That Pinterest place is A-Ok.

Today the Mr. built me something:

No.  Not the sofa.  (Although that would be a handy little party trick!)  He put up the shelf behind the sofa for me!

We (HE) used this as the guide/inspiration:

It's just a board from Lowe's stained and attached to the wall with L brackets.
The board, stain, sanding paper, tack cloth and hardware all came to about $30.  After the board was sanded and stained it took him about 20 minutes to put it up.  Now I have some space for framed pictures and tchotchkes, as well as a little extra storage space below the shelf.

An amazingly simple idea that would have never happened if not for Pinterest.

It also wouldn't have happened without a certain guy and his cordless drill.
(This is not to say that it couldn't have happened.  It just means I never would have gotten around to it.  Lazy, lazy, lazy)  Yay, Kerig!

One full year of blogging, crammed into a mere 8½ (ish) months!

I started this blog in November of 2009 and squeezed in a whopping 5 posts before the end of the year.  In 2010 I was breaking a sweat with 21 entries.  Somewhere in 2011 I had this epiphany: if you're going to have a blog, you actually have to post.  Colloquially: Shit or get off the pot. So I ramped it up a bit, and logged 38 posts.  In 2012 I joined the Cord Scrapbook Studio Design Team and became sort of a regular blogger.  I had more to say, more to share, and a reason.  I wasn't just talking into the abyss, it was expected.  (I loooove having a good 'excuse' for things!) But then the year of academic hell broke loose and at that point most of my posts were me whining about school.  Wah. Wah. Wah.

Once school let out this spring, I was itching to scrapbook!  I've had a couple of busy patches, but I've been steadier lately.  And happier about scrapbooking than I've been in a long time.  I would do the design team again in a heartbeat, but I'm enjoying the freedom - now it doesn't matter where things were bought or whether there still available.  If I like it, boom, no second thoughts!  That's nice, ya know?

This is a good example.  The background paper on top is actually KIMemories - that weird clear, heavy plastic stuff that was sort of like a placemat.  I think that was out in 2009? Maybe early 2010?  And there's a clear acrylic flower on the picture of just Molly (it's hard to see) - that was circa 2005 or 06.  I had to bust open the package to use it.  I found it in the move and it's been sitting on top of my desk for the last two months.  My version of a creative threat: USE THIS PRODUCT NOW, YOU WASTEFUL WENCH!  Of course, I should probably start using the two huges vases of ribbon that I accumulated in my Cord days, but you can call me a wench all you want, it's just not going to happen.

So here's a little ditty about using old stuff.  So the little orange beads in the center of the flower? Cute, huh?  I used a little squirt of KI Gloo (long discontinued, I'd imagine) to hold the flower down and another little squirt in the hole in the center of the flower and sprinkled the little Martha Stewart beads into the glue.  Cute.  Naturally more little orange beads came out of the vial than what was needed.  I tried to just be patient and let the excess little orange beads stay on the page while I worked, but I couldn't let them.  At this point (almost) everything was adhered to the page, so I just dumped the little beads right into my scrap table trash can.

Only, not everything was adhered to the page.

And I had just unclogged a bottle of glue into my trash can.

So the little green bird fell right into a massive glop of K&Co white glue.  And like your slice of peanut butter bread, it fell "good side" down. I gingerly picked it out of the trash, and half-heartedly wiped the blob of glue off.

I had just finished listening to a Paperclipping Roundtable episode where Wilna Furstenberg talked about accidentally spilling an entire bottle of paint on her page, and how she made it work.  At the time, I snorted, because - while I love Wilna F's work - most of her pages look as though there was an accidentally spilled bottle of, well...something.  So I guessed this was karma.  And I figured, if dumb ole Wilna F could make it work, I could surely go to my basket of glitter and put that spilled glue to use.

And let me tell you, the beads and the glitter are probably going on 4 years old, too.  And I gotta say.  I'm not in love with this layout, but I flipping love that dumb sparkly bird.

Let's hear it for screw ups!

(*I feel compelled to note that I love Wilna Furstenberg's work and calling her 'dumb ole Wilna F' was my version of kicking the dirt in envy.  I'd start spilling shit left and right if I thought that would make my pages more like hers)(Not that I really want my pages to be more like hers.  I don't.  But she's mad talented.)

Scrapbooking from the Soul

(a class with Jill Sprott at twopeasinabucket)

At the risk of sounding cocky, I used to think I was a really good journaler. I used to finish a layout and think "Yeah. I nailed that story."  Maybe not after every layout, but certainly far more frequently than I feel that now.  In truth, I feel like none of my recent layouts have been particularly poignant.  I'm sure there are valid influences at play. Maybe it's harder to emote about teenagers?  Maybe the complexity of my living arrangements have left me guarded? Maybe it goes all the way back to the divorce?   This is most probably the closest.  After the separation I gave up scrapbooking all together for a couple of years.  And when I picked it up again, things had definitely shifted in my mindset...

Whatever the reason, I want to change it.  At $12, Jill's class seemed like a good idea.  Over this past weekend I had pulled out a picture of Ted.  He was sitting in my old bedroom, watching t.v. with me and soaking his feet in vinegar water.  He would probably prefer that I not share this with the whole world, but Ted's feet can really hum.  So every couple of weeks during baseball and football seasons he soaks his feet in vinegar water.  It's a miracle cure for foot odor.  No lie.

I feel like there's so much to say.  But when I looked at the photo all that came to me was schmaltzy 'soaking up' puns.  Ugh.  I love this kid and I'm so impressed and proud of him and the way he carries himself, his work ethic, how kind and helpful he is, and ....and...and...and a hundred other great qualities.  But nothing bubbled to the surface without making me groan.

I wanted to have a nod to the fact that he was soaking his feet, but I wanted it to be subtle.  My take-away from the first lesson of Scrapbooking from the Soul was to look past the obviousness of the photo and find the bigger story.  It occurred to me that we're really just entering Ted's teenage years.  He's rounding the corner to 15, but I sometimes lose sight of that - he is so tall, so manly, and so mature that I forget that he's just 14.  When the phrase 'getting our feet wet' popped into my head I knew that was something I could run with.

