Scavenger Hunt Sunday {7 31 2011}

I have to admit, I wasn't up for a lot of picture taking this week. I just was having an icky feeling don't want to do anything productive at all kind of week. But, last night, I was upset at the idea of missing Scavenger Hunt Sunday, so I dusted off my camera and took a few shots!

1. Walking Empty Streets

The street right in front of my building is always empty.

2. Repeating Patterns

I love this new Halloween paper from We R Memory Keepers! I can't wait to start making this year's decorations!

3. Floor

My floor is a mess right now, most due to the papers that fell and have not been picked up yet!

4. Then and Now

My brother and I at 8 and 6, and at 21 and 18.

5. Fingertips

Not exactly finger tips, but I use all of this to decorate my nails, which are on the tips of my fingers!

Thank you for stopping by! Have a great week!

Book Reviews!

So, I've been mia for the past few days. It hasn't exactly been the greatest week, AJ was away on a business trip, and it was just not a good week.

But, on the bright side, I read tons and tons of books on my kindle! Each one of these books was a great read.

Romantically Challenged

Beth Orsoff

Julie decides to that in order to find The One, she needs to up her numbers in the dating department. She dates all these crazy men, and ends up in these crazy situations!

Bridesmaid Lotto

Rachel Astor

A New York socialite decides that she is going to run a lottery to chose her bridesmaids, and the wedding comes with the opportunity to meet Jake Hall, a movie star. Josie wants no part of the lottery, but her mother enters her anyway. So, of course, she is picked, and now she has to deal with the other bridesmaids, the paprazzi, and Jake!

Confessions of a Call Center Girl

Lisa Lim

Check out this guest post by the author over at Airing My Dirty Laundry, One Sock at a Time.

There's a Cake in My Future

Kim Gruenenfelder

Three best friends, Seema, Mel and Nic are each a different points in their lives. Seema is in love with her best friend, Scott, but won't tell him, Mel's live in boyfriend won't propose, and Nic is about to marry a great man with two kids of his own. At Nic's bridal shower, she hides charms in a cake that will predict the girls' futures. But, Nic doesn't want to leave anything to chance, so she rigs the cake so each girl will pull the charm she wants, until something goes wrong. The girls each try to deal with their new, unplanned, futures.

A Total Waste of Makeup
Kim Gruenenfelder
Charlie is the assistant to a famous movie star. She loves life, but she's turning thirty and is the maid of honor at her younger sister's wedding. Add in her crazy family, insane boss and a big crush that may or may not be reciprocated, and you've got a really fun read!

Smash Book Part II

Well, just a short post today, because I've got a job interview (yayyyy!!!) and then will be running errands all day - errands which should have been run yesterday, but I just cannot put down the Kindle. I think a few book reviews are in order for tomorrow!

A few weeks ago, I ordered a book to use as a smash book (you can read all about that here).

I had an idea in mind for the cover, and I just love when the idea in your head comes out on the page!

Papers: all scraps from my stash!
Stamps: There She Goes - Branching Out (tree), Recollections - Fun Borders (clouds)

I just love this! I can't wait to decorate the dividers too! But, I'm not sure exactly what I want to do there...hmmm....any ideas?

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

Operation Write Home

I love to make cards, but I find that I can't just sit down and create a card, without someone in mind. I find this super frustrating sometimes, because I want to make a card, but just can't think of anything to make one for. Until recently, when I heard about Operation Write Home, (on Katie Piotrowski's blog) and I knew that I had to participate.

OWH sends hand made cards to our deployed troops so they can send them to their loved ones back home! I am so excited to have such a special reason to make cards! Now, I could go on and on about what a great idea this is, and what kind of cards they need and all that fabulousness, but they've said it so wonderfully on their Welcome Page and Guidelines Page, so I will leave all the explaining up to them!

I already started making some cards for them. I started with a "love" card, because who doesn't like to be told that they are loved? I decided to make eight cards based off of one layout for now. I've never tried to make duplicate cards before, so this was really fun for me! And here they are! (Sorry about the lighting, we still need to buy one more lamp in the living room!)

I'm going to make more cards this week, and as I make them, I'll post them here, and Friday or Saturday, I'll head on down to the post office to ship them out!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday {7 24 2011}

Last Sunday night, my flight was delayed two hours, but the awesome lady at Southwest gave my dad an "assistance" ticket to go through security, so I didn't have to sit at the gate by myself.

