Monday blahs

I really feel like staying in bed today! It's cold out there. And I'm just beat.
The dinner party for Betty went really well! Some of our friends who we haven't seen in ages stopped by and we finished off all the food and wine! Then yesterday, Mike and Vez had us all over for dinner so I got to play with the girls. :)

I've been Netflixing 6 Feet under since I can't wait for On Demand to catch up. But after watching the start of Season 3 I'm so bummed! No Brenda - she's my favorite.

I've also been trying to organize all my scrap supplies. I have a pretty good back up system, and I have a folder that I call "Scrap Tools" where I keep all kinds of elements sets, textures, actions, etc. So now I got this crazy idea after reading Gina Miller's blog to further organize elements from kits and stash them into the Scrap Tools folder. I'll see how far that goes until I get bored. I just don't want to bother with some new program. I'm too lazy for that!

I didn't do much scrapping this weekend. I had some freebies to get done. Here's a page I got done yesterday...
I used Dani B's Love & Affection kit at SBB.

And I did a page that I'm going to wait to post for a project I'm involved in. There should be an announcement in a few days. And from what I've seen, it's AMAZING!

You all know how much I love Rocky. He's really changed my life and made me a dog lover, so I had to sign up when Holly asked me to join in for a good cause.

Gonna make some lunch and get ready for work. I would much rather do some scrapping or something. Oh well! LOL!

Happy Birthday Melinda!!!!!!

I just wanted to wish a very happy birthday to my good friend Melinda!!!!! I love you girl! :) You are such a great friend and you inspire me everyday!
Check out all the cool & creative things Melinda's been up too on the Girl Talk blog.

Woohoo it's Friday!

Happy Friday!!!! I'm so glad this week is almost over. Even though it was a short week at work, since I had Monday off, I've been dragging. I'm ready to crash. Today's my friend Betty's birthday and I think we're going to make dinner for her tomorrow night. Otherwise, I plan on chilling all weekend.

So I can finally show off my pages that I created using Jessica Bolton's new Not Quite Men papers, elements and alphas at Scrapbook Graphics. And Jess has some extra goodies on her blog that go with this kit.

Here's some more evidence from last weekend. :) Credits

And here's Randi with her retro 80s Christmas gifts. I got her the Back to the Future DVDs and Mom got her the "lifepreserver." Credits.

I was inspired by the stripes on the jacket to create the sketch the McFly LO is based on for my new sketch challenge at RAKScraps! I am just amazed by all the LOs posted so far, and it's just been a few days!

Here's a page I did for Melina's Night Owl challenge. Melinda makes the coolest templates.

Credits

And here's one I did for a challenge among some friends to use some swirls or doodles on the page. I've had Tracy Ann's Flip Flop kit in my stash for awhile and finally found a good reason to use it...

Credits

Well, I am sooooo super jealous of all the gals who are going out to CHA this weekend! There are a ton of people going and getting together out in California, including Jeanine and Jen! Did I mention I'm jealous! And since they're going, Scrapdish is having a HUGE Going to CHA sale this weekend. Almost everything is 20%-40% off! I've maked all of my kits down (except for those donuts and $1 binn items) and that's in addition to the sale I'm already having over at SBB!

Goodbye Sale

I'm so sad about this. I really struggled for a long time in deciding what to do, but thinking about my priorities for this year, I knew that I wanted to scale back on designing and spend more time scrapping. So I'm going to be leaving SBB at the end of January, and I'll eventually be moving my kits to my store at Scrapdish. So through the end of the month, all of my stuffs at SBB will be on sale for 40% off. I'm not sure yet what I'll be moving or when, so it could be a last call on some of these kits.

And I really am heartbroken because I worked hard to improve my work and applied several times to be at SBB. It was really great working with Amy Edwards (and even hanging out with her in Chicago). I don't know how she does all she does - but she really was so supportive and great to work with. I'm going to miss being part of the store.

If you read my blog, you probably know I've had a big change in my life recently. I have weekends off for the first time in my career. And I'm enjoying it and not spending as much time on the computer. So now without having to design as much or promote as much, I can spend the time I do have on the computer scrapping and hanging out at RAKs! I'm going to be taking over the sketch challenge and we have lots more fun stuff planned too!

