MUSIQUE / NON STOP

1. BONNIE GUITAR- DARK MOON
2. MESSER CHUPS - LIPSTICK TWANG
3. ANGELO BADALAMENTI - THE PINK ROOM
4. THE CHASMS - ADVANCE PARANOIA, ADVANCE
5. YOUNG PRISMS - FLOATING IN BLUE
6. COCTEAU TWINS - CHERRY COLOURED FUNK (OTHERNESS EP)
7. KRAFTWERK - BOING BOOM TSCHAK
8. ART OF NOISE - BEAT BOX (DIVERSION ONE)
9. EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN - YU-GUNG (ADRIAN SHERWOOD MIX)
10. NINE INCH NAILS - SELF DESTRUCTION, FINAL
11. KRAFTWERK - MUSIQUE NON-STOP
12. GRIMES - BE A BODY (侘寂)
13. DEATH IN JUNE - RAIN OF DESPAIR
14. BEYONCE - END OF TIME (POISONOUS RELATIONSHIP REMIX)
15. SOFT CELL - FUN CITY
16. KRAFTWERK - SEX OBJEKT
17. CURVE - LILLIES DYING
18. MOBY - GO
19. THE-DRUM - NIGHT DRIVING
20. BURIAL - LONER
21. THE CURE - LAST DANCE
    
22. ROBIN GUTHRIE & HAROLD BUDD - ONE TRUE LOVE
23. GROUPER - HEAVY WATER/I'D RATHER BE SLEEPING
24. ULVER - NOT SAVED
    

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Make a Leprechaun sparkle hat from a recycled K-cup

Since Christmas the top craft tutorial that everyone is asking me for is anything made with a recycled K-cup, and as always I aim to please. All it takes is an empty K-cup to make this cute little leprechaun hat to decorate your table or other small area.  They are easy enough to make a bunch and you can even use them as party favors filled with small candies.

You will need:

K-cup washed and filter removed

Green glitter

Shamrock foam sticker

Tacky glue

Small paintbrush

Heavy cardboard or mat board (I have scraps of mat board lying around and that is what I used)

Scrap of gold ribbon or cord

Compass with pencil

1.    Draw a circle 1 ½” circle with the compass on the cardboard and cut out. 

2.     Place the K-cup top side down and trace around in the center of the cut out circle.  Cut this circle out inside the line so it will be a bit smaller than the diameter of the K-cup.

3.     Place the ring around the cup and push down to the bottom edge to form a brim.

4.     Spread some tacky glue on the entire K-cup and cover with the green glitter.  Let dry.  Cover the brim with glue and sprinkle glitter on it as well.  Let dry.  Turn over and repeat the glue and glitter on the inside of the brim.  Let dry.

5.     Cut a 6-inch piece of gold cord or ribbon and glue around the hat. (see photo)

6.     When the ribbon has dried, attach a Shamrock foam sticker over the seam where the ribbon meets.  Glue a small jewel or miniature coin in the center of the shamrock.

theshabbycreekcottage.com

The Little Big Things

Every journey is a new experience, no matter how often, no matter how short they tend to be. It’s not the journey that matters, not as much as the people we get to meet and life we get to experience. Every dawn and every dusk brings along with it a hoard of experiences that are just waiting to be discovered. This is the story of just one of the many interesting people I got to meet in my numerous journeys that made me realise that life is not something sacred; it is what happens right in front of our eyes, everyday. Don’t for one second think that I am an adept traveller, the sad truth is that I started travelling out of necessity and though I prefer the familiar comforts of my writing desk it has given me a chance to experience life as it is, raw and unadulterated.

It must be in one of those dreary Friday evenings that keep coming up every week, offering a strange intoxicating mix of anticipation, relief and happiness that this happened. I was supposedly going home after a week’s hectic schedule and it was literally killing me that I had to wait further for it to happen. I have had a practise of going with a couple of really goods friends; we have been travelling home together since we were travelling home at all. But today they had to pack and they were late, late enough to let me fend on my own. The necessities of the travel insisted that I find a suitable mode of transportation, an autorikshaw ( for those of you unfamiliar with the word, it is a three wheeled public transport vehicle in black and yellow or either, refer any Bollywood flick to know more . It’s easy to spot and hard to forget, for us it’s just a way of life like taxi is to New Yorkers.) is what I had in mind. It was not hard to find one, certainly not on a Friday.

Okay! That matters too!

