Cookies, lesbians and assassins.

So this past weekend, me and 9 of my besties got together and rented a church hall for the day.  We each brought a potluck dish and kicked in five bucks for the rental, and we got to sit there ALL DAY and work on our scrapbooks, art journals, and Christmas cards.  It was pure bliss.

I had already started this journal page but was able to finish it on Saturday.  I think the scanner cut off the very left and bottom edges, but you're not missing much... you still get the idea!

Turns out I'm not the only one with this problem - the person who sat next to me (no, not you Mom!) said that for some reason she attracts crazy people too, but also lesbians!  Interesting...

Hey, did you hear?  There's a new movie out called Ninja Assassin!  I only heard about it on the radio, but I'm definitely going and I'm making my sister come with me.  I bet we'll be all "Haki saki HA!" when we come out of the theatre.  Hopefully I don't pull a muscle in my butt again doing those crazy roundhouse kicks.  I have no idea what the movie is about (do you think there will be a plot?) but I'm going anyway.

In the meantime, we're going to start making our Christmas sugar cookies tomorrow night.  Hijinks will definitely ensue; photos to follow. 

Love Shelley! 

More Mail Art!

Oh you guys, I had just the BEST weekend.  I got to get together with some great friends and we all sat around and worked on our creative things.  Among other things, I made a couple of envelopes to mail out some goodies (with addresses whited out to protect the privacy of the innocent):

The first one was a plain white envelope that I painted with watercolour crayons, then doodled on a little bit:

And the second one was a plain red envelope (very heavy, lined with gold foil paper, and huge!  I've been saving it for a special occasion) that I just doodled on with white paint pen.

I know you're envying my MS Paint skillz.  Let me know if you want any lessons me to stop it already.

Hope you're having a magical day!

Love Shelley!

The cover... so far.

So.  Even with a pretty pink hat, everybody that I've shown this to thinks that this chick is downright creepy.  I found the skull (and all the extra arm and leg bones) in a National Geographic magazine in a story about an archeological dig site.  But I think the red shoes, purse and cocktail sort of bring it all together, don't  you?  I am a good accessorizer.  Yes, that is too a word.

Anyway, everyone so far has been pretty repulsed by this one.  I may have to change it to something a little more... socially acceptable.  I did have one brainwave: LIPSTICK!  But oh yeah, she has no lips. 

Now what?  I can't decide whether to make her even more disturbing by painting on some bright red lipstick like old ladies do, completely disregarding the actual shape of their lips; or if I should just ditch the skull and put in a regular lady head instead.  Suggestions?

Oh hey, and while you're telling me what to do, what about the background?  Leave it as is, or add white swirlies and stuff?  Or something completely different? 

HELP!  I'll wait here.

Love Shelley!

Journal page AND mail art!!

So here's the second page, all fluffy and cheerful.  (Wait till you see the cover, yikes.Not fluffy, not cheerful.  May still need some work.  I'll let you express your opinion once I get it up on here!) 

Please note that I kept the language clean.  Instead of "buttload" I really wanted to say "metric shit-ton" but sadly my kid can now read.  Which is kind of a bummer when I'm trying to EXPRESS MYSELF! 

And here is a piece of mail that I made for Ginny at Small Studio:

We don't know each other; I just absolutely adore her blog, so when she put out a call for decorated envelopes, I was all over that.  Of course, I second-guessed myself all the way to the mailbox, but hey, maybe this will lead to a beautiful lifetime of correspondence and I'll get more chances to make pretty stuff for her.  The end.

Yes, welcome to the non-stop dialogue in my head.  How do you like it so far?  : )

I hope you're all having a magnificent day!

Love Shelley!

PS: The art journal is hand-lettered; the mail is stamped and then doodled on.

I'm a copycat, and I'm okay with that.

So yeah, I'm sure I'm the last one on the Teesha bandwagon, but now that she's posted all of the COOLEST. VIDEOS. EVER! I had to try a journal like the one she demonstrated.

