happy 08-08-08

a super-photoshopped picture of sunflowers in a field near our house

i was hoping to post at 8:08 this morning, but i didn't quite make it...and if i leave it til 8:08 tonight it'll never get done!

my plans for this auspicious date include trying to get caught up on a lot of half-finished projects, completing as many errands as possible so as not to venture into "hotspots" over the weekend, and perhaps trying to get the house clean before my dearest darling (who currently has the summer cold from H-E-double-hockeysticks, poor baby!) gets home, so as not to be stirring up dust and dirt around his already overloaded sinuses. pretty much my TYPICAL friday, really, except for the exciting dust-n-sinuses part! :) and yes, indeedy, i am taking A LOT of ecchinacea and vitamin c in hopes of avoiding said germs m'self. though i will probably stock up on tomato soup and fruit salad...just in case...

i hope that whatever you embark upon today, it will be particularly successful--and especially FUN!!!

operation 31: ONE PERSON

hooray! it's time for another paper adventure! for this one, we've been asked to write about a person. elise said this:

"Write about a person. A person that you know. A person that you do not know in real life. A person that is famous. Your favorite person. WHOMEVER."

i do not think anyone will be surprised to find that my *PERSON* is lovely husband jeff...but what if i told you that i had made that choice at age 21?? (does that seem young to you? because in retrospect...to ME...it seems really realllllllllllllly young!) ...but...and i can't emphasize this enough...i would not change a thing!

(software: broderbund printshop; fonts: pea cammie pea & sidewalk)

text reads, "it is 1985. i am 21 years old. there is no way i am qualified to select ONE PERSON with whom to share my entire life. for better or for worse. til death do us part. can this possibly be a good decision?! YES! ...somehow...miraculously...it is!

***************************

edited to add a completely unrelated but utterly euphoric fact...after a long, hot, and sadly simian-free summer:

MONKEEMAKER IS BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

delight in simpicity

...OR... step-by-step instructions on how to inadvertently make a hilarious card-based oxymoron!

my friend trish loves minimalism, clean lines, bright clear colors, and a generally crisp and modern graphic look. so every year i try to make her a birthday card which reflects that. and every year i fail...because i'm...well... *ME*! but occasionally i really do get QUITE CLOSE.

not this time!

(cardstock: bazzill; patterned paper: iron orchid, frances meyer; journaling card & brads: making memories; rub-ons: my mind's eye, fancy pants; clear stickers: heidi swapp; flowers: prima, making memories; diecuts: k&co; other: colorbox inks, stickles, foam tape)

i started out with *SUCH* good intentions: acid green cardstock base, bright blue bird, primrose paper flowers, sweet little leaves. so far, verrrrrrrrrry trish; yippee! then i decided the bird needed a branch, and the first one i found that was a good size had sparkles on. wellllllllllllllll...surely a FEW sparkles couldn't hurt?? nahhhhhh, they'll be fine. plus, it's TOTALLY the right color and shape! then i decided to try out the "delight" rub-on the lady at the scrapbook store gave me. i set it on the diecut journalling card, and could see right away that we were going in SO the wrong direction for a trish card & decided to change it...but then...i realized the rub-on had started to stick ON ITS OWN! consternation! uproar!!! (note to self: NEVER take them off their backing on a humid day!) ok, well, we're commited now. fine. so we're going to be needing a bit more blue then. AHA! leftover sparkly blooms* from another project. well, they certainly put the glittery branch into context, now don't they? since "delight" got stuck slightly higher up than i might've liked (arrrgh!) i decide it should now say "delight IN...something" . but what? i spot the partially used pack of rub-ons from my CAARDVARKS "closet" card, which has a script, "simplicity". it's EXACTLY the right size and shape. it's EXACTLY the wrong style and font. oh yeah, and it's dark brown, which nothing else on the card is. i ink the edges of the green cardstock dark brown, but it's not really enough. ah well, we're kind of layered and shabby chic now anyway, might as well go for broke!!! i add an apron of softly patterned green paper between the two existing layers, throw on a couple of tone-on-tone clear stickers, and finish off with more of the brown rubs... et voila!

(sorry, trish!) ♥

*they're really just regular primas that i painted with a thin coat of clear stickles glitter glue

from your closet...

...to the CAARDVARKS' gallery! yes, it is challenge time again. you can probably guess by the title "from your closet" where we're going with this: dresses, shoes, handbags, flip flops, t-shirts, clothing or accessories of any kind...it is all fair game for your creativity!

the design team have gone to town with this one, and i highly recommend a glimpse at their work! of course, your card can be sitting in that same gallery --just link it to the "from your closet" post by midnight on 8-17 and you will also have a shot at a rather fabulous prize: the current kit from scrapbook nook is up for grabs, and trust me, YOU WANT IT!!!

i am pretty pleased with my own card this time. i generally try to avoid buying product specifically for any given assignment--to me part of the challenge is making the abundance of stuff i already have work in a variety of ways. ...but...last week i happened to be in a scrapbook store and i saw these rub-ons from fancy pants:

and suddenly the vague ideas i had, involving pink dressmaker's patterned paper and vintage buttons and decorative stitching all coalesced around those three little dress outlines over on the far right, and i saw THIS in my head:

so of course i bought the rubs, went home, rummaged through my stash for additional sewing-based items and built THIS around it:

(patterned paper: fancy pants, mustard moon, basic grey; cardstock diecuts: k&co; rub-ons: fancy pants: bling word: mambi (thanks, elizabeth!) other: wired pearls, vintage buttons, fabric flower, colorbox inks, foam tape)

what's in YOUR closet...and what kind of card will you make from it?!

and the winner is...

