random.on purpose.

We Did It!

So - Sherry and I made a pact before the start of the new year that we WOULD get together every month on or about the 25th with the specific purpose of creating things for Christmas.  We often have good intentions that go by the wayside, but we actually really did get together yesterday for our January meet-up!  Advent calendars were the project du jour, and here's the prototype:

And - since this fortnight's Jingle Belles challenge is to use inchies and I already had everything out anyway - I made a card:

I went in search of a 1" square punch last week, because it is SO difficult to get little tiny squares all nice and even with a paper trimmer, but I was unsuccessful - guess I'll have to order one online...  Ignore the slightly wonky ones on the card, k?  I really did try!

And there's that!  I have to get to work now, since the bills don't pay themselves, but I'm glad that Sherry and I spent the day doing something creative and following through on a "resolution" of sorts!  Happy Hump Day!

Products used:  Stamps: Close to My Heart Magical Days, Inkadinkado Warm Winter Wishes, Stampin'Up! Fancy Flexible Phrases, Stacey Yacula for Purple Onion Designs Santa; Ink: Stampin'Up! Cherry Cobbler, Pacific Point and Old Olive, Close to My Heart Garden Green and Twilight; Memento Tuxedo Black; Paper: Stampin'Up! Cherry Cobbler, Me and My Big Ideas snow dp, Georgia Pacific white; Tools/Accessories: Bic and Spectrum Noir markers, Stampin'Up! Curly Label punch, Spellbinders Labels Two die, Marchy Uchida tag punch, Offray and Hobby Lobby ribbon, jingle bells, Bind-It-All

Almost Instant, Almost Free Art

Good morning, all!  I still consider myself pretty high up the heirarchy of CHEAP royalty.  Case in point: some of the ways I add decor to my home.  Today's post features ways to decorate walls for next to nothing.  First up, this is what I have above the buffet in my dining area:

Here's a closeup of one of the pics:

All four of them cost a whopping $2.00!  I got the frames on clearance for 50 cents apiece, and the "art" is sections cut from this wallpaper border that I've had for a few centuries now:

Cut a section, stick it in the frame, repeat three more times, hang them all up - done!

On a shelf in my bathroom, we have this:

See that teeny-tiny frame on the teeny-tiny easel (which was a garage-sale find)?  I have a stack of Hallmark cards from "back in the day" that were watercolors by Marjolein Bastin.  The envelopes were decorated to match the cards.  That little bit of artwork in that little frame was cut from one of the envelopes.  I also use greeting cards themselves, sometimes:

The companion for this picture is a mix-up, collage-y type affair:

Some pretty silky fabric, a doily (one that my grandmother made), an ancient spoon (tarnish and all), some dried rosebuds, sheer ribbon and - you guessed it - a note card!  All found around my house for free...

We're turning our recently-finished basement into a music room of sorts (Greg just bought some drums and my bass guitar will now have a home more suitable than the guest room closet).  It's not a man-cave, exactly, but the decor is definitely not "foofy".  The way to go here?  Got any t-shirts from concerts or reunions or schools or whatever that you don't wear but don't want to trash?  Me, too!  I wrapped them around frames and pinned them in the back and hung them on the wall:

Greg's band used to play a lot of bike events and bars, so we've got a few shirts hanging around.  Quite a few pins from different rides, too.  I added those to fill up the expanse of black on the "Bikers for Bones" (Arthritis Foundation) shirt:

Take a look around your space and see what you can use to decorate without breaking the bank.  I'll bet you have more than you think!  Just think outside the box a bit and get creative...

That's it for today - thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

Play a Little

I made myself a promise to actually use some of the crafty things I've acquired, rather than just continue to add to the collection(s).  I also really missed doing the Jingle Belles challenges last year.  With both of those thoughts in mind, I took  a minute last night to make this:

The challenge - which ends today - was to use something old and something new.  I blew the dust off of my old (reaaallly old!) chalks and used them with some new stamps from Recollections and Close to My Heart.  I also used an old idea I had last year that Lydia (Understand Blue) turned into an honest-to-goodness tutorial for the glowing lights.  The tutorial can be found on Splitcoast Stampers HERE, and the reference to "gregzgurl" would be me :)

So - first challenge of the year done, and a promise fulfilled just a bit!  Here's to gaining momentum on resolutions, promises, tweaks and other such-like positives this year!  Later, loverlies!