I'm going to share the journaling, but please keep in my mind that I have a degree in math for a reason.  While I enjoy writing for my personal use, it's never been anything to served me well academically.  So...be nice. :P

We’re only about a year and a half into Ted’s teenage years.  I feel like we’re just getting our feet wet here.  If you believe the hype about raising teenagers that’s perpetuated by sit-coms, this is supposed to be hard, eye-rolling work.  Everything from getting him to take out the garbage to getting him to bathe should be a massive undertaking. But that’s so not the case with Ted.  Maybe it’s the athletic training? Maybe it’s just his genetic make-up?  But Ted has always been a good kid.  Not perfect, mind you, but he really strives to do good. I suppose that in some regards I’ve been holding my breath, waiting and wondering if the teenage years will change that about him.  
  We’re just getting our feet wet here.  There’s still a long way to go and I’m hoping the trajectory we’re on continues.  I love that Ted respects others and that he respects himself, too.  I love that Ted isn’t too cool to give his mom big, floppy hugs.  I love that he thinks about others and will do sweet things to make others happy.  Yes, I can’t deny that his willingness to take the garbage out without being told is a personality trait that I hope lasts forever.  But in this photo, Ted is soaking his feet in vinegar water and watching t.v. with me.  I adore the fact that he’s willing to do both of these things.  One demonstrates his respect for self, the other one just makes me warm and fuzzy.  Thank you, Ted, for keeping me company and making me so proud to be your mom.

Thanks for stopping by.  And if $12 won't break your bank, I do highly recommend "Scrapbooking with Soul."  It's good stuff.

Just wild about Harry

Way back in the way back day, Kerig was my boss. One evening a guy came in and had an issue with a repair.  It was just Kerig and I working and the man's issue was something that needed the store manager.  Kerig was busy selling a camera, which is something that takes some time.  I did tell Kerig that the man was waiting to speak to him, but the man would have to be patient until Kerig was free.

The man, however, was a douchebag.  And after waiting about a minute and a half he demanded to know Kerig's name.  He picked up one of our pens and one of our brochures and when I said his name was Kerig, he did what most people do and said "What?!"  (his "what" was decidedly more angry than most people's "whats").  I said it again and watched with amusement as he wrote down "HARRY."  Fine.  Go ahead and call our corporate offices and let them know that "Harry" didn't drop everything and tend to your every whim and desire.  Good luck with that.

For the record, had the man asked me to spell it for him, I would have.  But he didn't.  And correcting him would have been rude. :P

He's wearing my glasses, because he was making fun of me, and the impersonation needed to be accurate.  Of course, once he put them on, he couldn't see a damn thing, so I took his picture to show him how he looked.  (Frankly, I like it!  His glasses are a million years old...I think it's time he gets a new pair.  Like that!)  The picture was taken in the bathroom, which is a lovely mix of pale teal blues.  Even though I converted the picture to black and white in Instagram, it still screams 'calm blue color scheme!' to me.  I threw in the orange for the tension - the story is a little bit angsty, and even though it resolves itself in a good way (that the name stuck and he became something much more valuable than my boss), there is some tension there.  Plus, I really like orange and light blue, and I can put them together if I want to. :P :P :P

By the way: it was really flipping hard to sew the vellum to the speech bubble.  I contemplated cutting another out and trying it again, but I think the results would have been the exact same.  Lazy, lazy, lazy.

"Just don't title your blog post that!"

Sage words of wisdom from the manfriend, since "Yeah, we're swingers" would surely attract an audience that would be nothing but disappointed by the results of their google search.  And I don't mind disappointing people - hell, that's practically my job description - but maybe it's just unwise...given the content of my blog as a whole.

So yeah. We're swingers. As in: can't walk past a swing set at the park without hoping on for a ride.  Now, I would never hog a seat if kids were waiting, but (as was the case on this scrapped about evening) if the seats are largely empty, hells yeah, I can't resist.

This was from Memorial Day weekend.  We had eaten dinner at iHop and decided to try to walk off some of the calories.  It was a gorgeous evening, a light breeze, mid-60s...perfect walking weather.  We both had our cameras with us and when we saw the empty bank of swings I immediately thought of doing a "panning" self portrait.  Panning is a photographic technique where the photographer moves the camera while the shutter is open.  Normally moving a camera while the shutter is open would give you a blurry picture, but with panning, you move the camera smoothly and at the same rate of speed that the subject is moving.  You see panning a lot with race cars - the end result gives you a car that is tack sharp but everything that isn't moving is blurred.  It might be easy to confuse a panned shot with a shallow depth of field, since they have similar looks.  But with a panning shot the roadway under the moving car would be blurred, whereas in a shallow depth of field shot the road would still be sharp.

So my idea was that if we were swinging, we could take self portraits of ourselves using this technique.  Problem is, you need to be able to have a little control over your shutter speed to make this work.  And it requires that you hold the camera as steady as possible within the constraints it actually moving.  So in the race car scenario, your arms are braced at your sides and you swivel at the waist.  In the swing scenario you have to hold the camera out in front of you for the selfie, but it's hard to hold it perfectly steady while you're moving on the swing.  So, my shots didn't pan because my little Nikon S01 has no overrides.  Kerig had the manual overrides, but couldn't get the camera to be absolutely steady - although he had way better luck than I did.

But it almost doesn't matter if the shots worked.  We were cracking up the whole time.  First, trying to swing high with only one hand on the chain? Yeah, sort of fun/scary, but it definitely gives you a little rush.  But also, we'd take a shot and look at what we got and they were funny. And by 'funny' I mean god-awful and terribly unflattering.  Kerig got a good one of him, but sadly I'm in the background looking less than, um, 'with it.'  The bottom line is: we had a lot fun.

This is the best shot of the two of us.  Yes, I realize we're not really interacting.  And I'm not even trying the technique.  But I'm looking at my results, so that counts. ;)

Yes. The sewing on this is a little rough.  We (the sewing machine and I) were having a slight difference of opinion.  It appears the machine won that argument.  C'st la vie.

Also: the washi tape at the top as We R Memory Keepers and it's billed as navy.
Dear We R Memory Keepers: I don't know what you're smoking, but that is NOT navy.

And guess who's finally carrying his own weight around here??  Just kidding.  But Kerig has a degree in photography and LOTS of yummy equipment.  Including a copy stand:

A copy stand was how we recreated artwork (or text) back in the old days before scanners.  It holds the camera perfectly parallel to base so that the image is nice and square instead of all wonky and trapezoidal.  Since taking these pictures is a royal pain in the ass, handing off the picture taking part is really wonderful.

This could be the start of something beautiful.

Escaping to my happy place

As I begin to write this, the store has only been open for about an hour.  We've only had a handful of customers, but the tone is set: It's going to one of those days.  It's not a day where money will change hands.  It'll be a day of "why is this not working the way I think it should."  Which sometimes appeals the problem solver in me, but...sometimes not.

