Scrapbook Siren

FOOD TAGS

This week I'm making fun tags to dress up your party!

These are simple and easy to make.  I dressed them up with a Singer Touch & Sew,sewing machine.

Make sure to watch our episode to learn how to make these tags.

REMODEL STAGE 2

Everyone warned me about remodeling schedules.  Just when your contractor swears it will only take 3 weeks you find yourself living with dust and no walls one month later.  It drives me crazy to not be able to live in our house like normal.  I have half of my clothes in my son's closet, their clothes are in the play room hanging from poles, and the other half in my room amidst an obstacle course of storage boxes and moved furniture.  I know it will be worth it when it's over but man, does it stink while you are living through it.  We have had a few snags, like my husband trying to run the electricity and making Swiss Cheese out of our exterior walls trying to track the line which wasn't where it should be.

What makes it worse is the fact that our house is what's nick-named "shotgun" or "railroad car" architecture which means there are no hallways---you just start at the family room and go through each room progressively (except the boys' room) until you reach the backyard.  You can kind of see that in the first photo.  

Here are photos of our current bathroom/bedroom situation.  This view is from the bedroom looking down to the rest of the house.

future shower stall and cabinet area

entrance from office looking into bedroom which looks out and to my studio in the background.

Ahhhhhh, I can't stand it.  And I have to go to San Diego this next week and I am bracing myself for some issue coming up with the contractor not being able to do something we planned, etc etc.

Next time I hire Pattye and have her intercept the contractors----Pattye are you going to be available after kid #5?  

MOTHER'S DAY

I hope everyone had a great Mother's Day!  I think this had to be one of the best yet!  My brother drove my mom and dad up and my niece who has been in Aspen working for 5 months came up with them. She made cards for her grandparents and mom and I put the finishing touches on my book then gave it to my mom.  She loved it.  I spent the rest of the day winding up ribbon onto spools and organizing them into the storage cubes my husband built for me.  

Now if I could only get this remodel finished in my bathroom bc the dust is killing me! 

I'm embarrassed to show these photos of my bathroom before but has anyone else bought a house that needed work, done half the work, and then life takes over (having kids) and you never get around to fixing the rest? Well that was our horrible Master Bathroom!  We even had a plumbing leak in the shower wall that my husband punched a hole in, fixed, and never covered up.  It was a miss-match of everything with a tiny sink and no storage.  The shower was a prefab unit.  

Well now there are no walls at all!  We are sleeping on the sofa bed and there is that drywall dust everywhere!  Ahhhhhhhh! I hope to be done with this soon!  If anyone else has gone through a remodel you know what I mean! My house is turned upside down.  And my art room that I was working so hard to finish-----now it's being used as a storage shed for the remodel.  LOL! 

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OSCARS

Okay I just wanted to watch the Oscars bc I usually never do.  

I used to watch the Emmy's back when I worked on West Wing bc I wanted to see the actors I was working with win.  It was great to see actors who I admired and respected and were amazingly talented, get recognized.  On a funnier note, my last Emmy party for The West Wing was right after I had Ethan and we had to leave early because I was still nursing.  The time the valet took to get my husband's truck was killing me and as soon as we turned the corner I had to cover up and use the breast pump machine that I brought with me!  As crazy as the ride home was, that was one of the best nights of my life.  

Now as the Oscars start I see an actress I worked with on Baby Boy, Taraji P Henson.  She was great to work with! A Cinematographer that my husband use to light for, Wally Pfister, and who was at our wedding, was nominated for his work on The Black Night. He always gets nominated though so I guess that's less amusing.  But I am so thrilled with for Taraji!!! I hope our paths cross again some day on a set.  I have to admit I miss film-making.  Baby Boy was the last film I did and that was 7 years ago by one of my favorite directors to work with, John Singleton!  LOVE HIM! Commercials are fun but I miss seeing the actors bring a character to life, and the director guiding them to his vision as the Cinematographer visually conveys the story.  It's a corroborative effort that is only appreciated when the film is complete and we see the result at the Cast and Crew screening.  Gosh, I miss that.  I don't even get to go with Tom because he hasn't worked on a film since Spiderman.  The first one!  

I guess I will have to enjoy the Oscars on my TV because they don't give awards to Script Supervisors or Gaffers- LOL!......It really is good to cheer on people we have worked with.  I am so happy for all of them!

FINALLY!

I have been painting my studio.  I had found the perfect color in a paint deck and was waiting to buy the paint when I had some extra cash.  That day never came so I decided to buy the gosh darn paint anyway!

I painted up above the cabinets, I painted around the windows, around the doors, carefully dodging the washer and dryer.  I had to remove stuff off the walls, paint, move stuff above the cabinets, paint, etc etc.  It was impossible to move in there.  It looked beautiful!!! I finished as the sun was going down.  I couldn't wait until morning to see it in daylight.

