Shopping!

I decided it was time for a little scrapbook shopping today! I got myself some goodies from Scrapbookgraphics, Two Peas and The Digi Shoppe to play with. I also got some inkjet transparencies from the office supply store this morning - I've been wanting some of those and finally found a decent price ($20 for 50 of them!) And, yesterday I went to the LSS and got some fun paper stuff - some binding coils for making little books and these great new folder things from 7Gypsies! I think I'm gonna use one of them for my book for Shimelle's class. I'm hoping to do some of it this weekend - Bob has to work for a while tomorrow so I'll have a little free creation time available :) I'm going to try and make it a mix of digi and paper scrapping - very eclectic so I don't have to worry too much about matching things up, etc. I'm excited to get started on it! I think the class itself is actually done now, but the beauty of her classes is that you can do them whenever! Perfect for me because I often just don't have time to get to it right when I get the prompts.

Now that our houseguest is gone, I also have free access to my home computer back so I've been scrapping up a storm! I did a couple layouts last night and a couple the night before - I'd post them here, but I forgot to email myself copies at work. If you want to check them out, they're at Scrapartist and The Digichick.

On a political note, I spent a long time last night trying to figure out what to vote on the 20 (that's right 20!) propositions on the Arizona ballot this year. I think I'm actually going to have to do some legal research on some of them to figure out which way to vote - that just seems odd to me. What do people do who don't know how to do the research? There's brochures and stuff, but they're often not all that clear either. I tell ya, being a citizen is hard work sometimes LOL Anyway, I got a mail-in ballot again this year so at least I have the time to stew it over and get it sent in.

Finally, on a not political, but very important note, be sure to stop by Scrapartist this Sunday for our Pink event - it's all to benefit breast cancer research! Definitely a great cause and I'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun too!

Happy Friday!

I'm so glad it's finally Friday! I've been swamped at work today, but at least it's the end of the week! I'm definitely ready for the weekend! So, first of all, I want to say congratulations to all the talented ladies who made it to the next round in the Scrapartist Apprentice contest. I'm bummed that I wasn't among them, but maybe it worked out for the best since the next round requires some hand-drawing and I am really, really bad at that LOL! Anyway, I'll keep on learning and hopefully the right designing opportunity will come along for me when the time is right :) Thanks to all of you who have used my goodies and supported me along the way - it is much appreciated!

On a happier note, I did some shopping today and bought myself a bunch of stuff at the Scrapgirls sale! I just love their stuff :) And, I think I might scoop up a few things at Designer Digitals too, I just can't get into the store right now - I think it's my work screening it out, not sure. Oh, and I also got a paper pack from Jessica Bolton at Scrapbookgraphics - another store and designer I love :) Plus, there's lots of great new stuff in Carrie's shop at Fishscraps that I'm dying to play with and some great things at Scrapartist and Digichick too - so much fun stuff out there and hopefully now I'll have a little more time to scrap!

Finally, on a political note, if you haven't seen or heard about David Kuo's new book, "Tempting Faith," I highly recommend doing so. As a Christian myself, I have always felt that my faith informed my politics and that it was important for people of faith (along with everyone else) to get involved in our political system. But, I also feel very strongly that the separation of church and state is critical. Truly, the secular government may be one of the greatest human inventions ever. It just gets ugly when people play on religion to advance their political agenda and vice-versa. Kuo's book is the perfect evidence of how true that has been in the current White House. I saw Kuo on Stephen Colbert last night and he put it perfectly to my mind (this isn't an exact quote mind you, but it's close), "People need to understand that Jesus and George Bush are not the same person." Amen my brother. Anyway, that's my little rant for today. The more important, broader message - whatever your view, get out and vote in November - our country is at a critical point in history and we should all have a say in where it goes from here!

Praise Challenge!

Just a couple of quick things today - first of all, the Round 3 entries for the Apprentice challenge are in now and the previews are in the gallery - be sure to check them out if you haven't already! You can see mine HERE They were so much work, but I love how they came out! I had never done some of these things, so it was definitely a challenge, but I really learned a lot in the process. Now I'm just waiting on pins and needles to see if I make it to the next round!

Okay, now for the praise challenge! It's simple, you go to the Scrapartist gallery, you leave comments on at least five layouts, you leave me a note in the challenge thread letting me know you did it, I pick a winner tonight and send them a $5 gift certificate for Scrapartist! How easy is that? You can get all the details and enter HERE

Some "Basic" Layouts

I just love this kit! It's Scrapbook Graphics latest collaborative kit and it's just full of great stuff! Cool elements, fab neutral papers, I feel like this is a kit I'll be going back to again and again. Anyway, these are my first two layouts using it!

By way of a weekend update - this weekend was great! We went out to Safford on Sunday to visit our friends Deb and Wes and their kids (the cute red-headed ones I scrap all the time) along with Bob's friend Derek who's visiting Tucson from Salt Lake right now. We went up to Mt. Graham and had a great time cooking out, taking pictures and trying to hit rocks with sticks in a little bit of stick ball (okay, mostly the guys did that LOL).

Then, I had yesterday off because of Columbus Day, but Bob had to work so I had a whole day to myself! I slept in, did a little scrapping, and, of course, went shopping! I also found out that I made it to Round 3 in the Scrapartist Apprentice challenge so I was flying high the whole day! I'm so excited and honored to have gotten this far! I can't wait for the site to come back up so we can see everybody's stuff for the next round - I'm so amazed at all the talent we have in this thing!

This morning, however, was a different story! It was insane! First of all, we planted our winter rye grass last week so it has to be watered several times a day. I always water it for about 5 minutes right before I leave for work. So, this morning I get ready for work, lock the doors, put my stuff in the car and go out to the backyard to water the grass. My new pants don't have pockets, so I set my keys on our table on the patio. I water the grass, I close the gate to the backyard (we have a cement block wall all the way around our yard) and lock the padlock. I get in the car and realize I don't have my keys. They are now locked in the backyard! And, I can't get in the house to get the gate key or to go out the back door to the yard! I ended up having to jump over the gate! Can you imagine? LOL! It was nuts! But, I made it over, got my keys and jumped back over (because I still didn't have a key for the gate) and went to work. Then of course on the way to work, a woman completely runs the red light as I'm waiting to make a left turn and screeches to a halt about two feet from my front bumper! Talk about a close call! I was shaking! By the time I finally got to work, I was quite a mess! But, things have improved since then and I'm rolling along on the case I'm working on, so in the end, all is well - God was definitely watching out for me today! Oh yeah, I also bought a really cute skirt at lunch, so that improved my mood quite a bit LOL! By the way, if you live in Tucson or visit here there's a great little store downtown called Desert Bloom (it's where I got the skirt) that has great funky clothes, jewelry, bags, etc. Definitely a place to stop if you're in town!

A Little Something

Okay, I meant to give this away a while back when we had the Christine Adolph challenge at Scrapartist, but somehow I never got it put together LOL. So, today in an attempt to put off doing actual work, I finished up - it's the Iris brush that I used on my Inspiration layout based on Christine's gorgeous work. I'm not sure why Blogger is making the background black, but you'll get a transparent .png version and an .abr version made in PS7 in the zip. Hope you enjoy it :)

Download Link

Making Headway

I'm feeling somewhat accomplished today LOL! I'm making some headway on my list of things to do this week! Of course, really it's a list of things that I want to do, but need to find the time for. For example, this morning (at 5:30 am no less) I finished up my new day planner curtesy of Dianne Rigdon's brilliant templates. I'll post some photos another day, but it turned out great! I got a wonderful binder from EcoChic - their stuff is made by the urban poor in India from old plastic bags - how cool is that? Then I used some Iron Orchids Design papers to customize the templates, punched some holes and added some embellishments from my stash. Really easy and I think it turned out beautifully :)

I also signed up for a Shimelle class! I'm really excited about it - I've heard such good things. I always seem to miss her sign ups, but this time I made it - it's open until October 15. Hopefully it will be some nice inspiration - I've been feeling a little stuck in a rut and short on ideas lately.

So, now that I'm all organized, I'm blocking out some time for myself over the next few days to scrap my heart out :) I have a bunch of layouts due for various CT assignments and a harddrive full of some great new stuff, so now I just need the time to sit down and let the spirit flow! I have to go to a rub-elbows kind of lawyer event tonight, but it usually ends pretty early, so hopefully I can even get a start tonight. And, speaking of lawyering, I guess it's time for me to get to work :) If you haven't already, be sure to check out the Apprentice Round 2 entries - some gorgeous stuff in there - I'm really nervous about making it to the next round, everyone's really good!

Round 2!

After much obsessing, I finally posted my Round 2 entry in the Apprentice contest! We were challenged to create two papers, one solid and one patterned, with lots of texture. Our instructions also included some gorgeous art inspiration with lots of "painterly" texture. So, I played off of that on my solid paper - it has a lot of great painted texture and went with a nice rich brown from the inspiration for my patterned paper. You wouldn't believe how many texture photos I took this week! I found what I wanted for this week and collected lots of great textures for future work - I just love to play with textures and blending! You can check out the papers HERE.