Oh MY!!

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, I have been so crazy busy with trying to paint, organize the house stuff and get ready for my class in Topsfield, MA this weekend. I still need to get some fabric to print the vintage images on for the ATC class in the afternoon, but for the most part I am good....made my butterfly templates, need to get some photo copies made this afternoon for the handouts - and NEED to write the details for the ATC class....but we're good. It's all good. So for today - hello and good bye....I'll post some pictures of something when I find the picture later....

It was a Weiner Weekend in Mass.

We had a great time {as usual} in Massachusetts with my cousin and her family. We always have a great time - whether we go there or she comes here. She's a TON of fun....and she has lovely daughters - and two weiner dogs that I just love to take pictures of! Speaking of the weiners, Spencer and Fenway Frank - here are two of the best that I took over the weekend of Spencer with J. and Fenway Frank wearing the bow on his head with L'ster. {we were there for J's baby shower.....} Spencer is soon to be famous as he'll be up on the AC Moore headers to demonstrate the Jolee's By You product line for EK Success.

The other adorable picture is my little Valentine {aka My Little V} ....it was very funny to wake up in the morning at their house to his giggles - and the weiners licking his face. He was totally in heaven.... It was most especially funny when he shouted out "the weiners are standing on my weiner......" aaaaah, the pleasures of having a boy in the house!!

On the house front, my big Valentine {aka The Big V} and my Dad got the hardwood floors installed in the kitchen, living and dining rooms....and they are lovely. Just lovely. Can't wait to see how the it looks when the entire first floor of the house is done.....they only have my Studio and the entry way hall left to do. The Big V is hoping to finish today.....press your thumbs together for that.....LOL, I just had to do it Nat!

Anyhoo, have a great day everyone...

Classes with the NEW Basic Gray

Some new eye candy to share! I'll be teaching this "Laugh Daily" Calendar at Scrapbooks & Beyond on April 20th. Details below....

Is it a Calendar or is it Art? Join Catherine Scanlon to make this wonderful 12 month calendar (Starting with April, 2007) to adorn in your home with. We'll use the new Basic Grey papers, Flocked letter and flower stickers from EK Success and learn how to dye our custom canvas ribbon with an ink pad. April 20th, 2007- Cost: $25.00

I'll be teaching this beautiful ring-bound album at Absolutely Everything in Topsfield, MA on March 31st. The morning session we'll make the album and the afternoon session we'll make some scrapbook pages and Artist Trading Cards.

Sewing on Paper and chipboard!! Catherine Scanlon is here once again to teach you to use your sewing machine on paper and chipboard. Each student needs to bring her machine in from home. You will create a 2-ring binder with page protectors that can hold either 8x8 scrapbook pages, or we will sew dividers into them for ATC cards.. This is the morning class.Sat., Mar. 31 10-1 pm cost TBA

The afternoon class will allow you to decorate 2 8x8 pages or create 4 Artist Trading Cards, again using your sewing techniques. There will be both hand-sewing and machine-sewing involved in this project.Sat., Mar. 31, 1-4(There is a chance that Catherine will tweak the details of this class. watch the weekly E-mails.)

BTW: Sewing on Paper was #77 under top 100 Craft books this afternoon at Amazon. Right now it's #38......but it could be back to 110 in 10 minutes....weird how that works.

Can you see the Mountain Man Resemblence?

See what I mean, give me a beard and a funky leather jacket and I could look just like this....ha ha ha. This beautiful painting from Al Feldstein says it all!

Houston, We have Color!!

Ok, so Arizona - here we come. The kitchen is completely painted, in a color that looks just like Bazzill Arizona color. Love it. It's a very lovely comfortable kitchen color. And, it looks great with the countertops - which kinda look like granite with pinky salmony flecks. Can't wait to cook in it {well, the first night anyway :-) } I also thought my husband did a very NICE job taking that photo of me with his new camera. Since his other camera took such a beating {and, yup you guesssed it - it's mine now.....) he picked up a new one on sale at Staples last weekend. It takes nice pictures, and the lighting is nice. I do like it. I think that's the BEST picture of me he's ever taken. I'm thinking that I look somewhat like a wild-mountain woman with all that gray crazy freaky hair. I think a haircut is in the near future for me - and a short one at that. I think this is the longest my hair has been in - oh - at least 9 years!

The other is a self portrait. I like his picture better!

This green room is the masterbath and what you are looking at is the place where the 2 vessel sinks will go. Oh, how I long for my own house.

