Missing posts

It appears that a few of my recent posts have gone missing. I hope that this post will help pop them out again. Very strange.

2 posts in 1 day

So I decided to break blog tradition and just share some random non-scrapping thoughts that I've been thinking about lately:

1. Obama vs. Clinton is a tough decision....but exciting and interesting.
2. My beloved Yankees had a good streak but are still 7 1/2 games behind Boston.
3. The difference between passing judgement and having an opinion is a very fine line.
4. I have no interest in Lindsay Lohan or the Tour De France.
5. I seriouly need a new job.
6. I miss Wendy.
7. Cherry Coke Zero is now my favorite soda.
8. I wish I had a british accent!
9. It's time for a new car but I don't know what to get.
10. My new front doors that we ordered in March are still not installed and I am getting very frustrated.

My fastest Layout ever

Well maybe not ever, but it's close. I got this Imaginise rub-on several weeks ago and just loved the colors in it. It's been sitting on my desk ever since I got it. Just seems like something else always gets in the way. Last night I decided it was time to make a layout with it, but I only had 30 minutes to scrap. In that 30 minutes I selected and printed the photo, created the layout, and scanned the image. If that is not my record it's pretty close to it.

This one's for my mom

My poor mom called me because she had no idea how to use these large Technique Tuesday chipboard shapes. Since I had the same set I made this quick page to give her an idea of what to do. I just love that my mom scrapbooks - without her phone call I probably would have just goofed off in my room and got nothing done. So she is quite motivational. Her next request is to see something using the doodlebug glitter chipboard.

I'm sort bummed that I am not in Chicago right now drooling over all the new goodies....I am so grateful to lifetime moments for having such a complete sneak peek forum for us to get a look at what's to come. The better news for me is that I have made my reservations for Memory Trends this September. DH is going to go with me and we are going to see the Circ Beatles show at the Mirage. So even if the MT show is slow I'll still have a good time in Vegas.

Other than that not much is going on with me. I have a friend from work coming over again this weekend for a little scrapping fun (she is new to scrapbooking but seems like it so far).

Victoria Beckham - Ameirca gone mad!!!

So I will admit to enjoying my share of celebrity gossip, but have never seen what the obsession about Paris, Brittney, and Linsday was all about. Now all of a sudden Victoria Beckham (Posh Spice) seems to be getting the same attention. America is just going crazy over the Beckhams move to the US. I have to say I was not the least bit interested in what this family was up to until the other night when they had a 1 hours special program about her house hunting and move to the US.

There was absolutely nothing on TV that night so while I was scrapping I had this show on in the background. Before long I had totally stopped scrapping and was all involved in this show. Much much to my surprise this woman can across and funny and down-to-earth - albeit a bit high maintenance. She seemed to really love her husband and kids, have a great sense of humor (especially when in came to herself), and was friendly to those she interacted with. Some of her facial expressions were just priceless... and her comment about Brittney "running around without her nickers on" had me rolling.

I don't have any plans to watch the series but this show was actually quite entertaining. It just goes to show you that first impressions aren't always right.

Oh and her husband has one amazing body.... I imagine that soccer is going to be a very popular sport when he starts playing.

No more excuses, no more reasons, no more apologies - it's just a new norm that I blog once a month. I usually don't post unless I have time to check on all my favorite bloggers, and lately that hasn't been much and I don't expect it to change anytime soon. So I am OK with the new norm being a monthly update.

But with that said we are well into July and I'm still getting back into the swing of work after a fantastic 5 day break over the 4th.

Thanks to the wonderful and talented Diane Grimshaw I have been listening to Christmas Music and scrapping my brains out in Red, Green, and Gold. I had so much fun working on this latest assignment which should be hitting the newstands in September.

Here is a page I did based on a theme of "inspired by fashion"... it was really fun - although I am not a huge fan of being in front of the camera.

Hello, Hello, Hellllllllllooooooo....is anyone out there

Seriously, I can't believe it's been over a month since I updated this puppy.

I have complained enough about work being crazy...but it just hasn't stopped. I'm not going to whine much more other than to say I have been working 65-70 hour weeks with no exception for more than 2 months now.

