My 100th Post!! Project Life Weeks 1-5

This is my 100th post on this blog!  

I'm so excited, and for it to be about Project Life is a wonderful coincidence!

I'm doing our Project Life book a little different than most people.  Because we aren't super active, and I don't take a lot of pictures, I'm using only one 12x12 page per week.  This means that when the album is open and you see two page protectors, that's 2 weeks worth.  I am using both Style A and Style D of the Photo Pocket Pages.

I'm just starting and finding my way.  I decided to just BEGIN and then I can always go back and make changes to my album--which I've done several times already.  So here are the photos of my first few weeks:

Opening Page

My opening page, which includes cards from the Cherry Core Kit, some Life Quote Cards I downloaded from Project Life's freebie section, and some digital scrapbooking pieces I printed.  The teal quote on the bottom left is one of my favorites.  It says "everyday I fall in love with you more and more.  well, not yesterday, yesterday you were pretty annoying."  I'm not sure where I got it from, but it's our sense of humor, and keeps things from becoming too "Perfect Life."

Week 1 Left Page

For the first week, I did use a 2-page spread.  We moved into a new place in a new town and started a new school.  So a LOT happened that week. The giant camera on the bottom left is a digital scrapbooking clip art I had printed.  The other elements are from the core kit.

Week 1 Right Page

The bottom center is a card from the core kit that is a beautiful turquoise flower, one I'll be using as filler art a lot, I believe :)  The "Be Awesome Today" and "I have found that if you love life, life will love you right back" are digital scrap elements.

Week 2

 The yellow card on the top right will be a picture of me celebrating after hooking the TV, Blu-Ray player and cable box up by myself--something all single Moms should celebrate!  This page includes a small photo of one of my son's pictures of his Angry Birds toy set--he loves to take pictures of his toys, and they're usually a good fit for the 3x4 slots.  One day I'm sure we'll look back and try to remember what happened to those!

Week 3

There's that beautiful turquoise flower again!  Week 3 started off with a make-over for me (thanks Mom!) and spending a beautiful sunny MLK Day exploring town and ended with me and James both sick with bad colds.  The temperature dropped significantly that week!

Week 4

So this week started with us both being sick--and the funny picture of me is one I would never have scrapped before, but one thing I've learned through Project Life is that the "normal" moments, the ones with your hair messed up or laundry in the background, are often the best photos to keep.  The silhouette of the girl with a ponytail is actually the card that came with a stamped necklace I'd ordered from a site called Between You and Me, and I love it so much.  The blank spot on the bottom right will be a picture of it.

Week 5

This page is one I'm not happy with.  I can't really explain why though; too much white, maybe.  I love the picture of my Mom, taken in Home Goods while we shopped on a "Girly Day" while James was at his Dad's.  The Visitor card and the receipt below it are from the Book Fair--and I'm always a sucker for buying books for James, and this was the most I'd ever spent at one fair.  But we got some cool new books, real comic books for Adventure Time (which is totally mathematical!!) and Ninjago.  

The book page photo on the bottom right is probably not going to stay, but it's an important lesson for me.  I'd been collecting Book Page projects for about 2 years.  Since I'm such a book lover, I thought I'd love these craft projects.  So I finally (yes, after 2 whole years) got around to making one from a canvas I was trying to salvage, and...I HATED it.  It looks like a bunch of torn pages laying on the floor.  Or hanging on the wall, depending on where it is.  I ended up deleting almost every pin from my Book Page Pinterest board and throwing away some books I'd been keeping just for these crafts.

Ironically, I found this quote on Pinterest last night, and it sums up my major problem:

Source

Instead of collecting Book Page projects, I should have tried one first.  Oh well, Life Lesson learned!

At this point, I fell behind.  My son's birthday was at the end of February, and between that and Valentine's Day, school conferences and a trip to my brother's house in Alabama, I was too busy living life to have time to create my layouts.  I have sooooo many pictures though!  I'm planning on making a couple of 12x12 classic scrapbook pages for James's birthday pictures and another for our trip.

I also have a TON of new journaling cards and 3x4 art cards.  Most are from Studio Calico, who has a monthly Project Life kit I was on the waiting list for, and from Memos Cards from Echo Park paper company I bought at Hobby Lobby.  So I know for sure that these pages are going to change.  But I also know I must STOP going back over my first pages obsessively and instead move on and catch up!

