Hey, Doll!

Another paper Me! A more Rock-n-Roll kinda version.

A pretty punk. I made the skirt out of a cupcake liner! I even gave her some tattoos! I like the idea of the little heart tattoo - that came from Katy over at Skunkboy Creatures. She has a heart tattoo right there on her inner elbow. So cute. I think my doll  needs a little more bling - it's like she's a little light on the accessories. Maybe I should switch out the maryjanes for a pair of funky galoshes?! That would be too sweet :)

Journaling Me: Sewing Memories

I actually used to have one of these. My mom had picked one up somewhere and stored it in my bedroom. It was just something that took up valuable play space until I took a Home Economics class in 7th grade. That class spurred my passion for sewing. My mom taught me how to thread the machine and I taught myself how to sew stuff on this very old, very cool sewing machine!  It makes me sad to think about how this beautiful machine met a dastardly end when my parents divorced. Anything my mom was unable to get out of the house ended up in a huge bonfire. So sad that my dad was so spiteful that he would destroy her belongings. Everytime I see one of these machines now, I am swept back to my early days of sewing leggings and big jackets, turning old clothes into something new and stitching away at halloween costumes.

Project 365: Week 8

WEEK #8

Sunday, February 14, 2010  Happy Valentine's Day! Instead of sickly sweet chocolates we went a little crazy this year and tried out the new Jelly Belly "Bean Boozled" jelly beans. Yuck! They're nasty! If you want to take the dare, head out to your local Target and pick up a box of the little buggers. Here's the link to the Jelly Belly website. Good luck.

Monday, February 15, 2010  I spent most of the afternoon working on my designs for my current Project 365. I had a couple other colorways but wasn't really happy with any of them. I found a color palette I liked over at COLOURlovers and made my designs with that. This one's a keeper.

Tuesday, February 16, 2010  I finally got to print some of my P365 cards! Aren't they purty?!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010  I went to Goodwill and picked up some pretty summer pants that no one was going to purchase and wear as pants. I wanted the fabrics to make this pretty bag!

Thursday, February 18, 2010  I tried a new bread recipe today. Pumpkin-Cranberry bread. It's supposed to have an orange glaze over it, but I like it just fine without! The oven ran a little hot so the bottom is too crispy to eat, but the rest of the bread is nice and moist! yummy!

Friday, February 19, 2010  Today we went to Blue Springs State Park to see the Manatees. It was lots of fun, until J got a splinter under his fingernail. :(

Saturday, February 20, 2010  We were unable to get that splinter out so we had to go to CentraCare. It took 4 pain shots to get his finger numb enough to work on it. A little over an hour later, he had this pretty bandage to wear and we had a $217 bill! Add on another $36 for his prescription and that's a pretty expensive little splinter. Luckily, it doesn't affect his throwing or batting! Season starts soon!

Nerdy Fun

Somedays, this is exactly how I feel.

Pretty true. Unless your desk has no drawers! Of course, that would be pretty risque!

For real! Why is the English language so difficult?!

This amazingly fun gadget can be found here.

What's the Word Wednesday!

ERINACEOUS

[er-uh-ney-shuhs] adjective

- of the hedgehog kind or family

We are finding that teenagers can be quite erinaceous upon early awakening.

Where are my Pedal-Pushers?!

Check out my new bike!

I was out walking this morning, getting in some marathon training, and I saw this parked in a yard with a sign that said "For Sale - $20". $20! Can you believe it?! What a deal! There was no one home when I stopped by after my walk, but I left a note and a few hours later the owner rode the bike over to my yard and asked if I was still interested. Was I interested? Ha! I took her for a spin and knew this was my bike. Chad was so tickled with my enjoyment that he paid for it himself! Best $20 spent, ever. It's in pretty good shape, but needs new handle grips and a new seat. No biggie. I was hoping I'd find a girls bike, but this'll work!

It's even my color!

Mardi Gras Parade at Universal Studios

Last Saturday night we went to Universal for the Mardi Gras parade again. I didn't take any pictures of the parade because I didn't have a good vantage point and no place to steady my camera. On the way out we went through one of the areas that had lots of confetti. So I pulled out the camera for a little play time.

This shot is auto setting. The flash fired so I tried again. Still a fairly nice shot.