(hehehe--i've always wanted to say that!)

ok, sorry, sorry, sorry. just kidding. daniel craig did not win the beautiful things blog candy giveaway! even though many would argue strenuously that he does in fact constitute a BEAUTIFUL THING by pretty much any standard we could set.

but i digress.

the handy dandy random integer generator when queried, had this to say:

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers: 18
Timestamp: 2008-08-04 11:57:53 UTC

which means...

(can i get a drumroll here?)

the winner of the beautiful things blog candy giveaway is...

ZARAH!!!

*hooray!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!*

i will be mailing her lovely pack of goodies as soon as i find out where they go, so zarah, if you're reading this, g'head and email me your address!!!

many MANY thanks to all who stopped by and shared their beautiful things, i had a blast reading them! i wish i had a prize for *EVERYBODY*!

(...especially you-know-who!)

(hubba hubba!)

BLOG CANDY--extended!!!

edited and reposted, saturday 8-2-08

being as how blogger has been exceptionally temperamental for the last 24 hours, and i have heard from several people that they were unable to access the comments section during that time, i have decided to

extend the drawing deadline

until midnight, on sunday 8-3

(...and i will leave this post on top until then...)

it hardly seems possibly that it's been twelve months since, inspired by clare grant’s amazing blog, three beautiful things, i quite hesitantly decided to embark on my own daily “3BT’ journal! but since i have four--count ’em four--completed 3-month books to prove it, clearly an entire year has indeed elapsed!

the idea was to combine my growing interest in the idea of art journaling with the safety net of the 3BT structure. (seeing as up until then my attempts at journal/diary-keeping had lasted a week, tops, i felt i needed the back-up of something *particular* to record each day!) it took a while for me to get into the routine, and even longer to really allow the “art-journaling” part of it to catch fire, but it has become a habit that's often the best part of my day!

i love looking at all four books together: the first one is tiny, almost entirely flat, and uses hardly anything but the plain ivory pages with which it came stocked; the second is 4 x 6” and while still quite lump-less i had begun to mix in postcards and other ephemera; book three, at 5” square, has started to have some pages with texture, and ribbons & other embellies overhang the edge of an occasional page; the last volume mingles pages of every shape and size, and is crammed full of all the day-to-day treasures i feel compelled to collect and save!

to celebrate my year of “beautiful things” ...and since i've been very remiss in allowing benchmarks like 100 posts and my one-year blogiversary pass unremarked... i've assembled a little collection of BLOG CANDY goodies. look:

the lucky winner gets: 2 making memories 9 x 9 paper packs ("bella" & "sam"); a christina cole 8 x 8 paper slab; an assortment of glittery handmade 8.5 x 11 papers; a set of technique tuesday clear stamps ("petal pushers"); a set of my sentiments exactly clear alphabet stamps ("collage caps"); some mambi bling; american crafts metal photo corners; 2 packs of li'l davis designs glitter garden chipboard shapes ("floral ice" & "floral rose"); 2 packs of chip chatter flower shapes…and maybe one or two surprises from my vast collection of vintage weirdness!

just leave a comment on this post by the new deadline, midnight, sunday august 3, telling me one of YOUR beautiful things for the day to be included in the random drawing. so tell your friends...tell your grandma...tell your grandma's friends and your friends' grandmas ...OR... keep it all to yourself & increase your odds; but whatever you decide, be sure and enter today for a chance at the swag!!! ♥♥♥♥♥

ps: many thanks to nina for teaching me the secret of the tiny heart!!! :)

so then, what's next?

i have not meant, in my recent posts, to imply that i won't be 3BT-ing anymore! in fact it's so much of an ingrained habit now, i'm not sure i could stop if i wanted to--which i don't! :) however, thanks to having a whole year of journaling under my belt, i now feel like i have the confidence to pursue the "ART" part of "art journaling" a bit more! so i've got me a very special little lined notebook for the 3BT... (which the lovely monkee maker gave me a while back; i've been savin' it for something special!) ...and i've made a special home for what i hope will be daily art pages!

'member this guy??!

(5x7 art journal made from: large sheet of chipboard; page from a vintage child's book about the solar system; love elsie patterned papers; sharpie pens, colorbox inks)

yes, it's the very cleverly disguised flying purple people eater, from back in april! i found him recently in a stack of "stuff too cute to throw out" and thought he seemed like the perfect muse for a slightly nervous newbie art journaler. being as he is a uniquely stylish kind of guy, i don't suppose i can go too far wrong under the PPE's expert tutelage, do you??!

(the back of said journal; eventually it will have the name of the project and dates inscribed upon it; but...and here is proof of how silly i can be...i don't like to do that until it's full--for fear of jinxing the project!!!) :)

i suspect there will be some cross-over btw the new and old journals, as my main fear is a lack of daily subject matter. i find it quite comforting to know that when i haven't got a firm idea i can always "fall back" on one or more of a day's three beautiful things as my inspiration; whilst also going a bit further afield into conceptual ideas that don't involve text. or that's the IDEA, anyway; we shall see how it goes!

♥ in the meantime ♥

you have until MIDNIGHT TONIGHT (friday, august 1) to enter the famous beautiful things blog candy giveaway! just leave a comment ON THE ORIGINAL POST and tell me one of YOUR beautiful things for the day. i'll be picking the winner randomly, and announcing the name tomorrow! good luck to all...i only wish i had prizes for everybody!!!