Soon I landed a certain driver who was more than just willing to take us to the railway station that we needed to get, but since my friends were still packing I had to wait for them to come. Poor chap readily agreed to wait along with me; I must say he was a jolly good fellow to spend time with. Now just for the record I had to wait a good 45 minutes for my friends to come and hence being late for all the right trains. But then again that gave me this rather valuable lesson in life.

The little ones knows much more about little things than us!

The long wait let us on the streets with nothing much top do but talk, though a practical lover of silence I would always like some company at times. He insisted on talking as he would occasionally blurt out some random question or the other (like does every one speak English in the campus) and so and so. I did take a liking to him. Things didn’t get any interesting till a friend of his dropped by and they got talking. The truth is I never intended to eavesdrop on those guys as I was happily trotting away in my own imaginary world. The startling reminiscence of innocence in their routine chat drew my attention to them and their conversations. He was talking about his luck and I was instantly interested in knowing what lady luck has bestowed upon him, the truth was it was me, rather us. I realised then how much it meant for them to have the weekly trips that we made, our travels were more essential to them than it were ever to them.

In their casual conversation lied an unmistakable scent of innocence that is otherwise unseen and unheard of today. He was talking about how lucky he was to have gotten customers that day and how he and friends were celebrating in their free time yesterday and so and so. Its not what they talked that made it important, its how is said it, how with a smile and a attitude to match he made it seem that the very basic things in life were something else entirely. Its how his words and the sentences they formed transcended what would have been just a ordinary life into a story worth talking about, a life worthy of mention. In the simplest sense he taught me how life is in every little thing we do. And what I learnt sitting under the bright evening sun on a concrete sidewall by a rather crowded piece of asphalt.

Monday Musings

Blog News

Hi, everyone,

I'm going to try posting on Mondays and Fridays -- Monday Musings and Friday Night Writes -- for a couple of weeks and see how that goes. So, welcome to the debut of Monday Musings.

OWH Sketch #110

I used remnants of my favorite patriotic paper for this week's Any Hero card. The layout is pretty true to this week's sketch, although I changed the rectangle dimensions to better fit the digi stamp. And, I rotated the sketch to fit with my pre-written Any Hero message.

This card came pretty quickly and seemed to turn out pretty well.

A New Twist on an Old Favorite

The stamp for the following OWH Mother's Day card was a Hampton Arts find in the Michael's $ bin. And, I've had the animal print paper since I don't know when. Nevertheless, this paper seemed to go perfectly with the shoe.

Heat embossed with clear powder over Ranger Distress Ink!
Stamp: Hampton Arts; Sentiment: Computer-Generated

What I love about the card is the image is embossed with clear powder over a Ranger Distress Ink. Did you know that you could do that? Well, I heard it was possible and got it to work! (When heating the image, it looks wet and bubbled up when it's done.)

A Card for a Friend

The following card is going to a friend in our workplace book club. She loaned me a fabulous book, The Book Thief, so many months ago -- and I finally got around to reading it. This card seemed perfect to thank her for letting me explore little Liesel's world.

One of my first ever cards -- waiting for the right moment.
Paper: Kaiser Secret Bird Society

News from the Homestead

Sound the alarm, call Brian Williams, and take an ad out in the paper... or send a tweat, text a friend, and publish a blog post.

Either way, the big news is that hubby and I entered the 21st century and purchased our first digital camera this weekend. Who knows what doors that will open?!

Think that's it for the first Monday Musings.  Thanks for stopping by and happy scrappin'!

My Logo for College Fest

This a snap of the logo I designed for my college fest!, Its not much but I wanted you all to see. Comment away !.

OWH Midweek Challenge

Hi, everyone,

This week's challenge is a perfect fit with the current chaos on my card-making table. We are asked to work on half Mother's Day/half general sentiment box of cards for the mid-March campaign to get cards to our shippers in advance of the Mother's Day deadline -- which is exactly what I've been doing since the VCMP!  :)

Both Mother's Day cards for the first half of the challenge were made from My Mind's Eye Stella Rose collection. I have to say this first card was inspired by a Christmas card hanging on a file cabinet in my craft room -- and I'm so happy with the way it turned out. :)

For the other half of the challenge, I have been adding to my VCMP cards. The Thinking of You card was made from Kaiser's Secret Bird Society and the more feminine entry was embellished with Michael $ stickers from Studio112 and Hero Arts gems.

