Thank You Dearly

Please watch this video of the cutest little thing you ever did see. She's the daughter of the talented Kirsty Wiseman and she needs your help. She and her family are trying to raise funds to bring her to the U.S. to seek treatment for her undiagnosed condition. You can read more about the fund for Belle here. Definitely a worthy cause in my book.

Creative Madness

Last night I had a little burst of creative energy..ok, maybe it wasn't a little burst...I seriously knocked out a ton of pages in only a few hours. I was wanting to use up the rest of my December Studio Calico kit and add on and maybe even get to some of January before tonight's big February kit reveal. That way, maybe I would feel a little less guilty about buying add-ons to add to the already incredibly full scrap room and kit collection!

First up, Paper '08. The prompt this week was "Freeze Time." Here's the back of my card. The front is just the regular polka dots of the Heidi Swapp playing cards with a strip of patterned paper and the date in pink thickers.

Next up, finish a mini I started long ago. The papers here are from Studio Calico's Farm Fresh kit back in August I think. I covered this cute little flower shaped book with these papers a couple months ago...finally printed out quotes last weekend and finished it up last night. It was a bit tough to photograph or scan, so it's a bit dark and hard to read the quotes. Here's the cover. You can see a few inside pages here.

Now onto the add on kit from December, which I just broke into this week to do my 52 Card. This little kit I adore...so I knocked out quite a few pages using pictures in my "to scrap" pile. Here's one of me and Shawn...the picture was from our rehearsal dinner in 2006.

This one's a bit crazy for me, with the pattern and cut outs, but cute I think. Picture from pedicures on my birthday.

A very old picture of me with my flute and a page I've been meaning to do for awhile. Love how this one turned out.

Now onto some scraps from the main December kit. A picture from my birthday in October.


Scraps from both the add on and the main kit and the cutest little dog you ever did see, my "fur niece" Lucy.

And finally, a little frame I've had sitting in my scraproom for awhile, just looking for a project...a simple little framed word.

I'm off to help Michelle get her scrap on, well get organized so she can get her scrap on more easily! See you tonight at Studio Calico for the February reveal!

Birthday Wishes and More

Happy Birthday to my friend Michelle! I hope you have a wonderful birthday weekend and I look forward to celebrating with you on Sunday!

Here's what I've been up to this week:

*stomach bug...bleh!
*Jury duty...double bleh...but at least I wasn't there too long
*getting my piccolo chops back up to par with our first community band rehearsal
*working on Jessie's circle journal, which I've had sitting around forever...it's now finished
*flipping through my new cookbook and deciding what to try this weekend
*shopping for birthday presents for Ms. Michelle and the International Blog Stalker Extrodinaire and thinking about what to get my mom
*ordering more stuff for my Valentine swap buddy from A Million Little Things
*wasting too much time on the internet
*breaking out the stamps (see new blog header) thanks to Tina and Nicole
*creating things like my 52 Card for this week....the prompt was given by Jessie--"January Bliss"--here's my take:

Hoping for a productive yet relaxing weekend. I've just realized my February is going to be jam packed with travels, visitors, holidays and birthdays, so I better start getting things done now while I can!

And the winners are....

This morning I am waiting to see if I have to go downtown to Superior Court for jury duty this afternoon.....who thought of the idea of asking someone to check back in at 11:00am to determine if they are needed? It kind of puts my morning on hold...I'm hoping they dismiss us and I can just head out to work for the afternoon....not terribly thrilled about jury duty, so cross your fingers.

In the mean time, I held a very scientific drawing of names out of bowl this morning and the lucky ladies are:

100 pieces of candy.......Emily P.
100 nickels on a Starbuck's card (or a Target card if you'd prefer)..........Sharon
100 scrappy embellies.......Dawn

Congrats ladies! Email me your info and I will get your goodies out in the mail to you!
Thanks to everyone who played a long! I'm hoping to thrill you all with 100 more riveting posts on my daily life and creative escapades!

100th Post Contest

I've decided my 100th blog post deserves some celebration. Who knew I had 100 worthwhile things to post in the last nine months. So here's how it goes. Post something clever related to 100 on my blog by Monday night. Tell me what you would do with 100 dollars or something you wouldn't mind having 100 of or 100 ways to use a button...whatever, as long as it relates to the number 100.

On Monday night I will draw three lucky winners. Here's the fabulous prizes:

100 pieces of candy
100 nickels on a Starbuck's gift card
100 scrapbooking embellies (were talking buttons or brads or some assortment of small goodies)

Good luck!

Paper Goodies

Been busy this morning creating away before heading to work...for which I should leave any minute now.....

Here's this week's 52 Card...it was my prompt this week and the prompt was "New Year, New You." Using up the last remaining bits from my December SC kit on this one.



