Sunday, January 31, 2010


It's no secret that I love to treasure hunt.  Sometimes I don't find much and sometimes I hit a jackpot.  Last week when I was on my way out from the chiropractor I ran downstairs to my favorite little local thrift shop and found treasure.  I picked up all this goodness for under $2.  I love it when I can buy goodies with the money I find in the laundry.  

Friday, January 29, 2010

Well, now that I've had a day to reflect on all the goodness at CHA, I have some thoughts to share.  I'm so thrilled to say that I see a trend toward vintage.  Last year there were just snippets of vintage here and there mixed in with tons of adorable.  I have nothing against adorable, but really there needs to be a balance.  I'm happy to say that vintage got much much bigger this year.  I didn't see nearly as much adorable.  I saw lots of glamour and vintage and sewing.  All my happy things everywhere I looked.  I also saw rubber stamps, really truly rubber.  Most of them were cling mounted, which is a great way to bridge the distance between clear stamps and wood mount stamps.  The man at the Hampton Arts booth told me that rubber stamps are making a come back.  Oh, a girl can only hope he's right.  I saw lots and lots of mixed media in the samples in the booths.  So much inspiration everywhere I looked.  Spray ink and paint were everywhere.  I saw lots of black and white and sparkle.  It was so classy.  Metallics were big too.  I may be coming back into style again.  



I had such a good time with this make and take.  This was from a new company called Ecogreen Crafts.  The ATC base is recycled and it's on my must buy list now.  It has a great weight and heft to it.  I think it could take anything I can throw at it.  The dye ink is all low VOC and all that good stuff and it was a nice big oval pad that was easy to hold in the hand. I loved their stamps.  They're all designed by Julie Andrus and come in sets of cling mount on rubber.  This one was one of my favorites.  The little embellishments are recycled glass and I lovey love those.  Such a wonderful company, very friendly and a great make and take.  I'm sure we'll be hearing lots from this one in the future. 


Oh now this was a favorite company for me, too.  This little charm beauty is a make and take from Vintaj.  Another company that's new to CHA.  Lots of pretty metal here.  The butterfly is a metal charm that was plain and flat, sort of a bronze color.  I ran it through a cuttlebug folder with a shim of metal under the folder where the charm was.  We ran it through 3-4 times, back and forth, and it embossed!  I never would've thought you could emboss a heavy metal charm in a cuttlebug folder.  Then I went around to the decorating part of the booth where lots of alcohol ink got dropped on the charm and smeared around.  I used copper and silver mixatives and pool and lettuce inks to get this patina look.  The other little metal pieces are from Vintaj, too.  I can totally see incorporating some of these beauties into my button charm bracelets.  I know we'll be hearing lots from this little company.



This is the make and take from Glitz Designs.  I just had to show you because flowers are all the rage and this one is unique and was pretty easy to make.  I made mine fast, so it's a bit wonky, but I'm sure you could do a better job with more time.  Again look at all this vintage.  I'm so happy.  Ok, so first the middle part.  It was a long strip of patterned paper about an inch or two wide and probably 12" long. We spritzed the front and back with liquid spray starch.  This made it soft to work with, but then it dried crisp.  Very cool trick.  We rolled it and then twisted and scrunched it gluing it to a small piece of paper. We used hot glue, man I hate hot glue, but it worked here.  I always burn my fingers with that stuff.  We trimmed the paper around the edge of the inside part with scissors so the paper underneath didn't show.  Next we took a coffee filter, I know a coffee filter!  and we sprayed shimmery ink on it. I don't know what kind it was, no name on it.  We smooshed down the coffee filter and folded it under and glued it to another little scrap of paper.  Once it was all hot glued down, we glued the top piece on and the pretty rhinestone in the middle.  Glitz Designs really rocked this make and take.  So unique and funky.

Thursday, January 28, 2010

I made it off the mountain yesterday to go to CHA.  Yippeeee!  It was a brief, but grand day.  I was busy working for Scrapbook Royalty most of the time, but did get a few breaks to peek at some things I was interested in seeing.  I've got make and takes to share with you later.  I shot this brief video of Zutter's new Distrezz It All tool.  It's the one tool I really wanted to see and there are no videos out there of it in action.  They were kind enough to show me and allow me to take this video to share with you.  I love that I can run it through one way and it distresses the heck out of it in a way I could never do by hand and the other direction it's a lighter more hand distressed look.  This will be a great tool to take with me when I teach classes and will be wonderful to use at home when I'm working on a project with lots of distressing or a swap.  I find that hand distressing really hurts my hands after a while and I love power tools.  This baby will be available in March and retails for $30 something.  I forgot exactly how much he said, but it's a tool I can get a bunch of use from.  He let me use it after I shot the video and it really does have some power behind it.

