Photographic Wednesday

Can you believe it? It's already Wednesday. Wow. Highlights from today:

• I went to Potbelly this afternoon for a snack. I came back with sour cream and onion chips and an oatmeal CCC. Yum!
• We have a new member of the neighborhood. The couple next door have a new baby boy. There were blue balloons flying outside their house when I came home from work today. Awww.
  
• I was so thankful for the sun this afternoon. I went around the backyard with my camera to shoot some pictures of Mom's garden. Here are my favorite shots. And of course, I had to take a few of Ginger, right before she took a nap.
• I continued to work on my inventory for the upcoming craft fair tonight. My crafty mood's in overdrive because there's no spin tonight. Tonight I focused on Mother's Day cards. I made several, but I couldn't choose just one that was my favorite, so I picked two. Hooray for Prima flowers!

Pictures from today...

Custom Order Birthday Card

I slept thought spin tonight with my post-work power nap. The bed had too much of a gravitational pull. Sorry, Janice. I'll probably see ya on Friday morning for Anna's 8:30 AM class.

One of my co-workers asked me to make a birthday card for him. He preferred that the card include some pink and green. I also needed the card to be fairly flat because it was going to be snail mailed. I came up with this origami dress birthday card. I had one sheet of this origami paper left, and it was perfect because it was pink. The original card didn't have the flowers, but I thought it had too much unused space, so I went back to add them using a cherry blossom punch. If the card wasn't going through the postal system, I would have added some rhinestones or flower gems to add some interest.

Holy Prima, Batman!

I wore one of the dresses that I bought yesterday to work today, and the HR lady that I saw at spin on Saturday was like "That's not the woman that I saw at the gym on Saturday" as she walked by me in the hallway. Ha ha. No, I'm not coming into work sweaty and gross. Spin tonight was a good workout. My goal this week is to go M, T, FRI, and SAT. I already went yesterday, so 1 class down, 4 to go. Hello, swimsuit season.

Random thought: Ahhh, freshly vacuumed carpet. Buh-bye, miscellaneous paper pieces!

My ebay auction win of 400 Prima flowers came in the mail today, yay! I have never used these flowers before in my cards. Man, I was missing out! The lot that I got today had flowers of varying sizes and colors, so I foresee using them frequently in future cards and for the upcoming craft fair. Like today's card. I was inspired by Fall-To Layout #79 over at clean&simple stamping. They are also a great way of using the set of brads that I had gotten from Michaels a while ago.

Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Chestnut Roan
Stamp: The Paper Company Studio- Whimsy Greetings (sentiment)
Paper: My Mind's Eye- Bloom and Grow
Flowers: Prima
Brad: Making Memories Brad Value Pack- Chelsea's Place collectionSong of the day: "Just Stop Believin'"- Lady Gaga/Journey mashup. Rerun from yesterday. Time for 24 and some dinner, byE!

Shopping Sunday

I made it spin class today, yay! I was a little hesitant because the instructor was someone I hadn't seen before or taken a class with. Given that the last class that I took with someone unfamiliar wasn't too much fun, I was feeling a little nervous. However, I was pleasantly surprised that he was...pleasant. He looked like Chris Daughtry, which made it easier to remember his name because it was Chris too. Ha ha. The class was good- no yelling + good music. With the help of some endorphins, my mood went from "Meh" to "Today's going to be a good day." Cute front desk guy ask me how Chris's class was, and I said that he was good because he didn't yell that much. I went to get my purse and jacket in the locker room, and then thought "Wait, he didn't yell at all." So on my way out, I stopped by the front desk and said that I wanted to change my answer. "He was good because he didn't yell at all." Cute front desk guy and one of the trainers laughed, but I dunno if they were laughing at me or at what I said or what. I've decided that it doesn't really matter.

After a shower and something to eat, I made my way to the A.C.Moore in VA that Meg took Page and I to recently. I wanted to check out their clearance stamp section again. They still had a good selection left, yay! The lines were rather long, which was actually good for me because as I stood in line, it made me think of what I really wanted. I ended up taking a few stamps and ribbon back. However, I did buy some new stamps on clearance, a chalk ink pad on clearance, scrapbook paper on clearance, blending stumps, and a package of rhinestones on sale. As I was exiting the store, I remembered that there was a Michaels nearby, so I punched it in the GPS and made my way to that direction. What I didn't know was that there was a Dress Barn near the Michaels. Detour! I had been wanting to buy some more "professional" clothes for work, and they were having a sale...score! I ended up buying 4 dresses. Heh. They will be good to wear this upcoming summer. Ok, back to Michaels. Meh, nothing too interesting there, except for some cupcake stamps. I ended up getting 2 and using my 50% coupon. It's been a good shopping day. :)

Random act of kindness: as I was ripping out the coupon from the Michaels insert, I could tell that the lady in front of me was watching me. "Where did you get that?" "Um, the Washington Post." (pause) "Are you going to use all of them?" "Nope, here you go." I'm not going back to Michaels this week, so someone else can enjoy those coupons.

