I Have C.R.S.

Another snowed-in day today, and no work. Yesterday's white-out blizzard (they made it officially a "Blizzard") forced most of the road crews to stop working and wait it out. This meant misery for the interstates this morning, and forget side roads or neighborhoods! My street was plowed, but only one lane wide, and with the manual snow removal from the parking spaces clogging the empty spaces and slopping into the street, well, it's just not pretty at all.

We did not get all that many more inches of snow yesterday (probably less than another 12"), but the winds - OMG, the howling winds - we have major drifting. MAJOR.

But I'll get to the snow pics in a sec. First, I wanted to show you I actually stamped something today! I did! See?


I am totally out of these, so it was time to make some more. I used pieces of paper from my Scrap Heaplet for the patterned papers, and all the cut shapes came from scraps. The only virgin card stock sacrificed for these cards was for the bases.

I made two of the brown above (for you hoarders, that is retired SU Taupe grosgrain with Close to Cocoa card stock) and two of the purple below:


(That ink, card stock and ribbon really do match the stripe in the paper. For some reason I am incapable of getting a good pic with purple or blue in it. BTW, the ribbon and card stock are Eggplant. No, really!)

For the purple skirt, I used a too-dark Copic color and went over it with the colorless blender to try and lighten it. I thought I had all the colors, but not quite, I guess. ;-)

I also made one of this blue variety:

Again, for my hoarding-type readers, that's retired SU Bluebird grosgrain with Ballet Blue card stock.

Now for the snow update. Last night I could not even see out my front door because the screen was clogged with blown snow. This morning I could see out, but when I opened my inside door, I saw this:

That's right, the snow was drifted between the doors, right through the screen. Since I knew it was fluffy snow, I tried to open the screen door, pushing away the snow outside so I could reach around to the left and grab my snow shovel. It worked, mostly, until this happened:

Crap. I can say that since this is my blog, and it really does deserve a little ##($&#$*&)(%. What's done is done, so I pushed the door open, went outside and cleared off the area in front of the door so I could open it all the way, opened the screen door and locked it open, then shoveled the snow out of my front hall! Good, gracious!

The steps weren't so bad, since they were mostly protected by the 7-foot-high* walls of shoveled snow from the weekend. But the car, OMG, the car(s)! And the snow from the plow in front of my car(s). Sigh ... I shoveled in waves. First pass I did my front walk and the sides of the car. (Forget the Miata. It is so buried right now it may be April or May until it sees the sun again.) Later this afternoon I cleared off the car, then shoveled out the top half of the plowed snow from in front of my car, then I did a test-drive over what was left to make sure I could get out without having to clear the rest of it, and I did. (I love my Subaru Forester.) I called it done and came in to stamp.

Okay, first I grabbed a bunch of old towels and got most of the melted residual snow off my floor, then I stamped.

I also decided to reschedule this weekend's Stamp Camps, mostly because there is nowhere for anyone to park. The Sunday peeps can park across the street in the shopping center and grab a Starbuck's on the way over, but I cannot tell them there are any sidewalks on which to walk, and that won't work for the Monday night peeps, so I just rescheduled for next weekend. Hopefully some of this stuff will melt by then.

I also hope in the name of all that is good in this world that we do not see snow like this again in my lifetime. I live here partly because of the mild Winters, and this is NOT FAIR, I tell you, NOT FAIR. Although, the Weather Service said it snowed in Dallas today, and that if snow actually fell in the FL panhandle like they predicted it would, it meant all 50 states would have snow on the ground by Saturday. Yes, Hawaii, too, in the mountains. If this is not a Snowpocalypse, I don't know what to call it.

Enough whining. I need to go finish some laundry so I can go to work tomorrow! Only my second day this week. :-)

Thanks for stopping by!

*Okay, maybe not a full 7 feet of snow, but it is up to my shoulders, and as far as I am concerned, if I have to heave a shovel full of snow over my head, it might as well be 7 feet high.

A Bit of Housekeeping and Even More Snow

Good evening. I do believe it has stopped snowing, mostly. Still a lot of blowing going on, but at least the Great Dig Out can begin, again.

Tonight I have two things to show you. One, an Easter card prototype largely inspired by my Tweep Dreena.
She suggested I use a stamp from the Pick A Petal set to make a carrot, then use the Baroque Motifs swirl as the carrot top. I went one better and opened and used one of my new SU dies. Check it out:

The first time I used the die, I punched out all the pieces, then used the negative as a guide to glue them to the card. You can also see the obligatory ribbon. The blue layer was also Dreena's idea. She is SO SMART. Also note the dreaded white space. {shudder}

I tried it again today following yet another of Dreena's suggestions: apply the glue to the die-cut pieces while they are still intact, stick it down to the card front, then peel off the outsides. It was so stinkin' easy that way! I added a little something-something to this version, too:

While cleaning up a bit today, I found the Forest Creatures set I'd earned for Sale-A-Bration, so you know I just had to use it! I love the teeny bunny with the humongous carrot!

