{ Warning…Major Enabling Ahead }

You ever have that when you go to the mall with a couple hundred bucks in your pocket and you can’t find a single thing that says ‘take me home’? And then the opposite is true when you go with a friend to shop and don’t have a dime to spend on yourself but you find the greatest shoes or the coolest t-shirt that’s just so perfectly you. I haven’t been to the mall in a long time but I’m finding the same scenario to be true online lately. So I figure I’ll just be an enabler for those of you with a little extra money burnin’ a hole in your pockets. If you don’t have money to spend you may want to stop scrolling down right about now ‘cuz you will find like me that you almost NEED to have these items, I’m sure of it. First I stumbled across a blog (an evil evil blog although I can’t remember who’s it was anymore) that mentioned Sarah Jessica Parker’s new line at Steve & Barry’s. Like these little numbers…

Those prices, believe it or not, are for the entire outfit. Can’t really beat that.

And tonight I got an email from Max Studio. I don’t know why I even open these things. Is this not the perfect summer dress?!?!

And there were about 6 other great combos in this collection. I can totally see these working right into fall with a cute matching cardigan.

There there’s 2 perfect jewelry pieces. I’ve been wanting a skeleton key necklace and this one has a little added vintage sparkle to it. And then what’s not to love about Amy Butler fabric combined in a soldered pendant and does anyone else notice how PERFECTLY it would go with that brown and green dress above?!

And in the digi-scrapping world…

Amy’s Ribbon Flowers                   Kylie’s Sparkle-Arkle Vellum Alpha

Amanda’s Threaded Petals             Marcie’s Curled Cardboard Pockets

Weeds & Wildflowers Doodling Days #1: Curled Alpha

Fun stuff. I did pick up this free kit at 2 Peas. I think it’s their best freebie offered so far. If you haven’t gotten it yet definitely check it out. :)

Oh, and I thought I would share a little secret about a LO that I posted recently. I got a number of comments on my ‘creative’ use of Natalie’s ribbons with Nancy’s new comic frames and I have to come clean and admit that the idea behind using the ribbon that way was born of necessity more so than creativity. The photo I wanted to use in the top section of the frame wasn’t wide enough to fit properly so I decided that if I could find something to cover at least a section of that frame I could clone trees from the left side of the photo and extend it enough to make it look as if the photo was much wider than it was in reality. And by golly if Natalie’s ribbon didn’t work perfectly to accomplish what I was trying to do. :) You can check out the original photo here.

So that’s the real truth. Creativity born out of necessity. Does that still count for creativity?? Anyway, I guess that’s more of a tip than a tutorial. If anyone’s unfamiliar with the clone tool and wants a little lesson in that I can see if I can put together something more tutorial like. Just holler. :)

Oooh, one more bit of enabling speaking of Nancy. As I was looking for links to the comic frames I noticed that her newest paper pack is up at the Lilypad. The texture on these is gorgeous. I’m lucky enough to get to play with them a little in advance and I’m working on a LO that I’ll hopefully finish later today with the fabulous cardboard included in this pack. Looks like she’s got it marked down at least for today so check it out.

Thanks to my new favorite software you can click on the preview above to get right to the Lilypad to buy this. Never could figure that out before. Not sure I’ll ever wanna blog without this software anymore.  This whole post (which I realize is insanely long) would’ve taken me hours to do without it.

Kay, gotta finish getting ready for Jill to come over. Been feelin’ a little (read a lot) lonely in this apartment lately and she decided to spend part of her 4th of July holiday with ME. She’s picking up bagels on the way and then we’ll be workin’ on Eclectic Whimsy stuff for awhile. Other than that have a quiet day planned. Hopin’ to do some more sewing in the studio and scrap a page or two. Maybe a nice long walk with Pixel (and the camera). Hope everyone else is enjoying a nice holiday with your families.