For today's card, I actually didn't use any of the crafty goodies I bought today. Weird, I know. Goals: use as many scraps as possible and use one of the border punches from my sister. I actually had a blue circle that I saved from when I tried out the Martha Stewart circle cutter (but ultimately returned), so I wanted to get it off my desk and onto card. I had some DCWV Citrus scraps around so I cut them up and rounded some corners. I think the card came out kinda abstract-y.

Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Chestnut Roan
Punches: Fiskars Twist & Flip 2-in-1 corner punch, Fiskars Threading Waters border punch
Stamps:Fiskars- Just Between Friends (sentiment)
Paper: Die Cuts With A View- Citrus

For a smile: check out these cute kitty cookies.

Song of the day: "Just Stop Believin'"- Lady Gaga/Journey mashup. Heard it at spin.

Foody Saturday

Today's primary activity was eating, as you could probably tell by the title of this blog post. But I kinda evened it out by going to spin this morning. By the way, I fell asleep around 10 PM last night, only to wake up at 2 AM super hungry. Like stomach hurting from hunger. What's up with that? Yes, very unusual. The director of HR at work was at spin this morning. I guess we're just both wanting to get our workouts done and over with first thing in the morning.

After spin, I went to my friend Laura's apartment with Jenny and Cristina (::wave::) for a potluck lunch. See lovely tablescape below. The menu consisted of spinach/artichoke dip, pizza, meatball subs, crescent rolls with chocolate and almonds, fruit and peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. Yum! I wish I could burn more calories by just talking because right after the lunch and some chatty time, I went right to an Italian restaurant for a family dinner. Menu: salad, chicken marsala, fettuccine with shrimp and scallop, filet mignon, fried calamari, etc. More yum! Check out the chocolate cake that we got for everyone to share. Don't drool over the computer screen, mmmkay? I secretly told the waiter that we were celebrating my parents' birthdays and asked if it'd be possible to bring some bread pudding with a candle. My mom and dad were so surprised. The bottom left picture is of them watching the restaurant staff sing Happy Birthday. The bottom right picture is of them laughing and laughing and laughing because this will be Mom's 3rd birthday celebration. Dad's just ready to dig into the bread pudding. And yep, I reserved my spot for tomorrow's 8:30 AM spin class.

After dinner, I came back home to work on my inventory for the upcoming craft event on April 10. I think I'm up to about 90 cards, which is a really good start. About half of them are leftover from my last craft event last Fall.

Ok, it's seriously time for bed. Niiight.

More Cookies

Despite the fact that it's Friday (yay), I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed. My neck/shoulders are a little sore and I think that's because of the cardmaking I did last night. That's what I get for being ambitious. Instead of being a whiny baby, I'll elaborate on all the good things that happened today.

• I woke up to a Etsy sale this morning. It was actually an origami dress card that was on the Front Page a while ago.
• I got a text from Page this morning, informing me that her mom will no longer be on chemotherapy. Whew/yay!
• I had a good lunch with co-workers that I don't normally talk to. Hooray for making new friends. I had a crepe with chicken, mushrooms, and spinach.
• I baked yummy cookies this evening, and I ate 3 just to make sure that they were okay for consumption.
  

Gross thing that I saw: on my way to the post office, the guy walking in front of me dropped his half-smoked cigarette in the busy intersection. Then, he proceeded to pick the cigarette up and smoke the rest of it! GAH! Are you serious? Hello? Germs, motor oil, dirt, etc.? Sigh.

I'm going to a brunch tomorrow (theme: comfort food) with the MPH girls, and my contribution is my peanut butter chocolate chip cookies. I've lost count of how many times I've done this recipe this month, but they are yummy and people will enjoy them and that's all that matters. I'm feeling really drowsy, so I think I'm going to make my way to bed. Yes, at 9 PM. Like an old fogey. I'm hoping that going to bed earlier will make getting up tomorrow for spin not so painful.

Song of the day: "Love Story Meets Viva La Vida" - Jon Schmidt.

Upcoming Crafty Event, Yay!

Upcoming crafty event news: last night, I was perusing Craigslist for upcoming craft fairs and I found one in VA about 40 minutes away on April 10. Yay! It's at a church, and the vendor fees go to help the church's summer camp. I emailed the pastor this morning to reserve my spot. Let the preparations begin! I'm so excited to have found this event because a) it goes to a good cause and b) I really enjoyed the craft fair experience last winter and I'm glad that I don't have to wait until this winter to have it again. It was a great way to get buyer feedback and find out what people like and don't like.

I had good intentions of going to the gym for spin tonight. I even set my alarm to wake me up from my nap at 6:30 PM, but I just totally slammed down on the snooze button and slept for 30 more minutes. I guess my body needed it. I still have Saturday morning's class to make my week spin class count: 3.

With the energy that was gained from that power nap, I started increasing my inventory for the upcoming craft fair by working on some origami shirt/tie cards. Because many of my cards are on the girly side with glitter and rhinestones, I need to make sure that I have something for the guys as well. By the end of my crafty session tonight, I cranked out 16 origami shirt/tie cards. Whew!

Random act of kindness: when I was walking to the post office today, I walked by a Quiznos employee who gave me a "buy 1 sandwich, get 1 free" coupon. I don't really eat at Quiznos so I gave the post office lady the coupon. Maybe she and a friend can get a yummy lunch in the next few weeks before the coupon expires.