I'm not sure yet about the ribbon and sentiment placement. Lots of room for improvement, but I still love that carrot!

Let's move on to what I did most of today, shall we? I tackled the Craft Overflow Area of my Living Room floor. If my son comes to visit next month, I'll need to be able to open the sofa bed, and to do that, this heap o'stuff must disappear:

Pretty bad, yes, I know. Please note: the TV is on. I was watching the marathon weather report.

Let's review the parts of the heap. Here we have a box from SU that contains things yet to find a home in the Captain's Quarters.

I usually have one SU box open and receiving at any point in time. Especially as we approach the Clean Sweep, which is this weekend. All new and unopened SU items land in here.

Next we have what remains of a pile of, um, er, things.

To the far-far left is a bag of 26 M*A*S*H VHS tapes. Anyone want them?

Next we have what's left of what did not get put away last October when I removed all the 12x12 paper packs and put them in my new cabinets in the CQ. What's left are packages of sticky letters; a few pieces of 12x12 sticky sheets; packages of chipboard shapes; bags of cellophane bags of varying sizes; and a box of unmounted stamp sets.

In front of that we have:

... let's see ... a lost-then-found box of Christmas cards; a few more unmounted stamp sets; some SU Treat cups (quite a few, actually); and underneath all of those is a box of IKEA hanging folders. Anyone want the hanging folders?

To the right is a pile of boxes of cards, topped with more cards yet to find their way into a box.

In front of those is a pile of pre-printed (by moi) treat box templates I was going to use one year and never did, and in front of that is this pile:

... a bunch of UFOs that survived many a Clean Sweep and are still homeless, unfinished and unloved.

In front of it all:

... my tent, because I have no where else to put it. On top of the tent, from left to right, are (1) a box that holds all the crap I took off my CD cabinet when I was executing the big furniture move, (2) a pile of table cloths I use for my markets and craft shows that I plan to replace this year (no where to put them), and (3) some old carpet pieces left over from the Other Room conversion to a Craft Room. They will be tossed, eventually. Right now they serve as an alternate scratching toy for kitty.

I went to work, going through everything and starting to find homes for it all, and here I am about half-way:

I see carpet! Yesssss!

Look - empty boxes:

These contained a ton of cards from workshops past, and also some things I tried but never really liked, but also never threw away. But today, ooooohhhh, TODAY, I was merciless, and this is all that's left:

Of special interest is the pile of card backs front-left, and a pile of "maybe I can save these" cards and card fronts to the right. A girl can dream.

But wait! What have we here? Why, they're calendars:

Note to self: don't buy mini calendars until you are really ready to use them. Otherwise, they'll expire and become fuel for a fire. Anyone want some 2009 mini calendars? Speak up, or they'll be recycled.

Let's examine what became of some of that stuff that found its way into the Captain's Quarters. First, that pile of UFOs made it no further than my step stool in front of my card catalog:

I have not even triaged it yet, and I'm not gonna. It holds a treasure trove of crafty goodness that I will just tackle one day. Plus, I had no where else to put it, as you will see here shortly.

Stacked up next to a bag of overflow ribbons we have this:

This contains packages of die cut shapes, chipboard packages, card kits, and some open SU Scrappin' Kits. Two of the kits in the mix are these:

They are from Taylored Expressions and I just loved them! Still do, actually, though I have obviously not found the time to open them. They would make a nice rainy day project. I'm keeping them.

Moving on. Atop the Captain's Table is this pile of SU 6x6 DSP packs plus some cut scraps of DSP:


All the strips of paper are left from 2 Christmases ago when we rolled up the strips and filled plastic ornament bulbs/globes/balls with them.

The rest of the scraps look Spring-y, so I'll try to use them for Easter cards.

Also on the Captain's Table is this pile o'stuff:

Lots of unmounted stamps, including my "missing" set I wanted to use the other day:


And then there's this:

When this set first came out, there was a mis-print with the label, and all of us who pre-ordered the set got replacement rubber & sticker for this image, leaving us with this "bad" one. But you know what? I can put it together and maybe even use it! Or sell it. I am NOT going to toss it, that's for sure!

