Copic markers are that damn good...

...so good that they can get me to come back from a blogging hiatus the likes the blogosphere has heretofore never seen. Or something. Anyway, Copic graciously provided me with some of their Ciao markers, and I had a fist-full already, and then I bought some more, and then I wrote this article for Craft Critique.

And in that article, (which you would know if you went there and read it) I said I would post the individual photos I took while doing the coloring for the card I made for my kid, Max.

Here's where I started. Well, not really. But the first couple of photos turned out like crap. Bear with me.






























The pictures speak a thousand words, which is good, because I'm tired from all this blogging already ;-)

The Stamping Scientist requires an intervention...

The sewing bug bit me hard. Worse (better?) it's a clothing altering bug, so I'm a frequent flyer at Goodwill, looking for stuff to turn into other stuff. Seriously. I'm a VIP member at Goodwill. They send me coupons and everything. Coupons at Goodwill. Bygones... I'm not too proud for 20% off!

Here's a shirt I got at Goodwill for $3.50 (minus 20%, so $2.80, no sales tax in Delaware):



Here's what I turned it into:



and the back:



also, how cute is my kid? I know... I'm stunned on a daily basis.

In other sewing news, I found an awesome pattern at youcanmakethis.com that FINALLY allows me to use the trash bags full of decorator samples I got ($5 per BAG) when my local Interior Alternative moved to a new location. I actually bought three of her patterns, and love them all. I also love supporting independent pattern designers like Mary of Sweet Pea Totes.

Anyway, here's the front:



the back:



interior zip pocket:

(by the way, the pattern doesn't include the interior zip pocket, but I added one because I like practicing my zippers)

interior patch divided pocket



interior with Martha Stewart Living mag for scale. It's a roomy tote:



I haven't decided on the handles yet. Well, that's not entirely true. I did one set of handles and then LOST one of them SOMEWHERE in my craft room (actually, I think one of my gremlins snuck over from the playroom and made off with it), which was fine, because I didn't like them all that much anyway. But I'll figure it out.

This one is mine, but I'm planning on making more for my etsy shop. Every time I look at it I get happier!

Oh hey...

I won a yard of free fabric from Sew, Mama, Sew, the awesomest little fabric shop and blog in the whole wide internet. They have fabulous tutorials and a little forum for chatting and fab info too. And every week they give away fabric and other goodies.

Anyway, I won last week, and decided to place an order (I barely need an excuse at all anymore). It arrived today (totally fast!), and I'm just thrilled with it! Much love to Sew, Mama, Sew!

Sew I'm thinking...

maybe I ought to change the name of this blog to "Sewing Science" because that's all I seem to do anymore (or maybe I should say "seam to do" ha ha ha, I slay me).

Anyway, my friend Emilie sews (as well as being a scrapbooking goddess), and got me hooked on Presser Foot. They're having a shirt-dress sew-along based on this tutorial right 'chere.

I had an UGLY (but Lucky Brand, honest!) shirt of mine laying around, so I went to town. Actually, I went to my sewing room.

I started with this:

that's a lot of ugly in one place.

I wound up with this:



and a close-up of sorts:



I'll admit that I cheated on the belt... that's actually a stretchy headband I had that never fit my head. I have a weird head. And never throw anything away. The ugly shirt is WAY cuter as a Jenny dress, but then, anything's cuter with a little Jenny in it ;-)

I've been sewing purses. LOTS of purses. Good ones too. Good enough to sell. So I'm gonna. I'll be putting them up in my Etsy shop shortly (or, you know, whenever I get around to it. Or maybe never. Depends on my mood).

My grandmother's birthday is next week, so I'm bound to stamp something absolutely stunning soon. Really.

what's this then?

I received a package from PaperTrey Ink today with my "free" "gift with purchase" "anniversary" set. Here's the thing: I didn't realize that I had even bought 12 sets last year, as I had to put the kibash on spending hard last year, and PTI was on the cut list. So, I totally wasn't expecting it, and now I'm happy.

I guess I'm lucky, because there's a debate RAGING on SplitCoast about whether or not we earned the set, or if it's free, or if we paid for it, or what not, and WHY IS IT TAKING SO LONG TO GET HERE?! and guess what. I never even participated in the in the drama (or, really, even knew about the drama), because I didn't think I was getting the set, and now I have the set, and I'm happy.

