The future is here...I got a cellphone.

Miss Poe (aka Polinka), Heather's new kitty.

I helped name her, I'm so proud...since she was half black and half orange, I thought of "Poe", as in Edgar Allan Poe, since she seemed 'Halloween-ish' to me...and Heather went with it!

Well the weekend is over already, although not for everyone...since Canada Day is on Tuesday, a lot of people are taking tomorrow off, but Dan and I have to work, so for us the weekend was just regular length, but we'll have Tuesday off, so that's nice. Wish the weather was nicer though, it was only 15C here today...15!!! That's like October weather, not freakin' July!! Rain, cold...that's why I always say that June is NOT part of summer around here...Summer is July, August and half of September, Fall is half of September and October, Winter is November to May, and Spring is Mayto July...yep, that's Canada.

Anyhoo...

Wanted to share a few quick things; first off, I got bored last night and made a ribbon board for my kitchen in like 15 mins with an old bulletin board I had, an old scarf I got from VV and some ribbon from my Stash:

Before...

and after. Quick, bright and cute for my kitchen.

Here's Heather's latest project that we worked on today, painting that cool table she got from VV for 8$ on our last excursion:

She's going to paint it white, then glue some cool fabric to a lampshade. Should be rockin' by the end. I also have a painting project coming up (several actually), but I'll share those later :) As you can see, DIY-ing is still going strong here!

Related to that, I spent quite some time yesterday looking at pictures on Domino, mostly at kitchens, since it is the next room I'm going to tackle. I know for sure that I need to paint my ugly burgundy and grey cabinets (yep, you read correctly), and so I started looking around for inspiration. Here are a few of my dream kitchens (obviously I won't get mine to look that way since I'm only adding a bit of make-up to it, not giving it a facelift, but I hope to pull some ideas from them...)

As you can see I'm into the white with blue/aqua colour combination, with some other colours thrown in (I'm thinking yellows, greens...) All vert light and natual looking. So yeah, we'll see if we can pull it off, I want this to be a summer/fall project, so within the next couple of weekends! So excited :)

While I'm at showing the lovelies, here are some other spaces I'm loving right now:

Oh my. I could look at pretty rooms all day. I really really could.

Ok, that's it, just a fluffy post, not much new going on in life besides nesting, scrapping and being indoors because of the rain. Before I go here's my 365 for yesterday, it's actually one of my favs so far for some reason (I think it's because of all the reflections everywhere, it's a picture of me taking a picture, and you can see both cameras...)

That's all, I'm off to learn more about my new cell...my first cellphone in my entire life, and I'm 25 years old! It's scary.

Night, and have a good rest of the weekend!

G.

projects, layouts and goodies, oh my...

Cool kid's curtains for 99 cents at Value Village,

going to use it on some

childhood memory pages...

First of all, what do you call someone who blogs too much? Bloggaholic? I think I'm turning into one, I'm updating almost everyday, that's not normal is it?! I need blog-rehab. I need to be away from a computer. I need a log cabin in the woods. I need a vacation. But, I don't have any of those things right now, so I'll share some fun stuff I've been doing this week instead! Here's a layout I made tonight about my friend Heather and our daily at-work emails to each other:

It's a 12X12, which for me is a rarity these days, but I didn't want cut up the pretty background paper! Used some new MM letter stickers I got for 40% off from Michael's (love), plus some older stuff from my Stash, which is always fun. I am going to choose some particular emails and tuck them underneath the ruled paper (hence the "pull out" label) So yeah, pretty happy that I scrapped it relatively quickly, I need to get back into the habit of creating at least one layout a week. I didn't participate in any Challenges, didn't focus on any specific technique, I just created. And I liked it.

Last night Heather and I had a Craft Night Extravaganza, and we went shopping for some supplies and thrifty goodies (Heather got an awesome table-lamp for 8$!), then came back and did some projects. Mine was to spraypaint an old mirror I had since forever.

Here's the before:

As you can see, quite old and dusty and ugo. And the after, I used a really bright blue, since I thought, why not use a really bright blue??

I put it in our bedroom, on the wall you see right when you walk in. My room is actually almost done, just a few little things to add here and there, but here are a few pics of it, it's quite relaxing and light and not too cluttered, which is hard for me sometimes but I really want to keep it peaceful. (Also, you can see the new pillow cases I got, I love them so much, so vintage country, and they were 99 cents for 2!! Can't beat that. I also got the little cream frame last night for 99 cents, and the curtains (from Ikea) I got last week for 5.99, I've been scoring bigtime at VV lately!)

I may eventually paint the walls a white colour, but for now I'm pretty happy with it, I will probably keep working on it all summer, then enjoy it when the chill sets in this fall...I love decorating :) Next challenge: Kitchen.

Anyway, Heather was quite crafty as well, working on a painting she made of a cool tree (might do this one myself some day...)