Since this is an image-heavy post, I'm going to make my 101st post a round-up of my crafts and art that I've been up to.  Thank you for reading!

Best Teacher Gift!

 Here's my Rock Star craft of the school year:

I made 8x10 "tabletop" frames into desktop write on/wipe off message boards for James's teachers.  Now if they're grading papers or otherwise need a moment, they can write "Stop" on the frame and prevent interruptions.  Or use it for a million other things.  I gave his two teachers their gifts in an end-of-year conference, and all of the other teachers were excited about them.  (I didn't know there were going to be other teachers there!  Serious faux pas....)

There are very easy to make, I simply framed fabric and made matching flowers for little accents.  The easiest gifts can be the most successful!  James picked out his favorite fabrics for his two awesome teachers, and we're going to sorely miss them both next year. 

We have been re-zoned, and while it's to another very good school, we've been at the same school for Pre-K and Kindergarten.  Bittersweet!

Thank you Mrs. Garrett and Miss Taylor!  James <3s you both!!

While Our Son's Away...We Work!

It's Spring Break around here, and our son is spending the entire week on my mother's farm.  This is the longest "alone" time my husband and I have had since...before Parenthood, hmm, maybe since early 2005!  My how time flies.......

And since we're boring grown-ups, we've spent the week cleaning.  Spring Break and Spring Cleaning are two very different experiences.  But we have to take this opportunity to clean--it's the only way we can honestly says "This room is done!" and expect it to stay that way until the next day.

Jewelry Box and Necklace Organizer
I did get some crafting done over this past weekend--a lot, really.  I've had an unfinished-wood jewelry box for a long time now--bought from Hobby Lobby on a whim with a 40% off coupon back in 2010 I think.  I haven't been able to decide what to do with it.  It has this strange recessed lid, which I now realize is perfect to throw your jewelry on at the end of the day and it doesn't go rolling off.  But I've been thinking it needed a picture or a frame attached to it, and couldn't figure it out.  The strange thing is that this wasn't even in my Top 10 Projects To Complete--but I'm extremely glad it's done now.  My jewelry has been stuffed into a tiny silver box for 2 years now, and necklaces are my favorite jewelry to make.

I have no clue where this inspiration came from, but my favorite colors right now are gray and turquoise, and I have some beautiful fabric in those colors.  I also had some gray-ish mixed paint that was begging to be used or thrown away.  So I painted and painted and painted, then Mod Podged the fabric down into the lid.  I painted the inside of the box turquoise, with more fabric in the bottom of the 2 pull-out trays that sit on the inside.

Then I remembered this sad little project from Christmas, a necklace organizer to hang on the wall, that had not turned out well.  I have no pictures of it all, which surprises me since I take pictures as I work along.  It was originally a long thin mirror in a plastic frame with great details.  I'd painted it silver-ish per the glitter paint instructions, then with silver glitter paint, and clothespins for hooks, but, well, it was hiding actually, cowering in fear of a 15th coat of glitter, lol.  It was Christmas, so the very season itself brings to mind all that glitters and sparkles.  That's my excuse, anyway :p

Some advice: if you know you don't like glitter, don't force it on yourself--you won't like it, and the very sight of the project will make you cringe every time you see it.  (Which might be how it ended up hidden....)  And this goes for metallic finishes, pastels, whatever--stick to what you like!  There's a difference from "being in a rut" and just knowing you don't like a certain paint treatment.

Anyway, I tore the clothespins out of the frame and set about painting it to match my jewelry box.  For hangers, I used small nails pushed into the fabric-wrapped foamcore; they're in the center of each flower, so 7 nails total.  And it is beautiful, if I do say so myself, and they're beautiful together.  Now I just have to figure out where in the world to hang it....

Family Motto Sign
I've had this sign for a loooong time now.  It was one of those generic "H-O-M-E" signs and did not match our personalities at all.  (It was free, so awesome!)  I painted it "Love one another."  Then a different quote.  Then "Be nice or leave," which is rather the opposite of "Love one another," lol.  But it never lasted more than one day up on the wall--I was never happy.  I'm a quote-collector, and I've been going over and over my huge list, thinking that I have the perfect quote, somewhere.  And, I did, sort of....

