What's your favorite band?

The newest challenge is up at http://whatisyourfavething.blogspot.com/ and it is to show us your favorite band - I know Julie meant for us to do a creation about our favorite musical band but really my favorite band is my wedding band - and of course I needed to add my engagement ring in the photo. The paper is Making Memories Paperie (don't you love that soft blue?), the little picture is from a day book from the 1940s (a lucky find at the used book store! and the coolest thing is that the person who owned it had the same first name as my mother!!!!), alphas are October afternoon, pink paislee and Making Memories, and the black and white journaling tags and butterflies are Heidi Swapp.
Hope you join us in the challenge - we would love to see your favorite band - and we have a great prize from Gauche Alchemy!!!!!!!!!

I love poppies and patchwork

 

Poppies - watercolor

Just a quick layout - don't you love the faux patchwork of this The Girls' Paperie patterned paper?

Can you believe that July is almost over? I went over to Sarasota this past weekend to visit my son and had a lovely time - lots of great food, fun talk, and (hopefully) good photos. One of the LSS over there had gone out of business but at the other one, they were having a 20% off pre-CHA sale so I was able to get some wonderful Prima papers and flowers that I had not seen before. I also was able to get tiny attacher refills (I love my tiny attacher!!) and some wonderful colored laces. Yay!

Then, when I got home, I had a lovely little package from Kimmie (whimsicaltwist) and a 3M atg gun that Chez sent to me. On Monday I received a fantastic treasure trove of laces and trims from Cassie so all in all, I have lots of new toys!!!!!!! I also had bought a really funky pink fabric flower necklace at Old navy on final discount - it looks very similar to the new Prima ones! Yay! I also got to go to B&N and Borders and got some inspiring books and magazines. (Note: I live in a small town and we don't have B&N, Borders, Old Navy or very many of the stores that most cities have - we have a small Target, a small Michaels, a Walmart, and some other small versions of stores like Best Buy, etc so going to Sarasota is a shopping paradise for me.)

Hope all is well with you and thanks for reading,
ttfn
Chris

I have been a bad blogger

I have been a pretty bad blogger lately as life just keeps getting in the way. Hopefully the main thing that is stressing me out will be resolved by the middle of next week - but I have to admit that I have been fighting the stress by knitting quite a bit - see above photo of my Knit a Beach wrap - free-range knitting all the way with a crazy mix of yarns and stitches

I was knitting along with a group on http://www.ravelry.com/ - it is in the Jane Thornley forum and called Summer traveling wrap KAL (knit along)   If you go to ravelry, my username is kalaiton.

I just realized that it is the 21st and I never posted my July ScrapGal DT layouts - the manu of the month is Ki memories so be sure to post your Ki Memories layouts in the thread on ScrapGal - you can win a gift certificate to ScrapGal.  Also the final date for entries in the ScrapGal DT search is July25!!!!!!!

I showed this layout on the Galblog and explained how to machine stitch chipboard alphas

Check out the glitzy tooth on this layout! It was too funky not to use!

Hope all is well with you and yours, and thanks so much for reading my blog. I have finished several more paintings and hope to get them posted in the next few days.

Some Gecko Galz fun

I have been playing with the latest Gecko Galz papers and embellishments and came up with a couple of fun projects. The above is a small wall quilt - I printed the Arabian Nights digi papers onto fabric paper and then cut it into pieces and sewed it all together. The tiny charms at the bottom corners are also Gecko Galz.

I also created a small layout on Arabian Nights paper.

I am almost finished with an artists' sketch journal  - I used some Gecko Galz products on the cover and I am now doing the binding - actually sewing in the signatures of watercolor/sketch paper - it's quite a project! I will post it once it's done. I have been wanting a special sketching journal and this one is really exciting me!

Hope things are going well in your life and thanks so much for dropping by.

2 Little Birds

Please check out the galblog today and see a fun ribbon technique.

What's your favorite blog?

The new challenge is up today at These are a Few of my Favorite Things and it is to show us your favorite blog or website - I so love the layouts and choices by the other DT members - TAAFOMFT, etsy, Sarah's own blog, and some others - fun stuff!!!!!

I have several favorites and it was very hard to pick just one, but I decided on Posie Gets Cozy. I always love to read Alicia Paulson's ramblings about sewing, crocheting, cooking, baking, and visiting in her city of Portland and other nearby spots. Her blog truly brightens my day - but -

In the mornings it is always Soulemama with her inspiring adventures in childrearing, home schooling, knitting, adventuring, beach combing, cooking, and just plain living! Her blog always brightens my morning by reminding of the truly important things in life.
I haven't been blogging much as things in my life are a little jumbled right now. Hopefully we will get some good news today, and if not, well, we will just have to deal with it. I am off to my painting class in just a few minutes - 2 hours of playing with paints, paper, and water; and no thoughts about other things.
I hope to be back tomorrow or at least by Sunday with some pix of ScrapGal layouts, knitting projects, a new painting, and some Gecko Galz projects (I just received the rest of the 2010 releases of the papers, ephemera, digistamps, buttons, and charms; and it's all wonderful!!!!!!) I really love how "green" Gecko Galz is because the papers and ephemera come in digi-form on a cd so I can use them either digi or I can print out just the ones I want.  I have to admit that the sheer non-greenness of scrapping sometimes bothers me - so much waste paper and packaging - and even when I use packaging on my layouts, there is still a lot that gets thrown in the trash.
Thanks so much for reading my blog and hope everyone has a great week.
ttfn
Chris

p.s. The news is good!!!! Dan is cancer-free - he will be tested again in 3 months.

Also - not sure what is going wrong with Blogger but my comments are going to Never Never Land so I changed some of the comment settings and hopefully they will appear.

Blue and white - the colors of summer

 Today I posted on the Galblog with some ideas for cool summer decorating, especially with this fantastic 7gypsies printers tray. Please hop over and check it out!

http://thegalblog.blogspot.com/2010/07/blue-and-white-colors-of-summer.html

See you soon with some new things that I have been creating!
Chris

Happy Independence Day!

Wishing everyone a happy and safe 4th of July!!!!!

I am super tired this morning (due to staying up so late last night watching the Daytona race - Yay! Harvick!!!!!!!!!!)   I have been creating up a storm this past week and will be blogging maybe tomorrow with a new painting and a few other things.  Tuesday I will have a post at the ScrapGal Galblog with some summer decorating ideas.

Have a super day!
Chris