What's new at The Loft - Episode 11

Farewell Vancouver 2010

On the whole the games were great to watch, and our athletes did great.  I wasn't dazzled by the opening ceremonies like I was for the Beijing games, but the human interest stories NBC presented really highlighted not only what a beautiful city Vancouver is, but Canada itself.  I grew up on the boarder of Canada, and I felt a new found appreciation for the country and it's people.  To my regret I decided to not watch the closing ceremonies, instead I watched the gorgeous Rupert Penry-Jones in "The 39 Steps" on my local PBS station.  I didn't regret watching the movie as it was really good, but I should have set my DVR for that and watched the closing ceremonies, since it had Michael Bublé AND and he was dressed like a Mountie. You can't get any better than that!  If you were a fan of Due South you'll know what I mean.  I was glad I was able to catch a video of his performance the next night though. Click here to watch the closing ceremony video.  All this just added to my excitement of going to see Michael in concert on March 13th, which was a wonderful birthday gift from my hubby.

Sadly now though the Olympics are over, which means there won't be any curling to watch for a while except for some odd match being played on one of the sports networks in the wee hours of the morning.  (Side note: check out this video of Michael Bublé being taught how to curl ).   I'm sure if the US team had done better things might be different, perhaps instead of graveyard shift curling it may have been bumped up a notch to a shot on a Sunday afternoon on a one of the lesser watched sports channels.  But sadly the US team men's and women's team didn't just do badly, they were down right awful.  Beyond the US teams disasterous performance, some great curling was played.  The Canadian mens team was awesome, and played with great skill and precision.  What a treat to watch!  And who could forget the funky pants of the Norwegion mens team.  Love it!  Hopefully the overall higher profile of the sport during the 2010 games will bring more fans on board.  I can only hope as 4 years is entirely too long to wait.


ATC 3.6.5. Challenge Update

Still going strong with my ATC per day.  2 months down and only 10 more to go.  LOL!

My card from 2/26 is called "The Queen".  This was such a fun card to create.  First I started by cutting a background from a scrap of Websters Pages vellum.  I then detail cut the curtains and the child from a children's book called Tea for Ruby.  The book was written by Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York.  I don't normally approve of cutting up perfectly good books (old falling apart ones are ok), but the illustrations in this one were wonderful and the book was free ( it came in a box of Cheerios).  I decorated the curtains with some Neo II watercolor crayons, adding only a little water in some spots making the color deeper in other areas.  Once dried I glued it down on top of the background.  I then close cut the little girl and adhered her on top of the curtains with some pop up dots.  I then cut the title out of a page of the book and also adhered with some pop up dots.  C.R. 5.0

My card from 2/27 is called "Music in my Heart" and was made starting with a playing card as a base.  I next sanded the card to distress it and give it a little more tooth to hold the glue.  Next I took a piece of striped paper for a KC and Company paper pack I had and cut a strip and inked the edges in Tsukineko Versa Magic chalk ink in gingerbread, then I added some Distress ink in Walnut ove the top of the chalk ink for a little more pop.  The strip was then glued onto the card so the stripes were displayed diagonally.  Next I ripped a strip from some red polka dotted paper and inked the edges with Distress ink in fired brick.  I glued this strip down in a vertical line along the right edge of the card.  Next I detail cut the lady from my Tweety Jill collage pack and glued her on top.  I then topped it all off by stamping the musical notes on top in black ink.  C.R. 3.5

My card from 2/28 was called "Beware of Pirates" and is the product of a Tweety Jill, make and take at Scraporium, a local scrapbook store, for the annual Scrapbook Treasure Hunt here in our area.  Jill was on hand herself to conduct the make and take, so I took my youngest daughter along for some creative fun.  We started with a playing card that was covered in Tweety Jill collage paper with a  tall ship on it.  I then took a small tag and inked the edges with some brown chalk ink and brushed a light blue ink in in the center of the tag.  These tags were great because they already came in a aged tea stained color.  Next I stamped a small sea horse in an orange color ink and a star fish in a brick red ink onto the tag.  I then stamped some words in black at the bottom of the tag, and the round stamp at the top in black ink. I topped off the tag with a gold ships wheel.  The tag was then adhered to the card with pop up dots.  The skull and cross bones where then detail cut and glued down on the other side, and I added a red sequin to the eye.  C.R. 5.0.

After the make and take Cassidy had her picture with Captain Jack who was hanging out at the store during the Treasure hunt.

Birthday Party

We had a birthday party for our youngest daughter Cassidy over the weekend.  It was her 7th.  We invited a small group of friends to Build-A-Bear for a beary good time. I can't believe I just typed that.    Here's some photos of the fun.

The Birthday Girl

Party Time

Lining up for the autograph bear

Daddy Dearest

Big Sister Ashlyn

Cassidy with her new friend, Hello Kitty

Update on Daughter #1's redecoration project

With the wallpaper now, we decided on a color and got the paint.  It's a dark raspberry.  Here's some pictures of what it looked like after the first coat. 

We learned some very important lessons with this part of our painting job.  

     First:  Frogtape's green painters tape is great for walls, not for wallpaper or moulding.  It will take the paint off the moulding, and sticks to the wallpaper too much, and actually ripped it in some places.  Althouhg it probably would have helped if I had read the "How To's" on their website first. 

    Second:  Pad type edgers are useless on paintable wallpaper.  Since there is no tooth to the wallpaper all it did was smear paint instead of actually painting anything. 

   Third:   We learned that it was better to put a coat on and let it dry, and then go back over to get the spots you may have missed.  Again because there is no tooth to the wallpaper you can't touch up spots you've missed while the paint is wet,it just smears.  Once we let the first coat dry we then put the second coat on, but I'll post pictures of that next time.

I've also just finished my photomanipulation class and will share my final photo's with you next time.  As always your comments are welcome so please feel free to drop me a line and let me know what you think.  Thanks for stopping by and come back soon!