Happy Birthday, Book Lover

My friend Mandy celebrated her birthday recently and here's the card I sent her.

She's an avid reader, so I knew that I wanted to use the latest PTI set on her card. I also made a coordinating bookmark for her, both of which were inspired by this design from Niki Estes. I loved all the detail Niki put into her card and wanted to make one similar.

Right now, I'm with Mandy and two of our other friends enroute to Chicago for CHA!! I'm so excited. Maybe I'll get to meet some of you there :)

Brady Bunch Buttons

I forgot all about the Dare to Get Dirty challenges over at SCS until I saw my friend Erin's recent blog post. So far I've worked on three challenges (two cards) and I'll share the first one with you.

For this challenge, we had to use a TV show as our inspiration. I used the opening sequence to the Brady Bunch as the inspiration for the layout of my card. It was funny because my dad was over for dinner tonight and I showed him the card and asked him to guess which TV show. He said Hollywood Squares, which definitely would work too.

Two more days until leaving for Chicago & CHA....I'm so excited!!

LONG time no post

Hi!! I'm so sorry that I've been MIA from the blog/craftin' world. I've been working on all of my summer to do items and only have 2 things left. I'm so stoked that all of the closets, drawers, and cabinets in my house are cleaned & organized. Wahoo! The bad part was I just didn't seem to be in the bloggin' or craftin' mood, so I figured I'd wait and it would return. Guess what? It did!

I made a birthday card over the weekend and a card for the CAS challenge at Splitcoast today. I'm really hoping to get in some of the Dirty Dozen challenges before leaving for CHA.

The CAS challenge was to interpret the title "One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish" in a card. This is a really simple card, but I love the graphic nature of it. I used one of my favorite sets from Practicing Creativity to create the big dots...this set makes it sooooo easy to line things up :)

Hope all is well with you guys! I'll be making the rounds soon & can't wait to see what you all have been up to :)

Busy Busy Busy!

(Warning - jibber jabber ahead!!)

Last week kept me VERY busy and rarely at home ....but with all fun things :)

Early in the week, my best friend and I headed to Cleveland (about a 3 hour drive) for a day of shopping! What a fantastic day. We first went to the outlets in Aurora - no big finds there. Then to Eton, which is gorgeous! We ate at the Stone Oven Bakery for lunch, and I had the most amazing mushroom onion foccacia pizza....yum! I found some great inspiration for a card at Anthropologie (hope to make that soon!!). The day also included trips to Beechwood Place and Legacy Village where I saw the most beautiful hanging baskets and discovered that California Pizza Kitchen removed my favorite pizza from the menu (Santa Fe Chicken).

My mom and I spent the next day together visiting a local Italian market and Target while she waiting for her car to get inspected (at the world's slowest auto repair shop - 4 hours and they didn't even get the oil changed!!!) So my appointment to get my hair cut & toe nail polish changed the next day was thoroughly enjoyed.

At the end of the week, my dad and I drove to Washington DC to finalize some details for the field trip I'm taking students on in the late fall. The weather was perfect - especially considering all the walking we did. And I got all the info I needed. While we were there, I thought my dad would enjoy visiting the Newseum. I've never been there but have wanted to go ever since one of my students told me what a nice museum it is. She was so right!! The Newseum was filled with major news stories that have shaped our country. Here are some photos I snapped...wish I would've taken more!

The view from the outdoor observatory deck on the 6th floor. You can see what a great day we had - not a cloud in the sky!!

Here's some memorabilia from the Birmingham church bombing in 1963. My students read a book that centers around this, so I thought they'd be interested in seeing this photo. The museum's collection had a fantastic range from sports to comics to Internet to notorious criminals and much more.

This is a photo of part of one of the Twin Towers. This section of the Newseum was very well done and included so many different newspapers from September 12th.

If you're planning a trip to DC, I would highly recommend making the Newseum a stop on your trip. It's a bit pricey, seeing that most museums in DC are free admission...but worth it! And, be sure to eat there. My dad and I thought the museum cafeteria was our last choice after not finding anything really suitable for lunch nearby. Boy were we wrong! It was delicious!! The food is provided by the Wolfgang Puck catering company and very reasonably priced.

So after that hectic week, I spent a lot of time this week working on my projects around the house. Pretty soon I'll be done with my 'to-do' list....that is if I finally stop procrastinating about cleaning up the basement!!

Christmas Cards...In This Heat?!?!

Finally!! The weather has broke. We've had a week of days in the mid 90s - ugh!! I've been getting up at 5:30 to go walking, and I'm really proud that I've stuck with it despite the heat and having to get up at the crack of dawn.

I've been on the go quite a bit for the past two weeks & I have some photos to share in the next post. So I was so happy to make a card tonight. Hopefully I can create some more tomorrow. Tonight's card is based on the 98th Fall to Layout challenge at the Clean & Simple Stamping blog.

Here's the layout:

And here's my take. I thought I'd get going with my Christmas cards, and this layout was perfect for my idea.

I broke out the Cricut to cut out the letters and snowflake....wish I used it more often. It sits out and is easy to use; I'm just never inspired to use it on projects. I love the new Create A Critter cartridge but have hesitated buying it knowing it probably won't be used enough to warrant spending the money. Plus I know other things I could spend it on :) If you have a Cricut, do you use it or are you more like me?

Details:

Stamps - Winter Swirls (PTI)

Ink - Tuxedo Black (Memento); Frayed Burlap & Antique Linen (Distress Inks-Ranger)

Paper - kraft, white; Aqua Mist, Pure Poppy, Rustic Snowflakes (PTI)

Accessories - Aqua Mist button (PTI), baker's twine (Martha Stewart), Alphalicious & Speaking of Winter Cricut cartridges