Basketball with....?

Okay, okay, so we're sitting hundreds of feet away, so all you get is vague fuzz, but can you guess who we watched a Wizards-Bulls basketball game with last Friday?

Recognize the famous profile of one of Washington DC's newest residents?

We were told there might be a special guest when we got to the Verizon Center and had seen a street blocked of all traffic once we were off the metro, but we didn't register what 'special' meant until the crowd on the floor started to go wild.

And here comes President Obama!

I don't care who you voted for, that was a bit of a thrill. My daughter freaked out with excitement and she could barely watch the rest of the game for watching to see what the President might be doing. Our little photo is equally fuzzy, but yes, we will have the memories of a great girl's night out on the town.

For the record, the Wizards won. Woot!

Blast dreary wet weather

I wanted to take a few photos of my shopping haul from last weekend with Rosemary. We thought it was time to do our small part to stimulate the economy. With the relatively good deals we got, it was a very small part indeed, but we did come away with lovelies. Hope to play show and tell with those later.

Only recently was I able to reconnect with Rosemary. She had been a favorite customer (among many wonderful customers, we were so lucky) when I worked in my local scrapbook store, but unbeknownst to both of us at the time, we are both mad for vintage. Think of all the time we wasted talking paper and embellishments only when we could've thrown in some really fun talk about incorporating vintage elements into our work! Not to mention ooohing and aaaahing over cute stuff in cold outbuildings.

did manage to grab some semi-decent light for these photos...

My first scrapbook page in ages and it is from well over a year ago. Scandal, scandal! No, really I'm not worried about it too much. Where's the fun if I feel as though I'm in a time crunch? And truly, I've not felt the call of the scrap for a while. I've been more into art projects, journaling and cardmaking. I felt like I got the two patterned papers mixed up, but then my daughter came home and loved the page. Couldn't very well change it then, could I? Super simple, super fast, super colorful; just like she is.
This little journal was a lot of fun and pretty much out of my box entirely. It's from a project by Elsie Flannigan and Rachel Denbow. Of course, I changed it (as we were encouraged to do) up by using some of that diecut felt that I have no fewer than 10 rolls laying about here and there. I also (gasp!) used an entire package of flower brads. Don't pass out. They were Target $1 spot brads. Never fear, my coolio Basic Grey and Heidi Swapp brads are still closely guarded. For the moment.
This card was fun and I'm probably keeping it in the family. I'll give it to hubby so I can steal it back at a later date and hang it up on my inspiration board. Sneaky, I am. Those are the some of the upcycled buttons forming my makeshift flowers. I took a few Heidi Swapp journaling spots and punched them, then offset and popped them up. The stems are one line from a package of old Basic Grey rubons. This whole card is scrappy leftovers of really old stuff and I love it so much, I'm planning to make sure it sticks around to get even older. As in older than dirt (which is what my kids tell me I am these days).
February is coming to a close and the Valentine goodies are long packed away, but the pink never entirely disappears here. Just a couple of pale pink goodness photos here at home that makes me happy!
Lurve tea cups with these little phrases on them. They make you feel as though relationships were a treasure to people in another era.

Of this I am sure

1. Cadbury Caramel eggs are straight from the Devil.

2. Cadbury mini eggs are as well.

3. In point of fact, I believe all holiday candy is straight from the Devil.

In need of a candy exorcism,
Casii

Upcycling: The Pin-Ups

I lurve Jenni Bowlin something fierce. Her simple, graphic, vintage style adapts well to so many artsy occasions. She's just introduced these cute as a bug chipboard buttons at winter CHA that have storybook graphics or text on them. Very, very cool.

I have these clear buttons that I bought way back when I was working part time in my local scrapbook store (where I fully spent each and every paycheck on whatever came in each week). I think Junkitz or 7Gypsies made them. We all just had to have them, in vast quantities.

Only, duh, I have barely touched them.

I have all this old sheet music, atlases and pages from old books.

And I hoard it all, barely touching it.

So, seeing Jenni's new chipboard buttons, I got to thinking. And what I got to thinking was nothing new or particularly original, but it was a way for me to upcycle supplies I already have on hand and actually PUT THEM TO USE dagnabbit!

And here are my upcycled buttons recreated as push-pins...All ready to hang artsy creations on an inspiration board or in my case, the wall of my studio where I am free to poke holes into the drywall willy nilly. Or I could bundle up some on cardboard squares as cool gifties.

Here you can see a few of my precision instruments, most notably, the toothpicks. I find this to be the easiest, least fussy way to apply the E6000 glue to bond the thumb tacks and buttons. What's missing is the adhesive I used to glue the paper onto the buttons. In my case, I used Club Scrap's bookbinding adhesive, but Mod Podge, K&Co craft glue or any favorite adhesive should work just fine. What is also missing is the sandpaper I used to sand excess paper off after I roughly cut around the papered buttons. For added embellishment, more buttons can be glue on in layers. This is also a great way to winnow down a stash of a bazillion buttons. (like the little cards of push pins in this post: Little packages )I also have a nice little supply of ready made buttons that will be great embellishments for future projects. They'll wait in this pink dish beside my bowl of glittered chipboard. (Now have I racked up enough recycling points to go ahead and buy all that Jenni Bowlin stuff I'm dying to have?)

Yes, I'm a spoiled brat. And I love it!

