Feline Friday: Private Dining

At fancy restaurants, VIP guests may be treated to a secluded spot for dinner, commonly referred to as Private Dining.

At our house, Private Dining is offered out of necessity...to keep Lily from eating Tinsel's food! Either Tinsel or Lily may enjoy Private Dining on our basement steps. :-)

Here is Lily enjoying her dinner. Not chewing a bit, mind you, but swallowing it whole.

Hey! Can't a girl get a refill around here?

Apparently this "fancy" restaurant is actually a self-service joint!

A Benefit of Snow Days

How many of my scrapbooking friends can relate? Nothing better than being holed up inside your warm and cozy house with a stack of photos to scrapbook and idle family members to help!

This scenario has played out at our house several times this winter (with minimal success, I might add). *sigh* A scrapbooker can only hope...

Another Christmas in January Project

As I shared a couple of days ago (see the post here), I contributed several projects to the 2009 Better Homes and Gardens annual Christmas book.

This one is an "countdown to Christmas" project, created from a plain white box with drawers by Karen Foster. I covered the sides and back of the box, decorated the drawers, and fashioned a "topper" to provide a focal point and additional height. Click on the photo to biggify!

I used Imaginesce products for this project, but you could also create a very cute countdown calendar using leftover bits of this and that.

I have a countdown calendar of my own that I created from a Starbucks product (see it here). The trick is to fill it with goodies that I do not like, otherwise I would eat them all on the first day! :-)

Tabby Tuesday: Lily's Words of Wisdom

Christmas in January

For the past few years, I've been a project contributor to one of Better Homes and Gardens' annual books, Christmas from the Heart. This book contains all sorts of Christmas ideas -- craft projects, recipes, decorating suggestions, and more.

I just recently received my copy of the 2009 book and thought I'd share some of my projects over the next few days, even though it is well past Christmas!

This particular project, a child's board book of Christmas shapes, was one of my favorites. I identified a few basic shapes -- rectangle, circle, star, etc. -- and found a set of Christmas chipboard (I used K & Company's Swell Noel line) in which those shapes were visible. The basic shapes are shown on the left pages of the book, and various chipboard shapes are on the right. The child is prompted to find the shapes within the decorative chipboard pieces.

You could certainly alter an old child's board book for this kind of project, but I used a blank book. Those of you who know me understand that I could never alter a book! :-)

Feline Friday

Forgive me if I've already posted multiple pictures of Lily in her signature TWISTED position.

It's just so darn cute, and she does it so frequently, that it's worth sharing again.

Ice Storm

I love a good ice storm.

I know that ice is not good for power lines or trees, but I think it can be beautiful. It turns ordinary branches into glistening jewels!

This small tree at the corner of our house took on more than its share of ice in yesterday's storm.

On some branches, the ice was nearly an inch thick!

My thought is this: We can't control winter, so we might as well try to see the beauty in it. And this winter, we've certainly had ample opportunity to do just that!

Wordless Wednesday

Lily, 1/2010

Closet Dis-Organization

There is one particular closet at our house which, if left open, is IMMEDIATELY detected by Tinsel. In through the cracked door she sneaks, then up onto the shelves she climbs. This particular closet houses a lot of IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS (i.e., junk), and she cannot resist checking it out.

Recently, I heard a familiar noise and peeked into the closet to find her perched on top of a pile of sheet protectors and empty binders. (Of our two cats, she's the intellectual, you know!)



"SCRITCH! SCRITCH!" she dug at the plastic sleeves.

Frantically she worked, trying to move them out of her way, but completely forgetting that...

OOPS! Those sheet protectors are pretty slippery! And down she went, sheet protectors and binders close on her heels.

Of course, no harm came to Tinsel. She scampered off to an afternoon nap, leaving the closet in even more disarray than she had found it.

Feline Friday: Everyday Tinsel

To some blind souls, all cats are much alike. To a cat lover, every cat from the beginning of time has been utterly and amazingly unique.

Jenny de Vries

Scrap Storage

I'm a fairly frugal scrapbooker (okay, VERY frugal), so I really do use my scraps. But there IS such a thing as too many scraps. If you're not quite sure what that looks like, see the first photo below.

This is what my scrap storage has looked like for quite some time. Way, way, WAY more scraps than anyone could possibly use in a lifetime. Sorting through this many scraps looking for that precise shade of green or tiny piece of blue was enough to make me crazy.

Recently I pared my scraps down to a very reasonable amount and put them in smaller drawers I was using for other supplies -- in rainbow color order, of course. I punched a cardstock circle to color-code each drawer. I bagged up the scraps I didn't need and put them in my "donate" box.

Then I covered the inside front of each drawer with black cardstock, because I don't like the contents of my drawers to show! (I mean, who does???)

My only complaint about these drawers (and the two additional sets not pictured) is that they're only 11 inches deep, which means they don't accommodate 12" scraps. I have to store those long scraps with my full sheets of cardstock. But that's probably the best place for them anyway.

And there you have it! Much more organized and usable scrap storage. And it didn't cost a thing.

Wordless Wednesday