Still getting back into the swing of things

It's hard to believe how slow a work day goes and how fast a vacation day goes....just doesn't seem fair. I'm back to work and still feeling guilty about all those little things I "planned" to do but didn't get to during the break. The good news is the main reason why I didn't get to all my planned stuff is because I got distracted by other fun.

With the exception of a few cards I did for an assignment, I took a little break from papercrafting and ventured into other crafts. I tried my hand at loom knitting, sewing, and before the holiday's I tried to use up some of my ribbon stash by making some styrofoam trees. Wanna see?

Even though it's been a few days of being back to work I am still having trouble getting into the swing of things. It's probably because I have more material sitting in my scraproom just waiting to be sewn into those little bags.....aren't they cute?

I'm hoping to post again real soon with my 2008 goals and objectives!!!

Thanks for stopping by.

Where does the time go....

In looking at my blog I realized that it has been almost two months since my last post. Yikes even for me that's bad. Sometimes I really wonder where the time goes.

Right after my last post I got busy crating for a holiday craft fair. Then I decided that I would also try selling cards and crafts at our local farmers market. That actually went really well and I am for sure going to do that again once we get past the rainy season. The prep for these events was so much fun and I finally got a chance to use all my great SB supplies on lots of cool home decor type items.

My day job has been keeping me quite busy as well. I have way less time for internet lurking than I would like....but being busy sure helps the days go quickly. Yesterday I was in the office before 7am and didn't leave until after 7pm....on my way home I realized I was starving because I skipped lunch. So being busy at work is not all bad.....but I'm sure looking forward to the break.

Chirstmas is in full swing at my house. This year is the first year ever that I will actually spend Christmas in my own house. For the past 14 years since I graduated college I have travelled over Christmas to either my mom's house or Jim's mom's. So this is a big year for me as I will finally be in my own house. We put up our first real tree two weeks ago, I have decorations all over the house, and best of all we hung lights outside. On Sunday Jim and I took a drive throught our neighborhood to see all the lights. I am amazed at how many people put up lights and how many people go totally crazy with lights everywhere. We didn't get crazy or anything, but the house holds it's own in the neighborhood.

All of my boxes and cards have gone postal and I have just one or two small items left to pick up for Jim. I plan on wrapping the rest of his gifts tonight and maybe tomorrow...then it will be time to relax and wait for the big day. While I never go shopping the day after thanksgiving, I do love to shop on the day after Christmas....so it will be up to San Francisco for us.

Just in case I don't get another update in before the holiday I want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and happy New Year.

Christmas Crafts

Back in July I created several projects for a special magazine issue for Christmas:Cards and Crafts for Christmas that I have been dying to share. I just had an absolute blast with this project and crafting for Christmas in the summer was so much fun. So I thought I would share some of my favorites:

SWEET!!! My blogger seems to be back up allowing me to post pictures. So I thought I would share some recent pages I did for an assignment where I was demonstrating different techniques to frame a photo.

This is one of my DH with his guitar. I found this very cool cement wall in a grade school near by. I used the urban acid action on the photo ans was quite happy with how it turned out.

This is a photo of my niece that my brother took last fall. The entire photo shoot was fantastic and she just look so precious with her little boots and red nose

This one is pictures of me that DH took a few months ago. The page looks crooked but IRL it's straight. I just love these new Daisy Bucket papers and embellies (on both this layout and the one above)

Now that I got the ability to post pictures back I will be back soon to post more. Thanks so much for looking. -Missy

Same ole same ole

Well it's been a while since I updated and I was starting to feel guilty. I'm still having trouble with blogger not giving me the wysiwyg options in formatting my notes. So I can't format any text or attach any pictures. So at the moment I am really thinking about moving over to typepad becuase my blog seems way too dull without the ability to share pictures.

After a week of jury duty (that was actually quite interesting) I have been back at work and the status quo. I have been so busy at work I don't have much time for anything else. We are just getting started on a major project that will last until the middle of 2009. This project will be a huge resourse drain on my team from now until it is completed....so I am trying to get myself and my team ready for the new work load.

On the scrapping front I haven't been very active in the past few weeks. I struggled to get some assignments done this weekend but haven't made much progress on anything else. I still have a few more things to make for assignments and then it will be back to fun cardmaking for the craft faire I am doing next month. I have actually had a blast making cards and ornaments for the faire so I hope it goes well. Tomorrow I have to go and get a resellers permit for the faire....so keep your fingers crossed that I don't run into any issues with that.

Not much else going on. Please tell the blogger Gods that I need my wysiwyg window back - nothing on my end has changed so I don't know what the problem is.

Memory Trends and More

Time sure does go by fast when your on vacation. I got back from Memory Trends on Sunday and have been playing catch up at work ever since.

MT was very small and quiet this year. As someone who was walking the floor this was great. The booths were fairly empty and there was plenty of time to look at all the new goodies and ask questions. As a vendor I'm sure it was disappointing being so slow. There was very little that was new just for MT, but since I didn't go to CHA-S there were some things I hadn't seen yet. This will probably be my last MT, but I'm still gald I went for a little while.

With the show being so slow I had a lot more time for seeing Vegas. I dragged DH with me this year and we walked to virtually every hotel on the strip. We did a lot of shopping and saw several shows but by far the most exciting night was watching the Cirque Beatles show. It was just fantastic....even picked me up a $40 T-shirt to remember the night.

