Greetings from Asbury Park

So much has happened in the last two weeks! Friday was my last day at The Journal News. I've been working there since 2000 and it was just crazy to have to pack up my desk (I had no idea how much stuff I'd been hoarding!) and say goodbye to some very good friends.

They even got me a cake - which I am sorry to say I didn't even try - because I also brought in cupcakes - red velvet and pumpkin (which were amazing!). I had to give a little speech and babbled like an idiot about how much I'll miss them.

But I won't really be going to far! I'm starting tomorrow at the Asbury Park Design Studio. My job at TJN was coming to an end because all the design work at Gannett papers is being consolidated at several centers across the country. I was very reluctant to make this move because I thought it was too far and that it would be the design equivalent of working at a fast food restaurant. But after talking to some people and visiting the studio, my mind was completely changed. The people all seem really nice and that they like working there. I'm going to be working on features pages and I'll be working normal daytime hours for the first time! The commute isn't even that bad - it's about the same distance in the opposite direction.

Each studio has a themed logo depending on the location - Phoenix has a cactus. Louisville has a horse. Des Moines has a cow. Nashville has an acoustic guitar. So if you know me, you'll know why I should be a good fit in Asbury! The symbol: Bruce Springsteen's guitar!

I start tomorrow at 9 a.m.! I hope I can get some sleep tonight. I have training for a week and then I'm off to Disney World! Since I'm transferring, I get to keep my benefits, too. That's a nice perk!

How I Spent the Weekend

I didn't do a thing this weekend and it was awesome! And by not doing a thing, I mean I mostly stayed home in my pjs and scrapped. I did take some time to go to AC Moore to get some crafty stuff and frames for the new prints I got at Comic Con. And I did bake some brownies. But that's as adventurous as I got! I needed some time to just relax.

Here's what I worked on....

Another Comic Con page featuring the celebs and panels I saw. Credits: Kim Jensen's Appabets from Scrapdish, Lauren Grier and Jacque Larsen's Zero to Hero from Lily Pad, Janet Phillips Too Many Photos Squared 3 template from Sweet Shoppe
 

I got a page done for Derek's book! Credits: Amy Wolff and Jenna Desai's Oh Boy from Lily Pad, Pixel Works' Everyday Awesome alphas

 Here's Melissa at the crop after she captured the rooster by finishing a page. I thought the rooster was a creep so I wouldn't admit to finishing any! Credits: Kate Hadfieldnd Lili's Capture the Moment from Lily Pad, Kate Hadfield's Scrapping 9 to 5 laptop and Hand-Sewn Stitching from Lily Pad,  Amy Wolff's Junky Journalers from Lily Pad, Michelle Godin's Old School scissors, Pamela Donnis' School Stuff glue, Jenna Desai's staple from Lily Pad collab Wicked Smart

I did an Awesome list page awhile back and wanted to do an update on all my favorite things. Credits: Micheline Martin's Citrus Splash papers from Lily Pad, Valorie Wibbens' Woodlands elements from Lily Pad, and a big assortment of flowers and word strips by Jessica Bolton, Amy Wolff, Kim Jensen, Lili, Valorie Wibbens, TLP's Hope kit, Shawna Clingerman, Cinzia, Miss Mint, Penny Springman, Stitching by Amy Martin

I got to see Yankee Stadium at the McCartney Concert. Credits: Darcy Baldwin's Scrap with Linz templates, Kaye Winieki's Home Run, Spring Promenade paper, and Click 2 Scrap Alpha, Michelle Godin's Varsity Chip alpha

My latest pages

I've been hooked on Avatar: Last Air Bender on Netflix and the marathon sessions I've been having have scrapping while I watch. Thanks to my random number system and Lily Pad challenges, I've been getting lots of pages done!

This is a train show we saw last December at Grand Central Terminal. I especially liked the King Kong!
Credits: Cindy Schneider DIU 1 template, Wimpy Chompers Chuggga Chugga, Baers Garten's Petiti Noel, Amanda Rockwell's Cardboard Edges, Jessica Bolton's Wintry, Iron Orchid Designs Figgy Pudding papers

 Some of the toys at Comic Con. Credits: Jacque Larsen and Lauren Grier's Zero to Hero from Lily Pad,
Janet Phillips' Too Many Photos 33 template from Sweet Shoppe

 The dog parade: Amy Martin's template for the October Template Challenge at Lily Pad, Gina Miller's Good Witch Paper and Elements, Rachel Young's Falling for You Alpha, Kellie Schmitt's Halloween Kraft Alpha, all from Lily Pad

