The One with Happy Halloween!

Friday, October 31, 2008

This is me in kindergarten as a pretty bride. My mom made my dress and everything! I wasn't feeling so good, hence the somewhat pained look on my face. Or maybe I was going for sultry. Because I knew what sultry was when I was 6.

And a special Happy Halloween shout out to my favorite niece and nephew - aka Peter Pan and Tinkerbell. Ahhhh, presh!

And I love the Google logo today. You can always count on them to have a festive banner for the holidays!

Tonight we're going over to my grandparent's house and passing out candy. Their neighborhood always gets tons of trick-or-treaters so hopefully my kicks and jollies for Halloween will be fulfilled. We're supposed to have excellent weather, plus it's a Friday night so kids can stay up late. I'm bettin' on 50 Halloweeners. Haha, Halloweeners :) I'm going back to bed.

H a p p y H a l l o w e e n !

The One with a UCC

Thursday, October 30, 2008

I recently did an Ultimate Card Class for CARDS magazine featuring My Mind's Eye. FYI - I didn't label the orientation for photographers so the first card should be 90 degrees counter clockwise and the second card should be 90 degrees clockwise, but no big deal.

I love buttons. I could put them on anything.

The One with Recent Scrapbooking Layouts

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

A new weekly work assignment has got me excited: each week the in-house scrapbookers will make a layout, card or project and post the images on the in-house gallery on the AC blog. Here's my first layout. I hope Eric doesn't get too mad at me!

And American Crafts just released a Teen line so we each made a layout to showcase the new products. Fun stuff!

A tidbit - so I listen to movies while I work (another tidbit - I started listening to our movies on May 27th of this year, I average about 3 a day, and I'm now in the "Rs") and when I look back at things I've done I associate them with that movie. For example, this leopard print paper I remember I was listening to George of the Jungle (yes, the one with Brandon Fraser). Very appropriate I think!

The One with Weeeee!

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

I love looking through old photographs and seeing how much my siblings and I have grown. This picture was taken probably 8 years ago. Allison and Emily are still friends but they are both twice as tall. Sneakers the dog is still layin' around, fat as ever. Eric has also grown twice as tall, and has become twice as nice!

Some days I want to throw all cares out the window and jump into a big ol' pile of leaves just like this!

The One with I Am So Excited

About THIS!!

Get ready LOST fans. This season is going to be the best one yet.

The One with "I'm Not A Bum, I'm Wearing Abercrombie"

Sunday, October 26, 2008

If it weren't for my dad, I seriously wouldn't have anything to blog about :)

I'm sure we've all had weird experiences in life or less than pleasant interactions with strangers. This story that happened to my parents last night tops them all.

Last night at 3am while everyone was sleeping, my dad thought he heard the doorbell ring. While he was trying to figure out if it was a dream or really was the doorbell, it rang again. This time my mom heard it too so she went to check it out while my dad got dressed. My dad could hear my mom talking to somebody through the door. When my dad got to the door, a guy probably in his late 20s was standing there.

He was flashing money and credit cards from his wallet and saying, "I'm not a bum!" My dad opened the door to talk to him. He was totally drunk and bare footed (where did his shoes go?). It was hard for my dad to figure out exactly what happened, but the guy said his friends took his keys to his Lexus and wouldn't let him drive and get a DUI. He had an iPhone, but didn't know the number of a cab to call. He said he lived in Redmond Ridge. He kept saying, "I'm not a bum, see I have money." At one point, he said while opening his jacket, "I'm not a bum, I'm wearing Abercrombie!" That's a classic. Why and how he ended up at my parent's door, no one will ever know. My dad considered calling a cab in the middle of the night and getting someone out there for a drunk in our rural area - probably not gonna happen. So my dad decided to drive him home. My mom made him call her cell phone and left the line open the whole time. My dad was afraid the guy wouldn't know where he lived and would lead him on a goose chase, but he knew exactly where to go. He dropped the guy off at his house and went home.

How's that for strange?

The One with ...?

Saturday, October 25, 2008

Wow these last couple of days have flown by, I've completely forgotten to blog!

