I went over to my friend Cassi’s house on Sunday afternoon for a Crafternoon. This is our second Crafternoon together. Cassi came over in September for a Crafternoon in my craft studio. To my chagrin, I totally forgot to take photos of that session of Crafternoon! So I made sure I brought my camera this time!
For this crafternoon, I wanted to start on my 2012 holiday cards. My big idea this year is to make some cutout window cards. (You can see my holiday cards from last year here.) Honestly, I spent over 20 hours last year making 40 tri-fold cards. I wanted to keep it more simple this year. I didn’t want the hassle of bringing my Silhouette die cut machine to Cassi’s house, so I spent the morning designing some simple holiday shapes in my Silhouette Studio software and cutting them out.
I used Papertrey Ink’s 8.5 x 11 cardstock. They are quite thick, so I had to double-cut them with the Silhouette. Then I tried cutting with some thick woodgrain kraft cardstock. That turned out NOT well at all. Even after 4 cuts, the Silhouette blade couldn’t cut through the cardstock all the way. And it frayed the cardstock.
I tried reversing the image and cutting the back of the cardstock without the pronounced woodgrain.
It still wouldn’t cut all the way through to the other side.
I had to use my Fiskar finger knife to cut the shapes out. After cutting 13-14 pieces of cardstock to make 26-28 A2 sized cards, I packed up my tools and supplies and headed to Cassi’s house.
Crafting with a friend is really fun! We got to chat about all kinds of stuff, eat chocolate, and make things. Cassi is putting the cover together for her December Daily album.
I’m scoring all my cards with the Martha Steward Scoring Board.
I was pretty productive and actually stamped on all the card fronts as well, although I forgot to get a photo of that. I made these cards production-line style, so while certain steps are done on them, they are not totally done yet. I will show Part 2 in a future blog post soon.
I’ve got all my Christmas-y craft items I want to use for my cards in an IRIS box so that everything is together. I hope to finish them before Thanksgiving.
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Crafternoon With Cassi
Monday, November 5, 2012
Do They Work Over There?
On Halloween, Todd’s workplace always has a costume contest. There’s individual costumes and group costumes. This year Todd did not dress up in a costume, but he took photos and was the videographer.
There was the running of the bulls in Pamplona.
The Price Is Right.
Super Family.
Giraffe.
Indiana Jones.
And Gangnam Style.
And the video of the winning group costume, Gangnam Style. Todd took the videos and his coworker Ryan made the video with music. Enjoy!
Read More »
There was the running of the bulls in Pamplona.
The Price Is Right.
Super Family.
Giraffe.
Indiana Jones.
And Gangnam Style.
And the video of the winning group costume, Gangnam Style. Todd took the videos and his coworker Ryan made the video with music. Enjoy!
Sunday, November 4, 2012
This Is Why I Have To Exercise
The tail end of October was really awesome. The weather finally cooled down some and we were usually in the high 60’s and mid-70’s. On the weekends we usually go running somewhere scenic and this is not an unusual view midway through my run.
On Saturday 10/27, we invited Anne & Gilbert over to watch the Buckeyes vs Penn State. Of course, football gatherings require dips and treats. I found a recipe for Baked Black Beans With Chorizo and had to try it out.
It was super-yummy with tortilla chips!
I found another recipe for Brown Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies and emailed it to Todd. He felt it was imperative to include it in the game time treats. But he did make a couple of them with raisins instead of chocolate chips for Anne, who doesn’t like chocolate.
This game was the battle of the bowl-ineligibles, but the Buckeyes soundly beat the Nittany Lions 35-23.
Even Noodle got into the Buckeye spirit by posing with Brutus the Buckeye.
On Sunday 10/28, Todd usually goes on his longer bike ride. But his back was stiff from doing P90X, so he skipped it. Instead, we went to try a new-to-us restaurant called Izakaya Sakura. Mainly because their Champon Noodle Soup was on the cover of the current issue of San Diego Magazine.
And that’s exactly what I ordered.
The broth was really good, and I loved all the ingredients and noodles.
Todd got chicken katsu.
It was yummy and definitely worth going back. The Champon Noodles will feel especially comforting when it’s winter. Oh wait, we don’t get below 50 degrees here in the “winter”. Ok, I still love noodle soups though! After that, we had to check out this Asian bakery called “Big Joy Family Bakery”, also featured in San Diego Magazine.
They are known for their wide selection of homemade macaroons, but Todd and I had the Taiwanese shaved ice with vanilla ice cream, red beans, sweetened condensed milk, and fresh fruit instead. Yes, the running and 30 Day Shred video workouts seem like a good idea now?
Before we leave the topic of food… Todd made these Greek Cod Cakes and they were delicious. First he mixed steamed cod fillet with the egg & panko mix.
Then he cooked them in a skillet.
It was really delicious.
And the last bit of awesomeness from end of October? The San Francisco Giants won the World Series! I was so geeked that I took a picture of my TV screen.
MY Giants. I grew up in the Bay Area and the Giants were my team. When I was 15 years old, I ended up watching a 16-inning SF Giants baseball game on TV. I would have normally turned to another channel because I didn’t understand baseball. After that 16-inning game in which anything that could have happened did happen, I understood everything from pinch-hitting to suicide squeeze. A lot of my teenage memories has to do with going to baseball games or watching them on TV. :)
Read More »
On Saturday 10/27, we invited Anne & Gilbert over to watch the Buckeyes vs Penn State. Of course, football gatherings require dips and treats. I found a recipe for Baked Black Beans With Chorizo and had to try it out.
It was super-yummy with tortilla chips!
I found another recipe for Brown Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chunk Cookies and emailed it to Todd. He felt it was imperative to include it in the game time treats. But he did make a couple of them with raisins instead of chocolate chips for Anne, who doesn’t like chocolate.