So I just want to send out some big hugs to everyone who's been so supportive - my friends, my customers, my CT. Thanks so much!

This weekend has been censored

I have had the craziest weekend! I've had three days off and it has been nuts!
Saturday I went to see Spamalot with Randi, Joanie and my cousins Erin and Melissa. We were running late and drove into the city. We had to run up the street to the theater because we were afraid of getting locked out. But we only missed about the first two songs. The show was hilarious! I wish I had seen the original cast though - with Tim Curry, David Hyde Pierce, Hank Azaria and Sara Ramirez (as in Callie Torres from Grey's Anatomy). I'm not a Monty Python fan - I don't think I've even seen a movie, but I did know a few of the references from the movie the play was based on. The songs were so funny and very catch. We were singing "Always Look on The Bright Side" and "The Song that Goes Like This" all night. Well after that, we went to Lucky Cheng's - which is known as the draq queen capital of New York. The food wasn't all that, but the drinks were awesome and the servers looked better than any of us!

And well that's just about all I can show you from there since what happens at Lucky Cheng's stays at Lucky Cheng's. :)

I ended up having to drive us back from the city, and we had to pick up Randi's boyfriend, drop off Joanie's car, get in Erin's car, then pick up Rocky at my house and then switch to Randi's car. We headed over to her house where we introduced my cousins to Da Ali G show and laughed like crazy. Erin and Melissa came over to crash at my house and we stayed up pretty late chatting.

When I finally came upstairs, mom was still up. She had been having a sleepover/manicure party with my nieces. She has a bad knee and it seems it was acting up again. So there's been lots of drama related to that all weekend. I had to get up early Sunday to help with the girls. We hung out with them in the kitchen while the older gals were sleeping. Thank goodness the little tv in there has a dvd player! They watched Cinderella 2 for the millionth time (Or as Taylor calls it the 2 cats movie, since there are two cats on the cover.) And we let them color. That went well until Kylie scribbled some purple on one of Taylor's pages. Taylor tried to erase it with a white crayon. It was such a riot.
I spent most of the rest of the day designing some stuff before I went back to Randi's to watch Rome. That show is just so sick, but so cool!

Today, we went to see Volver in this old movie-house type theater. Randi, Liza and I were the only people there and the room was freezing! The movie was just great and Penolope Cruz is fantastic. I love Pedro Almodovar's movies - they are always so touching, funny and quirky, and he always has great women characters.

I also did a bunch of scrapping - not nearly as much as I would have liked, but not too shabby. I have a page with one of Jess's new kits that I can't show off yet. Her new kit is just too cool! :)

I swapped photos with Melinda for the RAKScraps Amazing Digiscrapping Race Challenge. Here she is with her grandparents looking so cute! And I got to play with the Scrapdish Designers Feb. 2007 Collab kit.
And here's the page Melinda did for me! I just love it! :) You can see the credits here.
Can you tell I love this photo of Kylie. Before I had sent it to Melinda, I used it to create a quick page for the SD Feb kit. You can get the QP collection here.
Everything is by me, except for the alpha stamps by Meredith Fenwick.
Kylie's photo also made it onto this page which I did for my RAK in the New Year challenge at RAKScraps. I've been working on this for a few weeks now and finally got it done. I love using templates, but sometimes it takes me forever to find the right kit. But I finally decided on Correen's Girls Night Out kit from Computer Scrapbook. I am just loving it! (Template and flowers are by Gina Miller.)
This is another one that I'd been working on forever. I started it on the laptop but that kept freezing up on me and it went corrupt. So I redid it using PSCS3 because I'm trying to get used to that program, but it was evil too. So then I finally gave up and went back to good old PSCS2. I just love Dani's Candy Cane doodles at SBB. More credits here.
And here's one I did for a challenge for Jess's team. It's a scraplift of one of Jess's pages.
This was inspired by a conversation with Taylor this weekend that went something like this:
Me: I'm Taylor
Taylor: No, I'm Taylor
Mom: Taylor has red hair. Taylor who has brown hair.
Taylor: Nonnie has brown hair and polka dots.
(Nonnie is Taylorspeak for Aunt Robin)
So of course I had to scrap that because she says the funniest things. Credits here.

