Understand Blue

The End of The Property Owner As We Know It

2013-05-14T16:31:00.001-05:00

I haven't swapped in YEARS. More than ten years, I believe.

But if you haven't visited the swap forum on Splitcoast, you really haven't lived a good papercrafty life yet.

Thankfully it's my job to see all the new stuff there. So when one of our amazing swap moderators, Joyce, posted a Downton Abbey character ATC swap just after the end of the last season, how was I to resist soothing my aching heart from the last episode without participating??

Clearly it was a mandate, so I signed up. And I was early enough to get.... Bates. My beloved, beloved John Bates. *sigh*

Now normally in a character swap you'd use an image of the person, but I remembered the scene with Bates holding an umbrella in the rain at the front of the house in his beautiful, perfectly felted bowler, and I realized I had the perfect stamp for my trade.

It nearly broke my heart to even make it, truly. I misted my watercolor crayons on my Union Jack stamp with my tears for sweet cousin Matthew and that lonely prison cell for John. Or I used my mister. Whatever. Don't trifle with my details.

I found the perfect Bates quote to span my image.

When will we see you again John Bates??? WHEN??

Splotchy asks this question every day, while dreamily looking off into the distance. Maddie? Maddie could care less about John Bates and she's sleeping. Please be quiet.

Now. On to my rant.

This weekend, I took a tour of Casa Neverlandia.

Casa Neverlandia is owned by a local artist - James Talbot.

Prior to 1979, Talbot lived in a neighborhood in Austin known as the Clarksville area. This became a sort of artists' neighborhood in the late 70's, and became too expensive for him. Sad to leave his hilltop view in Clarksville, he found a house off South Congress in 1979, for $13,000. At that time, that was extremely expensive for a working artist, but he managed.

The neighborhood was made up of board on board houses on teeny lots - his lot is 50 x 150.

He began to improve the house with his incredible mosaic work, stucco and lighting designed by his wife, also an artist. He rebuilt the house slowly and by hand, and built straight up, all the way to three stories, since expanding the footprint wasn't an option.

Long after the house was paid off, his taxes continued to climb. As the address became more trendy, his own home, which he thought he owned, became a source of anxiety and stress, as his property taxes climbed to their current level of $500 a month.

He will never truly OWN this home. None of us will own our homes.

In order to afford to live there, he has to conduct public tours of his little national treasure just to pay the "rent" on the house he's already paid for long ago, and try to use his art income to survive in his other earthly needs. This time steals the time he needs to create his amazingly detailed artwork, which is the sole source of his income.

This is a crime.

What if you bought a package of Jelly Bellies in 1984 and you paid 10 cents sales tax on them. Then you ate them. But long after you ate them, you continued to be assessed an ever-growing sales tax on them. A tax that would haunt you for the rest of your life and grow by 25% a year?

You would wish you had never had those Jelly Bellies. They would haunt you like the ghost of Jelly Belly past.

Property ownership used to be the pinnacle of achievement in our culture. Now it's just rent.

This makes me angry.

This man is incredibly talented and hard working. And he paid for his house in the 90s. And now he can't afford to live in it.

Soon I won't be able to afford to live in mine, either. My taxes are about the same.

Is this what we want?

I'd think about that before entering the voting booth next time. Just sayin'.

In the meantime, please enjoy this incredible journey through his home. And if you are in Austin and would like to take a tour, let me know.

Here's his mosaic work on the front of the house.

Incredible.

Everywhere you look, there's whimsy. This is a tiny gathering in the front garden, with St. Francis and a few of his friends.

This is the peak of his roof. Wow.

The front door features a variety of ways guests can announce themselves.

My favorite art piece of his is behind him while he explains the living room. It's called "The Longing Behind Mirrors" and it's a stunning 3D broken mirror mosaic. It's very hard to photograph so I'm sorry, but I like this picture of Talbot.

Here I'm on the stairs up to his loft bedroom which features a stunning A frame and skylight, a loft, leaning walls and a beautiful balcony.

INCREDIBLE work in progress in his studio. He's a little older than me so I have no idea how he sees these tiny beads. This is so beautiful in real life.

His entire house and studio have no central air or heat. His electricity bill is $15 a month.

His studio has 5,000 jars of beads in ROYGBIV order. It was heaven.

I hope you have a good week. :)

Loveyameanitbye.

Mold and Millibars

2013-05-10T06:30:00.000-05:00

We've had a bizarre "spring" here. First of all, we don't typically really get a spring. We go from a mild chill (by most people's standards) to the ice cream kill zone in fairly short order, and normally in February.

But this year, we've had this unusual, record-breaking period of cool temperatures that I think if you weren't from Texas, you'd call spring. It's been beautiful.

Odd for those of use who are growing veggies, because things are a little farther behind than they'd normally be, but pretty weather nonetheless.

However, what comes with this is a horrid plague of mold in the air. In Austin, we have dry and wet molds, and they are absolutely deadly.

I'm allergic to both, and for the last three days, I've nearly died from it. The particular offender this week - Alternaria - will only die when the temperature is 90 and above. Which it normally is. And which is needs to be RIGHT FREAKING NOW.

I've plotted a Michael Crichton style revenge, involve nanobots, that I can't really tell you about right now, because the last thing I need is those boobs in homeland security stealing my idea.

But when mold death comes, it will be shock and awe, believe me.

I did manage to hold my head still long enough to play in today's Mix-Ability challenge though - and I had a BLAST doing it.

I made a little collage strip base out of Baked Brown Sugar cardstock. Then I used direct to paper to dye some First Edition DSP with our upcoming In Colors - Crisp Cantaloupe, Baked Brown Sugar, Coastal Cabana, Strawberry Slush. I tore up these scraps and glued them to my strip of cardstock and trimmed off the excess. Then I sprayed the strip with Goosebumps Shimmer spray to seal it and give it a little glimmer. It dried really fast. I tied linen thread around it and put it on a Baked Brown Sugar base that I embossed with the honeycomb embossing folder. The greeting is from the new set - Label Love. I love those pretty colors against the brown.