1) Work was really fun this week. There are three new girls who all bring something fun to the team. And I love designing scrapbooking supplies all day. One of the best feelings in the world is blog surfing and seeing papers or stickers I've designed put to use on layouts, cards or projects. Tee hee.

2) We watched The Incredible Hulk last night for the first time. I thought it was great, Edward Norton is just one of those actors you can't take your eyes off of - IMO.

3) I bought a candle at Robert's on Thursday that smelled like Pumpkin Spice - perfect for the holidays and it was 60% off. Nice. I put it on the candle warmer to make the apartment smell good and then this morning it exploded. Not so nice. Candle wax and glass shards went everywhere. My sweet and helpful husband googled "remove candle wax from carpet" and was able to get most of it out. We went back to Robert's and they gave me another candle for free. And they told me it's not meant to go on candle warmers...oops.

4) Props to Budget plumbing for speedy service. I was cleaning cages this morning in the sink and the disposal stopped working. I need the disposal, badly. We called Budget and they came within the hour and fixed it in 15 seconds. Back in business!

5) Whelp, we're off to see High School Musical 3!

The One with Signs of Fall

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

The leaves are changing colors and falling off the trees. The air is cooling down and the days are getting shorter. Fall is definitely in full swing here in good ol' Provo Utah.

The One with the Crazy Art Class

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

I took a foundation drawing class at BYU a few years ago and the entire 12 week semester was going to be spent replicating a photocopy of a cast foot. I switched to a different teacher at mid-term. Working on the same drawing for two months was enough for me! I understand (sort of) why he was making us draw literally perfectly, but for a foundation drawing class it was pretty extreme. But it makes a good story! This is as far as I got:

The One with the Embroidered Laptop Case

Monday, October 20, 2008

A crafty friend of mine took the time to embroider her plain laptop case:

I just think this is too cool. My laptop case is black, so I'd have to choose a different color palette, but this is definitely on my list of things to do.

The One with Chandler Bing-a-ling

Saturday, October 18, 2008

I let our bunny, Chandler, run around on the deck this afternoon and we caught him looking like this:

Talk about cute overload! How did he even get in this position?

The One with handmade Dec/Jan

Friday, October 17, 2008

I ran out of pictures of my own art. So moving on to other things.

Can I just say how excited I am for the premiere issue of handmade Dec/Jan to be released in a few weeks?

It's another Northridge Media publication (they also do Scrapbook Trends, CARDS, Bead Trends and a bi-monthly idea book). handmade is the new and improved Paper Trends. There are less cards (because that's what the CARDS series is for) no layouts (because that's what Scrapbook Trends is for) and tons of projects that you can easily make at home. I love making things by hand so this new series is pretty much catered to me. It's been a lot of work remaking seven of the submitter's projects, but I think having the pictures of the steps will make it so much easier for readers to reproduce. Hope you like it as much as I do and happy holidays!

The One with Pencil Drawings

Thursday, October 16, 2008

These are some samplings from my Foundation Drawing class my freshman year of college.

The One with High School Art

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

I took a couple of art classes in junior high but in high school I was too busy trying to complete my GE classes to fit in any art. My senior year I wanted to take Advanced Placement (AP) Art but since I had not taken any of the pre-requisite classes, I was denied from the program. Instead I became the AP art teacher's assistant and spent the first few class periods cleaning and organizing art materials. Shortly after the start of the year I was invited to participate in the first assignment - use conte and charcoal to draw a pine cone on an 18 x 24" sheet of gray paper. This is what I drew:

As we were critiquing everyone's drawings the teachers (and students!) unanimously agreed to let me into the program. At the end of the year I won the ASB art award for the year, had one of my pieces purchased and hung in the school (I still need to go see if it's actually hung up), and received a 4 (well-qualified) on my AP Art Portfolio. It was meant to be :)

My medium of choice in high school was colored pencil. The focus of my AP Art Portfolio was Lighthouses. I wish I had chosen something deeper like "Moods" or "Moments In Time".

So, here's a glimpse of some of my high school art: