More Basement & A Cheshire Kat Giftie!

So here's another Polyvore amalgam I have created. This is more piece-specific. What do you think? Too much?? Too many themes? I think the curtains may push it over the edge, and I would only use them to give the illusion of larger windows, but I still may need to nix.


Basement 2 by Girl Land

Look at the lovely care package I got from my friend, Kat!!!! I am a bad bloggy friend. I didn't send any gifties out this year. I'll get'cha back, Kat. I love how she packages her magnets and pins in these cassette cases. Too cute! Thank you soooooo much! Big smooches.

I'm Dreaming of a New Basement

Our Christmas was nice. Wrap-up to come in the next day or so. However, a cruddy finale-- the hubby and I were hit with the stomach flu Saturday necessitating an extra day's stay at the in-laws which was completely fortunate because I don't know how we would have managed without them. Q puked in the car on the way home yesterday. LOVELY! Besides that, it was good. Just hard to remember at this point...ugh.

My latest obsession is........our basement. "Huh," you ask? Our basement has been the bane of my existence for about a year now. It is chocked full of crapola-- most of which we actually need to keep. We still need to whittle that load down. However, we have actually SAVED up (what's that?) the moolah to have it finished. I designed a little floor plan which is merely one big living area sectioned off into an adult's area with gas fireplace, sofa sleeper, and TV and a second area for the girls with Q's new mini trampoline (from Santa), blackboard, and beanbag chairs, a closet, and a laundry area. How heavenly!!!!!!!!!!

Here is my dilemma. I have no idea how to make it appropriate for guests AND the kids in terms of decor and practicality (read: no velvet and no white anything). We are on an Ikea/Macy's/JCPenney's/Urban Outfitters kinda budget here too.

Man, could I use Nicole Balch's skills (of Making It Lovely/Pink Loves Brown) right about now. Have you seen her creations???? Love, love, lu-huv!!! Yes, I used her name in the hope that she may get a Google alert, visit my blog, take pity on me and throw me some ideas. Heh.

Here is my sad attempt at the *feel* I'm going for (not necessarily the actual items):

Ooh, although I do have my heart set on a chandelier decal of some sort. I just like the irony of a chandelier in the basement. Especially OUR grody basement.

I'm going for the woodsy, part mod, part grandma, hip-but-cozy feel. Does that read in my pic? I need to insert some sort of brighter color, and I don't know what. Thinking a paprika-type color but don't know where or how. Anyone out there with ideas and/or skills in the realm of interior design, PLEASE HELP...I MEAN, SHARE! :) I would be forever indebted.

Here are the items I need: a (sleek) sofa sleeper, floor and table lamps (at least 2-3 of each), TV stand, shelves for adult and kid area, possible sofa table, 1-2 possible rugs (we're going to have berber down), and lotsa accessories!

Are you still awake??? Sorry to bend your ear about something so YAWNY. You know when you get obsessed about something, and it's all you can think about? It's pretty sad when that thing is...your basement.

Our estimate's coming Thursday...to be continued...

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! I have been catching up on my blog reading. If you haven't heard from me in awhile, I'm still there, just no stinkin' time to comment. I'm there in spirit! In fact, I have just Facebook friended a few of you girls cuz I miss ya! MWAHHHH.

Merry Merry Merry!

Have a wonderful Christmas (and Happy Hanukkah too!) :) Creepy Santa and Exorcist Angel say, "Merry Christmas" as well!

This is My Winter Song to You

I should be wrapping more prezzies, but I can't stop watching this. So lovely. It's making me a little choked up! It's called Winter Song by Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson, and my hip mother warmed me to it. She says the whole CD is great.

Hope you are staying warm where you are, friends. xo

Last Minute Gift

Just in case you need one, I just picked these up the other day (ahem, for myself). Aren't they adorable???? The tiny pink polka-dotted envelopes kill me.

I love Etsy, but it's hard to do last-minute online unless you want to pay for rush shipping. These were either $4.99 or $5.99 (a steal) at...........guess where..........TARGET. Too cute!!!!

IS IT HERE YET???

