Hooray for New Dies!

My officemate sent me this cute doggy video today. I hope it makes you smile as much as I did. This is my first time embedding a YouTube video in my blog post. I hope this works!

I watched part of Prince of Persia: Sands of Time last night, thinking that Jake Gyllenhaal was going to make up for the meh movies that I watched earlier in the week. Apparently, eye candy can only go so far (says my sister). I haven't even gotten through half the movie yet, and I'm giving up. His accent's not really believable, and I'm not really digging him with long hair. Womp.

All the pizza casserole that I make yesterday is gone. Courtesy of my dad and my cousin. Boys, tsk.

For today's card, I wanted to use the Cuttlebug dies that I bought over the weekend. These flower dies are so versatile! Change the color of the paper used and you can have a totally different card! I'm so glad that I found them on clearance at A.C.Moore. It really does pay off to roam up and down the aisles a few times and even check out items at the end of them. That's usually where I find the clearance items. Now there's an enabling tip. :)

As you can see, I'm still on my yellow kick.

Card Specs:
Embossing powder: Stampendous! in clear
Embossing ink: VersaMark
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Ice Jade, Chestnut Roan
Stamps: The Paper Company Studio- Greetings (sentiment), Hero Arts Cling Dots (polka dots), Fiskars- Petals From Scratch (leaves)
Die: Cuttlebug- Flowers
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, Martha Stewart- Classic Butterfly
Paper: Die Cuts with a View- Citrus

CPS #185

Greetings, folks! I hope that your weekend is ending on a good note. Today, I

• went to the grocery store
• gassed up my car
• went to the hardware store to get some nuts and bolts for my display board (the incompetent online store didn't send me enough. Now, I'm not trying to be mean when I say that they were incompetent. They were. The evidence is here, here, and here.)
• made another batch of pizza casserole because I needed to use some peppers and mushrooms that were in the fridge
  
• took a nap

Oh, before I forget, I watched Monsters vs. Aliens and Revolutionary Road this weekend. RR was very ho-hum. Unhappy couple, living in suburbia. Blah blah. It didn't even have a happy ending. I dunno why I forced myself to watch the whole thing. :P Monsters vs. Aliens was definitely better.

I forgot to mention something that I thought was amusing with Robyn's move-in yesterday. She had one friend from each phase of school: undergrad, Master's, and law school to help her move in. Hooray for a team effort.

After helping Robyn move in yesterday, I wandered over to A.C.Moore. Hey, it was on the way home. I had about $12 left over from the $50 that I won a few weeks back, so I decided to spend it on a Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder (40% off coupon) and a flower Cuttlebug Die set that was on clearance (regular price $17.99, clearance price: 9.00. Mwah ha ha ha!). Ok, really, note to self: NO MORE CRAFT SHOPPING UNTIL YOU MAKE SOME MONEY FROM CRAFT SHOWS. I have to hang on until mid-October. The trick will be to just not go to the stores.

IthinkIcanIthinkIcanIthinkIcanIthinkIcanIthinkIcan.

Today's card was inspired by CPS sketch #185. I was excited to use some of the chipboard elements that Meg gave me for my birthday this year. A good ol' popsicle. I also dug out some buttons that I hadn't used in a while too. I noticed that I've been using a lot of that yellow color lately. I think it's because the bright color really does make for cheerful cards.
Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Chestnut Roan
Stamps: The Paper Company Studio- Greetings (sentiment), Hero Arts Cling Dots (polka dots)
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper
Other: Me & My Big Ideas- Chipboard Elements, Ellen Starfish Icons (popsicle)
Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug (Victoria)
Button: Favorite Findings in Ocean
Thread: DMC- ecru

CPS #184

I decided to skip out on spin class this morning since I went to 1-hour class yesterday and I was going to be helping my friend Robyn move into her new apartment this afternoon. I thought there was going to be some heavy lifting involved, but it turns out that her parents hired movers to do the grunt work and we helped unpack some of the boxes for the apartment. Hooray, another friend in the area!

