Date Stamp Giveaway | Paying It Forward

11/18/2012 11:36pm - giveaway now closed. Winner announced in a new post. Thanks everyone for entering!

Back in September, my friend Melissa Stinson (ScrappyJedi) found the American Crafts Christmas roller date stamp at her local Hobby Lobby. We had both acknowledged our date stamp addictions to each other, so she knew I love them. I don’t have a local Hobby Lobby, so she bought me one and sent it to me!


It was so super-nice of her to do that, and I love my AC Christmas date stamp! I thought I would pay it forward on my blog and give away an American Crafts Amy Tangerine date stamp to a blog reader! :)


Close-up of the cute sayings and graphics.


This giveaway is open to everyone, including internationals! Please leave only ONE comment per person and I will pick a winner on Sunday night, 9pm, US Pacific standard time. Winner must email me by the end of Monday night with their address, because I plan to send this out by Wednesday morning, before the Thanksgiving holidays in the USA.

Happy roller date stamp loving! :)

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Scrapbooking | Anatomy of a Layout: Shine

My first layout for Write.Click.Scrapbook. was for the November gallery. The theme was “We ♥ Color”. I chose to work with my favorite colors of yellow and light blue, because they are happy and sunny colors.

I wanted to share the process of creating this layout. I knew I wanted to create a sunburst on my page with the yellow and blue papers. So I drew lines on the back of each paper. I also marked the pieces that I wanted to include from each color of paper with a penciled circle mark. That way I wouldn’t get confused about which pieces to use, since I wanted alternating colors in my sunburst.


Next I adhered each piece of the sunburst onto my cardstock base.


Then I pierced some holes where I wanted to use my yellow Divine Twine, and hand-sewed the twine lines onto my page with a needle.


I also wanted to use a die-cut mat under my photo, so I designed a circle and star mat in my Silhouette Studio software and cut the mat out.


Next, I stamped a quote onto yellow cardstock with navy blue ink, and cut out a white strip of paper for handwritten journaling.


I glued some wood veneer arrows onto my die-cut arrows, and dabbed some sparkly Stickles onto them.


So that’s how this layout came together. :)

Do you like the circle & star mat cutout? I’m sharing the Silhouette Studio file with you. You can download the .studio file at the link below.

Circle & Star Silhouette .studio file download

The file is for personal-use only, so please don’t make anything to sell. Enjoy! If you make something with it, I would love to see it! :)

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The Lilypad | Food Photography

I've been blogging about twice a month at The Lilypad blog, but haven't thought to link them up here on my own blog for some reason. I need to start doing that, LOL.  Today I blogged about Food Photography at The Lilypad.  It’s no secret that I love a great meal. And I love to take photos of food, especially the awesome food that my husband Todd cooks at home. In my blog post at The Lilypad I give a few tips for taking good food photos.  You can check it out here. :)

Some of the examples I gave to support the tips.

 

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Krispy Kreme Challenge West | Take 3

Long time blog readers will know that Todd loves to participate in wacky races. So it should come as no surprise that he has participated in the Krispy Kreme Challenge West in 2010 and 2011. Last year was cold, rainy, and miserable. I had no interest in participating until this year, when they added the “Lite Division”. In the past they had just the “Classic” division, where you had to eat 12 doughnuts, and the “Donut Man” division, where you ran 2 miles, ate 12 doughnuts, ran another 2 miles, ate another 12 doughnuts, then ran the final 2 miles. This year’s “Lite” division means only 6 doughnuts required! So when Todd signed up, so did I!

The forecast for Saturday 11/10 morning was possibility of rain. We decided on Friday night that unless it was pouring, we would brave it. Upon waking up at 6:15am on Saturday morning, we were delighted that it was not raining and the ground wasn’t wet. So we got up and got ready and drove ourselves down to De Anza Cove at Mission Bay.

We checked in and got our t-shirt and race number, which was printed on a barf bag!


Todd decided to wear his for the race.


Photo-op with the doughnuts. The thinner boxes were the 6-doughnut “Lite” division. The taller boxes were 12 doughnuts for the “Classic” division. As far as I know, there were no 24-doughnut “Donut Man” participants this year!


It was a beautiful morning at Mission Bay.