UGH. I'm getting sick of Christmas crafting. I can't wait until Wednesday when I can just relax. In the past two days I have:

1. Made Christmas strawberries for my cousin and two daycare ladies.

2. Made two Peapod Viv ornaments from a drawing that Q made of her sis. I love it! She said, "Look, it's Viv, and she's in a peapod". I threw one out. I was so irritated with it. Even the one I'm keeping looks pretty Frankenstitch-ish, but oh well. I have two more to make for the grandparents.

3. Made reindeer food with Q (oatmeal with glitter) for her daycare buds. We stuck them in snack size baggies with a chocolate Santa into a mini felt stocking for each kid.

4. Colored stockings and glued cotton balls to the top with Q.

5. Made 3 of Danielle's Woodland Stuffie Ornaments. Yeahhhh, they were all so bad that I threw them out. After I took this picture (the stitching was horrendous but was well hidden here), I tried to iron them down again and burnt the muslin. I was/am so pissed. I'm starting over though.

6. Made Hello Dollies and sugar cookies for our neighbors (only 2 of them-- should have done one more, but I ran out of cookies because I burnt 1/2 a batch of the latter). There's a reason why the word "haphazard" is on my blog banner. It's true. Hello Dollies are the easiest and best bar cookie ever!

Hello Dolllies

2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/2 cup butter, melted

1 cup chocolate, peanut butter, or butterscotch chips (I like 1/2 cup ea. of choc and butterscotch!)

1 cup flaked coconut

1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

Spray 9"x9" pan with cooking spray. Mix crumbs and butter together and press into bottom of pan. Layer the coconut, chips, and nuts over crumbs and pour condensed milk over all. Bake at 325 degrees for 25ish minutes. Cool before cutting into squares. I like to put them in Xmas cupcake liners for giving! :)

7. Bleached/dyed bottle brush trees to make Quinn a waterless snow globe (thanks, Sarah!!!). I added a little vintage repro deer in the mix. He looks so cozy! I bought 10 of these in a pack from the DOLLAR STORE a few years back, and I cannot for the life of me find them again. I love them so!

8. Made a package topper for Danneel on Etsy. My first graphic design gig! I'm getting the hang of this Photoshop a little. I did have to scam on Heather's mailing label tutorial, and I use it as a reference all the time. I don't understand why things are not more simple on Photoshop. It should NOT be that hard to add a dotted border around some text. Maybe it's just me.

9. Made another set of squirrelly notecards for my friend/neighbor. I love her because she's really sweet, she always thinks of the girls and gets them the nicest toys, and she works in child development, so she always talks about how advanced my kids are. I don't really believe her, but it's awesome she says it anyway! Ha.

10. And last, but not least, wrapped gifts and printed up a bunch of The Black Apple's super cute gift tags to go on them. I had fun wrapping/tagging whilst watching Love, Actually.

Twerd Update: Are you all Team Taylor or Team Michael??? I'm curious to see how this pans out. I sort of feel bad for Taylor Lautner, but damn, Michael Copon is a hottie. Also, have you seen? Robert cut his hair!!!!

Alright. I think I'm done for tonight. Time to go Irish up some hot cocoa. xo

Vintage Xmas Finds

Sorry so late. Here are the items I found on my latest excursion to my hometown:

First the super cool yule log (works great!) with its original box:

Creepy angel topper. We bought a white tree from KMart for Quinn's room, and it was on top. Q yelled down to Ryan after he put her to bed that her bed was shaking. Ryan freaked out (picturing The Exorcist) and thought it was attributed to the angel. The next day Q told me she was faking Daddy out (of course).

Kitschy cool tree. My grandma used to have a multi-colored one of these. Are you supposed to put a light underneath? I tried it, but it didn't light up too well.

Retro plastic Santa for $5!

And my Goodwill Santas! I also got a super cool tiny paint-by-number winter scene painted on black velvet!!!!! I gave it to my friend, Dave, as a belated bday gift (his bday is the same as Ryan's). Wish I would have taken a pic of it.

That's all for now. Hope you all who are in Michigan are doing ok-- Death Storm 2008!!! :)

I have some WIP pics I hope to share with you in the next day or so. I downloaded Danielle's Kitschy Woodlands ornament/stuffie kit. Kinda cool!

