My Story

What happens when you can't do it anymore?  When you can't trust your doctor or their "plans" for you?  I've had regular visits and procedures for the last thirteen years of my life.  I'm sick and tired of doctor's appointments, waiting rooms, IV needles, blood pressure cuffs, pharmacies, and the list goes on.  I long to be free of it.  Unfortunately, it is a reality I can never escape.  My life would grind to a halt if I walked away from modern medicine.  I know that.  I'm blessed to have it.  It's just that some days get me down - way down - low.  Today is not a good day.  I have lost a little faith.  Tomorrow will be better.  Tomorrow I plan for what's next.  Tomorrow I start to decide what's best for me - so I can rebuild that trust.  Trust me - I need it.  Until then...

Product Love & More

It's been a long time since I've served up any product love - but I saw this stamp on a blog and just knew I was back in business.  Which at this moment, I can't remember for the life of me where it was.  I look at way too many blogs each day to remember.  Gotta love summer.  Anyhoo - I saw the doily stamped on the cardstock of a layout and immediately thought of Hero Arts.  They had a few doily images in their winter catalog.  I hadn't really taken to any of them - but I immediately wanted this stamp.  Imagine my surprise when I found out it was an October Afternoon stamp not Hero Arts.  Upon finding this out, a light bulb went off in my empty little head.  Of course I love this doily - I love (and own) the paper with this image from October Afternoon - check it out here and here.  To be honest - I love the entire Thrift Shop line from October Afternoon.  I am often taken by the products from this company.  I love this stamp set.  Love the doily (to itty bitty pieces).  Love the typewriter.  Love the music and the words that go with it.  Love it so much.  So that's it - a new product to love.  I'm so happy.  To be honest - I thought I had lost my mojo when it came to product posts - but I didn't.  I just needed the perfect little thing to get me motivated.  On another note - I think this shows my changing perspective and style when it comes to papercrafting.  This stamp is in the same grain as the Prima papers I raved about much earlier in the year.  Love how things are evolving for me.

In other news - I wanted to share the mixed-media piece I was trying to make for the new Etsy Inspired Challenge blog.  I was inspired by this necklace at White Birch Designs.  If you look really close at the canvas - you might see a little of the pattern from the necklace in the petals.  I stamped 32 petals from this stamp set from Technique Tuesday in the hopes of recreating the pattern.  It didn't go how I planned.  Not one bit.  But - I had fun.  I had fun making the background.  I had fun stamping the images.  And - I'm going to have fun covering it all up.  It's a lesson and a breakthrough of sorts.  The lesson - I'm finally starting to enjoy the process without kicking my tail about the outcome.  It's a mess - but it's going somewhere new.  The idea of that gives me hope.  The breakthrough - I was having FUN.  So many times when I'm crafting I focus on the end result without appreciating the process.  Because when it comes down to it - I do this for the process just as much as the end result, if not more.  So even though this is a failure of sorts - I'm happy with it.  I loved doing it.  I can't wait to see the next evolution and that's really the point, right?  So that's it for now.  I hope you're having a nice Monday.  Until then...

Happy Father's Day!

What Makes a Dad

God took the strength of a mountain,
The majesty of a tree,
The warmth of a summer sun,
The calm of a quiet sea,
The generous soul of nature,
The comforting arm of night,
The wisdom of the ages,
The power of the eagle's flight,
The joy of a morning in spring,
The faith of a mustard seed,
The patience of eternity,
The depth of a family need,
Then God combined these qualities,
When there was nothing more to add,
He knew His masterpiece was complete,
And so,

He called it ... Dad

~~Author Unknown.~~

Happy Father's Day Poppi!  I love you!

The Last Few Days

Good morning.  Still no crafty goodness to report.  I'm planning on working on something today - not sure how it's going to work but I'm hopeful.  More on that later - I hope.  So instead of perseverating on my lack of creative productivity, I thought I'd give a recap of what's being going on at Chez Lou in the last few days.

I've been watching this (not a picture of my house but wouldn't it be cool if it was?).

I rented this.  BTW: I had no expectations for this movie.  No, I had incredibly low expectations for this movie.  My take on it - too many people, too many story lines, no story or character development except Ashton and Jennifer Garner's characters.  It becomes a little hard to care when you don't know anything about anyone.  My personal faves were Julia Roberts and Bradley Cooper.  I heard they are thinking of doing something similar with New Year's Eve.  I hope they don't put so many characters in it.  Otherwise, honestly, it just blows.

I also rented this.  Gotta love Josh Duhamel (how the heck do you say his last name?).  Kristen Bell was also good.  Again, I had low expectations and was pleasantly surprised.

Did a lot of this (sleeping if you can't guess).

Still reading this.  It's actually really good but easy to put down.  Not sure how those things go together.  Need to step it up if I'm going to be a reading machine and beat my number from last summer.

Addicted to this song and I'm not sure how or why.



Also addicted to this song - and I totally know why.  I love Idina and I love Lady Gaga.



And finally, I've spent a lot of time with this girl.  She's been sweet and on her game.  Here's hoping that lasts. :)

We're happy as clams around here.  Hope to get crafting today.  Hope everyone has a nice Sunday and Father's Day!  Until then...

