Junkin' on Memorial Day Weekend

The oldest, Mother In Law and I were off to visit Stormville this past Saturday. It's a huge junk show on the big weekends in the summer. Having to work right next to our ReStore, I pretty much figured I had seen it all. I did see quite a few things we sell at the store, but some were really topnotch. Check out this collection of little beauties here in in this case. I don't think I could just pick one if I was buying. Maybe I could limit myself to three....instead, I opted to go with a photo and a quick drool. There were other treasures around the corner that quickly caught my eye.

I fell in love with this jar/ern/fancy pants item right here. Wanted to grab some polish and get cleaning. I never did take a peek at the price tag. Pretty sure it was out of my league. Very epic!

I can tell you for sure that the $95 limoges plate there in the back certainly was also out of my price range, but I couldn't help but take a photo. Thankfully everyone is super cool with snapping photos of eye candy.

The lady selling this monstrosity thought I actually liked it. I did like it. Just not in my house and perhaps without anything purple, green, brown or fruit like hanging from it! It was pretty bling-or-ific! THE MAN did not play into my text of will this work in my office? He opted to ignore me for a while and then finally said it was too big. Giving him lots of credit for not typing back OMG FUGLY!

 A few little yummy things came home with me. The dude who was selling this pile of hardware wanted $30 for all of this. Lucky for me I only had $11 and he made me a deal. ;-) Honestly wasn't going to pay that much anyhow.

Made lots of fun memories this past weekend I'll be back to share. Got a layout or two to show you! Yes, I managed to scrap by the camper again!

Happy Tuesday!

Gold Card Box with THE CUTTING CAFE Pop Up Flowers

From out of the secret stash of goodies, I pulled this lovely vintage card box. I mainly liked it
 because ohhhh look at the inside. So yummy gold! However, now the TOP is also super cool, thanks to these pop up flowers!

As you can see in this close up, they are perforated so they have great dimension. Check out the Pop Up Flower Card file over at THE CUTTING CAFE. Add in some glitter & flower stamens? They are rock star! Make me so happy!

Can't wait to give this gift box away with a little present! So pretty!

Happy Tuesday! I'll be back soon to talk about something else that is popping up! Our modular home gets delivered today!!! Will be insta-house!

Pink, Red, and Green for Memorandum Monday

Goodness there has been a lot of living this past week. Two day road trips for work, a church group volunteered yesterday and more work. So not a lot of crafting going on in the studio although it's always nice when you have the excuse to create as something is due for a design team. So flowered it up yesterday! I was inspired by all the pink azalea blooms around the house.

Thankfully there were some left over flowers from the cutting file so I got to have a little play using them up after I made my main project! You'll see that tomorrow. It was so nice coming home to a neat and tidy home after THE MAN spent hours on maintenance outside. See the one house we worked on Saturday is nearly wrapped up, but still in that phase where it's pretty easy to set your tape measure down and then spend ten minutes trying to find it. We haven't even started the outdoors yet, so it's kinda a jungle.We call that house the Red House, so in honor of that name I'll share with you a photo from inside looking out the second story at the heating guy's truck...it's kinda cool. By the time I got back from visiting the Greeen House we are working on, those holes in the wall were windows.

On the subject of the Green House, the work crew found a crown while working. I'll show you photos of that place soon, but back around Christmas time there was a fire. Now we're gutting it and you never know what you might find digging around. In this case, it was a perfectly good crown that was only grungy. Some soap fixed that and I'm all happy with as it's already distressed!

And on that note, I'm off to Princess around town today. I have a trip to the hardware store planned and who knows what else. I am sure nobody will mind if I wear my sparkly distressed bling!

Shabby Binder with Pop Up Flowers for THE CUTTING CAFE

Regina over at THE CUTTING CAFE asked us to play with pop up cards and since I'm sneaking mine in at the very end, I had a play with one of her very new files! It's called the Flower Pop Up Card and I opted to use the fence and the flowers from the cutting file since I am working on a binder! I hear we'll be playing with this file again, which is good news to me since it's so much fun!

