ho ho h20?!

yepper. that's this fortnight's prompt at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥, as devised by our lovely guest star, miss linda, of Snail's Pace; it's also BY FAR my favorite post title of the year so far! but what does she mean by "Ho Ho H20"?! it's actually as simple as it is awesome! she's asked us to create a holiday card which features icicles, snow, frozen ponds, or any water-related image; OR use water-based products on your project, such as watercolor paints, water-based markers or sprays, etc. cool, right? yeah, we thought so too! i had planned on making something inky and intricate, with loads of sprays and maybe some watercolors, too, and definitely an ethereal and art-journal-y snowflake theme. so of course what came out was THIS!

(patterned paper: my mind's eye, echo park; cardstock and felt stickers: basic grey; "brrrr" sticker: daisy d's; brads: one heart one mind; ink: colorbox; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

yeah. not exactly ethereal. or art-journaly. not even a little bit. i blame ren and stimpy... (stephanie's husband, rod, named these BG snowman guys that a couple of years ago, and it stuck, lol!) ...i found them on an older BG sticker sheet whilst searching for something else, but as soon as they were on the scene THEY TOOK OVER the whole card. so i guess you'll have to wait until next week to see me get inky! :)

i flipped this week's fabulous unscripted sketch horizontally...

...though, of course, the minute everything was glued on i realized i could have just changed the position of ren and/or stimpy. duh, lauren. but i like them this way, so no harm, no foul, eh?! what can i say, it was definitely a "roll with it" sorta week.

over at ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ it's a "get totally inspired" sorta week, and i suggest you hop over and see what water-based gorgeousness miss linda and miss stephanie have produced! it's worth the trip, i guarantee!!! ♥

we *THINK* we may have found our house!

let me just say that one more time, because i frankly, i enjoy typing it, and i also enjoy reading it in print,

"we think we may have found 

OUR HOUSE!!!"

♥♥♥

yeah. pretty flippin' exciting, i can tell you. now, having said that, settlement is still quite a long way away, and in the informal poll i've taken recently of our acquaintances, almost no one we know actually wound up completing the deal and living in the very first house for which they signed a contract. huh. how 'bout that. so we're trying not to let ourselves be crushed if, for whatever reason, the deal fails to go through. although how one could possibly become committed enough to a property to be willing to go hundreds of thousands of dollars into debt WITHOUT simultaneously forming such a strong attachment as to not be crushed, is a mystery to me. but we're trying to be flexible and remember that when the house we think is the right house REALLY IS the right house, it will all work out in the end.

the other day my aunt asked me if i thought that after we move i will feel a bit sad or nostalgic for our apartment, and without really thinking, i delivered an emphatic, "nope!" having had a bit more time to consider this answer, i'd like to revise it... to an even more emphatic, "NOPE!!!"

of course, i will miss our neighbors, but i plan to keep in touch with them. i will miss the lambertville area, but we will still have plenty of ties to bring us back, and we'll only be about 25 minutes further away. i will miss being able to take my exercise walk outdoors on days with nice weather. i will miss having a GINORMOUS walk-up attic in which i can stow things for an indefinite period. i will miss being able to thoroughly clean my entire home in one afternoon.* i will miss having a landlord to call when something big and expensive breaks in the basement,** and i'll specifically miss this particular landlord, tom, who's become a good friend over the years, and whose behavior/management style is unfailingly fair, polite and ethical. and don't get me wrong, i am grateful that we had a safe, clean, inexpensive, convenient place to live all these years. but i'm ready to move on.

though, apparently, according to lovely husband jeff, BEFORE we can move into the new house, we have to PACK UP ALL OUR STUFF and take it up there!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! holy carp! surely THAT cannot be right??!?! if you'll excuse me for a moment darlings, i need to call the lawyer back and see if we can’t arrange to have that bit be the seller’s responsibility!!! :) :) :)

*not that i do it often enough, but the capability is there, which is a sort of moral high ground, no?
**when relaying the news to that gentleman, i mentioned that factor and asked if i could STILL call him... he's getting back to me... :)

make your own challenge!

this week at shopping our stash we have one of my favorite types of challenge, in which miss carla has given us a few different options, and we get to decide which way to go. gotta love that, right?! so without futher ado i present:

challenge #87:

valentines/hearts/love/red

YOU CHOOSE!

being somewhat over-achievery... and also a full-on wise guy, lol... i did a bit of all of the above! :)

