Jen Caputo

Oh my gosh you won't believe it?!?!?

I really just wanted to grab your attention... this may not be all that exciting :P

So my big news is that I actually have a new sketch collection done! *gasp*

I actually had one done and was about to upload it the day before my laptop was stolen so I had to completely start from scratch. It sucked...  but the new set is done now!

Should be up in the next few days BUT in the mean time, guess what else I did?  I created a mailing list!  And you should sign up? 

Why?

Because newsletter subscribers will always be the first to know about new products, they will ALWAYS get a discount coupon to purchase that new product for cheaper, and my freebies will go to them over a month before they show up on my blog, plus lots of other things I haven't thought of yet.

So you should go right here and sign up:

http://jencaputo.com/lists/

Believe me, at the rate I put out products.. I won't be spamming you :P  And I promise a freebie sketch in the next week just for my subscribers!

Here's a peek of Collection #26, due out by the weekend!

Yay Birthday!!!

Well, today is my 28th birthday :)  But it's no fun to celebrate on a Sunday so we had the big hot-tub party last night!

Here's the backyard as a few folks started showing up.  Adam was smoking some ribs in that black Weber bullet. Can you see the pretty new concrete and hot tub?

Then later, Adam brought out my birthday cake!

Lots of Sangria, lots of hot-tubbin, loads of fun :)

So yesterday morning when we were working in the backyard, I found this guy:

He was so big and curious, climbing all over everything. I entertained myself taking pictures of him for the better part of an hour.

Then I took a grabbed a few of some of my flowers growing in the backyard.

 

I'm off to spend the rest of the day being lazy on the couch!

Catching up... backwards

Finally got lightroom installed again but I'm ages behind on dealing with my pictures.  I got through one set but they are the most recent so that's what you get to see!

This past weekend was the greatest beer festival of the summer - The Great Taste of the Midwest in Madison, WI.  We attended for our 5th year with all these fun people!

12 of us drove up there together (previous years we only had parties of 4 or less!). All 12 say they will definitely be back next year, it's just way too fun!

And guess what?  I ran into a digi girl there!!!

This is Donna (aka dangergirl).  We've been to several of the same beer fests but never manage to run into each other! It was so fun to finally meet her and her hubby! Hope you made it home safe and sound Donna!

Hey.. guess what this is?  (sorry for the crappy picture, I only took one before jumping in)

it's pretty though right?  ;)

Yeah... it's also leaking.... if it's not one thing it's another... the fixer guys are coming in the morning.  Fingers crossed it's a nice and easy fix and will be ready for my birthday party this weekend!

Taking a deep breath

whew... ok I'm calmed down a bit now.  I apologize for my emotion fueled last post, it was not a good night.

So the glass guy came and fixed my window today and swept out all the glass and it looks perfect and brand new and the price was incredibly reasonable.  I really expected it be much more than my deductible ($250) especially since he came to the house to do it but it was actually more than $100 cheaper so I didn't even need to file it through my car insurance!  That was certainly a pleasant surprise.

In other good news, my home insurance company called me today and told me I was totally covered after my $1000 deductible.  I just finished working up my full itemized list (I had no idea what a Benefit junky I was) but they already mailed me out a check to cover my laptop because I still had the receipt for it and could get that right to her (I only bought it a year ago). Soooo.. I ordered my new laptop tonight.  I got quite a few upgrades for the same price so look, there is something good to come out of it... oh wait, it cost me $1000 in deductibles :P

Here's the specs on my new baby:

• Dell Precision M4300, Intel   Core 2 Duo T9300, 2.50GHz     800MHz, 6M L2 Cache, Dual Core
• 15.4 inch Wide Screen WSXGA+  TrueLife LCD, Dell Precision  M4300
• 4.0GB, DDR2-667 SDRAM, 2 DIMM Dell Precision M4300
• NVIDIA QUADRO FX 360M 512MB   Turbo Cache Memory (256       dedicated), Dell Precision    M4300
• 250GB Free Fall Sensor Hard   Drive 9.5MM, 7200RPM, Dell    Mobile Precision MX300
• 8X DVD+/-RW, Data Only, Dell  Precision M4300
• Intel 4965 WLAN (802.11a/g/n) mini Card, Dell Precision M430Factory Install

...and some other boring stuff.  And did you know that if you buy a Small Business laptop, you can still get it with XP installed but with a Vista license so that you can upgrade to Vista whenever you're ready but you aren't stuck with it if you want XP.  That was very exciting to hear.