"Love is being stupid together." – Paul Valery 

This quote I've had for a long time, and while it's appropriate, "stupid" is not a word I want our son to start using, much less to describe his family.  Although, we are rather insane at times, lol.  Goofy a LOT of the time ;P  Inspiration struck again, and I decided to use "silly" instead of "stupid."  Perfect!

The font posed the 2nd major hurtle for this project--then I remembered the handy-dandy glue lid craft paint secret, and my handwriting worked well in the end.  There were a few bad hours there though...but in the end I've got the perfect sign for our entry:

{Inspiration hit a lot this past weekend...wonder why?}

Twilight Book Covers and the Fabric Poster
And finished on Wednesday, between cleaning sessions:

So let's talk Twilight....  Hopefully for the last time for a while...even I'm tired of it!

I got the Breaking Dawn part 1 DVD from Wal-Mart that came with a "fabric poster."  I hung it up when it arrived, but it's been sort waiting around for a more permanent spot.  I have several of those art posters still with their cardboard backing, one was the perfect size!  And so I moved Bella and Edward to the Library.  But then they looked a little lonely, and I've been wanting to try crafting with dust jackets, and I remembered that all 4 dust jackets have been laying in the same spot for years now--yay!  Fabric-covered foamcore, red paper and careful positioning resulted in this awesome Twi-Hard display ;P  Woot!

Although it does feel strange to have wedding pictures on display larger than our own.....

I've also printed a ton of quotes, signs, phrases, plans and coloring pages, so that's my next project: getting my printables organized, framed or sorted out.

I hope your week has been as productive!  The good thing about knocking old craft projects is being able to photograph them and share them.  I can't bring myself to take a picture of the sparkling clean bathroom, lol, so this round-up is done!

Product Review: Paper Assortment by Shizen

Shizen Paper Assortments & Embellishments

Submitted at: Dick Blick
Item Description: Exquisite and colorful handmade paper assortments and embellishments are perfectly coordinated for easy and unique holiday card making, gift decorating, or scrapbooking.

Each pack contains: Ten each of 3 sizes of patterned paper and two packs of sparkling embellishments. Paper sizes are (in inches) 4x4, 4x5 and 4x6. Price: $3.98/each

Currently available assortments are:

• Cocoa/Moss/Coffee
• Hot Purple/Hot Pink
• Lilac/Lavender/Purple
• Natural/Moss/Brown
• Red/Orange/Yellow

My opinion:

I bought 2 packs of these: the Natural/Moss/Brown and the Beige/White/Ivory that was on clearance for a little less. I love these paper assortments! They're perfect for mixed media collage and are very useful for those "I'm bored, let's try something new" moods.

There are glitter and embossed pages, all perfectly sized for Art Journaling. I don't have an art background, nor was I an avid scrapbooker when I discovered Art Journaling, so I've enjoyed using these special-effect papers for the first time. Having only spent $4 for the entire pack, I had the freedom to go with my "crazy ideas" that sometimes end up in the trashcan. No guilt--just try something else next time :)

I'm happy with my purchase and plan on buying more in the future.

This product’s quality compared to similar, competitive alternatives is : Really nice

The price of this product compared to similar, competitive alternatives is : A fantastic deal

I have not been paid or reimbursed for this review. I paid for these as part of an order of art supplies, and my review is not prompted by any company, organization or affiliation.

Mod Podge, Please Forgive Me

(I searched Pinterest for "Homemade Mod Podge" and chose this image from a random person's board.)

So, several months ago I defamed Mod Podge. I regret it now, though, in some cases. At the time, my personal preference ended up being 2 parts "school glue" to one part water, a little different from the blog standard of 50/50. And while I learned the hard way that it made my markers "run" and turned expensive special papers to slushy messes, I was ok with it. It's super-cheap, gets the job done and so it's became habit to be test-cautious then but overly-generous with it. And I'm not giving it up!

But I'm also going back to my dependable friend.

Mod Podge has been a friendly face at craft stores since before I was born (thank God at least something is!) Mod Podge Rocks! is one of my favorite blogs to read on a daily basis. Amy is awesome, and in November, after it was posted and re-posted 9 billion times on Pinterest, she wrote this article, in time for holiday crafting (very thoughtful, sincerely.) She let us know the reasons that school glue and water would not protect our treasures well, and in some cases (like me and the markers) the "make-your-own" would ruin your craft.

