Window Shopping...

One of my favorite "unwinding" pastimes is looking at catalogs. I confess--I am on mailing lists for companies whose things I love...but would probably never buy--either pretty but too expensive for my budget or it just wouldn't "fit" into our decor/lifestyle even though I like it. I am picking up the mail for a friend for the next few months. I thought I was a catalog-aholic-but she is the Catalog Queen! Lol! She gets A LOT!!! And again, while I enjoy looking at them and like a lot of the things in them, for the reasons listed above, I am merely daydreaming. That said, I decided...hey, I don't have to BUY THEM to enjoy them...I enjoy just LOOKING at them. So I've decided that I am going to make a scrapbook of sorts of the things I see and like. Take this wrap for instance. I love to pretty robin's egg blue color---and the brown buttons. I love that it just sets around the shoulders...but I won't pay $ 80 for it. Maybe someday Mary Cobb will test her patience and teach me to make it! HINT HINT!

I like the luggage tags that say "MINE"--but $ 25 for ONE TAG?! That's insane to me. I can buy at least 10 blank plastic covers at WM and decorate them in my own colors and font! Or the "IF AND OR BUT" signs--I can't remember what they cost--but again, we can make this for far less!

Now, the butterfly table and chairs...well, if there were a granddaughter in the picture---that might have to be a "BUY ME"! Can't you just see little girls in frilly party dresses, fairy crowns with a cute little garden tea set? Oh my!
Anyway, I foresee getting one the the binder ring chipboard albums and creating a collage scrapbook of these things--something I can add too as time goes on. I am also scouring them for things that I can use to embellish other things with. Take the medallion for instance--its on a pretty cream colored paper and folded out of the center of a catty perfectly! Can hardly see the staple holes with the intense design! Won't that look pretty on a page with a black and white photo! My other brilliant idea for the day is...being as we live in a hurricane zone, it probably would be wise and worthwhile to take some pictures of my "favorite things" around the house...like my egg and chicken plate set...the Sellers Hoosier and so on. That would make another neat book!

And, speaking of pictures...if you've not checked out Shutterfly...give them a look-see. I got an e-mail to get 75 prints free! Cheaper than Wal-Mart would've been and given I keep forgetting to take the flash drive to print the Christmas pics. For $ 4 shipping...I got prints of Christmas and a wide variety of prints for Maren's scrapbook that I keep meaning to do! Shutterfly is a great company to work with--their site is set up so you can layout your own hard-bound books, etc. Theresa gave me one of our wedding photos and I love it. Ok ladies-housework beacons. Hope this at least gave you some ideas to dream about while you dust and scrub...I know I will be (dusting, scrubbing and dreaming, that is!)

Until next time, happy stamping and scrapping. Blessings, Sharon