Some pink to cheer a rainy day

I'm not a fan of the rain so it's good that I live in Southern California where it rarely rains. But it rained yesterday and it looks like it will rain again today. Rain, rain go away!

I was thrilled when my mother in law had to throw away her copy of Jane Austen. She had read it so much that it was falling apart. I asked her if she would dig it out and save it for me. I got it on Christmas and it was my favorite thing I got that day!

Here's some pink valentines. I made the last two a couple of months ago at a friend's house. It was really fun to get together and stamp! We usually get together to shop at the local stamping convention but this time we saved our money and actually used our supplies!

Stamp credits: Girl on moon by Magenta. Swirl by Buzz and Bloom. Heart and background French Text by Stampin Up. Fairy and butterfly by Unity.

No Tzatziki Sauce!

In our house, "No Tzatziki Sauce" has become synonymous with anything I don't like. My list of foods I will not eat is very long and when we go to a restaurant there are always things I do not want on my plate. If I don't like something, I don't want to look at it, have it near my food and for goodness sake I don't want to smell it or have it touch anything! Mayonnaise, ranch dressing, guacamole, mushrooms, sour cream, and pickled ginger are all offenders.

And when we go to Daphne's it's "No Tzatziki Sauce!" I know they put it in a little cup but sometimes it spills over onto the plate and then I make the face. You know the face--the one that says "Ewww! This tzatziki sauce touching my food may kill me!" I have been known to order "No Tzatziki Sauce" and then order extra on the side for someone else just to ensure my food doesn't get contaminated (I'd rather pay extra then have to eat "tainted" food)

Sometimes, Matt likes to go through the Starbuck's drive thru by our house to get himself a cup of coffee. Imagine their confusion when he orders it with "No Tzatziki Sauce!" just to make me smile.

All Day Marker Class

Well, I'm so excited because I got to take a Copic Marker Certification class yesterday. My friends were teasing me because I spent all day learning how to color with markers, and I paid money to do it! But really, that's what I did and it was worth it in so many ways! Plus, isn't it fun to sit down and color!?

I went home so inspired and I wanted to play with the multiliner professional drafting pen they gave us so I picked up an old botched attempt at an ATC and "fixed" it up! Face stamp is by Club Stamp and I think the sentiment is from Stampin' up. The tiny text is just some drivel I wrote: "Do robots dream of electric sheep? Do sheep dream of dancing humans? Will humans learn to get along with each other? Are we human or are we dancer? Are dolphins smarter than yuppies? What is the meaning of life the universe and everything? Will you dance with me in the clouds? What does a cat really think about while asleep? Do they debate philosophy with each other or do they think they are the center of the universe and the rest of us really don't matter?"

The background of the ATC and the face details are enhanced with some Copic markers. I like how it highlighted his face and really made the pattern on the paper stand out. I wish I had taken a "before" picture so you could see how it changed.

Picture to make you laugh!

Need I say more? We had a great time, even though my blue 70's eye-shadow faded after the first hour and my Janice Joplin wig came off. Matt looked pimperific all night and Uncle Bill even danced. Laurel was the prettiest prom queen ever! And boy am I sore from trying to dance like we did in the 80's!

Just a short explanation: My crazy cousin likes to do theme parties and when she was younger her school was so small they didn't have a prom. So since that was 20 years ago and her stupid school didn't even have a reunion, she decided to make her own prom! It was all her friends and their kids so it was an all-ages bash! Everyone went retro with outfits from the 50's through today's fashion!

Pictures to make you smile!

Sorry I've been ignoring everyone lately! Thought I'd post pics to make you smile! Aren't they just the cutest!?



Here's a preview of what Matt will be wearing to Laurel's prom party! This will be a crazy, fun event! Oh, yeah--I think he's lookin' mighty pimp-a-licious, pimp-tastic and pimp-a-riffic! I'll post real pics of us after tomorrow!

I found the perfect 80's dress for myself and it was on sale too! Unfortunately, the sale price was $175 so I didn't get that one, LOL! I got the 70's dress instead that was only $30 and it matches Matt's costume better. I was so excited when it arrived in the mail and fit perfectly! Yahoo for polyester--only for you, Laurel will I wear poly interlock, LOL! Tomorrow I have to get some fake eyelashes, blue eyeshadow and hopefully some tacky "suntan" pantyhose!