On a much brighter note....I took 2 vacation days this week and spent a little time with my brother, his wife, and their 3 kiddies in Arizona this week. My brother and his family flew in from New York and we all meet in Phoenix to see my dad. I had such a wonderful time soaking up the love of my two nieces and nephew, swimming in the hot sun, and just relaxing away from work. It was a much needed break.

While in Arizona I made a few small details to some LSS. Holy cow I was just amazed at Scrapbook Etc. That has to be largest well stocked LSS I have ever been in. After a few hours and some damage to the credit cards I was one happy camper.

Scrapwise I have not done too much lately. Outside of assignments things have been really slow. I had a friend from work come over 2 weeks ago for a lesson on scrapbooking. We had so much fun. It's great to see someone who is completely new to scrapbooking look through embellishments....they just pick out what they like and give no care in the world to how old it is or who makes it.

Here is one of my more recent pages. This is a layout of DH and I on our anniversary.

Yeah, I can finally share this page

I have been waiting for what seems like forever to share this page. It's certainly not my best page in terms of design or anything....but it's me and my mom scrapbook shopping and nothing makes me happier. The LSS near my mom was having an after Christmas sale. The entire store was 25% off between the hours of 6-7am. Since the store is well over 30 minutes from my mom's house we got up before 5am to make sure we were there for the 6:00am opening. It was a little crazy but so much fun. The SB page was also fun to make as I tried to incorporate a little more whimsy than my normal look.

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I didn't do anything specifically for NSD this past weekend, but I did get some fun scrapping in. Mainly I just scrapped for me so that was a lot of fun.

I got a new boss today ...

Well it's finally official...I got a new boss today. This is part of a huge organization change for my entire department (~300 people impacted) and I am not at all happy about it. The change has been in discussion for several months now, but it became official today. So this really has me bummed right now.

On a much brighter note, I had a nice weekend and found some time for a little scrapping. I finished up a couple cool projects for the next issue of Craft Life & Home (The Scrapgenie Magazine) and started work on my next SBM article....where I got to have fun with felt goodies. I should have plenty of time to finish up the article work this weekend and then move on to some non-assignment work. I'm looking forward to playing with some new goodies I bought over the past few weeks.

In other good news - tomorrow is my 5 year anniversary to DH. We were together for many years before getting married but our actual anniversary is special to me. We are planning to take the day off work and go for a drive down the coast and have fun with our cameras. So I'm very excited about that....and it will give me some new scrapping material as well.

Here are a few things I did a while back but haven't shared yet:

Geez....who is supposed to update this blog!!!

Oh that's me......sorry!!! If anyone is still checking here's an update

I don't want to start off complaining too much but the past 4 weeks have just been insane for me at work. I lost one of my best engineers, got a new boss, and had several high impact project all due over the past few weeks. My working hours have been crazy and I have done virtually nothing but shop scrap wise.

This week I am finally able to come up for air....even if it's for just a few days. Over the weekend I actually got some crafting done for some DT assignments, and for the first time in what seems like forever I felt creative again. Don't you just hate it when the mojo is not flowing.

In other good news, Susanne is coming into town to visit Danea so we are all going to get together tomorrow after I get out of work. That should be fun

Here are a couple pages I did before my work insanity started....I just love the one of my nephew with the floppy hair and my niece in her tap dance uniform.

March Maddness!!!

Some of you already know that I am a die hard sports fan. I actually love a lot of sports but my all time favorite is the NCAA basketball tournament. Oh my this is absolutely the best sport ever. There is so much excitement that goes along with these games. Although there are clear favorites it really is anyones game. Every team has hope and a possibility to win. Between last Thursday and yesterday (Sunday) we went from 64 to only 16 teams. Jim and I virtually had the TV on in every room just to make sure we kept up with the action. As always there were some upsets and great surprises. Each game will be played with a greater and greater intensity until we have a single winner. Oh yes, this is the best 3 weeks of the year (sports wise anyway).

