A New Lay Out to Share

I thought I'd post a layout I finished a little while back. I love how it turned out. I used allot from Jenni Bowlin, and the background paper is Hambly, and the red deer are from the Friendly Forest line. It was pretty quick for me and it was a lift from the fabulous Ranjini from Scrapologie. She's now on the dt for Jenni Bowlin. Here's my page....and here's a link to her blog. Make sure you scroll down to close to the bottom of the page hers has the red soda water paper from JB click here she also posts the best vintage images. I have saved so many and plan to make an album for my mother with them.

I still have to photograph the mini I finished. And I'm hoping to to work on a few new things I just got in. My carnival kit arrived from Christine Middlecamp. If you look a few posts back you can see where I posted pics. It's awesome. I picked up the card stock I need to go with it. That one will take me awhile tho Lot's of small details.

Be Back Soon,

ttfn

Blythe has Arrived

So last week I went and bought myself Prima Dolly Adorable Aubrey. She has not arrived yet. But in the mean time this girl was gifted to me :) I just received her today.
Doesn't she remind you of the teacher in the old Christmas movie? Ya know the one where the kids couldn't have toys and Kris Kringle was her love interest? That's what she reminds me of with her hair up :)
I took her pic right out of the box. And as soon as I was done.....that hair was let down :P and I love it! Some of the ends from the bobby pins were frizzed. And of course that curl...well I did already name her she's Margie. I took her outfit off and totally wet all of her hair. The frizz was still there though. So I grabbed the Downy fabric softener and put a whole cap full on the ends and the curl. Well lesson learned.....next time don't use a whole cap full. So anyway, I rinsed out what I thought was all of the fabric softener. Then brushed her hair out.
Then I took a hand towel and a wash cloth while my iron was heating up. I layed her down and brushed her hair out in a fan type way and then placed the washcloth over her hair. I had the iron on high and shot lots of steam and ironed the washcloth. Then I'd look at her hair, then brush her hair straight and repeat the steam and iron method. I did this about 5 times. Then I took out my blow dryer on heat setting too, and blew dry her hair while brushing it. Just like I would do my own hair. I just kept the blow dryer moving so I wouldn't burn her hair.
Oh back up a bit what I did last was I pulled the long hair to the side, and stretched out the curl hair. Put the washcloth on top and shot the steam, and ironed and it was straight. No problem at all. But I will say that just washing it would not get rid of that curl. I needed to iron it out to straighten it. And I don't think you'd need the fabric soft. either on the curl.


So I couldn't bear to put that fugly outfit back on her. So she's got a fabric drape till I make her some new ones :)
Okay now for the grease lol, Her hair is greasy, like I put too much fab soft in it greazey! So I shall shampoo it out tomorrow. I did want to share some pics of how beautious her hair is though.

I'm def thinking about cutting some more off the bottom. I did trim it up a bit, not much just about a half inch. But in the close up shot on her left side is where the curl was, you can see sort of just above the fold in back of the fabric. it straightened out beautifully. She really is a pretty girl, I now can see why people change the eye chips though.
I did finally figure out which Kenner Blythe doll I had when I was a kid. On a later post I'll share the pic of me and my doll on Christmas morning. I'm still trying to get my cousin to look through her stuff to find her for me.
I've got a whole bunch of clothes for her on my wish list. But omg how expensive they are. Outfits are the same price as clothes for me. I found 2 dresses I want that are 25.00 each. I could order the few items I've found and easy drop 150.00 I could spend that on another doll, or towards another doll...like a MSR maybe ;)
So since I'm such an expert sewer I have no excuse and need to sew my girl a wardrobe! Although I have made doll clothes before just not this small.
Well that's it for now be back soon!

Another LayOut

I figured I would share all the layouts I just finished one post at a time, that will give me a good reason to blog :) right? This page has a bunch of Prima goodness. I'm using some paper from last year. I've got so much stuff I'd really like to try and put a dent in my stash. This is one of my stray cats that I took in about 7 years ago. She's a huge hunter, and given the opportunity will wipe out every small rodent within a quarter mile radius.
Suffice it to say I keep her in doors now.
In 2007 she got outside. I was working in the yard, she goes under my car, now my 5 bird feeders are about 20 feet from my car there's a small bird feeding at the closest feeder. All of a sudden Lola spots the bird, and starts running toward the feeder. Now this part was like a scene out of National Geographic where the tiger leaps up and grabs it's pray by the neck for the kill.
Now I'm farther from all this but I see her as she starts to run toward the feeder. I start yelling Lola NO. I didn't scare the bird with my yelling nor Lola. She leaps in the air grabs the bird from the feeder snatched in her mouth, lands on the ground, bird still in her mouth and runs from me. I never found the bird or her. When the sun went down Lola came home and she never got out again. I had 5 or 6 bird feeders at that house. When I moved to my apartment I'm in now I didn't put up any of my bird feeders. On occasion someone always seems to not pay attention and she gets out. So far I've only found dead moles and mice, and I like it like that. This cat is so tiny too, she must weigh about 3 or 4 pounds tops.

