Triangular Treasure Box

My mom's birthday is coming up and, as usual, I'm hard-pressed to figure out something to give her. Why are moms so hard to buy for?

After considerable thought, I decided to make her a treasure box. I've had this triangular box for quite some time (it was part of our store's book club kit a few months back). I recently noticed that the box is V-shaped (duh!) and since Mom's name begins with a "V", I thought it might make a fun treasure box for her. I picked out some Chatterbox paper from my stash that I *hope* she will like and put this together.

I lined the outside, inside and bottom of the box and the lid with matching Chatterbox prints. For adhesive, I used Tacky Tape, a glue stick, and Xyron. On the little chain are two metal V's from my alphabet stash and a Bazzill birthday Chip Topper. I backed each with cardstock, then I Crop-a-Diled (yes, it's a verb!) a hole through each and through the chipboard flower to attach the chain.

I am going to add three wooden beads to the bottom of the box, to raise it up a bit and make it a little more decorative.

For her birthday, I'll probably fill it with some small goodies for her: maybe a gift card, some tea, mints, candy...that sort of stuff.

Of course, after I finished the box, it occurred to me that the paper doesn't match her decor in any way, shape, or form. Oh, well -- too late now! Hope she likes it.

In Praise of Picasa

Several people have asked me over the past few months how I make the photo collages you see on my blog. The answer is simple: Picasa. As much as I LOVE Picasa, I realized I had never blogged about it.

Picasa is a free download by Google. It allows you to organize, edit, and easily share your photos, plus a whole lot more. I have to give credit to fellow blogger, BonnieRose, who pointed me to Picasa when I first started blogging last year.

Picasa has many great features, but the one I value most is the ability to organize all the digital photos and images on my computer. When I first made the move to digital photography, I had no solid way to categorize and label my photos. When you download Picasa, it finds all the photos on your computer, gathers them, and organizes them in labeled folders. As you upload new photos, they drop directly into folders you set up. You can find and reorganize photos at any time.

Picasa allows you to edit your photos, too. Granted, you can certainly purchase much more sophisticated editing software, but right now, anyway, Picasa gives me all the functionality I need. You can easily crop, remove red eye, and adjust color and contrast. You can choose from several different photo effects, such as sharpen, sepia, black & white, soft focus, and film grain. You can reverse all of these edits at any time.

It's easy to create a photo collage within Picasa: Just select the photos you'd like to include and Picasa does the rest. It could not be easier! You can upload the collage to your blog, create a screen saver, and print it to include on a scrapbook page.

Picasa allows you to easily share photos through e-mail, slide shows, web albums, and your blog. Picasa interfaces directly with Blogger, making it fast and easy to upload photos.

In this quick post, I've just touched the surface of what Picasa can do. If you're looking for a completely simple way to organize, edit, and share your photos, it may be for you. Take a look at the Picasa website for a product tour and instructions on downloading.

And no...this is not a paid endorsement! :-)

Lily Goes to Bible School

This morning, Lily was the "Live Pet of the Day" at our church's Vacation Bible School. Our only goal was that she not bite or scratch any small children, and I'm proud to report complete success on that front.

I was told that 261 children are in attendance this week, so by my calculations, approximately 522 little hands stroked Lily's fur today. DD and I could feel an occasional deep growl as we held her, but only one time did she really lose her patience with the wee folks.

"Look, she has vampire teeth!"

Otherwise, the comments went something like this for the two-hour visit:

"She's so soft!"

"What's her name? My cat's name is Gary."

"Does she smile?"

The highlight of the visit was when someone brought us some warm bread, right out of the oven. It was intended for DD and me, but before we knew it, Lily had eaten most of it. That seemed to surprise a lot of people. (Ha! If only they knew the half of what Lily eats.)

The general consensus was that she was a better "Live Pet of the Day" than the incessantly barking dog that visited yesterday. She was also better than the pond fish who visited Sunday evening. Actually, a lot better than one particular fish: Sunday's guest dog caught it by the tail and jerked it out of the bucket of water. If not for a swift save by a tunic-clad leader, there would have been a little food chain action right in the middle of Galilee by the Sea.

Thankfully, there was none of that kind of drama today. So here's to 522 little hands, warm bread, and Lily, our "Live Pet of the Day."

Lily Spruces Up

This morning, I had the pleasant task of taking Lily to the vet to have her nails trimmed. This was a necessary evil because tomorrow, she is going to be the "Guest Pet of the Day" at Vacation Bible School. (Expect a full report tomorrow. If she doesn't behave, we will be looking for a new church.)

Lily enjoys riding in the car, but upon entering the examination room at the vet's office, she becomes a hissing, biting, snarling beast, like something out of a horror movie.

It took two technicians to hold her and several attempts to get every claw trimmed. When they finally finished, one technician pulled out a bag of cylindrical, nearly 3-inch long brown treats. They were so large, I thought they were surely for dogs.

"Here, Lily. Would you like a cat chew?"