A New Look

This past spring and summer Greg and I tackled the long-awaited kitchen remodel.  Above is the view looking from the back door into the kitchen, and you can just see past the pantry to the staircase and front door (yes, our house is small).  Here's a view looking from the other side of the room towards the window:

We're pretty pleased with the outcome.  The cabinets are actually a cherry bordeaux finish and have more red in them than the pics show.  We did all of the work ourselves except the hardwood floor (which a friend of a friend did for WICKED cheap), the installation of the gas line for the stove ($50), and all of the electrical (for which I exchanged my reupholstering services rather than laying out cash - I LOVE bartering!)

That marble tile backsplash is a lot prettier than my tinfoil tile, isn't it?  In case you care, it did hold up very well until we smashed it all out to extend the wall and start over...  Don't remember that?  Here's a reminder:

And the how-to for the project is on the DIY Projects tutorial page (link in the sidebar), if you'd like to check it out...  Oh - and that awful closet that I had to disguise with the message center door (same page as the tinfoil tile) is GONE, and we extended the remaining wall 15" so I could have a pantry.  I'm glad that I could get rid of my stop-gap, good-enough-for-now solutions to various structural/design dilemmas - I'm MUCH happier with the new and improved surroundings!

I'm getting closer to "regularly scheduled programming", but thought I'd give you something to look at in the meantime...  Ta for now!

Yeah - I REALLY Meant It!

Notice anything new about the blog?  Yeah - it's pretty nekkid!  Here's what I've done:

• Weeded out the "fluff" of previous posts - things that didn't matter to me any more, things that were not representative of anything past or present that I felt needed to be "out there", etc.
• What was left after the weeding out is now accessible by using the links in the navigation bar across the top of the page or the links in the sidebar.
• Tutorials were grouped by type onto a single page (for each type), philosophical musings and such are on the "Commentary Archives" page, any things I've made that aren't in my Splitcoast Stampers gallery (which is where the "gallery" link will take you) are on the "Special Projects" page.
• Where possible, I've included when something was originally posted, in case it matters to anyone (also so I'd have a frame of reference for myself).

My plan for the future of this blog is to post whenever and about whatever moves me in the moment.  I'll add things to the appropriate category pages as I go, in addition to leaving them in the regular chronologically ordered pages.  At the end of the year, anything not deemed worthy to be added to those pages will be deleted.  My goal is to have a blog that is relatively easy to navigate, and one that has content worth reading.

I'll be adding other categories (like Storage/Organization) and getting a new profile pic (seven years later, I think it's about time) and a few other tweaks, but there's the explanation of what's going on so far.  I've also been purging and organizing and arranging like crazy, so I'll be functional soon and get back to making things and taking pictures and sharing things I find around the internet and such-like again SOON!

If you have any questions or comments, I'd love to hear them!  Shoot me an email (address under my pic in the sidebar) or add a comment here!  Further bulletins as events warrant...

A Fresh Start

I had NO idea that it had been nearly a full year since my last blog post, but there it is...  Rather than go into a long discussion of what/where/when/why, let me just say this:  I've cleaned house and eliminated a lot of my previous posts.  The remaining posts are searchable using the "Archives" button at the top of the page (to see all of them) or by clicking on the individual category button in the sidebar for the category that you'd like to peruse.  As far as future posts, they will likely cover a wide variety of interests, and I plan to add a "search this blog" box to aid in keeping things streamlined.  Some of the previously-posted ideas will be consolidated into a page or two instead of the scattered posts where they previously resided.  This quote pretty much sums up where I'm coming from these days:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

I feel that I've largely squandered mine, and I'm on a mission to change that this year.  You are more than welcome to come along with me, and I certainly hope you do!  Happy New Year!