Along the way I discovered many bags of envelopes and note card packs and all sorts of little things, so I took the opportunity to reorganize this drawer:

From right to left we have: packages of note cards & envelopes. I use these to make my City Cards, plus I used some of them to make Pea's note cards.

To the left of those are all my SU envelopes. To the left of those are my vast collection of SUcellophane bags. And to the left of the envelopes are things like my Stamp-A-Ma-Jig, roller guides, brayers, etc.

And NOW, my Living Room looks like this:

Waaaaay better, don't you agree? But wait! When did I find the time to do all of this? Why am I home all day? Because I live amid the great Snowpocalypse of 2010, that's why! DC was closed again today and we had ourselves a blizzard!

Here is this afternoon's view from my couch:

Remember the metal trash can I have that holds my bird seed? You can still kinda see it here:

This is the whole back yard:

And from a cat's eye level:

The snow has actually stopped falling, and I really should go out and clean off my car while it's still light out. Or not. I can do it in the morning. I am pretty sure I'll still be here tomorrow. The area road crews actually stopped plowing today because of the white-out blizzard, so I doubt I'll get to work tomorrow, anyway. We'll see.

So, not bad for one day, hmmm? I can get all sorts of things done when I focus. ;-)

I will take my leave now and maybe go stamp something. I've earned that today!

Thanks for stopping by!

And the Snow Just Keeps A-Comin'

Not to whine or anything, but Dear Snow Gods, AREN'T YOU ABOUT DONE WITH THIS STOOPID SNOW?!?!? WHAT HAVE WE DONE TO DESERVE THIS TREATMENT?!?!?!

Sigh. I went to work yesterday, and wave 2 of The Snow (tagged on Twitter as #snOMG), started last night. We have some fluffy stuff today - I shoveled about 4" a little while ago, and the weather forecast for the DC area went from Snow Warning to Blizzard Warning. There are winds approaching 50 mph blowing all this new snow about.

The Federal Gov't was officially closed for the third day in a row, and schools are close for the rest of the week. The local snow plow crews and electric company crews are blinded by the white-out and have stopped trying to keep up. We've been told to hunker down and wait it out.

I have lived in Michigan and Illinois (Chicago Western 'burbs), and I don't recall ever being snowed in like this. Plus, those places can HANDLE slow ... DC cannot. We are so far over our annual snow fall right now, I am pretty sure we've busted all sorts of records.

I decided to not get trapped in my own home again, so I went out and shoveled a bit this morning. This is my front door, inside looking out:

You can see my shoveled sidewalk is covered again, and it's a little drifty. But I GOT OUT and cleared it off.

My official measuring stick, stuck in my neighbor's still un-cleared parking spot:

That sure looks like 24" to me! I think tomorrow I'll help her shovel out at least part of her spot. This is just not right.

Here's my car today:

I had to back it in last night since the opening was too narrow to turn into. You can see where the snow is drifted right up to the right side of the car already. Great.

My neighbor brushed off her own car, and the two of us shoveled between them.

I am not going anywhere, so I did not bother clearing off the car yet.

Here is the path down my steps. See the footprints?

I shoveled my way up, worked on the parking spot, shoveled my way back down, grabbed my camera, and there was enough new snow to leave footprints on my way back up to take these pics. It's crazy, I tell you, CRAZY!

From the outside looking in:

Ugh. That's all I have to say: UGH.

In other news, since I am home again today, I've decided to be productive. I KNOW! What a concept! I have what I refer to as my Craft Overflow Area that takes up much of my Living Room floor. My goal today is to make it disappear. I am working box by box, pile by pile, and I will get this stuff put away if it kills me.

What made me take these drastic steps? My boy may come visit me in March, and I need to be able to open the sleep sofa. Uh-huh. So I'll be working on the overflow today and I'll post the Big Reveal later, assuming I make a dent.

Thanks for stopping by!

Snow Update

I thought I'd give you an update on my shut-in-ness. This was the view outside my back door this morning:

Just gorgeous! By mid-day, the sun had melted the snow off the tree branches and they were upright once again. We did lose some trees in the neighborhood, or at least some large branches off several of them.

The snow crew arrived mid-day to rescue me. This was my front door 'before':

Yeah, I know, the sun is glaring, but look at the bottom of the door. THAT is the problem. The snow drifted up the door and blocked me in. There is a step down when I go out, and the center of that drift measured 16" on the inside. I was trapped, but good.

Once they cleared the front door, I slipped out for some photo action. Here's my front steps, or at least the half they cleared:

And here is my dug-out car:

Phew! Now I can get out of here tomorrow. My neighbor, who was away this weekend, said the expressway is cleared in spots, but she would suddenly hit a stretch with 3" of snow. This does not bode well for tomorrow's commute.