It's Christmastime in the City

The Girl Land household is finally getting into the holiday spirit. We went to my parent's house for a very short visit, but the girls did get to see the Big Guy in the Red Coat. Q said it wasn't really him because he didn't say HO HO HO. Hmmmm.

I also got to do a little tiny bit of antiquing/thrifting, and Ryan was a good sport and went with whilst my parents watched the girls. He's a good one to go with. He finds a lot of good junk. I will have to post pics of all my super kitschy cool finds tomorrow, but for now, here was my favorite scene from the excursion. Don't you want to just crawl inside one of those tiny glitter houses!?

And here's another shelf that I love as of late-- Barbara of Oodles and Oodles! I love the jadite and red action here.

This morning, we got to see my friend and her daughter. I got a crafty urge at about 11:00 pm on Friday night, and I whipped these squirrelly notecards up.

Dig my new woodgrain stamp (Michael's)!!! I love it so much! Kinda reminded me of one of Kat's cool projects.

More pics soon, but in the meantime, dig this uber gaudy house in Royal Oak. I'm sure you locals know exactly where it is. Q thinks it's Santa's house. I'd hate to be their neighbors. Plus, they leave most of the lights up all year round. Ryan says it looks like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre house during the year-- with unlit creepy Santa faces hanging on trees and such. Yeesh.

You Asked...

I apologize that my blogging has been sporadic for the past few weeks. At first, I was just taking a little break after DUCF, but NOW my workplace has blocked Blogger (not to mention Facebook, Myspace & Flickr). We were previously told we had ½ hour of personal time online which I sometimes used to at least start my posts, but now they claim these sites pose security risks and result in loss of bandwidth. Whatever. I could go on, but I won’t in case Big Brother has tapped into my blog and are spying. And if so, you have WAY too much free time on your hands…beat it.

On to business: Jenny asked (thanks for your comment and for asking!) what I thought of the Twilight movie. I guess I never did really follow up. I know you've all been holding your breath.

I had planned all along to take the afternoon off and see it alone on opening day. In the meantime, I ended up loaning my books out to 3 friends and two more had read it on their own, so six of us went. I saw it again a week later with another friend who didn’t want to see it alone. I actually liked it a little better the second time. Here are my thoughts on the movie (SPOILER ALERT…DON’T READ BELOW IF YOU DON’T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE MOVIE):

+I loved seeing all the characters come to life! Talent-wise, I thought everyone was cast beautifully. Physical appearance-wise, the only two people who didn’t live up to my expectations were Rosalie (Nikki Reed)—she is gorgeous, but I was picturing someone delicate and almost ethereal-looking—and James (Cam Gigandet)—he was too skinny and pretty, plus his voice was not at all scary which I pictured in the book.

+My fave actors were Rachel LeFevre (Victoria) and Kellan Lutz (Emmett). I also really liked Taylor Lautner (Jacob) who was way cuter in the movie than in real life (I think it was the long hair) and Billy Burke (Charlie) made Movie Charlie more appealing than Book Charlie.

-I know Jasper (Jackson Rathbone) was supposed to be tormented, but he just looked awkward. Plus, unless you read the books, you don’t know he’s tormented. You don’t know WHAT his prob is. Just that there may not be enough fiber in his diet.

+Loved the music and the placement of the music. My fave was Robert Pattinson’s Let Me Sign during Bella’s "venom-induced haze" at the end and Radiohead’s 15 Steps at the closing with Victoria letting her evil red hair down (insert maniacal laugh here).

-Where was my meadow scene????!!!! The physical contact??? Just the small gestures like her tracing his hand with her finger in the Italian restaurant and in the meadow and him touching her face at school? GONE! In the book, the meadow scene is a turning point in their relationship and signifies the exchange of trust and tenderness. In the book, he was just pissed as he revealed his sparkling-ness. He was yelling at her, for Gawd’s sake.

+ I lu-huved the baseball scene so much in the movie. In the book, I hated it. Book Baseball Scene was dorky, and it cut into my Bella-Edward time. Loved the Movie Baseball Scene’s slow-mo running and baseball bat whacking.