While Lily sniffed it, the technician told me that kitties usually don't care for these treats but occasionally like to lick them. They use them more as a calming device. But before she had finished telling me this, Lily had the entire chew in her mouth. It was so ginormous that for a moment, I thought she might choke. But that was only a fleeting thought, because she devoured the chew as if she had been lost in the wilderness without food for weeks.

"Oh my gosh!" exclaimed the technician. "We've had these chews forever and have never seen a cat actually eat one! Here, Lily, would you like to take one home with you?"

She poked a second chew into Lily's carrier. GULP! Down it went in no time flat.

"Whoa! That's amazing!" she cried.

I've told them on previous visits about Lily's voracious appetite: How she will eat (if allowed) all kinds of food (mandarin oranges, lettuce, Cheetos, apples, cheese...) and even inedible items (carpet, ribbon, brads, dryer sheets, Kleenex, toilet paper, masking tape...). There is virtually nothing that this cat won't eat.

I don't think they really believed me until today.

I what?

I awoke yesterday morning to a very nice surprise from Rockin' Girl Blogger, Jill:

Holy guacamole! I'm honored and humbled! Believe me (and if you actually DO know me, you know I'm speaking the truth), "me" and "rock" aren't usually used in the same phrase. Unless you're referring to my rock collection, of course. Which is really quite extensive. I have rocks from all the different places we traveled when I was a kid. Including a pumice rock that floats. And a rock that rattles when you shake it. My rock collection seriously ROCKS. But me?

I ran downstairs to tell DH: "Hey, Jill says I'm a Rockin' Girl Blogger!"

"Huh? Who? You what?"

I found my 14-year old DD: "Hey, Jill says I'm a Rockin' Girl Blogger!"

"Mom. No. You do not rock."

"Jill says I do."

"No. You don't rock. And neither does your blog. Look -- you wouldn't even have a blog if it weren't for Lily."

Is it true? If so, maybe Lily is the one who should receive this honor. In fact, maybe Lily should get her own blog. Either way, I am grateful to Jill for bestowing this high honor upon us!

Now, if I understand this properly, I am to share the love with five other girl bloggers. Here are five that I really enjoy...

Colour Therapy -- great posts and photos!

Creative Blessing -- wonderfully inspirational projects!

Bananafish Studio -- beautiful designs!

Tracy Said What? -- terrific writing!

Scrappin' Fun -- great from-the-heart posts and photos!

Now, go share the love, Rockin' Girl Bloggers! Thanks, Jill!

Our Beach Vacation: 6x12 album

Every once in awhile, I remember that this is supposed to be a cat AND scrapbooking blog. Not a re-decorating blog. Not a gardener-wannabee blog. Not a strange, random posting blog. Oh, yeah... scrapbooking.

In light of that, here are some photos of a recently completed scrapbooking project for the store where I teach. In making this album, I was lucky to get to use the most wonderful double-sided, textured paper from My Mind's Eye. It comes in all different kinds of patterns and color palettes. It's a mix and match sort of thing. In addition to that, I used a set of giant monogram letters. To me, the combination of the paper colors and the letters evoked sort of an old-world beach type of theme. A few years back, we visited Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia. The grand, old 1920's hotel pictured here is just that kind of place.

Let me also say that this was my first foray into making 6x12 layouts. They are unbelievably easy and fun to do. Whenever I work on sizes other than my normal 12x12, I always wonder why I'm so wed to that format. So many other sizes and shapes are much, much easier.


Now, back to our regularly-scheduled programming.

Feline Friday: lolcat fever

Thanks to Rockin' Girl Blogger, Maureen, for pointing me to this completely rockin' website, icanhascheezburger.

Within the past 48 hours, my productivity level has sunk to a new low as I've immersed myself in the slightly offbeat world of lolcats. If you wonder what the heck I'm talking about, read about this Internet phenomenon on Wikipedia here.

I'm so far gone that I've found a site, lolcat builder, which allows you to easily make your own lolcat captions for cat photos. And y'all know that I have an ample supply of those.

In the back of my mind, I think there might be something else I'm supposed to be doing, but I can't remember what it is.

im 2 bz writin lolcat code.

One Gold Wall, Yet So Much More

They say that marriage is all about compromise, right? I've been told by DH that I'm not so good at that. Whether or not that observation is actually true could be the subject of considerable debate, but I won't go there. At least not on this blog. At least not today.

Well, at our house, this newly painted wall (ignore the painter's tape, please) is going to represent Compromise, with a capital C. In my grand new color scheme, it was supposed to be a brownish-brick color, but instead it is Sweet Maple. DH does not want the brick color in our house, so I compromised. Don't get me wrong...I absolutely love it, but I hadn't planned for Sweet Maple to be on this wall. I had planned for it to be the color of the laundry room and the bathroom. In reality, it's probably a good thing that the wall is gold. It's bright and cheery, and it lightens up the hallway. I can tell that it's going to look fantabulous in those other two rooms.