I am totally beat now so I'm going to catch up with the TiVo! Heroes was back tonight. :)

Posting fool!

If work wasn't so busy I would have done this hours ago! I didn't have time at all to check in at the forums - and that never happens! Did not visit RAKs at all and am going through big withdrawl! But I did sneak in a few more that I need for this ...



:) Am I the all-time champion poster or the biggest loser ever! LOL! I really need to get out more! But I LOVE RAKScraps!!!!!! :)

But I probably won't be spending much time Saturday at the site, since we're going to NYC to see Spamalot!!! I really can't wait. I'm going with my sis, 2 of my cousins and Joanie. And then we're going to have dinner or something in New York too. :)


BTW, TiVo is working fine now! Woohoo! I recorded Grey's, Office, Earl, Ugly Betty and Scrubs last night. I love it!!!!!!!!

I had cable over here to check out my TiVo connection - and it seems that I had to do some advance set up on the TiVo since I have the extra fancy cable package. So there was no need for me to get up early or have a cable guy see this horrible mess! Although, he was the one who noticed what the problem was and then I called TiVo again to have them fix it. I am so ready to go back to bed, but it's 12:15 and I really shouldn't!

I moved a lot of stuff into my mom's room to hide it! So now I need to put it back and maybe I can keep organizing as I go. That could be a good thing. I guess.

So.... I've been catching up on some old emails while cableguy was here. I just subscribed to Ali Edward's newsletter. I really love her and she inspires me! Even if you don't like her style, her ideas are just amazing! You can sign up for the newsletter on her blog.

Off to do some more cleaning! :)

Scrapdish Loves You!

Check out the new collab kit by the Scrapdish designers!!!! You can get it here - just the kit, the quick pages or the combo version. :) And it's now available for 40% off!

Can't Stop Crying....

Well I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed and grumpy when I started designing my latest kit. And since I like to name my kits after shows or songs, I was scanning through Bob Dylan lyrics when I came up with the name Can't Stop Crying.

The papers and elements are now available at Scrapdish!

But really, I am feeling better now LOL! And one of the reasons I'm really happy today is because the RAKScraps January Newsletter is out! And since I'm the sponsor this month, the team did an awesome job using my kits! You can see their pages and reviews in the newsletter and her in my sponsor gallery at RAKs!

Getting organized, Rome, and January kit

I got a lot done this weekend! I got started on my organizing project. First, I'm tackling my bedroom. I started out by sorting everything into piles: books, dvds, cds, toiletries, accessories, scrap stuff, knicknacks, etc, and putting things like shoes and clothes away. I dusted as I went along, and then I also actually threw stuff out! I never do that. But as I dusted things that I never use or pretty much just take up space I figured what's the point and tossed them. I also tried to figure out TiVo. It's only half working since the basic cable channels aren't coming in for some reason. I tried all the troubleshooting pointers so now I'm going to have to call TiVo or cable to see what's up with that. But I did successfully TiVo and watch Desperate Housewives last night!

I finally caught up with my Netflix pile. I am the worst about getting around to watching movies lately, especially since I've been obsesssed with On Demand and my Grey's DVDs. But I finally watched You, Me and Dupree and Clerks 2. Dupree was cute, but Clerks 2 was a riot. If you're not into Kevin Smith movies or vulgarity,then I'd say skip it. LOL! I was dying over the fight over which "trilogy" is superior Star Wars vs. LOTR - and what makes me the big nerd is that I love both of them. I would post some quotes but I don't want offend anyone!

Yesterday, Randi and I had a little party for the premier of Rome. We picked up dinner at Whole Foods and had wine and cheese for the party. Betty and Fernando also stopped by with Lucia, who is still soooooooo little! Also saw a lot of my nieces - they were here on Saturday, and Randi was babysitting yesterday.