Monday, January 25, 2010



I made this a while back for an article featuring Lost Coast Designs stamps. They make gorgeous rubber stamps like this architectural arch.  I included a few of my favorite things in this one, a couple of old bingo pieces, a page from an old dictionary, and some Graphic 45 paper.  I love to do the crossword puzzle in the paper, so this was a fun image to include.  I adore most of the old kind of games, you know the ones that don't need batteries or electricity or a game system , so this Game Time Arch is a way of recognizing that part of me.

I'm editing to add that this arch meets the Mixed Media Monday challenge today- The Games People Play.  It's been a while since I played in one of the challenges. I had it in my mind that this was the challenge at gothic arches today, but saw that it's not.  I must have remembered the theme from a peek at MMM, but can't remember much these days.  Thanks for the heads up, K.

I don't want to talk about that 4 letter word today, but you know that cold white stuff came down in buckets here.  Seriously nearly 4 feet of it.   I so want to live in a place with an ocean view and a warm tropical breeze.  If I never saw another snow shovel, I'd be happy.

Oh, and UPS is holding hubby's birthday present hostage because of the 4 letter word.  They might be able to bring it by tomorrow. Whatever.  He had a nice birthday yesterday with two back to back play off games to watch and home made pizza for dinner with boston cream pie for dessert.  Sadly no gift, just a printed out photo of the gifts along with a card made by me.

We didn't make it to CHA consumer show on Saturday due to that 4 letter word.  I'm still hopeful I'll get to go the trade show part on Wednesday as planned.  I'm enjoying all the sneak peeks online though.  So far I think I need the new metallic StazOn inkpads, the new colors of Distress Ink, Julia Andrus and Wendy Vecchi stamps, Sizzix embossing folders and diecut flowers from Tim Holtz line, 7Gypsies printers tray and receipt tray, the sewing themed chipboard pieces by Maya Road, a few selected sheets from all four of Graphic 45's new paper lines, and Basic Grey's new Basics line of papers in 6" x 6".  I hope they come in the smaller size.  Those are things that I think realistically I'll get sometime this year, but there are so many other wonderful peeks out there.  Have you seen anything you need yet?

Tuesday, January 19, 2010



Wow what a fun weekend I had.  The guys went off fishing out of town and left this girl here on her own.  In short I ate out, caught up with a couple of old friends and family, had a friend over to stamp the day away, took a class, read a book, and downed a pint of haagen dazs strawberry ice cream.  Ok, so maybe it's not your ideal weekend, but I enjoyed every minute of it.

The class was a total last minute crazy thing that I'm so glad I did.  I went down to the ARTbar in Santa Ana to take a class with Suzanne McNeill on Zentangle.  She just published a book called Zentangle Basics that I can't find online anywhere, but it's a wonderful jumping off place for this fun kind of drawing. She's an amazing instructor and so warm and friendly.  The ARTbar is just about the coolest little place for creative fun.  I fell in love with it and I'm sure I'll visit again.  Oh, and I met some lovely talented orange county ladies there who invited me to join them for dinner.  Just a wonderful way to finish out my recharging weekend.

The artwork up at the top are the zentangles I made.  The top one is a traditional zentangle that is 3 1/2" square.  It's the first one I made.  Then we made the ATC on the bottom right.  I finished it at home and then made another 3 1/2" square one last night to show the guys how I made it.  I've already cut a bunch of blanks to continue on my zentangle journey.  The whole idea is that they are a quick portable art medium requiring just a fine tipped pen and paper.  You get into a zen place in the process of creating the tangle.  I'm excited to have something small and fun to carry with me to create in my down time.  It goes with my word of the year, too.  I'm still breathing.

