Jen Caputo

Almost out of this paper...

I'm so sad, I'm almost out of this green graph paper.  I've been using it a lot because I love it to pieces! (literally.. ha ha)

So this was a happy accident card. I'd planned it all out but when I put it together it didn't fit the way I wanted (the owl and the sentiment would not both fit on the card). So, I had to cover up the word "thanks" on the sentiment and then I got to use my favorite American Crafts Thickers alphas in it's place!

Inspiration for the card design came from FTL 47!  I'd never played along with her sketches before but I loved this one so I had to give it a shot!

Supplies
Stamps: Little Forest Friends from My Cute Stamps
Paper: Cosmo Cricket, Club Scrap
Ink: Copics, Memento Black, PTI Ripe Avocado
Alpha: American Crafts
Punches: EK Success, Circle Nestabilities

More of My Garden

This morning I noticed that all three of my different color Lilies were blooming!  They are soooo gorgeous! I just love the colors together. I can't believe how many there are either. Last year I planted 2 of each color and this year there are at least 4 or more of each color. They propagated like crazy! These are all of the Asiatic variety.

I also think it's crazy the way they figured out how to vary their height. The orange ones in the back are super tall while the red ones in front are really short. The yellow ones are right in the middle.  Perfect!

More of my garden favorites.  My Jack in the Pulplit!  Last year he didn't grow a comb but this year he has this beautiful one!

And check out my Calamondin and Lemon Tree blooms - they've blossomed! And they smell delightful!

 

My hanging and window baskets are doing great too.

The creeping Jenny's are definitely creeping!

And mom - look how the impatiens filled in!

Reigning It In

I'm slowly getting the Living Room to feel like a Living Room instead of an empty space waiting for decoration.  My window treatments haven't arrived yet but my new entertainment center did and Adam put that together today which gave us 6 new cubbies to fill!  My next step in making the living room pretty was to reign in the clutter.

So, off I went to Homegoods. $60 and 45 minutes later, we are clutter free!

Before, the bottom shelf of our bakers rack. Great place to store my old Rebel, a stack of DVD-Rs  and an external hard drive right?

Ahhh.... all hidden! (These were just $14 a piece!)

Next, a big pile of magazines that was sitting on the floor that have come in the mail recently (We have WAY too many magazine subscriptions).  No Before picture, I'm sure you can imagine what it looked like.  But, my after picture

I bought two of these for two of the cubbies in our new entertainment center shelves.  One will hold magazines straight out of the mail that we haven't read yet. The other will store mags that we are keeping around for some reason after we read them.  This basket is olive green since it's kinda hard to tell in the picture.  They were only $12 each!

And finally, the bathroom clutter.  As I mentioned, we have a lot of magazine subscriptions.  And a lot of them that we start reading wind up here:

So annoying... Not anymore though.  I reigned it in (for $10)!

I love when a small investment can leave you feeling so extremely satisfied!

I ♥ Robots

I really do... except, of course, for Cylons (I just started season 3 so if for some reason I may end up liking them at some point, please don't tell me - I didn't read that wikipedia page, I just linked to it, I WILL remain spoiler free!!!) .... :)

Ok.. end Battlestar Galactica chatter.  Er wait... not yet... Have you guys seen this show?  It's so awesome. I'm definitely addicted. I'm watching an episode or two or three every night!

So I created this Robot/Battlestar inspired card, for Kristina's Color Inspiration #55.  This was her palette:

It was based on her boss's skirt. I NEED that skirt!

It was nice to finally have a chance to use this wrench charm too.  By the way, I dedicate this card to Chief :)  hehehe  I sure hope someone knows what I'm talking about...

Credits
Stamps: My Cute Stamps - Space Ships & Robots
Paper: Club Scrap (Rust - paisley patterned), PTI Rustic White, Smokey Shadow, Summer Sunrise
Ink: PTI Smokey Shadow, Summer Sunrise, Palette Cognac, White gel pen
Other: PTI Twine, Club Scrap Wrench Charm, EK Success Border Punch, Fiskars 1" Square Punch, Sewing Machine

Care to see us in action?

In our natural habitat... a beer event...

This was filmed the first weekend in May.  Which was also the Kentucky Derby...  And National Scrapbooking Day. How can they put so many fun things on one day?

Big Brew Day is basically a day where all beer brewing folks (or folk who like to drink other peoples beer brewing ... like us...) gather and brew beer together, share beer, and eat a lot of amazing food.

Look for us at the 1:40 mark.  Then keep watching to see the amazing Bacon Explosions!!