I've said before that I'm preparing for Spring already. This process includes going through art, schoolwork, sketchbooks and other random things to flesh out the special things, the little memories I'll want to look back on when my son is driving me insane in his teens (who am I kidding, he does it now!) and remember "the good old days."

You could not pay me enough money to coat these irreplaceable items with my homemade Mod Podge. It's startling how much my son's hands have grown since last Christmas (2010 I mean,) so no way am I entrusting 2011's best and brightest to 25 cent glue!

So I'm going back to the Mod Podge aisle for my refill...and I'm also going to try some of their other formulas while I'm at it; their Shimmer formula seems to fit my current "metallic/pearl" fixation.

I love you, Mod Podge!

OH!!!
An added thank-you to the makers of Mod Podge:
Last summer I made a pendant from a bezel using scrapbook paper and Dimensional Magic. Directions are very clear, and I'm emphasizing the importance of this to you now:
You must protect the paper by using a layer or two of Mod Podge--if not, the DM seeps through and ruins the project. This is what happened to me: I used one skimpy layer, and by the next morning, I could tell my bezel was not going to be worn...ever. But life got busy and time passed, and then I found the darn thing last night.
Did you know that another really awesome thing about Dimensional Magic is that you can correct your mistakes...sort of. The paper is ruined, of course, but the bezel itself can be salvaged by letting it steep in hot water--it loosens the bond and you begin again.
But months had passed, so I wasn't hopeful. But I thought it was worth trying. In just four hours using extremely hot water, I have a my bezel back! It is a little more "gunmetal" than the shiny silver it was, but that's cool with me.

So, I hope Plaid is feeling my love!!

Handmade Ornaments

I love Christmas, and I love putting up our tree and hanging the ornaments.  I don't like "theme" trees--all my ornaments have significance to us. 

• a glass frog that my mom gave me a few years ago--to teasingly remind me of the hideous things that used to gather over the door to my apartment; I was TERRIFIED one was going to jump onto my head!!
• a pewter Headless Horseman from when I was traveling and got to visit Sleepy Hollow in New York.
• a pumpkin egg from when I used all my SkyMiles and flew with my mother 1st class for a mother-daughter vacation in Bostonit was around Halloween, and no place celebrates Halloween like Salem, Mass--it was an amazing trip, probably the best of my life  :)
• an engraved one from my husband's father, one for the first Christmas as husband and wife, and another for my son the year of his birth.

So that's the story of a few of my favorite ornaments.  For 2 years I joined an ornament swap, and I really enjoyed it.  You make 12 ornaments, send them to 12 different people, and 12 other people each send one to you.  I don't think I ever got all 12, but it was always so fun to do--they were presents, really, a few were real works of art.
Here's what I made:
In 2007, I made fuzzy yarn balls with Styrofoam balls and red, white, green and blue "fuzzy" yarn and white wire ribbons :

Of course, the cat is the biggest fan of these :)

In 2008, I made little rag wreaths using embroidery hoops and these fabrics:

 to make:

Very poor quality, sorry!

I've got tons of ornaments planned for this year, mostly to occupy my son during the school breaks.  I'm excited to see what we come up with!
Here's a link to my Pinterest Board for Christmas and Winter, and another to my School Break Boredom Busters, which is mostly "re-pins" so I can delete the entire board in January.

Enjoy your holiday preparations! 

Upcycling At Its Finest!

I took an old corkboard and 2 iron grates that my mom was going to throw away and made something I just love!

My mom originally had these iron grates just hung on her wall showing the paint color behind them.  I don't know if they are even iron, or if grate is the correct term, but that's ok.  The point is, she got married and combined households, so I got all kinds of cool things, these grates being one of them.

My initial plan was to turn one into a pinboard and the other into a ribbon-type card and photo display (but without the ribbon)--and then I found my ugly spray-painted corkboard along with my "good" stack of unused fabrics and inspiration struck!

Before Pictures: this is one of the two grates; it's leaning on the back cushion of the loveseat in the playroom that is hideously ugly, which I think increases the value of this "before" picture, lol.

1 of 2 iron grates

Horrible, isn't it? 

