I Glamour Shot the Sheriff...

Hey y'all!

Okay, so it's Memorial Day and it's raining cats and dogs around here (I think I saw the Ark go by a few minutes ago). Normally the rain doesn't bother me but in the world of crafty blogging, rain is the end of all things. If I can't take pictures of anything to show you because the lighting is so poo-y, what's a creative blogger like myself suppose to do to entertain and delight you?

Play with the scanner of course...

You know, if you do a Google Image search for the term "glamour shots", you'll get all sorts of early 1990's (and beyond) glamour shot portraits that will amaze and terrify you. But I've decided to make your query easier by displaying a couple of them here. Let's just save you the search, shall we? (See how I look out for you?)

Feast your eyes upon the Creature Known As Maggi Circa 1991! Oh the Glamour! Oh the hairspray! Oh the humanity!!!

In your face Zsa Zsa Gabor!

USA! USA! USA!

(P.S.-I was 15 years old!) Ah, the days of huge hair, sequin covered America jackets and overpriced portraits...such an innocent time back then...

So let this be a lesson to you: don't read Maggi's blog on a rainy day. Rain=Bored Maggi=Plays With Scanner=Reveals Embarrassing Pictures.

Do you have embarrassing portraiture you'd like to share! Come on, tell me! :D

Have a great rest of your day! :D

Friday Night Fab Five: Best Week Ever

Hey y'all!

Welcome to another Friday Night Fab Five where I list 5 things that are awesome...at least to me. :P This week is all about...well...things that happened to me during the week this week. Week! :D

1. New Vintage Dress

I was able to get this awesome new (to me) 1950s dress this week, not without some drama though - you can read about that on Circle 7-2099. :P

2. Famous Tweets

(Click for larger :D)

Paris Hilton Tweeted about the things I made with her Creativity collection!

3. I'm a Winner!

Lenna from Creative Lenna was having a giveaway on her blog for reaching the 500 posts milestone and I won a free registration for any of her classes! I have been drooling over her Mini Art Quilt Book class so that's the one I picked. Can't wait to get started!

4. International Snacks and Local Calls

Carmen from Whoopidoings sent me this month's ATC for the swap group along with a letter, some awesome vintage-y postcards and some rockin' UK chocolate:

PLUS I got the pleasure of talking to Deb from Sparkling Scrapbooks on the phone this week! We're were talking about how fun it would be to have a meet up with all of our bloggy friends. Wouldn't that be fun?

5. This Week in Toot

I so wish I had video of this because I'm not sure explaining it will make much sense. So Toot's waiting patiently for dinner and I guess she got so bored she decided to suck one pacifier while screwing the other one into her ear like a Q-Tip.

And that's it for this week's Friday Night Fab Five! What are your favorites this week?

Don't forget you have until Midnight on Sunday, May 30th to get your entries in for the Gauche Alchemy Mixed Media Mamas Challenge!

Have a great weekend everyone!

These Are a Few of My Favorite Books

Hey y'all!

I really wanted to play along with the newest prompt over at These Are a Few of My Favorite Things which is to create something about your favorite book. Then I forgot about it, then I remembered it, then I decided to make an mini altered board book about the prompt, then I realized that I was running out of time so I've been running around gluing everything in sight to get it finished in time. :) Why is it I always pick the biggest projects and think I can finish in two days? Well, I did so there. LOL

Here's where I started, a little board book I swiped from Toot. (Oh don't give me that look, she didn't like it and it's about creepy animal babies with no faces so I figured it would be okay to glue things on it. :P)

("Un-bear-ably" creepy. *shudder*)

I couldn't choose just one book so I thought I'd make an altered album about my collection of Golden Era Hollywood biographies. I started out Googling every picture I could find of Golden Era celebrities reading books. Here's the cover with Ms. Hepburn:

I inked an old book page for the background, cut out the image of Audrey Hepburn, colored in the stripes on the awning and couch with a red pen and accented with Stickles. I added the title and then the tagline from Reading Rainbow, "But you don't have to take my word for it..." In your face, 1980s! :D The first page is Marilyn Monroe:

This layout includes a picture of Debbie Reynolds:

I used Distress Crackle Paint on a chipboard umbrella and hopefully the blue gems look like raindrops. They're suppose to be raindrops anyway. :D

This picture is of Rita Hayworth (a blond Rita I might add):

I decided to use some punchinella for the background and included a list of some of my favorite bios so far. Note the scribble scrabble handwriting. Ugh. LOL :D

And then the back of my little book with the lovely Ms. Monroe:

Super simple on this one: just the picture, some Paris Hilton bling and my Dymo label maker. Bada bling bada boom! :D

Thanks for taking a look through my Golden Era mini album. And let this be a lesson for you: It always pays to steal from your children. Muwahahahaha...

