Just Make Stuff

Not so bad...

So I finished my first week of school...only fifteen more to go. :)

It turns out to be just fine...a little annoying as I hurry from one class to another, but I am incredibly fortunate to have really dynamic and down-to-earth professors.

I will be significantly buried under a pile of reading though. I need to learn to dedicate myself to reading every single day so I'm not propping my eyelids open the night before class.

Looking forward to the weekend...Mac's is in another musical right now so we're eager to see him in Thoroughly Modern Millie tomorrow night, then we are watching my niece & nephew on Saturday so that my sister and her husband can go see Mac's performance. Sunday we'll be settling in to check out the Super Bowl...I'm thinking we'll need a few of these to snack on. Oh and I want to make something...I don't really know what exactly but I just need some craftiness...

It's a school night...

 

I organized my flash drive this morning for the new semester...creating files for all six of my classes.

Yes, six classes...either I am getting far more confident in my abilities as a student or I've freaking lost my mind.

If and when I get through this semester I will have only two classes to take next fall...which means I'll only have to pay for part-time school therefore saving a decent chunk of money.

They way the classes break down this semester...

--three regular classes...however now they include larger numbers and scary words like "theories"

--one class that is double the units because it includes a 60-120 hour activism based internship (which hopefully I will have a much better understanding of by tomorrow night)

--one class that is an independent study...I'll be working with the Women's Studies faculty to learn how to develop an Introduction to Women's Studies class...basically it'll be like playing pretend as a professor

--a Geology course (if you look at those files it's like "one of these things is not like the other")...despite the fact that I have met the requirements for Math and Science the community college and the university have a one unit discrepancy...which means I have to take a Geology course for five weeks...Geologic Hazards of California...really is there a better class for someone who is as much of a scaredy-cat as I am? Can't wait to learn more specifically of what perils we face on this particular part of the earth

Because of the $%*&@ one unit class I will be in school for nine hours on Tuesdays...from 10am until 7pm with no break whatsoever. I should take this in stride, but I have been complaining pretty much nonstop...just ask Sean. My saving grace is it's just for five weeks...after that I'll get a cherished 90 minute break before heading into my three hour class.

So please bear with me yet again as I balance school with rest of life...who knows how much crafty procrastination I'll really have time for???

Yesterday...

I was lucky enough to spend a few hours at CHA...few things are as fun to me as a chance to see new scrapping supplies. I only remembered to grab my camera a few times as stuff caught my eye...

Of course Hambly...

 

Pebbles Inc. had fun colors & the cutest little bird patterns...

 

Sassafrass Lass had card & flower embellishments that I loved...

 

 

I really liked the patterns on the back of Webster's Pages new line...

 

And a new company Jillibean Soup had a great green and yellow combo...which I always keep an eye for since it's Sean's favorite...

 

And now today is my very last day of freedom after 41 days of blissful laziness. Tomorrow starts way too much school for the next five months...I'll tell you about it later because I'm going to busy soaking up the last chance to be utterly useless. :)

What made me happy today...

Yesterday.

I'm fairly certain I watched the television for about 15 hours straight and loved every minute of it.

The weather.

 

After almost a dozen days of heat it is finally cooling back down and we might even get a little rain.

This crafty idea.

I really want to do something with it, but I haven't decided what yet.

One layout.

 

With Christmas pages finished I'm pretty much at the end of the pile of photos I had to catch up on...but I'm having a little fun with a couple more photos before school starts back up next week.

Among the tissues...

I could share photos of the massive piles of kleenex I've been blowing through since I've seem to come down with a cold...or I could whine to you about the fact that I hate being sick (because poor Sean has been putting up with lot of it). I'll spare you though and share a little Valentine crafting instead.

Back in October I came up with an idea to send a little something to my niece and my sister for every holiday. I found super cute Valentine's coloring books at Target and had to get them a new box of crayons too. I actually wrapped the crayons in an older piece of patterned paper and tied it altogether with some yarn.  

Other little craftiness included Valentines for Mac's classmates...totally inspired by this phrase...now they are just waiting for some candy to be stuck to them.

 

Okay enough time at my desk...I'm going to crawl back into bed...

Well that's done...

 

Last night I had reconnected with a good friend from grade/high school that I hadn't seen in twelve years. She and her son came over for dinner and we talked for hours trying to catch up on everything that's happened over the years.

As we told the various stories and looked at a few photos she asked if it would be okay to see a photo of Darby. We were in the living room sitting next to all our scrapbooks, but I had to go upstairs to our hall closet to the bottom shelf in the back where I had stashed away the beginnings of Darby's scrapbook. In the time that has passed (almost three years unbelievably enough) I've never quite decided exactly what to do with them.

