I'm Not Worthy...

I know I've been posting fairly intermittently. But I'm not sorry.

The reason? There are some flipping creative and crafty people out there! Many of whom have blogs; blogs that I've been devouring over the last several days and feeling incredibly inadequate although inspired at the same time.

I posted last month about my obsession with Make it and Love it. And not to take anything away from Ashley, because she's totally uber talented and great, but I have to spread the creative crafty obsession.

First, I came across U Create (I'm not entirely sure how, but I believe via Imperfect), which is a collection of the best of the best of a slew of Crafty McCraftersons. All in one place! This is a great, but if you follow the links, you get absurd (ly fantastic) amounts of ideas, inspiration and tips, tricks and doses of inferiority.

I have to apologize because I didn't save where I got the ideas from (sacrilege I know) and I never did very well in English class, so I'm not crediting them as I should, but here's just a dose of some of the images I've saved:

And that's not even a drop in the bucket.

Where do these people come up with this stuff? Am I missing a gene or something where people see things as they should be and the ability to completely transform it?

Anyways, I won't do a whole post about each and every Crafty chicka out there, because my 'favourites' folder has pretty much quadrupled in size and is growing by the day, so here's several of the more recent ones I've added in case you're interested. (Oh-and I added a UCreate button on the sidebar for easy access)

Big Ideas from a Little Girl

Crap I've Made (love the title)

I DIY

Inspire Me Crafts

Kwerner Design (jackpot for card inspiration...they put my June cards to SHAME!)

Creative Holiday Gift Ideas

The Tipsy Hostess (another great title, and oh-so-me)

OK, re-reading, this is like a name-dropping orgy, but you'll thank me.

All 2 people who've ever read this blog will anyways.

Stay crafty my friends. (Dos Equis? Anyone?)

June cards

Per my June goal # 8, and with the first of the festivities coming up this Friday, I had some crafting to do last night. Here are this months cards:
And, ok ok, I'm lying-it's not quite all of them. But the only missing one (which is complete for the record) is for my sister who happens to drop by my blog now and again, so I didn't want to pre-empt her bday by showing her card ahead of time.

And the one that needs to be mailed was mailed this morning and the others will be hand delivered in person, so I can pretty much cross that one off the list. Sweet-because I'm not doing too hot on 'em this month.

Green with Envy

I came home yesterday to find this pile or crapola on my lawn:


I can't believe that they'd go and dump their trash on a corner lot-a busy corner lot where lots of people drive by all the time.

But...just a second. What's that I see in the pile of trash? Wait. What? You mean? Could it be?


Yep--there's sod in there baby!



They didn't quite complete the entire front lawn, but they got most of it and they made damn good time too. No one on our side of the street/block had any indication of a lawn yesterday morning, but last night?


Sprinklers galore! Granted it's not as lush or nicely green as our backyard neighbours whose lawns are at least a year old, but it'll get there. And with a forecast starting Thursday of 10 days straight of rain, I think if anything it'll drown in all the water. So in a couple weeks it should be nice and perty.

The rain is interfering with countless other activities that benefit from nice weather that I really shouldn't dwell on for the sake of my sanity, so instead I'll look at the bright side of it.

And did you see those 2 hanging planters 2 pics up? These ones here:

We got home from car shopping on Saturday and they were sitting on our lawn. So strange. But several neighbours had the same thing and I vaguely remember the builder mentioning something about a flower day or something like that, so I'm sure they just dropped off the leftovers to anyone who didn't make it. And let me tell you, they were leftovers! Especially the one up on the table, I spent about 40 minutes dead-heading, pruning, cleaning up, replanting, etc to make it even as nice as it is now. I'm sure it'll improve though. (Right?)

I'm using these plants as an example: Because when I planted them they looked like this:
Check me out!

(Although you'll also notice that one of our cedars is kaput. The other one's doing great, so I won't take all the blame. But I will replant the good one somewhere in the actual ground)

Anyways, all that to say that the rest of the lawn should be done today or tomorrow!!!! Weeee-so excited.

Brought to you by the Letter R

Today's I want chronicle is brought to you by the letter R.

Remember when Sesame Street used to do that? And the ball marble thing that used to travel through the obstacle course?

Sorry---the office is dead quiet today and the ac is broken...I'm a little out of it.

R is for random, because today's list doesn't have any theme or common thread, except that I like 'em all.
1. Urban Outfitters Ceramic Basket, which actually inspired this whole list after I saw it on decor8
2. Z Gallerie Placemats which pretty much look like chargers
3. Z Gallerie Vector Sconce (yes, again-but it's on sale and I still love it!)
4. Z Gallerie Rate that Wine pad (so perfect for the wine tasting party my girls and I have been talking about forEVER...they tend to turn into wine drinking parties instead-oops!)
5. Urban Outfitters Storage Bench
6. Z Gallerie Fish Mouth Bowl

Have a great weekend! And E&J: enjoy your last few days of paradise!

Yes Please

I could really use one of these this weekend:

Ok, ok, I could use one anytime. Enjoy the eye candy,

Could you do it?

Looking for inspiration today on Desire to Inspire , I found this post on a renovated Church in the UK.

Like Kim, I've often thought about repurposing an old barn, building, warehouse, etc. If not actually thinking about it, I've certainly thought of the potential of--even my own office building. It's a heritage building that used to be a barracks and has some very neat character to it that, if highlited and/or camoflauged correctly could really be something special.

Anyway, I think they did a great job transforming the church,





I mean, you can't say that's it's not beautiful, but I just don't think I could do it. Live there I mean. I'm a pretty good person, all things considered so it's not like I'm going to be sacrificing goats or hosting devil parties or anything, it just seems that almost anything is sacreligious when you do it in a church. You know? And a graveyard instead of a flower one? Yeah...I don't think so.

What about you?

Neat Idea: Apartment Therapy

The creativity, ingenuity and general weirdness you can find on Apartment Therpay never fails to surprise me.

Don't get me wrong, there are plenty of inspirational and downright cool ideas on there, but some strange stuff too.

Despite the overwhelming consensus of 45-14 that this idea is a 'Not', I think it's pretty darn cool.

It's an outdoor speaker hidden, formed, whatever into a tree stump.

Cool, huh?