She sounds lovely though doesn't she? I even managed to convince the guy to give me an extra $150 off because of my patheticness as of late.

And the concrete gets poured tomorrow morning!  So.. all in all, a much better day than Saturday was :)

I'll stop moping now... for a few days anyway...  Unless the insurance company takes issue with my near complete collection of Benefit cosmetics... that would suck.

At a loss....

I don't even know what to say... my head is pounding... I am so upset right now.

What is it they say about when it rains?

Tonight I had my car window broken, the jerk took my suitcase that I packed to bring downtown for the weekend.  Along with clothes, underwear, makeup (not the cheap stuff), and my video mp3 player, was.... my laptop.

My laptop is gone.

I've been crying over the ramifications of this for the past 2 hours... I can't even begin to think about what sort of personal information is on there, how many passwords are stored, how many personal emails are gone, how many photos I've lost (I last backed up about a month and a half ago I think...)...

and ya know, if it was just losing stuff (like the sketch collection I had just finished but not uploaded yet), I would be ok... but knowing that someone has access to basically my whole life just has me over the top upset. I feel so extremely violated.

Yes I should have had the laptop password protected, you have no idea how much I'm hitting myself over the head about that right now so please nobody lecture me about that... I feel awful enough as it is.

I am the type of person that always always always tries to see the positive side of things and not sweat the small things... heck, when my basement flooded I didn't shed a tear, instead I said "Well, this will be a great time to strip that wallpaper and now we know how to prevent it in the future"...

but I'm sorry, I can't think of a single good thing right now. In fact, the more I think about it the more upset I get and the more I cry because it just seems to get worse and worse by the second. I can honestly say I don't think I've ever been this upset about something before because as bad as things have been, i've always seen a positive side. 

So my car insurance (Geico) says that they don't cover it.. they cover the broken window but they only cover things stolen from the vehicle that are attached to the vehicle (like a stereo).  They suggested my home owner's insurance would though so I called them and filed a claim but they can't tell me anything until the adjuster calls on Monday.  Not even a hint as to whether or not anything is covered... they will start a claim 24/7 but the people that deal with the policies only work during the week... and yes I called the Chicago police and filed a report but they said they have no hope of me getting anything back.

and I can't even have a pity me sale because i just had one last week... see... not a single good thing to think of.

I love it when CHA's in town!!!

So unfortunately, I'm not going to CHA this year.  I had to work yesterday and this weekend we have tickets to the Pitchfork Music Festival so I just couldn't make it any of the days.

But, that doesn't mean i didn't get to mean up with some of my favorite Digi girls last night!

Can you guess that a man took this picture? No woman would ever take a picture of a group of girls that wasn't waist up only :P

From left to right:

Brandi Barnes, Tracie Radtke, Deann McDaniel, Jennifer Woodbury, Heather Melzer, Me, Raven Edwards, and Kris Noorman. And that's Jenn's baby Claire in front!

It was so nice to see everyone again and to meet Jenn and Kris for the first time!  I love that CHA brings so many awesome people to town.  I'm so bummed to learn that CHA Summer won't be in Chicago next year though, it's moving to Orlando :( 

I need to get ready to sit out in the rain at the festival all day :) Talk to you later!

EeekkkK!!!

 

Look what's gonna be concrete soon!!! Woohooo!!!  No more nasty lava rock and that much closer to a place to put the hot tub!  Yay!!!!! :)

Wanna see the basement?

We've been putting in about 4-5 hours of work every night on fixing up the basement and trying to strip the hideous wall paper, I thought I'd show you a few pictures of the progress so far.

DAY 1

So obviously you can see we have the carpet ripped out because of the flood.  We also have the contents of the laundry room in the "family room" area as I was cleaning it out and am trying not to put anything back until I can organize it better. The wood trim is lying all around as we had to pull it off so the wood could dry underneath it.

Look at all the fun glue still on the floor from pulling up the carpet.

Here you can see one of the giant blue dehumidifiers that have more than dried out the basement.  The thing mounted on the right wall is the articulating mount for the TV. That's the wall our giant Expedit entertainment center shown in the next picture usually lives in.

Here you can see another one of the dehumidifiers and the expedit.

And the bedroom in the basement, nothing got too wet in here so we had to dump everything from the other rooms in here. The big silver thing is yet another dehumidifier.

After I took these picture we stripped wallpaper for a few hours, got it about 1/3 of the way done.

DAY 2

Wallpaper is starting to come down, we have stripped off all of the paper at this point but all the backing paper and adhesive is still there.