In the days when I could enjoy being outside without dying, I was pleased to see that my roses are going crazy. I have a nice, compact fuschia rose and a white one. I believe they're fraternizing though, because today I saw pink buds on my white rose.

I turned on CatTV today too - i.e., filled the bird feeder outside my studio window - and caught some fun squirrel shenanigans, much to Maddie & Splotchy's delight.

Hope your day is full of squirrels and free of Alternaria!

Loveyameanitbye.

The Tyranny of Handwashing

2013-05-05T07:50:00.000-05:00

I have nostalgia for the old Food Network.

You remember - the one with Good Eats and Iron Chef and Julia and Jacques (best show ever) and the Two Fat Ladies and other actual cooking shows.

On the old Food Network, there was no crying.

Now it's hard to get through a show without someone fake crying over their overly dramatic childhood and how that impacts their culinary point of view.

Gag me with a spoon, as we used to say.

Also, I'm tired of the handwashing PSA. No one handles raw bacon and then puts Orajel on their baby's sore gums, so enough with the obligatory artistic closeup shots of chefs washing their hands. We get it. People who died from trichinosis from being morons in the kitchen aren't watching your shows, people! It's your momma's job to teach you to wash your hands, not Giada's.

And the stupid product placements where the contestants on some chef show are required to use Skittles in their beef bourguignon. Please. Seriously.

So without crying, washing my hands in slow motion or doing any sort of commercial presentation of a disgusting paid ingredient, here's a recipe for you that I made the other night - it's delicious. I adapted it from about four recipes I googled. None of them were quite right.

Cauliflower Mac & Cheese

1 large head cauliflower cut into small florets
2 Tbs. butter or margarine
3 Tbs. all-purpose flour
1.5 cups half & half
2 C grated extra-sharp Cheddar cheese
1 C grated gruyere
1 pinch cayenne pepper

1.5 tsp salt
2 egg yolks
Panko breadcrumbs

Crumbled bacon

Chives

Preheat oven to 350°F. Bring large pot of salted water to a boil. Add cauliflower florets, and boil 5 to 7 minutes, or until just tender. Drain, and set aside. Make a roux from the butter and flour - melt the butter and whisk in the flour. Slowly whisk in half and half until smooth and thick. Remove from heat and add cheese until melted. Add egg yolks. Fold in cauliflower.

Butter a baking dish. Spread cauliflower mixture in baking dish, and sprinkle with a little more cheese and a few Panko breadcrumbs. Bake until warm and bubbly like me :) - I think I baked mine about 45 minutes to an hour - but I'm sure half an hour would be fine.

Today is the Challenge Chicks color challenge and it's a BEAUTY. I designed one of yesterday's class projects around it with the (insert sobbing here) retiring Word Play set and Papillon Potpourri and matching punch.

We just sponged Daffodil Delight and Tangerine Tango ink after masking the card with masking tape, and then sponged a butterfly with Bermuda Bay. Hard to see here, but we added Dazzling Details to the center of the butterfly.

Now go take on the day.

And don't forget to wash your hands.

Loveyameanitbye.

I Slept Like Bear Food Last Night

2013-05-01T20:26:00.000-05:00

Okay so I slept like bear food last night.

Here's the deal.

How can a person sleep SO SOUNDLY that they completely twist and cut off circulation to a limb? HOW is that possible?

How were we designed so that we can sleep like this, ensuring that if a bear stumbles into my encampment - yes, I know it would be hard for him to get past the traffic on the freeway, find my house and then disable the alarm, but WHATEVER - that I will wake up and flop around like a squid (bear food) on my numb and tingly limbs that I've slept all wonky on??

HE WILL EAT ME!

It really makes no evolutionary sense. I cannot understand it.

So my first thought on waking up with one leg and one arm that worked was - I slept like bear food last night.

Praise the Lord we are free of bears in suburban Atown. For now.

I stamped today. Crazy, I know, but I had to take a break from my walk this morning - which I normally do in the wee hours - because I have walked 21 miles in 3 days and more than that's not good for a person. So in the wee hours before work I stamp.

This card is using some goodies from the new catalog! Yes, I'm torturing you :). Ink and stamps and matching punches are all coming up.

But wait - there's more!

The world's teeniest praying mantis appeared in my yard this week on one of my pepper plants! Keep in mind when you look at this photo that the whole plant is 4" tall.

Yeah.

Teeny.

Click to see him. And thank goodness for nature - it's awesome.

Okay so then last night I got to meet the incomparably hilarious, talented and charming Fabio Viviani!

I was fortunate to have been invited to a blogger Q&A before his book signing thanks to my friend Kay. There were just ten of us hanging out with him for an hour, asking him questions and laughing so hard we hurt ourselves. He is SO freaking funny. Thanks to Bread and Butter PR for allowing us this opportunity!

He gave us such an entertaining evening, some recipe tips, some hilarious stories about Italian families and a story about the time he knocked Pope John Paul II's hat off that I don't know that my abs will recover for a while.

He signed his cookbook for us - and I have to say - it's WAY more than a cookbook. He told us that his mother blackmailed him over the book - she said if he was going to publish the family recipes, she got to tell stories about, and I quote, "what a horrible children" he was. And they are GOOD stories!!

I'm lucky to live in a place where it's pretty easy to meet celebrities, but I have to say - I've never met one this charming, personable and funny. I'm a huge fan. Check out the book here and thank me later.

OH - and he gave me a tip for carbonara - God's perfect food - that I will try out and report back on.

I love you like that.

We Came, We Saw, We Printed!

2013-04-26T14:17:00.000-05:00

Last weekend, we had a little informal Dirty Girl gathering in Southern Oklahoma - aka, Dallas - to do a little monoprinting.

I got to teach Sharon Harnist, Jeanne Streiff, Vicki Garrett and Bev Gerard a few of the things I'd learned in Linda Germain's workshop at the beginning of the month.

First, we made our gelatin printing plates on Saturday night after we got there.