Well daylight came and the beautiful soft gray blue/green color I had turned to ordinary sky blue.  I didn't want sky blue.  My heart sank at the thought of having to paint it all over.  I went to my paint deck, yup correct color but with the daylight it's just blah blue.  I should know better.  Daylight has a color temperature of 5600K (Kelvin) which is basically blue light.  So having a color with blue in it and adding daylight brings out the blue in the paint kind of like looking thru blue-tinted sun glasses.  How do I know this little piece of obscure trivia you might ask?  Well my husband of 12 years is a Lighting Designer or "Gaffer" on film and TV credits and I share my garage with a giant equipment cart filled with lighting gels to add daylight to lights (blue gels) or warm the light (orange gels).  Most people get to spend $1,000 going on a vacation but we get to spend that $1,000 on a light meter that can tell you pretty much what I just did.  Of course it's more technical than that but you get the idea.  

So I have spent the last 2-3 weeks adding tints to the paint and trying to get it the color I want.  I have a painters tint rack from the murals I end up painting and the fact that I can never get a paint color right.  I take a small amount of paint, add the Yellow Oxide, mix, apply to wall, and wait till the next day to check. WRONG COLOR.  I add Raw Umber, mix, apply to wall, wait a day, still WRONG COLOR.  

This goes on.....and on.....and on.   I finally just buy another gallon of paint but with more grey than the first color. I apply, wait-----AND IT'S STILL THE WRONG COLOR!!!!!

This was like the room that was starting to give me nightmares!  Why was it so hard to get this stinkin color right!?!   This color is everywhere and was recently combined with brown only we couldn't just call it "brown" bc that was a word from the 70's when our parents were into "earth tones."   Brown emerged with a new contemporary name-----"Chocolate."  Well it certainly sounds more appetising.  Chocolate at least I can look forward to---Brown is what my dog leaves behind in the dog run.

You know the color now?  It's almost the background color of this blog....

Anyway, in my frustration I dumped the new grey paint into the vat of blue and added Yellow Oxide, Raw Umber, Thalo Green, and Ultramarine Blue.  Mix, apply, wait-----and finally-----as the dark rain clouds parted in the sky-----God smiled upon me and gave me the right color!!!  

I have now painted the door wall, the washer/dryer area, above the die cut station, above the sink, below the cabinets next to the sink where my stamp station is and called it a day.  I need to put the crap I removed off the walls and shelves back on before continuing to the next area.  

My room is now in this disorganized state---not too much from the state it normally is---but at least it is the right color!!!

CHA SHOWS

Well it has been ages since I posted-----I never seem to have time.  We had a great time at CHA!  I took pictures with the cast from Star Wars, saw a bunch of cool new products, and ran into a lot of long-time friends.  I have been busy working full-time and time has escaped me.  It was good to catch up with the friends I made while having my line Mermaid Tears.  We are showing the booths we visited in detail on Cropped!  Make sure to tune in and check it out.  The web address is www.virtueradionetwork.com    Starting in March we will have one free episode.  We will have more episodes for members of the Cropped Cyber Chicks Club.  Join now and get a nice chunky discount off the normal membership price.  Visit the website for more details.

I think the bra photo needs some explanation.  Melissa Frances shared her personal breast cancer survivor story with us.  She had a contest where each store made an alter bra.  The bras were displayed at the show and guests got to vote.  The winner will receive a stash of her product.  She is amazing and her new lines are as gorgeous as always.  We may have a similar contest some where down the road.  

Tune into the show.....we gave very detailed tours of the booths we visited.

SWEET CHIPS MINI BOOKS

We shot a new episode today and I took these cute dress chipboard books and made them into photo albums by adding inside pages. We showed how to do this on "Cropped" and you can see the inside pages in my photo album section.  They turned out really cute!  I didn't take photos of the purple one before it left but I have plenty of photos of the Baby's First Birthday one.

ACRYLIC MINI BOOK & EPSON PICTURE MATE

This upcoming episode was particularly fun.  I got to make an acrylic mini-book. 

For more information on supplies visit 

www.virtueradionetwork.com

And my favorite product of all----the Epson Picture Mate----oh and my Mac! : )

If you have not purchased a personal photo printer then I highly recommend the Epson PM! 

And the photos do not fade----they are archival for 100 years.  Look at photos from the 70s, if you are as old as I am, and they have faded.  I just love that I don't have to print anything until I am ready to scrapbook and that I can print a variety of sizes.  The machine even lets you adjust photos, red eye, crop, exposure, etc but I prefer to do that on my computer with iPhoto.  For the $200 you spend on the Epson Picture Mate you will save that the first month you don't print all your photos at Costco like I did for $300 a pop.  

No more storing all the photos I didn't use in my books.  They are all stored electronically on my external hard-drive and my online storage I use also through Mac.  It is a time and money saver!  You will also save money on scrapbook papers if you make your largest size 4x6 and accent the page with smaller jumbo wallets, wallets, mini wallets, and super mini wallets!  There is such a variety with this little machine!

You will be so glad you switched systems I cannot stress that enough.  

GIRLFRIEND PICTURE FRAME

The latest CROPPED! video is up.  It features a summer-style frame and my paper doll line, Bodacious Babes.  

Here's the link

http://www.virtueradionetwork.com/Cropped.htm

I will be doing more on stamping in upcoming episodes.

RE: BABY BOY PAGE

New video is up!  

It is a layout inspired by the birth of my friend Pattye Duffner's baby boy, Davis.

I took the basic template for the page I made her and made 3 more using the same template but altering various elements.  Hope you like it!

http://www.virtueradionetwork.com/Video_Channels.htm

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