Vintage Collage Swap

Here's my items for the vintage swap below. These are going to Jan just as soon as I can get them in the mail. For the postcard I used stamps from Hero Arts (lady) and Lockhart (inchie border) and some pretty Basic Grey striped paper. The roses are real dried flowers. Jan lives in Alaska so I feel good giving her a bit of summer to get her through the winter!

On the arch I used stamps from YanKiwi (key) and PaperArtsy (ration book). I aged the yellow Fleur de Lis with alcohol inks and covered it with Glossy accents so it wouldn't scratch off.

Vintage Collage Swap

I decided to host another collage swap with my swap friends. Here's a photo of what each person got and the idea is to choose 3 items and make a card, postcard, ATC or arch for their partner. Some people are making extra because there's so much to choose from and it's so much fun! I was going to put in just a few things this time so all the swap items were more likely to match, but it was too much fun to keep adding to the envelopes I was making. Can you believe almost all this stuff was stitting on my desk getting in the way!? I should do about 50 more swaps and then maybe my desk will be clean, LOL!

Anyways—here's what the swap contained:
Club Scrap Faux Postage Sheet
Pins that have tiny buttons on the end
Vintage wallpaper from the 50's (pulled straight off the wall of my dear Great-Aunt's house as a rememberence)
Prints of some vintage sailor photos (each swapper got a different set)
CTMH Paper Lace
Pearl Brad
Antiqued Copper Brads and Eyelets
Yellow Fleur de Lis Brad
Vintage address book page
Square Scalloped punch out
Oval Scalloped acrylic sticker
7-Gypsies Aged Label (each swapper got a different one)
Some Club Scrap cardstock
Some pretty patterened paper

Do you think that's enough to choose from? What would you choose to make something with? I'm having trouble choosing from making a masculine or feminine vintage item. Maybe I should do both—I am really thinking I need to make arches since I never get to do those. Oh—it's fun having choices!

I will update with links to everyone's final product as they come in.

Here's Jan's Arch

Penny's (items #1 & 5)
Mine

Hey, Ma! Guess what I made!?

I took a beading class 2 weekends ago and here is the product of my class. My very first pieces using wire stringing techniques. The nice lady at the shop did the wirework for me on a vintage Chinese coin that I picked up in Macau. I picked out the beads and colors and did the stringing. I used a combination of cheap and expensive beads but I liked the mixture of sizes, colors and shapes. I used real and fake turquoise--I wish I had some real turquoise chips to use--maybe someday I will find some that are just right and then I can restring it from scratch. In the meantime I was happy to create something new.

Kitty Goodness!

For all who are wondering, The kitties are doing just great! They are almost done training us too! They have trained Matt to give them treats so they can beg (sigh—I had it so they never begged but Matt said he *likes* begging kitties!) They have trained me to play on demand and to go downstairs in the morning when they say. They got fixed 10 days ago so tonight Boo gets her stitches out. Here's a photo of them sleeping like angels—they are so attached to each other!

Birthday Card

Hope you didn't think I abandoned you all! But it's been really hot upstairs and the kittens are very demanding of my little spare time. As soon as I sit down, Boo wants to play and play! Anyways, here's a birthday card I made for a coworker. Stamps are from Impression Obsession and Purple Onion Designs. I colored in with my copics and topped the parfait with glossy accents.

Hell Money

Here's another installment of my China Collage Share. This is called "Hell Money". It is traditionally burned at funerals to make sure the deceased has enough to get them through in the afterlife. They use the word "hell" to refer to the underworld; not meaning the same "hell" as we use in Western speech.

Stamping Score!

I went to the Carson Stamping Convention this weekend and I scored the coolest grab bag ever! Just $30 for a huge bag from http://zettiology.com. How cool is that! It was so good I really wish I had splurged and got the second bag they had, but when I went back an hour later they were all gone! Here's the images I got—$150 worth of stamps for me. I spent my time on Sunday cutting them all out and mounting them. Forgive my sloppy indexing—I got a little lazy.It is fun to buy grab bags from good companies because it is like a treasure hunt! Matt was helping me look through them and we both though there was a stamp that looked like a map. Matt said it was probably Europe. I knew he had to be right, so imagine my surprise when I stamped it out and it was Albert Einstein! I laughed out loud! I am so glad I got two of him in the bag—I've always wanted an Albert stamp so now I have double!

