Hello, Hero Arts

Here's another card in my effort to use the new supplies that I acquired recently. I took a piece of white cardstock and stamped the music score first with Antique Linen. Then I stamped the Flower Bird Garden image with Versamark right on top of the music score image, sprinkled clear embossing powder on top, and then used a heat gun to melt the clear embossing powder. Now, it's time to have some fun with using Distress Inks as water colors. I stamped the ink pad on a large clear block and used my Aqua Painter to color in the image. I kept a paper towel near by to soak up any ink that got on the clear embossed part. Ta da!

Card Specs:
Embossing powder: Stampendous! in White
Embossing ink: VersaMark
Ink: Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Broken China, Warm Honey, Barn Door, Vintage Photo, Peeled Paint, Antique Linen.
Stamps: Hero Arts- Everyday Sayings, Flower Bird Garden. Stampendous (music score)
Paper: American Crafts- Hello Sunshine
Other: Liquid Pearl in White Opal

Sigh, The Office

Hit a few bumps at the office today, but ending the day with this furbaby made things all better.Plus, Julie came home for the day and she came over to make peanut butter cookies to mail to a friend. There are no longer any cookie making supplies at my parents' house after I moved out because I brought them all with me. Ha ha.

Public Speaking

Community Service: Today, I was invited by my friend Jessie to speak to her 8th grade girls after school program about college and careers. I was very pleasantly surprised how this event turned out. I was greeted at the door by one of the girls and shown which room to be in. The room erupted into, "HI, MISS TINA!" Uh, hi. Wait, how do you know what my name is? Jessie must have caught my confused expression and held up a pack of bios with pictures. Ah, I see.

We broke up into 4 groups with 2 "adults" in each group. The girls rotated every 10 minutes or so. The girls were really sweet and asked thoughtful questions like "How does college help you with your time management and writing skills?" and "Did your friends get in the way of college?"

At the end, each of the "adults" was instructed to give a piece of advice. I had to think of something really quick. No one wants to be the last one with nothing creative to say. I decided to paraphrase this quote: "I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”― Maya Angelou

Card: I'm slowly starting to use the new crafty items that I bought a few weeks ago (yeah, what a concept, right?). To pass the time last night, I made a quick card using my new Martha Stewart fish punch to create this card. I used my printer to create the sentiment, and it somehow printed a little higher than I would have liked, but instead of recycling the card base, I just put a border on the bottom that has a wave-feel to it.

I looked up the punch online, and regular price, it's $16 on Amazon (?!). I got it for $3 at Marshalls. Mwah ha ha ha.

Card Specs:
Paper: Die Cuts with a View- Mango Frost
Punch: Martha Stewart- Embossed Tropical Fish, Fiskars Upper Crest border punch

CPS #255

Etsy: Finally, after almost a month without sales, I got a sale today...an origami fox birthday card to some one in the UK.

Two-a-day: I went to an hour spin class this morning and decided to get another workout in this afternoon for a 3 mile run. In between workouts, I had gone to my parents' house to figure out what to do with some of my old stuff (throw away, donate or keep) and ended up also consuming a bunch of ice cream there. I guess the afternoon run balances everything out.

Card: Here's my take on CPS #255. I stamped the floral image once for a full red effect and then immediately stamped it again for the faded image.Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Charcoal.
Paper: American Crafts- Dear Lizzy and Botanique
Stamp: American Crafts- Ginger (alphabet), Stampin' Up- Garden Silhouettes (floral)
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, Martha Stewart- Classic Butterfly, EK Success Postage Stamp border punch
Brads: American Crafts- Medium Jewel Brads (Earth Tones)

Fall-To Layout #180

Julie's birthday card: I forgot to take a picture of the birthday card that I gave to Julie this year, so I had to wait for her to send me a picture of it. Who doesn't like an animal themed birthday card, right?

Rummage sale: There were two rummage sales that I wanted to go to today. One was at a church near my old high school and then the other was a used book sale at my old high school. At the rummage sale, there was a lady selling many of her Stampin' Up sets for $10 each. Some were still unmounted and unused! She also had some punches too. While I liked many of the sets, I decided to buy only two. I figured both of them could be used for masculine or feminine cards, depending on what colors you used. I bought a border punch as well, but when I tested it out on some scrap paper in my purse, the punch got stuck! The lady was nice enough to give me my money back. I was a little surprised that she wouldn't give me a deal on the 2 sets that I bought, but I did a little research when I got home to see how much these sets would be from StampinUp.com. Oh, wow, they are expensive! Whew, I got a deal!

The used book sale didn't go so well because when I got to the door, I saw the sign about a $5 entrance fee. Eeeh. Nah, I'll pass.

Card: The floral card below is my take on Fall-To Layout #180.

Running: Julie IMed me earlier today to report that she officially joined the CrossFit gym that we went to last week. I was inspired to go for a run after all that talk about working out. The St. Patrick's Day 8K is next week, eek!

Book: I was able to snag The Help from the library this afternoon. Yay, now I can pick up where I ended.
Card Specs:
Embossing powder: Stampendous! in white
Embossing ink: VersaMark
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Warm Red, Rose Coral, Yellow Ochre
Stamps: Inkadinkado (leaves), Savvy Stamps (sentiment), Martha Stewart- heart and flower clear stamps (everything else)
Paper: Die Cuts with a View- Nana's Kitchen
Clay: Sculpy Clay in Red, Dusty Rose. Premo Sculpey Clay in Cadmium Yellow Hue
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, Martha Stewart- Classic Butterfly
Other: Liquid Pearl in Buttercup

Mmm, Indian Food

I decided to try two Indian food recipes today. I'm getting closer and closer to my goal of 25 new recipes by the end of 2012. I still haven't tackled seafood yet. That's still too intimidating for me.

The two recipes I tried were Budget Bytes's dal nirvana (right) and quick curried chick peas (left) (something like chana masala). I went to the grocery store this morning and found that many of the ingredients were on sale. A bag of lentils was $1.50. A can of tomato sauce was $0.33. A can of chick peas was less than $1. I was happy that I could use the rest of the cream that I bought for chocolate ganache a few weeks ago for the dal nirvana. I didn't want it to go to waste.

I've been on an Indian food kick lately, so these two recipes will really help me save some money. Between the two, I'd probably make the dal nirvana more frequently than the chick pea dish. On the nutrition side, the protein helps you feel fuller longer, so yay!

30-Day Experiment

I recently watched this TED talk about trying something new for 30 days. I was inspired to do something like that, and since it's a whole new month, why not? Today is Day 1 of a "no candy, no chocolate" policy (I eat too much of both anyway). So far, so good. The key is to just skip that aisle at the grocery store completely. If I don't buy it, I won't eat it. I think that part will not take as much will power as resisting candy/chocolate at the office.

This policy doesn't include ice cream or frozen yogurt. I have to appease my sweet tooth some how. I went to FrozenYo again with Jennifer and got cheesecake/cookies and cream twist frozen yogurt with strawberry topping and mochi pieces. See? No candy or chocolate. A group of coworkers was already there enjoying their frozen yogurt. Those gift cards are being put to good use!