Fall-To Layout #161

This is the second post of the day, folks.

While I was in Salt Lake City, my parents were nice enough to stop by the house a few times to check on the house, feed RJ the cat, and pick up my mail from the mailbox. When I was going through my mail today, I saw that I got an anniversary card from the office. My 3rd year anniversary is in October, and the Executive Director sends out cards to the staff on their anniversary. Amusing thing: I was asked to make a set of birthday and anniversary cards for the office, but this card was not one that I made. Fist-pump worthy thing: he wrote a note at the bottom, "Thanks for all you do and for your leadership on so many association initiatives." Yay, it's nice to get that acknowledgment from the Big Boss. :)

Have you seen this video on YouTube about the kid who was surprised by her parents with a trip to Disneyland? I spontaneously burst into tears when I saw this video, and I don't even know why. I was so happy for her I guess. Credit: Paige Evans.


Here's my take on Fall-To Layout #161. Honestly, I was expecting this card to be more springy because I reached for the American Crafts Botanique items first, but then things turned fall-y when I was picking out an image stamp. Check out those bow tying skillz. :)
Card Specs:
Embossing powder: Stampendous! in white
Embossing ink: VersaMark
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Blush Rose. Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Vintage Photo.
Stamps: Hero Arts- Cling Dots (background), American Crafts- Herbs (sentiment), Inkadinkado- Autumn Foliage (leaf)
Paper: American Crafts Botanique
Punch: EK Success Circle punch (1 3/8 inch)
Other: Brown Sharpie Ultra Fine Point marker

Hooray, 3 day weekend ahead!!

Salt Lake City, Day 2

First post of the day. I'll make a card later tonight for the Fall-To Layout challenge.

The Travel Gods were clearly not with me yesterday. My trip home might as well have been called the Odyssey. At least the meeting that I came to Salt Lake City for went well in the morning. I ended up hanging out on the 18th floor of the hotel with my boss and coworker, catching up on emails and enjoying the beautiful view. There was already snow on the mountain top! I also took a picture of my fortune cookie fortune from yesterday afternoon. I showed it to my boss as a hint. Fortunately, she has a sense of humor and laughed. "I'm working on it, Tina."
We left the hotel around 3 PM to go to the airport yesterday, and I didn't get home until around 2:15 AM today. We all got on the airplane, and I knew that something was wrong when it was 15 minutes past when we were supposed to have left. Crap. The pilot came on the PA system to inform us that the flight had not been cleared yet. There was some communication problem between the FAA and all Delta flights. We ended up leaving an hour later than we were supposed to. That really messed up my travel plans from the airport to the house. My coworker was going to drop me off at the Metro, but because of the delay, all the Metro stations had closed! Plan B was to get a cab to the Metro station that I parked my car, but then the cab drivers in DC didn't seem to know where the Metro station was. My coworker, probably putting on her "mommy hat", told me that it would make her feel better to drive me to my Metro station. I need to make sure to give her some flowers on Tuesday when we're all back in the office. She really saved me and made sure that I got home safely.

Ahhhh. Home Sweet Home.

Salt Lake City, Day 1

While it was a little bit of a struggle to wake up at 5 AM this morning, I was thankful for the grogginess because it allowed me to sleep through most of my flight coming to Denver. There was a child crying in the row behind me through the full 3 hour flight. You’d think he would have tired himself out, but no. Alas, that was not the case. With the help of a nice nap and my MP3 player, I was about to tune him out. Poor little guy.

I watched part of the Today Show this morning on the plane, and I was amused by their segment on Yard Sales. Yep, I’m all about “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure.” The slow cooker that I got a few weeks ago is a good example of that. The lady sitting next to me was trying to figure out how to change the channel on the display and so she started pushing the buttons on the armrest that we shared. My display started changing and the Today Show went bye-bye. Whoops. I turned to her and told her that she could change the channels on her display with the left armrest and then we both laughed.

While waiting at the Denver airport for my layover, I was sitting writing up this blog post and I noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye. There were 3 sparrows paroling the waiting area, pecking around. Well, they certainly made themselves at home. I wonder if they’ll ever be able to leave the building and get back out to nature. Maybe they’d prefer to be in the airport so they always have access to food. I was also watching this little girl do handstands in the waiting area. Never a dull moment at the airport.

Yesterday, I was looking up some crafty deals and I noticed that ScrapbookSteals.com had a local pick-up option for shipping. This was perfect since the pick-up site was not too far from my meeting site. Suh-sweet! Here are the goodies that I got (I’ll have to do a video on them when I get home): Cosmo Cricket Glubers, American Crafts Botanique collection, and a 6x6 pad from My Mind’s Eye. The taxi cab driver was nice enough to make a pit stop to pick up my order before taking me to the hotel. I was a little irked that there was only one person at the register. I didn’t like keeping the driver waiting, so it would have been nice if they found someone else to give me my order.

For dinner, I went with work people to a place called Squatters. I had a drink called Strawberry Fields and a BBQ pork sandwich (although that was a tough choice because there were so many good things on the menu).

Busy day ahead with an all-day meeting and then my odyssey back home.

Onward to...

Salt Lake City for a work trip. I've never been there before so this should be interesting.

On an unrelated topic, I'm participating in a Light the Night event next weekend with my friends and to encourage some fundraising, I took a bunch of my homemade cards and put them in the office kitchen with my piggy bank to see if any of my co-workers would be willing to donate a dollar or two. The cards are there as a thank you gift. I ended up with $14 at the end of the day, which isn't too bad considering most of my office is already in Salt Lake City. I'm going to try again next week when more people are here.

Oh, my piggy bank? Yes, it's a legit piggy bank. It's this one from Little Tikes.

What?

Oh, of course I'm bad ass. Why would you think otherwise? Ha ha.

Wee Memories Challenge #70

Don't underestimate the power of a good hair day. This is coming from someone that usually wears her hair in a pony tail. I actually took the time and effort to use conditioner, a hair straightener, and hair spray this morning and wow, it really does make a difference.

At the office today, I was asked to lead a conference call and to make sure I covered everything I was supposed to cover, I ended up writing a script for myself. Meh, who's really going to know the difference, right? And if they do, at least I was prepared!

Here's my take on Wee Memories Challenge #70:"This week's theme is all about your favorites whether it be embossing, CAS, One Layer, etc. Any of your favorite techniques you can use on your creations!" I had to think for a minute, "What IS my favorite technique?" Errr. Well, I like to stamp with color and use my punches/dies, and add faux stitching as a final touch. I started out with a piece of white cardstock and masked off a strip at the top. Then I used Prussian Blue chalk ink, stamped it on some scrap paper and then stamped it again on the white cardstock. This left a lighter impression. Then I took off the mask and scored the top and bottom of the strip. Then came the embellishments, punch outs, and faux stitching. Ta-da! Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Blackbird and Prussian Blue
Stamps: Hero Arts- Cling Classic Fabric Design (background), Fiskars- Sentiments
Punch: Recollections mini flower punch
Flowers: Prima
Brad: Recollections- Pearl Brads
Pearl: Queen & Co.- Pearl
White Gel Pen: Inkssentials

CPS #238

I HAD to get out of the house today. I was feeling cooped up since I haven't really been anywhere except for grocery shopping the last few days. I made a point to take care of a bunch of things all in one trip.

• Got gasoline for the car at 3.37/gal. Is it sad to think that I think this is cheap?
• Returned a book at the library.
  
• Went to parents' house to return a laundry basket and say hi to Ginger. Conveniently, they had just gotten back from Costco, so I left with some cinnamon raisin bagels.
• Dropped off some items at the local Goodwill.
  
• Went to Michaels to get some cardstock that was on sale. I saw there was a 5/$1 sign on patterned paper, so I picked out 10 sheets. Did you know that Recollections makes mini punches? I didn't until I went over to the $1 section. I picked out 3. When I was checking out, the patterned paper was coming out to $0.59 each! Ack, what?! I asked the lady about it and she went over to the paper aisle to double check. Yep, there was a sign there that wasn't supposed to be there. She gave me the discount anyway. I was really shocked because this lady always has a sourpuss facial expression when I see her. I didn't expect her to be so generous.
• Went to Bed Bath and Beyond. I've been meaning to get an air mattress for the new place for visitors to use and I got a great deal on an AeroBed. Originally $59.99. Clearance price $49.99. Using a 20% coupon brought it down to $39.99. Then I had some money left over on a gift card so the final price was $26.92. Bed Bath and Beyond was also doing a promotion where if you bought an AeroBed product, you'd get a $10.00 gift certificate! Woot! :) I blew it up in the living room and took a test nap on it this afternoon. RJ came over in the middle of the nap to cuddle. Awww.

Here's my take on CPS #238. I thought it was really convenient that this was a square card because I had messed up on a card earlier this evening, and I could cut the part that I messed up and use the remainder for this card's base. I also had some scrap navy cardstock and orange scrapbook paper. Perfect! Then it was time to select a stamp. I was looking for my robot stamp set. I went digging into my clear stamp box and ended up pouring out the whole box just so that I could find it. You'd think it'd be easier for me just to pick out another stamp set, but I was determined to find it! I did, and now my clear stamp container looks neater. I did some paper piecing and coloring with markers. I love how the robot looks so cheerful...cheese!Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Blackbird, Prussian Blue.
Stamps: Studio G (alphabet), Recollections- Robots (everything else)
Paper: Recollections- Orange Small Dots
Other: American Crafts Stamp Marker in Navy and Red

A Rainy but Productive Day

I thought this cold was on its way out, but alas, I was incorrect in my assumption. Sigh. Now the nose problems have moved on to a cough. Good thing it was kinda grey and rainy outside today, so I didn't feel like I was wasting a day inside. It was a productive day though.

• Went through three boxes that I bought from my parents' house and came out with three piles: trash, donation, and keep.
• Read Year of the Dog, a book that my friend Suzie got for me. I thought it was so cute and relevant to me because the author incorporated bits and pieces of Taiwanese culture (I'm Taiwanese-American. My parents are immigrants from Taiwan, but I was born in the States). In many parts of the book, I was like "I know what she's talking about!" That was a cool feeling.
  
• Baked banana chocolate chip muffins to use up the spotty bananas sitting on the kitchen counter. I had made a batch a few days ago, so these will end up in the freezer and I can take the others with me when I go on my business trip next week.

The pot roast that I made last night was awesome. I was a little afraid that it'd be too salty, but since I tossed it with some egg noodles, it was a very yummy meal. My freezer is very happy. It must have been fate that I found this slow cooker at a rummage sale a while back. I dunno why anyone would give it up because I think it's awesome! Maybe the original owner got a bigger one.

While I didn't make a card for my blog today for World Card Making Day, I did make some origami dress cards for my Etsy shop.

Song of the day: "Marry You"- Bruno Mars. Have you seen this marriage proposal with this song in it? Credit goes to Emily and Julie for finding the clip.