Another Yard Sale Find

Ginger: I ended up going over to my parents' house after the movie last night to take care of Ginger. They were out of town, moving my sister out of her rental house since her Master's degree experience has come to a close. Since I'd have to feed the cat in the morning too, I decided to spend the night there to save me the drive. She was very cuddly all night, sleeping at the foot of my bed. Awww.

Actually, I ended up going back to the house later in the afternoon because everyone was back at the house. I even took a nap in my old bed, ha ha.

Yard Sale Find: On my way back to my place, I stopped by another yard sale. I wasn't sure what I'd find here, but the proceeds were going to charity so I thought it was worth a look. I've been meaning to go to the craft store to pick up some clay so that I could make my own clay flower embellishments, but hadn't gone yet. It was just my luck when I found a bag filled with packages of Premo Clay- brand new, never been opened. There were so many colors to choose from! The sticker on the bag said $1 per package, but I asked the lady if she'd cut me a deal since I picked out 9. "How about $7?" SOLD! Based on the Premo Clay website, it looks like each package normally goes for $2.29, so I felt like I got a deal. I bought some molds from Etsy; I can't wait for them to arrive in the mail so that a new crafty adventure can begin! There was a bag of ribbon that I forgot about, but it's okay. Not like I need more ribbon anyway.

A Busy Bee Saturday!

Training: 7 miles @ 11:15-11:30 min/mile pace was on the schedule today. Yeah, it was a grueling as it sounds. From my place to my parents' place is 3.5 miles so I basically went there, took a little break to say hi and ran back. Total running time was 1 hour and 27 minutes (1st half was 42:49, 2nd half was 44:55), with an average pace of 12:25 min/mile. While I'm not thrilled about my time, I was happy that I got done.

Yard sale finds: I went to several yard sales today after running and came back with 2 things: a desk chair ($25) and some Corningware ($3). The funny thing with the chair is that the woman was telling me secretly that her husband wanted it for $40, but she'd let me have it for $30. I wanted to know that all the adjustments worked. She brought her husband over and he showed me that they did indeed work. Hmmm, ok. Perhaps we can negotiate. "I'll take it from you for $25." "That would work," he said. Mwah ha ha ha. With a run through with a vacuum and a Lysol wipe, it looked brand new. Now I don't have to drag the only chair that I have in my office from the craft desk to the computer. I have a chair for each now!

Movie: My friend Robyn and I went out for a dinner and a movie tonight. Dinner was at a TexMex place and the movie of choice was Cowboys and Aliens. A movie that has James Bond and Indiana Jones has got to be good, right? The aliens were scary so I had to cover my eyes during some parts, but overall, a kick-butt movie!

Card: I decided to use a hot air balloon stamp and sentiment stamp that hadn't seen ink yet. I went with a square card again because it was leftover cardstock from when I made yesterday's card. The sentiment flag was created when I was making my shoe card a few days ago, but it was too long for that card. Good thing I kept it for this card. It matches very nicely with the background paper.

Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Blackbird. Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Antique Linen.
Stamps: Studio G (sentiment, hot air balloon)
Paper: Die Cuts with a View- Nana's Kitchen, Die Cuts with a View- Mango Frost
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, Fiskars Threading Water border punch

Fall-To Layout #151

Training: Today was a rest day, thankfully. It was forecasted to get up to 100 degrees outside! Hopefully the heat will be more manageable tomorrow, as 7 miles is on the schedule.

Work-related news: Now that I have my new place, I have decided to take advantage of one of the benefits that's offered at work, which is working from home. I've been thinking about it for a while and didn't feel comfortable doing it at my parents' house. How embarrassing would it be to take a conference call and have Mom barge in, right? Effective today, I am working from home on Fridays. Yipee! Doing work in my pjs...yep, sign me up.