+/- Robert Pattinson: while I find him super dreamy, I thought his bug-eyed angry faces were silly. Also, in the book, he was very confident about everything (well, except for his ability to resist killing Bella)—she’d get mad, he’d laugh at her. He “dazzled” the women in the school office, in the restaurant, his female classmates and it was amusing to him. Movie Edward seemed self-conscious which I think is endearing, just not so true to Book Edward.

-I wasn’t scared of any of the vampires (except Victoria a little). Even in the book, I was always a little freaked out by the Cullens in general. They weren’t the least bit scary in the movie.

-The RUSHING! I know there were budget constraints, and they were trying to lump a 500+ page book into 2 hours, so why the invented time wasters? I didn’t care to see the Nomads killing the townspeople or the diner scenes. Also, I know people liked the scene where they were fixing dinner for Bella and the graduation cap thing, but I didn’t care for it. I would have much rather had watched the relationship building between the two.

+ The lush aesthetics of the Pacific Northwest were captured nicely.

+And last but not least, the kiss scene…sigh. “Don’t move”…double sigh.

What do you all think? Agree? Disagree? Also, it’s been confirmed that Director Catherine Hardwicke will NOT be directing New Moon. While I think her passion was great, I’m okay with her departure because I didn’t totally love Twilight as a movie, and I’m hoping a new director will not make the same mistakes. Also, it sounds as if she was not on board with their time table, and I do think that Summit needs to strike while the iron is hot and do the back-to-back thing like Peter Jackson did in Lord of the Rings. They did LOTR on a tight timeline, and I think it turned out great! Nobody wants to wait 3 years to see each film.

Sorry, Jenny. Betcha wished you hadn’t asked!

Happy B-Day to the Ol' Ball & Chain

You shoulda totally taken your birthday off of work! But I suppose a night watching Ghost Hunters with a big slice o' Lakeshore Berry Pie will suffice, eh? You're easy. You're the best dad ever and a pretty good hub too. xoxoxo

Cuckoo for this Treasury!

Yay, I'm featured in this treasury. Too cute too. I'm fixated on cuckoo clocks. I want to get this one for Quinn's room, but I can't justify the cost.

Late DUCF Wrap Up

Has it really already been almost three weeks since DUCF? And about three weeks since my last substantive post??? Dang-o. I’m sorry, really.

This year’s Detroit Urban Craft Fair was GREAT. Like really really great and so fun. I have my crafty buddies that I only see at these events: Amanda (Dang Argyle), Amie (Enamor), Jason (Kill Taupe), and Sherri (Sparklepants Industries) just to name a few. I do get to see Amy (Make Out Goods) on a regular basis though, so that’s nice.

I only made two purchases. I bought this nifty print from Misanthrope Specialty Co. that will someday eventually make its way onto my craft room wall.

The second was a totally cute wall plaque from Sherri. I think it’s going up in our dining room.

How was everyone’s Turkey Day? Here was ours, in a nutshell:

+Grand Traverse Pie Co. crumb top apple pie

+Lots of Chateau Grand Traverse semi-dry Riesling

+Us “outlaws” (me and my bros-in-law) playing euchre, drinking heavily, and getting rowdy

-Someone in Ryan’s family telling Q that Santa isn’t a real person (luckily it went right over her head) because they thought it would be funny. I am still pissed. But, of course, I’m not allowed to make a big deal about it.

-The baby getting up at 5am every morning.

+The mother in law getting up with the baby at 5am (hey, she insisted! Can you tell I feel guilty? I totally do.)

+A trip to Hobby Lobby on Black Friday

-Realizing they stopped carrying the uber cool Moda and Daisy D’s scrapbook paper I always stock up on from Hobby Lobby (phooey)

That’s about it. More verrrrrrrry soon.

Go the Whole Wide World Just to Eat Cake

I almost forgot to post a pic of the infamous cake! What a hoot.

