waiting for the grass to grow!

our path is complete, the dumpster full of concrete for recycling has been hauled away, the side yard has been re-seeded, and even as i type, mother nature is obligingly providing a light but steady rain to water everything in. can't ask for much more than that, eh? here's a new pic, bear in mind that (with a little luck!) all of the naked-brown-dirt areas will be grass in a few weeks, and the path will get another sanding (to fill in the little gaps between bricks) after it has settled. we want to replant some bushes and things against the house, as well, but that will take place at a later date. meanwhile, we're pretty happy with how this has turned out!

here's a reverse view taken from the little porch, so you can see the arched "landing" we created to visually anchor the whole thing to the house. that might be my favorite part!

meanwhile, the end of july signaled the end of ICAD, and here are my last couple of cards, but first a few interesting (ok, arguably interesting) (well, ok, possibly only interesting if you're ME) ICAD statistics. bear in mind that my goals for this project were to work pretty flat, to try new things-- especially wet media and pens, and to keep up better with timely posting:

total cards: 61

flat cards: 50 (wahey!)

cards with hand-drawing or lettering: 11 (pretty respectable)

cards using wet media: 14 (not bad)

collage cards: 45 (hello, comfort zone)

thematically, a few trends emerged:

rainbow cards: 14

cards with repeating circles: 14

cards with doilies: 12

sewn cards: 25 (ok, yeah, not a surprise)

cards with sparkly bits: 8 (holy wow, that's LOW for me!)

finally, the highs and lows:

cards i really really DO NOT like at all: 7 (just over 10%... not bad)

cards i absolutely totally love: 18 (YOWZA!)

060: ink blots

in its blank state i used this card to blot up the excess of a couple of last week's inky/painty/watery crayon essperiments... and it started looking cool enough that i filled in the rest with a blending sponge and then added on some little bits of leftover chinese newspaper. (apologies to chinese speakers if i've unwittingly used strips that say anything unpleasant; i THINK the more colorful bits are adverts.) 

061: rainbow heart

here's a shocking true confession: i made this card earlier in the week and deliberately saved it because i thought it would sum up my ICAD book-- and experience-- perfectly! colorful, vivid and fun... yep... that pretty much says it all! :) :) :)

moving into august, lest any of us start suffering from index card withdrawal, the lovely miss tammy, creator of ICAD (whose blog, daisy yellow, is a must-read!) will be hosting the daily paper prompt* so if you're an art journaler, or you'd LIKE to be... this is a fabulous way to start, re-start, or solidify a daily art habit! ♥♥♥

*i've made a start but not yet photographed, will post in a day or two.

landscaping (& icad-ing) update

i'm sure everyone is positively dying to see a picture of the new path, and i'm here for you, darlings! :) it still needs to be trimmed and sanded (i have very professionally used the yellow extension cord to show where the finished left edge will be) then the adjacent area gets filled in with dirt to make the correct grade, and finally the side yard will be re-seeded with grass. but i think you can see the basic size and shape. my cousin greg, who is an amazing landscaper, is doing the work, and he's been reallllllllllly (really, REALLY!) nice* about "collaborating"... which, in this context, of course means patiently letting me try out a million ideas until i figure out what i want, and then translating that into something that will actually WORK in terms of construction!!! after playing around with various scenarios, we've settled on a 38" width and switched from a horizontal edging to a vertical one, on the grounds that it shows off the herringbone pattern better. i think it's going to be pretty fab when completed, and it's almost exactly like the picture i had in my head, maybe better! :)

and now the ICADs... we're in the home stretch on that, as well, which is equally exciting!

054: cactus collage

not much explanation necessary; my mom gave me some vintage nature stamps recently and i'm fairly well smitten.

055: jerry garcia tribute card

playing around with water soluble wax crayons and stitching. it's a good combo, though in this case donning protective eyewear is recommended.

056: texy new york skyline

inspired by some amazing tape on a package the lovely amy t (♥♥♥!) sent me; my version's a little overcrowded for an index card, but i still kinda like it.

057: rainbow arcs

we spent a couple of days this week (intermittently) working on the arc for the top of the path; clearly i had that shape burned onto my brain!!! :)

058: inky embossed doilies

there are only a few ICADs i made this year that really just do not like at all... and this is one of them. there are a couple of pretty good ideas here, but they don't gel into anything. and i'm 100% ok with that, failure should always an option for creative pursuits, imo!