Work of Art

In the last couple days (lazy days), I came upon the new show on Bravo, "Work of Art."  Being very interested in all things arty and creative - I thought I'd be a sucker for this show.  Add my friend asking me if I watch it and giving her endorsement and I was in.  Until...I saw an ad and one of the judges was saying "that's not art."  I think that's pretty close to what he said and I was immediately pissed.  I guess from my foray into crafting I've started to finally get the message.  You are allowed to define your art.  You are allowed to define whether you are a crafter or an artist.  I wouldn't call myself an artist - but that's just me.  There are many people in the crafting world that are artists - hands down...from scrapbookers to knitters to sculptors.  No one has the effing right to tell someone what they do is not art.  Now I think it's fine to say I don't like this art or this looks like trash (not to the artist though obviously), but it's not okay to define art for anyone else.  There are plenty of things I see and think is absolute junk but is considered art.  My opinion doesn't change what it is.  So - I'm on the fence about this show.  I'm intrigued because I do like seeing other people's process and concepts of creativity/art.  I just don't want to get bogged down in the judge's message.  What Ali E. says is absolutely true - it is okay.  Whether you define yourself as an artist/crafter/knitter/scrapbooker/etc., it is all okay.  Be who you are.  I just wanted to be able to say that - it's important to remember.  It's a daily struggle for me - ask E or M - but I'm working on it.  So there Mr. Judge!  I hope everyone has a nice Saturday.  Until then...

BTW: Morguefile does it again!

So Tired

I really wish I had a card to share today - but I'm so flippin' tired from my medicine I take every six weeks.  So no card for today, just a cute picture from morguefile.com and a link to something close to my heart.  I'm always interested in finding ways to make my crafts help others.  There is a cool article in Cardmaker each month on helping others through cards.  Recently I found another site where you can use this hobby to help others called Cards for a Cause.  It's on the Splitcoast website here.  For the most part - I just look and think it would be cool to participate.  But no more!  I'm going to participate in this month's cause at Splitcoast Stampers.  Can't wait to post the cards here before I send.  On my agenda today...sleep and eat - that's it!  I hope everyone has a nice Thursday.  Until then...

Do A Little Dance

I love this song.  You know...do a little dance, make a little love, get down tonight.  It reminds me of my days at USC and hearing the marching band play that little diddy while the boys tried to smash their opponents.  It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  So - when I saw this dancing cupcake in the My Zoetrope store on Etsy - I was immediately inspired.  I decided to make a card as close to the original as possible for the Etsy Inspired Challenge blog (love this site - full of inspirational goodness).    The final card looked like this:

It's a mini card (3X3).  Truth be know - I'm not a fan of it.  I had to freehand the arms, legs, eyes, mouth and sentiment.  It's not perfect - but I didn't really expect it to be.  It's my first time out and I just can't expect to hit it out of the park.  The important thing is...I did something new.  I stretched myself just a little.  I have a little image I love - because really who can resist a dancing cupcake?  It brings a smile to my face and that's all I really needed - a chance to flex those creative muscles in the cutest way imaginable.  Not to mention - it totally makes me think of Chandler from "Friends."  Does anyone remember that line - "They're gonna do a little dance, make a little love, pretty much get down tonight?"  Love it!  So there you go - a return to challenge after a very long hiatus.  Can't wait to do more.  Hope this Wednesday finds you well.  I'm going to get out of the house - take a trip to my second home and relax.  Until then...

BTW: Sorry for the poor picture quality.  My flash kept on skewing the image.  I guess it was the colored pencils.  Not nearly as dark in person.  :)

Oops or How I Fixed a Mistake

I'm very happy to announce that I'm once again in the Inspiration Phase of creativity.  It's been such a long time since I've been here and I'm absolutely ecstatic that I'm back.  I finished my dad's cards yesterday - no today.  I'm very happy with what they look like.  Truth be known - I'm happy in general.  It feels good to be flexing my creative muscles again.  I'm at that point where I'm excited to see what will happen next.  I love it!

So I thought I'd share something with you a breakthrough of sorts. I made a mistake on one of my cards.  I stamped directly on the card instead of on a separate piece of paper to allow for error. I didn't like the result and I thought there was nothing I could do.  I loved the dancing girl image and I was pretty happy with the card until I stamped "Days Like These Make Me."  It was too crowded to the edge and I didn't like it at all.  In fact, it was all I could not stop thinking about. 

So...I got up this morning with a fresh eye and came up with this solution.  I totally ditched the saying and went for something a little simpler.  I thought the red paper would be a good substitute and would help things come together.  In the end - it's a little overworked but it's better than it's original (IMHO).   Had a few kinks with adding the red cardstock but I think it was worth it.

So there you are - progress.  A few months ago - this card would have went in the trash.  And - I totally would have lost a great image.  I need to remember to be a little easier on myself.  Not everything is going to be perfect.  So...I'm going to leave you with a slide show of the cards I completed for my dad.  I tried to make two color stories (red, orange, yellow, blue) and (blue, green, teal).  Turns out one story is far heavier than the other.  Can you guess which one?  Despite some false starts and mistakes - I'm happy with what I've got here.  I hope everyone has a nice Tuesday.  Until then...