I turned off the flash and took a few shots and then decided to do some motion shots. I tried panning a couple times but got too much blur. So I tried just the barest amount of movement and got this.

Then I decided to play with the aperature. This was fun. I put my camera on the ground and shot it right down the length of the gutter. This shot was my first and I think I like it the best.

I took several more shots, altering the angle of the lense and the distance of the camera away from the curb. This one you can see the focal point is much further into the frame.

It was a lot of fun, but the maintenance workers were in too much of a hurry to get it cleaned up and kept getting in my way. If we go again this coming weekend, I'll try it again! :)

Spring Fling Shopping Tote

I picked up some lovely pants at the local thrift shop and thought they'd make a beautiful tote bag. I looked at several patterns on the net, but didn't find exactly what I was looking for so I winged it. I did use the handle idea that I found at morsbags. I didn't use the pattern because I didn't want an envelope-style bag, I needed something with a bottom and a good deal of room. I also added some pockets!

This pocket is in the center panel on the front of the bag. Fully lined and stitched together with the seaming, you can't even tell it's there until you put something in it! I also added a small pocket inside.

It looked a little plain Jane to me so I pulled out some scraps and made a pretty flower. I had a lot of fun working out the pattern for this bag. There are a couple things I'd do differently, like boxing the corners instead of making a separate bottom. That'll be part of my next bag!

Project 365: Week 7

WEEK #7

Sunday, February 7, 2010  We celebrated my birthday by going to the movies. We saw "The Spy Next Door" - it was funny. Just what you'd expect of a Jackie Chan movie. Before, and after, the movie Chad and the kids played a round of Dance Dance Revolution.

Monday, February 8, 2010  We finally found some of those yummy candy hearts us northerners prefer!

Tuesday, February 9, 2010  K and I went to Target to look at jeans for her. While she was looking around I found these shoes for me. When we got home K tried them on and discovered that they fit. I never got to wear my lovely purple shoes! She stole them!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010  We cut into a new jello dessert. Mmmm..jello...

Thursday, February 11, 2010  K got her hair cut! and colored! She rocks.

Friday, February 12, 2010  It was a rainy, icky day so the kids and I ran to Target for a couple things. When we got home we played our new game - Scrabble Slam! - and then we pulled out some of our favorite board games, among them is always Clue.

Saturday, February 13, 2010  Apparently Chad was in a mood. And here we have the photographic proof of his unquestionable insanity.

And No, that's not Splinter from TMNT!

Yesterday's spinter is no more. It has been extracted and obliterated. And it only cost $253 including meds. And they were being super nice by not charging us the office call fee! Of course, I still couldn't keep my eyes from popping out of my head when I paid the bill.

Four pain shots and a little wrestling match later, he was almost good as new. And now we have 7 days of structured medication-taking. :(  Hopefully it doesn't interfere with baseball!

Blue Springs State Park

So, I missed Friday's post. :(  But I have a good reason! We went to see the Manatees!

The mamas and babies were sooo cute! You don't get to see this at SeaWorld!

I took lots of pictures, but only a handful turned out really nice. I think it's time I invest in some lenses.

Being a northerner, this always startles me. If the manatees weren't in the spring run, I'm sure Chad and the kids would've gone for a dip, just like they did last year at the Manatee Springs State Park. Makes me a Nervous Nellie. I watched them like a hawk.

The day ended rather abruptly when J managed to jam a chunk of wood under a fingernail. We tried the Urgent Care in the area, but they had a 2 hour wait! So we just went home and tried to get it out ourselves. He's slathered with drawing salve. Hopefully we can remove it without a hefty price tag. :(

My Project 365 designs!

I did it! I actually designed my own cards for my Project 365! I found a color palette that I liked from one of the fabulous artists at COLOURlovers. I found several I'd like to use someday, but I could only pick one! Then I loaded it into my Adobe Photoshop Elements program and starting playing around. I went through several versions before I settled on a design that I really, really, love.

Here are some of my cards:

These 4 cards are for that empty 8th day-of-the-week spot

This is my favorite Week Of card!

And check it out! I figured out how to make the striped bottom with the curved corners like in the Becky Higgins 2009 set! It took 3 tries and quite a bit of logical thinking to get it right, but I DID IT!