I think the guys had as much fun as I did this weekend.  They came home chatty and happy with lots of photos and stories.  No fish, it was a catch and release trip.  They've taken up fly fishing now to add to their fishing options when it's not deep sea fishing season.  The big surprise of the trip is that Kyle had his first driving lesson.  Seriously, when did my little boy get big enough to learn how to drive.  I guess by this summer he'll be old enough to take official driver training.  Makes me just a little bit sad and proud all at the same time.  Thanks for stopping by.

Tuesday, January 12, 2010


Here are a few ATCs I made recently.  This first one uses a Lost Coast Designs background stamp along with some distress ink and an old sewing pattern, lace, pin, and dictionary definition.



This trio is made with more of that wonderful Graphic 45 paper.  Each one has a little metal piece from vintage lingerie.  The sentiments are all stamped.  From left to right they are by Inky Antics, Inkadinkado, and American Art Stamp.

Thank you for all the wonderful birthday wishes.  It was a beautiful birthday week.  Now I need to gear up for hubby's birthday.  We're both January babies.  Boston Cream Pie is definitely on the menu. Thanks for stopping by today.

Thursday, January 7, 2010



I'm celebrating my birthday today.  It's a quiet little celebration, but a celebration indeed.  I celebrated my birthday eve with the guys last night.  They're off to work and school today and have rugby practice tonight.  They gave me these beautiful flowers and the most gorgeous earrings.  I have to say that the adorable Cat in the Hat card was the icing on the cake.  Speaking of cake, that will come later, after yoga.  Right now I'm just enjoying a cup of tea and a clear head free from all the darned sickness that's been taking over lately.  I love birthdays.  It's great to have brand new sparkly year ahead.  Here's what my birthday horoscope from the LA Times says about my year ahead:

"You become even more like those you admire.  Your growing skills put you in the running for different kinds of jobs.  Jump into career changes whole-heartedly.  The early success of a venture in June will be followed by hard work and then another big win in September."

Doesn't this sound great?  I can hardly wait.  I love reading my birthday horoscope.  I'm not telling you what it says my lucky numbers are just in case they're the right lotto numbers.  

I always give myself the week between new year's and my birthday as a time of reflection.  My new year's resolution is very simple this year.  More yoga, Less belly.  Pretty straight up and to the point.    The main focus of yoga is the breath.  Breathing properly is the foundation that the poses and clear mind are built upon.  In honor of my resolution I've chosen my word for 2010.  Breathe.  

Monday, January 4, 2010



Here's a little trash to treasure project I made with more of those fun Graphic 45 Domestic Goddess papers.  This check file is vintage, but was still new in the package at the thrift store where I found it.  It was originally a cancelled check file, but who gets those anymore?  I covered it with some modge podge and all the pretty papers and transformed it into a receipt file. I figure that when I get to the next year's receipts I can probably toss them and add the new ones.  I keep this in my in a basket in the kitchen that gets all the mail and stray papers around the house.  I try to go through it once a week to file everything and this makes the receipts easy to manage.  Here's the link to the class I did for SNR Magazine for this project:  http://www.scrapbooknewsandreview.com/index.php?option=com_kunena&Itemid=369&func=view&catid=165&id=22362 (why can't I get the link thing to work on blogger?...it's driving me batty)




I'm feeling better today and even got together with the stamping girls this morning for some inky fun.  Thanks so much for all the get well wishes.  I'm determined to make 2010 a healthy creative year.

Sunday, January 3, 2010

Down and out and sick again is no way to start the new year. I've got another ear and sinus infection. So tired of being sick. Taking meds and hanging out watching movies today. Just thought I'd stop in to whine a little. I hope everyone is well at your house.

Friday, January 1, 2010


Happy New Year! I hope 2010 is good to you. I have hope that this will be a beautiful year. The only resolution I made today is to add more yoga into my life. That's a resolution I can keep. Are you adding something into your life for the new decade? I'd love to hear about it.
We rang in the new year quietly at home with some yummy chicken piccata and a fun game of Apples to Apples. We had a wonderful getaway between the holidays to Coronado and I got to luxuriate at the spa while the guys went out deep sea fishing. I could get used to that.
These are a couple of cards I made using Graphic 45 papers for an event at SNR Magazine this fall. I absolutely fell in love with this company about a year ago and they continue to make beautiful things. I added in some vintage lingerie hardware, an old button card, and a piece of measuring tape into the designs. These papers are perfect for adding in some vintage pieces. Thanks for stopping by today.