059: red collage

again, i think the title and the card sort of speak for themselves. one thing they are definitely saying, "i ♥LOVE♥ collage!"

*i should also mention, once again, that i am married to the nicest man in the entire universe; and i'm not just saying that because he gives me a free hand to do whatever i want in terms of decor and landscaping... although he does! :) :) :)

house tour, anyone?

i realize it's taken me an age to post these, but basically, just we had justgotten the entire downstairs unpacked, set up and decorated, when we made the sudden and unexpected* decision to refinish the floors! so of course we had to pack... up... everything; have all the work done; and wait (and wait... and wait...) for it to dry and cure completely. then unpack and arrange everything all over again. this time we're prettttttttttttttty dang sure it's staying this way for the foreseeable future!

ok, so starting with the entryway, as you come into the house:

in the midst of the floor saga, we were given the hand-me-down pink couch. which, on paper, seemed like it would fit really well in the entryway, where i wanted some "stopgap" seating. as it turns out, it's waaaaaaay too big for where i planned to put it. so we've done a re-shuffle, and swapped the seating for these two rooms. i'm still not in love with the result, but i can totally live with it until i find my dream couch. or possibly my dream chaise longue? this one is a serious contender at the moment.

moving through the next arch... (which, can i just pause here and say,"ARCHES!!!!!!!" definitely a big style point for me in this house, i love them!) ...you get to the dining room:

this floor was in pretty good condition, but it was very pale, and when we decided to re-do everything, we went with the darker color throughout. jeff insists i also show you the following photo, which was taken standing in the next arch, but looking back. so you can see back to how the dining room connects up. luckily there's a BIG PINK COUCH to orient you, eh?! :)

off to the side is the kitchen, which is a bit dated. in a few years, we'd like to renovate, but yet another selling point was that it is perfectly use-able until then! my favorite part is the table area with those big sunny windows overlooking the backyard.

at the moment, we've got a card table and folding chairs, but between the tasty food and the nice view, that doesn't seem so bad!

finally the living room, which can be accessed via the stairs you saw in the dining room, or by going around the corner from the eat-in area of the kitchen.

the only furniture we bought for this room is the entertainment center; everything else came from our apartment, where the sectional was a "space saver". weirdly enough, it somehow also works to anchor this much larger room. which is awesome because it's still in good condition and it's comfortable!

and YES, there's a spiral staircase. i mention it because whereas i find it somewhat disconcerting, everyone else LOVES IT! personally, i keep expecting hugh hefner to swan down it in his pajamas, but it *is* a nice shortcut to the master bedroom. and yes, there's a "regular" staircase too; much to the relief of our movers who somehow missed seeing it the first time they came through the dining room. you should've *SEEN* the look on their faces! :)

and now my camera and i are going to take a little rest, but we'll be back soon with some pics of the art lair and maybe the master bedroom? in the meantime, happy saturday, darlings!!! ♥

*we were expecting to tile our entryway. period. but when we pulled up the carpet and lino... SCORE! we found the same lovely hardwood that connected up with the two adjacent rooms. thus instead of covering it up again, and because the other two rooms had mysteriously been stained completely different colors with NO effort to transition neatly between them, we decided to make the leap and just do THE WHOLE JOB all at once. a vast (and seriously messy!) undertaking, but sooooooo worth the time and money! ♥♥♥

what has 4 folds and won't fit in an envelope?

if you said, "that sounds like many of your larger cards, lauren!" of course you're quite right, but that's not what i meant. in this case, the answer is the room divider i just finished macguyvering to hide the exercise equipment which resides in our guest bedroom:

i was hoping to find one item, pay for it, and be done. but that never happens, does it? at least, it never seems to happen to me, lol. i saw lots of folding screen/room dividers, both online and in stores, but none of them were quite right. finally i found a pretty three-paneled one at home goods, which was everything i wanted, except opaque; but i had A PLAN for that.

as it turned out, it was also only about half the size we needed, so i after a lot of calling around to track down a second one, i got to work on THE PLAN, which was to back the panels with some pretty but neutral fabric.

i ironed, trimmed, ironed, hemmed, and ironed a piece of fabric to fit quite precisely behind one of the panels, and lovely husband jeff tacked it into place with his heavy-duty staple gun.

then i went back and did all of that five more times. :)

do you like the paisleys? i love them. they're a ralph lauren fabric... ok technically... they are a set of ralph lauren sheets, found on sale, at home goods:

i am certainly not the world's best seamstress, as you can see from the back of the panels. (the really professional-looking top edge is the actually-professional hem of the sheets; i also used their two side seams; this gave us one set of nice straight lines to work with and helped make the orientation of the pattern consistent.)

on the other hand, since these are only going to be used to keep our overnight guests from feeling as if they're sleeping at the gym, i think my "measure, cut, sew" method is adequate; and since we kept the panels nice and flat, the screens can still be folded up...