I did manage to get a great shot of her the other day with my Rebel, which I'll post soon. I had fun trying out the new zoom lens. I got some incredible shots of the dogs too. I'm thinking about creating a mini album with all the super pics I took.

Next week I'm planning on doing a giveaway here on the blog. I haven't decided yet what I'm gonna give away.

Be back Soon :)

A New Baby Boy???

So it's been 10 days since my daughter came home with this little savage. He's so cute but so bad. The boy laying down is my good boy Leonardo. The baby is yet to be named. But he is a peeing machine, thank god the only carpeting is in my studio, otherwise I'd be screwed (yikes). I think my dd has to crate train him for sure.

I managed to take a few pics of him with my new camera, but it was late around 6:30pm. I had to hit Best Buy for a memory card first. I really like this pic and it's all in auto mode. So I'm gonna compare pics from my Sony slr and see which one is better.

I did notice a big difference in the camera bodies between the 2. The sony has a quality body, a nice weight to it, not all plastic. And the Canon has allot of plastic on the body and imo it seems cheaply made. I don't mean terribly of course but there's just more plastic housing than on my Sony.

So I thought if I like the Canon way better I'd sell my Sony on Ebay, but after seeing how cheap the same model has sold for I think I'll just keep it.

I'll be back maybe tomorrow with another post. I want to try the camera out and take pics of more of my layouts.

So I'm off :)

New Sassafras Layout

This was the first lay out I did on my 5 day creating spree. I really wanted to take the pic with my new canon but I didn't make it in time to Best Buy this evening for a memory card. So I used my point & shoot.

This layout took me a whole day. It's hard to tell in the pic but there's allot of layers. I did allot of hand cutting the sass papers. I really like how it came out. The title idea is because both boys came from bad sections of town. The pic was taken from outside my old studio window. I put both boys ontop of my jetmax cube stacks in front of the window. Went outside and got a few great pics. The 2 are great friends and often play together. They play catch me if you can, which always ends up with Dante (the cat) winning.

I've got 3 more layout's to photograph and the mini album too.

I want to work on more but I need to do some house cleaning and then get some stuff photographed for Ebay before I can continue to play :)

The weather's looking iffy for memorial weekend. Plus my dd has to work on Monday. So if it is raining I'll make use of my time and do some more scrapping :) I need to use some of my Studio Calico kits too. I'm wanting to make another mini. Maybe I'll scrap my father's last vacation with my brother before he died. I thought about using Making Memories passport line for that one.

I also have some other news, my dd made her first large purchase a week ago Sunday. She came home with a puppy. He's cute, but aren't all puppies cute? A Pomeranian, and he's hell on wheels for sure. I'll post pics soon of him, a good excuse to use my new camera. Although I have some indoor pics of the little terror, and let's just say they show just how wild he is!

I'll be back soon with more pics :)

ttfn

My new Canon Rebel xsi

I am so excited.....I bought a brand new camera last week and it will be here tomorrow. I already have a few cameras, 2 point & shoot plus a Sony dslr camera. The Sony was one my mother gave me for Christmas a few years ago. I had always wanted a Canon Rebel, but beggars can't be choosers. So the camera is great and all but I never purchased any extra lenses because ideally I knew I would be getting the Rebel. Well last week I saw it on QVC the Canon xsi and it was available w/ 4 payments and I get to take it home now and pay for it for the next 4 months. Also this baby comes with an extra lens, the 55-250mm. It was the selling point for sure. the weather forecast for monday will be nice and sunny, so I will be takin pics for sure!

I spent the last 5 days scrapping. It has been so long since I've created and I'm long over due. And since I'm an incredibly slow scrapper I managed to complete 4 layouts and a mini album. I just have a few finishing touches to add to the mini.