This morning I did...I opened up my book from 2006 and incorporated the layouts into there. It was a little hard to see the photos and pages I was so happy about quickly turn to documenting the aftermath, but it's just part of that whole life story thing...the good and the bad.

I lost count...

The Christmas book is all done...I included 8x8 and 6x6 pages so I could add extra journaling and some 8x10 photos which means it turned out to be a lot of pages...

 

I'm so glad it's done so I can move onto other holidays. I"m trying to get a bunch of Valentine's stuff made now since I'll be busy with school in a mere ten days.

As for the envelope the generator picked #10...

I haven't scrapped a single thing since last summer-isn't that crazy? I had to close my little scrapbook store ( stupid economy) and just lost my mojo in the process. My DH just finished building me a studio in the basement and as I've been going through things,getting them organized and put away I have felt a little tingle of excitement...perhaps the missing mojo??
About your post yesterday- 90 degrees?? Seriously?? It is -6 degrees here this morning(windchil -25) and we are expecting to get to whooping 8 degrees for a high! Wanna trade?? LOL.

Posted by: mary w | January 16, 2009 at 04:13 AM

Mary please e-mail me your address.

Off to enjoy more of the weekend...

Back in business...

 

I took this picture with my new purse camera while Shamrock and I were stopped at a light on the way to pick up Mac from school this afternoon.

Last month my "purse camera" suddenly stopped working...when I called Canon they explained the repair costs, but also told me about their loyalty program that allowed me to turn in my broken camera towards a new one. A newer model that I could get for half off which was about $50 more than the repair would cost. I was really impressed by their customer service. In fact I could have turned in my Powershot for a Rebel XT for half off. My Rebel is over six years old and has been starting a slow death for awhile now, but I am holding out for this deal...Sean's been instructed that if anyone asks I want Costco giftcards for my birthday. :)

 

My goal tomorrow is to get all this stuff cleaned off and put away...which will require me finishing up our Christmas pages. I finally started really cranking them out today, but have a handful I want to finish tomorrow. I'm keeping it super simple...like I'm trying to channel Cathy Zielske...however her work is impeccable and mine is pretty shabby.

Before I pack it away for the year though I put together an envelope of a few little things since I'm guessing I'm not the only one with a pile of holiday photos needing to be scrapped. Just leave a comment if you need it...

It's like a joke...

 

The snowman flag hanging from our house in 90 degree weather.

I should know better than to complain about a heatwave when I see the news about the Midwest or when my sister-in-law's e-mails from Iowa include statements like, "right now it's -34 here with the wind chill".

Still it would be nice not to be sweating in January.

Confessions...

I've been sucked into The Bachelor...I usually can avoid this kind of thing (besides addictions to Gossip Girl and maybe Real Housewives of Orange County too) but I officialy seem to be committed to melting my brain while watching Jason and all those crazy girls...please tell me I'm not the only one.

So today besides cleaning up the house, making pot roast for dinner, and watching TV I made a couple of scrapbook pages...

Here's a page about what I'm hoping for this year...I wanted to distress the photo as kind of a contrast to the idea of peace which kind of indicates where I am right now...I masked off the polka dots with circular labels and then used one of those triangular make-up sponge things with ink to color the background...I used a peace symbol stamp to fill the circles...

And I made a title page for my next scrapbook...I'm finally starting to feel like I'm getting back to scrapping that I'm really happy with...which usually means the page is a total mess, but it was really fun to make.

Our weekend...

was inundated with "spiky balls"...surely that's not the technical term for liquid amber tree seed pods, but that's what we call them.

Thousands of them have been dangling on our next door neighbor's trees and gusting Santa Ana winds have ensured that most of them have landed in our yard.

We had a really nice time at Tilly's baptism...Mac should have tucked in his shirt like sharp looking Caleb...

 

 

And today Sean and I ranerrands which included an unintended epic trip to Costco...the kind when you go armed with a couple of coupons to restock on toliet paper and toothpaste...but then you find the cookbook you've been wanting since your sister got it for Christmas and you find rainbow and cherry pajamas your niece in Iowa must have...

 

Now I've spent the evening watching the Golden Globes since I'm always a sucker for award shows and am just feeling lucky that I still have a couple of weeks at home ahead of me.

Pages...

A page for my book about Christmas...

 

A quick 6x12 one with a photo from this past fall...

 

A title page for our Christmas book...

 

A 2008 summary page that is the last one in my book...

   

Hypothetically speaking there should be a lot more scrapping to share in the next 18 days, but I'll admit I haven't felt very satisfied with the stuff I've been making until this last page...I mentioned feeling rusty a couple of weeks ago and I still can't quite shake the feeling yet...hopefully just more stamping and gluing will do the trick.