So I didn't spend much time on the computer again. I did get some stuff done for RAKScraps, though! Check out our new Mega Kit Add on ....
The add on by Jeanine, Correen, Rachel and me is now available at Scrapdish! The Jan. mega kit and the newsletter should be out very soon too! I am so excited about this month's newsletter since I'm a sponsor this month at RAKs!

And here are some pages I've gotten done. ...

(Michelle Coleman's Merry Little Christmas and template from Scrapartist)

(Amber Clegg's Gazebo and date stamps from Scrapartist, template by Heather Roselli and Rachael Giallongo at Digichick.)

Hope you had a great weekend too! I'm off to do some more organizing before work!

Some new LOs ....

I can't wait for Grey's Anatomy tonight! I can't wait!!!! But in the meantime, I still have to go to work (blah).
Here are some pages I did this week! I must look like the most vain scrapper out there since I scrap so much about myself LOL! But seriously, the comments I've gotten on these pages have really made me want to cry! Thanks to all of you who left them and who've supported me! So now on to what I'm talking about ...

This is my final page for my Chick's Life book. I can't believe I've done one of these every week for the last year! That's crazy, huh!!! There's a lot of credits, which you can see here, but I have to give a shout out to one of my new favorite designers Vicki Stegall. I used her Comfortably Grunge kit from OScraps - and picked up a few other things while I was there. She's also at The Digi Shoppe. I just love her style! Also, a few people asked about the to do list. It's by Gina Cabrera and I think it was a freebie. I erased the lines on the yellow paper behind it (which is by Jen Wilson) using the clone tool so that I could put the check list on top of it.

And here's a page that I'm also really proud of. I am so happy to have reached this goal, even though I still have a long way to go. (And as of my weigh in today, it's 49 to go LOL!) This is also my first page as part of Jess Bolton's team! I used her Cornfed papers and elements and painted arrows from SBG for this one.

I am still getting no where with my organization project. Something always comes up or the headaches come back, like right now. So I think I'm going to procrastinate/relax for the rest of the afternoon!

Weekend ramblings

So I have some pretty cool news! I'm going to be on Jessica Bolton's Eclectic team! I am such a huge fan of her work - I think I have everything she's made - and I'm really excited to be working with her and to have more of a reason to scrap now!

I can't believe the weekend is OVER! Having weekends off now is so different. I'm going out and not spending my time at the computer - so I am hardly even checking my email on weekends. My sister says that is a GOOD thing. LOL! Plus I've been having nasty headaches for the last few days so that's kept me off the computer.

On Saturday we had dinner at Joanie's and drank lots of sangria. While Randi and I were out running errands, we also found a great wine shop that has tastings and picked up some wine to bring with us. Tonight, we went to see Rocky Balboa - which was suprisingly not as bad as I thought it would be. I had pretty low expectations going in, but I had promised Randi I'd go with her since Rocky is one of her all time favorite movies (in case you ever wondered where my doggie nephew got his name). We went to see Rocky IV when she was about 5 years old and she left the theater asking when the next one was coming out. She was as excited to see this as I was to see LOTR. Then we had dinner at one of our favorite restaurants - a Cuban place called Azucar in it's new location in Jersey City. I am still stuffed. So as you can tell, my diet didn't go too well this weekend. My sister's new boyfriend met the family this weekend and I think he did ok and didn't get scared off either.

I also discovered another awesome show on Showtime On Demand that I had been meaning to catch up on - Dexter. It is pretty creepy and not for anyone with a week stomach. Michael C. Hall from Six Feet Under plays a seriel killer who works in police forensics. He's just amazing in it! So different than David Fisher.
And another reason I love this show - it's set in Miami so there's lots of Cuban music in the background!

If you're up for scrapping, be sure to check out our RAK in the New Year challenges at RAKScraps all month long. I'm hosting the first one which is about your favorite things (moments, photos, anything!) of 2006. All the topics each week will be looking back at 2006 or looking ahead at 2007.


And thanks to everyone who's been sharing tips about organization. I'm still not sure where to even start, but I have some ideas at least and am keeping myself calm about it by trying to think of small steps to take.


Well, I'm going to watch some more Dexter now. All this fun this weekend and not one photo! Can you believe that! So I'll leave you with a LO I did last week! :) You can see my credits here.