(I just gave the address and a phone number for a school uniform place that's in the next city over.)(Not the kind of thing that appeals to my inner problem solver.)(Although, when I'm in a better mood, I think of the scene in Miracle on 34th street where the Macy's Santa refers someone to Gimble's and the Gimble's exec have a fit.)

I might also mention that many of these posts are written at work.  My boss knows, she's sitting right next to me, so it's not taboo or anything.  So between customers, this is sometimes how I kill time.  This might explain some of the choppiness, dropped words and sentences that look like maybe they were started and finished by two different people. :P  But today, this blog is my escape, my happy place.  My oasis of sanity, where no one will thrust their problems at me and expect a tactful, hand-holding response.    And no one here will call me Charlene.  Ok?

Ok.

This is sort of all over the place.  I started it, stopped to make dinner, futzed with it a little after dinner, took Molly to her summer band camp concert, watched Project Runway and then finished it late in the evening.  Somehow I lost all my journaling room, but I think that what I ended up sums it up nicely - I love having a kid who's adventuresome enough to try some foods that others in her age bracket (and gene pool) might find to gross to sample.

By the way, the stars are something that I made in the Silhouette software.  It wasn't hard by any means, but I couldn't find anything quite like them in the Silhouette store.  If you want the file feel free to send me an email and I'll send it to you: cnd3167 at yahoo dot com.  I'm sort of half heartedly trying to figure out how to share files from here, but I keep coming across roadblocks.

Alrighty.  That's all I've got for now.  My 'i' key is sticking.  I think I've caught most of the i-less words, but if you spot one or two, that's why.

Thanks for stopping by!

Explore

It was hot yesterday and I'm broke.  And except for a brief stint where Ian came over for some math help, I was alone for the day.  So I did what any scrapper would do: I broke down and put on the A/C, listened to the latest episode of Paperclipping Roundtable and played with pictures and paper and my Cameo:

I think I'm in love with this whole sewing thing.  Which is ironic, since I spent a good deal of time fishing wadded up bits of thread out of the bobbin casing. I still don't know how to sew worth a damn, but I can sure take apart and reassemble that housing with ease. :P

And even though its a craptastic mess, I like it.  It's funny...in general, I don't care for country-ish stuff.  And the sewn edges reminds me of that primitive/country feel, and yet some how I'm giving it a pass.

That may be the smallest title ever. I didn't realize that I'd sized it so tiny, but it cut cleanly and I decided that I liked the way it looked right on the photo.    The tree is two triangles, the bottom one has inked edges and the top one got run through the cuttlebug with a texture plate.  I dig it.  And the tiny little bird - so cute.

Look how cute Molly is in her braids. She's since chopped off about a foot of her hair and gotten "bangs."  In quotes because they're not traditional bangs, but the new fangled long, side swept bangs.  Which look great if your beauty strategy has more steps than wash, condition, comb, go to bed with wet hair. *sigh*

That's all I've got today.  I'm waiting for another batch of pictures to come in from the printer - any minute now!  And I'm waiting for my Mr. to come home.  He's been gone for two (long, rough) weeks now.  I can't wait for him to walk through the door tomorrow.

Some thoughts on vertical scrapbooking.

(Which seems so less weenie than 'scrapping standing up')

I recently said I had some kinks to work out with my new scrapbook set up.  And that was true.  The major hang ups were that the laptop was taking up too much space on the drafting table, and while the kitchen table chair is the perfect height for the drafting table, it's sort of awkward.

I should really take some other shots to make this make more sense, but I still have some tubs of stuff that need to be hauled to the Salvation Army, and until those get dealt with I'm not taking anymore shots of my space. :P  But just to the left of this set up is a school desk that I bought for $5 (score) that has two white paper cubes from Michael's on top.

I really love these - they're sturdy, hold a ton and not awful looking.  Plus, I really prefer to store my paper flat, and these allow for that.

I used to have my wide format printer on top of two of these positioned side by side.  I'm not 100% certain I'm keeping the printer though.  It prints beautifully, but since switching to 8.5x11 I rarely print anything larger than 4x6.  Of course the wide format printer can do that, but since space is at a premium, I'm sort of lusting after a nice, compact Epson PictureMate.  Because yeah, I have money in my budget for another printer.  I need my head examined.

So anyway, I have two of those things side by side on a child's school desk, and over the weekend I realized that my laptop could easy sit on them.  Having the laptop nearby is necessary for both journaling and designing and cutting dies on the Cameo.

So that's one problem solved.  On to the kitchen chair...  In the photo above, I have it sort of pushed to the side with my FirdgeBinz on it.  I felt hemmed in, and eventually I just wanted to sit down because I was still feeling the effects of the move (i.e. everything hurt like a mo fo).   But the chairs are tall - your feet don't touch the ground in them.  So getting in and out can be a bit of a hassle.  Now that everything feels a little better (courtesy of copious quantities of Advil) I can actually scrapbook standing up.

AND I LOVE IT.

These are just snippets of the layouts that I posted yesterday.  They're special because each one of them shows something that I used that I've had for-ev-er but wasn't using because it wasn't within arm's reach of my fat ass sitting down while scrapping.  Stamp stuff? I have some, but I'm not a stamper per se, so it's always been stowed away.  But because I was standing up it wasn't any big deal at all to walk over to my shelves, bring the bin of embossing powders and rifle through to find what I want.  Same deal with the stack of sticker labels and photo corners.

It also made cleaning up go more quickly - I was already up, so putting things away didn't feel like any big deal - just grab a load of stuff and put it back on the shelves.  Piece-o-cake.

I'm still lusting over the file cabinets that I shared a couple of days ago - they would really complete the space nicely.  But for now I think it's going to work out.

Now I have to redirect my attention to my bedroom.  This morning I had a dream that I was packing for a trip and I couldn't find my pants.  I think that's my (not-so-)subconscious telling me to get my stuff taken care off.

Thanks for stopping by!

Trifecta is an overstatement

I had a lot of alone time this weekend.  I suppose that I could have used that time to make my bedroom more appealing (it's still sort of a (huge) mess) but my shoulder is still in a lot of pain, so I'm taking it easy for a couple more days. (wink wink)   Instead, I watched a couple of scrapbooking process videos and got all kinds of inspired to scrap.

In one of the videos, Mercy Tiara sews down chevron bits then pulls the ends up off the page to give it all sorts of extra dimension. I just loved it and wanted to give it a try.