Off to make more cards. Happy scrappin'!

Easy Kids's craft, Spring Flowery Napkin rings (an inexpensive recycled craft)

You will need:

One cardboard tube from the inside of a paper towel

Scissors

Tacky Glue (Tacky glue has a thick consistency and does not bleed through the felt

Green felt

Pencil

Ruler

Foam flower shapes available at Craft stores

Clothespins are handy for holding the napkin rings till the glue dries.

Measure and cut four pieces off the cardboard tube to 1 ½” lengths.  Trim the rings evenly around.

Measure a piece of felt 1 ½” x 6”.  Cut four.

It is a good idea to put two fingers inside the ring to hold it while you are gluing.  Spread a generous amount of glue all over the outside of the ring. Attach the felt piece working around to cover. Overlap and glue the ends.  Let dry.  Trim the felt to the edges of the cardboard.  Ring base is made.

To decorate the rings glue pre-cut shapes over the seam line to cover. Layer the smaller flowers on top of the larger ones varying the colors. Add circles for the center. Be creative.   Use clothespins to hold the shapes on until completely dry.

Enjoy your napkin rings. They are great family craft for a rainy day.

Note:   Make sure to use Tacky glue.  Other glues will bleed through the felt.  When cutting the tubes it is perfectly okay if it flattens slightly.  Just puff it up again with your fingers.

OWH Midweek Color Challenge

This week OWH posed a color challenge to make a card using green, blue, kraft/tan.

So yesterday, when I was making tone-on-tone cards from pastel cardstock for Mother's Day, I decided to make the same card using a blue and green printed paper.

Paper: KaiserCraft's Konstrukt collection
Punch: Martha Stewart punch-around-the-page butterfly
Embossed Border: Hero Arts Large Fabric Design stamp
Embossed Sentiment: 2000 Stampin' Up!
Butterfly Accents: gold gel pen and gold stickles

Technically, this card is green, blue, and gold. I hope all will forgive me as this was the closest I could come in the Mother's Day assembly line going on in my craft room yesterday. :)

A couple of points worth noting:

• Tone-on tone and masking ideas came from the recent CAS Online Card Class
• I lightly pressed a rectangular strip of paper into the embossing pad -- embossing the paper before punching out the butterfly.
• And, interestingly enough, I purchased this paper to make OWH Father's Day cards.

I never would have thought to heat emboss on printed paper before this challenge. It's an interesting result. And, I must say, the embossing and stickling really lose something in the JPG.

Well, off to finish up Mother's Day cards from yesterday.
Happy scrappin' to all!

OWH Sketch #109

Can't think of a better way to spend the observed President's Day holiday than supporting our troops through OWH!  :)

OWH Sketch 109 is a great look. I was drawn to its simplicity and immediately knew the 3 main papers I wanted to use. And, I quickly decided to forego a cut-out star and go with a heat-embossed, framed star image.

After that, however, I felt like Goldilocks struggling to find just the right amount of detail and embellishment for the card shown below.

Paper: K&Company's Americana mat pad, BasicGrey kraft
Embossed Image: Stampin' Up!

• The kraft needed a little pop off the navy. So, I decided to go with a little white -- but I had to be careful not to use too much white and take away from the framed star.
• The framed star needed a little background to pop off the kraft and red -- but my first two choices of paper were too busy.
• The brads added nice texture and shine -- but the card still needed a little something more.
• I thought about red or navy corners for the top left and right corners of the kraft rectangle -- but, since the corners took away from the embossed star and red strip, the corners were too much.
• Hand-drawn stitching popped into my head. This looked nice -- but was still not quite enough. The kraft still seemed to be the dominating focus when I wanted it to be the star and red strip.
• Rubbing brown pastels intermittently on the kraft helped add more dimension -- but the kraft was still too dominant.
• Finally -- the card looks just right after adding the stamped sentiment!!!  The tone-on-tone sentiment nicely enhanced the kraft without detracting from the embossed star and red strip. And, since this is an Any Hero card, "Thanks!" was exactly what the card needed. [When hubby said he really liked this one, I knew I had landed on the right combination of details and embellishments. :)]

This was one of those times when there was a whole lot more involved in designing the card than will meet the eye. Isn't it interesting how some cards come together so quickly and others... well, not so quickly?

Happy scrappin'!

Lets play Tag

Damn! I am it! thanks to the darling Divya who have tagged me. Since there is no way I can ignore her I will have to accept the award, which means I have to follow certain rules too. (Rules are always bad!).

like...