This game was the battle of the bowl-ineligibles, but the Buckeyes soundly beat the Nittany Lions 35-23.
Even Noodle got into the Buckeye spirit by posing with Brutus the Buckeye.
On Sunday 10/28, Todd usually goes on his longer bike ride. But his back was stiff from doing P90X, so he skipped it. Instead, we went to try a new-to-us restaurant called Izakaya Sakura. Mainly because their Champon Noodle Soup was on the cover of the current issue of San Diego Magazine.
And that’s exactly what I ordered.
The broth was really good, and I loved all the ingredients and noodles.
Todd got chicken katsu.
It was yummy and definitely worth going back. The Champon Noodles will feel especially comforting when it’s winter. Oh wait, we don’t get below 50 degrees here in the “winter”. Ok, I still love noodle soups though! After that, we had to check out this Asian bakery called “Big Joy Family Bakery”, also featured in San Diego Magazine.
They are known for their wide selection of homemade macaroons, but Todd and I had the Taiwanese shaved ice with vanilla ice cream, red beans, sweetened condensed milk, and fresh fruit instead. Yes, the running and 30 Day Shred video workouts seem like a good idea now?
Before we leave the topic of food… Todd made these Greek Cod Cakes and they were delicious. First he mixed steamed cod fillet with the egg & panko mix.
Then he cooked them in a skillet.
It was really delicious.
And the last bit of awesomeness from end of October? The San Francisco Giants won the World Series! I was so geeked that I took a picture of my TV screen.
MY Giants. I grew up in the Bay Area and the Giants were my team. When I was 15 years old, I ended up watching a 16-inning SF Giants baseball game on TV. I would have normally turned to another channel because I didn’t understand baseball. After that 16-inning game in which anything that could have happened did happen, I understood everything from pinch-hitting to suicide squeeze. A lot of my teenage memories has to do with going to baseball games or watching them on TV. :)
Friday, November 2, 2012
Call For Help
ETA: On Sunday 11/4 afternoon, a blog reader named Julie emailed me that article that I thought was lost for good! She had saved it for inspiration as she is just starting Project Life herself. I am so very thankful for this great community. I had almost given up hope! Thank you, Julie, and thank you everyone for your kind and empathetic words. :)
I've learned a valuable lesson the last few days... if you write blog posts and articles for other websites that are not your own, you need to have copies of it yourself. I learned this the hard way after being notified on Saturday that My Scrapbook Art's online magazine, Home Is Where The Art Is, went down and is unrecoverable. I had written 3 quarterly articles on Project Life for them this year. Actually I had written a 4th one that was supposed to go live on November 1st. Now poof, it's gone. I made the mistake of only writing it in their site's wordpress online and not writing it in MS Word or Evernote on my computer first. Lesson learned!
I've learned a valuable lesson the last few days... if you write blog posts and articles for other websites that are not your own, you need to have copies of it yourself. I learned this the hard way after being notified on Saturday that My Scrapbook Art's online magazine, Home Is Where The Art Is, went down and is unrecoverable. I had written 3 quarterly articles on Project Life for them this year. Actually I had written a 4th one that was supposed to go live on November 1st. Now poof, it's gone. I made the mistake of only writing it in their site's wordpress online and not writing it in MS Word or Evernote on my computer first. Lesson learned!
Now here's where you can help. Thankfully a while ago, I had used Evernote to clip the first two articles I had written for them: Documenting the Everyday With Project Life, and Onwards With Project Life. I hope to republish those here on my own blog (where it is backed up on a monthly basis to my hard drive and has online backup) soon. However, I had NOT used Evernote to clip the article titled "Get Creative With Project Life", which used to be at this link: http://www.myscrapbookart.com/msamagazine/?p=6548
If you somehow have this article saved on your hard drive or to Evernote or something, could you please email it to me? You can use the "Email me" link on the upper left of my blog, under the "Connect" section. Thanks so much in advance if any of you have somehow saved it. If not, that article is lost. :(
I will be spending some time this weekend clipping some other articles I've written for other sites into my Evernote. I really don't want the hard work I've put into writing for other sites (most of the time for free) to just disappear like this. I think from now on I will be writing the articles on my hard drive first. AND also clipping them into Evernote immediately after they are published online at other sites. I'm bummed about it, to be honest!
Thursday, November 1, 2012
Joining Write. Click. Scrapbook.
I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve joined the Write.Click.Scrapbook. collective! This is the “project” that I referred to nebulously on Facebook that I could announce on November 1st! :D I am really happy because I truly believe in the mission of Write.Click.Scrapbook. It was found in 2009 by some of the ladies who worked on the magazine “Simple Scrapbooks” (a CK publication) when it ceased publication. They believe in telling stories, honing their photography skills, taking photos, and making scrapbooking fun and not guilt-ridden. All things that I’ve believed in as well. I feel that this is a good match for me, combining some of my current strengths while learning from the awesome ladies there as well. I had already been big fans of some of them (such as Monika Wright, Francine Clouden, Amy Sorenson, Deb Duty) and I can’t wait to get to know the other ladies better! I will be taking over the WCS blog for a week next year and also blogging during their summer dailies and December dailies. If you have any topics that you would like to see explored, please let me know! I will also be contributing to their Monthly Galleries, and I plan to go paper, digi, and hybrid too! :)
Today is the November gallery reveal day. For this month, the theme is “We ♥ Color”, which is right up my alley! Here is a couple of peeks at my layout.
You can see the whole gallery reveal post here, and my layout here.
So with that, I need to go workout now. We only had 10 trick-or-treaters last night and I ate one too many Reese’s peanut butter cup. I guess the big-bag-o-chocolate was overkill, but we had over 40 kids come by last year!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)