If you've never done this, please note - unflavored gelatin is REVOLTING! It smells like DEATH. I've never liked flavored Jell-O, but I don't know how you could smell unflavored gelatin and ever eat the stuff again. So, while this method is cheap and relatively easy, I much prefer my GelliArts Gelli Plate. Poor Bev put in some hard time skimming the bubbles off those stinky plates. The good news is, they don't stink after they're set. Bev - I hope you forgive me.

Here are the girls showing off their plates after we got them out of the cookie sheets the next morning:

We got busy and inked up a storm, making stacks and stacks of prints - it was so much fun!!

It was exhausting though, so we had to take a lunch break at Mi Cocina with Bev's beautiful and talented daughter, Jessica Witty.

It's amazing how much better your prints get after some enchiladas, margaritas and hilarious company.

Now the cool thing about these prints is that even the ones that don't turn out exactly like you thought they would are beautiful when you cut them up for your journal or to use on a card.

I used one such print on my card for today's Mix-Ability challenge to do hand doodling on your card. The print was of a piece of beautiful grass that we picked as we were leaving Mi Cocina. It made lovely prints.

I just outlined it with my white gel pen, and then added the greeting from my NEW, sneak peek set from the upcoming catalog - Really Good Greetings in my NEW sneak peek GORGEOUS Baked Brown Sugar ink. SQUEE!!

How adorable is that scripty greeting??? I'm in love with that set.

And I know I never bring you two cards in one post, but I'm making an exception for the other card I did for today's challenge, with more Baked Brown Sugar goodness, and the new Wildflower Meadow stamp set and MATCHING embossing folder. How amazing is that? Again, I doodled in white.

You're just going to FREAK when you see the catalog - believe me. I had it in my hot little hands last night and it's AMAZING. So many fun things coming. I'll show you more peeks in the coming days.

In the meantime, I had such an insanely busy spring - something every night and weekend for months - that I've declared May to be the month of NO. I will not say yes to anything, and I'll work, and nap and organize and do whatever I want. In my PJs. So there. Don't even ask me.

Now go look at the gallery for today's challenge - it's incredible. Then get your pens out and get to work!

Loveyameanitbye.

You Are a Star

2013-04-19T07:20:00.001-05:00

I saw many great videos this week, which I'll show you after my paid political announcement:

*****Paid Political Announcement*****

Dear Stampin' Up!,

Please, please, please do not retire the stamp set By the Seashore. I love this set. I love the text inside the images. I love the classic beach images. I love to color them. I'm getting all cranky and discombobulated just thinking that you MIGHT retire them. I'm making my hair look all crazy from wild fits of running my hands through it during my occasional retirement panic attacks. I know that you want me to have peace and joy, so please, just do what I say. Please. Seriously. Love, Me.

*****End of Paid Political Announcement*****

Okay, so I used this set today for Dina's Mix-Ability challenge - Pop Goes Your Color Wheel! SQUEE! This is my favorite design principle, so I'm stoked to see it in our mixed media setting. The challenge is either to do mostly warm colors with a pop of a cool color, or mostly cool colors with a pop of warm - LOVE!! I chose mostly cool with a pop of warm, after seeing a GORGEOUS card that one of our newest Dirty Girls - Linda Paider, aka Holstein - made for the Fan Club Gallery using graphite to color with.

I LOVE graphite. I love the soft, sparkly look it gives your card. The greys are both deep and light reflectors. Perfect coloring medium. I'm lazy, so I used my water soluble graphite and painted with it. Hers was more painstaking. If you're a Fan Club Member, go check it out.

So I masked and stamped the shells in Basic Black and then watercolored them with the ArtGraf graphite. Then I stamped the starfish image on a separate piece of paper and colored it and adhered it with a glue dot.

The greeting is from the I Am... set we got at Convention last year. I love that set. I don't use it enough.

Stamps:By the Seashore, I Am... Ink: Basic Black

Accessories: AquaPainter, Viarco ArtGraf water soluble graphite, TouchTwin markers: YR33, YR21, Y45

OH - speaking of Convention - don't forget to sign up for the annual Understand Blue Happy Hour!

Okay - now since you ARE a star, I wanted to show you two videos I saw this week that I loved. One you may have already seen, but watch it again because it's awesome.

Then, watch this one, which will make you smile. :)

Loveyameanitbye.

Oh Say Can You See...?

2013-04-18T13:43:00.001-05:00

The video of the week.

How We Should Order in Restaurants - You're Welcome

2013-04-16T18:17:00.002-05:00

Another simple solution today to one of life's most pressing problems - the incorrect food order.

I walked 8 miles on Sunday. When I do this, I'm ravenous afterwards. I have to have serious protein or I'll die. So I had to squeeze in Five Guys before we went to a friend's house to watch the Master's.

Their online ordering is amazeballs. I do a lot of online ordering and theirs is one of the simplest and most customer friendly. Not only can you pick your own toppings, but you can pick the density. Like mayo, but not too much? They have a light mayo option. Want 40 zillion pickles? Choose heavy pickles.

The bottom line is when you get there it will be exactly what you want.

So I was thinking - why can't we do this at restaurants? The least valuable part of the customer/waiter relationship is the few moments where they try to memorize your order. The odds they'll get it wrong are high. The most valuable parts of the waiter/customer relationship are: greeting, drink and food bringing and check bringing. That whole part where they bug you while you're chatting - lose it. The part where they get your order wrong - lose it. Let us type our orders in just like we want them, ideally just on our cell phones and texted to the kitchen, and let us interact with our servers in a fun, stress-free way. Tips would go up, order accuracy would improve, and no one would be interrupted in the middle of an awesome story by a jittery server.

Just an idea. You're welcome.

This weekend I went to my very first My Favorite Things Party, hosted by the talented and lovely Lani. We all brought four of our favorite things, and then we did a drawing and each of us went home with four of everyone else's favorite things.

