Saturday, September 26, 2009

The day has come. Let it be.

It's here.
The day that Carrie moves out.
~gulp~
The range of emotions I feel today is completely out of control. Proud. Sad. Sentimental. Excited. Anxious. Yeah. Out of control.

I've been able to keep myself occupied with this little book I've been working on for her this week. If you know her, you know that she's CRAZY about the Beatles, and she LOVES the words to the song, "Let it Be."
I was inspired by an online class I took recently with the lovely Elise Blaha. The base of the chipboard book I learned from her, as well as the inspiration to use the inside of security envelopes and to cut my own bracket shapes.
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So -- Carrie is moving to an adorable condo, 3.4 miles from our house and has a very cool roommate who I think will suit her very well. Fingers crossed that she'll still spend lots of time hanging out around here! (I can't even imagine what it would be like if she were moving to Africa for Pete's sake!!!)
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Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Beach book #1

This is the first of at least two beach books I'm going to make using the pictures we took in San Diego in August. I ended up with so many photos and I didn't want this book to be humongous, so I decided to save some for a smaller/mini-book size. (This one is 8 1/2 x 11".)
I'm really happy with the cover for this book. The picture on the front is a photo I took of a tile mosaic on the boardwalk. I loved the colors and knew it would be my inspiration for the cover as I was taking the picture.
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The cover is a piece of corrugated cardboard; I used a razor knife and metal ruler to cut through the top layer and then peeled back 2" from the top and bottom. Then I lightly painted the top and bottom with a light blue pearl acrylic paint. A few buttons and this and that and viola!
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I kept the pages pretty simple in this book. I didn't want the book to be too bulky so I kept the embellishments flat and minimal.
Beach book #2 will be a quick and easy project...and will most likely be my next post. :o)

Saturday, September 19, 2009

Broccoli Soup...for the soul?

Our weather is finally cooling down (ok...97 degrees instead of 112...fall is in the air in Arizona!) and I was in the mood for homemade soup!
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So, my family just LOVES when I try new recipes (NOT!!!) and when I saw this recipe for broccoli soup on a blog that I follow (Soulemama) I just had to give it a try. I've never cooked with leeks before and have been wanting to -- finally got my chance. (I've been watching Food Network too much lately! Ha!)

Broccoli Soup

6-8 cups broccoli, chopped
4 medium sized potatoes, cut into chunks
1-2 leeks, sliced
1 onion (red), peeled and cut into chunks
1/3 cup heavy cream
water or stock
1 teaspoon salt
ground pepper

Place broccoli, potatoes, leeks, salt and onion in a soup pot. Fill with water (or stock) until everything is just barely covered. Bring to a boil. Lower heat and simmer for 45 minutes to an hour, until broccoli is very tender.
Puree until smooth. Add desired amount of cream. Add pepper. Adjust salt, if necessary.
*****
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The soup looked SO yummy before it started cooking -- colors so bright and all...
Then came the puree and cream and Doug and Carrie with turned up noses...
And, well, I added salt and a little more pepper...little more salt...little more pepper... Doug was a good sport and had two bowls. Carrie managed one spoonful and "wasn't hungry." It just wasn't a big hit with any of us.
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This morning after running some errands I came back home and noticed that our house had a broccoli order -- not in a good way. So, I baked a cake to make the house smell better...and also to redeem myself with Doug and Carrie. It worked. :o) ♥
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Anyone have another broccoli soup recipe that you'd recommend? Suggestions on what went wrong with this one?
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Monday, September 14, 2009

Happy first birthday, Stone!!! ♥

A birthday package from Aunt Deb! :o)

Sweet baby boy, Stone. Today is birthday #1 so I'm posting some pictures my sister sent of him at his party this past Saturday. I SOOOO wish I could have been there! Isn't he the cutest?!?!




Sunday, September 13, 2009

ABC book for baby Stone.

Tomorrow is Stone's 1st birthday. My sweet baby nephew who is SOOOO squeezably CUTE (I'll post pictures of him tomorrow). I've wanted to do an ABC book for a while and this was fun to do, although it may be the only one I ever make. 26 pages of detail...but all for a good cause!













Cute story from my sister: My 4-year old niece, Presley was reading her brother's book, going through each page and saying what each one was. When she got to the last page (as shown above) she said, "This is the part where Aunt Deb tells you she loves you." *heart melting* Never under-estimate the importance of signing your work!