Aside: I have two sewing machines.  I don't really know how to operate either of them.  I could tell you story of how I came to have two machines and absolutely no sewing skills, but it would take forever.  I should mention that the better of the two had been stashed in the back of my closet for the last three years and I only just found it in the move.  In fact, it was in the back of my car until Friday evening...

So yeah, back to being inspired on Friday night...  There was no way in hell I was going down the stairs to get that machine, especially since I had no idea how to use it.  No problem!  I'll just hand stitch the chevrons in place!  No big deal.  Ha. Ha. Ha.  What a hot mess that was!  The holes (and subsequent stitching) were all unevenly spaced  - and not in a quaint, casual sloppy way, but rather in a 2nd grade craft project gone wrong kind of way.  I was also using more of a thin twine than thread, and I was ripping the cardstock in a couple of spots.  I ended up cutting the sheet of cardstock in half, ditching the botching sewing job half and putting the salvaged half in with my scraps.  I abandoned the idea of sewing the chevrons in place and just adhered them down all boring-like.

 


         
       


   
 



 
 




(Instagram shots by Kerig)
And while I would have prefered to have just a sleek line of thread running through the tips of the chevrons and the ability to bend the ends up off the pages for a little more dimension...maybe this works in a neat and tidy way.  I do like the combo of teal and grey patterned papers and cardstock that I used.  I'm loving both of those colors lately.

By Sunday I had finally hauled up the "good" sewing machine and decided to spend some time trying to remember how to use it.  You know, sometimes I just don't know how we existed as a society before YouTube.  I watched a video that showed me all the basics - threading the bobbin, putting the bobbin in the housing, threading the needle and getting started.  Yay, YouTube!  I still had a bunch of hurdles, including several times when I was just punching holes in the cardstock because the thread had broken 6 inches ago, but with the help of Google and some sewing forums I managed to get it sort of figured out.

Do you SEE ALL THAT CRAZY SEWING??  It's a mess, but sort of a good mess, so I'll take it.

The other thing that I'm pleased about on this layout is the size of the car frame thingee.  It was originally sized at 4x6 - I think it's meant to be for a Project Life journaling card.  (Am I the only one not doing Project Life? Am I the only one sort of sick of hearing about how amazing Project Life is? #grump) Anyway, I managed to use some trickery I learned through one of Kerri Bradford's Silhouette classes to size it  fit my 8.5x11 page.  There are a bunch of those journaling cards in the Silhouette shop...no my brain is working overtime wondering if I could/should use this technique on other shapes.  Hmmm...

After I finished that layout I still had plenty of daylight and I was killing time til the Real Housewives of New Jersey came on.  So I did this:

The jury is still out on this one.  Way out, in fact.  I had watched another process video that inspired me to use the busier background.  Plus, I ♥♥♥ the hexagons, so I impulsively bought the paper.  That was sort of dumb for me, given that I really only feel comfortable using very tight geometric patterns.  But we're seeing vellum tone things down, and I thought I'd be able to add more stuff to cover up the overwhelming pattern and it wouldn't be so...overwhelming...  Ah well, another  memory saved. :P

So that's it for today.  There's actually more that I want to say, but I save that for tomorrow.

hello 12

The move into the new place is nearly complete.  But I think that moving must be a lot like losing weight - that first bit comes easy, but those last 10 pounds/5 boxes take for-ev-er.  It's driving me a little nuts, because I just want a place for everything and everything its place.  Even if that place is the complex dumpster. :P

And even though it's not finished, I needed to take a break and play last night.  Or, as I said on Instagram, I needed to take my new scrap desk for a test drive.

The space needs some serious tweaking.  I used to have two 6 foot tables in an L shape, so I've lost a lot of surface area.  The table is a good size, but the computer takes up too much room (and I need the PC for the Cameo...and, apparently, YouTube videos).  I like the depth of the table, and having the drawers right there helps keep commonly used things at my finger tips.  BUT, the bin of adhesives is heavy, and it sort of crushes the drawers and makes it hard to open them.  I've found a solution:

This is one of the Bisley 5 drawer cabinets in an assortment of kicky colors. I love the idea of this.  They also have drawer organizers, so it would be perfect for all the little itty bitty things that we scrappers love. They're steel and 11x15x13, which would be perfect for my spot.  Two would be even better for my spot, but at $99 a pop, that's not happening anytime soon.  But this is definitely on my Christmas wish-list.  

So yeah.  Anyway...  I did actually do a page last night.  I feel like I lost a little of the momentum that I had built up before the move, but it's a good getting started point:

These pictures are a year old. eek.  I suck at scrapbooking birthdays.  Heck, truth be told, I don't like doing special occasion stuff.  I'm not certain what the hang up is, but I know I'm not alone in this.  However, the birthday-ees tend to feel a little slighted when pictures from their big day sit in an envelope for more than a year. :P  I figured since Molly is turning 13 next week I'd better get my ass in gear. 

I have been hoarding that green Scenic Route paper for a very long time.  I don't know what it is, but I love that green on green wonky dot goodness.  I totally screwed up the top part of this layout.  Originally it was just white cardstock at the top.  I splattered some Mr. Huey's ... and one would think that it's splattering - it's supposed to look messy.  Only, it just looked dumb.  I tried to cover it up and just made it worse.  I ended up screwing up the top so badly that I broke out the scissors and hacked off the top of the page and fitted some Hambly transparency to make up the top portion.  And honestly, I really like the top piece now! Hooray for mistakes! 

Some notes about supplies: the "hello" is from the Silhouette store.  Love it. The "12" is the font SNF Miss Molly (how fitting!) that was purchased from the Silhouette store as well.  And the little letter stickers that spell MOLLY are from Kelly Purkey at Simon Says Stamp.  I love the size.  And I also love that when you pull off the "O" the inside stays on the sticker sheet so you don't have to find something to poke it out with.  I also love the colors they come in.  The downside is I had to pull off 3 Y's because the first 2 didn't have any sticky on them - like somehow I only lifted off the cardstock part and managed to leave the sticky behind.  Not cool.  I hope that was just a one time happening - I'd hate to think they're all defective. :(

So that's it for today.  I still haven't decided on the whole Christmas ornament thing.  Which probably means I'm a week behind already. Oops. Oh well.  

Trying on an idea...

I have a friend who'll say "I'm going to..." or "I want to..." and sometimes those thoughts get followed through on, and sometimes they get abandoned. After about the 20th time of this happening I came to the conclusion that he was 'trying on' the idea of whatever he was proposing.  Sometimes hearing the words out loud (and maybe seeing other people's reaction to them) makes it easier to figure out what's worth acting on and what we should just let go of.

