Life In Color

Tulips and Closets

I know, bad blogger. On Thursday Michele, V and I gave the tulip fields another try.

Cuteness all around. V learned to say my name!!! Well sort of, she calls me "Ambi" right now. It's super cute. When I left she was whining, "Ambi, Ambi!"And then she made that kissy face so I would come give her another kiss. Is there anything better? Me thinks not!

Glad we got there when there was tulips, and a little break in the rain.

Then of course I had to have a sausage. mmmm.

Since then I've been working around here because it did end up getting warm, and sunny. Unbelievable I know! I finally painted the two doors that I am not hanging (one was a hallway door, one went to a now-non existent room in the basement). Bj cleaned the hardware and hinged them together to make a screen for around the furnace. I am still going to look for some fun handles for them. I used one of the sets of glass knobs to fix my bathroom door (which someone had replaced in the 70s, ew), and the other one is missing. I want to find a purple one to remind me of my back door in college, it was a sweet lavender color (maybe from being outside all those years?) and I always loved turning it to walk into my place behind the dream (a pizza shop in town).

Bj and I also decided that enough is enough - no more eating out! I lost my ten pounds (yeah!). It was tough, but now that I'm in the maintenance plan of my healthy eating, I know it will be important to not fall back on grabbing chicken tenders (Burger King, mmmm).  So we planned a weeks worth of meals on Saturday. I've already cooked three: Edamame Corn Chowder (yum!), BBQ Pork Sandwiches with Cabbage Slaw (Bj says, "4 out of 5"), and tonight Balsamic Vinegar and Dijon Mustard Strip Steak with Rosemary Potatoes and Green Beans. There all from my stash of M.S. Everyday Food magazines. It's nice too with the leftovers for lunch.

Also in line with the new healthy figure me I did a major clothes purge. My closet is now super awesome and fun because... I can wear everything!

All my clothes, well minus the one bin that I put really heavy, winter clothes in. It better stay warm! I got rid of three big bags of clothes. It was liberating really. I don't see myself ever being much thinner than I am now, if I'm honest. And some things were from my early crew days, where apparently I did not have thighs, or hips. :) I also pulled out all my summer shoes. Flip flops and sandals, welcome back! Now off to watch Bones!

The Yarn Harlot!

The Yarn Harlot came to Portland! So my neighbor Tracy and I had to drive up there to see her. She didn't disappoint, it was so fun, and funny! Afterwards I waited to have her sign her new book, and give her a ribbon jar.

While listening to her of course everyone was knitting. I worked on these:

(free pattern) The fist one is so tiny. But luckily there was a newborn a few rows ahead that I could check it on. There were lots of babies decked out in hand knits, sooo cute.

I also picked up this special edition Socks that Rock yarn. I'm thinking cute sleeveless top for summer? Maybe sort of tunic style with a couple cables up the sides? I need to figure out decreases and stuff so it has darts and doesn't look like a shapeless thing, but I think I'm up to the challenge.

More scrapbooking coming soon. My step-mom let me borrow her cricut!

More scrappy goodness

Yesterday I got to do some more scrapbooking and I whipped out nine layouts. I am seriously on a roll here! I love having all my pictures printed! I also took the time to try a couple of techniques I'd been wanting to.

Please forgive the spotty picture taking. I'm not at home, I'm watching my little sister since my step-mom had to go take care of my dad, and I'm not using my normal software as well. Oh Erin on a related note: to make an image smaller from iPhoto just go up to File - Export - then choose jpg and choose your size. You can select multiple pictures at a time as well. Anyway. On the layout above I used a chipboard letter I had, and one I made. I think this idea was in Scrapbooks, etc. but not sure. I recently went through my tear out inspiration binder and reorganized things and re-found this idea. I painted a chipboard circle black. Added the white rub-on M and then put diamond glaze over the whole thing. I think you're supposed to use Modge Podge, but I can't find mine. And once I whipped out the diamond glaze I remembered why I love it.

I used it here and

here in those Pebbles brad things. You put a sticker in the middle but I didn't think it looked finished enough so I squirted diamond glaze in there as well. The above layout shows the other technique I am going to use all the time now. In the layout on the very top I used back acrylic paint and went around the picture and journaling block with it. I had squirted too much out so I grabbed a stash of card stock scraps and went around the edges of them to save for later:

Love it. I'm so doing that all the time. It's very resourceful too!