...but at the moment i'm kind of enjoying gazing upon my handy-work, so i've got them in the corner of the room. if you're planning an overnight trip to central new jersey darlings, let me know; we could really use some guest room testers!!! ♥♥♥

SOS102: what's in your tool shed?

ok, this week at shopping our stash we're having my ♥FAVORITE♥ kind of challenge, because we can make ANY type of project, using any colors, any ingredients, any theme, any sketch, any... well... ANYTHING we choose. so what's the challenge, then? you may have guessed it from the title, actually, "what's in your tool shed?" because yeah, we want you to find a tool (punch, cutter, piercer, crimper, crop-a-dile, eyelet setter, etc) that you haven't used in ages... or maybe ever?! ...and use it. simple, right? any tool. just be sure to tell us what it is, because you know how we love to hear "the story"; and if you can incorporate scraps, leftovers, upcycling or anything else "stashy" too, so much the better!

i chose to employ my sadly neglected cuttlebug and for the first time used a cool rolodex card die i bought some time ago on a super-discount sale but hadn't yet test-driven. wahey!

(patterned paper: studio calico, provocraft, october afternoon, amy tangerine + bits of a vintage map + an illustration from an old gardening book; my own instagrammed photo of our house, formatted in PSE9 using segoe script font, printed on kodak premium photo paper (which... for the record... irl is NOT all horribly crosshatched and grainy, but for some reason just REFUSED to photograph well; apologies!) tape: bazzill, recollections; rolodex die: quick kutz; diecutting machine: cuttlebug; white index stock: staples; adhesives: staples brand gluetape runner, 3m foam tape, scotch gluestick, staples)

and yes, for the record, it's yet another use of that same instagram pic of our house, of which probably everyone but *ME* is thoroughly tired. but it happens to still be my favorite, and since i was the one making the cards, i won! :) this time it's the centerpiece of the "change of address" cards that i made, marathonically, in a rare fit of mass-production; which, by the way, totally reminded me why i swore off mass-production in the first place. yikes. is it just me, or is there nothing DULLER in the craftiverse than making elebenty gazzillion of EXACTLY. THE. SAME. THING. especially when the genius who develops the prototype thinks it'd be super-fun to have a wholllllllllllllle bunch of "casual" layers. yeah. can i please request, darlings, that next time i design a project which needs mega-duplication, one of you step in to act as spotter and "talk me down" from such folly. seriously. please. i must be stopped. thank you. :) :) :) having said all that... i do really like how this came out, and having already heard from the very first recipients, it seems to be a bit admired, so there's that. ♥

and now may i be so bold as to suggest a trip to shopping our stash to check out what my lovely DT-mates have concocted with the contents of their tool sheds. g'wan. you know you wanna! :)

during our first two weeks in the new house...

trees were planted...

seven norway spruce, lookin' good, along our back property line.

parquet was re-finished...

lovely husband jeff, a figure of some repute at our local home depot!

shelves were painted...

yep, i had pink (and white!) paint leftover from the closet

or lined...

dear dollarama, i♥u!

or neatly filled with possessions...

(and sometimes, all three!) 

in the apt, all of these "overflow" kitchen items lived in the (easily accessible, but still a flight of stairs away) walk-up attic; so this seemingly humble cupboard is a pretty big deal!!!

furniture was purchased...

a few miscellaneous items from my favorite "overstock" store

or cleaned up... 

this rocker was purchased for my teenage bedroom;
does that make it an antique?

or shifted from room to room...