Work has been kicking my butt this week. I'm trying to catch up from the days I missed last week and just got a HUGE project to lead for the next 9 months. With my work hours being so long I haven't really scrapped much of anything since getting back from Vegas. I finished a few cards I was working on and that's about all. I have 2 DT assignments that have to be mailed no later than Monday....so that will probably consume most of my weekend.

So just another day and a half for my much needed weekend...even if I have to work a bit.

Silly blogger still wont give me my wysisyg buttons for composing new posts...so I can't edit the format or attach pictures. Very strange.

Thanks so much for stopping by.

On my way to Memory Trends

Well blogger still wont let me post pictures. My formatting tool bar has vanished from my "create" new post window....so I have no way of formatting or adding pictures.

I made my reservations for Vegas several months ago to make sure I got a good airfare and hotel rate. Since that time the wind has blown out of the sails of Memory Trends. Most of the companies that I am interested in seeing will not be there. I'm sure that Making Memories, American Crafts, and May Arts will provide some good eye candy but nothing like past years.

But it's not all bad news. I just found out that Ginger is going to the show as well!!!! Woo Hoo. That will be fantastic to meet up her for a little while. We already have plans for an extra look at the Quickutz and Ameircan Crafts booths...I'm sure those of you who have been to shows know what I'm talking about. Hehehe.

I'm expecting the highlight of the trip to be the Thrusday night Cirque "love" show - beatles themed. DH and I have wanted to see this show since it came out last year. We got great tickets and are both very excited about going.

The trip also gives me 3 days away from work. Lately that have been a very very good thing.

So all-in-all it should be a fun little trip filled with some good time. The show may not be great but I'm for sure going to make the best out of my trip.

So how was your weekend?

Mine was great. DH and I had virtually nothing planned and did very little in the way of typical weekend chores. Saturday early afternoon we took a ride to Mountain View for a very cool craft faire. There were so many fantastic booths to look at. After eating some good junk food and looking around we picked up a new set of wind chimes and a very cool wind catcher decoration.

Last week I decided to rent a table at this years Christmas craft show in my local town to sell handmade greeting cards and ornaments - this is a very small annual show. I am planning to make a variety of cards focused on Christmas, Birthday, Thank You, Baby, and General Greetings. This weekend I pulled out all my Chirstmas paper and embellies (some really old stuff - like the Metal MM Charms from 4 years ago) and started on the Christmas cards. My scraproom is a total disaster but I did make 10 styles of Christmas cards with 5-6 cards in each style. It felt great to work that fast. All the cards were based on designs I had already made for DT assignments so I was basically just lifting myself. I was so much fun!!!

In other good news the special issue Cards and Crafts for Chirstmas book came out last week and my advent calendar is the main picture on the cover. I was so excited as this is the first advent calendar I have ever made.

Blogger is being unfriendly this morning so I can't post a link or any photots so I will try to come back soon and post some of my favorites from this issue.

A few more pages

Two more pages that I did recently. The first one is of my youngest niece taken a few months ago. She is just over 2 and loves to pick up and touch everything. The second page is my other niece who was posing for me during our Arizona trip. She was just adorable playing with her hat.

Last night I had a really good crafting night. I finally got started on a new assignment for some altered items and had so much fun picking out products and coming up with ideas. When I scrapbook I spend so much time picking pictures and printing....but with non-photo altered items the entire process goes by so fast. I completed one project and started on a second one with just a few hours of crafting.

On the work front, yesterday was a really fun day. Our entire department had an off-site potluck picnic for the afternoon. It was a nice break from work to enjoy each others company and play a few games. I did realize that my kickball skills have decreased over the past 25 years.

Jim and I have plans to go to San Fran this weekend just to get out and about for a while. I'll probably take my camera and try to get a few shots. Nothing else major in the way of plans. I do plan to get some more crafting done and want to rearrange my small embellishment and prima flower storage....so we'll see how that goes.

Have a good weekend everybody.

Layouts from our Arizona Trip

Here are a couple of layouts I made with pictures from our Arizona trip in June. The top page is my niece playing at the waterpark we went to. They had this fountain that she just loved....I have no idea how her mom got her hair in those little pig tails but it was just so cute. I took that picture of my nephew from the balcony of our room - looking at how big he was really made me think about how quick he was growing up. What's funny is how different he looks now, just 8 weeks later, after he lost his front teeth.

So far this week is going so slow for me. Things at work are fairly slow this week, but I have a big presentation on Friday that will be sure to start some fireworks. Scrapwise I just finished up an assignment for SBM issue 26 and now I will move on to some altered projects for ScrapGenie this week....I have a few new ideas that should be fun to try out.

Not much else going on this week. I'll be back soon to share a few more pages from Arizona.

All I want for Christmas.....

...is my two front teeth. Ohhhhh my just look at him. All toothless, proud and very excited. So between having lost his two front teeth and starting kindergarten in a few weeks he is one happy guy. Aunt Missy loves you!!!

Just being silly

These two had Jim and I cracking up with all those faces. I took this shot as we were getting ready to leave for the waterpark during our Arizona trip in June. Everytime I turned around the camera the faces started....this was probably the funniest shot of the bunch. I had fun playing with some of my new Magistical Memories chipboard and some old MME paper that I got in the slab from Costco. Thanks for looking.

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.