Babies Who Lunch

Hey y'all!

I hope you're having a great week so far! :D Just a quick layout to show you today...I'm currently fighting some sort of yucky yuck in my belly welly (sorry, spend most of my time talking to a one year old, force of habit :P). But never let it be said I leave my blog behind in times of turmoil, strife or stupid pain for jerks. :D

Anyhoo, here's my layout:

(Click for larger)

Okay, I'm so hoping someone out there knows where this apple patterned paper is from, I'm drawing a complete blank and forgot to write it on the back before I cut it. (October Afternoon?) I started with a piece of green cardstock, added the four pictures - comic style and strips of patterned paper.

The buttons I handstitched onto the ribbon (I heart gingham!!!), added the zipper and brads to the top of the page, hand Dymo labels for the title and captions, healthy dose of Stickles, bada bing bada boom: layout. :D

So what's going on for you this week? :)

Getting Glittery With the Paris Hilton Creativity Collection

Hey everyone!

I have some special, exciting, fantastic news: I was asked to be a guest designer for the Paris Hilton Creativity Collection!

Then I found out they wanted me to work with their rhinestone sheets...*faint*...so I got to play with all the bling I wanted! *double faint* Awesome! Wanna see what I did? :D

First, I blinged out my Nintendo DS:


Then I glittered up an old sconce (I actually made two of these!) using the rhinestones for the tea light holders:


I sparkled up a headband:

And some barrettes:


Well I couldn't just leave out Kunoichi so I made her a barrette and matching clutch purse:


I even used some of my leftover bling as accents on a couple of layouts:



Best gig ever! lol I had so much fun working with the awesome rhinestone sheets from the Paris Hilton Creativity Collection! (Anything sparkly gets an A+ from me...not sure if you knew my love for glitter or not. :P)

Thanks for taking a peek at my glittery projects and thanks to the Creativity Collection team for letting me tag along! :)

Friday Night Fab Five: A Camping We Will Go

Hey y'all!

Before we get to this week's Fab Five, some Gauche announcements:

1. The deadline for the Mamas challenge has been extended until midnight on Sunday, May 30th so you still have a week to get those entries in! :D

2. Today is my blogging day over at GA and I'm showing off what I created with our Lush Kit. And believe me, I created the crap out of this kit so go take a look: Ode to a Lush...Kit. (I'm trying to not post my stuff there and then post here and make you comment twice so head on over to see the goods! :D) Thanks y'all!

Okay, business out of the way, now onto this week's Friday Night Fab Five where I list 5 things I'm digging. This week I feel like going camping, want to come along? Let's see...what do we need...

1. An Awesome Vintage Trailer

Like this one for sale at vintagetrailercrazy.com:


2. Kitschy Lights

(From kitshulike.com)

We need these for the awning of course...

3. S'mores

(Picture from Candy USA)

Come on, is there a better reason to start a fire?

4. Vintage Crochet Patterns

(From freevintagecrochet.com)

We can take along some crochet patterns from Free Vintage Crochet so we can have a crafty project with us.

5. A Good Flick

(From Wikipedia)

We may have a vintage trailer but no one said we can't update it with with a TV and DVD player, right?

And there's my Fab Five for the week! What are your favorites this week?

I Always Feel Like Somebody's Watching Me...

Hey y'all!

Okay, a follow up to yesterday's post about vlogging and being me and whatever whatever so here it is: my very own You Tube channel. I already have a channel where I put Toot's videos but this one is just me vlogging about random stuff that will more than likely teach you zero while entertaining you with zilch. lol :P

Anyhoo, I was thinking to just put my videos up and not "announce" it per se on the blog, I don't want anyone to feel pressured to watch and then pressured to say things like, "OMG it's like soooo good and stuff!" but I thought I'd at least tell you once so you know. :P

Then I ended up taking a quick video of my craft space so I thought I'd go ahead and throw that up here at least:



So there it is! Me and my crafty space. :D If you'd like to join me on You Tube, you're more than welcome! I just have a couple of videos up at the moment, more will follow, most probably shouldn't. lol :P

And that's all from me for now! See you tomorrow for another Friday Night Fab Five! :)

It's All About Me. Okay, Not Really...No, It Is.