Observation: I am doing so much better about cleaning up after myself in this new place than I ever was in my own room at my parents' house. I'm the only one that will be keeping this place clean. Not my mom. Not my dad. If it's cluttered, it's up to me to clean it up. While I thought I'd enjoy the freedom of leaving my shoes and clothes and other junk around, I realized very quickly that seeing stuff everywhere drives me crazy. We'll see how long I keep this up. I mean, it's almost been a month...that's a good sign, right?

Card: Here's my take on Fall-To Layout #151. All the elements of card were created from scraps. It's always nice to have thank you cards on hand, right?
Card Specs:
Embossing powder: Stampendous! in white
Embossing ink: VersaMark
Stamps: The Paper Company Studio- Greetings (sentiment)
Paper: Die Cuts with a View- Nana's Kitchen
Punch: Martha Stewart- Classic Butterfly, We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, Fiskars Threading Water border punch

High Heel Shoe Card

Training: I was looking forward to my run this evening because it gave me an opportunity to test out the watch that I bought yesterday. The training schedule said 2.5 miles @ 9:50/mile pace, but then I couldn't remember what the 1.25 mile mark was (the turnaround point). I ended up going a little further than what I thought the 1.25 mark was because I would much rather go further than not enough. I ended up doing 3.8 miles @ 10:51/mile pace. Ugh, a whole minute off the pace that I should be on. I dunno if that's due to the hills or the extra distance that I did. Oh well. I think it's better to get used to mileage. I still have time to build up speed.

I love how when I go running, I always come back looking like I went swimming instead. It wasn't even raining outside, but it was kinda humid outside, despite the fact that the sun already went down. Ewww.

At the office: I was really wanting to try the frozen yogurt place that just opened up near my office. I always see people walking around with a cup of frozen yogurt from that place, despite the fact that Ben and Jerry's and Coldstone are nearby. I ended up getting chocolate frozen yogurt and adding mochi, chocolate chips, and Heath bars as toppings. My heart sank a little when I went to the counter because I could get a big thing of ice cream at Safeway for the price of one cup of the frozen yogurt. I considered it a treat and promised myself that I'd save my money for other things. It WAS really good! I can see why people at the office go several times a week.

Card: For today's card, I wanted to break out a shoe paper punch that I bought back in May, but hadn't used yet. It was when I went to New Hampshire and I found it at Marshalls. The TSA people were very confused as to what it was when my bag went through the x-ray machine. I punched out a few shoes with the colorful DCWV paper and used my new T-square ruler to line up the shoes vertically. Then I adhered a flag-shaped sentiment panel, gemmed up the card, and finished it off with some faux stitching.

Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Blackbird
Paper: Die Cuts with a View- Mango Frost
Stamps: Studio G (alphabet)
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper, EK Success- High Heel Shoe
White Gel Pen: Inkssentials

Hooray, Custom Order!

At the office: "Tina, do you have any cookies today?" Nope, sorry. Contrary to popular belief, I don't bake during ALL my free time.

Etsy: I love getting custom Etsy orders. The one that I received tonight was SO cute.

Hi, Do you do special requests? I love your cards and favorited your shop quite a while ago thinking I might need one of your cards sometime! With that said, I am looking for a "happy first day of school" card for my grandson.

The little guy is starting kindergarten, and he's really into sports. Unfortunately, my crafty stash leans towards the girly side, so I had to improvise. Fortunately, he has a dog, so I went with an origami dog and paper punched apples/argyle to make the card more school-ish.

Shopping: Today was a rest day on the training program, so I went to Target to pick up a few things. Hangers, nail polish, and mini Heath Bars were on sale, so I grabbed one of those. I also got a sports watch because I want to start timing myself more accurately when I go running. However, I'm just not willing to invest in a running watch yet because of the cost. I'm hoping the Timex one will do just fine for the time being. The new nail polish is a really deep red and it's not really shimmery. Sally Hansen Insta-Dri in Cinna-Snap.

Trigger Target: Squares to Cherish + CARDS Magazine Challenge

Training: On the training schedule today was 4.5 miles at a 11:30 pace. By my rough calculations, I was able to maintain a 11:33 pace, so at least I'm not too far off. Those hills are like whoa, but at least it's good practice.