Here's the first page I completed:

And I'll have another one for you shortly.  We've figured out some of our technical difficulties so I think I'll be able to post on a fairly regular basis again!  YAY!  (Of course, I'm still crap at photo editing, so if you see big areas of white space that shouldn't be there, just squint and pretend, k? Thanks.)

Love Shelley!

PS: That is not a quote, I actually made it up myself.  It's about a cat we don't have.

Are one of these for you?

I've been sending out so many letters lately that I decided to fancy up a batch of four (plain white) envelopes all at once.  The colours are a bit off (they are bright in real life, but not as gaudy as they look here!) but I still think they'd be fun to get in the mail. 

These were a ton of fun to make, although I think I might add a little bit of detail here and there before I actually send them out.  I tried something completely different on the back of one that got me all excited to make a brand-new batch.  One thing really leads to another when you're playing with paper!

I'll keep you "posted".  Get it?  (boooooooo)  HAHA!  The only person who would appreciate that joke is my brother John.  Sorry, everybody else.  : )

Love Shelley!

You Asked For It.

A couple of weeks ago, someone asked if I would share a photo of my desk.  The place where I create, where the muse visits me, where THE MAGIC HAPPENS.  Well, she didn't put it quite that way, but I'm feeling dramatic.

Anyway, here it is.  I've highlighted the exact, actual spot where THE MAGIC HAPPENS.   **jazz hands**

So... now you know. 

I'm kind of sorry you had to see that.  But I'm just keepin' it real.  HA!

Have a great day, everybody.  Love Shelley!

Where you get a glimpse of just how dumb I am.

So I was cruising a used book store earlier this week and among other things, I found this little treasure.  There was no dust cover on the book but it did have some really nice debossed letters on the fabric cover.  Not that I can read them; they're in Russian.

Inside the front cover is this inscription: "Purchased at the Montreal World's Fair Oct 10 - 1967 by Albert Pitz."  At least I THINK it says Albert Pitz.  Could be Litz.  Albert didn't have the greatest penmanship.

As I was flipping through, I glanced at all the old black and white photos inside, thinking they would be perfect to make envelopes out of, or use to decorate other works of art.

A riveting game of chess...

Aw!  This guy loves his kitty.

 

The whole FAMILY loves their kitty!  I haven't seen too many family portraits with the cat included before.  Interesting!

This one reminds me of our sponge hockey team photos.

See?  They just have a bigger roster.

Also...

Those other guys seem a little more, um, RESERVED than we ever were.

But I digress.

Here are two gentlemen enjoying a nice visit together.

Hey!  Is that the same guy again?

Huh.  He looks kind of snooty here.

 

Wow, this guy AGAIN?! 

Vain.

Mr. Serious Pants

Geez, you'd think this guy thought the whole book was about HIM.

So each photo has a nice descriptive caption underneath; sadly they're all in Russian so I really don't have a clue what's going on in this long book but I'm thinking that worst case scenario I can just cut out the entire text block and use those lovely covers to make a completely different book!

THEN... I flip to the back to see what kind of shape the inside back cover is in, and THIS falls out.

Oh.

A page! Yes, really!

I know, it's been far too long.  But our internet has been down, blah blah blah.  I'm sure you don't care about my excuses, just SHOW THE PAGE ALREADY, WOMAN!

Okay, fine, you don't have to yell.

Here it is:

It's okay, it's true.  Also, I have other pages in progress.  Yes, really! 

Also, tomorrow: I'm not the smartest person you know.  Find out why.


On this page: Golden fluid acrylics; old dictionary bits; stickers, stamping; india ink; charcoal pencil.

Way more fun than a phone bill!

Hey! 

Just a short snapper.  (I love saying that.)  

I've always had pen pals but lately I've been meeting some new and VERY interesting people that are also into the postal arts. 