FYI: Metallic paint shows every s.i.n.g.l.e. imperfection--so it's not a good choice for anything unless you're going to spend time repairing and sanding, which I was not aware of and not willing to do for a $5 corkboard.  I had the same problem with Metallic Blue Turquoise on a picture frame.

My stack of fabrics I bought in August and had yet to use, in spite of designing a whole room color scheme around them!

I cut foamcore board so it would fit the inside of the grate.  I then trimmed and wrapped the fabric around the board.  So technically, they can still become pinboards.  So...this is a kind of an "in the middle of a project" type picture:

Here they are laying flat on the bed, with just a bit of my patterned fabric showing.

 

 

and the corkboard is now made...

And this is my final reveal--there are several because one picture kept throwing a glare:

After:

 I had to do a close-up of the pictures--my baby, back when he was a baby and then at his 1st birthday party.  He's 5 going on 15 now.....  I hot-glued flat thumbtacks to clothespins so my pictures wouldn't get holes in them.

So, there it is--and this is my first ever link-up to a party!  I have loved "Crafting With the Stars" over on Sew Dang Cute Crafts!  I loved all of the round 3 projects using fabric, too--they were a.m.a.z.i.n.g!

Make Something! Round-Up

OK, I had this written in one of the craft round-up articles, but I was having a hard time with uploading pictures.  So....

The Amazing Adventure of the Pink Fleur-De-Lis and the Particle Board

I've been saving for years, and I mean since before I was married, approximately 6 moves ago, YEARS, pieces of laminate particle board.  They were mostly from desks, which tend to fall apart when moved, but I've been absolutely positive I could use them for...something!  Art...a frame...another shelf...a rocket to the moon, who knows, lol.

So, with my crafty homemade Mod Podge and a piece of board, I sat down to make an art piece using papers from a scrapbook stack in a beautiful toile black-and-cream theme.  All was going well:

and so I set it aside to dry before I added the final touch: a perfectly painted, perfectly trimmed, perfectly pink fleur-de-lis.  And then, when I went back to the piece, much to my dismay (yet also amusement) the paper slid right off the darn board.

If I had PLANNED for that to happen...not in a million years.  But it did, so now I have a beautiful kind-of French themed POSTER!

Also, a tip: when doing a project like this, it is NOT the time to throw a book page into the mix.  Book pages are thin, cardstock is heavy, and when mixed with water and glue, the book page wrinkles, becomes practically translucent, and just generally messes things up.

The Superhero Known As Gel Medium

I had the gel medium out because I was using it in my experiments on Jason's birthday present.  While waiting for paint to dry (literally) I looked up my brand of gel medium online.  And was I AMAZED at all the things it could do--but the most important: it works as decoupage!!  Who knew, right????

So with nothing to lose, I followed the instructions and what do you know: gel medium makes cardstock adhere to particle board!  You can see it in this photo of my last big project...

MAKE SOMETHING!

Using the same canvas I'd been playing around (I mean, experimenting) on for Jason's birthday present, I layered papers until I found a final layout I liked.

I started out with a stack of some things...most of which didn't make it on the final project.

Layers upon layers...  I'm pleased to announce that homemade M.P. does not ruin glitter or flocking, as some of these papers had those details.  It DID ruin my printed inkjet paper, but at that point I already knew the mixture was too watery, so that may not happen again.

layers and layers and layers--lol

I also made this little heart out of 2 pipe cleaners and some twine.  It was inspired by something similar but I can't link it right now because Pinterest is down.  LOL

So, here's the final creation, ready to hang:

Soooo...go make something!

Oops, one more!  Literally, a sheet wrapped around a huge piece of cardboard, for decoration and organization in James's room.  (We have Sight Words now, every week!)  I actually ended up making 2 of these, about the same size.  I'm really hoping this is the last we'll be seeing of Thomas for a while!

Other Recently Completed Pieces

The Hello Kitty Duck Tape Wallet

My new sister-in-law asked my to make her a duck-tape wallet using this cute Hello Kitty tape.  I said no problem, their site has directions to make all kinds of things.  Umm, no.  The site gave me instructions on how to make...a RECTANGLE!  Woo-hoo!  Now what, I thought?