Got caught up with Paper '08 too. Here's week #2 with the prompt "what's your souvenir to the world"



and week #3 with the prompt "what's next"--opened my January ZingBoom kit for this one...just love this little postcard for this page!



and last, but not least...an in progress book...my take on Courtney's "yearly" from Project 52. I'm still working on the inside, but the idea is that this book is a little journal for the year to keep notes, inspiration, ideas and collect little life bits....I'll post more when it's done.

Oh and this post is #100 for me, so I'm thinking a little contest is in order....I'm not quite sure yet what I want to do, so stay tuned for another post tonight with contest details....

Updates and pictures

Normally I'm working right now, but I had some cancellations, so I ran home for lunch and some computer catch up time. It's been a busy week and will continue to look busy for several more days. Tonight we're having Shawn's birthday dinner at my parent's (got rescheduled from Sunday night), tomorrow night I start community band again (still not sure I have the time for this anymore, but we'll see) Saturday night is help Michelle get her stuff organized night and Sunday I have a birthday party to attend. Oh and there's work and the usual commitments....

What I really want to do is create stuff. I've been in the mood to play in the scrap space and do some knitting, but time has not allowed for much. I've fallen of the Layout A Day wagon, but I did do these quick and easy pages this weekend and managed to use up much of my Studio Calico December kit...the January kit, however, is still calling my name....

Since I know a very belated Christmas gift has now arrived safely (well, somewhat safely...opened, but safe) at it's final destination in Oregon, I can know post my new knitty love...making bags. Here's the one I sent to Ms. Nicole (aka International Blog Stalker Extraordinaire):

and here's the one I decided to keep for myself:

I'll be making more of these too...my mom has already requested one....plus it's kind of fun to play with color combinations. Right now I'm working on a scarf with a cool pattern and a blanket. I seem to suffer from knitting ADD though and have to be working on multiple things at the same time....kind of how my scrapping brain seems to work...I've got 2 in progress minis and a calendar/journal project now too....ah, the creative brain...

Check out the new button on my sidebar that links to Andrea's Etsy store. She has some super cute aprons for sale and I know she is feverishly working on more. I've seen her fabric samples and they look fabulous, once I decided what I want, I will be getting one of these babies for my very own.

52 Card and Paper '08

This week's 52 Card was left as an open week without prompts to create a card inspired by the week. I chose to make a simple card ringing in 2008. The front of the card is taken from the cover of a Paper Source catalog I added to my "time to recycle the holiday catologs" pile.


Here's the back of the card. A simple wish for a 2008 full of great things.


Here's my album for Elise's Paper Adventure '08 challenge. I've been hoarding this paper for awhile, so it was nice to use it on an album I will be seeing and loving all year long!


The first prompt was balance. Here's a simple page about Balance. I hope to add more journaling to the back this weekend, when I have time to sit down and reflect. This week's prompt is " Your Souvenir" and I hope to get that one done this weekend as well.

New stuff

As promised, here are lots of pictures of my fun new stuff. I'll start with the apron I found in the Target dollar bins on New Year's Eve...I was supposed to be grocery shopping. I think these beauties pretty much got scooped up already. It's adorable. I love it!


Here's a couple pictures of my completed Christmas journal. It has a ton of pages, so you can see the rest of it here and here.



The dishes I coveted all November and December from Pottery Barn, finally went on clearance and arrived on my doorstep yesterday. Aren't they the most adorable dishes you've ever seen?


Here's a couple Anthropologie purchases. My cute new doormat...which was on sale:


Another sale rug for my bathroom:


I also bought a sweater, some black cords (the most expensive pants I've ever purchased), a cute notebook and some vintage valentine postcards. Arriving at my door this week, I've also had Times Square from Studio Calico and the new Zingboom kit from SIS...both of which contain gorgeous paper from Collage Press. I'm so in love with this paper, I think I'll just stare at it for awhile!

Weekend Update

It's been a busy weekend. I wanted to update my blog, but I'm too lazy to go to the other computer, so there will be no pictures tonight...I do promise some more pictures from my completed Christmas journal, recent layouts and fun new purchases later this week.

Friday after work, I did pretty much nothing. I was totally exhausted after my first few days back to work, so I was in my pajamas early cruising the internet and thumbing through some magazines before falling asleep.

Saturday after work I headed home and after some lunch and a little (ok, long) catch up conversation with Michelle I had this crazy clean, purge and reorganize things spree. After dragging the Christmas tree outside (we still hadn't done this even though it's been undecorated for days) and cleaning up the mess with my awful, doesn't suck anything up vacuum, I decided, hey, why not re-arrange the living room furniture. So, I moved furniture around for the next hour or so....if you grew up in my house, you wouldn't really find this odd, I mean "let's move furniture" was like an after school activity in our house...This impromptu rearranging caused me to change out some pillows and thus head into my linen closet, which was quite a mess, so I decided to completely reorganized the linen closet, purging several items I no longer like or haven't used in ages. Since I was purging, I searched out a few more items to get rid of in various places around the house. The only thing I have yet to purge are my shoes...believe me, it's on the list...that and Shawn's closet, but I'm a bit afraid of that one....oh, did I mention I was doing laundry and randomly dusting things while all this madness was going on? Finally, I headed into my scrapbook space to do more cleaning and check a few more things off of my list. Got my Christmas journal completely finished, including adding some pictures and bits and pieces from Christmas cards we had received. Sometime after 9pm, I realized I hadn't eaten dinner, so I put away the Christmas crafty stuff, poured a glass of wine, warmed up some leftover pasta and settled down to thumb through a pile of catologues I was purging, surf online sales and watch a movie. Don't ask me where all this energy came from, but it did feel good to get some stuff done.