While we were waiting, I showed him some of the pictures I've taken for Scavenger Hunt Sunday, and then I showed him this week's prompts. He said, When you show me the pictures and say, this is x-ray, this is bare, this is tangled, its like, oh, okay, that makes sense. But when I just see the prompts, this is hard! You have to be very creative to figure out what to take pictures of!

I was really proud of that, I've never thought of myself as creative. It is really odd when you think about it, because creating lesson plans and scrapbook layouts, are creative things to do. I kind of just assume that if I do it, everyone else can think of it too. But, I've always assumed if I could do it, everyone could do it. I guess that's what makes me a good teacher, I don't take "I can't do it" from my kids, because I'm sure they can if I could when I was a kid!

Okay, enough rambling on my part. Here is what you are all waiting for - the pictures!

1. Music to My Ears

I love when my phone rings with a call from home!

2. Hat

I thought this cloud looked like a big floppy hat with a ribbon on the back, about to be placed on that building.

3. Clear

The reflection from AJ's beer was so clear on the wall, it looked like someone painted it on. I thought it just looked so awesome. My red wine did not reflect so well!

4. Out of this World

We had intense fog over the last the other day. Something to do with the temperature of the water and the temperature of the air. It appeared out of nowhere after a clear morning, and it made it feel like my apartment was hidden from the world all day long. Except when the window washer suddenly appeared at my window. That scared me half to death!

5. Sprinkles

This picture is actually from the Fourth of July, but those sprinkles were just so yummy!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week!

The Final Installment of 114 Degrees!

Well, I'm writing this on Thursday, but I'm going to post it Friday. I'm really hoping that the heat wave breaks by the time you are reading this!

This is the last layout from Wednesday, when it felt like 114 degrees outside and I hid inside with my scrapbook papers all day! And its a one page layout, which I never do, because I don't know what to put on the other side!

This layout features Navy Pier. Its another page inspired by a Scrapbooks Etc. layout. The original layout featured a lime in a summer layout. I decided to take the lime and turn it into a ferris wheel!

Then, I made a lake and a pier and put my ferris wheel on top of it!

All of the stuff from this layout was in my stash! Yay! Saving money!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

WEATHER UPDATE
Thunder and lightning and a very respectable 73 degrees outside! Yay!!!

114 Degrees Part II

Still in the middle of this heat wave! Its only 10am, and its 92 out, and feels like 104! What is going on??? And I just read a story about the poor animals here in the midwest zoos that are really feeling the heat, I always feel terrible for animals, because they can't go out and buy themselves ac!

I do have the luxury of ac, but today, I have to go outside. Somebody forgot his wallet, and doesn't have enough gas in his car to make it home! So, I will be going on an adventure to drop off his credit card.

In other exciting news, my "smash books" are coming today! So, after my nap (I'm sure I'll need a nap, I got up way to early today) I'm going to start working on those!

But, I still have two more layouts to share!

Today's layout features pictures from our first week in Chicago. (And my favorite American Crafts Craft Fair Midge Gathermore, aka the house paper, that I'm loving right now!)

I used a sketch from Scrapbooks, Etc. for inspiration. I loved this sketch because I could add a ton of pictures, and I had tons and tons and tons from our first week!

First, I layered all the different colored papers for the mat:

Then, I added all of my pictures:

And my embellishments (including that fabulous paper!):

And that's all there is to it :)

Blue, red, yellow and pink paper - from my stash
House paper - American Crafts Craft Fair Midge Gathermore
Days of the Week Ribbon - American Crafts
Stickers - from my stash

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great (and hopefully cool) day!

114 Degrees???

The heat index today was 114 degrees. I decided that meant I should stay in the air conditioning and scrapbook! I got three layouts done (yay! I was feeling very far behind!). So, for the next few days, I'll share them.

This is a quick glimpse of what my (new) fold up table from Wal-Mart desk looks like when I am working on a layout. No matter how big my table is, I can always use more room!

The first one I did was about when AJ and his friends moved all of our stuff to Chicago.

