082112 Well Bust My Buttons!

What a lovely surprise in my inbox today!

I've been awarded (blushing) a Liebster Blog Award.

Humble thanks to Sassy Breese at Muddle Puddle.

All I can say is, "Shucks!"

I hope it's okay that I swiped part of her post, as follows:

The purpose of this award is to give to novice bloggers the chance to make themselves known. It's hard to excel in the plethora of blogs and to become established. A regular readership is important to be perceived in the depths of the www. The award is to be given to bloggers who inspire you and have recorded fewer than 200 regular readers in their followers list. (*LOL - I have one!)

Anyone who has received the award should have the pleasure to give the "Liebster Blog Award" to five other bloggers, who meet the above requirements. If you have received this award, you should do the following:

Post the award on your blog;

Link to your Nominator, as a little thank you!

Give the award to five bloggers that have less than 200 regular followers and inform them about the award.

 

I knew RIGHT AWAY who would get the first one:  Lynnette at Sassyscrapper! With a total gift at blogging since day one I am inspired by her scrappy skills & enlightened by her tutorials. Congratulations, dear virtual friend!

Second is Magda at m loves paper who takes beautiful photographs & makes wonderful scrapbook pages.

Third is Ashli at Purple Mailbox.com - The Artsy Craftsy Pursuits of Soaphouse Mama who is enticing me into future messy forays into the wild side of scrapping/crafting. (I hope she qualifies - 150+ subscribers)

Fourth is Julie at His Glory Girl "giving her life story to God one page at a time."

Last but not least? Susanne at Snaps and Snippets. She has a marvelous blog voice & wonderful projects & pages.

Ooooh! This is fun - like being given a magic wand & the power to spread a little joy & love. Can't wait to see where this leads from here - enjoy the ride!

081812 The Gilded Inspiration Wall

Remember this teaser?

Let's begin and see where I am going with this!

This was my big $10.00 score at a local antiques mall.

Pretty good for a Renoir, huh?

Of course it's printed on cardboard, lol!

But it's the frame I'm after.

My knight in shining armor cuts an insert for me :~) 

And this will become a wonderful chalkboard!

Now to decide on an arrangement for my inspiration wall.

I measured off the size of the space on the floor.

This one seems off-balance...

This arrangement looks better.

 

Now to transfer it to the wall.

This is now the view from my scrapdesk!

The portrait is of Aunie.

The empty frame at the top will be strung with a banner - so fun!

The 2 empties at the bottom remain without inspiration as yet.

Any suggestions?

The leopard print fabric top left covers foam core to make a bulletin board.

The bottom left frame is backed with chicken wire 

& I've used mini clothespegs to hold bits & bobs.

The mirror is minus it's County Fair ribbon (seen 

on the desk) & glitter "E" but they will return.

It looks exactly as I pictured it! So happy

Here's the long view...

 Kitty likes it!

Some of my favorite pretties :~)

Coming soon: the rest of the story,

or how I finished off the rest of the space,

including the dreaded closet...

081612 My Super Hero

Well my favorite challenge site is celebrating it's one year anniversary this week! Congratulations to Pam & Lisa at Whimsical Musings! This week we get to choose from all of the challenges for the entire year. I am trying to play catch-up a bit so I have chosen to use my CKC August kit for my challenge #41 layout based on a superhero - how fun!

As soon as I heard this challenge I knew what photo I would be scrapping.

This snap just begs for a cape!

Not sure where I found this image (I think a digi kit) 

but I knew I would need the cape idea 

& as I'm not always too bright on my own 

about adding the artsy details I saved this.

So let's see what I can do with my really super-girly kit... yikes

Ah, but how soon I forget that there is a B-side to my papers...

(3 is the backside of my hexagon paper) 

...plus I have that fun cartoony wood grain paper - perfect.

I choose some possible elements from my stamp sets.

And super heroes have super powers.

(How am I doin' so far?)

I think I will stitch those zingers down - love the energy!

After playing with a title & a little journaling & detailing I've got a page.

(Now we just have to remember when/where this was taken...)

081112 Today...

Been way too long since we've had our Saturday date day. Hubby dearest got a hankering to make pasta so set out into cyberspace to find an Italian market. Off to Livonia! Being the geographically-challenged woman that I am I had not a clue where it is/how long it would take to get there. More later on that...

(They had me at the "Fresh Baked Bread" sign on the awning, lol :~)

OH, yeah!

