As close as I come to decorating...

I would like you all to think that I live in an austere, dust-free environment.

Sadly, I do not.

However, I do aspire to that and because that's how I'd like to live, I have made the conscious decision to keep tchotchkes to a bare minimum. It's not that I don't like knickknacks, but I don't like dusting and I don't like dust.  So keeping the trinkets at bay helps - at least a little - to keep things a little less...yucky.

A couple of years ago I made a little banner for my apartment door.  It was a fun little Saturday night project with my girls and it came together so effortlessly - which is NOT how things usually work for me.

I have to say: coming home to this on my door made me happy for an entire month.

I have moved and no longer live in the cute apartment with the cute door.  The home I live in now has a front door that wouldn't keep this dry.  Also, no one would ever see it.  Except the guy who stopped by today looking for donations for St. Mary's Church...but that's neither here nor there.  However, the door that leads into the garage is both dry and viewed daily.  And in desperate need of some "spruce."  So the banner thing has sort of grown.  there's a "Luv U" banner and a "JOY" banner for Christmas.  But if you think about it, that means that the door has something seasonally appropriate October through February.  Only the Luv U banner stays up until October.  Because heck, I Luv U...or them, that is. This brings Molly great distress though, and I have been told more than once that I needed to fix that.  Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I'll get around to it.

Ok. Disclaimer: the door to the garage is too ugly to actually show. :P  So this is a section of the living room wall. This is the Saturdays collection from Little Yellow Bicycle.  And the fun the patriotic colors and patterns begged to be made into a summer banner.  This'll last us from Memorial Day through Labor Day.  Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Molly!  :P

Handmade, Part I

This past month I had the great pleasure of being assigned three different lines to create with for Scrapbook Studio.  Lest that sound like sarcasm: it is not.  Apparently, I am the dweebie girl who loved school so much that using the word assignment gets me all a-tither.  So getting three lines to work with was, in a word, AWESOME.  I'll share as I can, and I can't until they get posted at Scrapbook Studio's blog.  I suppose you could bypass my blog and just check out the projects there, but I'll have a couple of extra views and talk a little about the process and hurdles of the layout process. So yeah, maybe you just want to check out their blog, instead. :P

And while I'm plugging for them, I feel compelled to mention: If you are even remotely considering a Cameo purchase, NOW IS THE TIME.  I don't know how long it will last, but right now it's on sale for $269.99.  I am not a fan of paying full price for anything, but in all honesty, I think the Cameo is so worth it that I would...except why would you if you could get it on sale.  It rarely happens, so I'd hop on that while the hopping is good.

If, on the other hand, you already have a Cameo and just want to get your dander up, I'll direct you to episode 110 of Paperclipping Roundtable: Clash of the Die Cutting Machines. I left a comment, and let me just say that it took a couple of delete-and-rewrites before I managed to get the tone in the general neighborhood of civil.  I don't know why, but hearing people say not-nice things about the Cameo really upsets me. :P

So anyway, back to me. One of the lines that I had the pleasure of playing with was Lilybee Designs "Handmade".  The line has that old country feel that makes you think of spring quilts that your grandmother would make.  Reds, pale blues, pinks, yellows and a couple of pale linens.  I don't have a country aesthetic, but it's impossible to not love this particular combination of colors and prints.

Here's the layout I made with it:

First: I don't know what happened.  I used to HATE white backgrounds and for some reason I've done a couple 180 on that.  I love them. I think the white versatile and clean.  And I love that the Handmade collection has a white base.  Makes using it on white that much easier.  The collection pack has a whole bunch of heavy weight double sided patterned papers, as well as Lilybee's signature little alphas (Yay! Adore those!) and then a sheet of fun cardstock stickers with the banners that I used here.  I'm guilty of loving banners.  I know they're ubiquitous, but I don't care.  Love, plain and simple.

Of course, there's lots of Cameo love going on here: the pretty blue border on the left side, the tab, the journaling banner on the bottom, and the title:

Yes, I'm going to unapologetically beat this technique to death.  And every time I show it I'll give Nichol Magouirk credit.  I have been using one color all stacked up just for height, but I'm digging this variation using two colors.  Makes me so happy to see that color peeking out.  :)

And then here's the card I made using the line:

First, I accidentally left the Cameo off my supply list when I sent this to my design team boss. OOPS.  But I did use it - the perfectly perfect red scalloped square and the adorable fish-tail banners are both from the Silhouette store, cut on the Cameo.  And of course the adorable Lilybee letter stickers.  I love that you get SO MANY letters and such a variety of fun colors.  Those sticker sheets are such a fantastic value.  And again: the colors and designs of the paper are just so darned happy.  The card is so simple and the easy shapes and colors carry the day.

So that's that for today.  I've got one more project to share from this line.  Let's just say I'm saving the best for last.

So humor me here: What's your feeling on base cardstock colors?  Do you tend to reach for the same thing over and over?  Do you hate black or white?  Or do you use patterned paper as a base?  And if you use patterned paper as a base, do you have cardstock underneath as fortification, or do you just trust the page protectors to do their job?

The L Word

Love, folks, not lesbians. But I had to get the pop culture reference in for consistency's sake.

So I started this blog with the idea that it would be a way share my "creative pursuits", it would give me a forum for sharing the Silhouette love, maybe talk about the process a little. But my big mistake was thinking that I could start this in November. Even with the best of intentions, "creative pursuits" - much less writing about them - just aren't happening in December if you happen to work in retail.

So here I am, a month since my last very off-topic post, and it's time to whip this thing into shape.

Watch, I'll probably say that a month from now, too.

But even though I was busy, it wasn't like I didn't at least try to be creative. Granted, it only happened once, and it didn't get very far, but still: I'm giving myself credit for trying.

And more than that, I'm giving myself credit for finishing something, even if it's not what I started. See that picture up top? That started out as a Ho Ho Ho banner. One rare day off I decided that I could spend an afternoon and make a cute little banner. 97 interruptions later, I had the base cut and assembled. That's when I lost steam for the day and figured I'd finished some other day. Turns out that was the last day in December with any "me" time in it at all. So the pretty red, black and white banner bases sat on my scrap table, making me wish for time to myself, and thinking at the very least I'd have a jump on next year's holiday decorations. Needless to say, Christmas came and went, and the banner never got any more done.

As my first day off without obligations out the wazoo approached, I spent a lot of time daydreaming about what I might work on once I had some time. I had the sudden realization that Valentine's Day was coming, and wouldn't my pretty red, black and white banner bases look darling dressed up with pink and purple and glitter and bling and ribbon and buttons? Why yes, yes they would!

I love those drop-back-and-punt moments. This isn't what I planned for, but I still feel like I accomplished something pretty cool.

I wish I had a really great picture of the entire banner, but I don't. What I have is snippets of the final product, and maybe that's just enough to jump start an idea for someone else...