Bake It Pretty

I am on an unofficial posting hiatus as of late. I still need to get with the program and write up a DUCF wrap-up (sorry), but in the meantime, isn't Amanda's new shop simply adorable??? You can enter a contest for a Bake It Pretty gift certificate too. Above is a beautiful pic from Amanda's blog.

Trailers

Thought I'd share with you the trailer of the movie that was partially filmed at my workplace. Warning: the trailer is pretty PG-13:



I am actually wondering if it will be released in the theater. It kind of smells like a straight-to-DVD, doesn't it? I hope not because I do love all three guys. Just as funny as the trailer itself was a comment left by exreader over at videogum.com. S/he writes:

A long, long time ago I was a script reader and had the misfortune to cover this one. It was awful in a strangely compelling sort of way. It was clearly written by someone who had never actually worked in any sort of office and who's only experience with offices was watching 9 to 5 reruns on TBS. If your sensibilities are shocked by a woman becoming an executive (“whaaaa?!”) or a man having to get coffee, this will be the movie for you. At one point the men team up with the other female secretaries to pull pranks against their chauvinist bosses after they threaten to get rid of the women's restrooms. Because that is what people would do. Not file a lawsuit, not report them to the labor board. No, sh*t on their cars. That works just fine. I'm almost giving this movie too much credit, implying that it is so out of date that they might be parodying the office movies of old, maybe a satirical Mad Men. I assure you, there is only one level to this movie, and it is guys shitting on cars. But who knows, maybe David Cross can add something that script lacked. Like he did with Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Heh. I still want to see it because I think things like "saggy funbags" and Michael Vartan screaming like a woman are funny. Be on the lookout for Drew Barrymore's new one called Whip It about roller derby girls!!!!! It was filmed in Ann Arbor.

Ooh, and I wanna see Let the Right One In-- to go along with my vampire fascination, of course. It's gotten great reviews! And it's Swedish, so you can't go wrong (?)! Alas, it is not playing near us.

Raqua REALLY Rawks!

EEEEEEKKKK! I received my package today from Miss Holly. Oh. My. Gawd. Take a gander (sorry for the blurry pics and the horrible lighting).

My Twilight handmade cards:

Q loved her way cute smock!

and also liked playing her "drum", a super cute tin of raspberry green tea:

A bib for Viv:

A handmade card (how adorable is this?):

And many more pics on my Flickr page!

I know I promised a DUCF sneak peek-- I'm a little bummed at how cluttered it all looks. I'm kind of getting tired of my table layout. I need to get a little innovative but don't know how. Ryan walked in and said, "Yeesh!" I think the glitter caught him off guard.

I Had to Post This...

I'm stealing this from Cristin. I feel very compelled to re-post. Especially after learning that my church, the Catholic Church, spent $5.5 million dollars as proponents of Proposition 8. That's money I contribute on a weekly basis going towards something I am opposed to with every fiber of my being. If you are going to take the time to watch this all the way through and actually LISTEN to what he's saying, feel free to comment. Otherwise, move on. Yeah, it's like that.



Tomorrow, back to our regularly scheduled programming with a DUCF sneak peek.

So This is Three??????

UGH! We had a pretty nice (but exhausting) evening. Q chose to go to McDonald's-- gross. And then the junk food continued, but goodness if it didn't look pretty...

The cupcake got a little warm and goopy in my car. I realized half way home that my seat warmers were on. I really love Kroger frosting. The Wreckless Eric cake will be eaten Sunday when family comes over.

Anywho, Q got a rad Yo Gabba Gabba microphone, lots of books, and an mp3 boom box with big ol' kid size buttons. After which, she was a total sh*t. No thank yous (she's always great about saying thank you, but apparently not to her parents), whined about everything, and was basically getting belligerent towards bedtime.

My friend told me once that they're the "Terrible 2's" but there's no term for the 3's because they're THAT bad. Sigh. Well, Q obviously got the memo on that one in advance.

On a craftier note, I made little gifties for Q's daycare buddies for her party today-- these personalized animal rummy totes with matching bookplates, some rainbow goldfish, pencils, and Skittles. I had fun with it. I hope everyone liked them! The tag read, "I turn 3 today! Thanks for being my friend. Love, Quinn."