A quick update - I sent off my 450 scrapbook pages to Danielle at EK Success. I am very happy to be done with this project - I have been so bombarded with stuff, things I thought would be spread out and come one right after the other came ALL at once. Tomorrow I will spend the day finishing up my class sample for the Absolutely Everything Class in Topsfield, MA on March 31. I am also teaching at Scrapbooks and Beyond in April and May. One a sewing class and the other a fun calendar canvas. I really like teaching people how to make stuff!

Well, gotta run. I am tired and fighting off a cold - and that beer I just finished is causing me not to type very well! Nighty night folks.

March ScrapMuse Kit

Made with the lovely A2Z papers and other fabulous stuff in the March ScrapMuse Kit. Amanda and Gretchen do a great job picking out the kit contents - and chocolate....gotta have the chocolate!! Be sure to check out the Gallery to see what the talented Design Team created with month, breathtaking!

Vicki Chrisman Rocks!

Have you have had one of those friends that just is so sweet and wonderful you wonder what you did to deserve all the nice things they do for you? Well, I have one of them.... her name is Vicki Chrisman and she's one of the most talented designers in the world - can make anything look absolutely beautiful - is sweet, kind and generous - she gives the greatest hugs - is supportive and fun - but she lives to DANG far away! So, this morning as I plunked my butt down to check my mail, I had an email from her with the subject line "Hey Cat" and inside was this very funny set of pictures from her - totally made my day - smiling like a Cheshire Cat. Thanks Vic, love ya!

In other news, I have done lots of painting this week! My Studio is painted Cake Stand Blue, and the living/dining area - is in Putty Pink. Joe and I finally agreed on a color for the kitchen - if you have a bazzill color wheel it's Arizona, under the red/orange part of the wheel. I really wanted Saltillo or Hoppi but had to settle with Arizona....ggggrrrrrrrrrrr - men. The paint that matched was from Ralph Lauren and is called Gertrude, ha ha ha. Gertie's Kitchen.... I am planning on painting the twilight sky on the ceiling in my little Valentine's room - and then we're going to put glow in the dark stars to resemble the constellations - we had been trying to find a globe light - but settled on a regular one. Ian said he'd be happy with a solar system mobile hanging from the ceiling....my bedroom will be a pale yellow with white beadboard wainscotting and the masterbath will be seedling green. Things are coming along nicely, the boiler was installed this week - so hopefully that will be in working order before the hardwood floors are to be delivered next week. I hope we'll be moving in around the middle of April - pray for us on that as I think we'll need it!! Anyway, between AC Moore and painting I've been doing nothing else for the last week or so.... I'll try to post more often next week! That's all folks. Thanks again Vic for making my day!

More Painting in my Future today!

Putty Pink in the living room/dining room area. Someone, please help me? I am tired of cutting in! Maybe a photo for later.

How Efficent are YOU?

You may be wondering if I fell off the face of the earth, but I can assure you I haven't! I really haven't. I am working on a very large job for EK - reproducing 3 8x8 scrapbook pages 150 times each. Yes. 150x3=450 pages....it's a pretty boring job. Most of the paper came from Prism trimmed to the size I specified, well most of it. There was a little snafu and I've got to trim one photo mat, but no biggie really. This box was crammed FULL of papers - nicely trimmed and packed in 50 piece packs.

So, basically I am just putting them all together....the picture above is what two colors of 150 pieces of 8 x 8 pages stacked on top of each other look like. It's a little overwhelming as I get started, but once I get in the groove it's ok. I just stand there and - geez - I don't even get to cut and paste - I just paste ;-)

I have learned to be an efficient worker since this is the second time around for this type of project for them. (If you ever go to AC Moore and see the Jolee's By You examples look for me, I made the three pages on that one sheet (of course, my other CAT Team members participated - so you'll also see their beautiful work too.) I devised this really cool tool to help me so that I don't have to line up my paper on the mark it needs to be cut at each and every time - and since I have to make that cut usually multiple times (and then some when I am cutting my journaling blocks from 8 1/2 x 11 paper) this works awesome for me! What I do is figure out where my cut is going to be and then tape a little paper "stop" at that spot on the grid of the paper trimmer. So, all I do is line my paper up with the paper stop and cut. In the first picture you can see the paper lined up and in the second picture you can see the paper stop as it's taped to the ruled area on the trimmer.

Have I ever mentioned how much I love my Dahle? Oh my, it's like paper trimmer heaven. My Big Valentine got this very one for my birthday in 2004, and since it's a self-sharpening blade - I've never replaced the cutting head. It's wonderful, though it is an investment of nearly 180. bucks - I've save that in the last 3 years in cutting blades. I love my Dahle. She's been good to me! I did cut some tin foil the other day in prep of this project - but that's about it.