 Penny's got a purple monkey and elephant for her birthday. I always thought that was funny - like the telephone game! Credits: Amy Wolff's Puddle Jumper Noir, No Flowers Allowed strips, All About You brad and flowers, Midnight Magick Papers, Amy Wolff's Calico Cabin flowers, Gina Miller's Good Witch Elements from Lily Pad, Penny Springman's Birthdays corner, Scraplift of Melissa Lewis's Say What LO

 The Howloween party last year. Credits: Amy Wolff's Midnight Magick Papers and Treat Labels and Valorie Brown's Hocus Pocus Elements from the Oct. BOYC at Lily Pad

 Some of my recent costumes! The purple hair is a hint as to what I'm going to be this year. Credits:
Amy Wolff's Midnight Magick papers, Metro frames, Krafty Pieces 2 from Lily Pad, Valorie Wibbens' Hocus Pocus elements from Lily Pad, Sahlin Studio's Autumn Moon papers from Lily Pad, Jacque Larsen's Paper Dolls and Super Heroines from Lily Pad, Rachel Young's Starry Night alphas from Lily Pad, Kelly Mickus' Gimme Candy Label from Lily Pad & 9th & Bloom Collab, Darcy Baldwin's I'm No Wizard and personal handwriting fonts from Sweet Shoppe

 I ruined all my Halloween photos from last year by resizing them for the web. But I came up with a way to scrap them. Credits: Sahlin Studio's Autumn Moon papers and elements from the Oct BOYC kit at Lily Pad,  Janet Phillps' 365 Template from Sweet Shoppe, Lauren Reid's alphas from the Lily Pad Wicked Smart collab

 The dogs were in most of my pictures at Thanksgiving last year! Credits: Ummmmm I lost those! I think the template is by Nannie(?), kit by Lauren Grier and some extra stuff by some others.

 The girls making silly faces at the zoo. Credits: Micheline Martin's Bo Jangles, Dani Mogstad This Love alphas

And another silly pose from the zoo. Credits: Amy Wolff's Puddle Jumpers Noir, Hop Skip Jump flower, Renegade Rainbow butterfly, Skitchy Sketch Alpha, Cinnamon Toasted frame, Junky Journaler tag, Wicked Smart number tags, all from Lily Pad; Kim Jensen's flower and cardboard from Audaciously Aweome at Scrapdish

10 cool things about Comic Con!

So here's what I loved about New York Comic Con!

1. Costumes. I must have seen every kind of character at Comic Con. There were Ghostbusters with blinking proton packs. I stood on a line with Aang and Prince Zuko. There were lots of Doctors, X-Men, anime characters, cute little kids in superhero costumes, a Boba Fett Chicken and even a big Bumblebee.

2. Celeb sightings. I didn’t get into the big Avengers panel or see the Jay and Silent Bob podcast, but I did see a few celebs. I know there were even bigger names there – but I didn’t bother going to the autograph area. I think it’s insane that people charge for autographs. I heard it cost $100 to get an autograph from Mark Hamil! But here’s who I did see:

>Wylie Dufresne was on a panel about comics and food. He’s always one of my favorite judges on Top Chef and it was pretty cool to hear him talk about creativity and even eggs! (If you watch Top Chef you’ll get why! He’s a “notorious egg slut,” to quote Anthony Bordain.)

>  I went into a wrong panel and saw Tom Morello from Rage Against the Machine. He was promoting his new comic, Orchid, which sounds pretty bad ass.

> Kevin Brown who plays DotCom on 30 Rock was talking about running for president. 

> Ian McNiece plays Winston Churchill on Doctor Who.

> And the Science Channel panel had the crew from Oddities (which my brother always makes me watch when I’m at his house), Gene Roddenberry’s son (who was promoting a documentary he made about his dad), and Michio Kaku.

3. Star Wars crafts! I had so much fun at the Star Wars craft panel. My poor “Admiral Sackbar” looks so bad. Some other people dressed theirs up like Doctor Who or Yoda. The panel was hosted by Bonnie Burton, who wrote the Star Wars Craft Book. She has the coolest job – blogging for Lucasfilms.

 4. The Doctor is in. It was just too awesome seeing so many Doctor Who fans. There were people dressed like the 10^th and 11^th Doctors. I even saw a TARDIS, an Amy Pond and a Weeping Angel. (Don’t blink!) There was a lady who made a TARDIS back pack and there were t-shirts, toys, posters. I now own a sparkly TARDIS t-shirt, Doctor Who lunch box and two prints.

 5. Awesome T-Shirts. They had shirts for just about every show and character, as well as spoofs of them. 

 6. Toys. There were so many toys on display and for sale. There was a cool display of action figures fighting each other. And there were some great 80s toys, like Jem and Voltron. 

 7. Artists Alley. This was one of my favorite parts of the con. There were so many artists selling their prints and happy to talk about their work. There were lots of creative takes on super heros, from baby Justice League to zombie Spiderman. And there were cute and quirky artists, too. Katie Cook was doing custom drawings and I got a picture of Penny! 