Also cool: I got Picassa for my computer, since my Photoshop trial was over. I'm discovering that for me, right now, Picassa is probably enough, it does what I need it to do, and when I'm ready to get into actions and everything else, I'll move up to Photoshop. I should concentrate on taking good pictures first, then on the editing, I've decided. Oh yeah.

Well I guess that's all for tonight. Tomorrow night Dan and I are going out for sushi (yumm), then on Saturday I am going to a barbecue at my coworker's house, and on Sunday I hope to get my scrap on, since it's going to rain (boo). Hope everyone has an awesome weekend, until next time!

G.

Quick question...

Does anyone know how to create blog banners? 'Cause mine is now offically lame and I'd like a new one, maybe one I make myself. Do you buy a template? Just create a collage or something? Also, how do people make the cool titles/logos for their sidebar? ---->

I suck at computer stuff (mostly.)

Any help/tips would be really appreciated!

Enjoy the soleil,
G.

Drooley babies are beautiful.

Yumm, Tiggers are the best...

Just wanted to share real quick some pics I took last night of my friend Sara's little guy, Judah. I took some pics of him at 6 weeks and now he's 4 months, where has the time gone?! I'm glad to see that Sara is enjoying motherhood so much, it's something I hope I can enjoy one day too!

Anyway, bring on the cute pics...







They aren't perfect by any means (I was quite bummed when I saw them on the computer), but there were at least some decent ones, so that's what's important. I REALLY need to develop my photography skills, that will be one of my main goals over the next year, to learn the craft and really understand the logic and theory behind a good picture (and also how to post-process them, since that is a major issue as well when it comes to photography.) I need to get some books on the subject I think, and I have a free one hour lesson I can take at any point, so I need to take advantage of that. I'm so drawn to photography, the emotions it can capture or evoke, the beauty of them, capturing a moment in time, significant or not. I want to be able to take shots like those someday.

Ok, 'nough rambling, tonight my friend Heather and I are having a Craft Night Extravanganza, which for me involves aqua blue spaypaint, an old mirror, and perhaps a deck of cards-sized mini. Should be fun!

(Oh, also, the weather is sooooo nice out right now, I should not be stuck in an office, boo.)

Have a great Hump Day everyone!
G
xox

Two things...

i'm in love with right now:

1. Meadows (or fields, valleys, plains, any open, grassy, isolated area.)

2. Iced Coffees from McDonald's. Vanilla flavoured. Yum.



That is all. Posting some new pics on my Flickr, and that's all she wrote for now.

Hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!
G.
xox

Summer Mini

As promised, here is the mini I made this week. The inspiration was 100% old lady, both her style and her cool new Challenge blog called The Art is Found. I decided to try these challenges out because they were fun and different. The first prompt (I'm starting at the beginning baby!) was to use Packaging, which to me could mean any sort of recycled materials. So I took some currogated (sp?) cardboard from our bedframe packaging and some Toast catalogue pages and made this mini about the summer (the cover page was my starting point, I loved the surf picture that said "High summer 2008"). I also used old buttons from clothes, old packaging from an Etsy purchase, lots of white paint (heart) and some misc. scrapping stuff.

I'm also submitting this to the Scrapjack Challenge, which works out well because they jacked Kara this time! The jack was of a mini she made for Art class at school, and had lyrics in it. I'm not sure if I did the jack right, because I didn't make my mini about lyrics in particular, but I did include lyrics in my mini, and the mini itself was inspired by hers. So I'll submit it and see what the girls say :)

Ok, 'nough babblin', here it is (I scanned in the pages, since it seemed the best way to show it, but minis are hard to show online, it's so much cooler in real life!)

As you can see it's quite messy and random and fun, which is the direction I want to take, I don't want to take this too seriously, I think that was myproblem before, I thought that everything had to be perfect, so I just couldn't bring myself to do anything, but now that the pressure is off, I can have some fun and just create.

Creating leads to messes like this one. But I love it.

Well I guess that's it for now. Not sure where I'll go from here, probably attempt another page, I still have to print some pictures, that's holding me up a bit I think. the OLW is Strong, which is cool, I'll see what I can do with that. Challenges are awesome, for reals, I thrive on them.

Heading to Sussex this weekend to see my sister's new puppy Quincy and to visit my little nephew Hayden, who I haven't met yet, so lots of new family to meet (and pictures to take)!

**Speaking of pictures, can anyone recommend a good, easy-to-read book about Adobe Photoshop? I tried some stuff and boy, it's hard! I see how people process their pics and I love it, but it seems like you need a degree in computer science and photography to be able to do anything to them! How do I get my pics to look like hers?? Kinda green-ish tint, or a light tint, or "urban action", whatever that means? Any help?? Please??

Out (and back to work!)
G.
xox