We did our Valentine celebrating early this year. Last weekend, I got a little card left on my mirror inviting me to join my hubby for this: It was like watching a cross between the Muppets and an acid trip (not that I'd know what that's like. my biggest flashy drug moments have been with migraine meds) with, um, full puppet nudity. While I wanted to cover the ears of the little girl sitting two rows ahead of us, I loved it! And it was even better for going with some good friends of ours. All the way home, we were singing what we could remember of the songs which pretty much breaks down into~It sucks to be me, it sucks to be you, we're all a little bit racist (told you it was wild).

And I'm still blown away by the generosity of my swap partner from a Year of Color. Lisa blew me away with her generosity. She totally pegged me and my style with the goodies she put in my package. And the collage she created is stunning.

I've already put the little sewing case to good use. I'm in love with it's creamy white and aqua lines. Perfection! And I'm afraid to use the vintage seam binding. It's so lovely to look at in the crinkly old packaging. (but I will use it, seam binding is probably in my top 5 of art supplies) I saved my own hubby's Valentine card for last. His office is right next to my little studio and while he usually keeps his door shut, he travels through my area quite a bit. I have to be somewhat sneaky to make anything for him. Usually the best plan of action is to work in stages, so as to create befuddlement and confusion. Oh, heck, who am I kidding? He probably only gives a casual glance to whatever I'm doing unless I specifically call it to his attention. Still, I like to imagine myself creating something lovely under the cover of secret operatives....

To handily throw him off the trail, I reached into my darkest drawer to pull out the base of my creation, a brown paper bag. Then I subjected it to the rigors of the sewing machine, some handcut felt, old sheet music and whatnot (that's an official supply from now on) to make his card. And to adhere to my 'use it up' philosophy for the season, all of the whatnot is current stash, but if McGuyver can fashion a laser beam to burn through a door with a ball point pen and some used Doublemint gum (um, ewwwwww!), I can make a card dagnabbit. And I added some of that vintage seam binding as a closure later. So what if I need a few more supplies than McGuyver?

Hair Apparent

Kim at Scraps of Life won the No Frizz goodie and loads of other samples I'm tossing in this little box, so Kim, send me your snail mail addy and I'll get this in the post to you ASAP!

I had hoped to post that on Saturday night, but a sinus infection meant looking at a computer screen for more than 15 seconds added hours to my misery. Almost a month ago, I caught what I thought was a vicious cold, got a lot better and it came back with a vengeance late last week. It felt like my head was trying to leave the host body. If funky colored body fluids amounted to weight loss, I would've been shopping in the tween stores at the mall last week. That's how horrid it was! Turns out it was an infection that was probably exacerbated by our weather which can't decide to be deep, dark winter or balmy springtime. Perhaps my head will at last decide the host body isn't all that freaky and stay put for a while now.

While I was in the midst of working and being sick and school lockdowns, I got the sweetest package from my Year Of Color swap partner. I've got to take a few photos for show and tell. She made a collage for me that is heartbreakingly lovely. I was truly spoiled! Can't wait to show it off.

That's the kind of excitement I can live without!

(if you have hair and like free stuff {who doesn't like free stuff? If you don't like free stuff, I'm a bit worried about you dearie} leave a comment on the previous blog post for a Saturday drawing!)

I got a call from my son's school this morning. I see their number on caller i.d. (how did we live without caller i.d.?) and automatically think he's hurt or ill. But when I say hello, I get an automated voice message telling me that there is a campus emergency and all students are to remain in place until told otherwise.
I felt an icy spot of fear form in my chest. Through texting and more voice messages from school, it seems a bullet was shot into a third floor window of one of the dorms. The police were called in and after a few tense hours, they are no longer on lockdown.
I am so thankful for the system that his school has in place and that they kept us informed as well as possible through the lockdown. On the whole, I'm not an alarmist, but when it's my baby involved, I get all Mama bear-like. The school did the right thing here and I'll be sure to give them the positive feedback.

Now for the right, but quirky, kind of excitement....

I'll admit it, I'm a dork. I've been a bit of a tree hugger before being intimate with trees was even on the radar. I remember freaking out as a little girl when we carried our trash way out into the back yard and burned it in a barrel. Of course, with the exception of renting in town while we built a home and a few months in third grade, we always lived in the boonies. There was no such thing as a trash truck. If you didn't burn it, you had to collect it and haul it to the landfill yourself.
As an adult, when we bought our first home it came with a recycling bin and I've been faithful to fill that sucker to the brim each week for the past several years, even to the point where I've gotten nasty grams from the recycling truck for having too much cardboard in my bin. (those prompted nasty grams back. did they want me to trash the cardboard instead?)
Our county is in the midst of a debate because our landfill is almost at capacity. Some people want to dig a new area. Some want to build an incinerator (a lot of NIMBY on that one). In the meantime, some of our trash is getting trucked to other counties and states. The argument is far from over.
One little light of hope is that the county is expanding our recycling program to a single-stream bin which is freaking HUGE compared to our previous one and I don't have to meticulously break everything down and separate it to within an inch of its life. My daughter got a bit of that fish-eyed freaky look when she saw my excitement over that big blue baby. You would've thought someone had just delivered a new (vintage) 1967 cherry red convertible Mustang to my front door. But no, it's my pretty new blue bin and I love her. I hope to see all of her friends gathered at the curb on collection day from now on.
That's the kind of excitement I can live with!