Futzing...

Did you know that "futz" is actually a word in the dictionary? I confirmed that about 60 seconds ago. It's also what I have continued to do around the house...a little of this and a little of that...nothing terribly productive though.

Well unless you want to count making a holy mess out of my desk as productivity.

There's random bits of scrapbooking scattered around, a pile of papers that each symbolize some kind of task or phone call I need to deal with, and a Tiffany & Co. bag...because that's what you should always have sitting on your desk right? Well you should when your niece's baptism is this Saturday and Uncle Seany wanted to get Mattie Mae something extra special since he is her Godfather.

The one actual productive thing I accomplished today was making a calendar to print out each month and hang next to my desk...I copied and pasted these into Word, did a little editing, and used one of my favorite fonts in a different color for each month.

   

Tomorrow I'm finally sharing some scrapbooking...I'm happy to report my album is all caught up for 2008...still have Mac's to get caught up though and tons of Christmas to scrap.

Hibernation...

 

I have been hiding out at home in my pajamas and slippers the last couple of days while Sean and Mac went back to school. Yesterday I spent almost 12 hours laying around in bed with a book...

 

I'm trying to get ahead on reading for one of my classes and got sucked into The Dirty Girls Social Club...I was up until 2am devouring it...unfortunately A Midwife's Tale isn't quite as quick of a read.

Today I was pretty much a waste of a person...I even took a nap...which I never do. Actually I take that back, I often take naps as a migraine survival technique. I never crawl back into bed to sleep for an hour just because it sounds like a good idea...I have to admit I was almost giddy diving back under the covers.

When I woke up I finally opened a box that was waiting all weekend to be unpacked...it was full of albums and page protectors that will be waiting to be filled this year...

That red one needs to be filled with Christmas layouts in the next couple of weeks. I try to color code our albums so the green one is for me/family and the blue one is for Mac...they will be the 10th scrapbook for each of us.

Besides sleeping and getting future scrapbooking organized I attempted to make a felt cover for the little planner I've been using since this fall...

 

The stitching is less than stellar and I need to figure out some kind of snap to go behind the button...and I need to figure out how the heck you even do that so any sewing tips are welcomed.

From every angle...

They are kind of redundant photos, but here are the results from Rearrange '08.

The red square ended up drying just fine, no extra coat needed. I'm thinking the wall now might look like a furniture store with the mish-mash of pieces, but for some reason I like it. The old windows ended up scattered around...one you saw on the mantle...one is on the wall by the dining room and one is perched on top of the bookcases holding all our scrapbooks.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm not sure if I'm 100% satisfied with the changes, but overall I've been so happy to have things a little freshened up around the house...it really is such a nice way to start a new year.

Multitasking...

Have I ever mentioned that Sean is an amazing window valance maker? Just give him some fabric, scissors, fusing tape, and an attempt at flashing an irresistible smile. He can create the straight lines I am thoroughly incapable of...I once made a valance for a bathroom window and we literally had to hang the curtain rod crooked to make up for my shoddy workmanship. Tonight he worked on a new one for the living room (while watching basketball in our bedroom)...it was literally made and hung in a couple of hours.

And if you look closely you'll see that I've lost my mind and picked up lime green zebra stripes. I have never had one minute in my life where any kind of animal print appealed to me in anyway. However I saw this particular fabric a couple fo months ago when there was another valance creation in the house and decided today to go for it. Especially since coupon usage made the piece of fabric just $6 so it was gamble we were willing to take. I'm eager to see what it really looks like tomorrow morning.

Zebra stripes might be as exciting as this weekend gets...it's back to school for Sean and Mac on Monday so this weekend is a major last call for productivity before things like lesson plans or homework have to once again become a part of the daily routine around here.

Not to brag...

Actually I am totally going to brag...or least celebrate the fact that I pulled it off...that messy photoshopped, circle contains "A"s for all four of my classes this past semester.

There's also a pretty decent Cal State Fullerton grade point average, and thankfully a cummulative G.P.A. that's slowly creeping up...something I'm extra grateful for considering where I was last year just getting into the school.

Of course there's no resting on my laurels...just gearing up for next semester...18 units and maybe, just maybe, another 4.0. 

Here goes nothing...

 

It's cliché really...a new year starting with a resolution to exercise, loose weight, and get healthy. Yet here I am. When I said yesterday I had big plans in 2009 this is the biggest. Mark my words...

I will look the way I want to look...weigh what I want to weigh...feel the way I want to feel by the end of this year.

I know it is a bold proclamation, but it is necessary. It very well might be my hardest goal to accomplish once and for all, but I know the willpower is in me.

Now I just have to find it every single day.