The flowers are really easy to made and I added stamens to mine to mimic the azalea I have that is in full bloom at the moment in the yard. Stop back tomorrow for a few photos of that! The fence file really was the inspiration behind making the binder. We are close to wrapping up the interior of a Habitat for Humanity Home so will be moving someone in soon to enjoy their new place.  I'll fill the book with the booklets from the appliances we install. This house is a rehab and I'll be talking about that tomorrow too! A second good reason to POP back over. See what I did there?

These flowers are quite showy! Look at how big they are! Good thing they collapse for sending! Of course this book doesn't have to be sent, so I'm enjoying the dimension!

Looking forward to handing this book over to the new owner & cleaning my studio! There was quite the flower frenzy in here and I have stamens everywhere!

Enjoy your Sunday!

Flat Cortona Layout & PL Page

Goodness gracious I had fun working with these photos! And I even managed to wrangle a project life page out at the same time. Seriously fun. It might have been because I also had a new to me stamp to play with.

Can you see that pretty purple lace stamp up in the corner? Was passed along to me by my friend Teri and I love it! Was super excited to try it.

A big background stamp and those cool water color flowers made it easy to keep the page really flat! I even used the stamp to make some background paper for my project life page. Worked awesome! I think doing the PL page at the same time as the actual layout works a lot better for me so they match!

Rocking those water color flowers and butterfly on these too! They are so much fun!

Happiest Fridays to you! I'm working tomorrow, so no doubt on Monday I'll have plenty of adventures! 

Oddly Inspired by Trash

So, the other day after I bought a bunch of socks for THE MAN, I was oddly inspired by the hanger. So inspired that I painted it antique gold and hung on to it. Around the same time, I reused a paint brush in clear varnish & let it dry that way. It was a throw away brush but the turquoise paint that I had used it for prior made me happy, so I spray painted the bottom of the brush antique gold. Last weekend I found a nice piece of cardboard for a base and started laying out some scrapbook paper with plans into making a little art piece.

A big doily found it's way onto the bottom  with some spray adhesive & then some splatters and clear sequins. Added a few more things I had found in my travels this past week...a red glass glob and a scrap metal flourish. Some thread, shabby roses, and some pretty gold leaves finished it up and voila! A nice base for a cool quote!

The metal door knob plate with a key hole & the brush became inspiration for the quote:

"The pursuit of art on a regular basis may be the key to healing our minds and bodies." Kim Blair

An odd little collection of things that make me so happy! And remind me to make ART! ;-)

Happy Tuesday!

Momming & Magnolia for Memorandum Monday

Generally speaking, my peoples here are bad at gift giving. Somehow that gene didn't get passed from my side of things to any of the kids. THE MAN generally operates under the principal of go big or go home, which means the most awesome gifts I've gotten are rare & infrequent but pretty epic. So, anyhow, nobody was getting me a mushy gushy happy Mother's Day card with the exception of maybe my Mother.

So when the oldest insisted that THE MAN run out with her to track down a magnolia and they came back with this less common but lemon yellow one called Sunsation that got planted where I can see it out of the side window? Pretty epic.

The oldest decided for Mother's Day we needed to fill some planters. Normally peeps wait until Memorial Day around these parts in case of frost, but she was insistent that we plant the onion that sprouted in the pantry. The onion got planted with some herbs while the larger pot got a combo of purple and yellow flowers. So pretty!

Meanwhile in the little Japanese garden, my new ceramic koi fish is hanging out! This was a gift from my Mom for Mother's Day and just as soon as I'm done installing more rocks, I'll find a nice spot for my little fish to swim around! So pretty!

Well, we're off to start a new week! Mine involves some travel & a house that needs to be gutted. Never a dull moment around here! Happy day after Mother's Day to you!

Waving a hello to Sian who is also a Mommy and our host for Memorandom Monday!

Dreading the Project Life

Earlier today, I made myself finish the project life page that accompanies this scrap page first, which is one way through something. Sheer will. ;-) Not sure why I am struggling so with Project Life. I imagine by my second one I might enjoy it more...I can say honestly that I started the Project Life page at least a couple of weeks ago...so it's nice it's finally done....