(I'm quite sure we all do this - it's just so much easier to recognize these trends when we see them repeated from the outside.)

Today I'm going to borrow this and see if it works.

"I'm thinking about attempting to make a Christmas tree ornament every week til Thanksgiving."

Whoa.  That sentence is riddled with commitment issues. I am wrapped up in failure over my abandoned ugly sketch project, so I don't want to get too cocky about this.  And once a week is an awful lot, especially for someone who claims to really dislike Christmas...

But I came across this while packing (and then again while unpacking):

(please excuse the crappy phone picture)

This is not high art.  But it's a perfectly acceptable item to temporarily hang on dead tree in my livingroom.  And here's the thing: I have A LOT of paper crafting supplies.  Nothing like moving to help you really appreciate how much shit you've hoarded over the years.  It's okay to have a lot of stuff, but ONLY IF YOU USE IT.  And I do.  Sort of. But obviously I've acquired at great rate than I've consumed.  So it's time to kill two birds with one stone (that's the Christmas spirit!) and commit to using my products in a delightful way.

I'm not so gung ho that I'm actually going to consult a calendar for this, but we're at the end of June, so we've got about 26 weeks left in the year.  I need to subtract out 4 weeks because come Black Friday I doubt I'll have the emotional wherewithal to actually do anything creative.  So that leaves 22 weeks and 22 Christmas tree ornaments.  I can do that, right??

Maybe.  Keep in mind: I'm just trying this on for size.

*IF* I do this the one ground rule is: NO BUYING ANYTHING for this.  I'm not saying I'm swearing off craft purchases for the rest of the year, I'm just saying that this is not an excuse to purchase brown velveteen paper because that would make the perfect reindeer ornament.

So. Yeah.  We'll let that hang in the air for a day or two and see what comes of it.  Feel free to comment with a yay or nay, or leave a link to your homemade (especially paper-y) Christmas tree ornament pinboards - I'd love to see them. :)

Administrative Time Out

For my regular blog readers: In preparation for my move I'm trying to find a good home for some under utilized items.  This is the best way I know to get decent sized pictures for people on craigslist to see what they're buying in better detail.

I'll get back to my usual fascinating self in a week or so. ;)
And if you're interested in anything you see pictured here on the blog in the next couple of days, by all means, let me know!

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Tamrac Adventure 10
Read the full, official description here on Tamrac's website.

This was purchased for a camping trip, then not used - it wasn't the right configuration for the trip.  More non-gear room was needed for what we were doing.

The bag has never been used.  Tags have been removed.  It's been kept in a smoke-free, pet-free home.  The bag has been discontinued, and listings on ebay are asking for $260.  I'd like to find a happy photo enthusiast to give it a good home.  We're asking $100.

Lots of room up top for non-photo gear.

The bottom is equally huge.  Easily fits a 70-200 f/2.8 lens attached to the camera.  Or rearrange the fully-customizable inserts and put your 70-200 f/2.8 just about anywhere you want!  Multiple lenses? An external flash? Or Two? Second body? No problem.  PLENTY of room in here!

Side view.  Nothing to write home about here, but had I been thinking, I would be showing you the other side view, and I could tell you that this bag has a laptop compartment that fits a 17 inch laptop.  17 inch.  Let that sink in for a minute.

I'm bringin' sext back.  Those other bags don't know how to act.
Oops.  Just the view of the back side of the bag.
The straps are well padded.  Lots of places to hook on a cell phone or gps unit.

You can't read the measuring tape, but you can see the red spots that mark each foot.  It's (according the Tamrac) 14 wide x 25 high x 10 deep.

Quick recap:
$100
HUGE
Never been used.
Tamrac - great quality bags
Smoke-free, Pet-free home.

Bummers:
Cash only.
No shipping (sorry, it's too big)
Mayfield/Willoughby/Mentor area.

Interested?  Email me at cnd3167 at yahoo dot com.

She's Such a B

I'm moving!
Okay, not today - who blogs when they're actually moving?  But I do have stuff in boxes.  I WE get our keys next Saturday and I have a 17 foot UHaul reserved in my name the following Tuesday.  On Wednesday I'll probably be dead, but...thems the breaks, right?

Yesterday was the day I had planned to start packing.  And I had also planned to squeeze in one more layout.  I figured I'd pack for a couple of hours in the morning, and then set aside two hours to play with paper.  Ted had a baseball game scheduled last night, but it rained pretty hard the night before and throughout the morning.  I got a little cocky, thinking that surely the game would be cancelled, which would mean I could pack more and push scrapping to the evening.

HA.
hahahahaha.

No.  Ted's game wasn't cancelled.  But by the time that became apparent I had already extended my packing time into my scrapping time.  Also, last night was the last night for me to make a meal and have "all" of us eat something homemade together. (all = me, Ted and Molly...which is such a tiny 'all' these days!)  The bottom line is, I got to play with paper for about a half hour before we had to head out to the park.  The game was good - the sun was out at the beginning, and it got a little chilly when the sun went down, but at no point was it unpleasant.  The boys won 6-0. (Yay!)

We got home after 10:30, and even though that's long after I prefer to scrapbook, I was going to finish the page I'd started.  I couldn't bear to pack everything up with this picture and this story untold.  I wasn't excited about where this was going at first, my tired brain just wasn't clicking the way I would like it to.  But in the end, I'm very pleased. :)

*GASP*  I cussed on a scrapbook layout! BAD SCRAPBOOKER!

Oops.  I'm not sorry.  This is our life and our story, and this story includes a bad word.

Ted is the most laid back, easy going, helpful kid on the planet.  He rarely complains, and is always willing to lend a hand.  I'd even go so far as to say he's chivalrous.  This past week I worked to spruce up a drafting table.

It went from this:

To this:

This transformation took about 3 hours of scrubbing, power sanding, detail and finish sanding and buffing on several layers of wax.  The point of this is: my arms were like jelly for the following two days, and when I said something in front of my kids, Ted's response was "Mom.  I would have done that for you."  And indeed he could have - he just won the Applied Tech award at school, meaning, of all the kids, the shop teacher thought he was 'the man.'  We had a little talk about how I like getting that sense of "I did it!" pride, too, and that the sore guns were totally worth it.  But Ted would do just about anything to spare me pain.  If he treats his future wife half as well as he treats me, she will be a lucky, lucky woman.

"She's such a bitch!" is our inside joke.  Whenever I ask him to do anything his usual response is "Okay."  Not "Okay." in a "what-ev-er" tone.  He may not be excited to gather the garbage and take it the curb, but his response is positive -  like he's just happy to be of help.  I love that about him.