I bought this house paper from American Crafts before I even knew where AJ and I were going to move, but I loved it (you'll see, it pops up again this week!) I really wanted to highlight three pictures my mom took, of the cars driving away from my house. So, I backed them on brown paper, and popped them up with pop dots stacked two high :)

And I just love this little truck. I paper pierced it from a clip art I found by googling "moving truck clip art".

Thank you for stopping by! Have a great day!

Dinner Planner

I'm back in Chicago! I had a wonderful week with my family, but it is nice to be back home.

Every week, I decide what I want to cook for dinner for the week, so it makes the grocery shopping easier, and I'm able to do things like, cook a double batch of sauce and use it later in the week. Except, I lost my notebook I was planning in! (I am very upset!)

So, I decided to make my own notebook, since all of my scrapbook supplies are here, and free to use!

I wanted to book to be big, so I had room to write down everything I needed, and so I couldn't lose it again (so very very upset!) I decided to make the book 8.5x11 and to have Monday-Thursday on one page, and Friday-Sunday + extras on the other.

The first thing I needed to do was make up a word template. (Which you can get here: Monday, Friday)

I found 9 cream colored pages of cardstock.

On 7 pages, I printed Monday on one side, and Friday- on the other.

On one of the remaining two pages, I printed Monday on one side. On the other side, I adhered some pretty blue paper. This will become my cover.

On the last page, I printed Friday on one side, and adhered a blank piece of cardstock to the other side (I chose navy blue to compliment my cover page).

I used a regular office hole puncher to punch holes on the side of the page with the large margin. After punching holes, I used my Martha Stewart score board to score each page at 0.75 inches (just beyond the holes you just punched!)

Then, I lined up all of the pages, with the cover on top, and tied it together with some twine, and viola! I have a new dinner planner!

PS. Next time I will take more pictures as I'm assembling my project - I just hadn't unpacked my camera yet!

Scavenger Hunt Sunday {7 17 2011}

Welcome to another edition of Scavenger Hunt Sunday!

1. Black and White

Black and white made me think of print. We spent a week at the beach, and we each brought a (real) book down to the beach (I'm afraid sand and my kindle will not mix!) for the week. Although some of us (ahem, mom) read our books in one day! The books are:

Ulysses - my brother

The Complete Western Stories of Elmore Leonard - my dad

The Help - my mom (and I can't wait to read it on my plane ride home!)

The Autobiography of Mark Twain, Volume 1 - me (I'm not even a tiny little bit done yet)

2. Reflections in Glass

The day I read the new prompts, my family was sitting at the beach house, watching the Mets on ESPN, with all of the blinds open so we could also see the ocean. My mom said, "Katie's reflection in the glass keeps creeping me out - I think someone's on the deck!" So immediately jumped up and started shooting the game's reflection in the window. I love how the game was reflected in the window, but the outdoor light and dining room table light were reflected in the picture above the TV.

3. Headlights

There aren't too many headlights on LBI, except the moon shining over the ocean!

4. Seeing Double

My brother, golfing. I'm still new to photoshop, but I like how this turned out!

5. Bare

I like this shot because I used my bare feet to make the footprints. And because its baring my love for this poem, which not many people know of (at least they didn't before!)

Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week!

"What's Happening? Is it Breaking?" "Um...yeah."

Those are two sentences you never want to hear said near a construction site. Especially when the construction site is next to your house!

When we got to vacation, there was a house on the dunes (which I totally ranted about here.) Rumors had it the house was being moved Thursday, but no one was sure. Especially because the morning was windy with a capital W!

1pm, Thursday afternoon, we've just gotten back from the beach to have lunch, throw in some laundry and reapply sunscreen before heading back down to the water and the house is still sitting there, on the dunes. The following conversation takes place:

Dad: So Lin, I guess they aren't moving the house today.
Mom: Good, I don't want to be here when they do.
*beep beep beep*
Me: Does anyone else hear that noise?
I go outside to see what could be beeping. A crane has pulled up in front of the "house" next door! I go back inside.
Me: Um Dad, remembered how you just said they aren't moving the house today? A crane just pulled up next door!

I guess the wind had died down enough that they felt confident in moving the house!

My dad wanted to watch from the deck (which at one point was inches away from the house while it was being moved) but he and my brother had to go out for a bit.