(and, in the case of the kitchen-- site of the aforementioned parquet-- shifted back again, later!)

having all one's appliances IN ONE ROOM turns out to be a really great idea!

in addition,

and perhaps most excitingly,

 lots more stuff 

♥BLOOMED!♥

little white hyacinths

big pink hyacinths

riotous yellow forsythia

and rhododendrons, which, in 24 rainy hours, LITERALLY went from hardly having buds, to full-on flowering!

to sum up: life has been very good, and very VERY busy!!!

hope you are having a great weekend, darlings!

♥♥♥

anyone have a forklift i can borrow??!

because, you see, we are moving... 

on tuesday... 

to our lovely ♥NEW HOME♥!!!!!

welcome home, lauren and jeff!

you may have noticed i haven't been around as much, for which i apologize, but as you can imagine, there has been quiiiiiiiite a lot to do between settlement and moving day! 

of course the very first thing most new homeowners do is paint the inside of their closets a very very VIVID shade of pink! :) :) :)

behold: CLOSET-TOPIA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

ok, yeah, it's a little silly, but i ♥♥♥LOVE♥♥♥ it!

we've done a few serious things, too. the master bedroom, which has many cool and interesting angles, was a very pretty shade of pale yellow, that just wasn't to our taste. also, having extensively (possibly obsessively!) cruised photos of sloped-ceilinged bedrooms on houzz.com, i discovered that having the ceiling and walls the same color minimizes the look. and since i knew lovely husband jeff would have to spend most of the last two weeks away on a pre-scheduled work trip, and all the pre-move-painting would be done by *ME*... (though, as it turns out, my mom has been pitching in like a TROOPER!) ...i thought we'd leave the ceiling white and paint the walls to match. holy WOW does it ever make the room look biiiiiiiiiiiig!!! 

since i refuse to go above step #2 on the ladder, i am "reverse cutting in" at the tops of the very high walls. by which i mean "leaving them for jeff" lol!

before he went away, lhj did one awesome "handyman" chore in the kitchen, which was to replace the very dark brown grout lines on the kitchen tile backsplash with this soft white. we like this look better because again, the lack of contrast makes the whole plane "read" as one fairly neutral surface. (for the record, the kitchen is the first thing we'll change when we're ready to do a "big project"; but we're emphatically NOT ready to do it NOW!)

our cabinets long to meet those of president obama!

my first decor purchase was curtains for my favorite room in the house! the one on the door needs to be hemmed, obviously; and the rods for the big window need to be both raised and also widened a bit, but i love the effect already!

say, "hubba hubba" to (restored) 1930's woodwork and flooring!!!)

one thing that did not need even a little bit of help from me was the flower bed at the side of the house, where these lovely daffodils popped up, budded and blossomed over the course of the last week, all on their own!

"happy spring" the daffodils seemed to say!

 if the neighbors have been watching, they are no doubt amused as heck to see a crazy lady walk round to the side of the house each day to see, exclaim over, and photograph these lovely flowers... but then...we've never owned a garden before, and it's hard to disguise how exciting it is!!!

so when are you all coming to visit? 

i'll go put the kettle on, just in case it's today!

♥♥♥♥♥

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... :)

we started the new year with HORRIBLE colds... and WONDERFUL news!

about the colds, the least said the better; although i am currently in talks with the guinness people, since i'm pretty sure i've exceeded all existing world records for tissue use in the course of the last week! :) 

but enough of that, because the thing i really want to tell you is the WONDERFUL NEWS:

we are officially shopping for a house!!!!!!!

(sadly, this is actually very true in my case, lol!)

ok, sorry to shout, but this will be our first experience owning our own home, and we've waited quite a few years for it to happen, so we are really REALLY excited!!!!!!!!!!!! (ok, sorry again!) of course, arguably, if one were going to pick a time of year to add a lot of extra activity, stress and paperwork into an already busy schedule, i think most people would immediately say, "ok, but NOT right around christmas!!!" yeah. we must've missed that memo. :) :) :) but luckily now we're into the rich heartland of january and thus only bad weather and jeff's incredibly crazy work schedule can come (briefly, one hopes) between us and our dreamhouse! keep your fingers crossed for us, ok? and please excuse me for a tiny bit longer if i seem a little more distracted than usual; my head is full of floor plans, square footage, lot size, property tax appraisals, mortgage rates, and daniel craig!!!* ♥♥♥

*strictly speaking he's got nothing to do with the home-buying process, but there's only so much time a gal can spend thinking about  floor plans, square footage, lot size, property tax appraisals and mortgage rates, kwim?! ;)