Helloooooooooooooooo!

I hope everyone is having a great week so far! :) Just a little something to show you today. I'm part of an ATC swap group, "My Favorite and My Best" where we create ATCs every month based on particular favorites things. But since this is our first month together, we decided to create an ATC with our names. The ladies have gotten theirs so I can share what I made for them now:

I actually forgot to take pictures of all three but they're basically the same anyway. :) These are pretty simple actually: I used Ouchless Cardboard and tissue from the Wholey Sheet kit for the background, added some pieces from the Pink Parts and Purple People Eater Mixed Media Color Kits. And of course my Dymo label maker and some Stickles...gotta get that glitter on there you see.

This month our theme is Favorite Drink and I still have yet to nail that one down. lol Ah well, it'll come to me! :)

You know, I don't typically scrap about myself or create anything with my picture on it. I think part of it may be that I'm 99.9% of the time the one behind the camera so I rarely get shots of myself anyway and the majority of it is probably that I'm almost never satisfied with the way I look. Ugh, yes I'm one of those. LOL

But all that to say that I'm starting to make an effort to change all that. You know, when I'm dead and gone, Toot isn't going to care that I look fat or don't have makeup on or have a weird look on my face, she's just going to care that she has pictures of her mother. Good or bad, I've got to quit "erasing these memories" so to speak and just suck it up.

......

Sorry about that, typing out loud at this point which is no fun for anyone. lol ANYWAY, here's an ATC of moi. :D In other news, I'm working on getting my You Tube channel together and uploading some vlogs (another step in my "Suck It Up" program. lol) so hopefully that will be ready sooner rather than later. Uploading takes F-O-R-E-V-E-R. Blerg.

And for your random reading/drooling pleasure: for the sweetest, most kitschy, most delightful little illustrations ever, check out this Etsy shop: Orange Studio. I must gather money to spend there ASAP. ASAP!

So how is your week going?

Mama Said Knock You Out...With Glitter

Hi everyone!

So the new challenge has been announced over at Gauche Alchemy and there is another awesome prize up for grabs! I'm telling y'all right now, go get in your crafty space and create something for this challenge because the prize is one of my favorite things from the store and right now it sucks that the DT is ineligible to win. Boo-urns! lol ;)

The challenge is this: Since Mother's Day is in May, we want to see your projects that revolve around Mothers. Anything mother related, created by you and linked up to our challenge post is eligible to win this awesome (still can't believe it!) prize: our ACME Lot #3 Mixed Media Paper Crafting Kit. *faint* I haven't even been able to get this kit yet (lots on my "GA To Buy" list, lol).

Holy crap! I looooooove this kit so much, it's one of my favorite GA kits and YOU can win it IF you create something mother-y and link it up on the GA blog by Midnight on Sunday, May 23rd. Easy peasy lemon squeezy!

You can make anything you want (and it doesn't have to be mixed media): a card, a layout, a canvas, an ATC, a journal, a sweater, ANYTHING that has to do with being a mother, rules for mothers, moms in general, your mom, my mom, their mom, whatever. :D Here's what I did:

This is a 16x20 canvas that I painted blue and then added a red crackle paint effect using acrylic paint and Elmer's Glue. I used GA's Happy Housewives kit (no longer available) as well as our Blue Streak and Scarlet Fever Mixed Media Color Kits.


Click right here----> Mixed Media Mamas Challenge and link up your projects by MIDNIGHT on SUNDAY MAY 23rd! Come on now, I know there's creative types reading this blog that would do amazing things with this prize if they won it so get to gluing! :D

P.S.-More postcards for The Great Postcard Caper have come in, y'all are too awesome - thank you!!!!

Talk to you soon! :D

Friday Night Fab Five: A Little Bit of Everything

Hi everyone!

Welcome to this week's Friday Night Fab Five where I list 5 things that I love, like, adore, what have you. This week I was trying to think if I had a theme going or not but it seems as though we're going random again so let's jump right in! :D


1. Blog Parties and Hops


I love blog parties and hops, you find so many cool blogs to add to your daily reading schedule. lol This weekend the Pink Ninja Addicts are having a groovy blog hop and are giving away some awesome prizes to click the button above to check these talented ladies out! And for those of you that are mad (nuts not ticked), there's still plenty of time to sign up for this year's Mad Tea Party at A Fanciful Twist!


