...i know what you're thinkin'...

you're thinkin': that lauren hasn't made a single thing in ages--what a lazy so-and-so!!!

au contraire, darlings! i've made *TEN*--count 'em, 10--cards this week...and i can't show you any of them yet.

waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!

i can't even hint mysteriously about their theme. dang! this is kind of a bummer. oooh wait, i know, i can throw some stats at ya:

• two have a parisian theme
• one is a bit indian...ish...
• one is kind of "shabby chic"
• two have plain (unpatterned) backgrounds (what?! is this still LAUREN's blog??!)
• two feature photos and are what i would call "layout cards" (kind of like a scrapbook page, but smaller and...ummm...well, they're cards!)
• one has *72* embellishments on it--mostly rhinestones--in an area that measures approximately 4" x 1" (believe it or not, this is not even a record for me!) (it looks *good* though, trust me--it's not too much!) :)
• three are pretty "boyish", six are definitely girlish, one is gender neutral (i need to focus on GUY cards for the rest of the year!)
• techniques used: painting, faux stitching, altering/cutting out pattern paper & stickers & chipboard, inking, distressing, layering...and glueing on a whoooooooooole LOT of teeny tiny rhinestones!

the only other thing i can reveal is that these are all destined for CAARDVARKS' september 5th challenge, sponsored by frances meyer, for which we have the biggest DT gallery ever--(utilizing the fruits of the gi-HUGE-ic product packs they sent us--thanks, lana!) it will knock your socks off, and possibly your shoes as well...although they had best not be WHITE SHOES...since by then it'll be after labor day! :)

guest designer, madeline margaret

this card was made by my youngest niece, madeline, last thanksgiving when she was 2 1/2:

one morning in november, my sister discovered her with her left hand dangling off the edges of a post-it note pad, trying to figure out how to draw *in between* the fingers with a (luckily firmly capped) sharpie marker, and muttering, "i hafta do dis! i hafta do dis!" pretty quickly amie figured out what the deal was--apparently turkeys had been the previous day's project at pre-school--and helped with the outlining so maddie could concentrate on the important design decisions, like coloring.

i happened to phone up during this process, and after telling amie whatever i called for, got passed along to the small one for her turn to talk:

maddie: hi aunt lawn!

lauren: hiya babe, whatcha doing?

maddie: i makin' a cawd...for you and your friend untle jeff!

which is why...9 months later...the cawd in question is still on my fridge! :)

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

ps: speakin' of art that astounds and amazes one; my in-laws sent this along in an email this morning. if you need me, i'll be at the beach!!! :)

did you say *CHOCOLATE* fortune cookies??!

yes, i did.

we got takeaway from a new place the other night. it's called--i swear i am not making this up-- lo fatt chow! in addition to having all the typical chinese takeaway items, they offer a number of healthy options, and stress their fresh ingredients. (their stir-fried veggies were awesome!) and they have chocolate fortune cookies--yummmmmmm!!!

however, i'm sad to report that, delicious chocolateyness notwithstanding, like many such sweets today, these particular cookies violated the terms of the (lesser known) geneva convention policies for truthfulness in baked goods...by which i mean...they did not contain fortunes so much as aphorisms!

mine said, "the essential conditions of everything you do must be choice, love, and passion"; the fact that they also provided lucky numbers and the chinese word for friend ("peng-you") is beside the point. i want a *fortune* in my cookie! i want a prediction of some sort, even a spurious and unlikely one; preferably exotic. like, "next thursday you will recieve the untold riches of the orient" or at least, "beware of dogs wearing shoes". is that too much to ask??! so it would seem, nowadays.

occasionally, you still come across a good one. a few weeks ago (at a different restaurant) i got, "you are a happy man" which was pretty good...altho it does seem to imply that somehow i got jeff's cookie, by accident! the best fortune i've ever gotten was about a year ago...i taped the little paper to my monitor, and it continues to inspire me, daily:

"you would prosper in the field of wacky inventions"

now that is what i call a fortune!!! :)

bloggin' in the afternoon...