What I brought was this:

A London Fog kit. My favorite drink - steamed milk, vanilla, Earl Greyer tea and sugar. It's a religious experience. I stamped the lids and tags and shredded up First Edition DSP to put in the jars with the teabags and bottles of vanilla. the grey chevron bags on the outside hold the Demerara sugar cubes.

I hope they like it.

What I GOT was the following:

A Cool Gear insulated cup.

A fun, folding beach bag.

A local shop's cuticle balm - this stuff is AMAZING! This was from my friend Tisa, of Tisa's Creations. I'm completely addicted to the Lemon Sugar balm. I love supporting local businesses and so does sweet Tisa. Here we are before the party at my stamping class.

A hair glossing polish that I can't wait to try!

Some yummy tea:

Some SASSY nail polish in my favorite color:

Some SERIOUSLY wow hand cream - I was amazed at how this just disappears into your skin:

And from our beautiful, sweet hostess, Lani of Elle Dee designs:

EEP! I got eight of these - so cute!!!

Okay I know you're wondering if I'll EVER get to a papercrafting project but WAIT! I was talking to my co-worker, Lori, today when what to my wondering eyes did appear but a FOX!! In my yard! He snacked on my black sunflower seeds at my bird feeder, then frolicked over to my birdbath, and then hung out on our soon-to-be-tomato-box lumber!

Yes, he IS laughing at me in that last pic as my camera clicked away.

We're all happy that summer is here. :)

This is a sight I've never seen in my yard, and I'm so excited. The cats - fierce beasts that they are, slept through the kerfuffle.

They did NOT, however, sleep through the Oklahoma earthquakes last night. They completely freaked out and howled from 2 to 5. A lot of good that does me, kittens. That stuff was 6 hours from here. But thanks for the heads up. Meanwhile, something that can eat you is in the backyard, but no worries! Just nap on!

Anyway, I really do have a project for you today.

I stole the buoy idea from my friend Heidi - so cute! It was perfect for this month's Fan Club challenges!

We made this for my monthly stamp class, using the Fancy Favor die, Pool Party Core'dinations, Parker's Patterns DSP, Word Play, By the Seashore, and the Decorative Label Punch.

Fun, eh? Heidi is so creative!

I hope you're still with me after all that rambling.

If so, loveyameanitbye.

The Voicemail Puzzle

2013-04-12T10:34:00.001-05:00

I was leaving a voicemail for my friend Mel the other day and as I listened to her message, I thought - what in the heck are we all doing?

Are there Martians here who don't know what to do when they hear the beep?

If not, why do all of us just record the same danged message on our voicemail? "This is X (huge surprise, since I dialed your number), I'm away from my phone right now (duh - I'm listening to your voicemail), please leave your name (Really?) and number (Oh, are you still using a rotary phone?) and I'll get back with you (that's not a guarantee anyway - why do we say it? I never call anyone back)."

We are numbed sheep. In honor of that revelation, I changed my voicemail message to include a fun fact about Norwegian farmers and none of the above garbage.

Think how much more entertaining our lives could be if we all used our outbound message as a means of communicating bizarre and hilarious tidbits of truth?

It might even make me use the phone more. Nah - that's not going to happen. I'm an anti-phonite.

Today is Mix-Ability challenge day on Splitcoast and Janelle, our hostess challenged us to use die cuts as a stencil or collage element. I decided to go with stencil because I had just bought a roll of Badger Frisket (is that not super fun to say??) for my monoprinting class and I was dying to use it! Now I'm completely in love. It's a low tack masking film and it works beautifully with dies.

I used the lattice die for my experiment and I learned a few things. First - the Frisket is pretty thin, so I probably should have cut it with a piece of cardstock on top to make sure the intricate parts cut all the way through. I had to hand cut a few. Also, the more intricate cuts like this need a steady hand when applying - you don't want bubbles under any part of the mask when you're sponging.

That being said, I still made a two minute stained glass card while watching NCIS so BOOM! I sponged Lucky Limeade and Tempting Turquoise with sponge daubers, stamped the greeting from Word Play and peeled off the mask. Easy.

Come play along!

After you change your voicemail message, of course.

Loveyameanitbye.

An Open Letter To Working Men

2013-04-11T16:59:00.001-05:00

STOP
CLIPPING
YOUR
NAILS
AT
WORK

Thankfully, since I work from my home office now - praise the Lord - I don't have to deal with this boorishness anymore, but many of my friends still do. And it gives them homicidal fantasies.

Men - you have no idea how disgusting you are to women (and civilized men, in case you care) the second this happens. You are ensuring that you will die not only alone, but reviled in your aloneness, and with good cause. I'm pretty certain you'll also go to hell. Where you will also be alone, because you are too gross even for the general hell crowd.

At not just one, but TWO workplaces, I experienced men clipping not just their nails (insert extreme stabbiness here) but their TOENAILS.

Yes. Toenails.

I completely support the death penalty for this offense. No trial necessary. Just drag them out of their cubicles and kill them with their nail clippers.

I say this lovingly, of course, and as a public service announcement.

Apparently they lack an enzyme or a gene that prevents them from recognizing disgusting habits. They need our help. Right up until the second they pick up a clipper. At that point, all bets are off.

Speaking of workplace injustice - I ordered the new Bombs Away Birthday stamp set this week the second it came out because it CRACKS ME UP! If you've ever had to eat dozens of pieces of substandard cake at the endless stream of office birthday parties, you'll appreciate this greeting.

Hee hee... isn't that hilarious? I think we can all relate.

I just used the new washi tape from the This And That Bundle (you can buy the tape separately here) and the Adorning Accents embossing folder.

Here's the rest of the set, which is equally hilarious.

This is my sage - all my herbs are going nuts right now in this gorgeous spring weather.

I never noticed before today how much the sage flowers look like a teeninesy iris! Look closely!

My mint has finally made a roaring comeback after I replaced the dirt the squirrel removed.

Maybe I'll have enough for a julep by the time the Derby rolls around.

Loveyameanitaslongasyouneverclipyournailsnearmebye.