The adjacent kitchen walls, which are not yet painted, will be Tate Olive green. The dining room, also adjacent, will be a darker and lighter shade of olive than the kitchen (Ryegrass and Wilderness, to be exact). David, the nice young man in the Home Depot paint department, thought the color scheme looked like guacamole and corn bread. I can live with that.

But I will find a way to sneak in that dark brick color. Maybe I can find a great piece of art featuring that color and hang it on the gold wall. That would still count as compromise, right?

As a side note, if you've never checked out the Behr ColorSmart website, I'd advise you to do so immediately. I use the ColorSmart tool frequently to pick color combinations for scrapbooking. It's more fun than a person really should have with paint colors. I love it so much that I told David, the nice young man who shook my paint at Home Depot, all about how I use the Behr website for scrapbooking but presumed it could be even more effective when used as it was intended, to select actual paint colors. I even told David how I had picked my color scheme using Bazzill cardstock, taping 12x12 sheets to my walls. AND how you can come pretty darn close to matching Bazzill cardstock to Behr paint. AND, I asked -- not waiting for him to answer -- isn't that just about the coolest thing EVER?

And do you know what he asked me?

"Oh, my. You're not one of those people who lets scrapbooking take over their entire lives, are you?"

Pause.

"Oh, of course not."

"Well, good, then. Because I know someone like that. She's totally out of control."

And with that, I took my Sweet Maple and Bazzill and ran for the door.

Gardening Notebook: July

I've been making an effort to take more photos of my perennial gardens this year, primarily so I can document how they are developing and remember the problem areas. Here are some observations about my perennial beds in July from my gardening notebook:

* Overall, the color is fairly balanced. Staggered bloom times should ensure color through August.
* In general, the three garden areas I've created on the back of the house are looking better this year than last. If I make some changes this fall and next spring, they should all be in good shape for next summer.
* I need to find a taller variety of zinnia to plant next to the wrought iron fence. Hollyhocks or cosmos would be another option.
* Why, oh why do I have so much yellow coreopsis? A little is alright, but it's everywhere!
* Where is my purple coneflower? It's gone!
* I need to add more native plants to the sun perennial garden.
* There are a couple of awkward spaces in the sun garden that need to be filled.
* The Kansas gayfeather is much too large for the space I've allowed for it. It should be moved to allow space for the globe thistle plant.
* I have never before had a bloom on a sweet potato vine planted in a pot. Does this mean I'll get a sweet potato?
* I need to consider adding another daylily plant next to the existing one on the side of the house. It is doing very well there.
* I need to find some lower growing sun perennials for the edges of the oldest perennial garden.
* I should move some of the astilbe from the front of the house to the new shade perennial garden.

No matter how hard I try, this gardening business is still a matter of somewhat educated trial and error. And that's OK. For me, it's the journey, in addition to the destination, that makes gardening worthwhile.

Our Tallgrass Prairie in Late June

Not a breath of air stirred over the free and open prairie; the clouds were like light piles of cotton; and where the blue sky was visible, it wore a hazy and languid aspect. {Francis Parkman}

On June 1, I posted a photo collage of the tallgrass prairie areas in our neighborhood development. In the last couple of weeks, I've noticed that many of the native flowers are starting to bloom. So on Sunday evening, I set out on my walk through the prairie, armed with a camera so that I could capture a bit of this emerging palette. In just a few short weeks, the variegated green has become punctuated by flowers of white, yellow, purple, and orange.

How fortunate I feel to be able to watch the prairie change over the course of the summer.

Wallpaper, Be Gone!

If you recall from a post way back in January, my word of the year was "ORDER". Several things have delayed progress on the ORDER I need to achieve in my life, but now -- get out of the way! Things are starting to happen! How, you might ask, is re-decorating part of this goal? It falls under the heading of creating a simplified, comfortable, and presentable (read: not embarrassing) home environment. AND...it has to do with setting home improvement goals and actually accomplishing them. While I presume this is relatively straightforward for most homeowners, it is no easy task for us.

On the subject of the wallpaper, I am delighted to report that the dreaded fruit wallpaper -- which I loved ten years ago but now despise -- is gone (with the significant exception of the border hung by the builder with Superglue). Very soon, we will paint the walls in our kitchen a lovely shade of green (think: guacamole), which I believe is going to look just dandy with our new counter tops. One of these days, we'll paint the laundry room and half-bathroom a delightful shade of gold (think: dark cornbread). And soon after that, we'll paint the dining room a lighter and darker shade of green than the kitchen. Even though the nice young man at Home Depot who mixed up the paint loved the color scheme, DH seems to despise it. I believe he thinks we will soon be living in "That 70's Show".

On the subject of Lily, she took readily to the ladder. She monitored DH's progress at every turn, and she posed in all sorts of cute positions. I think she's going to look lovely in green, don't you?

All Play...No Work

Lily, aka Home Remodeler Extraordinaire
Photo by DD, 30 June 2007