My Garden, In Bloom

This post is for my mom who wants to see how my gardening endeavors are doing this year.  This is the first time I've actually tried to grow anything edible besides herbs.  Above you can see some of my tomatoes that are blooming upside down! 

I planted some in the hanging pots and some in the ground and the ones in the hanging pots are doing much much better!  The ones in the ground didn't even start blooming yet.  The hanging ones are so exciting, it seems like everytime I go out and check on them (several times a day - ha!!) there are more blooms!

Here you can see one of the hanging plants (I'm using the Upsy Downsy - they were $6 at Walmart):

This one has marigolds and a jalapeno pepper planted on top.  The tomato plant is growing upwards toward the sun but I hear that once the tomatoes start forming the weight will pull it down straight.

My other hanging pot has cherry tomatoes planted on top along with some marigolds to discourage the bugs.  Here's those cherry tomatoes blooming up a storm (he was the first one to start blooming)

Next are my two citrus trees.  These guys come inside for the winter months but get to live outside in the summer.  I've had them for about 3 months and up until a week ago they've been pretty lame.  But this last week they just took off and are starting to bloom like crazy!

My favorite - the Calamondin Tree! Sooooo many blooms that will turn into my favorite citrus fruit ever!  (Absolutely unmatched in cocktails!)

 

And this is my Meyer Lemon tree, he was a few days behind the Calamondin in forming it's blooms but now they are much bigger.

Yeah... I'm sure those last two look about the same... I can't wait till they're ripe fruits... which will most likely be about 10 months from now.... sigh...

Happy Father's Day

Since I'm pretty sure this didn't make it to my dad on time... here's a peak at your card! Love you, Dad!

 

Supplies
Stamps: Father Knows Best by Papertrey Ink, Background Basics: Text Style by PTI
Paper: PTI Spring Moss, Craft, Rustic White, Dark Chocolate
Ink: PTI Ripe Avocado, Dark Chocolate
Other: Twine (Papertrey Ink), Buttons (Unknown)

Window Treatment Shopping!

Since we moved in, the one thing I've yet to do is put window treatments up.  I just had no inspiration on how to hang them so I've just kept the sheers/shades that the previous owners had up.  But thanks to this post from my new favorite blog, inspiration struck and I went shopping today!

Here's the two rooms I bought window treatments for:

Living room - both windows.  They are both pretty darn big.... (old picture, many changes in this room since this picture was taken, i'll update with the "after" pictures)

And in my bedroom, the window behind the bed which is currently sporting a boring/ugly roller shade.

JC Penny's is having a huge window treatment sale so this is what I bought:

2 of these in this color for the bedroom windows.  I also have some sheer ivory linen panels with green piping that came with the bedspread that I haven't hung yet so those will go on either side of the window (hung high and wide as This Young House recommends)

Also got some wider versions of these in this color for the living room:

For either side of the windows (again, hung high and wide) I picked up these sheers in a beautiful Chocolate

with the matching rods in the longest size available.

 

Altogether, my grand total before sales and coupons was $710.45.

I had two coupons available to me, a $10 off $10 purchase and a 15% off coupon.  So I placed two separate orders.

Doing 2 transactions, my subtotal after coupons & sale prices was 315.93!!!! A total savings of $394.52

But, I went through Ebates which offers 4% cash back on JC Penny purchases which will put an extra $12.64 back in my account making my true savings $407.16 and my total out of pocket 303.29!  Of course this is before tax and shipping which will add on a nice chunk of change but still... .at just over $100 per complete window I'm super excited!!  I think it will make such a big impact on these rooms.

I'll come back and post the AFTER pictures as soon as we get everything hung!

If you're curious, the coupon codes I used were:

Take an extra 15% OFF most items. Restrictions may apply. Coupon Code: SMMRJCPC, Expires 07/01/2009

$10 off $10+ order! Coupon Code: GR8DAD. Expires 6-21-09

Pretty Card & Money in the bank!

After whipping up Adam's birthday card and several father's day cards I needed to make something totally girly :)

I just adore this set from  My Cute Stamps, it is oh so feminine and the greeting is perfect for so many different occasions!