I do have some cute stationery but I usually prefer making something up on my own.  Lately I've been using things that would normally go in the garbage or recycling bin, making them a little prettier, and giving them a second life by mailing them to unsuspecting suckers people around the world who share my love for sending and receiving interesting mail. 

I whited out the name and address on this one but I'm sure some of you will recognize the Timmy's bag that used to hold a Turkey Bacon Club sandwich.  There is only a letter in there.  I ate the sandwich.

Do you love that green carpet or what?  I took these pics at work with my phone.  So I can honestly say these are unretouched photos!!  Okay, sure, that's not necessarily a good thing.  But at least you get the idea.  One day I'll learn some photography skills and then I'll be unstoppable!

Here's another one that just went out this morning:

And here's the back (because I know you were wondering...)  (Fine, you weren't, but I'm gonna show you anyway.)

Aaaaaand that's all I have to offer for today.  Oh, except for this conversation yesterday when I picked up Cameron from the new daycare.

Her: So Cameron and I played cards together this afternoon when all the other kids were napping.

Me:  Yeah, he loves playing cards.

Her:  He knows how to play RUMMY!!       (side note: he's four.)

Me:  Yeah.... by the way, don't play him for money.  That's a free tip.

Come back soon!  I'm working on a journal page and I'll post it here when I'm done. 

Love Shelley!

Feel free to skip down to the picture if you want.

So the other night, rather late, Mike and I were sitting on the couch. I casually asked him if there was any way to cut the cord on my broken lamp without getting electrocuted. He looked at me in silent horror, probably picturing raising the children on his own; then croaked, "What?"

I told him that my lamp has been broken for quite a while but that it's plugged in behind my two-ton desk. I'm trying to avoid having to move that mofo, but... (deep sigh) ... if I have to I will. But I really don't want to. Mainly because I'm lazy I would have to move all the stuff off of it. And trust me, that could be an all-day job. There is a LOT of stuff on top of my desk. A lesser desk would have collapsed by now.

He said he would take a look. (Lesson: if you are incompetent enough to possibly be a danger to yourself, your husband WILL help you.) So he pulled all the junk out from under my desk, grumbling under his breath about "too much crap" and "what IS all this stuff" etc. (Precious art supplies if you were wondering. Oh, plus a bag of diapers, which made him pause for a moment. HA!) Since the desk has almost a full back, with only about a 3" gap at the bottom, he couldn't really sneak his massive, muscular forearm in there to try to pull the plug.

So he moved out of the way and I crawled under there. My arm slid easily into the gap, and he said, "Okay, now the plug should be just over to your lef- what?"

"I'm stuck."

"What?"

"I'm stuck."

"What do you mean you're STUCK?"

"I'm stuck."

"Uh. Okay, roll onto your back so your arm turns a little, and - "

"OW. Okay, hold on, maybe I can wiggle it back ou- OW. I'm stuck."

We look at each other for a full minute. Visions of firemen charging in brandishing axes are running through my head. I stifle the urge to giggle. And then my sweet, sweet husband says, "Well, since your arm's already in there, see if you can get to that plug."

I start trying to wiggle my arm over to the left but all I'm doing is giving myself a really good scrape. I try again to sneak my too-big forearm out of the gap. Really, I have to stop working out so much, clearly I've become too muscular. I guess in the meantime all I can do is try not to flex.

I can see that he's starting to wonder how this is going to end. Will he REALLY have to call for help? Will I have to sleep under here? Who will make the pancakes in the morning? I'm still rolling around and wiggling and scraping, and while I'm struggling to free myself, he's snooping around beside the desk and finds that he can actually reach the plug from there. Now I'm stuck AND feeling even dumber than before, if that's even a possibility. I've had this broken lamp taking up valuable real estate on my desk for over a month, and I could have just gotten to the plug from the side. Ugh. He triumphantly pulls the whole lamp assembly out from its anchor and presents it to me, bending down so I can see it from my uncomfortable position under the desk. I give him a one-thumb thumbs-up, then grimace as I roll over and continue my efforts.