Happy is good. Happy has been hard for me lately. So I'm all for happy.

I'm so happy that I'll probably stamp something with it tonight. Maybe.

Go find something to make you happy.

tap, tap, tap... is this thing on?

Turns out that when you ignore something on the internet long enough, it still exists. Well, the blog anyway, I don't know if my readers will re-materialize!

So, nothing crafty to show you (although I've been busy, honest), but I wanted to document my family's baby bird rescue, and you all get to watch ;-)

Lexi, our dog, is an Australian Shepherd, and was bred to be a caretaker. She's super gentle with the kids, and has now been responsible for saving two baby animals in our yard. She's six kinds of awesome. Anyway, her latest rescue was this baby robin:



She found it in the yard, gave it a little nudge with her nose, and came to get me immediately (I guess she learned from the time she carried the baby rabbit to me and I was less than thrilled). She's so smart.

I put on my gloves and put it in a bucket before grabbing my camera and the kids.


Adults in the photo are slightly less haggard than they appear:



Thanks to the magic of Google, we determined that the best thing to do was to put it in a basket and hang it on the shady side of the tree. Luckily, I never throw ANYTHING away, and had an old plastic planter just hanging around (pun intended, lol). I added some rocks to the bottom to keep it stable, and put some grass clippings on top, to keep the bird snuggly.



My husband hung it from a reasonably high branch on the north side of the tree that we found the bird under. Hopefully Mama Robin will be back to reclaim our little buddy soon!

Beware the Ides of March!

Sorry, I couldn't resist... poor Julius Caesar and his salad dressing never had a chance.

I've been a busy craft monkey (which is only slightly different than a crack monkey, I know this because I birthed two crack monkeys), but haven't been photographing much. THE HORROR! I know! Maybe because a couple of my photo lights crapped out on my and now it looks like I've been taking pictures in the basement (which, as it turns out, is true). I can fix only so much in photoshop...

Whatever... here's a project that I whipped up for a little girl who invited Max to her 6th birthday party:

Journal=$.50, frame=$1.00, photo book=$2.00, paper, tape, etc.=$1.00 total cost=$4.50, if that.

One benefit to crappy lighting? The glitter sparkles! Huh. Who knew? All these people complaining about not being able to photograph glitter; it ain't rocket science, just turn off half your lights. There's my public service announcement for the day ;-)

WOWZA!

Go here immediately and comment on this post. I'm so mad that I work for Craft Critique, because I can't enter, and I REALLY WANT TO ENTER ;-)

Then come back here and tell me how much I rock.

Geniosity...

I didn't think of this, but I'm totally going to do it. It's like they knew I was totally over-run in jars and pics of my kids! SO CUTE!

I made a card

for a friend who lost a good friend. I don't like to make sympathy cards, mostly because I don't want to have to use them. But I really like this new Stampin' Up! set.



I'm keeping her in my thoughts.

SHE SCRAPS?!

Well, no. Not really. I have really good intentions, and a studio full of supplies, but I don't scrapbook. Despite having the world's cutest kids. Until today! I'm in the process of re-doing my (not-so) baby girl's room, and needed something to hang on the wall. So I literally took a page out of my friend Emilie's book (I believe you scrapbookers call it scraplifting), and voila!

Be gentle... it's my first time!

The jounaling reads:
Jenny got a new doll for Christmas, and she hasn't put it down since! She's always carrying "Babies," unless she's pushing her in the stroller, or putting her down for a nap. This doll is loved!

The colors are way brighter in real life, just like Jenny's new room!

Now then, close your laptop and go do something you've been meaning to do but have never gotten around to doing!

The Accidental Meatloaf (RECIPE, sort of)

Last night, I accidentally made the very best meatloaf I've ever had. It's a variation of Emilie's Awesome Meatloaf, but, of course I didn't have any of the right ingredients, so I winged it:

Dana's Oh. My. Word. Meatloaf.
1 Pound hamburger
1 pound breakfast sausage (yes, really)
1/2 bag of herb-seasoned stuffing (the crumb stuff that I always buy by mistake at Thanksgiving)
1 can of Progresso Hearty Tomato Soup
1 onion
a handful of mushrooms

Put the hamburger in a bowl. Cut the casings off of the sausage links, remove the sausage from the casings, and add them to the bowl (the links, not the casings... that would be nasty).