UrbnPop Display

I got a Yoda and Princess Leia

Battle Pug!

 8. The Displays. This stuff was so cool. A giant Optimus Prime. Action figure packages you could pose in. A big Just Dance stage (where people in costume were grooving). Giant banners of the DC characters. 

9. Free stuff! I didn’t take home too much swag, but there were lots of give aways of comic books, tote bags, pins and t-shirts. I did get a cute little Bumble Bee!

The one I got was a lot smaller

 10. Cool people. I gotta say people at Comic Con were awesome. People in costumes were happy to pose for pictures. Everyone in line geeked out over common interests while we were waiting. The artists were really amazing. And even though some celebs charged money, I heard stories about some walking around and signing stuff. It was a big, nerdy love fest.

Doctor Who taking pictures of some X-Men

Comic Con: Nerdy tweets

I just spent the last two days at New York Comic Con and I am exhausted! Pow! Bam! Splat! I took a ton of photos that I want to share, but first I want to share my nerdy twitter moments!

 Can you see me there in the background! I was at a Star Wars craft panel where we made Admiral Sackbar puppets - and a few people made him a Doctor Who cosplayer. These were taken and posted by Bonnie Burton, who wrote a pretty cool Star Wars Craft Book!

 The one on the left is my puppet and he's wearing my "Bowties are Cool" pin.

And I got retweeted by Science Channel! I thought that was too funny. I did feel smarter after listening to Michio Kaku talk about types of civilization, the future of energy, possibilities of space travel. That kind of stuff really blows my mind. I love science types who can make big theories understandable.

I'll have more on Comic Con soon! 

Sneezing on Saturday

It's a gorgeous Saturday here in NJ. The weather is beautiful. We were suppposed to go apple picking today, but I overslept. And I have a sinus infection! Blah! I'm cranky!!!

Anyway, enough of the pity party. Here are some new pages! 

 Here's my tribute to my favorite British TV shows! Credits: Kate Hadfield's Cool Britania, Great British Alpha and Bonfire Night from Lily Pad, Papers by Amy Wolff from Calico Cabin from Lily Pad, Lauren Grier's Longtime Sunshine alpha from Sweet Shoppe

Here are some pics from the Hoboken arts fest. I loved the border so much on this page that I didn't add a thing to it. Credits: Amy Wolff's Puddle Jumpers White, Metro alphas and All About You alphas from Lily Pad

I used the questions in Amy's new kit for this one.  Credits: Amy Wolff's All About You Kit and Alphas from Lily Pad

Lately......

I'm slacking at blogging lately. I blame the new fall TV season. So many things to catch up on! Glee, The Office, Big Bang Theory, Parenthood, How I Met Your Mother, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Community, Parks & Rec, Vampire Diaries, The Good Wife, Grey's Anatomy. My DVR list is way longer!

One of my new favorites this season is Ringer on CW. I was never a big Buffy fan, but I do like Sarah Michelle Gellar, since back when she was Kendall on All My Children. She plays a character pretending to be her own twin sister. Lots of good twists so far to keep me watching. I've also checking out 2 Broke Girls, Up All Night, and Person of Interest, and I'm waiting for Grim and Once Upon A Time to get started.

*****

One of my other obsessions lately has been the book Ready Player One by Ernest Klein. If you like video games, the 80s, sci-fi or anything geeky, you will love this book! I have been listening to the audio version by Wil Wheton and I can't help but giggle whenever he reads something about Star Trek. I usually only listen to books in the car, but I stayed up listening to it last night because I couldn't wait for the ending anymore.

The book is based in the 2040s, the not so distant future, and the world is pretty much a mess after wars and an energy crisis. People spend most of their time in a video came/alt-reality/social network called the Oasis. The guy who created the Oasis, who was obsessed with sci-fi, the 80s and video games, died and left behind his fortune to whomever can find an Easter egg he hid in the game. The main character, Wade, and the other hunters are obsessed with this quest and try to find the clues to win the game before an evil corporation beats them to it. It's good nerdy fun - and I just started listening all over again.

*****

I've spend the last few weekends having some fun in Hoboken. I had a great day with my friend Amanda checking out some cool art, making fun of the crappy art, and stopping for Indian food for lunch. I bought a sort of screen print of the Statue of Liberty, which I haven't taken a photo of yet. I really loved all the local art - if I ever have a house I want to have a Jersey room. Here are some of my favorite Jersey scenes.

Bruuuuuuuuuuce! You know I need this!

This weekend, I took Penny to the Dog Parade. Lots of cute doggies in costumes and free stuff for Penny. It's hard to take photos when Penny's around other dogs because she can be nuts, but here are some of my faves...

She was an American girl...

These treats were not free but looked better than people food.