I have also been working on painting my house. I finished my studio this afternoon - it's a Martha Steward Signature Color from Lowe's - Cake Stand Blue. I tried to find a picture of it online for you folks but that didn't happen. Right now I am to dang comfy sitting here to go down and snap a picture....you'll have to wait until tomorrow! So far I have chosen paint for a few rooms: Masterbath: Seedling Green, MasterBedroom: Pignoli. For Ian's room I am going to paint the ceiling midnight blue and gradually change the color as it gets closer to the ground so it looks like a a fresh night sky. Um, yeah that's my plan.

Anywho, my wrists are tired from all the painting, cutting and using my new Scotch ATG gun. (Did I mention that thing rox too?? ) Maybe I'll get you a picture tomorrow....

Questions and Answers..

I got this really nice email/Private Message from Christine (pugbug) at ScrapMuse that she was having some problems with her sewing machine and Sewing on Paper and thought I would share my tips with you all in case you are having some Sewing on Paper problems!

I do use a sewing machine - Quilting is another hobby of mine - So i know about them a little - But the sewing on Paper thing - Some of my stitches don't catch and just make holes.. I love the way sewing on paper looks - If i can get it figured out - I am sure to do it ALL the time! Thanks for your time Christine

If you are having the same problem she is, check these things on your machine:

• Have you tried adjusting the tension? If the tension is set too tight it will skip threads like that. I have noticed that when I switch to fabric (which HARDLY ever happens) I have to change the tension because it's to set too tight for the fabric....I really think this may be your problem, but if not - read on!
• What are you using for a stitch length? I usually have mine set between 2 and 3 - but closer to 3 depending on what I am doing. If the stitches are too close together (small) that might cause the hole problem. If the stitches are to close together they pierce the paper and make holes - and if you are stitching a shape it will pierce the entire shape out of the paper.
• Do you machine quilt? Are the feed dogs covered ? The paper needs the feed dogs to pull it through.
• What kind of machine are you using? I taught a class a couple of weeks ago where the ladies used the Janome SewMini and Sew something or other and they had a very hard time making the stitches look nice because the machines offer only basic stitches with no length or width adjustments.
• I know that this is probably a dumb question, but try putting in a new needle, like a size 14 for heavier fabrics like denim, make sure the needle is going in the right way - there's a flat side to the needle that needs to be in the correct position.
• I know that this is another dumb question, and please don't get offended, but did you know that there is a right way and a wrong way to put the bobbin in the bobbin case? (I didn't know that for a LONG time...not until I got my new machine and READ the instructions that came with it...)

Thanks Christine for the great question! Anyone else have any Sewing on Paper questions that need answers?

Who Made You WHO you are Today?

I often stop and think about the people that influenced who I turned out to be, do you? I think everyone that we encounter during our life molds us in some way - whether it be a bad way or a good way.... these people aren't family members - they are the ones we meet along the way....

For example, there's Mrs. Starr...she was my 3rd grade teacher (I think - maybe it was 2nd grade or maybe it was 4th grade....) I remember that she had long hair and it was braided often times and as I think of her now, she reminded me of an American Indian. Strong features...and I think she lived on a farm.... she was an artist, but wasn't my art teacher. I remember she drew a sketch of me and as she was drawing she told me my eyes were shaped like almonds. I always wanted to draw like her. She is part of the reason I am an artist today...

And then there was Mrs. Dancause. She was my Graphic Design professor/mentor in college. She believed in me as an artist, and as a designer. I often think I'd like to go back and look her up....I think someone told me she had a glass eye, I always think of that when I think of her. She was talented, and taught me so much about design.

And then there was Jack Knizeski. He was the boss at my PERFECT job, before he had Maine Scientific. The job most people never have. The dream job. The job I couldn't wait to get to work to everyday. The funny guy, the fun job. He understood my funniness. We had lotsa good times there! My career will always be compared to the 5 or 6 years that I worked there, and so far - none have lived up!

There was Fred Haer....I worked for him at FHC, Inc. he was a tough guy to work for, a really TOUGH guy - but as I think back on my years in his employ as the International Marketing Coordinator (or whatever it was I did for him) he saw excellance in me as well. I think he knew that I was talented, and pushed me to work harder...and longer...and to think THINK, really THINK about excellance. And he demanded excellance. I must have been excellant if I worked for him that long. He still uses some of the things I designed when I worked for him...