New episodes this week! Woohoo! :)

Have fun for me: Double Feature Night at RAKScraps

I'll be working tonight - but RAKScraps has TWO chats going on tonight! :)
You can win some prizes from me tonight at the Gallery Mixer!

Photobook Creator Chat
The generous people at Unibind's Photobook Creator are sponsoring a chat at RAKScraps Friday, January 5 at 9 EST/6 pm PST and they will be giving away two photobook creators plus extra covers!
You can check out Jeanine's review of this can't-be-without product in this month's newsletter. To be eligible to win, you'll need to answer trivia questions about Photobook Creator. Find out more here.

Gallery Mixer and Treasure Hunt
We'll be welcoming our January sponsors - Lynnie Smith of Younique Photos, Angela Sharrow of Scrapdish and Robin Cabana of SBB and Scrapdish - at our January Gallery Mixer on Friday, January 5 at 10:30 pm EST/7:30 pm PST .To be eligible for prizes, you'll need to take part in our Treasure Hunt and answer questions about each of our sponsors. Find the details here. And there's a freebie for everyone who comes!

Getting organized

So I did pretty well with my new year's resolution for last year. That was to come up with and maintain a back up system for the computer and to start printing my photos. And now I do both of these things at least once a month. :)

This year my big goal is getting organized. I'm so sick of living out of boxes, putting everything off until the last minute and being surrounded by a mess! Not easy when your living space consists of a bedroom and half an office in your mother's house.

So if anyone has any tips for me, please share! Don't say Fly Lady because that is scary stuff!

Make it stop!!!!

One down side to this nice weather we're having - construction! There is drilling going on outside my house right now. The neighbors are having a sidewalk redo. There are homes being built on the street parallel to mine. And there was another street closed off and some big cherry picker out there. This also means NOISE and no parking anywhere! I drove around for almost 20 minutes looking for a space. And I'm going to have to get off the computer and hide in some other part of the house where it's quiet.

The drilling is making me cranky. Plus, ABC had to interupt OLTL to show Congress's swearing in. WHO CARES!!!! UGH! I can watch that on CNN if I want, and I'll have to read about it at work. I don't need to know that right now! UGH!

Going into hiding now!

What kind of accent do you have?

What American accent do you have? Your Result: The Northeast   Judging by how you talk you are probably from north Jersey, New York City, Connecticut or Rhode Island. Chances are, if you are from New York City (and not those other places) people would probably be able to tell if they actually heard you speak.
Philadelphia
The Inland North
The Midland
The South
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

This quiz was dead on and confirms I have no accent! :) When I got together to crop with Melissa, Krista and Jeanine earlier this year - Jeanine and Krista were teasing Melissa and me about our Jersey accents. I don't know what they were tawking about.

Today's Buzzword

From Buzzword.com

alpha geek
The most technically proficient person in
a group or company.

In my family that's me - maybe at work too, depending who's around.

And I am telling you ....

... go see Dreamgirls!!!!! (It is amazing! :) I have been listening to the soundtrack too. "And I am telling you I'm not going" is just amazing - Jennifer Hudson just belts it out. She is fantastic in this movie and deserves to be nominated for something. The rest of the cast is great too. I really loved Eddie Murphy and Beyonce! (Krista M, if you're reading there's a little cameo by John Krasinski!)

I haven't been on the computer again much today. I just caught up on some contest prizes at DST and RAKs. But other than going to the movies, I was a total couch potato today. Watched 6 episodes of 6 Feet Under (On Demand has new episodes and now I need to wait until Feb for some more), Pride & Prejudice (Keira Knightly version) and part of Revenge of the Sith. I got a bunch of DVDs for Christmas so I have been watching those as well. If you're a fan of the Office, check out the Season 1 DVD just for the delete scenes and comentaries. They are a riot - and usually deleted scenes suck.

New Years Eve was pretty dull otherwise. Work went ok. They fed us pretty well and we had some desserts and sparkling cider too. Then I stayed up trying to figure out some tax stuff. I am such a loser! LOL!

Hope you're all enjoying 2007 so far!