Given that I was distracted with the BB games I couldn't concentrate on much SB wise. So I decided to continue on the ultimate organization that I started a few months ago. Taking a tip from Wendy I decided take all my chipboard letters and get rid of the outside (shadows) and only keep the inside letter itself. I ended up with a quite embarrassing amount of outsides that were so heavy I needed to double bag. I also dumped all of my precious primas out of the cute little bottles and packaging into a big sterlite bucket and chucked the packaging. Just between those two tasks I freed up a ton of premium space (within arms reach of my desk). Then I conquered the task of re-organizing my paper. Over the past two years my paper stash has simply gotten out of control. So I went through the majority of paper and thinned out the older stuff that I no longer use (although doing this I came across so many wonderful older papers that I had forgotten about) and also sorted my cardstock by color again. I still have several tasks left before I am finished but have cleaned up the area enough to allow for some crafting this week.

I keep telling myself that I need to get moving on the Heidi Swapp BPS class but then I never make the time for it. I am not going to beat myself up about it....but it's still bugging me. Especially since I have the pictures printed for the 1st two layouts anyway.

Since I didn't get much done this weekend I decided to share a couple pages from last weekend:

Wireless wonders

My internet PC finally crapped out on me. He has been on the fritz for months and I was keeping him alive on life support....but made the decision this weekend to pull the plug. So now we are sporting a core two duo (for all my Intel friends) with 2G RAM more HD space than I will even need and he's running windows Vista. DH and I have several computers in the house but this one is designated for internet surfing only. I used this opportunity to get the wireless router we bought months ago up and running.....so now I can carry my laptop all over the house and surf.

Now for the best part. We also got a new copier/scanner/printer all-in-one thingy when we got the PC. Since it was bluetooth ready we got that bad boy hooked up wireless as well. It works out perfect to put the pinter across the room (so that it doesn't hog up my desk) without any wires. It's totally like magic.


Technology is great.....for this gadget girl!!!

I thought I would share a layout of my nephew daring me to get his picture without the cup in the way. That little stinker can be so funny sometimes. I really wish I could see him more often.

A productive Weekend

Happy Monday everyone!!

Wow, DH and I had quite a productive weekend. After a couple month hiatus we are finally back on the house remodel kick. This weekend we bought new patio furniture and some wicker furniture for the sunroom....it will be great to finally put something in this room other than our exercise equipment. In addition we meet with the handyman who is going to start work later this week on the living room and dining room areas. We are so excited to start seeing progress again on bringing our house fashion back into the 21st century.

In addition to the house progress I also got a lot done on the scrapbooking front. This weekend I cranked out 7 new layouts. A few of them were very simple pages but I still got 7 done. Woo Hoo.

Last Thursday I got a great surprise by finding out that one of my layouts made the cover of the current issue of Scrapbook Magazine I was really excited about that since I had no idea about the cover. Here is the layout:

Thanks so much for checking in. I'll be back soon with more pages to share.

I'm BACK!!!!

Whew, for the 2nd weekend in a row I had a good scrap mojo flowing. This weekend I scrapped just for me. No assignments or worries about insturctions and materials lists. I ended up making 7 layouts. That is a good pace for me. I tried to scrap some everyday photos - what's funny is that some of the best memories I have are captured in everyday candid shots. My goal this weekend was to work on my Heidi Swapp BPS layouts. I ended up getting distracted with other pages but did get sketches done and printed my pictures....so I hope to finish those during the week.

Here are two of my favorite layouts.....I will share the others over the next couple days.

This is my DH playing the guitar. I took these shots weeks ago for my HS BPS goal page (so you will see them again), but ended up getting side tracked and made this page instead. Please don't tell him I used crate paper Cowgirl collection on him....ooooohhh.

This page is me playing a game with my niece and nephew at Christmas time. Poor Aunt Missy had to remind both of them (but especially my 3 year old niece) not to cheat. Oh my their parents have some work to do....but I couldn't help but laugh. They were so cute. This layout made me so happy to remember that day.

Email Woes

With the amount of junk email that I get I should have known something was wrong earlier when I wasn't getting any emails. When I logged on this morning to find not a single email in my inbox I knew something was wrong. uuugghhh that is so annoying. I was able to get the problem fixed but will not be able to recover any undelivered emails....now I probably didn't get anything important....but I'm sort of obsessing over what I might have missed.

On a brighter front, Jim and I had a really great 3 day weekend. Saturday was errand day and lawn care day. We got so much done and we were both really happy with our progress. Sunday and Monday were a bit lazy. I did manage to get some good scrapping time in and for the first time since Christmas actually felt creative. I made 3 new layouts and 4 cards.....whew, it felt so good to be productive again.

This is not a layout I did this weekend, but it is one of my favorites that I haven't shared. It was part of an article on chipboard.

Happy Valentines Day!!!

One year ago today Jim and I had been in our house less than a week and were living on the dining room floor as our bedroom was being remodeled. For valentines day we had TV dinners and opened a bottle of wine. We were having trouble with our cable reception, his guitars were still packed, and my scrap stuff would still be boxed up for weeks, so we just sat together enjoyed each others company all night.

With the exception of sleeping on the dining room floor I think we are going to do the same thing this year. No TV, no scrapping, and no guitar....just good ole fashion quality time.

We have never really done much on Valentines day. Jim's birthday was just a few days ago and we went out to a very nice dinner last weekend. So this year we are exchanging cards and kisses....and knowing Jim I'll probably get a little Godiva (because he can't help himself).

So I hope everyone has a wonderful night!!!!

I did it again

Once again I have neglected my blog. Sometimes I really wonder where the time goes.

It has been over a week since I got back from CHA and I am still digesting all that I saw and going through the mountain of catalogs that I picked up. It's amazing how much stuff I missed. Overall I was impressed by the new releases and the show seemed to have a nice buzz but it wasn't crazy. There was a lot of talk about the fate of Memory Trends so it will be real interesting who decides to pull out.

Since I haven't been up to much the past few weeks I thought I would share the layouts I did for Technique Tuesday's booth. I had so much fun playing with these stamps....

On a side note my nephew turned 5 on monday. Oh my, I just can't believe he is alreayd 5. I called him and had a full on conversation with him about his birthday party. It literally seems like yesterday when I got the call telling me I was an Aunt....now he is 5!!!

Oh my I am so sorry

....for not blogging since before Christmas. I honestly don't know where the time went. Jim and I spent a wonderful week in New York doing everything we planned plus a little extra. Then we were able to spend New Years week at home. We both minimized our internet time and focused on getting stuff done around the house. That was a great week and we got a bunch of stuff done that had been lingering on our to-do list for months.

Scrapwise I have been focused on a magazine assignment and some CHA work. I was overly excited to get an opportunity to make 2 layouts for the Technique Tuesday CHA booth. Now that I have a little break before my next assignment is due I am hoping to get caught up on the Heidi Swapp BPS class as well as on my mission to make Christmas ornaments and decorations for myself (LOL...yes, I am really going to start this early so I have a chance of finishing by December). My goal is to hand make all the ornaments on my main tree. So wish me luck on those tasks.

I will be heading down to Anaheim in 2 weeks for CHA. I am very excited to see the new products and companies. Not to mention I will get to see several of my SoCal friends at the show. I also get to see Becks (from the UK) again so that is cool.

Well I am still trying to catch up after being off work for over two weeks. So I am going to sign off for now, but hope to be back soon with some new pictures.

Happy Holidays

WOW I can't believe that Christmas is almost here. The past two weeks have been crafting crazy for me. Finishing up assignments, cards, and gifts...I'm sure most of you can relate. So I don't have anything new to share right now....but I will after the holidays.

Jim and I are getting ready to leave for New York on Friday. I am so excited about the trip. Of course the highlight of the trip will be seeing my nieces and nephew, but we also have a day planned in New York City. First the Radio City Music Hall show, then an NBC studio tour, a view from top-of-the-rock, and then if we have time a stop by the Morgan Museum to see a Bob Dylan Exhibit. Since none of us are brave enough to drive in the city we will take the train down and back. It's going to be a great day. To top all of that off, I am going to get real NY pizza and Italian food....something we just can't get here in CA. No matter how many people from "NY" that own resturants here in CA, there is nothing like real pizza from NY. Seriously, I think there is something in the water that make the crust taste so good.

I hope all of you have a happy holiday!!!!

Crazy for Canvas

I finally tried my hand at canvas creations. They are really very quick and fun to make. Both of these will be Christmas gifts this year. I have always sturggled with how to display handmade creations outside of my scraproom....so I love that these stand up by themselves. I am planning to make one or two for myself to put up on my mantle.