I Actually Scrapped

October was quite the crazy month, between working lots of hours, house cleaning, visitors, the flu and a trip to OR, I did not have too much time to scrap. I did however manage to get a couple pages done for the Scrapgal gallery before leaving for OR last week. Our manufacturer of the month is Bella Blvd and they graciously donated some products for us play with. Here's what I created with my goodies:


We also decided to get a jump start on the season and scrap some holiday pages. Here's mine, using new Crate Paper and Bo Bunny.


While in Oregon, Jessie asked me to scrap some of her photos. After a major overhaul of her messy scrap collection, we managed to get a lot of scrapping done. I had fun scrapping pictures of Ella and playing with Jessie scrap goodies. Here's what I created:



I was really excited to play with some Shimmerz products. I used the chocolate paint on the brown flower on the first layout and the bamboo spray with KI memories paper as a mask on the layout above. I'm pretty much in love with the bamboo spray. Pretty, pretty!

This last page is my favorite though. Something about the fall colors, some of my favorite older papers and of course the cute photos just makes me happy. Yum!


The good news is that I will be scrapping again this weekend...in the midst of lots of laundry, house work and packing for another trip. We are having an "Autumn Bliss" crop at Scrap for a Cure. The design team will be hosting lots of challenges and games starting on Friday evening (Nov 6) through Sunday afternoon. I'll be hosting a game and a challenge Sunday morning. Come on over and play with us!

Stay tuned for some my OR recap and some fun photos from my trip.

It's Tuesday Again

Apparently I only like to blog on Tuesdays. Life has just been busy lately and really blogging is not on the top of my list. I do like a good Tuesday 10 though. Even though I saw 7 kids today, I seemed to have plenty of down time, so here's what today included:

1. A stop between kids at Starbucks where I purchased a Caramel Apple Cider with a birthday gift card.
2. A slice of pumpkin bread also purchased at Starbucks
3. A trip to Anthro, where I purchased these jeans with another birthday gift card (thanks Ellen!) and my 15% off birthday coupon.
4. A trip through the new wing at Scottsdale Fashion Square and a visit to Forever 21 where I bought this red coat. I have a thing for coats and this one is definitely wearable in Phoenix.
5. A quick trip through Pottery Barn, where it is already Christmas.
6. A Coconut chocolate chip cookie from Paradise Bakery...I was thirsty and figured I might as well buy my water where I could also get a little afternoon treat.
7. 2 phone chats with my mother and a quick IM chat with Miss Jessie
8. An egg/bagel sandwich for dinner
9. New stamps purchased from Studio Calico with my friends and family discount.
10. Time with Shawn and last night's episode of Heroes.

happy Tuesday!

Boo to the Flu

So I'm home yet again for another sick day. Luckily, I think I'm finally on the upswing. I've been experiencing the joys of the flu since Friday afternoon and am starting to get a little bit of cabin fever.

Here's what I've been doing with myself when I wasn't sniffling, sneezing, coughing or blowing my nose:

sleeping. I think I'm officially caught up.

reading. Ive finished books 3 & 4 of the Sookie Stackhouse series, started book 5 and read about 5 magazines from my pile.

watching tv and hulu. I'm all caught up with my tivo'd shows and have discovered Modern Family, which is quite funny.

internet surfing. I'm caught up on all my blog reading and have discovered quite a few more to read. I've also been doing lots of virtual window shopping. Too bad I have no money to spend, especially since I've been missing work. Here's a few of my discoveries:

• me and goji--make your own custom cereal. It's pretty pricey but would be a really fun gift.
• I've found lots of new etsy sites and a couple other lovely artist sites including small bird jewelry, the creative place and papaya art.
• I've added some new food blogs to my list: Joy the Baker, Orangette, and Karina's Kitchen
• I've been stashing all kinds of knitting patterns and ideas. One of these days I'll make this, this and several of these.

knitting I finally had the energy to knit a bit yesterday. Plus it helped that I no longer needed to blow my nose every five seconds, just every couple of minutes instead. I'm about 1/4 of the way done with my second fingerless mitten.

I'm hoping today is my last day home. I'm also hoping I have enough energy to maybe scrapbook a little this afternoon. I had originally planned to spend most of Sunday scrapping, since I haven't done it in weeks. So much for that plan. I have a new Studio Calico kit begging to be opened and played with, not to mention some DT deadlines looming.

