Blog Candy!

I'm back from West Point again. I've been completely antsy about getting back into my studio, but when I walked into it I didn't feel as inspired. It's a total mess! I think some "spring" cleaning will help me work better. I always find stuff to get rid of and even more stuff that I'd forgotten I even had. That's always fun. I really would love to hear about your storage and organization solutions. Send me a picture or two of your craft space that I can post on my blog in exchange for some yummy blog candy.

Off to NYC Again...

Okay, I'm off to West Point again for a week. I'll share all the juicy details and pictures as usual. I'll even leave you with yet another card. I made it from the left overs from my last card. I had some printed chipboard stickers that came in my kit of the month. I thought they were pretty ugly, so I just peeled of the sticker, stuck it to some patterned paper, and filed the edges to make a new one. I'm really thinking I need to add a few random brads to the green paper or perhaps some small rub-ons here and there. I'm not sure. It just doesn't feel done. Any suggestions? I've made a few more cards, and I've even been sketching like crazy lately too. It just sucks I have to break my creative stride. Oh well, I can't wait to see the city again!

Supplies-Cardstock: Stampin' Up!, Lace Cardstock: KI Memories, Patterned Paper: Bo Bunny & Chatterbox, Chipboard: Scrapworks, Alpha Stickers: American Crafts & Carolee's Creations, Flower: Imaginisce, Piercing Template: Stampin' Up!

Seize the Day

I've been working so much lately, and when I'm not working I'm sleeping as much as possible. I feel like a zombie walking around here these past couple of weeks. Hopefully the end of summer will bring some relief. I'll be headed back up to NYC again on Tuesday, so I'll go yet another week without creating. Of course this happens right when I feel a super creative vibe come over me. I think it's time to clean out my scrap studio too. It's a super mess right now. I'm just not as productive in a messy space. I'll take pictures for you as soon as it's photo-ready though. Until then, here's the card you've already gotten a little peep of. I had one little piece of acetate, so I finally jumped on the bandwagon and made a clear card. The difficult part was finding a way to take a picture of it. I really had fun making this one. It's a little wacky, but so am I.

Sunday Funny

It's been a long time since I had a Sunday Funny posted on my blog, but after seeing how my good friend Beverly created a custom shipping area in her house I had to share my giggle fit. Check it out here.

Closet Makeover

My closet has been driving me nuts lately. I've hated it since I moved in here almost a year ago now. It's one of those long ones with two doors, so I can't access the long spaces on either side. I'd almost prefer having those ugly sliding doors that always fall off the tracks. At least I could get to everything then. I also hate my dresser. I put it together myself way back when I was first stationed here. I'm surprised it's lasted three years anyhow. The drawers don't work quite right, and it's not designed very practically. I've always been a bit obsessively compulsive about having all the same type of hangers (huggable hangers rock!) and that my clothes are hung in color order, by season, and by type. You'd think that would be enough organization, but not for ME! I really wish I had a before picture, but the only thing I was able to snap was a photo of Lilly "helping" me organize. She's like a cat that tries to squeeze itself right into the middle of whatever you're trying to get done.

I put all of my winter clothes, extra uniforms (I have TONS), and my overflowing tshirt collection each into their own big lidded storage tub and slid them into one of the long ends of the closet. I then moved all of my luggage and large bags into the other long end. Okay, I'm already bored with hearing myself describe my closet organization. I don't know why anyone other than myself would find this interesting, so here's a picture in short:

There's a lot that can't been seen in the picture, but you get the idea. I labeled all of the drawers with little metal rimmed tags tied on with embroidery thread. Even all of my undershirts for my uniform are rolled to the exact size of a dollar. We had to do that in Basic Training. (I guess I did learn a few things other than how to throw grenades and apply a high shine finish to a pair of combat boots.) All of Lilly's clothes are in the big blue drawer on the bottom left too. She'd be upset if she didn't have her own space in the closet. Only one of the bins on the top shelf is full. It's holding all of my jeans. I still have two empty drawers, an empty shoe cubbie, and room for six more pairs of shoes on the door caddie too! Perhaps it's time for some more shopping! I just didn't have a place for my polka dot rain boots, but that's okay. I like having them out anyhow. I wear them at first sight of looming clouds. I love funky shoes. I think I need a scrapbook page about that now. I've been working on some more cards for submissions again. I haven't created a thing since my first one was accepted over a month ago. I was afraid of being a one-hit-wonder, but the mojo is back! Here's a sneaky peek:

The Big Read

Shannon recommended this fun little ditty, so I'm giving it a try... “The Big Read" reckons that the average adult has only read 6 of the top 100 books they’ve printed.”

• Look at the list and bold those you have read.
• Bold those you have read.
• Italicize the books you love.
• Strike out the books you have no intention of ever reading, or were forced to read at school and hated.
• Reprint this list in your own blog so we can try, and track down these people who’ve read less than six, and force books upon them.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - J.R.R. Tolkien
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. The Harry Potter Series - JK Rowling
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6. The Bible (Okay, okay, so I haven't read ALL of it)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare (I've read quite a bit, but not "complete")
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy (I read this in elementary school just because it was the biggest book in the library. I didn't have a clue what I was reading!)
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (This one is still on my coffee table. It was a disappointment.)
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52. Dune - Frank Herbert
53. Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58. (I'm not sure what #58 was supposed to be. It's lost in blogland somewhere. If you know what it is be sure to share.)
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75. Ulysses - James Joyce
76. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77. Swallows and Amazons
78. Germinal - Emile Zola
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray (I honestly have only heard of the magazine!)
80. Possession - AS Byatt
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (This was an annual holiday read)
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven – Mitch Albom (Oprah made me read this.)
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90. The Faraway Tree Collection – Enid Blyton
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92. The Little Prince – Antoine de St. Exupery
93. The Wasp Factory – Iain Banks
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams
95. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole
96. A Town Like Alice – Nevil Shute
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare (I love reading this kinda stuff)
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo

36/100 I guess I'm ahead of the polls. It still doesn't seem like that much, but remember I was a SUPER nerdy kid. I also studied musical theater in college, and most of these books were turned into musicals or plays. I'm sure most of these books would have been a bit more enjoyable had they not been homework assignments. Right now I'm reading Open House by Elizabeth Berg. I picked it up in the airport where I do most of my reading. I almost always blindly choose one of Oprah's Book Club picks. I haven't found too many duds so far, so I think it's a safe bet. What book are you reading right now?