Life Outside the Fishbowl

Twilight

 

After a rough Monday I decided to treat myself to the Twilight movie - who knows how long it'll take to get here via Netflix? And anyhow, we put Beverly Hills Chiuaua next on the list for the kids.

So after the kids zonked out I got my comfy jammies on and settled back to watch it in HD. Loved it. The scenery and interiors were much larger and more colorful than I had imagined. Especially Bella's house - I had a mental image of a very tiny 3-room house when I was reading the book. And the Cullen's house looked nothing like I imagined. I hadn't expected it to look so modern from the front and I'd kill for a tour of the thing - it was gorgeous!

Liked the actors & characters - except for Jasper's weird bug-eyed staring. And Bella wasn't as annoying in the movie as in the book - probably because the writers were smart and didn't have her pestering Edward to change her into a vampire except at the very end. Here's hoping they keep that up in the New Moon movie as well.

April Preview and Class

So I'm the designer of the month at Scrapbooks Plus for April. Since I've been longing for spring, I chose the Bloom&Grow collection by My Mind's Eye. I also added in a few new items from Bazzill Basics, and we'll be playing with their textured cardstock in a class I'll be teaching on April 15th.

For the class we'll explore various ways to use and enhance the Bazzill Basics textured cardstock. You'll get to try your hand at chalking, inking, and painting -- and end up with a sample book you to which you can refer. Then we'll choose one of those techniques to create an Easter layout. With our leftovers we'll put together several cards. You can get more information on the class here.

Minialbums

I can't believe it's already Friday - and almost the end of March. Which means I better show you the rest of my March kit projects because April's just around the corner.

Here's the minibook I put together with Basic Grey's Marrakech line from our January trip out to California & CHA.  I used a Maya Road accordian chipboard album. After spending five minutes trying to get one ring off I decided to just work around the rings and leave the outside edges exposed. 

Minibooks can be quick & easy if you come up with a design and stick to it for each page (which I did with one exception -- but I just turned it upside down).  Leaving a margin around the edges, I divided the chipboard into thirds and used a 1/3 - 2/3 for my pages, alternating photos, patterned paper and journaling.  Ribbon and Basic Grey border stickers divided the two sections. I used a Purple Onion Designs stamp to make journaling lines and added a few buttons and flower stickers here & there.  The transparency on the cover is My Mind's Eye and the stickers are American Crafts Thickers.

I scanned my CHA badge and the 2peas button for the album, printing them out on photo paper. That allowed me to fit them in the album in the size I wanted.

Monochromatic Challenge

That's our next challenge at Method Playground. Pick a color - any color. Grab supplies in various hues, shades and tints of your color. Throw in a neutral (or two) and show us what you can do.

Here's mine. I chose green:

March Layouts

I made two 12x12 pages for Scrapbooks Plus this month. Along with the Basic Grey Marrakesh line we were given a bracket-shaped page from Making Memories.  I love these shaped papers. I cut about a 1/3 of the paper off and used it between two layouts.

The flower on the 1st layout was made by alternating Basic Grey diecut stickers, a fabric flower, and a button.

Not Feeling the Love

Not for my VW wagon anymore. It's needed repairs twice in a week - and it's only 5 1/2 years old. I'm so used to reliable Toyotas and Hondas -- they never start breaking down a month after your payments end like this one.  So after spending an obscene amount of money to fix several oil leaks and clean the oil off the engine (which was burning and sending noxious fumes into the car), the car started shudding a couple blocks after we left Thomas's swim class and the engine light was flashing on & off. Lucky for us we were able to limp a block to an Exxon. But that's where the luck kinda left me.

It was a typical bad Monday from then on out. I had left my cell phone at home, because it was low and I was going to charge it (then forgot). So here we were at 4:30 pm, both kids hungry, no cell phone, $3.76 in my wallet at an Exxon about 15 miles from home.  Luckily they had a pay phone and 800-numbers are free. However, the insurance company picked the only tow company that can't find Loehmann's Plaza -- we watched the tow truck zoom past us at 5 pm. After 4 calls and 2 1/2 hours we finally got picked up. And the man was very very nice and gave us all a ride home in his truck.

So this time the ignition coils are bad. Only $318 to fix. Only.  Y'know, since we paid the car off last summer I think we've paid at least as much or equal to our monthly payments in repairs. And for a car with a blue book value of about $5,000 max, I'm really not feeling the Fahrvergnügen anymore.

Oh Mother Nature.....

Would someone please give her a call and let her know that spring officially starts in a few days?!  I feel like she's been playing a game this year.  First a wonderful 60 degree week. Then just when you really get used to the nice weather -- boom! back to 30. Then up to 60 again for a day or two. Then snow. Then nice. Then cold again, and snow.  Sigh.... it's been raining all weekend and 40... 

And with that first nice week I got into the spring cleaning mood and I'm back thinking about working on the house. I did some major dusting (which I hate to do),  cleaned the oven (gasp!) and reorganized closets. I'm back to pouring over paint colors -- and my list of rooms I want to repaint is growing (shh! don't tell DH). And I even started working on getting the old wallpaper out of our bedroom again, a laborious, dreary task.

So, the daffodils are starting to bloom and the trees are waking up. All we really need now is some nice mild weather to go along with it. Please???

Non-traditional Stamping

That's our new challenge at Method Playground. And what that means is that I'm challenging you to use your stamps on something other than paper. Buttons, popsicle sticks, fabric, ribbon, transparencies, embellies.... whatever you can think of. 

And we're being sponsored by ScraPerfect, who gave us some of their Perfect Printing Pouches to try out for the challenge. And I have to say I'm a huge fan of their pouches. This stuff really works - both for ink jet printing as well as stamping. I spent a day working in their CHA booth in January so I got to demo the pouch. We used it to stamp on fabric flowers - clearly, crisply and without smearing.

So, for my layout I used my stamps on a variety of things -- a clear button, a velour ribbon and a scrap of acrylic.  On the button I embossed it with clear embossing powder after stamping, which gives it a fun texture to match the blue button next to it.

And here's a close-up of some of the stamping:

I pulled the papers & embellies from a kit I had laying around with 7gypsies and Cosmo Cricket paper. The lace stamp I used on the paper strip is from Studio Calico. The stamp on the ribbon is from Tim Holtz. The stamp on the button is from Unity Stamp. And the chipboard button is from Jenni Bowlin.

You are young, Padawan....

So we're starting a new design team year over at Scrapbooks Plus, and for our March kit we had the Marrakech collection from Basic Grey. This was a great collection to work with because the designs and colors can be used for almost any topic.

For this layout, I used three of the papers in my photo collage and backed them with kraft paper.  White Thickers not only make up my title, but I had a little fun with the brackets, some Basic Grey border stickers, buttons and stamps  to make a "lightsaber" out of the striped paper.

Thomas loves the lightsaber. This was the highlight of our Disney trip for him -- finally being picked for the Jedi Training Academy. We thought ahead and packed his halloween costume, which he donned just before the show. Worked like a charm! And he got to battle Darth Vader. How cool!

A Lego a Day

Thanks to Cathy Zielske I've been cheering myself up today with this blog - A Lego a Day.  Into Legos? Need a good laugh? Check it out. I've almost forgotten the two dog accidents, broken washing machine and leaky faucet I discovered this morning......