Opted to round my corners. I saw that somewhere and liked it, besides the corner rounder thing hasn't seen the light of day for ages and ages. Love all of Lexi's scenery photos. So pretty!

I haven't gone matchy matchy on pages that are next to each other in a book in ages! I did coordinate these though and I even made round edges on my scrap page! I'm excited to start her next set of photos she took in a monastery....betcha by then I'll rock the PL!

Happy Hump Day peeps!

Apple Blossom Peace & Joy & Love Barn Board Pallet

I have to admit I was seriously distracted when I started work on this barn board pallet. I hadn't played around with wet acrylic paints and I was loving how you could still see the wood grain showing through. Later when it was dry, I was in love with distressing with the orbital sander. Then I had all kinds of fun inking up edges, using some mist to make the ink run, and actually stamping right on the wood.

I wasn't impressed with the flowers I had originally painted, plus I sanded them off a little. So I opted to run with some fussy cut apple blossoms from a vintage image. HOURS of fussy cutting later, I was ready to add some splatter in the form of white spray paint, some gold paint, and then a clear coat.

To be honest, I used this pallet to try a whole bunch of things I wanted to play around with on wood. It was way too much fun. Since there was also wine involved with the first round, it's kinda a hodge podge. I plan on displaying it over my new laundry room sink to remind me of a really good time with friends painting. I am sure you'll see it again soon when we're done!

Happy Tuesday!

Brownies and Boards for Memorandum Monday

The oldest came home from her second day of work at her first job and said wow, it's like the best perfume ever. The house smells like new wood and baking brownies. THE MAN had been slaving away all day on the rustic cupboard we're making for the laundry room. He even found a very old board that came with the house and planed it down for the front. Kinda fits the whole repurposed nature of the piece!

A friend made the oak top earlier and it's waiting in the wings to be attached to the bottom. Tom made it from a reclaimed bunk bed! Eeek! Awesomeness! THE MAN spent most of last week gently sanding and clear coating it.

After we build a back for the bottom part that hides the ugly wall & pipes, I'll be painting the whole thing with some white semi gloss. It's possible it will even be this week, but who knows. It seems next to impossible to get work done on the house during the week.





































Hoarding a couple of vintage items I might be able to use in the room too. Those fancy book ends might be a shelf, could use a knob as a towl holder, and who knows on those little feet! It's all still a work in progress!

I feel good heading off on a Monday though with what we got accomplished!

Blogged in part for Memorandom Monday, which is Sian's brainchild over at From High in the Sky.

Pin Wheel Bouquet for THE CUTTING CAFE

The lilac has gone into overload this spring season and inspired my little sea glass colored bouquet. I love all the colors together and I especially like the scallopy pin wheels. They are part of a cutting file over at THE CUTTING CAFE called Pinwheels Sentiment Template and are super cute. I like that you can also use them for a card if you use the little printable with it.





































The pinwheels were fun to pose in the vase. I cut one of the wooden sticks just a wee bit longer than the other so one would be on top. I was also impressed with how easy the whole thing was to assemble. I'm always looking for a fun little random act of kindness and the whole project was only a couple of dollars.

I used cog hardware in the center of mine and some hot glue & twine to decorate. A little glitter glue to shimmer and these were done! Easy peasy! Monday I'll be giving them away at some point to someone who needs a little pick me up. Fun times!

Enjoy your Saturday! I'm off to work on the laundry room which will involve a trip to the hardware store and a saw...possibly some paint! I can't wait!

Drowning in a Sea of Art & Throwing a Lizzy

I think us creatives walk a fine line between being productive, happy, and making amazing work to being burnt out for a variety of reasons. I've been blogging since 2010 so I've been around the block a little. It seems to be a careful juggling act with how much you make, with how much you blog, and with how much you follow. See it's a community so you must of course look at everyone else's stuff and then you have to talk about your stuff all the while keeping up with the new stuff. Vicious. Cycle.

I think sometimes you can just over do all of it. Maybe you get sick of scrapping and blogging. Or maybe you get sick of stalking the blogs out in blog land. Or maybe seeing glitter makes you want to throw things. It's time to step back and just take a breather.

I've felt those things before myself. So I set some rules. In a weird world of where I need structure to be creative, last year I decided that I would only post four days a week or less. Blogging was starting to piss me off. Like it felt like a chore. See, I like to write, but then I don't want to be forced to blog. I also try to not post on the weekends. I write on the weekends because that's when I feel the best. Usually in the morning before everyone is up. But then I set things up to autopost so those three or four blog posts then just go live during the week each morning.

Usually nobody has to force me to create, but if you are on too many design teams, it might feel forced time to time. Sometimes when you feel the most lost and confused about what you might create though, it pushes you out of your comfort zone to make something really amazing. Some of my best work comes through that channel. However, I try to be on teams where if something came up, I could miss a post. There is enough other stress in my life, so I want to keep the voluntary work where it should be. It needs to fit into my free time & make me happy.

Years ago I felt overwhelmed with the amount of content out there in Blog Land. I really try to only subscribe via email to the blogs I want to read. It's a very small list, which probably means I get less followers. They come into my inbox so if I run out of time, I can just hit delete after taking a quick peek at the photos. I always wish I had more time to cruise around blog land, but I don't right now.

All this helps me not get burnt and crispy though!

In reality, my blog is for me. It makes me happy (for now) and I do it because I want to. The day that ceases to be a reality is when I post a note like my friend Lizzy and say, adios for now. So long and thanks for all the fish.

Hats off to you Lizzy for figuring out that you just need a wee breather. Some sun on your face and glitter glue on your hands. I hope you'll be back of course wandering around blog land and writing cool content, but if you don't make it I'll check up on you from time to time on social media!

Vintage Pretties

Ran across these very delicate pretty doilies on hoops in the ReStore shop the other day and had to hold myself back at only buying two. They were so pretty. I was actually just looking around a little as I had already picked up a framed piece for $5 and you get a stamp on your card when you buy $10 so eventually you get free ReStore cash. Was glad I had kept looking.

See, I have this thing for vintage frames which initially was what caught my eye with this piece and then I figured out pretty quick that the actual framed item was pretty cool. I love dogwoods. In fact, I have both a pink and white one blooming now in the yard. (Photos on that in a later post) The actual frame was kinda looking too shabby for my taste so I carefully covered up the center section with a carefully cut piece of paper and spray painted a little to get the color more consistent.

Right now all these items are hanging out ready for a place in the revamped laundry room. The walls are freshly painted in there and the flooring done, and the oak counter top is being glued up. More on all that later, when it's assembled!

Happy Hump Day!

Snap Chat Toad Invasion for Another Freaking Scrappy

It's not often you get to go outside and "play" with your 16 year old. See the other night, the boy and I were driving back up the driveway and the toads were out in force. I didn't have the heart to smoosh a half awake toad who just came out of winter hybernation so I asked Luke to shoo them out of the way. We then proceeded to Lexi's window & held up a tree frog. She emerged immediately, phone in hand and made me show her every single toad we saw in the driveway. She then loaded all the photos up with funny captions to her snap chat since we were being invaded by toads.





































I actually came up with this round center portion by accident. I had stumbled across a couple of sheets left over in this paper packet and decided to try to use up a lot of the paper. I had meant to cut a big circle out of one piece before sticking it down. Having forgotten that, I then tried to cut a circle anyway and part of it ripped. It then made me happy so I ran with it and added more ripped pieces. I love happy art making!

I added some little map pieces that were hanging out with the paper packet and those cool wood toad buttons. This page was made for the current challenge over at Another Freaking Scrappy. We're asking you to scrap about a pet or a toy. I'm kinda stretching the rules here since the toads are really pets and the phone isn't really a toy, but it something fun that happened recently and I wanted to share!

Hope you get a change to hop along with us over at Another Freaking Scrappy and get your page on!