Finally, by doing some complicated acrobatic manouvering, I managed to get free. And now my lamp is unplugged. AND I'm not electrocuted!

I love a happy ending.

Oh yeah, and here's a journal page I finished today:

Sideways. What the hell, Blogger??
Oh well.
Love Shelley!

'Cause I'm gonna always love yew ew ew ew ew ew!

Guess who put on the Muppets CD (super loud, no less) and then went outside to play? Little rodents.

Anyway!

Here's the latest. I've been working on backgrounds for a bunch of pages at once and then I figured I can just do the actual journaling on whichever page seems the most appropriate depending on what topic is on my mind at the time.


It goes against my urge to fill my journal chronologically but I'm pretty sure I'll get over it.

Anyway, this page really is about a dream I had - and I know, NOTHING is more tedious than someone who insists on telling you about their dreams. But you can just look at the pretty colours and ignore the writing, I'm totally okay with that. I hope everyone has sweet dreams tonight!

Love Shelley!

A couple of new journal pages

So I've been rockin' the art journal lately. Here are a couple of pages that are finished.


I have a few more in progress; I'll keep you posted. Cards may also be imminent.

Love Shelley!

Taking a break from the "cute"

Mike had to attend a funeral today so I put together a nice sympathy card for him. It might not be super-fancy and loaded with 'bling' but I think it turned out well. The warm colours make it look kind of soothing, I think. And it actually looks a lot warmer in person than it does in my pics - I took these shots at 6 this morning, which is not the ideal time to get great colour.

Anyway, here's the inside. I LOVE this sympathy stamp - it's quite large and makes a nice substantial impression.

I added my own handwritten note with our own condolences for the widow...

and then Mike forgot the card at home. Booo.

Okay. Back to cute stuff!

Love Shelley

As promised... Happy Bird-Day!

I made a batch of these cards for a swap I'm involved in, so I had to follow certain rules:

1) everything on the card has to be currently available Stampin' Up! product
2) the card has to have at least two layers and one embellishment
3) the theme was "show off the new stuff!"

The new catalog was recently released, and although I don't have much, I'm sure happy with the stuff I did buy!

This card has a couple of the new In Colors, uh, colors; (that sounds so repetitive - sorry!) and some of the new Razzleberry Lemonade designer paper. It's... GORGEOUS. The colours are rich and delicious, as you can see here:



That little birdy is from the Pun Fun stamp set, which isn't a new release but I still love him anyway. I coloured him up using ink straight out of the lids of my SU ink pads.

And voila! Here's the inside:




Whoops! I was going to put the "happy bird-day" sentiment on the inside... but I forgot. Too late now, I've already licked all the envelopes closed. Luckily for me you can't get kicked out for sending an un-sentimented card.

Yep, I just made up another word. I have to keep up with my sister, you see. She was ahead by one, using "rye-arrhea" this weekend to describe her hangover. Aren't you glad you read this far????

Have a great day!

Love Shelley!

Happy birthday, Wyatt...

You little monster!

HAHA! Just kidding. Wyatt is my youngest nephew and he just turned two years old. He's not a monster at all - he's actually a total sweetheart. But then again, so are these three characters:



I know I should have put ribbon into the little slots on the happy birthday tag, but none of the ribbons I had looked right. So I just stapled that sucker right on there. Wyatt does not have discriminating taste, luckily for me! (Just another reason why I love him so very much.)

Just enough fancy on the inside for it not to be boring!

Tune in tomorrow for another "bird-day" card. I hope that doesn't ruin the surprise...

Have a great evening!

Love Shelley

One! One wedding card!

Okay, actually I made two of these but one's already bought and paid for, so technically I've only added one more card to my stash.

This circle stamp is from Stamping Bella, and I just love it! So elegant. The background paper has a pearly shine to it, which I think shows up in the picture; but I also put shimmery white over the dress, and I don't think that shows up too well here. Oh well. You'll just have to take my word for it that it looks better in person!