(patterned paper + typewriter sticker: american crafts; hello + arrow stickers: echo park; hearts: creative imaginations; tapes: love my tapes, recollections, freckled fawn, making memories; red cardstock + gluetape runner: staples; ink: colorbox; other: sewing machine) 

this is the kind of card i revel in, stash-wise: i've got some of my oldest stuff (the heart stickers and bright red 8.5x11 staples-brand cardstock!) mixed with some of my newest stuff (the 5th and frolic arrow paper plus amy tangerine dimensional sticker) and i've thrown in some of my beloved but not-used-enough washi tapes for good measure. also i'm quite excited that for the first time in a few years, i've managed a valentine specifically for lovely husband jeff which he did not see being made, so that when i pop it in the mail to our PO box (where he is in charge of mail retrieval) in the middle of next month, he will be completely surprised, wahey!

i used this week's rather fab retro sketch, though i rotated it 90 degrees, counter-clockwise:

and now you will surely want to be heading over to SOS, post haste, because the DT have really excelled themselves this week! ciao for now, darlings! ♥

so what was in the big box of awesome florida thriftiness??!

they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and i hope that's true because i just don't think i *HAVE* the thousand words in me right now! so here ya go:

basically i found at least a little bit of practically every type of vintage-paper goodness i quest for on these thrifting occasions: sheet music, children's books, old sewing patterns, maps, a bit o' christmassy stuff, flashcards and playing cards; this time we also lucked into some FAB stickers and vintage gift wrap, as well!

miss gina most graciously packed everything up and mailed it, so i wouldn't go over on my luggage weight flying home! she sent this AMAZING card, as well, which i'm making space for in the area near my desk that i reserve for handmade treasures!

speaking of treasures, last year gina painted a pair of gorgeous canvas shoes for herself and i was soooooooooo jealous that she made me my very own set!!! and i ♥LOVE♥ them!!! want to see?

gorgeous or WHAT??!!! now i am even more anxious for summer to come, so i can wear these babies every single day!

another reason i'll be happy about the change of seasons is because the temps here in new jersey were in the low teens all week, and whereas i realize that my lovely canadian darlings consider that sort of thing practically A HEATWAVE at this time of year, i am just constitutionally unable to cope. i wonder if i can stuff myself into that box and mail *MYSELF* back to miss gina?! hmmmmmm... talk amongst yourselves, darlings, i've got measuring to do!!! :) :) :)

scandinavian style, redux

one of my favorite things about ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ this year and last is that since we've gone fortnightly instead of weekly, it means i get two shots at every single prompt. which is awesome, because i get to try out ALL my ideas! admittedly not all of them come out quite as fabulously as i envision, but i genuinely do believe it's better to "go big" and perhaps fail, than to play it safe all the time. case in point: i had this great idea about red-on-white handstitching for my second "red white and jul" card. i even found some leftover cross-stitch-able ribbon that my aunt had given me, which made it super-simple to make said stitching immediately into an attachable border strip-- big win, right?! wellllllllllllllllllllllllllllll... ok, truthfully... i'm not in love with this card; but on the other hand it's bright and festive and it's one more for the stash of cards that's already getting me closer to a stress-free december! gotta love *THAT* right?! :)

(patterned paper: reminisce, paper co, sei; florals: we r memory keepers, prima; red rub-ons: making memories; snowflake stickers: martha stewart; other: 14ct aida ribbon, dmc embroidery floss; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, hot glue, sewing machine)

speaking of second shots, i usually don't make more than one sketch card, but i really came down to the wire this week, time-wise, and retro sketch #47 (happy almost anniversary, retro sketchers!!!)  was still sitting on my work table, so i just grabbed it and went to town!

if you'd like to "go to town" in the creative sense, i should mention that both stephanie AND all of our fellow ♥JINGLE BELLES♥ have been sooooooooo totally rockin' the scandinavian style... you should definitely pop over and grab a little inspiration for yourself! ♥

SOS86: show us your OLDEST ribbon!

because you know at shopping our stash we're ALL ABOUT using up the things we have, and for 2013 the lovely miss carla is determined to push us even further in this quest by having us dig out our very oldest supplies and see if we can't fall in love with them all over again!

for once i actually *KNOW* what the very first pack of "designer ribbon" i ever bought was, so i'm pretty psyched! it was from basic grey's "gypsy" line, which i had seen used quite magnificently by the very first design team i ever paid attention to, the lovely ladies who hosted the boards at the (sadly now defunct!) "lifetime moments" gallery and store.  that website was also the first place i ever saw (and became obsessed by!) chipboard, and where i learned that inked edges cover up a multitude of sins. :) ah... happy days...

anyway, despite the fact that i absolutely love that ribbon collection, for some reason, i still have quite a bit of it left! which came in handy when i wanted to make this:

(patterned paper: echo park, crate; ribbons, dimensional stickers and flag: basic grey; rhinestones: recollections; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, sewing machine)

my card uses this week's uber-fun retro sketch and pretty faithfully, at that!

