Bunch done...

I'm a week off of a great weekend getaway to Ready, Set, Crop's Wachusett Inn 3 day crop...

Had a great time with fun crop buddies... we bitched laughed bitched bitched bitched laughed bitched laughed laughed laughed bitched laughed and laughed.

Some of my recent creations... maybe the muse is back...

"Snowman"
A little mini album I made out of a gift card tins using photos of Addie and Papa building a snowman.

{Tin: purchased at AC Moore
Charms: Making Memories
Stickers: O'Scrap, Debbie Mumm, EK Success; Sticko, Me and My Big Ideas
Pen: EK Success
Clips: Around the Block
Vellum: Die Cuts with a View
Cardstock: The Robin's Nest
Chipboard: Scenic Route
Acetate: Heidi Swapp
Other: brads}

"Snow Angels"
Super cute photos of my babes in the snow using super beautiful paper by The Robin's Nest and a super cute tag by Cheryl Mezzetti from a swap, (with a little added Stickles and earmuffs!)

{Cardstock in addition to The Robin's Nest: Bazzill Basics Paper
Pen & Sticker: EK Succes
Vellum: Die Cuts with a View}

"You Are My World, My Sun, My Star"
A silly but favorite shot of me and my boy (whose FOUR today!!! Happy Birthday, Liam!!!) My first try at sewing and an old wrinkle-free distress technique...

{Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper; Scenic Route
Embossing powder, ink & paint: Ranger
Pen: Creative Memories
Sticker & Chipboard: Scenic Route
Stamps: Stampin' Up; EK Success
Other: Rub Ons}

A 4 year old project (just like my boy today!!!!) Took this Today You class with Ali Edwards in November 2005 (FULLY pregnant with Liam!!!) And never finished it, but it's done now!!!

{Album: SEI
Cardstock: Cosmo Cricket
Other: ribbon
Tag, Twine & Rub Ons supplied in the class by Ali Edwards}

Learned a long time ago to make cards after making a layout using scraps while you have them out and the ideas are flowing, so made a couple of wintery ones...

{Cardstock: The Robin's Nest
Stickers: O'Scrap
Acetate: Heidi Swapp
Other: brad}

A few things I worked on I can't share because they are gifts, but here is one gift I can share since it's already been given...

"k & j"
I saw this green metallic frame at AC Moore and just thought Christmas...

{Patterned Paper: source unknown
Stickers: EK Success; sources unknown
Letters: Basic Grey
Inks: Ranger
Cardstock: Crate Paper
Other: frame; sled; button
Tag, header: from a swap}

You've Got Room Service

I love Curbly. Been a fan for quite some time. A couple of months back I came across this post which lead me to The Daily Decorator. I was instantly drawn to Tracy's cool site, awesome offerings, and intriguing taste. I became an immediate fan of the site, subscribing to her feed and becoming a fan on Facebook.

Tracy has a fun portion of her site called Room Service. Room Service is a service that Daily Decorator offers to those of us with decorating blocks such as myself! You are asked to provide some photos of your space, to answer some questions about your space and to give your general type of style. For a very worthwhile fee DD will send you a concept board including color choices, lighting suggestions, flooring, etc.; plus a full and detailed list of where you can purchase the items on the concept board including links and prices. Plus, if you become a Facebook fan, you get a discount for the service.

If you are a Facebook friend of mine, then you will know my decorating lament... I don't want to make it sound like I'm a total Amelia Bedelia when it comes to decorating because I do think I have good taste. I just don't think I have good DECORATING skills! I posted this photo on my FB a couple of months ago hoping to figure out if I had achieved something similar to the photo above.

Ugh.

Enter Daily Decorator.

I decided to give Tracy a try at livening up a space in my home that I just cannot seem to do anything with.

Here are my photos and my letter to Tracy:

Hi Tracy,

I absolutely love your website. I found it through Curbly and have already subscribed to your feed and put you button up on my blog!

I'm really excited to possible have the opportunity to perhaps qualify for a room service makeover! I could really use the help!

I think have good taste, but I think I have really poor decorating skills. I think my intentions are good, but I never feel fully satisfied and like my decorating is always in progress and never "done."

The current bane of my existence is my "front room" or "tile room." It doesn't even have a name because it is nothing. And I hate it. AND... it's the FIRST room people walk into the house into! Ugh. I already have a living room, and you'll see from the photos that the living room is just a larger part of the same room, but it is divided by choice of flooring, (in the living room it's hard wood,) and a loveseat with sofa table behind it, (so loveseat is in the living room, and sofa table is in "this" room.

What totally caught my eye about your site was the posting on Curbly about wall photos. As you can see in photos, I tried my hand at something like that about a month ago, and the results are only okay. (You may see on the floor between the sewing table and the chair that there is a shelf propped up that I would like to hand under the square window, but have not been successful in doing that yet. The door directly to the left of that square mirror is the way in and out of the house and the photo of the desk with the mirror over it is what you see when you come in.

