

  

Pitcher plants. 

I like the freedom of choice offered here.

Students were on hand to explain all about the various plants and their most interesting features. I was amazed by a demonstration of explosive seed dispersal. If you ever visit the Conservatory, ask for a demo. 

  

  

Bats and butterflies. 

After the Conservatory, Trevor joined us for lunch and then we headed to the Design Museum. I don't necessarily see a connection to biodiversity, but I thoroughly enjoyed their newest exhibit of Visual Journals. 

There was a cool hands-on area that looked really fun. 

Then we hustled over to the Museum of Fish and Wildlife Biology. It's housed in the same building as the Bohart Museum of Entomology. 

We only got a peek before the event ended and the museum closed. We'll make it a priority at Picnic Day or at the 2026 Biodiversity Museum Day. 

If you live near Davis, I highly recommend attending a future Biodiversity Museum Day or Picnic Day. Most of the museums have regular visiting hours, so visiting when there isn't a major event going on is also an option. I love how much there is to see and do at UC Davis.