2. Finding Awesome Uses for Awesome Things

The Art of Living Beautifully did a post this week on Creative Storage Ideas and I instantly fell in love with this one using a doll house:

(Photo by Keith Scott Morton/Country Living)

3. Nancy Today

I recently found Nancy Today through a post that Michelle of Chocolate and Marmalade Tea wrote called A True Pioneer Woman. Ever since reading that post, I have been obsessed with watching Nancy Today's videos on You Tube (All 6,000+ of them!) She is a little of everything all rolled into one fabulous woman. Her house is a mess but she's got her flowered hat on and is creating something or other all the time. It's like looking at a future picture of myself...I think I turned out pretty well! ;)



P.S.-I've been totally inspired by Nancy Today and really want to start vlogging so watch out for that! Muwahahahahaha

Talkative People Need Cameras:



4. Knock.Knocking.


I love love love these handmade wreaths from Knock.Knocking's etsy shop. Cute!

5. Chick-fil-A Chicken Sandwiches

*drool* *Yum* *love* *must get one now*

And there you have it, my Friday Night Fab Five! What are your favorites this week?

This Is The Wall That Jacque Built

Hi everyone!

Back in May 2009, I wrote about Jacque of Jacque4u2c surprising me with a layout she had made of Toot.

(Chris and Toot posing with the layout Jacque made-May 2009)

I was totally surprised and absolutely floored that anyone would want to make something so lovely for me. I went right out and bought a frame for it and up on my kitchen wall it went.

Since then I have been so very fortunate to make some really awesome friends through this little old blog of mine and two in particular have created beautiful layouts of Toot recently. Yvonne of Do More With Less made two amazing layouts:

And Deb of Sparkling Scrapbooks created this blingy fab-o Toot layout:

Thanks ladies, these are absolute treasures! I personally find creating for another person so fulfilling but you never know if they truly like it or not. In this virtual world it's very easy to say you like something and not really mean it so I hope that this post will serve two purposes. The first is to convey my extreme love and appreciation for my wonderful online friends that read my blog, leave comments or have been so sweet as to take their time to make something for me. Thank you so much!

The second is to prove that your creations have a place of their own where I can look at them whenever I want. I always do a jig when I get any sort of happy mail (side note: postcards have started rolling in for The Great Postcard Caper, thank you!!!) and be assured, these layouts have the best home:

(My kitchen wall of amazing layouts!)

Thanks again Jacque, Yvonne and Deb! If you have not been to their blogs, please visit them soon, you will not regret it! :)

I hope your week is going well so far, have a great night! :D

It's All Fun and Games Till Somebody Gets Eaten

Back in October 2009, I shared pages I had created for Callista's circle journal. I had so much fun making my little cannibalistic cupcakes that I decided to carry over the snarky nature of these delicious treats and made some more scenes. The first is a recreation of what I made for Callista's journal:

I used an 8x10 canvas, Mod Podged torn book pages onto the background and added some acrylic paint. The cupcakes themselves were cut from patterned paper and cardstock, accented with Stickles and I drew their faces. Dymo label maker, tons of sequins - ta da! :D

For this one, I was wondering what a cupcake might look like, should he ever start losing his frosting and go bald. :P This is a 6x6 canvas with Mod Podged dictionary pages and diluted acrylic paint for the background. More Stickles, more Dymo, more sequins. :D

This one was fun, I wanted to make the pinkest, sweetest, girliest cupcake ever. Since this is how cupcakes (stereo)typically look, I thought, "Well what happens if it's a boy cupcake?" Thus Bob was born...poor thing. I used a small embroidery hoop painted pink, added pink glitter card stock from DCWV then covered that in pink tulle. Same as before: Stickles, Dymo, sequins, a winning combo. :P

Thanks for taking a peek at my snarky sweet treats! :D Have a great day everyone!

Friday Night Fab Five: Random What-cha-ma-call-its

Hi everyone and welcome to (the return of) my Friday Night Fab Five where I list 5 things I like, love, adore, etc and so forth. And what the heck, let's post it early and get the weekend off to a good start! This week is all about the randomness that is me. Enjoy!

1. Bollywood

Although most people hear the term "Bollywood" and think of Indian musicals, the term actually covers much more than Hindi-language musicals. That being said, my favorite movies that could be listed under "Bollywood" name just happen to be musicals with sometimes serious story lines, cheesed up with music and kookiness. Just like me. :D My two current favorites are "Fashion" and "Pyaar Impossible" (both streamable on Netflix, huzzah!) that both star Priyanka Chopra who is stunning. (Don't go by that picture of her on Wikipedia though, just Google her name.)

2. Toot Walks

Okay, so she's been walking for a while but I got it on video. Sort of, just don't miss the beginning where she's actually walking. After she goes down she just chases me a bit.



3. Cafe Du Monde Beignet Mix

Yeah sure, it may be the lazy way to make beignets but they taste yum-o when you're done. *drool*

4. Andy Whitfield

So um...yeah, I don't have anything to say, I was just looking for an excuse to put up his picture. *rwor* tee hee

5. 100 vs 1

Yeah, yeah I know I've posted this video before but it still makes me laugh. And you don't even need to know Japanese to get the joke.


And there you have it, another Friday Night Fab Five for the ages! :D What are your favorites this week?

The Great Postcard Caper

Hi everyone!

First things first: Today is a blogging day for me over at Gauche Alchemy so if you could hop on over and let me know what you think of my post: Inspiration Is My Favorite and My Best I would SO appreciate it! :D

And now for an idea that I REALLY hope works because I think it would be awesome. lol First, some background:

I've mentioned this before but when I was younger, I was WAY into pen pals (this was before the internet. Can you even imagine the days of no internet now?! lol). Anyhoo, I had a a plethora of pen pals (score one for me for finding a use for "plethora") and a HUGE box of various stationary that I used to write them. I had pen pals from all over the world and it was so much fun!

In fact, in my 7th grade English class, we started writing to a class in China. I wrote back and forth with the guy I was paired with during 1990. In 1991 I started writing to his friend as well (we were pen pals from 1991 until around 2008). I remember a particular letter from my second pen pal in 1997, in which he told me that in 1996 my original pen pal died in a car accident and in his pocket was the picture of me I had sent him in 1990.

(An excerpt from the letter in which he told me his best friend (my original pen pal) had died.)

Although not all my pen pals have lasted a span of over 10 years, I truly loved writing every letter and have recently been lonesome for REAL letters. After all, once I'm gone I'm assuming all of my letters will be bought at some yard sale, hopefully by a creative type like me that will glue them onto something and heck, maybe they'll even blog about it! lol :D

All that to say, that through my blog I have found and created fabulous friendships, some of which have resulted in snail mail exchanges that I truly enjoy. So that got me thinking of an idea that I hope you will like! I'm calling it:

The Great Postcard Caper
I want to start a "address book" of sorts to have on hand when I'm writing letters, sending cards, etc. Being a creative person that also loves vintage, this got me hooked on the idea of getting those cheesy, touristy postcards that every state and country have in abundance. So this is my proposal:

If you would like to be included in my "Address Book", just send me a postcard (the cheesier, the better!) with your name and address on it. If you're a creative type, you can create your own mail artsy postcard if you want! They can be vintage or no, I don't care which as the most important thing is to have your address on hand so when I get that "itchy writing finger" I can drop you a note, letter, card etc.

If you would like, include your birthday, anniversary - any date that may have significance for you, I would love to help you celebrate if I can! (If you are worried about your personal information going through the mail, slip the postcard into an envelope and send it that way.) No matter where you are in the world, I want to hear from you! I would love to have this turn into a regular writing back and forth, so don't be shy! In fact, I'll make it super easy on you: You don't even have to tell me you're doing it! (But if you have questions, please feel free to e-mail me anytime! justaddglitter at gmail dot com)

If you want to send me a postcard (or letter, card, whatever!) send it to this address:

The Great Postcard Caper (or feel free to address it to "The Magnificent Maggi" ;) j/k lol)
PO Box 370
Pineville NC 28134
USA

There, see? You don't even have to leave a comment saying, "I will!" or "Are you nuts?!" If you want to, go for it and if not, that's okay too! :D

And that about sums it up. :P No deadline, no pressure, no worries here people! :D But if we got a group going, we could maybe do a stationary swap. Hmmmm...intriguing! :D

Now, I would like to take a quick moment to thank each and every one of you for visiting my blog, following along with me and/or taking the time to leave comments. I truly enjoy blogging for you and really appreciate you spending some of your valuable time with me. To all of my followers, readers and commentors: THANK YOU!

Have a great day everyone and thanks to my favorite smiley Julie for the postcards that you see in this post! :D