It currently serves no purpose whatsoever. It's a junk collector, (as evidenced by the 3 cardboard boxes for my husband's work in the photo that my husband just stacked there, as well as his bass guitar case in the corner. I also removed two of our van seats and a fan that were sitting in that room before I took the photo because that was just embarrassing!) There is a coat closet with double louvered doors that you can see in the photos, so shoes, coats and bags and stuff do end up being put away, so at least it's not a mess with that kind of stuff. There are two windows, and I'm not sure if you can this from the photos, but one is higher than the other... ugh.

Painting would be difficult because of the adjacency to the living room, which (and maybe you can see this from one of the photos) is open to the dining room. This is a VERY open floor plan!

I hate the tile, I think it's so uninviting and cold. But putting a throw rug over tile just doesn't seem to sit right with me. Guess it would have to be the right rug.

So, enough of my ramblings, I'm sure you want to look at this with a fresh eye, not my preconceived eyes!

To answer your questions:

1. Honestly, there isn't anything that MUST stay... I do like the sewing table, and the brown wooden piece was my grandmother's and it will not go, but does not necessarily have to be in this room. Oh, except I do like that desk where it is, and that was my other grandmother's. The chair to the right of the door goes to it.
2. Print? Color? I don't care, I just want it to look good.
3. The room is 9 1/2 by 14 1/2, not including the small area when you walk in where the desk is and the stairs lead up to the second floor.
4. We live in southeastern Massachusetts
5. This is hard... I would say old? I don't know. I hesitate to say country, because that means hokey to me, know what I mean? Maybe primitive, but I'm no collector. I like old stuff... just bought an old school desk (that could go in there? But it is small.)

Thanks so much for considering me! And good luck... I think this one is a REAL hard one!

Michelle McGee

Soooo.... Daily Decorator to the rescue!!!

Room Service for Michelle

As Tracy sums it up, "Michelle has an awkward space that she is trying to upgrade because it is the first space you see when you walk in her home. Like many of us, sometimes a home’s design throws us some stumbling blocks. In Michelle’s case she has two different sized windows and tile flooring butting up to wood flooring in an open space plan."

I am seriously in love with DD's ideas and suggestions! I am totally going to get a rug for that room now, and I love DD's suggestion "To keep it casual I selected a printed jute rug. It also comes with a matching doormat to help tie it in with the actual entry area."

I'm also totally going to rectify my window snafu with the suggestion to "... replace the curtains with a fabric roman shade. Hang on the outside of the window frame and for the shorter window, cheat the placement by hanging it at the same distance from the ceiling as the larger sized window. Lower the shade to cover the section of the wall to fool everyone into thinking the window is larger. Because this room is open, it would make sense to continue this look with all the windows."

Tracy's concept board has totally inspired me to make a reading area in our "front room." Maybe some day this room will even get a real name!

One thing that I've done already was take Tracy's advice on moving my grandmother's piece over under the photo/wall collage I'm still in the process of arranging. And I love the result... she was right about the "weight."

Thanks Daily Decorator!

For someone VERY special on a BIG day...

I can tell by the way you're walking
That you don't want company
I'll let you alone and I'll let you walk on
And in your own good time you'll be

Back where the sun can find you
Under the wise wishing tree
And with all of them made we'll lie under the shade
And call it a jubilee

And I can tell by the way you're talking
That the past isn't letting you go
But there's only so long you can take it all on
And then the wrong's gotta be on its own

And when you're ready to leave it behind you
You'll look back, and all that you'll see
Is the wreckage and rust that you left in the dust
On your way to the jubilee

And I can tell by the way you're listening
That you're still expecting to hear
Your name being called like a summons to all
Who have failed to account for their doubts and their fears

They can't add up to much without you
And so if it were just up to me
I'd take hold of your hand, saying come hear the band
Play your song at the jubilee

And I can tell by the way you're searching
For something you can't even name
That you haven't been able to come to the table
Simply glad that you came

And when you feel like this try to imagine
That we're all like frail boats on the sea
Just scanning the night for that great guiding light
Announcing the jubilee

And I can tell by the way you're standing
With your eyes filling with tears
That it's habit alone keeps you turning for home
Even though your home is right here

Where the people who love you are gathered
Under the wise wishing tree
May we all be considered then straight on delivered
Down to the jubilee

'Cause the people who love you are waiting
And they'll wait just as long as need be
When we look back and say those were halcyon days
We're talking 'bout jubilee

Hot Sauce

Can't wait for this....

S x (FB + T) - M = NB

Summer x (Facebook + Twitter)- Mojo = No Blogging

Okay, so that's where I'm at... not much blogging lately...