I love this one. All my happy vintage knitting stuff. Along with an ad from an old magazine. I had a hard time just picking one, there are some funny ads in those old mags.

Super simple. Still love my quickutz (obviously).

I'm only showing tis because I really like how the tags worked out here. I know we must look insane. But I figure this is so us it has to go in the scrapbook.

While re-organizing the scrapbooks I realized I had no layouts of my cottage, for shame! So I'm going back through and trying to fix that problem.

And I did two more intro pages. I managed to scrounge up some more Bazzill in white with the orange peel texture. That paper is my favorite. I love it because even though it's textured I can still write on it.

And my intro page. I can hardly wait for my new albums to get here. You know what else I can hardly wait for? Bones! New episode in two hours. Em and I will be over here freaking out until then. :)

Light box

I finally made that light box I said I was going to make. I found the directions here.

I am going to use it for Ribbon Jar, but sampled today with some of those scrapbooking layouts that I've been whipping out.

I still need to figure out everything. Basically what I am doing now is using the speedlight and flashing the top of the box and letting the light bounce. So I do get some glare.

Plus I don't know if it's because I zoom in or what, but the layouts turn out a little bit warped. I crop them and after that it can look a little crooked, but they are not.

I love how much scrapbooking I'm getting done!

This is one of the layouts I've done using the drawer system from the Big Picture Scrapbooking class, Library of Memories. I file all my pictures into categories to see trends and important ideas that I want to scrapbook.

Mostly I have been going through the storage binders.

This is one of the pages I made as an intro to one of my sections in the place we go album. All of the intro pages are basically the same layout, making them easy to do.

So there you have it! I have been scrapbooking. I also snapped a couple shots of Bj and his mom today on a little trip.

I'm still getting used to using my new camera, but I like it!

p.s. I talked to my dad today, he's doing better. But he wasn't wearing a helmet, dudes, wear your helmets!

Disgusting, sick, and everything I thought it would be.

Oh snap! I love this camera! I have only used it a tiny little bit, and not in much daylight, as it came late. But so far, OMG it's awesome. I still have major learning to do. I would have had more time to work on that tonight, but my dad had to go get in a wreck. I say it like that because for goodness sakes every male in my family has gotten hurt on scooters, and he wrecked his Vespa. Luckily I think it may end up being a funny story he tells because he is going to be fine. Which really is unbelievable because he crashed, then slid, then his head stopped him by hitting a fire hydrant. Then his bike "ghost rided" until it hit a tree and split in two! He said he got his head stapled and that he has patches of skin missing, yuck! I love my dad, but he does like to act like a big kid sometimes. He is in California at a golf tournament, so he is with a bunch of guys. They didn't want to call Kim to worry her, so she gets a call from the hospital, geez. Men can be so slow sometimes. She'll fly down there tomorrow, but I can't wait until my dad comes home so I can hear the story from him.

Amber Garrison professional photographer?!?!

no way!

Okay let's backtrack. That's Em Monday night. Were we psyched up for a new episode of Bones.
Like new for the first time in five months new. Damn I was wired about that. I was doing laps around their kitchen island. And I wasn't disappointed. I LOVE THAT SHOW. Now something I'm equally excited about. I read a bunch of photo blogs and as you know have been taking a bunch of pictures lately. I was going back and forth about taking it to the next level, as I really am loving working the Ribbon Jar right now, and am so not going to stop doing that. But when I saw this, I just thought, that's it, continuing education, I have to do this. I talked to Bj and on our cross-country road trip we loved North Carolina. And since we stayed only one night basically everywhere we only got a taste of it. So we're going! He's just going to come to hang out. And as if that wasn't exciting enough I ordered this! Ack! That's been in the works for a while. I bought it with the 18-200 VR lens. So ya, I bit the bullet. It gets here on Friday so expect lots of yumminess, picture yumminess that is.

April Jars are up!

April jars are up! Right here, all the other special collections sold out super fast, but as of this writing there are still plenty of April jars left - ocean themed this month. Also I finally added that Hanah Silk I blogged about earlier here. And we have tons of new stuff on the new page (including Strano Designs yum yum!).

Picture madness!

So I have been scrapbooking like a crazy fool! I've made 9 layouts in the last couple of days. Whoa. Considering I think I made like 9 layouts all of last year, I call this progress. I'm just so excited to start sorting my layouts into their new albums that I feel the need to have more layouts done. And more stories told, coincidently. It's been my place holder waiting for the last batch of pictures to come from Shutterfly, which arrived just now (one day early oh ya!).