Dump 1/2 bag of stuffing into the bowl (I used Pepperidge Farms because it doesn't have milk or eggs in the ingredient list, but you can use whatever)

Put the mushrooms, onion & tomato soup in your food processor, and puree the daylights out of them. Dump the puree into the meat bowl. Mix everything together with your hands. Just get in there and do it, quit being a baby about it.

Throw the mixture into whatever pan you normally use for meatloaf. I actually packed the mixture into a regular-sized muffin pan, and made meatloaf muffins. I did that because it increases the surface area, and more surface area means more outer crust (<--- see that? that's science), and everybody knows that's the best part. I took the extra meatloaf mix and made meatballs, threw them on a cookie sheet, and put them in the oven at the same time as the meatloaf muffins.

Bake @ 350 F for a while. Like 40 minutes maybe? I took the internal temp of one of the muffins and made sure it was at least 160 F so that nobody would keel over and trace it back to me. I let the meat muffins sit for a while because the side dishes weren't ready yet. Story of my life.

Anyway, had I known how moist, tender and delish this meatloaf would be, I totally would have photographed the process like all those super cool food bloggers do.

You'll notice I didn't use eggs. My kid is allergic to eggs. If you want to use eggs, cut back on the soupy liquid puree stuff a little. I guess. Wing it!

SHE LIVES!

Dude. What happened to January? We're all rebounding from yet another visit from the dreaded stomach bug, and let me tell you, it wasn't pretty. You know what is pretty? These cards I made. I got my SU! shipment today, and I did something I've never done... I opened a pack of designer paper (Raspberry Tart) AND USED IT. On the very first day it came to live here. AND, even more astonishing, I did not buy two packs of this paper, so I don't have a back up. Granted, I only used a 4" x 12" strip for these three cards, but it's all about the baby steps.



I couldn't decide where I wanted the greeting block, so I moved it around. Oh, and I love this stamp, but I think the flower in the corner is ugly, so I covered it with a bow. Because I can do that.

Here's a close-up:




In continued evidence of my awesomeness, I'm putting all of these in the mail on Friday. They're already addressed and stamped! So there!

I'll be back sooner than later (for real) I have a bunch of stuff up my sleeve!

Another fab Craft Critique give-away

Emilie Ahern rocks my socks on a regular basis. She just posted an awesome article with a great digi-scrap giveaway right ---> Craft Critique: Glitz Digital & Paper Collections + a GIVE-AWAY!!!

Go check it out and leave a comment... you can't win if you don't play!

Oh, and I can't enter the contest, but for future reference, my butt-shaking song is "Rubberband Man" by the Spinners. You'd recognize it from the Office Max commercials where the dude with the crazy hair is pushing the cart delivering mail.

Happy New Year!

I'm calling December 2008 "the lost December" due to illness and typical holiday madness. I will say that the stress/anxiety didn't get to me this year, so the miracle of modern medicine is doing its job (Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is a refill of my Lexapro... THANX!).

My migraines are getting to be under control, and my kids are only making me mildly crazy, so I'd say 2009 is off to a good start.

I don't normally make New Year's resolutions (doesn't everybody start sentences that way?!), but this year, I'm going to publicly state this list... maybe if I see it in print I'll do a better job with it!

• Spend my money locally, in independent shops, whenever possible.

• When it is not possible, support independent web merchants and Etsy shops.

• Farmer's Market, Farmer's Market, Farmer's Market.

• Play outside with the kids & dog more often. Even when it's cold. Even when I don't feel like it.

• Wii Fit. Everyday. Even just a few minutes is better than nothing.

• Read more books. And not just popular chick-lit either. I have a house full of classics that need some attention.

• Spend less time on the computer. My laptop with wireless internet connection has become WAY too familiar with my lap. I don't need to be constantly connected.

• Write more. I'm working on a book. There. I said it out loud.

• Cull the clothes and other usable stuff that we don't use, and give it to those who WILL use it. Really. The house is pushing maximum density, and it makes everyone miserable.

• Keep the house company-ready to the point where I wouldn't be embarrassed if a friend stopped by and asked to use my bathroom.

So, that's 10 things I'm going to work on this year. Now I'm going to bundle the kids up, and go out to play!