At the office: I had my salary conversation with my boss today and it didn't go as well as I was hoping considering my stellar performance review yesterday. With the recent budget cuts, I can understand why they aren't able to be as generous as in previous years. At least I can say that I did everything that I possibly could to get to this point, so all I can do now is continue to work hard and push for that promotion. God grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, etc...

Card: For today's card, I decided to address 2 challenges at once. One was Moxie Fab World's Tuesday Trigger and the other was this week's CARDS Magazine challenge that focuses on cards with gathered ribbon flowers. I noticed the olive green and blue in the trigger photo, so that's what I did my gathered ribbon flower with. I thought some buttons with thread strung through them would match nicely with the white stitching in the flower's ribbon. Finally, I heat embossed a sentiment with black embossing powder instead of black ink so it'd stand out against the patterned paper.
Card Specs:
Embossing powder: Personal Stamp Exchange- Black
Embossing ink: VersaMark
Stamps: Fiskars- Sentiments
Paper: American Crafts- Metropolitan
Punch: Fiskars Scalloped Sentiment border punch, We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper
Buttons: Bucket White from Michaels. Favorite Findings in Ocean.
Ribbon: Sweet Petites from A.C. Moore
Brad: Recollections

Good News at the Office + CPS #228

At the office: My boss is in town this week. She and I had a conference call with some other people from 3 to 3:45 and I knew that she had a meeting at 4. Hmmm, so what's the best way to utilize that 15 minutes in between?

me: So what do you want to get done this week before you go back home?

boss: We need to get the fact sheet done and the menu squared away for the August meeting. And at some point, we have to go over your performance review.

(pause)

me: Uhhh, do you think the performance review will take more than 15 minutes? (she laughs) Well, I've been thinking about it all weekend.

boss: Nope, it won't. You want to do it now? We can do it now. Lemme print it out.

I'm happy to report that she's very pleased with my performance at the office. She also told me that other people at the office have said positive things about me and found me easy to work with. I was afraid that sometimes I might come across as hardheaded because I'm strict about deadlines and getting things done. Her final comment was "Tina is a joy to work with..." and she checked off the "Exceeded Expectations" box. I told her thank you for the nice feedback and probably appeared cool and collected, but on the inside I was punching my fists in the air and jumping up and down like an athlete doing a victory dance. I thought she'd say something about how this would affect my position at work as I've been shooting for a promotion all year, but unfortunately, she told me that that conversation would have to happen seperately. Ok ok fine. At least we're off to a good start!

Whew. What a relief!

Card: My boss also surprised me with some gifts for the house, so I decided that tonight's card would be a thank you card to her to express my appreciation. I used CPS #228 as my inspiration. The card needed to be relatively flat in order to go in the mail. It'll be at her house to surprise her when she gets home later this week. I went straight for the Dear Lizzy paper for the patterned paper elements of the card. Everything already matched so I didn't have to go through the trouble of rummaging through my other paper stacks. I knew I needed a sentiment stamp so I used a wood mounted "Thank You" that I hadn't used in a while and a bird $1 stamp that I bought earlier this month that hadn't seen ink yet. I had to draw the eye and legs on the bird to make it come to life. How cute and simple! :)
Card Specs:
Ink: Colorbox chalk ink in Blackbird, Yellow Ochre, Rose Coral
Stamps: Studio G (bird), Inkadinkado (flower, sentiment)
Paper: American Crafts- Dear Lizzy
Punch: We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper
Die: Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels 4
Other: Black American Crafts Stamp Marker

TV: Yay, Ben and JP are the final two on the Bachelorette! I can't wait to see who's won Ashley's heart in the finale next week. And hello, Real Housewives of New York. I watched a little bit of it tonight, but turned it off because everyone was talking over each other, it was very difficult to follow along. Sigh. I'll catch a rerun or something later this week.