...not my usual routine, but excusable on a monday, i feel. my usual morning routine is:

1. wake up
2. grumble
3. drink coffee (whilst grumbling)
4. check email
5. grumble about: (a) too many emails or (b) not enough emails...choose one (altho there is actually a hybrid choice (c) grumble that there are too many regular emails, but not enough "good" emails...the snailmail equivalent is getting all bills & circulars when you were hoping for postcards, magazines, and a personal check from ed mcmahon)
6. respond to pre-existing emails, in order of overdue-ness
7. blog
8. notice the time and shriek for several minutes regarding the impossible lateness of the hour and/or the low number of completed chores in the (surely incorrect!) time elapsed
9. ponder the possibility that someone is stealing some of my time (which would explain an awful lot!)
10. decide that #9 is *probably* paranoid, and definitely hard to prove...but vow to buy wristwatch anyway
11. grumble darkly on the subject of government agencies which engage in nefarious (but unprovable) time-stealing conspiracies ("daylight savings time" my foot!!!)
12. put in contacts, get dressed, wash & groom, attend to makeup & haircare, make & eat breakfast, collect necessary items for the day (time elapsed: 3 1/2 minutes)
13. vow to become (a) more organized (b) better at time management and (c) less grumbly in the morning...starting tomorrow...or next week, at the latest
14. drive to work grumbling OR singing loudly along with radio, depending on the choice of songs available

today by the time i'd made it partway through #6, it was already past time to skip to #12. (the time thieves are getting bolder!) which is why i'm...bloggin' in the afternoon... :)

r.i.p., threadbared!

oh noooooooooooooooo!

one of my fave blogs has finished: threadbared is bearing thread no more!!! imagine my grief & sadness! i had noticed that it was certainly a lot less active recently, but you know...in the height of summer...people are busy vacationing, and so forth; i assumed it would be back in action at some point. apparently not. bummer.

...but you know...the more i think about it...much as i'll miss them, i admire the threadbared girls for making a really tough decision. they had a blast for two years, but now they're involved in other things, and rather than letting the blog languish--or carry on half-heartedly--they have called it quits. actually, that's pretty cool.

so bye-bye, mary and kimberly, i wish you well in your future endeavors! thanks for two hilarious years and for leaving your archive intact, so i can continue to visit my boyfriend, the man in the leopard-lined--or is it paisley?--vest:

either way......grrrrrrrrrrrrr......that is a sexy, sexy look!!! :)

my goodness, my guinness!

my amazing friend deborah spent a couple of weeks in ireland recently, and whilst there managed to send me fifteen (yes, 15!) postcards! of course, seven of them were guinness-related (i guess she thought they'd be unconscionably lonely to be sent off on their own!) which brings the total down to a more normal eight. :) and o'course d being d, all had written on them a fascinating tidbit of irish lore, or a funny story from the trip, or something that made me laugh out loud! i *think* this is my favorite (hard to choose, but i SO love the expression on the toucan's face; you just knooooooow that pint is not gonna last long!):

in related news, a big giant (somewhat expensive) box arrived from century photo this week, containing enough archival-safe pages to hold the entire overflow of postcards that are not yet in albums--WOOHOO! ...now all i need is a free day...or two...or six...to put 'em all away...

(time for a slightly tangential rant: how is it still possible that 99% of the photo albums being sold in the year 2007 are still full of the kind of plastic pages that not only AREN'T photo/postcard safe, they can be actively *hurting* your precious pics??! oh yeah, and recently in borders i saw they have a whole section of very fancy (very expensive) albums being touted as "memory books" which have those diabolical magnetic pages!!!!!) (ok, i'm better now.)

last--but certainly not least--tracy has been making her own postcards and sending one per day to her son who's off at college. how cool is that?!

stampin' on flowers!

over the weekend i had occasion to visit lesley langdon's blog, challenge me lesley THREE TIMES (once for each of the *fab* CAARDVARKS' micro challenge cards she made!) and i could not help but notice and marvel at the way she had stamped on a prima paper flower! i confess, such an idea had never occurred to me...but of course as soon as i saw it i was kicking myself: *WHY* hadn't it occurred to me??! that is brilliant! a feverish flurry of flowery stamping ensued. here are some of the fruits of that experimentation:

my conclusions: dye-based ink works better than pigment; the flatter the flower, the better the image transfers; paper flowers take ink slightly better than fabric ones...which can become very slightly blurry; 7 gypsies pre-inked stamps work just fine & are easily positioned; the more contrast between ink color and flower color the better it shows up; a medium sized stamp transfers better than a really big all-over image b/c of the uneven surface. on a personal note: i think i like the allover patterns the best, especially the crackle effect, the wood grain and the leopard spots!

one last tiny (and ultra-specific) tip: see this "inkblots" stamp by DOTS? it's cute, right?

...until you stamp it in RED, and then you've got...

...uh-huh...

blood splatter!!! (lol!)

...hmmm...i think we'd better save that one for halloween!

UPDATE: lesley has actually written a fantastic tutorial on altering flowers via stamping (& other cool ways) that you DEFINITELY want to read! you can find it here.