And then there's Rebecca Sower. As sweet and kind as she is talented. She chose the first scrapbook page I ever had published for Creating Keepsakes. I was her assistant at a CKU in Boston, MA in 2004. She is a Creative Alliance for EK Success ...so I have had several opportunities to chat with her during my stint as a CReative Artist Team Member for EK. Her words and art are an inspiration to many.... her first book was what made me WANT to share my art.

And then there is Joe Scanlon. My one true love. The one that believes in me MORE than I believe in myself. The one that makes me crazy with his freaky ways. :-) The one that says, you Catherine, gotta patent that for every crazy wacky idea that I have.... thanks dude. love ya.

There are so many more that I can't think of right at this very moment...that have touched and affected my life....thanks to you all! Have you thought about who touched your life lately?

March ScrapMuse Kit

This is the lovely kit that Amanda from ScrapMuse has ready to ship on March 15th. Lots of cool things. ScrapMuse has been my "home away from home" since 2004. I was invited to be their Newsletter Designer and haven't looked back. The message board hosts MANY kind and generous ladies, the store has lots of cool things in stock and the Gallery has lots of really cool and inspirational projects everyday. Sign up for the Newsletter that we send out two times a month so you don't miss the announcements, sales and sneak peaks of what the kit has to offer!

Creative Tornado Spillage ...

I have a theory about the creative universe, I'm not sure how accurate it is, but my theory explains things - at least so I understand them, ha. Before I start, I'll give you a little history on how I came up with the Creative Tornado Theory, {CTT for short} . Whenever my BIG Valentine and I play Scrabble {which is never these days} I can't think about the place I want to put my word because he always - and I mean ALWAYS takes my place and I have to spend another eon finding a home for my word. So, the only way I can preserve my spot on the board is to NOT think about it. Works everytime! by thinking about it, I am putting my spot out there - in my Scrabble Tornado {ha ha ha} and he sensed it. Knew it. He plucked my spot right out of the Tornado above my head.... and used it....ha ha ha. So, on to the CTT.... imagine all of us creative souls walking around with a tornado of ideas flying around in a massive tornado above their head. Every idea we have - is stored in the Tornado until it's finally retrieved to be used in a masterpiece - sometimes {at least for me} that idea is kinda in limbo for years - just floating around kinda happy like waiting and waiting to be put to good use. But, they are most always put to good use. But, what if all these Creative Tornados touch - up there in a sort of Creative Universe of Tornados, with a little spillage....it's possible, isn't it?? What if someone else has the same pretty much - exact idea - I mean, it's out there in the CU - and just kinda morphed it's way on over to someone else's CT. Possible?? I think it's highly possible. For example, there is a well known artist that I admire. She has been around since before I've been around. I have had several opportunities to talk with her, work with her - and see her stuff up close and personal. She's a very creative individual - also very kind and thoughtful. So, imagine on a Tuesday I am asked to do a make and take at my Local Shop. On Wednesday I come up with a sketch for the little project we are going to do and drop it by the shop to see if she's on board. She is. I procure the products necessary for the make and take and go on my merry way, thinking about my little project. Putting it in my Creative Tornado. Fast forward to Friday, where I am blog-hopping on my daily blog list and come to her wonderful and inspirational blog - and there is the same basic idea. We live thousands of miles apart. Are enfluenced by entirely different things. We don't talk on the phone. My local shop does not talk to her on the phone. How could this be? I did not know of her idea and she did not know of my idea. We had the same one. I directed my Local Shop to check out her idea and she agreed - it has to be Creative Tornado Spillage.... If it's not the Creative Tornado Spillage please, explain it to me. So, same artist, same blog. I am researching a pattern for this cute little thing I saw around blog world....for the last two or three weeks. Been in my head. Been wanting to do it. Been putting it in my CT. And, I check out her blog - and there - she's done what I've been thinking about. Again, if it's not the Creative Tornado Spillage please, someone - explain it to me.

Vessel Sinks and MORE!

I am a blog slacker, sorry for the 4 of you that regularly read...LOL. Joe and I finally had time to go to Lowe's together and pick out some things that needed pickin'. The vessel sink shown above is what we chose for the masterbathroom - twin sinks at that with a brushed nickel faucet like what's shown. Can't wait to actually WASH my face in my OWN bathroom. I'm getting anxious now. More like antsy. Or frustrated 'cause I need something that's in storage. Or just plain old tired of being an inconvenience where we are. Maybe all of it. I've picked out colors but still need to get paint, got the hardwood flooring and refrigerator - but they are waiting at the store for us to be ready for delivery.... patience is not my virtue. But, that's ok... 'cause I can learn....