Supplies
Stamp Set: Celebrate Today - My Cute Stamps
Patterned Paper: Sassafrass Lass
Cardstock: PTI Lavender Moon, Spring Moss, Dark Chocolate, Rustic White
Twine: Papertrey Ink
Button: Spring Moss - Papertrey Ink
Ink: PTI Dark Chocolate, PTI Lavender Moon, Copic Markers

A few weeks ago I told you all about Swagbucks.  At the time, I had been doing it for about 2 weeks and had just earned my first $5 Amazon GC.  Now, I'm going on my 7th just 2 weeks later!  I gotta be honest, the #1 way to earn swagbucks is to refer other people! They have the best referral program ever!  For every swagbuck anyone you refer earns, you earn one (up to 100 swagbucks per person).  So you can imagine, if you just refer one person, you'll earn your $5 amazon GC twice as fast.  Of course the more people you refer the faster you'll earn your bucks.  Currently I'm earning enough to get an Amazon GC every 2-3 days!  It's awesome!!!!!  So if you didn't do it yet, sign up by using my link ;)

And if you did and you are getting discouraged because they aren't accumulating very fast, just keep using it every day and refer a friend or two!

Ok, my other two new favorite websites are Ebates and Cashbaq.  I was hesitant to sign up for these two at first but then when I saw that I could've gotten an extra $30 back on the sink I just bought I could've kicked myself in the butt.

Both of these sites give you cash back when you purchase items through links on their websites.  For instance, I'm about to buy several sets of these blinds at JC Penny while they are on sale (and using this 15% off coupon: SMMRJCPC).  I went to both Ebates and Cashbaq and saw that Ebates offers 4% back on JC Penny and Cashbaq  offers 1%.  Obviously, when I purchase those blinds, I will go through Ebates and get 4% back on my purchase just by clicking through their link!

Both of them also give you a $5 sign up bonus (you just can't cash out until you get at least $10 in your account - so they get you 1/2 way there with the sign up bonus).  They also offer different amounts back on different website which is why I keep an account with both of them.  Before I shop online, I go there first to see what I can get back (they also often have special coupon codes too!)

Obviously I sound like a huge pitch man right now but I just can't believe how much money I could have gotten back at this point had I been using these sites for the last few years and so I want to make sure you all don't make the same mistake I did :) 

Oh and yes... both Ebates and Cashbaq have awesome referral programs as well!

ok, enough out of me.  Go get yourself some money in the bank!!!!

Crazy Mud People

7/19/08 - The second day of the Pitchfork Music Festival, lots of great tunes, and lots of mud thanks to the rain the day before.  During the day, we amused ourselves watching these crazy mud people and trying very hard not to get too close and get slopped on.  Later that night, we got to my car where we saw it had been broken into and among other things - my laptop had been stolen.  Woohoo!

Almost a year later I can look back at that day and smile at the good times we had earlier in the day instead of focusing on the negative.  Finally!

I created this hybrid page recently.  It's barely hybrid, the only computer generated thing is that I created the 3 photo strip in photoshop and printed them as one large picture.

I based the design on Becky's sketch for Creating Keepsakes that will be in the July issue (it was on their webpage a few months ago).

I loved the sketch but I'm personally not a single photo scrapper or a double pager so I modified it a bit to work for me.

Supplies
Patterned Papers: Studio Calico, Creative Imaginations, October Afternoon
Chipboard Flowers: Studio Calico
Fabric Alphabet: American Crafts
White Pen: Uni-ball
Journaling Tag: Studio Calico
Other: Buttons, paint, corner rounder, string

  

Happy Birthday, Baby!

Yesterday was Adam's 30th birthday!!!  Obviously a big day :)  This is the card I made him.

and the inside

I'd been wanting to try a yellow/gray card for a while and I thought this adorable robot from My Cute Stamps' "Space Ships & Robots" set would work perfectly.  I love how he can wear that cute little hat!

To celebrate Adam's birthday we went to see the Detroit Tigers (our hometown team) play the White Sox.

We (the Tigers) lost.  It was a double header and the Tigers actually won the early game but not the one we went to unfortunately.  Oh well, it was still a great time!  Here's our group of 10!

We were amazed at our ability to pose for this picture with barely any obstructed heads in 2 seconds flat!

Are you Swaggin'?

Just so you guys don't think all I do is complain (and if you didn't see my update on yesterdays FTD rant, go check it out), today I'm doing a post about something that makes me happy!

Have you heard of Swagbucks?  It's basically a search engine (like google) that pays you to search in their currency.... 'swagbucks' which you can then redeem for all kinds of goodies like Amazon gift cards :)

When I want to search for something, I go to swagbucks and search for it.  Every now and then I am rewarded with 'bucks' for making my search.  I usually get between 1-5 a day just for performing searches like I normally do. 

I joined swagbucks about 2.5 weeks ago and yesterday I earned my first Amazon.com gift card!!! I was so excited, I didn't do anything but search and in 2.5 weeks I earned $5 to Amazon (45 swagbucks = $5 amazon gift card). 