This is part of a row of cases of frozen homemade stuffed pastas. Shown here: 

Homemade Gnocchi, Italian Chicken Ravioli, Florentine Pesto Ravioli, 

Italian Sausage & Broccolini Ravioli, Italian Sausage Baci, 

Veal & Porcini Mushroom Baci, Ham & Porcini Blend Ravioli, 

Roasted Butternut Squash Ravioli, Portobello Mushroom Giant Ravioli... oh, my!

Olive?

Pasta??? 

Can you believe that this aisle runs from front to back of the entire building? 

And I couldn't find alphabet pasta for Lincoln...

We managed to find a FEW things to take home, ahem!

And within our window of opportunity, an unplanned stop on the way home.

 As I said, I didn't know where we were headed until after we were en route. When I realized that we were going past Novi I immediately thought, Do we have time to stop at Archivers? I never did get there in May when I was down there for the MegaMeet or when my kindred spirit came for a visit this summer - she got sick & we couldn't go. Time allowed! My knight in shining armor does it again without even trying - love ya, honey! xo

Oooooooooooo!  Aaaaaaaaaaaaahhh!

 

BAD blogger - I forgot to take pictures when we ATE once we got home!
Oh, man - we got 3 kinds of ravioli to die for plus 2 quarts of sauce, some kind of
unpronouncable bread (they had samples :~) that you soak in olive oil & top with
some stuff we bought, asiago artichoke spread (groan), olives, fresh mozzarella
(probably my favorite cheese), italian sausages both hot & mild, etc.

Scraproom Teaser

What's behind this door?

And what is going to happen with these?

 Stay tuned!

August CKC Kit "Rebel Summer"

This month's inspiration is a wonderful digi kit from Scrap Orchard in tried & true all-American style.

Now I'm as much a patriot as the next gal but this kit presented me with two huge problems - don't have a lot of product that was reminiscent of it & no photos in my arsenal that seemed compatible either in story or feel! What's a counterfeiter to do?

Then I realized that I always start with the paper. Well, although I wasn't inspired by the color scheme, there was a really nice mix of patterns in this kit! Pattern I got :~)

Gingham, small floral on dark background, hexagon, plaid (this is where I started), REBEL change-up from a grey suede textured paper, small (well...) floral on light background, lined paper, chevron, REBEL change-up from plain color, polka dot, stripe that reads like a corduroy texture to replace the denim, and  woodgrain (hehe)...

Fortunately for these middle-aged eyes a complete listing of all of the other components was provided. I decided to work closely with this list since I was already a rebel with the papers. Although a few items are awol (bicycles & fruit, for example, although I did include some felt), I am not ruling out making some pinwheels from scratch along the way!

If I had room I would love to keep this Configurations tray out all month just as you see it - I think it is inspiring. Some more bits & bobs below. I included b/w copies of the layouts from the inspiration kit page to break them down into sketches. Otherwise stickers, stamps, ribbons, flowers, stitch rub-ons & a yummy butterfly paper (someone mentioned butterflies being summery in their kit presentation & I totally lifted that idea) and I'm calling it good. Still need to choose some alphas, if I can remember where I put them in my newly organized scrapspace!

Bye-bye, Beachy Keen...

Can't believe it's time again to put together a new counterfeit kit. And this month my special scrappin' bestie, Lynnette, is the Guest Designer - how marvelous! Go take a look at her kit post here, it is blogging at it's best :~D

So this is the final farewell to my Beachy Keen July kit, which was a surprise in how enjoyable it was to stretch in new directions. I intentionally wanted to use black, white or kraft backgrounds this month and for the most part kept to that pinkie swear with myself. Here is layout #9:

When going through my magic blue box I discovered a few things that hadn't been used. These photos I had matched up early on with the vintage BG paper - tough to use it all up at once! I had really wanted to use the JB stencil paper throughout the month as a stencil so that it would be painted/spritzed/inky when I finally used it as paper on a page. It was perfect here as the title fit right in with the letters!

The JB medallion stamp was forlorn & inkless in the bottom of the box so out it came - the perfect thing to accent that G for the title. Here's a tip, though. When stamping on paper with cutouts you will have to stamp the image on both layers to ensure that your image is complete (grateful no permanent adhesive had been applied!) 

 And one last canvas embelli, using another stamp from the set - having those really encouraged me to think stamping but within a limited choice. All in all this kit ultimately turned out to be loads of fun!