I left the inside fairly plain. I figured that a wedding card is where people are likely to write the most, so I left lots of room for good wishes to be added.



Okay, can't talk - gotta go make something else! I'm on a roll...

Love Shelley!

I am very irresponsible.

I have a bunch (a BUNCH) of card orders to fulfill, and yet I couldn't resist starting a new art journal page last night.

Then I was having so much fun, that I carried on this morning and finished up about 20 minutes ago. Yep, I've blown over half a day on this little project, but you know what? I sure had fun with it.

Oh right. WEDDING CARDS. I'm on it.

Back soon,

Love Shelley!

I should seriously be forging expensive paintings

Because look how good I am at copying stuff!!

Yep, I found this card on Paula's amazing blog and I really don't think it needed anything else - it was absolutely perfect. So once I got my act together (yes, that is the part that takes the longest around here) I finally finished a batch of these little babies.



What do you think of that new Basic Grey Lemonade paper? I KNOW!! I can barely keep myself from licking it. Uh, but if you were thinking of buying a card from me, don't worry - I was able to contain myself.

I even did a simple bit of decorating inside. No sentiment, because really? Little Henry (yeah, that's his name!) could be celebrating anything, right? It's up to you to write whatever you want inside.



That's all for today - I have to go shoo the kids outside to bring the slop pails to the pigs next door. YEP - in addition to actually finishing a card, I also cleaned out my fridge. I KNOW! Sometimes I even amaze myself.

Next up: a wedding card. Stay tuned...

Love Shelley!

Aaaaaand, back to cards.

My sister Kristy came over last night to watch the finale of Canada's Next Top Model. After our mutual horrification at the "blonds" she-man designer in the tight pink dress, a commercial came on and she asked me what was new. So I told her that I made a card, and since we were already all jacked up about the guy and how he was standing with his legs firmly crossed to keep his "tuck" intact, she immediately started to make fun of me for only making ONE card yesterday. "Ohhh, you're right, you should start slow," she said, nodding exaggeratedly at me with wide eyes like I just got off the short bus and also might be a tiny bit scaring her.

You should know that Kristy is not into cards. Or crafts. Or, you know, being polite. So I flared my nostrils at her, growled and maybe also smacked her once in the side of the head. Anyway, after we wiped the tears of sisterly laughter from our eyes, I showed her the card.



AH! Suddenly she's a little more respectful! I smacked her again anyway.

Just kidding! I should have, though, that would have been funny. So I also tried to get a clear picture of the inside but that IS a lot to ask. Here's a fuzzy version.




Since it turned out so amazing, (if I do say so myself,) I made a second one before I forgot how I did it. So yeah, TWO cards in one day.

Suck it, Kristy.

Love Shelley!

Guess what I made?

Yep! Another guest book. All of the other ones I've made (3 now!) are spoken for. This one, on the other hand... is up for grabs!

The cover is cream and black, with black fabric for the spine, and white ribbon for the binding. The inside covers are covered with coordinating cream-patterned paper (not shown.)



This one has 40 leaves of paper, and on the right side of each is a vellum pocket to put the signed cards in. They're 3x4, and the book comes with 120 of them. The vellum is slightly transparent, allowing you to see the cards in the pockets.



The left side of each spread has four black photo corners sized to perfectly fit a 4x6" photo; so the album holds not only the personal greetings of your guests, but 39 photos as well. The back of the last page is blank.



The front of the first page is currently blank so that personalization can be added. A special photo, or names and dates in calligraphy - whatever you choose to add.

All the pages are deckle-edged, just like the other ones. I like the way it looks, and I'm not bored of doing it yet!

And of course, thanks to blogger, one random picture will now appear sideways for your entertainment. Feel free to squint if you have trouble making it out!



And that's all for now! But don't worry - I'll be back before you know it.

Love Shelley!