Each participant brought an unwrapped toy to donate to Rady Children’s Hospital. We bought stamp & card-making sets for kids.


The founder of the event, Keith Kirby, with a lady from Rady Children’s Hospital.


Co-founders of the event, T-Bone and Keith, going over the race rules.


Pretty soon, it was time to start the race! Todd was ready!


Except for some shoelace adjustments, that is.


These socks rock. There were some wacky outfits for sure!


I had my camera with me during the race. I ran the first two miles pretty fast (for me) at 10 minute miles. Made it to the Doughnut Corral and got my 6 doughnuts just as Todd finished eating his 6 doughnuts and left! He did stop to take a couple of photos of me.


The first one tasted good!


Todd all happy and proud that he finished the 6 doughnuts with no trouble. Compared to the miserable 12 doughnuts last year, this was cake! (Pun intended.)


I’m making progress on my first doughnut!


The Doughnut Corral was full of people trying to get their doughnuts down.


Here is my doughnut-eating progression. It took me 13 minutes and 44 seconds to eat 6 doughnuts. I guess I can’t count on a career as a competitive eater!


After finishing the doughnuts, I proceeded with running another 2 miles. I felt surprisingly good for having just eaten 6 doughnuts and running. Todd finished way before me and took photos of me at the finish.


My goal was under an hour and I was pretty happy to finish at 55:23! I was so happy I did a “Phoebe-from-Friends-running-waving-my-arms” pose at the finish.


I’ll have to say, the “Lite” division with 6 doughnut was not difficult and made for a fun race. We didn’t need our barf bags!


Here were the race organizers with the Under-18 winner, Classic Division male and female winners.


The middle two were the Lite Division female and male winners.



They posted the final finish rankings and I came in 7th in the Lite Division. It took Todd only 6:52 to eat 6 doughnuts, while it took me 13:44. How crazy is it that the winner of the Classic Division ran 4 miles and ate 12 doughnuts in 27 minutes and 22 seconds! CRAZY! I’m pretty happy with my running time though. I’m very glad to have participated in such a fun race, and to donate some toys to the kids at Rady Children’s Hospital. It was well-organized and I would do it again next year!  :)

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In October…

In October…

• I only ran 28 miles – the first time in 2012 that I didn’t run at least as many miles as there were days in the month! But at the end of October I’ve run 356 miles, which was just 10 miles short of my 2012 running goal.
• I also walked 12 miles in addition to running. And I did 9 days of 30 Day Shred DVD.
• All in all, I spent 12 hours and 35 minutes exercising, which is my best month since running everyday in July.
• We took 448 photos, which is the lowest month in 2012.
• I made a Blurb photo book with my Instagram photos.
• Todd took photos with his new GoPro Hero2 helmet camera while cycling.
• I wrote a guest post for Write.Click.Scrapbook., and subsequently got invited to join the team.
• Went running outside at the lake and by the ocean. The cooler temperatures made for awesome running.
• We went over to AJ & Meera’s house to watch the Buckeyes play against Nebraska, and we cooked Spring Vegetable Pasta for everyone. Meera made brownies. Awesome night with friends.
• We went on a photo tour of downtown San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter. Followed by great tapas lunch at Café Sevilla.
• Gave away boxes of clothing and games to Goodwill.
• Ordered and received some David’s Tea and loved them.
• Went to a crop at Paper Tales with friends.
• Decided that I missed Project Life and I’m doing it MY way this time.
• Went to dinner with Cassi & Dan & Madison at Blue Ribbon Pizza and loved it. Great food with friends!
• Had gelato twice. Had too much Halloween candy. Had cookies and cake. And then I wonder why I haven’t lost weight even though I exercise regularly.
• Had dinner at Ortegas, then coffee and gelato at Pappalecco’s, followed by the musical “Allegiance” at the Old Globe Theater. What a fun night!
• The SF Giants won the world series.
• Anne & Gilbert came over to watch Buckeyes play Penn State. Todd made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, I made chorizo bean dip, and Ohio State won. Football with friends is the best.
• Went to try several of the Asian food places featured in the October issue of San Diego Magazine.
• Todd made cod cakes and they were so delicious.
• Todd’s work had their annual Halloween costume contest and it was awesome and fun, just like always.

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