I'll take pics of the layouts with my new camera tomorrow and post them. The good thing is I'm still on a creative mode so I'm gonna keep on creating for a few more days anyhow :)

You don't realize how much crap...I mean stuff you have, I think I have enough scrapbook supplies for 5 lifetimes, and kits...yikes....I have some kits from online kit clubs that I've never even touched. Some are from a few years ago, and a couple have color palettes that I really don't like. I may just pull them apart and use what I can and get rid of what I won't use.

That's it for now, I'll post again tomorrow with some of my layouts once I get my new canon up and running,

ttfn :)

Apartment Pics

Okay so ya they are pics from this past halloween in my apartment. But my living room has been hijacked. That's right, "hi jacked"! My ex husband whom I've been divorced from for 17 years was in a bad way. He ended up in the hospital for some bad mental health issues. And after what my daughter had told me, and for the fact that no one would take him in. I mean not even his family! This is the same man that made 35.00 an hour with lots of over time. And never paid a cent in child support. He has absolutely nothing now. His belongings can fit in one van load.

So this all took place last October 20th, that's right I remember the exact day! I offered up my sofa which incidentally is a 72" camel back sofa. Which he has ruined. So we're going on our 6th month and I'm so done I can't even tell you. My electric bill nearly doubled along with all my other utilities. He leaves my large screen tv on 18 hours a day and I am the one to shut it off. He only watches sports and has completely taken over my living room. I put our Christmas tree in my over sized kitchen. He told me he'd be gone before Christmas. Well that was a lie. So I told my daughter that he has to be out before the one year mark. I know I should be telling him, but sometimes I have no backbone!
He received some cash from the state just under a grand for the back months since he'd applied. He did not offer me a cent of that money. I said that as long as he saves it towards an apartment I didn't care. But that has not been the case. He went from having a pre paid cell phone plan (which cost him 25.00 per month) to a family plan from T Mobile (cost 102. per month)and came home with a Blackberry. I nearly fell over. Here's a man with out a country so to speak and he signs up for a phone plan with his younger daughter. I was pissed to say the least but have gotten over it. So the latest is he took his 13 yr old dd and got her belly button pierced. I think that runs about 60 bucks in our area.
So today my electric bill came in and I handed it to him and my daughter and said you two can split it. He let her pay the whole 104.00 dollar bill. granted she works a full time job and 10 hours at another part time job. But I would never ask her to pay for anything. It's because he's jacked my bills up.

OMG I have so rambled on here. Ugh sorry. I guess the fact that I can't have my apartment back has really pissed me off big time. Not to mention that he's already broken about 4 antique pieces of mine.

Okay let's talk about happy things!!! My first pic is a shot of my living room, the rug hanging on the right side of the wall is one I hooked. I copied it from my favorite book called Season's, put out through Country Living. Barnes and Noble sells it, if you love vintage chippy garden style furniture you've got to check out the guys who house is in this book.

The second pic is of a potato chip case I've had for 15-20 yrs, I use it as a display case for all my vintage halloween decorations. My fave piece is that black cat on the left side, it's a table decoration and has crepe paper for the skirt. I plan on selling kits for this project in the fall. I paid 97.00 for that piece on Ebay awhile back.

This pic is a corner in my kitchen. I love my blue scale, I bought that at a antique shop in CT I think called Strawberry Fields, I think it's close to where Bill Cosby has a house. It was I think 120.00 when I got it.

The last is a pic from standing at my sink and aiming toward my back door. I've wanted to paint the kitchen cabinets in this apartment. There an ugly stain with about an inch of lacquer....and the floor, man I can do wonders with apartment floors but this floor I think is beyond my magic! It's a square self stick type, and it's grey and dirt....I mean in it's day it was grey but over time someone lovingly mop and glowed and thought nothing of cleaning the floor first. Naw why do 2 steps if you can just mop and glow the dirt right in....so it needs to be stripped. I'm almost tempted to pay and have it linoleumed the right way. We shall see, if spring ever decides to come to Ct and I get spring fever and the urge to clean I shall tackle these projects. Also my landlord painted the whole place a grey color which I like to call it cellar floor grey and all the trim is white. That I don't really mind. It's such a bright place, and my scrap studio is on the west side and the light is fantastic. And I spend so much time in there.

So show and tell is over, and boy I fell much better. See I just saved myself a load of cash. Whys that you say? Well because now I don't have to go unload my problems with a therapist! Ha how's that one, now I can go and buy myself something for all the money I just saved.

I'm done with my rant so ta ta for now!!!