Which left my mom and I alone in the house. I was baking cookies, and she was doing laundry. Except when the crane started moving, cookies were yanked from the oven and left sitting on the counter half baked, clothes were left in the washer and dryer, but fortunately, we did turn off the oven! We just felt the corner, far away from the moving house, was a safer place to be than the second floor of the house next door to the moving home.

I made a video, because I don't think what happens with this house is entirely believable unless you see it!
Some of the highlights include:

• "Dave" (at least, that was the name I think everyone was yelling at this guy!) scaling the foundation, mid lift, to knock free some debris - while the house hangs inches from his head
• My mom's understatement of the year: "I don't think they did this well." (2 minutes, 57 seconds)
• The house twisting like an ice cube tray

 The voices you hear in the background are my mom and I discussing the insanity.

You can watch the video here. I will admit that it starts a bit slow because everything is going well, but wait for it, craziness will ensue.

But, if youtube isn't working, you're short on time, or you just don't feel like watching a video, you can check out these pictures:

 The crane starting to lift the frame.

 Everything is going well.

 The house isn't placed on the foundation correctly, and almost topples off. 

This is what they finally settle on.

Still looks crooked to me!

Smash Book

I am so excited about the idea of a smash book. I know everyone loves the graphic designs inside the EK Smash Book, but I am super picky about my designs and what goes on my pages, so I wanted to make my own. But I couldn't find a book I liked, then I saw these on scrapbook.com. They are both from Doodlebug Designs Pure and Simple Collection. I plan on using the first one for my Smash Book and the second one to maybe make a mini album with, or maybe hold onto it to make another Smash Book after it.

 Doodlebug Designs Pure and Simple Collection 4 x 7 Album

Doodlebug Designs Pure and Simple Collection 4.6 x 8.5 Album

Also, I plan on using them differently than I've seen. (Why am I calling this a smash book? Hahaha)

I currently sketch all of my layouts in a notebook, but its almost out of pages, and it is too big to fit into my pocketbook (and I like to take it everywhere!) so I'm going to use the dividers to do:

inspiration

layouts

crafts (like, other than scrapbook pages)

I'm also going to add in some extra pages, I think it comes with 20, so I may get some bigger binder rings and expand that!

Ahhhh! So excited! I can't wait to get my new table, my new Echo Park papers, and these books and start scrapping again!

Now, I just need to go put my credit card in a block of ice, or block scrapbook.com!

Nightmares are Good for Something!

Last night, before I went to bed, I noticed how beautifully the moon was reflecting off of the ocean. I wanted to get a picture, but my camera's auto function wasn't doing what I asked it to! And I did something I've been wanting to do, but was afraid - I took my camera off of Auto! And, I didn't just flip it to the "Night" setting. I put it on program, I changed the ISO. I'm very proud of myself. And this is the shot I ended up with (I can't decide which I like better and I definitely could use a tripod, but you use what you got!)

Then, around 5:25am, I woke up after having a horrible nightmare! It had everything from broken into apartments, to fights with my boyfriend, and finally, realistic pictures of ghost's at a friend's home (that would be the part that finally woke me up!) and I realized, the sunrise is in 17 minutes! So, I grabbed my camera, still in my pjs, and ran down the steps to the beach. I'm so loving the manual setting on my camera! I haven't had a chance to go through all of the pictures yet, (I just ran up from the beach, wet pjs and all!) but I couldn't wait to share!

Well, I'm going to grab some breakfast and a shower - the crafts show is today! Then I'm headed back to the beach :)

Its Illegal to Walk on the Dunes

But go ahead and place your house up there!

For months my parents have been telling us what an amazing view we are going to have from our beach house. We pull up to the house, we pile out of the car, we run up to the deck and...

 to the left we see gorgeous blue Atlantic Ocean...

 right in front of us we see gorgeous blue Atlantic Ocean...

to the left we see A HOUSE!

Apparently, this house is not staying there, but it has been left, propped up on the dunes while they replace the pilings the house used to stand on. (I don't get that one, its illegal to walk on the dunes, but you can leave a house there for weeks???) After the pilings are done, and they look done to me, they are going to lift the house up, put it back on the new foundation, and it will be next the the house we are in, no longer blocking the view from the deck.

Unfortunately, I'm guessing this won't be done by Saturday, which is when we leave!