So when I ask him to do something and he says "Ok" so willingly, I playfully say "I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking: "She's such a bitch!"**  To this Ted earnestly responds "Mom.  I'm NOT thinking that.  I don't EVER think that!"  We tend to go on like this for a bit.  Ted knows that I'm teasing him, that I know that he doesn't think that.  It's just fun.  And it makes him smile at me in an exasperated way.   We've been doing this schtick for a couple of months now, and the other day I said I was going do a scrapbook page with that title. And blog about it.  He smiled, but protested, saying that everyone would think he was mean.  For the record: he's totally not mean at all.

**Yes, I shouldn't set such a terrible example for my kids, but I'm not saying anything their peers don't say, and we've had extensive conversations about what's acceptable and appropriate.  And honestly, they're not big bad word sayers.  I've scrolled through their texts, and their friends cuss like sailors, but I rarely see anything, and even then, it's damn or crap, so I feel like we're doing okay there.

And that's it.  I doubt that I'll scrapbook again until July.  Just thinking about that break makes me sad.  I've had so much fun playing these last couple of weeks.  BUT, I'm SO excited about scrapbooking in my new place, where I get to be in with the rest of my people.  And on my new desk (Have I mentioned how pretty she is??) And standing up, too!  Yeeeee!  It's going to be so great.

Wish us luck!

Meh.

I'm having one of those days where the weather is getting to me a little.  It was a struggle to get out of bed this morning - the only reason I managed it was because I had to take Maggie's car to get e-checked so I can take care of getting my stickers for it for the next year.

BTW, thanks State of Ohio, for always giving me a batch of unpleasant errands to run for my birthday.  Blech.  I can't remember how it was done in MD, PA or IN but OH: you suck.

Anyway, once were back it was still a struggle to fight the urge to crawl back into bed.  I'm not generally a napper, and while I hit the snooze once or twice like everyone else, I'm not generally one to lollygag around in bed.  So it's weird.  I'm not sick, I feel fine, I'm just BLAH.

I spent my afternoon making this:

Yeah. Like I said: Meh.

Washington D.C. ....and a wee tutorial

Ted went to Washington D.C. with his 8th grade class last week.  He came home with about 150 images of the places they'd visited and about 5 people shots, including 3 selfies with him wearing someone else's aviator sunglasses and looking pretty badass (for an 8th grader).  The camera that I gave him is waterproof and shockproof, because frankly I just don't trust 14 year olds to really take care of electronics. So it's not the greatest camera (waterproof, shockproof cameras will never be "the greatest camera") but it did okay.

But what really amuses me is that Ted is a Gratuitous Tilter. Roughly half of his pictures were taken at a 30º to 45º tilt.  I have a feeling that he got that from me, but I'd like to think that I used it more sparingly.  ;)    Because the tilted pictures amused me so, I made a collage to share on Facebook and posted it with (what I thought was) a funny caption about alerting the authorities that D.C. was about to slide into the Potomac and wash out to sea.  Once I made the collage it seemed pretty logical to go ahead and print it.  And if I was going to go ahead and print it, I might as well print in a scrapbook friendly size.  When I showed the print to him I prefaced it with "You can't have this one, I'm going to scrapbook it." he got all excited.  No lie he said "My pictures are worthy enough to be scrapbooked?!"  On the one hand, that made me feel really good!  On the other, I felt an enormous pressure to follow through and actually do something with the pictures.  And it's not a matter of worthy or unworthy...it's that I think that scrapbooking someone else's memory is REALLY HARD.  I wasn't there.  I don't know what your take away of the event was.  I don't know what to say.

But the kid wanted the pictures scrapbooked and, by gum it!, I was going to make that happen for him.  I'm not going to drag you through the (un)creative process, or tell you about the printer problems that took me about an hour to conquer.  I'll say that my goal was to treat the pictures with dignity and respect.  They are pictures that are tilted, and that makes me titter a little, but Ted loves history and was very impressed by the things he saw. WIth that in mind, I give you Washington D.C., a layout by Caroline with pictures by Ted:

Now you see why I'm not going to blather on about the creative process. :P

The font that I used for Washington is LainieDaySH.  I think it matches the mood of the photos well, but in all honesty, it's too thin to easily cut from the Silhouette, so I had to modify it.  I had decent success, so I thought I'd just throw up a couple of screenshots to walk through how I changed it to make it what you see here.

So this is the title, as typed into the Sil software.  At this point I zoom in and double check that the letters flow nicely into one another.  This font is pretty good, but I did notice the the n into the g wasn't connected to my liking.

To remedy this, I selected the word and clicked the "ungroup" button in the lower left hand corner (circled in blue).  This changes the word "Washington" from one big file into a series of 'shapes' that can be treated differently.  You could size or rotate each letter individually if you wanted, but today I just need to move them a little.  Since I'm okay with the way the 'gton' flow into each other, I select all four letters and USE THE ARROW KEYS to scootch those letters closer to the 'n'.  Why the caps?  Because if you try to use your mouse or fingerpad invariably you'll cause those letters to move up or down.  Using the arrow keys will prevent them from shifting in unintended directions.

Once everything is lining up the way I want it, I select all the letters, and hit the weld button in the upper right hand corner (circled in blue).  From here I click the  'weld' option from the submenu on the right side (circled in pink).

Next, I'm taking a critical look at the font itself.  From my experience with the Silhouette, I know that cut is just too thin - the loop on the g might cut cleanly, but I'll never be able to get it off the mat without the cardstock tearing apart.

If only this font were a little fatter.
I could feed it a cheese danish.
Maybe if I put it on the sofa with a Real Housewives marathon on?
I know those options have both worked for me.

However, it might be slightly quicker to use the offset feature?  Let's try it.  ;)

To start the process, you click the offset button (upper right, circled in blue) to bring up the submenu.  From there you click the offeset button (right, circled in pink).  The default is .25 inches.  That is too many cheese danishes worth!  Yuck.  We're going for cuttable and instead we turned into the doodlings of a love struck teenager.  From here you can go into the "Offset Distance" box and just type in ".01" or whatever.

Let's try .01:

  Okay!  That's a lot closer to what I'm going for.  But, at this point I have two sets of cutlines, and that's not what I want, either.  Time to go in and carefully remove the inside (original) word.  You'll have to take care of the W and the dot on the i separately.  Here's what we get:

Okay!  Now we've got a cuttable font!  But...wait...that g is causing me some concerns:

I put the blue dot next to where the issue lies.  The way that tail sort of jigs over is going to weaken that area - it's too close to where the g's descender meets the loop.

