Feline Friday

Organization Tip #19: Label everything.

The "Before" Door

In case you haven't heard my shouts of joy, we're in the process of painting our house. After 15 years of PINK (Spouse calls it ROSE), we are completely changing the color scheme. More on that in a future post, assuming I can beat Spouse into submission. (JUST KIDDING! I never beat him. I just wear him down! lol)



One of the most exciting parts of the project is that we are getting a new front door. I am possibly even more excited about the door than I am the new paint colors.

Why, you ask? Well, this door has a number of issues. I've never liked the style, especially the rounded etched glass and bow at the bottom of the window. (As you've probably guessed by now, I'm all about straight lines. And no bows.)

And then there's the color...PINK! (Again, Spouse calls it ROSE.) In addition, the glue that holds in the glass has melted over the years, oozing out around the edges of the glass in unsightly blobs. And to top it off, the main door is nearly impossible to open, and the storm door won't shut.

The new door will be installed on Friday. It's a very basic black door with a RECTANGULAR (not rounded!) window and no etched bow. And it really opens and closes! I could not be more excited!

The only issue is that the new side lights will not go all the way to the floor as they do now. This means that the kitties will not be able to see out the windows. (You can only imagine Spouse's dismay when I mentioned this to the guy at Lowe's.) I'm hopeful that this problem can be resolved by placing a cat-sized stool in the entry way.

Cat issues aside, I know I'm going to be much happier come Friday. Watch for "after" photos soon!

Wordless Wednesday: More Sheep Fashions

Layout: Pumpkin Picking

This is yet another layout featuring a challenging seasonal color situation. What kind of scrapbooking mom allows her Daughter to wear a red winter coat to pick out pumpkins? Obviously, it was so cold that day that I didn't care about the color challenge that this choice might present down the road.

And when I met Itty Bitty, the gray boy kitty (a perfect match for Lily, BTW), I lost what was left of my senses. It's a wonder I have any pictures of the kids at all.

Now, if any of you are thinking that I have resorted to using ONLY striped patterned paper...you're close to being right. Once again, a stripe came to my rescue, this time from my hoarded Chatterbox stash. I lucked out because this particular stripe has muted red, orange, and even blue -- the other prominent color in these photos. It's a good thing I hoard all of these striped papers!

And -- hold onto your pumpkins -- I used an embellishment on this layout! But not to worry...there are 5 more in the package, so I should be good for another 15 years. Whew! :-)

Layout: Pumpkin Carving

In scrapbooking, you sometimes have to make the best of a difficult color situation.

Not sure why Daughter chose to wear her pink show choir practice t-shirt for pumpkin carving last year, but she did. Lucky for me, I just happen to have a stash of Ki Memories orange and pink striped paper. Ki to the rescue once again! It helped me work in the pink and still create a Halloween-y feel on the page.

Does anyone get my clever title? I was fairly pleased with myself for coming up with that one. :-)

Layout: Valleyfest

One of the reasons we scrapbook is to relive our memories. As I've been working on marching band layouts from last season, I've certainly had the opportunity to do just that. Our marching band had a great season last year and, in looking through these photos, the memories of all the performances came flooding back.



This particular competition marked the high point of the season. Since I already have many pages of the band in performance, I wanted to capture some of the other aspects of marching band season on this layout, especially the emotions of winning a big competition. So I included the text of an e-mail from our band director which was sent after the kids returned home that night. You can feel his excitement about the band's achievements and see it in the faces pictured here!

My advice to anyone reading this is to be sure to capture not only the FACTS of a particular event, but also the FEELINGS that accompanied it. Recording your feelings will help you relive your memories in years to come...which is really what scrapbooking is all about!

Pink, BEGONE!

I'm not a pink person. Never have been, never will be. But this house has been pink (or rather, mauve) since we moved in 15 years ago. Pink shutters, pink trim. Never mind that the base color of the house is called "Smoke." It takes on a pinkish cast, too.

A few years back, we had the house repainted...in pink. Why? The builder had left us plenty of extra paint, so it only made sense to use it up.

BUT NO MORE! It's time to repaint and *sadly* we have no more old paint to use. So the time has come to get rid of the pink!

Anyway, given that I think in cardstock colors, I decided to look through my Bazzill swatch book to find an appealing, less obnoxious color scheme.

Hmmm...I think we'll stay away from Rosey and Misty Rose this time. :-)

For the base of the house, we'll be going with my favorite Bazzill tan (which was discontinued a few years ago and never adequately replaced!) -- Tanner. The shutters and wrought iron will be Raven. The scalloped trim and vertical boards will be a lighter version of Tanner, similar to Wheat but in the same color family. I think that this new color palette will blend much more harmoniously with our charcoal-colored roof. And I'm thrilled that I will no longer have to buy pink annuals for the pots on my front step!

Stay tuned over the next couple of weeks for updates on the Ridding of the Pink.

And watch for some awkward happy dancing in the street by yours truly. :-)

Featured Blogger Friday

I'm delighted to be the Featured Blogger today at my great blogging friend Toni's blog, Moved to the Mountains.

Toni is a card-maker extraordinaire whose endless creativity inspires me! She posts several beautiful cards each week, completely amazing me with her productivity. She's also a wonderful cat mom, and I love seeing photos of her beautiful fur babies.

Thanks so much, Toni! :-)

Feline Friday: Go Green!

Seems like everybody is going green these days! :-)

Layout: Choir Awards

Here's a layout I finished up recently based on a sketch from Cathy Zielske's BPS online class from last fall, Design Your Life. I've used this sketch a couple of times now, as it works well for multiple photos.

Daughter wanted to include all of these pictures from the spring choir awards show and, as you can see, the mixed colors created a bit of a challenge. But good ol' Ki Memories striped paper came to the rescue once again, giving a bit more cohesive look to this colorful set of photos.

The flower is the "outline" portion of one of my favorite two-part Cuttlebug dies. It provides just a bit of "something" without being too heavy.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

Will the real Easter Bunny please stand up?
Rabbits at the fair, August 2009

Iowa State Fair Sew-In

Daughter participated in a great project at the Iowa State Fair this past weekend: a "sew- in" to make quilts for kids at the University of Iowa hospitals and those with parents in the prison system. The project was coordinated by a local quilting group and was considerably more successful than planned: The group had hoped to make 50 quilts but by the end of the fair, more than 130 had been sewn!

Unlike her mother, Daughter sews very well, thanks to her grandma's sound instruction over the years. Grandma would have been very proud to see her sewing this quilt from start to finish in just about three hours.

When my dad and I popped in to check on her during the sewing project, the quilting ladies promptly put us both to work pinning and unpinning quilts! They instinctively knew not to put me anywhere NEAR a sewing machine!

Daughter wanted to make a rainbow-colored quilt (no surprise there!) so she picked out fun fabrics in those colors. She stitched the 12 strips together, then pinned the layers together (front, batting, and back).

She sewed along the "gutters" between each strip of fabric, stitching the back to the front with a large zigzag quilting stitch.

Then she added a colorful border around the edges.

And the quilt was done!

We all thought this was a pretty neat way to spend an afternoon at the fair. :-)