I had a creative block earlier this week when I was attempting this card sketch (CPS #184). I grew frustrated because there are very many elements to it, but I didn't like the card that I ended up with so I just went to bed. I decided to give it another try today, and I'm so glad that I did because I love this card! It gave me a chance to use the new butterfly punch that I bought yesterday. I wanted the butterflies to be brightly colored so they'd stand out against the kraft cardstock. While rummaging through my scrap pile, I found some yellow and red pieces. Perfect! I stamped a pattern on the yellow paper so that it wouldn't look so boring. Mini glue dots were balled up and placed in the center of the butterfly and their wings were fluffed up to create a 3D look. I was able to use all scraps in this card except for the card base. Hooray for being economical!
Card Specs:
Embossing powder: Personal Stamp Exchange- Black
Embossing ink: VersaMark
Ink: StazOn in Jet Black and Mustard Yellow
Stamps: The Paper Company Studio- Greetings (sentiment), Martha Stewart- Patterns (criss-cross)
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, Martha Stewart- Classic Butterfly
White Gel Pen: Inkssentials
Paper: American Crafts-Metropolitan, Me & My Big Ideas- Sugarplum, American Crafts-The Goods Ceremony Paper

Fall-To Layout 108

Whooo hooo, day off! I didn't do anything really that special though. Spin class in the morning (I had the bike next to Tuesday night's instructors...it was kinda intimidating), followed by craft stores in the afternoon. I bought another set of Colorbox chalk inks (used 50% off coupon), a container of Prima flowers (40% off), and a Martha Stewart butterfly punch (40% off). I'm excited to use the inks and the punch in cards this weekend. I already used one of the flowers tonight.

I did some more craftshow prep for the rest of the day. I cranked out a few more origami flower cards. I decided to put the flowers on kraft cardstock, but I wanted my sentiments in black. I didn't think the StazOn was going to be dark enough. thinkthinkthink. Ah ha! Black embossing powder. It totally did the trick.

Ok, the Fall-To Layout challenge today (#108) was a real challenge for me, primarily because I don't own any big circle dies. I guess I need to invest in some at some point so that I can do projects like this. I had to be a little creative and use my Spellbinders label die instead. I love how the red flower totally makes a statement in the card.Card Specs:
Ink: StazOn in Jet Black
Stamp: The Paper Company Studio- Greetings (sentiment)
Die: Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels 8
Paper: Die Cuts With a View- Citrus (floral)
Brad: Recollections- Silver Circles
Flowers: Prima
Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug (Victoria)

One-Layer Wednesday #20

Hooray, more food at the office today. I love it when it's meeting season! Today, I snagged a second breakfast of eggs and turkey sausage. And then for lunch, I grabbed a chunk of the lasagna. Yum! There was also some leftover cake from yesterday, but it got put in the conference room where there was a big meeting going on. I didn't think it'd be a smart move to waltz in there, interrupting the meeting to get some cake. Bummer.

I signed up for another craft fair for the upcoming fall/winter season. I'm excited that they will be coming up soon, but I'm also nervous that I might be in over my head. What if I don't make enough cards to sell? That'd be a huge bummer. Fortunately, I have about a month before my first event so there is still time to prep! :)

Today's One-Layer Wednesday challenge (#20) focused on 3 images and 1 sentiment. I chose some cupcakes (can't remember the last time I used them) and a coordinating "Cupcakes Forever!" stamp that I bought a while ago, but hadn't used at all. Now that I think about it, I dunno why I bought the stamp in the first place, but at the time, I thought it was cute and went very nicely with the equally cute cupcakes. I guess the card could be given to any foodie or anyone that has a sweet tooth. To make the card less bland (aka too white), I did some faux stitching around the edge and dabbed some Glossy Accents to the centers of some of the flowers.

Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Warm Green, Rose Coral, Chestnut Roan
Stamps: Studio G (all)
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper
Other: Brown Sharpie Ultra Fine Point marker
Other: Glossy Accents

Funny thing from work: my boss got a new computer and she tells the IT guy: "My games are gone! Can you put them back?" I guess bosses don't want to work all the time either.