Cross your fingers that I will be back to work and normal health again tomorrow.

The 10

Here's today's 10. Things I'm loving right now.

1. red, yellow and orange mums in pots by my front door
2. my new bench, which looks lovely at the end of my bed
3. my new orange purse, thanks Kellie
4. glitter pumpkins and other Halloween decorations are up
5. open windows
6. this chair from Target, that Shawn would hate
7. seamless knitting. I love knitting in the round.
8. pumpkin ice cream
9. only 16 days till I go to Oregon to see my girls
10. vanilla almond milk

Sunday Ambitions

I had big plans for today. Last night, as I thought about my Sunday I made a little mental to do list. Ok, so this list wasn't so little. I knew I wouldn't get it all done, but figured it didn't hurt to be ambitious.

Here's the list

Vacuum
Mop
Clean Bathrooms
Laundry
Clean up Shawn's shipping mess
Purge Shawn's stash of boxes
Grocery shop
Bake
work on my fingerless mittens
work on my Halloween project
Dust
Finish Halloween tutu
Get Happy Mail Package ready
Work on gift scrappy stuff
Thank you notes

I think I may have had more on the list. It's a big list, but I did pretty good. Got more than half of it done. I have to remember that I tend to spend the first few hours of my Sunday morning on the couch, doing not a lot of anything. This is something I need to do, but by the time I started my to do list today it was around noon. I wasn't sure what I would actually accomplish.

None the less, the house is clean, but not dusted. Lots of things went into the garage and the shed. There is a pile of boxes awaiting Shawn's ok to get rid of them. We have a fridge full of groceries. I used up my pile of zucchini to bake zucchini bread and I baked Nutella Crescent Rolls. I still need to wash towels, rugs and delicates. My bed needs sheets put on it. Happy mail package is ready to go and handmade thank you cards are in a neat pile by my bed ready to be written and addressed.

It's 7pm and I'm tired. Other than switching the laundry and putting sheets on my bed I plan on spending the rest of the night in front of the tv with my knitting.

Here's to a productive Sunday.

The Fun Theory

This is awesome. It also demonstrates one reason why music therapy works. Music makes everything more fun.

Birthday Week

It's officially my birthday week. Yes I said it. Birthday week. I might even stretch it into a birthday month. You never know. My birthday was officially Monday the 5th, but I started celebrating on Sunday with a movie and dinner at my parents. I finally saw Julie and Julia, which I loved and enjoyed a lovely dinner of fish tacos, mango and black bean salad and these yummy pumpkin cupcakes/bundt cakes with chocolate ganache:

Somehow they managed to fit all 32 candles on these six little cakes. Yes six. There were only five of us there, but all night long things were done for six. My poor sister kept saying "It's nice of you to save my pretend date a seat, but I'm single people!" She's the one who added the sixth cupcake however, probably so she could eat it!




Yup, all 32 candles blown out in one easy breath. This flute player (who has sadly not played recently) has still got lungs.


I had a lovely pre-birthday evening.

On Monday, I enjoyed a nice lazy morning. The weather was beautiful and I wanted to spend the day outside. I also wanted to work on my garden and plant fall flowers. So Shawn and I headed to the nursery to buy lots and lots of flowers (I'll share photos later) and went out to lunch, where I enjoyed a delicious pumpkin whoopie pie for my birthday dessert. Yum! I spent the afternoon planting and working outside. We had planned on a movie, but by the time I came inside and showered, I was pretty exhausted. Neither one of us really felt like going anywhere, so we just ordered in dinner and I poured myself a glass of wine. All in all it was a pretty good day.

Yesterday, was Tutu Tuesday. Kellie, Toni and I spent the evening making tutus. Kellie and Toni were making costumes for Tour de Fat and I was working on a Halloween costume. We are now officially in love with tutus. I can't wait to see pictures of Kellie and Toni on their bicylces in tutus, crazy wigs and sunglasses. Too funny. I'm looking forward to my little ballerina witch costume complete with orange and black strip tights.

Today, I'm pretending is not a part of the birthday week. I stayed home today with a yucky tummy that woke me up around 2am. At least I'm getting some time to read, knit and catch up online. Hoping my stomach starts to feel better so I can enjoy my last birthday cupcake.