Whooohooo! I love it!

Now I just need to order some divided page protectors and pick up an album and I'm ready to go. I've already printed January's pictures and I'm anxious to get them scrapped. But, with everything I have on my plate now, I have a hunch February will be almost over before I get around to it :( 

What's the Word Wednesday!

TINTINNABULATE

verb

To ring or sound like a small bell

The tinkling of childrens' laughter tintinnabulates throughout the playground.

Oh, the joy!

What's your color?

If you'd like to know take the quiz.

Ha! My results: YELLOW

You are quite the powerful thinker. It’s this talent that allows you to overcome a plethora of great obstacles. Luckily, this doesn’t affect your ego and you give off a pretty easy-going appearance. You enjoy the finer things in life and also have an attraction to art. If you can help it, you try not to rock the boat. But you also can’t stop yourself from searching for new ideas, methods or styles.

 

Quite.

 

Although, I always thought of myself as more of a "violet" :)

Project 365: Week 6

WEEK #6

Sunday, Jan. 31, 2010  Jeremy and his friends set up a little tent with his sleeping bag so they could stay out of the amazingly cold wind and play their video games.

Monday, Feb. 1, 2010  I made a batch of brownies and tried cutting them with the heart cutters. I sprinkled them with a little bit of powdered sugar. yummy :)

Tuesday, Feb. 2, 2010  Chad's checkerboard scarf is all finished!

Wednesday, Feb. 3, 2010  Blue Me Away nail polish. Love it, love it, love it!

Thursday, Feb. 4, 2010  Working on scanning pictures from MY childhood. I've started my Journaling Me Project and I'll need some of these photos to go with the journaling.

Friday, Feb. 5, 2010  Birthday cupcakes. I played around with my food colorings and used some pretty ribbon to make my cupcakes look like balloons! I used my pretty liners but they don't show up very well.

Saturday, Feb. 6, 2010  J had baseball camp today, so I spent my birthday working in the concession stand at the little league fields. It was a nice day, but very cold, very strong winds again. Glad we had hot cocoa!

Journaling Me: Childhood

Where did you live as a child?

(city, country, etc.)

I grew up in the country. You could see the neighbors across the street and down the road during the winter months, but the rest of the year the trees blocked our view. We were surrounded on 3 sides by forest and my brothers and sister and I had a lot of fun times exploring it. We even found a way to slide down the hills in the winter by making a path around the trees - not always with success!  There were a few really amazing winters where we were snowed in and had to dig a way out from the 2nd floor of the house. My dad dug a path down to the neighbors so we could share food and supplies. And every spring we would tap all the maple trees and hang buckets to catch the sap. Once we had enough sap, my dad would stay up all night boiling it down over a pit outside. Then my mom would bring it in and boil it again and strain it into jars, can it up, and store it in the cellar for later.

Out in back of the house we had a huge garden. Dad would plow it up and the kids would help remove all the rocks. Mom had us pile the rocks around a telephone pole to make a strawberry bed. The garden was a big job for us. We had to keep it watered and weeded. And when harvest season began we had to help clean and freeze or can as much as we could. Then dad would plow it all under to rest for the winter.

We had a lot of animals to take care of. We had dogs and cats, lots of chickens, and a pig or two. We even had a horse for a little while. It was a bit more work than we thought it would be, so the horse went to a new home. It was the girls job to collect all the eggs and my brothers fed the pigs. We all helped to take care of the dogs. My mom was the one who slaughtered and cleaned the chickens, and even an occasional turkey. One year my dad and some friends slaughtered a pig - but the kids weren't allowed to watch. I remember watching out a window and seeing the men working by the light of a bonfire and a couple lanterns. I don't remember really seeing anything, though.

This picture of the house was taken in the early 1970s. My parents bought this house sometime after they'd adopted me. I have no memories of the first house we'd lived in. The house now belongs to my sister and her husband. It's been added to, remodeled, and sided over the years. A few of the trees of my childhood have died and been cut down.  My sister has planted two new trees, one for each of her children. And the garden area is now their backyard, complete with swingset and firepit. So now, when I go to visit my sister and her family, it's just like going home.

Happy Valentine's Day!

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"Who is Chad?"

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