Fall-To Layout 107

Yesterday, 3 of my co-workers and I went to Nando's Peri-Peri for lunch. The restaurant is officially opening tomorrow, but as a promotion, they were giving out free lunches to people. I had a chicken sandwich with fries. The manager gave me a funny face when I said that I wanted it plain because they had some really good sauces. I saw that they had bottles of sauce in another section of the restaurant, so I knew that I could get it on the side. I didn't want to make the wrong choice and have a sandwich dunked in sauce I didn't like. I went with the medium spicy sauce, and it was very yummy. The hot sauce was a little too hot. It made my lips kinda tingly.

I'm eating some raspberries that I picked over the weekend. I HAVE TO make some more of those raspberry chocolate chip muffins tomorrow, so that I can use the fruit up. I feel like raspberries aren't the type of fruit that lasts a while.

Today's card was inspired by clean&simple stamping's Fall-To Layout 107. I was hanging out with my friend Suzie last Friday, so I didn't get around to doing the card until today. I wanted a brightly colored card, so I went with yellow and red cardstock. I had intentions of putting a small strip of colored cardstock right below the dots made by the border punch, but then I changed my mind because I wanted the color focus to be in the center panel, so I went with my white gel pen instead.
Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Warm Red, Chestnut Roan, Warm Green, Blackberry, Prussian Blue
Stamps: Studio G (butterfly), Fiskars- Friendship Garden (sentiment, flower, vase, stem, leaf)
Paper: Die Cuts With a View
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, Fiskars Threading Waters border punch
White Gel Pen: Inkssentials

A Friend-filled, Fall-y Weekend

Hooray, some fun times were had the last few days! Suzie (friend from undergrad) came down to visit from NYC for the weekend. I took a half day on Friday and met up with her at the National Mall and walked around the Natural History Museum and the American History Museum. I really enjoyed the Julia Child exhibit (duh, of course I liked it. It was related to food). We met up with another friend from undergrad for Thai food.

On Saturday morning, we did some hiking at Great Falls, VA. The weather was perfect for outdoor activities. For lunch, we made a chicken, mushroom and pasta alfredo dish...a new recipe from a Clean Eating magazine that Suzie bought on Friday. It was very good! Not heavy like a traditional alfredo dish might be. Meg came over around dinner time, and we ended up going to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner. I got a BLT appetizer salad (I dunno why it was an appetizer size...I think it was more than enough for a dinner portion) and saved room for a slice of the new Reese's Peanut Butter Chocolate Cake cheesecake. Yum! We walked around the mall for a little bit to digest and get some errands done, and then plopped ourselves in front of the TV. Snow White was on and so was Aladdin. Wow, compared to the new Pixar movies, those movies seemed very old school.

Today, the 3 of us went to Larriland Farm to pick red raspberries and tomatoes. Check out our loot below! After lunch, Meg headed back home, and Suzie and I watched the old Parent Trap and baked raspberry chocolate muffins with the fruit that we picked. She read off the ingredients/directions while I put everything together. She mixed and put them in the muffin cups. I'm not very good at mixing; I always end up mixing too much and then the muffins turn out weird. But this time, they were perfect! I think I have enough raspberries to make another batch. BTW, I didn't have any orange juice, so I substituted that for some cherry limeade instead.

For today's card, I've been meaning to use some ribbon scraps that I had around. I picked out some and adhered them to a scrap piece of white cardstock. I used some double stick tape to make sure that everything stayed put and was straight. I added the rhinestones at the last minute because I thought the card needed some bling.

Card Specs:
Embossing powder: Stampendous! in white
Embossing ink: VersaMark
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper
Stamp: The Paper Company Studio- Greetings (sentiment)

P.S. My sister sent me this cute wedding toast video. ::collective awwww:: :D

Song of the day: "Club Can't Handle Me" - Flo Rida ft. David Guetta