do you remember the very first ribbon ♥YOU♥ bought to use in papercrafting? do you still have some? why not go dust it off, and then check out the DT cards at SOS?! i'm pretty sure you'll thank me later! :)

hello, sunshine!

we were lucky enough to spend most of last week in clearwater beach florida, which was absolutely as ♥AWESOME♥ as you'd imagine, so g'head and be jealous, i don't blame you one bit, lol! since it was a short trip, and since we planned to spend most of it sitting in lounge chairs doing as little as humanly possible, i had more or less decided not to bother taking along my traditional travel book kit. that is, i had actually decided NOT TO; until, in the course of packing on sunday, when lovely husband jeff inquired, "hey! where's the travel book?!" and i found myself unable to stick to such a course of action in the face of the adorably disappointed look that followed. turns out, he really *LOVES* helping me collect "the stuff" and looks forward to seeing the completed book when it's done. it occurred to me that i've never shown one of my 4x6" mini books in action, and this would be a good time, so i threw together a little something sunny!

usually i print my day pages on the computer, but this time i had a LOT of 4x12" scraps from another project and i really wanted to use them up. mostly they were paper-weight though, and i was worried they' be too flimsy, so i used the xyron to attach them smoothly back-to-back before trimming to size, and thus came up with sturdy pages about the same weight as the cardstock i usually use. a nice fringe-benefit of this is that all the brightly patterned fronts also have brightly patterned backs!

since i couldn't then print my text on the computer* i decided a little hand-stamping was in order. this ancient set of making memories (or k and co?!) acrylic letter stamps is one of my all-time faves. i don't think they make them any more, which is a shame; but i'm sure you have SOMETHING that would work! you could use stickers, even, or rub-ons; or mix it up and use the remainders of lots of sets of letters for a super-fun and funky vibe!

i don't usually adorn the pages too much before a trip, but i had half a packet of those little recollections blingy palm trees, and i just couldn't resist using them! i made the book's covers from sturdy chipboard with panels of two favorite "tropical" patterned papers affixed. (MME clouds on one side and ancient SEI "fruit stand" oranges on the other!) i always use a big sharpie marker to color the edges of plain chipboard; covers just as well as paint, but you don't have to wait for it to dry! :)

the other advantage of a 4x6 minibook is that it fits perfectly right into the lid of the little plastic "school box" i use to tote my supplies!

so what's in my tool kit? my tiny hole punch; scissors, a ruler, small ink pad, and a plastic bag in which to keep the book itself. all the rest is either for ATTACHING stuff or WRITING, since i've found that's what i need most while i'm actually ON vacation! i've got a selection of pens and pencils (black, white, permanent, eraseable, etc); my go-to adhesives (tiny stapler, gluetape runner, gluestick, foam tape, some clips and brads); and that's about it! i used to take stickers and stamps and other "artsy" touches, because they are so much fun to use, but i've discovered that while i make a priority of collecting the fun ephemera and writing down what we did each day, the "embellishing" part of the book almost always gets done after i'm at home again.

it's actually possible to be even MORE minimal than i am... (i know! shock, right?!!) :) ...when i set up a travel book and kit for my (non-crafty) friend liz's trip to israel last fall, luggage space was at a premium, so i found a small plastic case to carry a mini hole punch and stapler, plus a couple of pens... and she had everything she needed!

so do you want to see the finished book with all the photos and fun stuff from the trip? yeah, me too-- but it's not quiiiiiiiiiiiiite done yet! c'mon back in a day or two, though! i can already tell you that heavily featured within said pages will be my favorite day of the trip: wednesday; my favorite activity of the trip: a serious MEGA-thrifting expedition which encompassed half a dozen stores in the clearwater area; and my favorite vacation guest star: the lovely miss gina!!!

yep, after a couple of false starts, we finally got to meet up "in real life" as they say, and the result was, if anything, even more fun than expected--which was already preeeeeeeeeetty danged fun, i can tell ya! :) to sum up eight hours of hilarity, chatting, shopping, eating, and hijinks in one sentence, let me just say this: if you planned on hitting a few thrift shops in southern florida to buy books, magazines, flashcards, stickers, or ANYTHING made of vintage paper... you might want to wait a week or so, as there's actually not much left! (sorry!) :)

in fact, rumor has it that SOME PEOPLE, who were flying home to new jersey after this little shindig, may have had to ask OTHER PEOPLE, who were staying in florida, to take a GIANT BOX of papery goodness to the post office the next day. i can't say for certain it's true, but that's what i heard. (...looks around innocently, whistling nonchalantly...) it's possible that if such a box existed, a photo of its contents might show up on a certain blog, after its arrival... just sayin'... ;)

ciao for now, darlings! ♥

*ok, technically, i could have, by using the 4x6 photo tray on my printer, but i was too lazy, and also i just sort of felt like playing with the stamps right then! :)