The Rules:

      Rule#1: Put the rules on your blog.

      Rule#2: Every person tagged should tell 11 things about themselves,

                     Answer the 11 questions asked by the one that tagged you and

                     Tag 11 other people and ask them 11 different questions.

      Rule#3: Let the people whom you tagged know you've done so.
      Rule#4: Don't tag anyone who's been tagged before.
      Rule#5: Really do tag 11 others, don't go all ''if you want to take this tag''.

My eleven

I am just gonna copy the things I already said, is much easier to tell 4 random new things that eleven new random things.

      *  I am milk lover ( loves it much much more than tea or coffee).

      *  I got into blogging thinking of making money( I haven't made a penny :P Lol).

      *  I like to sleep all the time.

      *  I am a adept programmer ( really guys I can code) .

      *  I likes to walk around the house naked ( only when nobody's around , feels natural).

      *  I cook! really I do

      *  I am addicted to chocolates and cant live without my daily sugar.

      *  I am really into crying for a big boy!

      *  I am terrified of cockroaches.

      *  I love to tease others for everything they do.

      *  I am no good with socks, never those things appear to be of the same color to others.

      *  I recently bought a Woodland show with 2in sole so that i look taller than my girlfriend. This works!.

My Answers to Divya.

Thanks Divya for reducing the number to seven, thanks a lot. You have saved me lot of trouble.

      *  Life's most beautiful moment

                                The time I spend with my college sweet heart and future Mrs on the corridors of our college with drizzling rain and  wet faces. That's the one for the records, I will blog about it soon.          

             

      *  Your definition of god?

                              Sorry! I am agnostic.

      *  Whats the best thing you admire about the nature.

                              Nature's simplicity and its profound beauty simply takes my breath away every time without fail, be it the moon lit beaches or the star studded sky or the coolness of the drizzle. Nature is beautiful beyond recognition.

      *  My biggest weakness and what i do about it.

                                 I am a jerk most of the time, and I cant do anything about it.

      *  What keeps me moving in Life

                                 Love, love and love.

      *  One thing I could like to do in my life and forget about it.

                                Kiss a random chick on the street and run! ( I don't want to do it, but thinking about it makes me want to do it).

      *  What will I do in the next 50 years?

                              I don't know, live it, marry, have kids, have a small family, let them marry and have grandchildren, play with them and die happily in the arms of my love.

     

You are It

Ha Ha the best part! My turn to tag.

      *  Ana trek

      *  Deep

      *  Uma

      *  Isha Shiri

      *  Gowri Thampi

      *  D

And my questions for you are.

      *  What keeps you alive.

      *  What one thing have you done that you wish you never did,.

      *  What is love to you.

      *  What is your one fantasy that you know you will never realize.

      *  When did you first taste a lovers kiss.

      *  Whats your favorite movie.

      *  Whom do you love the most in the world

Lucky Shamrock magnet, a recycled craft

I have amassed a large quantity of advertising magnets.  Pizza places, credit card companies and various others constantly send out little sheet magnets with their names and numbers.  Seriously how many magnets to a local pizza joint do you need on your fridge?  So I figured if they are going to keep sending them I am going to put them to a more “seasonal use.”  This is a great kids craft!

You will need:

A shamrock sticker or clip art printed off the computer

Black felt

Sheet advertising magnet (or if you don’t have any you can purchase sheet magnets at the craft store)

Tacky glue

Gold glitter dimensional fabric paint

Pen, scissors

1.     Spread some tacky glue on the back of the sticker.  This is to insure that it stays stuck.  Attach to the black felt.  If using clip-art, cut out and spread some glue onto the back.  Attach to the piece of black felt.  Let dry. 

2.     Cut around the motif leaving a quarter inch of black felt showing.  Place the prepared shamrock on the advertising magnet and trace around with a pen.  Cut out the shamrock shaped magnet.  Spread some glue on the back of the felt shamrock and attach to the magnet. Let dry.  Trim up any overhanging edges.

3.     Draw a line with Gold dimensional fabric paint all around the shamrock shape.  It can be a thin line or a thick one as desired.  Make sure you test the fabric paint on scrap paper first so that it comes out in an even line.  Let dry.  Stop throwing those advertising magnets away and make as many shamrocks as you want and deck out your fridge for St. Patty’s Day.  While you are at it why not try some Easter designs as well?