So after much thought, the creation of a paper mock-up, and consultation with 3 "real" wallets, I was able to make a wallet with a cash pocket, 3 credit card slots on the left and 2 on the right.  I used red and white felt to break the pattern up, since the tape ends up going all sorts of directions, but that turned out really well because Nick, my husband's brother, is an artist and was able to draw and decorate the inside, and the result is a really cool lil thing.  That I never plan to make again...lol.

The Little Lamp

I had two of these lamps given to me, well, left in my garage for 2+ years, by my mother-in-law.  They were very Victorian, complete with fringe, but the insides of the shades were cracked all to pieces, and only one of the lamps would work.  So, I took this:

and made this:

out of an old pair of capri pants.  I did not know ahead of time that the flowers and such would GLOW like they do, so I got very lucky for my first attempt at making a lampshade!

The Iron Grates and a Bulletin Board

These two iron grates are yet another part of the stash of goodies from my mom's move to the farm.  They are beautiful and were originally open-backed, but seemed to serve no other purpose, such as a photo-holder or anything like that.  My idea as soon as I saw them was to put cloth behind the scrolls and hang them on the wall.

I used my "good" turquoise and lime material and wrapped foamcore to fit within the lip of the grates in the back.  They will nicely flank either side of my bulletin board, made using....

 

 you guessed it: my "good" fabric!! I love how this turned out, and I believe I'll love it even more with a couple of my favorite pictures and "memory" items on it.

More of This Past Week's Crafts

I'm feeling better now, thank God.  Viruses are horrible---colds are bad, but viruses...I'll take a 2-week cold over a 48-hour virus any day!  This was the sickest I've been since before our son was born, and we only remember last time because I had to go to the emergency room.  

Anyway, a few notes to add about this post and the previous one: none of the wall art is actually hung up on the wall, which makes for weird perspectives in pictures.  I also did not edit any pictures in the previous post, so pay no attention to dirty carpet, random cat sightings or other "odd-ness" in the backgrounds, lol.

"Consider the Lilies"

This was inspired by a piece from Red Letter Words (a company I have immense respect for, so check it out and have a look around.)  The phrase "Consider the lilies" is from Scripture from a section in Luke 12:22-44 entitled "Do Not Worry."  

I worry constantly, about everything, and the only words I ever noticed in this passage were the subtitle of "Do Not Worry."  Since that was all I saw, I skipped over the passage until I was shown its Truth by Red Letter Word's version (and I only noticed it then because of my flower obsession, and their version has these cute Pottery Barn-looking flowers on it.)  Specifically, verses 27-28 in the NIV:  

27“Consider how the lilies grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you, not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 28If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today, and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, how much more will he clothe you, O you of little faith! 

I was so moved by this, that I had to make my own version of the passage to remind myself of it.  I mean, the idea that God thought to put beauty in what is essentially the ashes of yesterday's fire, yet He loves us so much He made us in the image of Him--we're so much more than we give ourselves credit for!  So, I had no real plan of how to incorporate "Consider the Lilies" into an art piece but I'm so pleased with the result!!

These things are red rose petals, a bag of 300 from the Dollar Tree's bridal section.  I didn't like them for several reasons, but I thought I could create something beautiful with them, and for a dollar, I thought it was worth the risk....  

So, using craft paint, I painted each petal, usually both sides since I was using a cake pan and the paint soaked through the thin petals a little (aren't I such a glam crafter? Using a cake pan to paint and hold supplies, and a Crayola brush to paint with!  True story: hubby saw me using this pan and said "So that's where my cornbread pan went."  I said "what?  I didn't think anyone used this" since I don't eat cornbread and I don't cook really either. "Yes, and I've been looking for it for several weeks now!" Oops!!)  

Anyway, I let the petals dry, did a 2nd coat, and then made a flower.  It was not a pretty flower--so bad in fact that I tore it apart pretty quickly hoping to salvage some of the petals.  I made a 2nd one I was happier about, but when I made the 3rd one is when I hit the perfect arrangement and so made a 4th to match exactly.  

Kind of hard to tell, but it's a really pretty flower, I promise

I knew I needed 2 full and pretty matching flowers for this project, because I had a matched set of frames, 2 squares and one rectangle.

I'm not an ornate gold frame kind of person, so here's two of the frames in the middle of the project, one painted black and the other in the original form.

But, this set is still not on my walls, because I've been very, very inspired lately.  Look for more posts, because Blogger and I are not getting along very well at the moment....