I'll be completely honest here.  I did not notice this before I cut it.  As it happened, I cut two versions of this.  I cut one exactly as I've shown here, and another where I changed the offset to .02 (ever so slightly fatter than this one at .01)  It wasn't until I peeled them off the mat that I realized there was a problem with the .01 version.  As it happened, I liked the .02 version better.  I'm not going to walk you through doing it, since it's pretty much exactly the same process, but here's the .01 and the .02 together:

Yes, the smaller version has more details, and that's a good thing for sure.  But if those details are so tight that they don't cut well the whole thing falls apart pretty quickly.  I cut them side by side because there wasn't a good enough reason not to.  I'm glad I did, because looking at these on the screen leaves one impression, but the finished product gives an entirely different impression.

I hope that helps you look at your fonts differently.  I've often ruled out gorgeous fonts because I've assumed they were too thin.  Using the offset feature has allowed me to retain the look and mood of the fonts I love, while making them just chubby enough to cut effectively.

Thanks for stopping by! :)

Him and Me...and FridgeBinz

Yay! Last night was another scrap opportunity!  We were supposed have a baseball game to attend, but just as we got there it started POURING.  So, oops, it got canceled.  :)  Yes. That's a smiley face.  I love watching Ted's games.  I go whenever I can.  But I don't mind the occasional two hour pocket of time that suddenly opens up when they get canceled.  So we came home and I scrapped:

This is another picture from our walk in the park last week.  It's probably not the most flattering of me, but I do really like this photo.  I think it catches our personalities - Kerig is very serious and focused most of the time.  I vacillate between very serious and focused (usually with regard to schoolwork) and annoyingly juvenile.  This works out well about 92% of the time, because sometimes Kerig needs to lighten the fudge up.  And sometimes I need to behave myself.  He keeps me from getting in trouble.  I keep him from imploding. Win/win.

If you're a regular visitor, you might remember that I went on and on about FridgeBinz from Bed, Bath and Beyond.  I spent a couple of days cutting my paper scraps down to 7.5x7.5in and 3.5x4in to store in the two sizes of the bins that I bought.  This is the final set up:

So, I have two of the bigger sizes, one is for my slight minipad addiction.  And two of the smaller size - the second one is for color mists and ink pads.  I can easily see getting several more of these for glitter vials and embellishment packs.  Maybe one more for adhesive... and washi...and dies and embossing folders. :) Love them.

I really dislike hyperbole and most forms of exaggeration.  So I'm not saying this for effect:

These dumb FridgeBinz have changed the way I scrapbook.

I don't think that I'm different than most scrapbookers.  I have paper.  A LOT of paper:

(This is spot for whole, uncut sheets of patterned paper.  And some letter stickers, which I am not addicted to and therefore only have a moderate amount.)

And that's where all that uncut patterned paper is in relation to where I sit to scrap.  And what you don't see is an Iris cart that sort of blocks the way and a chair that also blocks but also serves as a place to rest as you go through stacks and stacks of paper.  (It also serves as a nice place for visitors -i.e. kids- to sit when I'm scrapping or working on homework)  So it's not as easy to get to as I might want, or within arm's reach.  (And that's just the patterned paper.  There's a foot and a half of 12x12 cardstock that's stored behind where I sit, and 8.5x11 in an Iris cart behind me.  A LOT of paper.)

Enter the FridgeBinz:

Okay, these are really crappy shots, showing that I really need to vacuum.  Don't judge. I know you have scrap bits on your floor, too. :P

Anyway, I also have this wooden stool that generally gets tucked in under the side of the table.  It's where my kids sit when they need help with their homework.  And...it also gets used for overflow when I scrap.   But since I got all my scraps organized I just pull the bins and put them on the stool.  This is immensely liberating!  Because I have literally dozens upon dozens of scraps of paper to chose from for punching, small dies and even running through my Cameo.  Right there. AT MY FINGERTIPS. And since they're already scraps, I feel absolutely no hesitation about cutting into them.  If I'm not sure if it would look better punched out of this or that, I don't have to try to guess.  I just do it from both and decide that way.  And if I try it out of those two and I'm not in love with either one, I simply flip through my scraps and see if something else might work.  

Clean up is easier, too.

I did bust into one of the whole sheets of patterned paper, but  it was easy to deal with the scraps.  I cut the biggest piece down to 7.5inches wide and put it in with the big scraps.  All the little pieces were cut down to 4inchesxWhatever (3.5 at the biggest) and put into the smaller bin.  Once everything was cut down, the two bins were put away.

Before I switched to these FridgeBinz I was just throwing all my scraps into archival 13x15 boxes.  I didn't cut the scraps down, and the boxes were always threatening to overflow.  Cardstock and paper got bent and creased.  Rifling through it was frustrating, because there was no easy way without being very ginger and going more slowly than I'd want to.  Now, if I need a big scrap, I go to the big bin; if I need a small scrap, well: duh.  But I can pick up a tidy 4 inch stack of papers and flip through them like you might flick through a deck of cards. When I've got what I want, I just bang them on the desk to get them flat-edged and tuck them back into the bin.

I feel less wasteful, more organized, liberated and even inspired, since the color and pattern combos that come out might not have happened otherwise.  

Ok. I'm done with my free advertisement for these things. For now. But I'm getting ready to move this month and when I have a new space to set up there's a distinct possibility that one or two more of these make their way into my setup.  Because they're rectangular they use space much more efficiently than the buckets that I currently have.  Plus, since they're see through, I can see that organizing some other items might make more sense in them.  

(Not really) Today

This week I had a customer go on and on about how stupid he thought it was for people to take pictures of themselves in front of places they're visiting.  It was sort of comical, listening to him on his tirade and thinking how just the weekend before I'd taken a picture of Kerig and I in front of the IHOP sign after we had a yummy French Toast dinner.  I'm quite certain he was waiting for the girl at the camera store to agree with him, that people muck-up otherwise pristine vistas.  And in some regards, sure, I get it.  But if you think I'm going to go for a ride on your crazy train? Forget it.

Because apparently having purchased this cutie-McCuteCute Nikon S01 it's going to be all Caroline, all the time.  

After our dinner we went for a walk through the park.  It was perfect weather for a walk - a little bit on the chilly side, but nothing a hoodie couldn't handle.  The sun was out when we weren't in the dense woods of the park.  We had fun playing with our cameras, shooting everything from wildflowers to trashcans.  We even played on the swings, attempting to take selfies with a really blurry background -- I figured that it would be like panning, but sadly, my camera works only in fully automatic, so I couldn't get it to do it. :( I'd like to say we walked for an hour and a half, but the truth of the matter is we meandered for an hour and a half.  And what we lacked in calorie burning, we made up for in just having fun.  (So much so that there are probably at least two more layouts that will come from this batch of pictures.  That's rare for me, but happy=scrappy, right?)

On Monday night I sat down at my scrap table and cut the "Today" strip and circle.  But once it came out of the machine I had no inspiration for what to do with it.  Plus, having sat in the drizzle at Ted's baseball game I was oddly beat.  I left those pieces on my desk, with no real hope of figuring out how to use them. But when I had a couple of minutes yesterday everything seemed to fall into place fairly easily.  I even lucked out with the photo arrangement.  Normally two verticals and one horizontal would cause me great stress, but when I was trimming the wallet-sized photos down and setting them to the side, they ended up piled much like the are in the layout. How often does that happen??

Other things that inspired me:  

This episode of the Paperclipping Roundtable, where the panelists are discussing layering techniques.  There was nothing in particular that caused an epiphany, but it was inspirational nonetheless.  

A Flair for Buttons on Etsy  Um. So Sunday was just a weird day and it apparently required some minor retail therapy.  Enter this etsy site.  That great thing about retail therapy at an etsy site is you get to feel really good about your purchase.  You're supporting a "local" artisan.  In this case "local" is in Iowa, but that's a lot closer than China, which is where most of our mass produced, commercially available items are coming from.  Factor in that they're flipping adorable and it's a total win.  I totally love them and the next time I need to spend $10 to feel better about life I'm totally going to back to her site! :)

Okay, that's about all I have for today.  I'm actually hoping to kick out a page or two this weekend, weather and inspiration permitting.  So hopefully I'll see you soon!

The Pintester Movement...get 'er done

I am not what I would call "an early riser." I would, however, call my weekend roommate a very late sleeper.  And in a one bedroom apartment, the person who wakes up at 7:30 or 8 doesn't have many options for entertainment if she wants to continue having a free place to stay on the weekends.  So many a-Sunday morning is spent laying on the couch surfing the web on my phone or Kindle.  Usually there's Facebook (surprisingly slow at that hour), Huffingtonpost (a little more lively), PostSecret and eventually Pinterest.  I usually save Pinterest for last, since I can literally kill many hours at a time there.  One Sunday morning in April I clicked a pin that took me to blog post about knitting a chunky/funky scarf using your arms instead of needles.  I had seen the arm-knit scarf a number of times, but because it was a Sunday and time needed to be killed, I decided to go read the directions.  I know my limitations, and I knew without reading the directions that it was beyond my skill set...but I had time that I needed to kill.  I was expecting to see ridiculously complicated directions couched with minimizing adjectives like "So easy!", "Fast!", "Simple!"...maybe even "A monkey could do it!"  Only it wasn't the actual directions, it was a post on how a woman had tried - and failed miserably - to complete the funky/chunky arm-knit scarf.  And it was so flipping hysterical that I lay on the sofa, muffling my laughter and literally wiping away tears that were streaming into my ears.  I laughed so hard that I bookmarked her site. Followed her on Pinterest. Linked the post to Facebook.  In retrospect, it may not be laugh-until-you-cry funny, but god, it sure hit me that morning.

She calls herself the Pintester.  She isn't afraid of her potty mouth.  She's fun, will try stupid stuff - sure, I pinned the "how to cut a wine bottle with string and fire" but I'm not stupid enough to try it.  She was.  Er, she was daring enough. But if I accidentally light my ex-husband's house on fire, chances are I'd have a lot more explaining to do than your average person.  So anyway, she's doing this thing. It's called the Pintester Movement - you should go check it out.  But if you're super lazy, the idea is this: Get off your lazy ass and actually DO something that you pinned.  Take a picture.  Write about it.  Share the goodness.  Or, potentially, the badness.  Turns out badness probably has a lot more comedic potential...

I signed up for it and then went digging through my pins.  I do DO my pins.  Well, some of them.  But I don't usually blog about them, unless they're scrapbook related.  And I only really have two kinds of pins: scrapbooking and things that will land up on my hips. And ass.  And chin.  Sweet mother of Abraham Lincoln, my chin is going to end with its own zip code.   And of the food pins, a vast majority are 'blonde' - some sort of cheese/noodle, cheese/egg, cheese/potato combination.  I really don't like to cook and I can only be bothered if I'm really going to love it. Turns out those three combinations are the only meal-type foods that I've deemed worthy of spending time in the kitchen for.  I have some sweets pinned, but meh. Cheese is where it's at.  So yeah.  I'm searching through my pins, looking for something that's worth all that effort...and then picked the one that required the least amount of effort.

I chose a bacon and guacamole grilled cheese sandwich from the closetcooking.com blog.

Now might be a good time to confess that I've never purchased an avocado.  It's on my to-do list.  But it scares me.  I have an awful track record for buying produce.  I love plums, but I don't buy them.  No matter how soft and tender and juicy they feel in the store, at home they morph into bitter, purple leather balls.  Same deal with peaches - only they're not purple.  In fact, that goes for just about every fruit with the exception of apples, tangerines and bananas.  And I've screwed a couple of those up, too.  So yes. I'm scared of buying avocados.  I don't know what a bad avocado tastes like, and I'd like to keep it that way.

So.  How does one make a bacon and guacamole grilled cheese sandwich without buying an avocado?  Well, as it happens, one passes THREE Chipotles on the ride home from work.  And why would one risk buying an avocado, go to all the work of making guacamole when fantastic guacamole can be had for a mere $1.80.  Yes. I cheated. Don't care.

Why? Why does a rule follower such as myself feel that it's okay to scootch past the spirit of the 'game'?  Because sometimes the ends justify the means.

Meet my end:

And no shit.  This was TASTY.  I'm not even a bacon fan, but there's something about that salty, smoky flavor that really makes the cool, refreshing guacamole sing.  Oh. SO GOOD.

Molly is my only kid who is daring enough to eat guacamole.  So when it was time for a taste test she was the only one who didn't snort at me in that teenager "yeah. right." kinda way.

Go Molly!  I'm really proud of her for being brave enough to try it.  I don't think she L♥♥♥VED it, but she said it was pretty good.

So here it is, the Pin and the Tested:

They win for the prettier picture, but I'm still calling it a damn tasty success!

Nom nom nom.