Summer's treated us well... we've been to the Brockton Rox... we went to Chatham for the Fourth (beautiful weather all weekend!)... Addie's kept up with her karate... we've hosted some special Wednesday Spaghettis... we've seen some fun movies, (even a trip to the drive-in)... been to some great cookouts with friends... gone fishing... camp... pajama parties... played some much-loved Monopoly... visited a favorite of ours, Bass Pro Shops... caught bugs... gone to the beach... read books... the kids went to Storyland... gone to concerts...

And now it's over! Addie's 7 days into second grade... Liam is 3 days into Project Early... and the weather has gone all fall for sure.

Facebook has become a fun place to hang out, keep up, clown around. Love the immediacy, the ease, the the connection. Best part? The ease of photo sharing. Oh, and Farmville.

Loving the tweets, too... who doesn't love easy?

As for my mojo, it was gone, and I was afraid for good. But it's already coming back, and I've made some cool stuff and ready for more. And with a few get-aways on the horizon, I'll be back in the swing soon.

Bass Pro Shops
Cardstock: Die Cuts with a View
Patterned Paper: Paper Adventures
Pens: EK Success
Adhesive: Ranger
Stickers: EK Success; Bass Pro Shops

Chatham Vacation
Patterned Paper & Stickers: American Traditional Designs
Cardstock & Pens: American Crafts

Night on the Cape
Cardstock: Bazzill Basics Paper
Die Cuts: ProvoCraft
Adhesive: Ranger
Pens: EK Success

So, there's been little bloggin' around these parts.

But, it's all good.

Right Now

1. I love the beach and wish I could go everyday.

2. I am loving Dunkin' Donuts' raspberry iced tea with sugar.

3. I am going to finish The Pearl.

4. I am also reading Blink.

5. There are at least 10 loads of laundry to be done.

6. I need a shower.

7. Sean is at practice.

8. I have money.

9. I check on things I don't need to check on.

10. There is the cutest little desk waiting for me.

Nineteen Minutes

Another book review, another Jodi Picoult book... Picoult's writing speaks to me not just in the words but through them. She has a way of making characters really come alive, which is important when reading her books because, if you've ever read anything of hers you know that she has many main characters and they all have voice in her books. Nineteen Minutes was the first Picoult book recommended to me by a book store employee about a year ago. I have since read My Sister's Keeper and Vanishing Acts. After three, my first is still my favorite, but Nineteen Minutes was excellent, thought-provoking and relevant.

"In nineteen minutes, you can mow the front lawn, color your hair, watch a third of a hockey game. In nineteen minutes, you can bake scones or get a tooth filled by a dentist; you can fold laundry for a family of five... In nineteen minutes, you can get revenge." "Or, as Peter Houghton knows... in nineteen minutes you can bring the world to a screeching halt."

A brilliantly scribed and hauntingly accurate account of what a community and individuals go through in the aftermath of severe violence in the most unimaginable way.

As with the other Picoult novels I've read, this small New England town forces the reader to humanize the ghastly horrors of things most of us only see on the news.

A lesson of adolescence and being the parent of an adolescent.

It's told in classic Picoult fashion through the eyes of protagonist and "lucky" victim, Josie; her court judge mother, Alex; detective and all around-good-guy, Patrick; tormented mother, Lacy and her husband, Lewis; infallible lawyer/fallible man, Jordan; the misunderstood, perpetrator/victim? Peter.

For Lacy, "... true character showed when you could find something to love in a child everyone else hated..." "Taking credit for what a child did well also meant accepting responsibility for what they did wrong."

For Lewis, "Everyone knew that if you divided reality by expectation, you got a happiness quotient. But when you inverted the equation - expectation divided by reality - you didn't get the opposite of happiness. What you got... was hope."

For Peter, "They have to make someone else feel like shit in order to feel good about themselves."

For Alex, “She might have missed Josie’s bridge test – during which the sticks splintered and groaned, and then burst apart in catastrophic failure – but she’d been there in time to help Josie pick up the pieces.”

There is a lot of hard true fact in this book, (as always, Picoult has done her due diligence with her research, {see Acknowledgments.}) Some of it will make you squirm.

The realization that "It took him several sheddings of his own adolescent skin to find a group of friends who let him be whoever he wanted..." can be the saving grace of adolescence is a stop-in-your-tracks moment. Even more harsh reality, "But what if he hadn't found that group of friends? What if he'd continued peeling off layers of himself until there was nothing left at his core?"

All in all this portrayal of childhood adolescence is a jarring realization of how some get through it, and others don't, but that NONE of us gets through unscathed because, "there is the finest line between unique and odd between what made a child grow up well-adjusted... Did every teenage have the capacity to fall on one side or the other of that tightrope, and could you identify a single moment that tipped the balance?"

Nineteen Minutes if up for grabs... if you want it, it's yours.