Life In Color

oh and this:

My mom and I made these super cool invites yesterday for my cousin's lingerie bridal shower:

this is the front. We used awesome Waste Not Paper, this ribbon, the polka dot vellum from SEI, and eyelets. To open you undo the ribbon and see the info.

On the back we wrote the address on more pretty paper then stapled it to the velum and tore the edges. This worked perfect because we slipped them into clear envelopes. Hope she likes them (and they do look cuter in person)!

Shh it's a secret!

I finished my back-tack bag last night, filled it with goodies today and shipped it off to my secret partner. What do you think?

um, ignore that weed. :) Remember the fabric and goodies I got?  You can see them here if you don't.  I used the striped stuff for the lining and the floral as one of the patches for the outside. I pulled from my stash for the rest. I made the bag a little long so Sciarrino had the idea to fold the top over, and I love it. The cord comes through the fold on one side and hooks onto a button on the other. My secret partner knits so I got her a couple of skeins of fun stuff. I also through in some ribbon (well duh, right?), and a few cards of buttons from my great grandmother's stash. I hope she likes it all. My secret partner (the one sending to me) has e-mailed me a bunch and I can not wait to see what kind of bag I'm getting. I love swaps!!!! (and this is the first one I've been in so I'll have to look for another, I kind of found this one on accident).

I packed up a bunch of orders today for the Ribbon Jar, including my first to the Netherlands and Hawaii, cool! After working all day Sciarrino came home at 4:30 so we could take the path through the park to the post office. I walked over in my bikini top and skirt, I'm such a rebel!  But working inside all day I gotta get my sun where I can (don't worry mom I put a top on when I got to the post office).  After we laid out at the waterfront and I listened to Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix on my iPod (gotta get ready for book 6 baby!!! and yes, I'll be dressing up). Happy sunny day!

Free Association Wednesday

                                                                    twirl 

Just comment with the first thing that pops into your head when you see this word, no real thinking required. If you need help see the first free association Wednesday, and please comment because you know you want to.

                                                                    twirl

So about being published...

I've decided I want to be, published that is.  You know I really like my stuff (that is okay to say right?), and I like seeing my stuff in magazines. I have gone out for the Hall of Fame the last two years, but contests and that are pretty much the only things I've ever done (and not won). So I printed off a bunch of page calls and put up a little strip of cork board to hang them on as friendly reminders to myself.  I see this as beneficial in a couple of ways. 1. I am more likely to get "picked up" if I fit a specific call and 2. it gets me to scrap stuff I kind of put off (um I think I have an anti-seasonal problem). All and all I'm excited to start trying this new technique. Oh and did I mention that I really want to get goodies and money for pages I want to scrapbook anyway, because that would be cool. I have been published once. In the CK Annual idea book Volume 8 (page 53 if you wanna look) and I was so super excited about it. It's validation, you know, that you are doing something right. Well I'll let you know how it all goes.  :)

a little from this and a little from that

Here are my two most recently completed layouts. I got little ideas here and there, but my best thing was that I finally am using some sweet vintage stamps I scored a while ago.

Okay so the "apple lover" is from an old sign making set that has the neatest stamps. Love them. The chopped up writing bit has been done a ton, I know, but I just saw it recently on Shannon's blog, so that made me want to do it again. And I was at Border's (pre-ordering the new Harry Potter, oh ya!) and flipped through CK's 30 minute pages and saw the cool idea to trace stencils onto old book pages. So I used the big Basic Grey letter's and traced them onto a dictionary. Love the look. By the way I think this may be my favorite picture of Bj!

I love this picture too!  It's so cool how I caught it right when the spinner was being let go. Got this big print at Costco, and it's pretty decent for 1.99. Yes, the scanner cut off the bottom of the layout (I hate that it like can almost go the full 12 inches, but not quite, argh). Okay now these stamps are the coolest coolest (that's right, DOUBLE COOL). You can kind of see them on this old post. Click on the first picture so it's bigger and then look in the left middle  above all the little drawers. Those really dark things are old wooden printing press blocks. On our road trip Julia and I went to this awesome place called Sister's Garden in Iowa (I know it was to the East of Des Moines and sort of on the boarder of the state). It had neat old stuff, cool new stuff, well the whole place was cool. Oh, see these little hair things in Scully's hair on this post, yeah, I got those there too.

I digress... So if anyone else has these old blocks, I have a tip for how to stamp them. They are really hard so they don't stamp like rubber stamps. I found it works best to put something squishy underneath the project (and the Scrapworks Pushpad works so fabulously). Then make sure you are standing way above it and apply as much pressure as possible. Bj did the ones above for me after I placed them where I wanted, I just couldn't get enough leverage. Anyways happy with these layouts and Sciarrino and I are going to head to Salem later to hit up the big three (Micheal's, Craft Warehouse, and Paper Zone)... I'll have to show you my spoils :).