See all the gashes in the wall - awesome...

Adam working on getting some adhesive down.

Day 3

Today we finally finished getting all of the wallpaper, backing paper, and adhesive down!  Not only that, but one of our co-workers came over and hung some drywall for us (we had to knock out a little bit) and helped us patch up all the gashes we put in the wall - well not all of them, we have about 25% more to go.

I can't believe how smooth the walls are now - if I would have shown you a close up of the gashes  you wouldn't believe we'd ever get them out.

So yeah... we're making serious progress.  Of course now there is about a 1" layer of dust covering everything.... so after we clean up a bit all we'll have left to do it prime, paint a few coats, and re-carpet... piece of cake :P

Update on my woes

First off, wow!!!! Thank you guys so much for your comments, emails, and support in this oh so pathetic time of my home-ownership life. I really appreciate it.  Don't forget - you have two more days to take advantage of my sad little sale:

Coupon code jc-takepity expires on 7/15/08 at 11:59PM EST.

Goof for 40% off your entire order.

Shop here.

So to answer some questions. Yes I have homeowners insurance but no they don't cover this.  Apparently sewage backup is an extra thing and I didn't have it on my plan.  I do now though!!!

After being gone for the weekend, we were pleasantly surprised to come home this morning to find that the basement was pretty much odor free and totally dry!  Whew!   Of course it is in complete disarray - wait till I show you the pictures.....

We decided that while we had all the carpet ripped out and the furniture in the middle of the room that it was a perfect time to strip off the wallpaper and finally paint it.  After working for about 5-6 hours today we have the wallpaper roughly 1/3 down.  Fun stuff!!!!!!

At this rate we should be done taking down wallpaper, patching the walls, priming, painting, and re-carpeting by next May.

I'm beginning to despise anyone who has ever had the thought "We should hang some wallpaper!!!!!"

In hot tub news - the city called and my permit is ready!!! That means we can start pouring concrete this week!  And I don't think I ever told you which one we chose either - after wet testing a few, my mind was made up after 2 minutes in this one.

It's the Sundance Chelsee. It has the most amazing jets (check out the foot dome!) We ordered it with the Oyster colored shell and the Mahogany Skirt.

I can't begin to explain how badly I need to be sitting in this puppy right now....

Take pity on me.... please.....

(there is a big coupon involved so keep reading!!)

So after winding down a BBQ at about 2am last night, we were awoken at 5am by some friends who spent the night telling us that there was water in our basement...

I tried to brush it off and say it'll be fine but he came back up a few minutes later asking if there was water he should turn off somewhere.

Ugh... so I made Adam get up and followed a few minutes later, only to find out that our  friend grossly underestimated the issue.  At the bottom of the stairs sat about an inch of water. Our finished basement was completely soaked and it looked like the water was coming out of the drain in the laundry room.

I'll spare you our troubleshooting and skip right to the diagnosis.  Sewage backup!!!  We got tree roots in our sewage line that blocked up and prevented water from draining to the main line. We had a plumber come and rod and scope the line which fixed the issue, looks like we'll have to do it every year or two but at least now we know the signs and where to check to see how we're doing. 

So then the cleanup crew comes (we obviously don't want to get mold). After all is said and done, the estimate they give me to do the job is over $8000!!!!!  I almost had a heart attack. We told them there was no way we could pay that and begged for other options.

They wound up sucking up all the water and totally removing and disposing of all of the carpet, padding, and trim. They then set up 3 giant dehumidifier/fans that drain straight into the tub.  They are leaving them here for 7 days. It was about an hour of work and cost a mere $2400!

Yup... it's been a great day.  I must say, it could have been soooooo much worse.  Since we didn't go to bed until 2am and Quinn woke us up at 5, the longest the water could have been sitting there was 3 hours. And had our friends not been there at all we probably wouldn't have found the water until late tonight or even tomorrow!  So I thank my lucky stars we decided to have a party yesterday..... Also, it doesn't appear that any of our belongings were damaged

Anyway, this was definitely a huge expense that we did not need as just yesterday we signed the papers to order the hot tub, pour the concrete, and do 3K in electrical work...so I need to raise some funds....

...quickly...

...and that mean's I need to have a big sale...

... and you need to tell everyone you know...

...and buy a lot...

...you can even use it more than once...

...please....

Coupon code jc-takepity expires on 7/15/08 at 11:59PM EST.

Goof for 40% off your entire order.

I need your help!

Thanks :)

Been giving the studio a workout

So I may not be around too much, but I am at least playing in the craft room whenever I can!