**All of the letters and most of the shapes were cut using my Cricut. Alphabet is Mickey Font, shapes are DoodleCharms and Paper Doll Dress up. I also had to get some clip art online, print and cut out. And some of the embellishments are my own hand -- the robot (thanks to Carrie for the drawing) and the nest with the bird. Labels were hand stamped by me. **

Five things that I think are cool...Sunday...

I saw this playhouse this morning while blog surfing and HAD to put a picture of it on my blog!!! Isn't it magical?!?!


And then, this post turned into a "Hey, I know! I'll do a '10 things I love Sunday' post!" but it turned out to be a tedious task for me. This took me forever to put the picture in and the link and move the pictures around so the link would be under the picture and accidentally deleting the picture and having to re-insert it. So...instead we have a "five things that I think are cool" post and they are random, but they are here. Enjoy. :o) ♥

TimelessPaper

This Etsy shop has a bunch of different shapes for place cards. OMG -- the possibilities are endless. I'm so inspired by these!

And you know I LOVE garland! Look at Heidi's CUTE Halloween garland in the window! ~sigh~

SuzannaAnna Super cool framed pieces with different song lyrics! Love!!!

Simply Hue Really cool collages done with Polaroids.
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Ugh! That was exhausting and frustrating, but I hope you enjoyed the show.
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(Mel, maybe you can give me some pointers on how to put this together with less effort!)
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Thursday, September 10, 2009

♥ Carrie's cute project ♥

Having been a crafter all my life, there are few things that make me happier than seeing my daughter crafting. ~sigh~ It's hard to explain, but I absolutely dig it! I love to see her creativity being expressed and the pride she takes in her craft.

Head on over to Carrie's blog for a look at this completed, adorable doily garland!

Monday, September 7, 2009

The Wall.

Finally! The wall above our TV in our family room is the way I want it!!! We've been in this house for 4 years now and I've had this vision and now that it's out and done my mind can create other things.

For a while I had a beautiful large canvas piece that my friend, Connie and I put together one night while she was visiting. It matched my purple kitchen and I loved it. Well, now our kitchen is red and we needed a change.

Some fun things on this wall:

~ The shelf on the lower left has blocks of wood I salvaged from our property in northern Arizona. Doug painted them red with the fronts done in chalkboard paint. We can change the 4-letter word out as we wish. You know! Things like "home," "love," "hope," "Noel" for Christmas time...
~ Black and white picture is of Doug's mom and dad with Ed Sullivan. My FIL was Marine Aviator of the Year in 1968 and they got to be on The Ed Sullivan Show!
~ A button heart I stitched that I don't like and want to re-vamp;
~ An old doily in a frame;
~ Picture of Doug with Santa Claus when he was little;
~ Some random photos of us; :o)
~ Oooh, and the long frame on top with the stars -- got the frame @ Goodwill for 99 cents and Doug painted it for me. The stars I bought @ Michael's for $1 each and attached to the frame with some apholstery tacks.
~ Quote in the frame bottom just left of center: "Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many." - Charles Dickens
~ And the shadow box with butterflies has: "Scatter Joy" - Ralph Waldo Emerson (I used my Martha butterfly punch and folded the butterflies up slightly. I love how it turned out!)
~ The little heart shaped bottle on the high shelf has sand in it from our honeymoon. That shelf still needs something but I haven't figured it out yet.

So. There's a tour of our family room wall. What do you think?

Friday, September 4, 2009

I ♥ origami!

Kusudama flower and Fancy Jane

I've always been fascinated by origami. I can fold a few simple things -- a fish from a dollar bill (pull its tail and the mouth opens and closes), a boat, cootie catchers... And I've also folded a few things by following step-by-steps from books. You have to wonder, whoever came up with this stuff!?!? It's amazing that someone would have the forethought/sight to visualize what a piece of paper could become if folded this way and that.

I folded this Kusudama flower by following a tutorial I came across here. It was actually very easy to do -- the toughest part was gluing the petals together!

Side note: I always smile to myself when I see fellow artists selling their wares with the disclosure "made in a pet free environment." I think there's a little more love in a piece of art when there's a cat hair or two included. [wink] Fancy had to be on my work table this morning, leaving little room for folding.
>^..^<
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