Happy Birthday Grumpy Cat!!

2013-04-04T14:39:00.001-05:00

This week brings birthdays to two of my favorite mammals on the PLANET - Grumpy Cat

and my friend +Korin Sutherland.

Grumpy Cat turns 1 year old today, and Korin turns I BELIEVE sixteen years old tomorrow. :)

So in honor of both of them, I watercolored a portrait of little Tardar Sauce for Korin's birthday card. Sorry for the early peek Korin!

I love you both and hope you both have a very happy birthday!!

Loveyameanitbye.

Introducing CTRL+cat

2013-04-01T21:36:00.000-05:00

After the last two cat induced computer disaster incidents, in which Splotchy deleted my Firefox toolbar and then my Windows toolbar, I came up with a fantastic invention.

The CTRL+cat command.

CTRL+cat would undo the last action your cat did on the keyboard. Like a little reverse macro. If your cat took multiple actions with his four feet, you could just press it multiple times until you got back to your normal state.

There's no other way to figure out the precise combination of keys that 7 pounds of cat on four feet can produce. Believe me - I've tried to walk it back - it can't be done.

We need computing power to figure that out.

You're welcome.

Now for something completely low tech. Last weekend, I had to do the summer ritual - raking all the oak leaves out of the flower beds, cutting out dewberries, pulling weeds, adding compost - all those things that make your back hurt.

During this exercise, a spider bit me, which I didn't realize until the next evening at our HOA meeting, where my elbow swelled up to 35 times its normal size and became very painful. Since I get bitten by spiders all the time, I knew what it was, but the spiders are all different, and this one was unusual. I took a Benadryl, iced it, did all sorts of stuff. The next day, nothing had changed. Then, I remembered that my brother in law had convinced me a few months earlier to go buy this "miraculous" Living Clay, and that it would cure anything on your skin. I had exhausted all other options at this point, so I thought I'd give it a try.

It was a milagro.

In two hours, it was half the size, and the next morning - it was almost normal. Amazing!

I'm totally a believer now!

It makes me not so mad at the spider, whose home I'm sure I destroyed during the chaos of gardening.

And it makes me remember how happy I was when I dug up this.

You can see it's upside down from the way I found it - just that orange bit at the bottom was sticking up - a squirrel buried it I guess. And then the critters underground made this awesome face!!!

Pardon the dirt on my hands. I was laboring in the earth.

Speaking of squirrels - I'm really mad at mine. They are digging up all my plants right now. They dug up two of my silver ponyfoot plants last night and tossed them onto the lawn. Mad.

Gotta devise a squirrel proof cover tonight.

Here's a fun project from my embossing technique class this weekend. We had so much fun - we did five different heat embossing techniques. Imagine 12 heat guns going at once!

This one was one they showed us at Regionals in Dallas - I love the abstract design. It's Tempting Turquoise and Tangerine Tango and Whisper White embossing powder. Fun, eh?

Now - the most exciting news EVER! I contributed to my first ever Kickstarter campaign for a little company called Louie's Box. I loved their pitch and I thought it was a great idea, so I pitched in. So did a lot of other people, and their little venture got funded! Here's their pitch video.

I was so happy to go to the mailbox after work and find a package all the way from Jerusalem.

It contained my reward for helping them - a prototype Louie's Box and three T-shirts.

It took me two minutes to put it together, and then I think my review team kind of says the rest.

Splotchy LOVES this box. As a matter of fact - Maddie has not been allowed inside yet.

So fun to see a small business with a great idea come to life.

Maybe I'll set up a kickstarter for CTRL+cat.

Loveyameanitbye.

I've Fixed Our Country

2013-03-31T10:44:00.002-05:00

Well really my sister has. But since she doesn't blog, I'm taking credit for it.

We were having a pre-Easter lunch with my parents yesterday and discussing the general worthlessness of politicians, and she came up with a brilliant idea.

We are always complaining about the parties, and the star-bellied Sneetchishness of the labels, the moneygrubbing scumbags occupying office for their entire lives and becoming billionaires through the mysterious process of doing nothing except getting elected, and that the collective intelligence of elected officials in the country is just shy of that of a fuzzy caterpillar.

The simple solution to al this has been in front of us for decades.

The Selective Service.

Every American registers for the Selective Service at age 18, and we hold a draft for President, Vice President, Senator, Congressman, Governor, Mayor and dog catcher. When you are selected, you go serve, or you go to prison.

Think of the variety of leaders we'd get! Race, gender, party, age, height, width and intelligence!

We also decided that to stop the festering, rotting old folk phenomenon that the term limit for every draftee is one year. The constant turnover would make the current bribery system ineffective.

You don't get paid for your service either. My sister suggested that the draftee should actually have to pay us while serving, but I opt for the jury duty stipend of $6 per day. Everyone would have the great experience of serving the public for one year. No one would fester in office. The constant change would be refreshing, after hundreds of years of watching the petrified political forest petrify.

One year we'd have the Rent Is Too Damn High party guy, the next year a woman who can spin plates in the circus. Think of the possibilities! The odds of getting a stamper for president just shot up dramatically!

Please start a petittion on change.org immediately and let's get this place back on track!

Now take a gander at my Mix-Ability challenge sample for this week! It was my turn to host, and I decided on an "under construction" theme. I asked people to use metal + a coloring medium on their card. For this sample I glued tinfoil to cardstock and then embossed it. Then I painted it with Lettuce alcohol ink. Next, I tried to sand it, but it tore the foil, so I decided to beef it up a bit with gesso, more Lettuce ink, and then I sponged it with Soft Suede ink for depth. Then I sanded it to expose the shine of the foil. I love the way it turned out. I added a little watercolor birdie from Young Vermilion. Love that bird.

Maybe in our next iteration of the Selective Service Election system, birds will go in the mix. Better than bird brained humans, that's for sure.

Until then, may the odds be ever in your favor.

Easter blessings.

Loveyameanitbye.

An Interview With Myself

2013-03-27T20:49:00.001-05:00

I'm not famous enough to get interviewed by anyone else, so I thought I'd just interview myself today.

It's going to be a sort of Seinfeld style interview - wandering all over and sort of about nothing.

So here goes:

ME: So, thank you for joining me today. I'd like to give our readers something to argue about. What controversial statement would you like to get off your chest?

me: So many to choose from, so little time. I guess I'll have to go with how revolting I find Nutella to be. And green bell peppers. And beets. And Nancy Grace.

ME: Well that should keep them busy for a while. Now - let's get down to business. To what do you owe your mad procrastinating skills?

me: I'm going to go ahead and go with being raised by a math professor. Math professors, like Spanish authors, do not have a linear sense of time. On my mother's side of the family there were all these type A deadline focused people, like my grandfather, king of awesome, but clearly the math professor genes won that battle. I'd like to point out that I'm far more efficient than most people, because, since I procrastinate, I get things done in about 1/10th the amount of time that those freaky planner people do.

ME: I did notice that you didn't answer any of my emails until the day before this interview.

me: Yep. But I'm here, right? Game, set, match - ME. Booya!

ME: If you say so. What advice would you give yourself if you were able to talk to yourself at age 6?

me: Well first I'd probably scream and scare myself, because that would be hilarious. But then, I'd tell myself to quit Girl Scouts before the whole "camping" trip because there are no bathrooms - just boxes of poop in the woods, and there ain't NO badge shiny enough for THAT.

ME: Well played. Okay - cats or dogs?

me: *glares*

ME: Got it. What is responsible for the current ruinous state of our culture in America?

me: Besides Nutella? Hang on. Okay - plastic surgery. Oh - and fake cheese.

ME: What technology - besides flying cars - are we long overdue for?

me: Nano butlers. Nano butlers whose mad cleaning energy charges your cell phone. Yes. That.

ME: Who would you like your next interview to be with?

me: Duh. Grumpy Cat.

ME: Thank you for your time.

me: Thank me for my time.

Speaking of thanking people for things, I need to thank my sweet friend MariLynn DeGroot for sending me the most STUNNING bag of quilled flowers. I about fell out of my chair when I got it. They are so perfect and beautiful and I have HUNDREDS of them. I can't even imagine how long it took her to make them, so they are such a sweet, handmade blessing.

I knew I needed a super spectacular setting for them, so I whipped out my All Dressed Up Framelits and made a pretty floral dress - BOOM!

Is that paper awesome or what? It's Tea For Two.

Now I'm off to see where they are on the nano butlers.

I hope you have a good night. Please don't eat fake cheese or Nutella.

Loveyameanitbye.

Oops, I Did It Again!

2013-03-22T10:15:00.000-05:00

I couldn't resist another bunny blueprint!

Stamps: Everybunny

Paper: Whisper White

Accessories: Golden Open Acrylics in Pthalo Blue and Ultramarine Blue, Gelli Plate

It's awesome as awesome as this - a potrait of Steve Jobs made by injecting paint into bubble wrap with a syringe!

Or as awesome as a baby cheetah surprising a photographer, and then a fox surprising a cheetah!

Or as awesome as seeing what Grumpy Cat did while she was here in Austin - SQUEE!!!

Well - let's be honest - nothing is as awesome as Grumpy Cat.
Loveyameanitbye.

Blueprint for a Bunneh

2013-03-21T21:48:00.001-05:00

Sometimes when your (unnamed so that he isn't publicly shamed like I want to shame him) extraordinarily squeaky animal squeaks you awake at 4:30 AM on a school day, you are in that perfect combination of comatose and annoyed that inspiration strikes.

Today was just such a day.

As I reached for the squirt bottle that has Splotchy's name (oopsie - I shamed him) on it, I was hit as if with a lightning bolt with a cool idea - blueprints.

I think that Tim Holtz's blueprint stamps had taken over my subconscious while I slept and I thought - hey - I can do that! All I need is blue and white - two things I have on hand at all times!!

I prepared the base of my blueprint with my Gelli Plate, and Golden Open Acrylics in Pthalo Blue and Ultramarine Blue - these are good because they dry more slowly than regular acrylics so you can pull multiple monoprints from your Gelli Plate with them. I brayered the paints together and then printed a full sheet of my faux blueprint color.

Then I stamped the bunneh from Everybunny in Whisper White, and traced the image with my white gel pen, which I also used for the blueprint annotations.

I used my retired Ballet Blue marker for the annotations I made on grid paper for the background. The card base is Whisper White.

If it were that easy to make a bunneh don't you think we'd all have them? :)

Loveyameanitbye.

A Collection of Randomly Awesome Stuff

2013-03-20T21:55:00.000-05:00

It's nearly tax time.

Insert horrid vampire/zombie/serial killer music here.

So in addition to the normal hectic pace of life, there's that.

So today I thought I'd bring you a few random awesome things I've liked lately.

First, the Dropwords app for my Kindle (or Android). I love word games, and this one is fun and relaxing. Sometimes if I don't have the energy to read a book before I go to sleep, this is just the right combo of puzzling and soothing.

Then, my neighbor told me about the latest, greatest virus book - Rabid. I know - it's weird, but I love epidemiology and virology and disease vector stories. The Hot Zone is one of the most page turner, amazing books I've ever read.

Okay so then there's the whole marinara situation.

For the last few years, I've been super dismayed at how watery and tasteless store bought spaghetti sauce is. I don't understand what's changed so radically - they never used to be thin and watery. Yuck.

So I've settled on an awesome, simple homemade version that I love. We've eaten buckets of it so far. Especially with the AMAZING two ingredient pizza crust we are now addicted to.

So here's the recipe:

2tsp oregano
2tsp onion powder
1Tbs salt
1/4tsp basil
4 cloves garlic
2 28oz cans San Marzano tomatoes
2 6oz cans tomato paste
2tsp olive oil

I just sort of crush the tomatoes with the spoon and cook it on the stove for about two hours, or on low in the crockpot for 4-6. It's amazing and very low calorie. I grow the oregano and basil and it is so yummy fresh.

Then I saw this oddly awesome frog tape dispenser on Pinterest. Which led me to a page with a black kitten tape dispenser.

Which led me to a page with Hello Kitty page markers.

Seriously.

Then I saw this video where a cat adopts an orphan squirrel and the squirrel learns to purr.

At that point, my head nearly exploded from all the awesomeness.

So I made a card :).

Here it is.

Then, I took a picture of Maddie Bat with my paper smile.

How can the rest of your week not be awesome now?

Loveyameanitbye.

It's BOUQUET - B-U-C-K-E-T

2013-03-18T07:00:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite Britcoms is Keeping Up Appearances.

It features a fussy lady - Hyacinth Bucket - who is all about her reputation.

She is a dictator in a floral dress and she is HYSTERICAL. Her family is the British version of white trash, and they are always embarrassing her at the most crucial moments. Her husband is so beaten down by the dictatorship, but gets in a good jab every now and then.

It's right up there with Fawlty Towers and The Vicar of Dibley.

At least once an episode, she "corrects" the pronunciation of her last name - Bucket - to what she insists is pronounced "Bouquet", much to the amusement of everyone.

So now, every time I see a Hyacinth, I hear "BOUQUET residence, lady of the house speaking!!" in her high pitched voice.

Cracks me up.

We didn't have hyacinths in our yard where I grew up (or cranky British ladies) but we did have hydrangeas. My mom would stick a rusty nail down in the soil near them to make them super blue. They are such insanely beautiful flowers. I don't see too many of them in Austin - it might be too hot and dry. I do miss them.

Luckily - I have stamps :)

Stamps: Best of Flowers, Lighthearted

Ink: Early Espresso, Memento Pear Tart

Accessories: Touch Twin Markers: G48, GY48, PB73, PB75, PB76

I used the no line coloring method (sort of) for this card with the Best of Flowers set and some Memento Pear Tart Ink, and Touch Twin Markers. The green ink mostly disappears after you color it and leaves you with softer edges.

I thought I'd hop along with some of my friends today too - wanna see their cards?

Touch Twin and More Blog - http://touchtwin.blogspot.com/

Anna Wight - http://sweetmissdaisy.typepad.com/

Dina Kowal - http://mamadinis.blogspot.com/

Elaine Hughes - http://quixoticcards.com/

Jeanne Streiff - http://inkypaws.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/

Lydia Fiedler - http://understandblue.blogspot.com/ << You are here :)

Suzanne Dean - http://www.scrapbitz.blogspot.com/

Vicki Garrett - http://summerthymestudio.blogspot.com/

After you're done hopping around, you should seriously download Keeping Up Appearances. I guarantee you'll see a friend or relative in those characters :)

Loveyameanitbye.

Happy Birthday, You Old Elephant!!

2013-03-15T07:26:00.000-05:00

Not you, of course.

I'd never call you an old elephant.

Unless you made me mad, and then I might.

Either way, I'd make you an awesome birthday card.

Today's Mix-Ability challenge on Splitcoast is to splatter. So I thought I'd use a cute Polaroid™technique I saw on Pinterest to create a little old timey circus themed Polaroid and splatter it with my Color Spritzer Tool.

I did a quick video on this card, which you can see here if you don't see a player below. If you want to play along with the challenge, use keyword MIX7 when uploading to Splitcoast.

When you're done - check out a few little springy sights from my yard.

This is the most beautiful two week period of the year. I plan to spend most of it outside.

Loveyameanitbye.

What if a Giant Picked You Up?

2013-03-13T19:18:00.000-05:00

I was thinking this morning how shocking it must be for my little tigers when I pick them up.

Imagine that you are just taking a nap - on what you consider to be your bed, and a GIANT creature that you can't communicate with - except through biting, maybe - PICKS YOU UP with its giant, bald hands, squeezes you and kisses you on the head. For all you know, kissing is what these giants do before they eat you. These giants do this whenever they want to. Sometimes they flip you on your back and make sounds you don't understand while they rub your belly.

How do you get used to a thing like that?

It's really weird when you stop and think about it.

It's not like large cats in the wild were ever picked up and cuddled by anything.

It's a relatively recent development in their history too, so they've adapted quickly.

Would you?

This is what happens when I don't have caffeine until 9 AM, people! My mind wanders!

Now speaking of my mind wandering, I saw this idea on Pinterest and I had to make my own version.

Cute, right? So easy and fun. I think my class just loved it. You just need flower trim, Itty Bitty Banners, Itty Bitty Banners Framelits and Red Glimmer Paper.

Oh - happy Palindrome day!

It's a red letter day!

3-13-13 is a palindrome.

13 is my lucky number.

I was eating bacon at Bacon for lunch when I found out we had a new Pope!

First from the Americas!

AND, named for my most beloved saint - St. Francis.

I have a life sized statue of St. Francis carved from Mexican mesquite in my living room. It's my most beloved possession. I was born on St. Bartholomew's day - but that was a mistake, because the patron saint of animals is indeed the saint I identify most closely with.

And the one Splotchy identifies most closely with.

Loveyameanitbye.

Hot Dog Inspired Butterfly, and GRUMPY CAT

2013-03-10T13:36:00.000-05:00

Yep - hot dog inspired! You never know when inspiration will strike, right?

I've actually been a hot dog fan all my life.

Don't freak out, but I thought for many years when I was a kid that Vienna Sausages were the best food on the planet. Well Taco Doritos might have given them a run for their money, but still, they were up there.

Then I started eating real hot dogs after we moved to Texas and I was hooked. I used to get special presents from the butcher at our grocery store, like a beloved Oscar Mayer ring - haute couture for a 6 year old - and other goodies, because of our frequent visits to the salted, cured meat counter.

Now that I'm grown up, I love Hebrew Nationals, crisped black on the grill. I love Super Dawg in Chicago, and I love a good, old fashioned ball park dog with a can of Old Style on a rooftop at Wrigley.

But I digress.

You never outgrow a hot dog, people. My neighbor recently gave me some of her old New Yorker magazines - I stopped subscribing years ago - and this one caught my eye.

I loved that pop art look to this illustration by Wayne Thiebaud. I love the pastel, chalkboard style and that fun blue glow.

Since I don't have a hot dog stamp - an outrage, don't you think? - I chose the next best thing. My beloved Swallowtail stamp.

I clear embossed her on Midnight Muse and then colored her with my Caran D'Ache Pablo pencils: White, Mauve, Light Lemon Yellow, Flame Red, Scarlet, Fast Orange and Light Blue. Finished it off with a greeting from Word Play.

Funky, pop and fun.

You'd never guess it got its start in a lowly hot dog :).

Only 12 days left to take advantage of Sale-A-Bration, and to get more than $200 worth of stampy goodness for $99 so don't wait!

I'm going to use this stupid, short, sprung forward day to clean. Awful, I know. At least I got to meet Grumpy Cat this week :).

She's the cutest cat in the whole world, and her owner is beyond sweet. Safe travels home Grumpy Cat! Austin loves you and I love you more!

Loveyameanitbye.

Why You Should Keep Scraps For Ten Years

2013-03-09T13:18:00.000-06:00

If you keep your scraps long enough, the perfect scrapportunity will present itself!

I'll work backwards into my scrap story.

I saw a post on Facebook about some paper that you can use with any medium at all and nothing will show through on the back - NOTHING - not even alcohol markers! I was intrigued.

The paper is called RENDR by Crescent Arts. I HAD to try it myself of course so I ordered some from Amazon.

I colored an image up with my Touch Twin markers, and sure enough - NOTHING on the back - amazing! It's the same for inks, watercolor, paint - you name it. It's kind of freaky!

So it's PERFECT for a sketchbook/art journal because you can have art on every page that won't show through to the next page. This might actually get me to work on one. I hated the idea of adding extra paper to an art journal or creating the art outside of it and sticking it in.

Then, I saw this unbelievably beautiful tag by Lollyrot. I loved how she had those little splatters of white all around the image, so I set out to create that.

After I'd colored my image and covered it in "confetti" with my white gel pen, I looked for some paper to put the image on. While ruffling through my Pretty in Pink bin I found a piece of cardstock I had bleached with a pencil eraser TEN YEARS AGO!

Paper hoarding vindication! It's PERFECTION!

It's also a birthday wish and card for my friend Leslie, of Crooked Stamper fame! Happy birthday, fellow paper hoarder!! I hope your day is filled with crafts and treats and Bobra! :)

Stamps: Best of Birthdays Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa Paper: RENDR, Pretty in Pink

Accessories: ShinHan Touch Twin markers: BG178, G58, Y164, RP9, YR33

So stifle those urges to purge your space. When the student is ready, the paper will appear!

Loveyameanitbye.

Hello, Hello, Grumpy Cat!

2013-03-07T21:19:00.000-06:00

I'm so excited I don't think I'll be able to sleep tonight.

Because tomorrow is the day - God willing and the creek don't rise - that I GET TO MEET GRUMPY CAT!!!

YES. GRUMPY CAT.

O
M
G

I hope I don't pass out or cry like those crazy girls who saw the Beatles. I might have to do yoga first.

I can't wait to meet you Tardar Sauce!! Feel free to hate me little kitty!! :)

Here's a quick card I made for last week's Mix-Ability challenge on Splitcoast - Mask-erade Ball. For my mask, I just used our bitty butterfly punch to punch out some butterflies from post-it notes.

Then I used our spritzer tool, filled with Regal Rose and Pool Party Ink and rubbing alcohol and lightly spritzed the card front. For best results, if not using watercolor paper, hold your card a foot away from the spritzer to get a light mist and no running.

I finished it off with this AWESOME bold greeting - Hello, Hello - which is one of our single stamps.

Now don't forget - you only have until March 10th to sign up for My Paper Pumpkin and not miss one kit! If you enter my name as your demonstrator - Lydia Fiedler - I will send you a free exclusive tutorial each month that you can do with your kit. So don't wait!

And if you want to see what I did for this week's Mix-Ability challenge, be sure and click over to Project Reanimate tomorrow morning - I think you'll like it! :)

Now I'm off to dream of Grumpy Cat...

Loveyagrumpycatmeanitbye.

Why You Need An Office Penguin

2013-03-04T17:00:00.002-06:00

Well duh. This is why:

How much better would your day be if little Cookie ran up to you for a tickle every once in a while??? I think that Cookie could actually cure Monday once and for all!!

WE HAVE RIGHTS - AND THOSE RIGHTS INCLUDE OFFICE PENGUINS!!

In my head, anyway.

If you missed my class this weekend, you missed this completely adorable little box with a floofy flower dress on the front. The box is from the Boutique Boxes Designer Printed Kit - which comes with like 80 billion things in it.

We just used the box with the two little circles - those make the fastener that keeps the box closed. The kit comes with dimensionals and the twine for the closure too. And here's what we did with it, with the help of the All Dressed Up Framelits, some Crumb Cake seam binding and paper daisies.

Cute, eh?

Well here's a little video for you, showing you how we made the skirt. A two minute project! :)

Loveyameanitbye.

Wish Big

2013-03-03T07:48:00.000-06:00

I'll give you a few big wishes.

I wish the kittens would let me sleep late on the weekends.

I wish there was an Earl Grey delivery service.

I wish everyone would watch this video:

"Science and art have in common intense seeing, the wide-eyed observing that generates empirical information." - Edward Tufte

I took Tufte's workshop for the second time last week and it was FANTASTIC. I HIGHLY recommend ALL his books and I wish everyone would read them.

I also wish everyone would make little sweaters out of the All Dressed Up framelits.

I wish you all would go check out my recycled project on Project Reanimate today. It's for the Challenge Chicks March Challenge.

I wish you would all play along.

I wish you an awesome Sunday!

Loveyameanitbye.