Here's a few projects I did this past weekend while Adam was in Michigan.

First up is a hybrid page created with goodies from the June It Kit  (and some Studio Calico flowers)

Why is it hybrid? Well, a few reasons. I started off with a template of mine from this collection (The middle one, top row)

I did the black and white conversion in Lightroom, then used photoshop to size and arrange my photos before printing them out.  I also used the journaling strips in the template to write and size my journaling before also printing that out.  The scalloped border around the picture, I drew and cut out by hand (fun stuff!)

The worst part was the stitching.. I really don't know how to use my sewing machine worth a darn, I had to rethread about 6 times just to get around the circle twice!  Man digital stitching is so much more fun! 

The rest are cards.  For this first one, I combined It Kit Studio and Studio Calico goodies again! The woodgrain stamp is from the June Studio Calico kit, all the other stamps (tree, leafs, circle) are from this month's It Kit Studio kit! McGill Mega scallop circle punch and $1 scallop scissors from Michael's finishes it off.

I pulled this textured paper out a few weeks ago, wanting to do something with them and I finally did.  I stamped the main image (Penny Black) by coloring the stamp with watercolor crayons and then spritzing it with water before stamping.  The greeting is by Papertrey.  Can you tell I love that scallop punch?

Lastly, some cards totally inspired by (ok copied from...) Jennifer McGuire. She even did a video to show how she did it which you can find right here.

The stamps here are from Autumn Leaves by Rhonna.

Well, that's all I got.  Time to go fold laundry! Have a wonderful 4th everyone!

Hollie's at SBG this month!

Ohhh, did you guys hear about this?  Hollie Haradon of Holliewood Studios is our first ever guest designer at Scrapbook Graphics!

Hollie brings with her this very special collection, My Happy Place, just for SBG customers!  Isn't it sooooo beautiful?!?

My Happy Place is 20% off now through 11:59 p.m. Eastern on July 3rd.  That’s just $4.40 for this very complete and gorgeous kit!

Join us this Friday for our Studio Start challenge, too…we’ll be challenging everyone to scrap with My Happy Place or any of their Holliewood Studios stash!

Yes I'm alive

Sorry I've been so sporadically posting, I've been really really busy though. We are trying to get a bunch of work done in the backyard to prepare for the Hot Tub install and so I've been meeting with contractors and stuff like crazy...

Anyway, before we get into the Hot Tub stuff, care to see some of the cards I've made?

I've fallen in love with the stamps from PaperTrey.  So here's a few I made with some of their sets. (I also used a backgrounder from Cornish Heritage Farms).

And a more tropical one, not sure who makes these stamps.  I colored the images with Adirondack Markers.

 

Now, for the hot tubs... we are actually going to wet test a few in just a couple of minutes.  I want one so bad but even if we sign papers tonight, we probably won't have it in place for another month or more! We have to get concrete and electrical work done first.. .boring... :P

So as for the tubs I'm looking at, I'm thinking of the Jacuzzi J-365 if I really want to blow my budget

The J-280 if I kind of want to stay on budget

 

And am also considering some Hot Springs models but we won't get to wet test these until the weekend.

This one is really flashy - the Limelight Pulse

the Hot Spot La Palma

and a few more.... but I got to go get wet and test these puppies out so I'll talk to you later.  Anybody have any of these guys?  Opinions? Suggestions?

Happy Father's Day and more Montreal pics

Hey Dad! I bet you are wondering where your father's day card is?  Well it goes like this, I made you this card digitally (as well as one for both Grandpa's)

Made with Vera Lim's My Daddy, My Hero

My plan was to print them out and add some real embellishments with cardstock and buttons and stuff.

So I went to print them out and my printer absolutely refused to print them... after spending about an hour trying to get them to print I realized it was because I was out of black ink.  But it was 10pm and there was nothing I could really do about it at the time so the next day after work I went to Target to pick up ink and of course... they didn't have it!  Arg. So I had to go home and order it online but the earliest it would get here is Tuesday so I had to run back out to the store to buy Father's Day cards.  Wrote them out, addressed them, and figured I'd drop them off in the mailbox on my way to work on Friday morning but when I get to the mailbox I realized I had no stamps!  (Ok I'm lying.. I did have a 5cent stamp, 2 2 cent stamps, and a 1 cent stamp... but that doesn't add up to the current postage rate.)  ARG.  So... your card will be late :(  Sorry Dad, Love you.....

OK, how about more Montreal pics?

Monkeys at the Biodome

 

Ok this turtle was hilarious.. he must've spent 5 whole minutes trying to get up this rock and out of the water (slipping back in several times)

and when he finally got up there... this duck was not to happy to have a visitor

but eventually they were able to chill in harmony.

Who doesn't love Penguins?

Does that head look real?

Olympic Park (where they had the Olympics about 30 years ago)

Next we went to the Botanical Gardens where I found these lovely weeds!

 

 

Down in Old Town

If you guessed Paris....

you would be wrong :)

I was in Montreal - Jen got it right first.  Jen I emailed you the other day to try to give you your prize but you didn't respond.  So how bout you email me?  jen  at   jencaputo  with the dot com.  :)  Everyone else - click on Jen's name. I found a really cute freebie on her site!

Ok so yes, Adam found some really cheap tickets to Montreal so we booked 'em and off we went.... it just so happened that there was a giant beer festival there that weekend...

and do you know what is soooo awesome about Montreal?

You can get delicious cheese plates like this, just about anywhere!! (We got this one at the beer festival!)

 

Oh yumm...   We looooooove cheeses :)

So yes, as Jen pointed out, the photo I posted the other day was taken at the Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal.  Which is such a gorgeous place to visit.  So since I took about a billion pictures in Montreal, I thought I would finish this post by sharing more of the pictures I took at the Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal.  More Montreal pics to come in future posts :)

 

 

 

From the back of the church with a wide angle lens.

 

 

The chapel.

This is Stop #1, Next Stop is Stop #2

Just got back from a mini-vacation.  Here's a picture I took there.

Any guesses as to where I was?

First person to guess correctly gets to pick out one product from my store!

You're going to have to lie....

Damn!!! How 'bout Lost tonight, eh?

Now we have to wait till January?  Insanity....

What a beautiful weekend...

So yeah, it's almost Thursday but I can still talk about last weekend right? The weather reports kept telling us it was going to be a horrible day which was very unfortunate as we had a big Memorial Day BBQ planned.... but somehow, the rain and even the clouds managed to stay away enough for us to have a beautiful gathering!

A few pics to show our setup and rain anticipation (no the brown tarp wasn't actually for decoration... heheh)

 

Jim and Lyzz brought their daughter Lilly who I haven't seen in about 8 months or so - how adorable is this kid?

I've actually gotten quite a few pages done lately but I can't share them because they will all be in the June issue of Digital Artist Magazine! I'm a guest designer there for a few months :) Pretty cool huh?

World's Slowest Cardmaker

2 evenings and all this mess

and all I have to show for it is one card...

sigh.....

well in case you were interested, here's how I made the card.

Supplies

• Background - Toybox
• Small flowers and leaves - Stampin' Up
• Red and yellow cardstock - Club Scrap
• White Glossy Paper
• Red Satin Ribbon
• Yellow Sheer Ribbon
• Red & Yellow Buttons
• Embroidery Floss (to stitch through buttons)
• Scallop Scissors
• Happy Birthday rub-on - Making Memories
• Distress Reinkers in Peeled Paint, Weathered Wood, and Mustard Seed
• Distress Pads in Peeled Paint, Mustard Seed, and Fired Brick
• Versamark pad
• Clear Embossing Powder
• Ranger Craft Sheet
• Scallop Scissors

Instructions

1. Clear emboss background image on white glossy paper
2. Spread distress reinkers on the craft sheet, spritz with water, swirl the embossed glossy paper in the inks until it's covered.
3. Let ink set for a minute or two and then dab off excess ink that will be pooled on the melted embossing powder. Trim to 4"x5.25"
4. Stamp flowers and leaves on white glossy paper and cut them out (preferably when you are watching TV, otherwise this part is boring)
5. Trim a piece of yellow textured cardstock to 4"x1.75" and use the scalloped scissors on one edge.
6. Assemble the rest of the card as shown.

Hybrid Layout & Tutorial

I'd been itching to do more hybrid pages and since I had the day to myself today, I finally got to play!

I started out with this sketch I created for the SBG Impressions of Motherhood collab.

I picked my pictures and clipped them in the template just like if I was doing a digi layout.

Then I dragged all of my clipped and sized photos into a new black document and printed that out.

Now I also wanted to have some swirlies and since I have a fancy Wishblade machine, I decided to convert some of Holly McCaig's brushes to a GSD file to use on my layout

I put it all together with some goodies from the April It Kit Studio kit.

Which includes papers designed by digi gals Holly McCaig (for Pink Paislee) and Corina Nielsen (for Prima)

And came up with this: