Just a vew more pictures....

I can only upload 4 pics at a time... A few more from the day...

Heather's getting married!

Heather is getting married in THREE weeks!!!! Wow... it's almost here. It's been an incredible 2 year journey. I am honored to be the maid of honor and with that have had a wonderful time organizing her shower (back in May) and then last weekend our bachelorette soiree...
Heather is the star of the 4th picture down... her creativeness is going to result in one of the most incredible weddings. She has spent the last year organizing, brain-storming and spending countless hours in her "ladyland" doing what is known as DIY projects. From pom-poms on flip flops for the guests, to out of town gift bags, amazing packages for the wedding party, ribbon wands for the ceremony (in lieu of rice), felt bags to hold the wedding programs, plastic holders for the pictures that everyone can take part in with the photo booth, all the vintage elements that she's adding to round out a vintage themed wedding... the list goes on. A local photographer, Kristin Spencer who is doing HJT's wedding, created a blog last year called Chatty Brides for local women (it's gone national now) to post about planning weddings... to view a lot of the projects that Heather has done, visit the site. It's incredibly inspiring.
I wanted to organize a day with Heather's closest friends doing activities that she and I enjoy and also partook in when we lived in Newport together. We started the day at Greenvale Vineyards in Portsmouth, RI - down the road from where the wedding is going to be at Glen Manor. Greenvale is a small vineyard focused primarily on whites that grow well in NE along the coast. We had an amazing tour guide, Bill, whom took us through the vineyard pointing out the various grapes and the process of growing. That was followed by a tasting of the wines. Greenvale has jazz on Saturdays and encourages you to bring a picnic, or they have boxed lunches you can order ahead of time. I made a picnic for the 8 of us that included wonderful cheeses, salad, soup and cookies. We relaxed, had wonderful conversation with 8 incredible ladies, drank wine and laughed a lot. Thank you to my dear friend, Frances, who took these pictures. Fran has spent many hours this year working on her photography skills and it shows.
I haven't seen pictures of the rest of the day yet... I can only imagine! We took a ride out Ocean Drive for afternoon cocktails at Ocean Cliff - a spot that Heather and I often haunted! We had a hotel room in town so we went back there to spruce ourselves for an evening out... another favorite haunt was Cooke House right in the heart of Newport. We had a wonderful dinner followed by dancing in the Boom Boom room! Late night we visited a place we also spent a few hours at... Pelham.
All in all it was a successful, relaxing fun day in preparation for what will be a wonderful weekend for Heather and Ryan.

Using distress paints...

One of the things that I've been focusing on this year is using different mediums that are new to me. I know I've said this and sound like a broken record, but being able to go to such a wonderful store like Absolutely Everything is the best thing for me! I have learned so much. At the end of last year I started to learn how to use distress inks and embossing powders by Tim Holtz through Ranger. I have posted a little on this before... throughout this year I have been accumulating those products and then started in on the distress paints.

At the end of the summer I had some time to really start playing in my craft room so I made some thank you notes, but really made tags and wrote on the back. The first 2 are the tags... the second one had a mini tag attached that I wrote on and it went right into a little pocket on the front of the bigger tag. For both of these I embossed using the harlequin stamp, painted over and then using a wet paper towel removed the paint from the embossed part. Then I stamped the clock with black Staz On. Once you get going on these projects they are pretty easy.

This is a card I made for my cousin Erika for her birthday. She lives in CA with her family, but her husbands family is from CT. They Christened their daughter, Clara, in CT so we were able to go for a visit and finally meet little Clara - who is a hoot! Definitely a descendant of the Mayer women (my Mother's family!) Erika's birthday was that week so I made this card. My latest thing are the chipboard keychains from Maya Road... they make the best tags on gifts! I used the cupcake for the front of the card. I did the same embossing and painting over on the top. For the rest of the card... this is a 6x6 card... I used paper from the Graphic 45 line - a wondeful, vintage inspired line of papers that I can't resist - and cut that 5.75 x 5.75 to fit over a red card. I distressed the edges and used a little distress ink. The sticker on top is from the vintage poster labels that Cavallini put out - another wonderful line that you can watch out for at Home Goods, if you're lucky! Add some fibers... ok, fibers... it started with Heather buying them at Michael's in bulk... then we scored one day at Joann Fabrics when they were having a huge sale. Last week I found them at Ocean State Job Lot for a $1. These bad boys are the best! I now have 2 tupperware containers full of them!

My first pictures.... well...

Not really the first b/c I've taken about 200, but these are my first as I learn...I FINALLY got my SLR camera that was my birthday present (June 10...) a week ago. I got the Canon Rebel XS. I was so fed up with my point and shoot Kodak b/c the batteries fall out and don't last long. Other than that it is a pretty good little camera to have around. As a scrapbooker I decided that in order to start making wonderful lay-outs I should upgrade the camera! I also just want to document my life better, I want to learn to take fabulous pictures that tell stories. You get to a point where the camera is the key. It's an exciting, new journey for me. I have more to learn than I can comprehend, but I'll take it one step at a time (as much as I can given my need to accomplish things asap!) I really hope to take the Karen Russell photo class in the winter. By then I should have the basics down (like how to focus!!!) and will be ready to step it up. I awe at her pictures regularly.

As most know my garden is one of my top 5 loves. I have such a big project to bring Keith's yard back to it's glory. Being the daughter of a landscaper I am up to the challenge. I started this year with some simple cutting flowers and annuals - snapdragons (my personal favorite after peonies), petunias, zinnias (although Mom ended up with the bright colors and I have all yellow and light green!), cosmos, verbena, morning glory's, Cleome, daisy's, and then a random pack of seeds that came up really cool! Also worked a little more on the perrenial border - 15 peonies that are gorgeous and added some phlox, shasta daisy's, sedum, there are iris and day lillies... I have a battle with a ground hog and a few deer so I need to work on that. The damn ground hog munched the phlox right down along with the cone flower when I first put them in, the phlox are blooming now - just not the height they should be. I moved the Cone Flower so I won't get them until next year. I am putting Russian Sage that should ward off the bunnies, not sure about the deer. This fall I have to finish the other side of the peony border. Oh... and daffodils. If they were gold we'd be millionaires I have NEVER quite seen anything like it. I dig them up in clumps of NO JOKE 100's... I pulled out another wheelbarrow full 2 weeks from an area that I had already attacked. I would be fine with them if the flowered, but they don't the way I want so I am just trying to thin them. It's a big joke on me.

Above is a little collage of pictures I took yesterday...I wanted my first lesson to be how to take pictures close and somewhat blur the background. What better subject than my beautiful blooming flowers! It just so happens that this is the first topic in the Scott Kelby books (but know I have much more on this topic) I learned to focus close with a low aperture and get down with the flowers. I also saved the mirror lock-up which I think helped b/c the other day I tried to take similar photos and they were somewhat blurry. (Don't I sound like I know what I'm talking about... ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.)

If you've read this far... thanks! I'm rambling... I may blog as I learn to use the camera. It's fun! I have 3 books plus the manual plus about 4 computer programs with manuals! Then I move to photoshop...

Ribbon Anyone?

Ahhh....ribbon! Looking at this you wouldn't think that I don't buy as much as I did at one time... the truth is that I am drawn to it! I love to use it on projects, wrapping gifts with all different kinds, tying it in my hair... the possibilities are endless and the colors just call to me! Now I tend to get a few different styles in each of my monthly kits so I don't buy as much... but if I had my way the wall of ribbon at Absolutely Everything would be in my craft room. But alas, I settle...

The room is still a work in progress as far as storage goes. I am a pretty anal organizer so there are a few things that I still need to work on. Ribbon was one of them. I have seen lots of options for storing ribbon, but this one was definitely the winner. This is called the Ribbon Ring, and the designer/ creator Melissa is a genius! What she did was design these little plastic things that you can weave ribbons through and then hang them on basic rings. Once you thread the ribbon through, it doesn't move! These things have been thrown around and nothing is falling off. I do recommend that you have time to assemble... it did take me most of Sunday to do this! Then again... maybe you won't have as many ribbons as me. Keith threatened to call someone in for help b/c he just couldn't believe the never-ending pile of ribbon!

Look at all the color!!!

New Scraproom!

YAY!!! It's ALLLLLL done! Well... the bulk of it's done. Now I get to the decorating, adding stuff to the walls, etc. Here are pictures of all our hard work... I am SO happy! The green is such an inviting, invigorating color. I have always wanted a green room. I chose the color from fabric that I have for the curtains and other accessories. I need to find some more before that part is all done. I am going to put up a valance over the windows and then cafe curtains along the bottom. I have it already done for the other window.
Here you can see the craft table that was picked out. I wanted to get wood saw horses to paint white (or maybe even pink :)), but that didn't prove to be easy so we got these for now. This is a 30x80 door that I painted white - it's such great working space! Note how easily the new Cricut and my big cutter fit....
In the corner and on some close-ups below you can see the shelves and drawers that I ordered from Target. They are simply fabulous! And very easy to put together. I have the cardstock organized by color (what else would I do?!) and then in the drawers I was able to fit punches, ink pads and all kinds of other miscellaneous stuff that can look messy. On top of the corner shelf you see my 'clip-it-up' organizer that was again just a marvelous purchase! I also had some shelves that I brought in - the one hanging on the wall with all my glitter (important), embossing and acrylic paints. The dark pink one that was a shelf from my room growing up that is storing the 8.5 x 11 cardstock for card-making, and then one that my brother built for my first apt that has other 'supplies.' There was a shelving unit that I found while cleaning out the house that I painted white and is a perfect home for all my stamps.
A few other items around the room: I found small and large canvas boxes that you see on the floor. We are going to build a shelf to fit those on. They are perfect for my scrapbook kits and other supplies like chipboard, acrylic, other alphabets...you don't see my ribbon ring that is on order. I can't wait to get that and get all the ribbon organized b/c it's taking over! In the closet we are going to set up a shelving system for more 'office' supplies and a gift-wrapping station that is semi set-up.

Needless to say... I am a VERY happy girl! Due to the very rainy day we are experiencing here (yes, finally my flowers will be happy) I get to play in my new room ALL day long!

Flower Bouquets

OK... I am pretty sure these are my favorite things I have EVER made... a few months ago there was a kit from Scrapologie, the St Patty's Day kit, that included a cone. Of course Ranjini designed the most precious little cone with vintage treats tucked in it. I had to order the kit and thought that the cone would be precious hanging in my new scrap room, whenever that would be done! Recently I found a set of the little cones and bought them in order to make a few treats. The other day I was inspired to make something for Julia & Natalie for our upcoming visit to NY for the 4th.
{Julia & Natalie are Tracy & Frank's little girls... Keith's best friends from college. Frank's birthday is also on the 4th so we go down there every year to celebrate. I love making little gifts to bring down - Julia just loves anything we bring down for her.}

I started by cutting paper to fit on each side. For Natalie's I used the Animal Crackers line from Making Memories (yes, the same thing used in a previous post - do you think I love it?!) The colors and designs are just perfect for baby girls - she is 1. Then for Julia's I used the Katlin line from Crate Paper. Julia's favorite color is pink but she also loves purple and this line is just so fun and whimsical for a 4 yr old girl.

Back to the creating part.... the idea was that I could cover the outside with paper and then fill it with, I hoped, paper flowers. I cut paper from different sheets of each line so everything was different, then I also covered the top inside of the cones with paper b/c they fold out. Heather clued me in that you can go to Michael's and search out fibers by bulk in the knitting section. There was a 20% off your whole order last week so what is more perfect to buy??? I bought fuzzy fibers and used them on the creases of the cones to add some dimension. Then I decorated each side with their name, one side had their age in a chipboard number all glittered up and then some fun words on the extra sides.

THEN... the flowers... I bought smaller dowels - 3/16 - and cut them at different lengths to act as the stems - side note: I would paint them the next time, but didn't have time. I went to my stash of flowers and started digging! I started by gluing them, but then figured out glue dots and double sided tape did the trick and was much easier to do! I figured out how to put them on using some dimension, layering them, using my flower punch to use the coordinating papers... but flowers need glitter... in comes the stickles! Stickles is possibly one of the greatest inventions ever... it's glue with glitter - but once it dries it doesn't stick to anything. You can literally use it on anything to add a glitter feel! I have tons of glitter to use with a glue pen, but this tends to be easier. Continuing on I realized that the centers of the flowers needed something too... Kate has these fabulous rhinestones at the shop - each package has 100 total in 3 different sizes for $2. Who wouldn't have every color?! I needed something to hold the flowers up inside the cone... searching through all my stuff I realized that tulle would not only look so fun, it would hold them up in different sizes, etc...

So here they are.... I finished with large eyelets on 2 of the sides that fold down and strung a ribbon through so that they could hang. The girls have a new playroom that Tracy has been putting together so I figured they could hang them in there. I made 8 flowers for each cone... they come out so precious.

(Note the green room in the background! Pictures to follow on that soon. I have to start loading it up and then I'll post... my creative juices are going to go NUTS when it's all done!!!)