Today I slept in...don't you think I needed to! I met up with some scrapbooking friends from SIS for a little lunch and gift swap. After lunch Angie and I headed to Anthropologie, I still had some gift card money to spend. One hour and $100 later, I left Anthropologie...which I would have to say is probably my new favorite store, despite the fact that I can't afford to shop there all the time...and headed home. Shawn and I took the Christmas tree to the park to be recycled into mulch and I continued my put things away spree for a little while. I've been settled with my laptop and some television for awhile now and should probably head to bed soon. I have another full day tomorrow, including a trip to IKEA in the morning with Kellie before heading to work for the afternoon. I think this week may be a shock to my system as I will be back to the usual crazy work schedule. I'm hoping I can still manage to get a few things done and checked off of my to do list despite the work schedule....we shall see.

Hope your weekends were wonderful and happy back to the routine tomorrow. I'm off to bed and The Other Boleyn Girl.

Paper stuff

I really should be in bed right now...tomorrow's going to be a long day and I'm not quite back in the full swing of things work wise yet..but, I have this blasted to do list running through my head. I figured I could knock out a few things before going to bed and maybe I'll actually fall asleep quicker.

I actually have my 52 Card done ahead of time this week! The prompt for this card came from Andrea and was our last Christmas related prompt--"favorite Christmas present." Here's the front of my card:


And here's the back of my card, where I don't actually choose a favorite, just talk of how lucky I was with lots of wonderful gifts this year!


So far this third day of January, I have actually managed to create a page each day for Lain's "layout a day" class. Here's my page from yesterday, a silly picture of me and Jessie and goodies from the Studio Calico December kit:



Today's page, inspired by my word for '08. I have this page floating around my head since last night (this is why I should get things out before bed) and finally got it made tonight. More Studio Calico goodies on this one too:


Now, I'm taking my less full head to bed!
Good night my friends!

Welcome to '08

Happy New Year!

Shawn and I had a very quiet evening last night and just hung out together. I actually knitted in the new year...I took a break for my midnight kiss of course...and still managed to stay up too late even without going anywhere!

Today, the first day of 2008 and the last day of my vacation, I have been trying to start the year of right with lots of creating and checking things off of my to do list. So far I've done

-all my laundry
-cleaned, purged and reorganized the scrap room
-packed a box for the trash to treasure swap and filled another bag of things to add to the boxes that arrive each month
-put away Christmas, which is never fun
-redone my blog...although I'm not thrilled with it
-finished my Christmas journal except for adding pictures
-got caught up with 52 Card Scrap Up

Here's my card from a couple of weeks ago with my prompt, "your favorite Christmas music."


I couldn't pick a favorite, it's too hard, so I just talked a bit about buying new CD's each year:


Here's last week's prompt from Jessie--"favorite moment from Christmas"


The journaling inside this Christmas tag says "I love opening presents. I love the whole idea of giving gifts--picking something special for friends and family, wrapping it up all nice and pretty and seeing their reactions when they open it on Christmas."

I'm not really a resolution sort of girl, but I usually reflect about what I want to do over the next year and the direction I would like my life to take. This year I would like to
-continue moving forward with all the house related projects that lie in my head
-get better about making time for exercise
-develop a new system for my work documentation and paperwork so that it is not such a dreaded chore...this one is wishful thinking for sure!
-continue to eat well and make time for my health and wellness
-take more photos, capture more of my life and be more present and mindful of the everyday. I think I've decide to make PRESENT my word for 2008.

With the new year comes lots of new challenges and projects too and ideas are popping up all over scrapland. I'm always a bit ambitious in January in terms of what I would like to participate in and what I think I can accomplish throughout the year. I've signed up for project 52...I know I'm not going to get to all of the projects, but I will begin a lovely little inspiration file with all of the great ideas I'm sure are to come from this workshop. I'd love to take part in Elise's Paper 08 project and think this might be a good way to utilize my 7 Gypsies ATC spinner. I've also signed on to participate in Lain's free class at Big Picture Scrapbooking, where the goal is to complete a page a day in January. Again, I'm not likely to get one done everyday, but I figured the daily prize raffles for posting a page might serve as good motivation. Here's my page for today:


And now that I've written a novel for you all, here's wishing you and yours a wonderful 2008!