That is supposed to be 1,550 pictures, but it's actually 1,720. I got two of the envelopes twice. I didn't get charged for it, so I have some random doubles. Which is cool. Oh and one loan 5x7 :) I am caught up on picture printing!!! I can't believe it! I had to go through all my digital files, on multiple computers, tag my favorites into a folder, then edit when necessary. I took it easy on editing for the most part, unless there was something glaring, like red-eye or exposure problems. I look forward to sorting these tonight while watching a NEW episode of the office (can I get a hell ya?!?!). I have only 4.5 empty photo albums. They each hold 204 (but you can totally cram more in there). Still the math might not work out, we'll see. I'll just have to scrapbook even more, and add to my category drawers (pictures of that soon).

Meanwhile listening to this song by Sia on repeat. Love it.

And suddenly I feel a lot better

For all of you who recommended Nancy's yogurt and probiotics, I thank you. Man do I feel better. Like so much better. It was rough going there for a while, especially for Bj who had to go get me everything, go to the post office for me, clean up, ah he's the best! And now that I'm feeling better I had to get my butt in gear (as my mom would say). I spent the morning cleaning. Vacuuming, dusting, cleaning mirrors, and scrubbing the floors (vinegar FTW!) to get ready for....

Our new furniture!!! Oh my goodness do I love it so. Yes I do! Now hush all you who are going to say terrible things about our foolishness with white. Here is the thing. We do realize that it is white. That we are going to be careful around it. That we will not eat in here (can I get an amen, I am sick of eating in front of the telly). I do know that I have an almost two year old god-daughter, but still I believe we can keep it clean. However we do have a back up plan. We got our pieces sprayed with some kind of repellent, and we also got an additional warranty just for the cleaning part. It lasts for ten years, and if you get anything on the piece they'll come out and clean it. If they can't then they replace the cushion, or chair, whatever. If the fabric's been discontinued than they will replace all three pieces. Sound too good to be true? Well one of Bj's co-workers has Ethan Allen furniture, and has had for years, they got the same warranty and had no problem using it. Apparently the only thing it doesn't cover is sweat. How funny is that. And kinda gross. Who sweats that much on a couch. So the only bad thing is we were not able to sell our old furniture in time. This is mainly because they were so early getting our furniture to us (which would usually be great). So if you're in the market for some heavy duty (and HEAVY, right Brent?) pink couches let me know. They are seriously sturdy. Old school type springs, so never gonna sag, and can be recovered. Anyway I've been up to other tricks as well, like scrapbooking, a lot. I'm going to work on a proper light box (for Ribbon Jar) and use that to take pictures of all the layouts, eventually. I'm behind on a few things right now!

But thank you again for all the get betters and good advice!

What was that? One more shot of our awesome sofa, if you insist:

Next up funky pillows!

Antibotics kick ass (at least they kick mine).

Late last week I got a bad infection. Had to go to the doctor's ("oh Mrs.Garrison where is grandpa?" the receptionist asked me), and got some generic antibiotic. I was feeling better. Good enough to go hang out in Portland, and visit the newest to join the just engaged crowd:

My dear friend Tex! This makes six of my friends engaged right now, goodness it's great to be surrounded by so much happiness! She joins Kay, Kristen, Kathy, Sara, and Britt! Whoo hooo! After hanging out with her all day, and walking everywhere (which totally killed me that night, yikes, I am out of shape), I went out to dinner with Paula and her friend. Fun, fun. A little place downtown talking and eating. I love evenings like that. Unfortunately when I got home I realized that the combination of all the walking, plus infection, plus antibiotics was making me feel terrible. I did manage to get to sleep after much wiggling. A couple nights ago I actually slept on the couch because I felt so sorry keeping Bj up with all my kicking and not being able to get comfortable.

But last night was the worst. It turns out antibiotics kill lots of bacteria, including the kind that keeps everything working nice, digestion wise. So I have been just UGH, like seriously. This is exactly what I feared would happen someday. I would get super sick before a jar release day, and not be able to work and get the newsletter and jars out. Well that happened, so if you are looking for them tomorrow I made a note that they won't be available until next week. Now excuse me while I go whimper some more to Bj and make him rub my belly.