On the other side of my car is my other car, the Miata:

What? You can't see it? See the mirror? So sad. She won't see the sunlight until March, I suspect. I told the guys they could put the snow behind the Miata since I was pretty sure I was not going to shovel it out any time soon.

Speaking of my neighbor, to the left of my Miata is her parking spot. Yep - all snow. I took advantage of that to measure:

It's official: 20" deep. It seems like more, but we did have a lot of drifting. When my neighbor drove up, she looked at her spot, shook her head, parked somewhere else and walked back. She just looked at her spot, then looked at her front walk, which was strangely similar in depth. She was miserable and her little doggy was cold.

Then we did this:

That's a path across the grass from my walk to her front door. I started it, but then I held her dog while she worked on the top foot or so. Her dog wanted in so badly, the little thing leaped between my neighbor's footprints and went inside.

I dug out the central mailbox so the mail lady can get to it tomorrow. I salted (okay, it's not real salt ... it's the no-salt pet-safe melt stuff) my walk and around my car so I won't kill myself tomorrow by slipping on ice. THAT would be a real shame, especially with my SABLE stash and all. No, the no-salt is good stuff.

That is all I have - no stampy stuff to share. I hope to remedy that tomorrow. Thanks for stopping by!

Four Little Critters

I still have my Hero Arts Woodland Creatures stamp set out on the Captain's Table, so yesterday, being a shut-in and all (trapped in my own home by mounds of drifted snow), I dug the set out of the heap and set to work. I'd spied this card in my travels, and I knew instantly what needed to be done. C-A-S-E! Ohmygosh, she even used MY SET!

Naturally, I needed to make it my own, so I did change up a few things. Check 'em out:


First, Mr. Raccoon. One of my Tweeps, who lives in Germany, thinks our North American raccoons are cute. Well, maybe they are, but they are still varmints! But this one looks pretty nice, doesn't he?

I changed a few things from the original: ribbon, button color, card base color, sentiment set (same words, though), and I also rounded the card corners and added an orange layer of DSP behind the white.

I also made three more with the other critters in the set:


Mr Squirrel ... and ...


Mr. Skunk ... and ...


Mr. Porcupine. All cuties. I had originally thought I'd make a critter set - multiple cards, each with a different critter. But then I was stumped for sentiments, especially since I wasn't sure to whom critter cards like these might be sent? A young lad? A lover of the specific critter type? So I went safe and made them all Birthday cards, and I'll sell them individually.

Today I'll put that set away and work on something else from the stash on the table. Slowly I'll clear out partially-completed efforts, and in the process, build up an inventory for my March show, which is amazingly only 4 weeks away! Yikes!

In other news, the snow actually stopped falling from the sky around 4:30 or 5:00 pm yesterday. Now we begin the Great Digging Out. Hopefully those kids who I called and then they called back to confirm actually show up and get to me. They said other people from my neighborhood had also called, so hopefully they can get to all of us today. That's a lotta shoveling. I'll report back on how that goes. If it ends up I need to make a dent on my own, I think I'll need to take out the screen panel in my door to get out. Right now I cannot open the door even an inch. Oh, well.

I guess I'll have to stamp in between loads of laundry today. Oh, the suffering I do for my craft ... ;-) If anything blog-worthy happens, I'll be sure to show it off.

Thanks for stopping by!

A White Card on a Snowy Day

Snow, snow and more snow. The news people (who have been on since 5 am, I might add, so they are a bit punchy), just said this is something like the 5th-worst snow on record. As the snow slows down, it is gorgeous outside, but treacherous. The heavy snow is collapsing roofs (rooves) and breaking tree limbs, which in turn take out power lines. Fortunately I have power, though I am running the emergency heat since my heat pump is under about 2 feet of drifted snow.

Here is the view from my couch earlier this afternoon:

Note the drifted snow on the left. That's up against my sliding screen door. I have a deeper drift at my front door, holding the screen door shut, so I am literally a shut-in. I anxiously await the arrival of the shovel-my-snow crew I called earlier who will get here when they can get here later today or tomorrow.

For some perspective, check out my full-size metal trash can (it holds bird seed) on the right:

Uh-huh. I'm not going anywhere.

HOWEVER, I did have time to stamp! YAY! This card:

... is a total case of the last card in this post. I used red hearts instead of silver, but still. When you are desperate for your fourth project for next weekend's Stamp Camps, desperate measures are sometimes necessary.

ETA: Oh, drat, I hit Enter and published this post before I finished typing. Ugh. But that's okay, as I am out of words, so you are free to go now.

Thanks for stopping by!