Is that eye cool or what!? I had no idea what it was going to be. I thought maybe a sailboat or something. I stamped it and turned it around and around until it was the right side and there I saw the eye! Surprise!
The stamp with the Asian characters on the bottom left is what made me get this bag instead of the other one. I love Asian stuff so I thought it looked good. The other one had an Egypt stamp in it with Horus so I really wish I had that one too. But Asian is cooler than Egypt on the "Llama Cool Scale" ha ha!

Comic Relief

Here's another set of images for our Chinese Collage Share. These came out of a small booklet I bought on Cat Street in Hong Kong. It is some sort of mini comic book with each page telling part of the story. I'm not quite sure what it's about, but I love the illustrations.


Feel free to save these to your hard-drive by clicking on the images to enlarge and then right-clicking to save. Enjoy printing them out to use on your collage. I hope you make something and post a link here to share!


Click on the image share link at the bottom of this post to find the rest of the images I am sharing for our Chinese Collage Swap.

Do you like Stamps?

Well, I happen to love stamps! Both the rubber kind and the postal kind. Here's another image share from my China Collage Swap. Hope you enjoy the stamps! I bought them from a street vendor near the Museum of Macau. I paid wayyyy too much for them (I think about $5, US) but I really loved them.

I also over-paid for a beautiful hand-carved antique ivory skull-head bracelet at the same time. I think I paid $12 for that. I'll post a picture for you all one day. I do love it and actually wear it sometimes, so it was worth the money to me.

Click to see the large image and right-click to save it!

Oliver ATC

Oh, funny! I found this unposted ATC that I did for a "cat" swap a couple of months ago. When I made it I racked my brains searching for the perfect name for an orange kitty. Little did I know that I would soon have an orange kitty named Oliver (Ollie!) And we just got him by chance, too! I knew I really wanted a boy kitty and he was the only boy in the little so he was destined to be mine!

Stamp by Stampin' Up! Couch is hand-drawn, papers by foofala (I think!)

Kitten Update

Some of you have asked how the kittens are doing. As you can see they have settled in just fine and they now own us!




They play like wild demons until they pass out from sheer exhaustion. I'm glad we got them both so they could play together. When they are apart they will cry until the other one comes near.



Little Boo is the brave one, even though she is smallest. Whatever she does first, Ollie will follow. She hunts hard, plays hard and sleeps hard. When she sleeps it is like all the bones fall out of her body and she goes limp and just purrs like an angel. Don't let her tiny face fool you as she is hiding behind her brother. There is a reason her nickname is "Destructress" as you can see in the next photo.





Can you tell one of their favorite play toys? They love to play in the shutters. Boo loves to hang off them like a monkey. Little Ollie is getting a bit of a belly as he is growing so it is harder now for him to wedge himself into the shutters but that doesn't stop him! I will be glad when they are both too big to get in there because I have to be careful they don't accidentally tear the screen while they are chasing each other and looking at butterflies outside.




Here's sweet Ollie sleeping. Isn't he an angel? He and Matt have really bonded. Ollie likes to sit with Matt and watch TV. Kitty purrs at the drop of a hat; even if he's eating or playing he will purr. He's a happy little thing that just wants the kitty "good life." I think he has it, what do you think?

Well, since I am taking so long with my image shares, I figured I would give you the "big whammy" next! Here are some wonderful images for you to print out. If you right-click on the image above you can save it and print an 8.5 x 11" sheet of these lovely ladies.


I got these vintage cards in Hong Kong in a small antique district called "Cat Street". As romantic as that sounds the street was named because it is narrow and long ago was a great place for thieves and cat-purses! Despite the history, if you go to Hong Kong, you must check out this street! They have lots of thrift-shop and vintage finds if you don't want to take a chance on the pricier (and possibly phony) high-end antiques.

Chinese Collage Swap - Play Along!