In case you're keeping count

This is wedding number three. Katie and Josh, I'll let the pictures do the talking:

The happy couple.

Kim (we call her Tex because there were multiple Kim's in crew) just moved to Texas (which I guess is ironic isn't it) and flew up for the wedding, yeah!!  That's me in the middle with the best hair I've ever had, and Sciarrino.

Tex and Martin are just the cutest!

Sciarrino and Karen. Karen is in the bridesmaid dress from a wedding she was in earlier in the day, we have weddings popping up all over the place!  Okay Karen has the best hair ever, look at these curls dude!  (Kathy gets a close second for always having perfect bridesmaid hair and that's hard to do when you've been a bridesmaid like seven times).

Julia flew in from Princeton where she is rowing with the National Team, go crew chicks go! Oh and all the bridesmaids have cute ribbon in there hair from where? Oh the Ribbon Jar!

Me and my man. Check out that thing in my hand. I'll have to show you tomorrow what I do with all these, but I have grand plans. The favors were in these awesome tins and I'd say I scored quite a few... :)

Um, my brother is a little crazy, but hey, I love him. And I know Bj thinks we fight a lot, but he's an only child and he just doesn't get how fun it is to jab at each other! Aren't these guys goofy!!

So the wedding was a ton of fun, great dancing. In fact Bj danced with me for like a whole two minuets (the first time ever!!!). I know Josh and Katie are going to be super happy together and I wish them all the best. Also I love going to weddings because:
*yummy food
*great people
*happy couples
*getting spruced up
and my favorite...
*seeing Bj all dressed up!!!

Guilty, very guilty...

Oh it's fun to scrap and watch Lois and Clark!!  Here are some of my favorite lines:

{when Clark looses his powers} 
Clark: "I lifted a rocket into orbit before - not I can't even lift this."

Clark: "Superman is what I can do, Clark is who I am."

Lois: "Kent is a hack from Smallville. I couldn't make that up."

Clark: "Lois it's past babbling hour. Could you get to the point."

{about the Superman outfit}
Martha: "One things for certain, nobody's going to be looking at your face."
Clark: "Mom!"
Martha: "Well they don't call them tights for nothing!"

{and my favorite of all time}
Lois: "All right, maybe, somewhere very deep inside me is some eensy weensy, microscopic - all though highly unlikely - possibility that I feel some sort of unmotivated, completely unrealistic attraction to you.

Man I hope season 2 comes out soon!

Week's Photo Essay

I had such a good week with Beachwood visiting. Here's some shots:

going to get some sun baby!

Happy birthday mom, love you!!

It was a chocolate cake, yuck, so I had to get my sugar fix with the yummy buttermilk frosting.

Beachwood gets in on the party action.

Sometimes I go a little nuts when pack big orders. HE he he.

Katie, remember your own supplies next time, geez. :)

Two scrapping katies. The scrapyard rocked!

My favorite thing I made last night, a big ol' clipboard, yeah!

Well here's a little proof

Okay, you have to get the BHG Inspirations book, because that's what I used for this layout. I don't know why I can't find a link to this book but I got it at Border's so go check it out! I actually did this layout last night. Today Beachwood and I went to go get gorgeous (read: painful waxing by a total novice) and then headed to Salem. We laid out by the pool all day, but I put lots of sunscreen on so I am tanning slow. Then we went out to one of my favorite Mexican places for my mom's birthday and got cake and ice cream. I came home to a bunch of orders. Simple Scrapbooks featured the Ribbon Jar in their newsletter, but I didn't sign up in time, so I haven't seen it. Hopefully they'll forward it to me tomorrow. So anyway it was a pretty good day, and I'll post more pics tomorrow!

{edited to add, oops, forgot to say which inspiration it was: Page 10, Alison Beachem, number one... and did I already say you have to get this book!!! I'm only on the first inspiration, ahhhh love it!}

I love Dan!!!

Okay I have no idea who Dan is but he found my tainted love Levi's wide leg commercial!!!  He totally rocks. This is the world's coolest commercial (in my humble opinion). It came out years ago, and I only saw it a couple of times, but I thought it was just so clever. Check it out:

from Dan:

I was looking for the "Tainted Love" Levi's commercial myself, and I finally found it online. The site link is listed first, and the direct link is listed second.
It's a French site (I think), and they did stick a advertisement across the beginning, but the rest looks fine.

First link

Direct link to windows media player version

Enjoy!
...Dan

Dan you made my day!