It's not lightening fast or anything but google isn't paying me $5 every 2.5 weeks to search with them.... (although sometimes I use google as a backup if swagbucks doesn't find what I'm searching for right away, but it doesn't hurt to try there first since they are PAYING me!!!!)

Anyway, I think it's really cool.  If you want to check it our and/or register, just click here.  I would also recommend that you subscribe to their blog because almost every day they give away a swag code that you can redeem for free swagbucks!

 

Wanna know what else is making me happy these days?

• This TV Show (just started season 2 and am so addicted)
• This Sink (had 15% off coupon expiring so I had to buy it... yes, I will build my kitchen around a sink)
• This Song (swoon...)

FTD Rant

UPDATE:  I wound up filing a report with the BBB last night around midnight.  At 3pm today I received a call from FTD issuing a full refund and a gift certificate for a future order so I "could experience FTD the way I should have initially". While I am still not thrilled with the customer service I received initially, I am very pleased with the way this supervisor handled things once contacted by the BBB :) I'm glad to see that my internet crusade worked (posting here, on epinions.com, and to the BBB).

Has anyone ever used FTD before to order flowers?  I hadn't... until this Mother's Day, and I promise I will never use them again. 

I ordered what looked like a beautiful bouquet for my mom and had it sent to her on Mother's Day.  The day after, I realized that when I talked to my mom on M-Day, she didn't mention the flowers... odd... So I called her back on Monday and said "hey, did you get those flowers?"

She says "I didn't really want to tell you this... did you spend a lot of money on them?  I hope you didn't because they were pretty much dead when they arrived."

Great... dead flowers for Mother's Day?  Lovely.

So I immediately emailed FTD via their contact form explaining the situation and hoping for some sort of resolution (Their quality guarantee explains that they will refund or redeliver flowers if there are any quality issues).

1 week passes and I do not hear from FTD.

Then they have the gall to send me a survey asking to rate my transaction.  I point out in the survey how unsatisfied I was with the dead flowers they sent my mom for Mother's Day...

I wait another day or so and then go back to the customer service page and send them ANOTHER message.

On May 25th, 2 weeks after I sent my first message to FTD, I finally receive the following response:

Thank you for your recent purchase from FTD.COM for Jennifer Caputo.
We have received your concern regarding the quality of the flowers that were
delivered.  We have processed a fresh replacement order for your recipient to enjoy.  The new delivery date will be May 27.
In addition, please accept an exclusive offer to save $10 on a future order by visiting xxxxxxx (link removed).
Thank you for shopping with FTD.COM.

Ok great, except my mom is out of town for business for the week. If they deliver the flowers on the 27th it will be 3 or 4 days before she gets them.  I write back right away and tell them PLEASE to not deliver replacement flowers on the 27th because she is out of town.  This resolution is not acceptable.

The next thing I receive the following day is the shipment confirmation, stating that they will be delivered on the 27th.

On the 27th I receive this reply to my message that the 27th is not an acceptable day for delivery.

Thank you for your recent purchase from FTD.COM for Jennifer Caputo.
We're sorry that your experience was less than satisfactory.  FTD.COM strives to provide you with the very finest service.
Let us assure you that your experience is not typical, and that all your future orders will be filled with the special care and attention that they deserve.
Thank you for choosing FTD.COM.  

Yup... that's it.  The entire reply.

Again, I write back letting them know that there certainly will not be any future purchases if this is how they resolve their customer service issues and at this point I would really prefer a refund.  Their reply:

Thank you for your recent purchase from FTD.COM for Jennifer Caputo.
We're sorry that your experience was less than satisfactory.  FTD.COM strives to provide you with the very finest service.
Please let us know if you would like us to set up a different delivery for these flowers.
Let us assure you that your experience is not typical, and that all your future orders will be filled with the special care and attention that they deserve.
Thank you for choosing FTD.COM.  

You might notice that this is EXACTLY the same email they sent me a few hours earlier except they inserted the line about setting up a different delivery date (although at this point, the replacement flowers had already been delivered, even though my mom was in Texas, 1000 miles away from said flowers).

I replied once more that I would appreciate a more personal reply that actually addressed my concern and that if I didn't get one I would be taking my story to the net.  Being that it has been 5 days since my last communication with FTD, I've given up on their horrible customer service and am since, ranting to you guys.

Am I in the wrong here?  This company took 2 weeks to reply to my initial complaint and their only resolution is an apology and some redelivered flowers that will probably be dead by the time my mom gets back to see them?