I have a great group of friends I swap with and we have swapped for a few years together. One of the fun type of swaps we do is called a Collage Swap. The hostess will send each participant a package of similar goodies and then we all make something with it. I decided to hostess this time since I came back with such cool items from my vacation.

If you want to play along at home I will be posting spoilers and some images that you could print to use for your own art. If you make something, I'd love to see what you made. Please post a link! The rules we are following are pretty simple: Use at least three of the items (in whole or part) to make an ATC, but feel free to bend the rules or make anything you want. It is so fun to be inspired by what others did with the same items!

Here's what was in my package:
1. A piece cut from a modern map of Hong Kong
2. An old Chinese coin (the kind that is round with a square hole in the middle)
3. Some pages from a small vintage book that looks like a small comic story
4. An old Chinese postage stamp
5. A printed copy of some old Chinese images—each player got a different image
6. "Hell Money" which is fake money that is traditionally burned at a funeral
7. Decorative papers that are also burned at funerals
8. A page from a beautiful book that was illustrated with three drawings per page
9. Some ATC bases; one glossy base and two vintage playing cards from Las Vegas (obviously not from my trip, ha ha!)

Click the image above to see number 7, which I posted for your first image share. Once you can see the larger image, right-click to save to your computer for printing. This is funeral paper so you can give your loved one a good send off to the afterlife. I can't remember all the characters' meanings, but I do remember that part of it is supposed to mean "smooth sailing" which seems like a nice sentiment for a port city. The original papers are printed on soft paper with a metallic foil finish to the center. These were purchased in a small outdoor market on Taipa Island, Macau.

Macau Casinos

Did you know that Macau is a new gambling capital? It is wilder than Las Vegas and growing even faster. We're not big on gambling, but it is one of the main reasons people go to Macau and one of the few things to do there at night. And since Macau is so small, you can't help but walk through the casino areas on your way to the sites. This first picture is of the Wynn and MGM which we didn't see inside.

We went inside several casinos but unfortunately, they won't let you take pictures. The nice thing is that there's free air-conditioning and free bottled water inside. Well, almost free; I ended up gambling about $75 away while we were there. That ends up to be about $8 American, which is still a lot of money to waste on air-conditioning, ha ha!

My favorite building was the New Lisboa. It is a grand and crazy-looking structure that looks like a stylized Lotus flower, the symbol for the city. It was also explained to me that it was a dragon head; perfectly poised to eat the Wynn Casino! The bridge that connects Macau and Taipa islands serves as the dragon's backbone and his tail is a carved wall that runs up the hill on the side of Taipa Island. I love the symbolism of it all and the crazy-cool modern architectural vision of the building.

Unfortunately, it was my least-favorite casino inside. It was garish and overdone with no style whatsoever. It was covered with shiny things of different sizes, shapes and colors. Nothing matched, except in the contest to be the most gaudy thing ever. But the air was cool and the water was free!

This is the old Casino Lisboa. It is another crazy building that reminds me of old Vegas from the sixties. Wacky, kitchy and a little funky. It had that retro-Vegas feel inside too; full of black marble and gilded mirrors. Stylish with its own old-school fashion. And how could you not love its crazy charm?







The Venetian is on Taipa Island, tucked away from the other casinos, but it's worth looking into. It is the largest casino in the world and the second-largest building in the world. It is 50% bigger than the Venetian in Las Vegas. It was kind of stunning to be inside of it. I was really overwhelmed at how big it was and how *much* of everything there was.

We got lost inside the casino trying to find our way out and back to Matt's parents. I walked for miles it seemed to find the ladies room; past hundreds of slots and a band playing some old 80's tunes. I was distracted by all the lights and sounds and colors and it was a little too much for me.

There is a mall upstairs with top-quality shops and I think it was bigger than South Coast Plaza, our local upscale mall here at home. There is of course; an indoor canal system and it was a little eerie and beautiful to hear them singing as they wound their boats through the system; like bats trying to use sonar to find their way home. I loved the canals, but I was thrilled to leave the casino and head back to our hotel.

Identity Theft?

I got a funny email with a bunch of animal pictures in it with matching animals of different types. These two were my favorite—can you guess why?