Sunday, April 24

Candy Coma

That is what I'll probably be in come tomorrow.

We had most of the family over today for Easter supper/ Zombie Jesus Day and it's been a whole lot of fun. we had a pork roast that was in the oven for about ten hours. In the meantime, all of us twenty-somethings got an Easter basket full of candies and the boys got mini games.

There were small foam dart guns, spring poppers with various athletic ball toppers that you have to catch in a small handheld basket, and there's this tower building game where the pieces are colored bunnies that you assemble according to the color you rolled and once the tower is built you have to take it down using carrot hooks. Really odd, but really cute and fun stuff. Lol.

Throughout the day and into the night, we gathered around and played Mario Party 8 (on the Wii). It has been hilarious fun even when we're losing. I don't think we've laughed that hard together in the longest time and I'm so grateful we were able to do it. The boys and I played the longest and when the fourth player was the computer... let's just say things were very intense and our victory was very narrow. Sadly enough.

It's the first chance we've had since I borrowed the game from my brother back in December or early January to play the game and I think it was a big hit. I'm definitely going to save up to get my own copy. We have another multi-player party game to try that I got new a few weeks ago. I can't wait to play that one either!

I hope that you all had a wonderful holiday weekend and am crossing my fingers that we get a lot of bigger projects done around the house this week because it's our "spring break." Wish us luck! Lol.

I'll see you soon. <3

Sunday, April 17

Eggs-plosion!

[Insert any other egg-pun of your choice here.]

We've used so many today in all of our sugar-high glory that both make me sick to my stomach right about now.

Yeah, this little dragon up there? 
I drew him and his Chinese zodiac friends pixel by pixel 
in various attitudes nearly 6 years ago. 
The tiny animated floating bubble head is called kao-ani. :D

My attitude totally warranted me digging through years of hold folders to find him. I have been all sorts of ambitious in minor endeavors for the past few days. I've gathered supplies to hack away at my face-length bangs, give myself a hack job of a french manicure (so I won't be posting pictures of that because it's nothing to be proud of but will suffice as a test run of my materials), stayed up late to work my knitted scarf (ugh my hands are cramping in weird ways- that means I'm doing it correctly!), locating and setting up the household's Easter decorations, and today was la pièce de résistance: a mini haul at a craft store...
  "Whoops."

So this post is actually one about a little Easter haul and the chaos that ensued. *eye twitch* I just uploaded the photos from my camera and didn't realize how blurry they came out. Bah. Well, that's what I get for rushing. Here they are anyways!

Plastic sacks that are meant to carry your knitting project 
but I'll also be using it as a portable trash receptacle during classes!

Double ended knitting needles so I can try to knit something "in the round",
my own set of crochet hooks because that's what I meant to learn,
and more yarn for me to play with.

Some "berry" garland, a crimper from Stampin' Up!, 
and some two-sided 12 x 12 patterned paper 
that we made into our own Easter grass!

Some ribbon and one of the butterfly embellishments we found today on sale.

And some acrylic paints so that I can spruce up some of the older ornaments.

The Easter Tree! 
We salvaged some old ornaments thanks to our handy dandy hot glue gun and picked up a few new ones today too. We also ripped out what was left of the old crepe paper  in the basket and added in our homemade Easter grass plus we added in some fun ribbon. Between those things, we gave it new life and it was so beyond refreshing!

 A little but of a close-up of some of the tiny ornaments.
We'll be re-painting the older ones after the season is done.
They seem to have been hand-painted, but with smudges and such... Yeah.

This is the wreath we altered. It was just the twigs and golden eggs, which was nice enough. However, we added the ribbon, sprigs of berry garland, sugar coated bunnies, and butterfly clip to make it more festive and our own.



Some decor we dug out and spread around the house, 
like on the mantle and entertainment hutch.

In the special spot on the front security door.

 A close-up of a sweet bunny and wired butterfly breezing into the middle of the wreath. 

Too much fun, right? That's one face lift out of the way. The SO and I are both doing out best to live by a little plan: "Choose an area that's four feet by four feet & fix it." FMIL was getting a bit frazzled about not being able to easily get to her holiday decor because the garage is getting out of hand and I was a bit twitchy about how we still had Christmas lights around the front door, so we fixed nearly all of that today! Roar!

Here's crossing my fingers that we can all keep that momentum going this week! See you soon. <3

Thursday, April 14

Teehee

I'm significantly more smiley today than I have been in a while because the SO and I celebrated our third anniversary of dating today. It was nice to get out of the house and be taken out to dinner. We'd do it more often but things are so monetarily tight right now for both of us, so it's not that he's a bum. One of his trains of thought about this tough situation we're in right now is that we're learning to live and be comfortable with limited means, when life turns around for us, we will have a renewed sense about what we need to spend our money on.

I'm running on no sleep because Sunkist has way too much caffeine in it for my own good. I did channel my frustrated restlessness into finishing the almighty mega-scrapbook that I started two years and two months ago. How freaking ridiculous am I? It's done and I don't have to pull out the pages from any of the sleeves ever again (*fingers crossed!*). What a relief! Never again will I ever wing something so big. Unless we suddenly become multi-gazillionaires with way too much free time and the over-confidence to match. :D It's nothing too outrageous or gorgeous but it's simple and sweet and I love it and what it represents all the same. How many more times can I use "&" in a sentence? Sigh. Maybe I'm more delirious than I thought. It really is like not realizing when you're tipsy -> drunk. :P

I am also tackling my first real knitting project today. Of course I had to accidentally pick the widest and largest scarf ever. Ugh. Foresight. Use it, me. I shall definitely post pictures and a link to the pattern if I managed to not strangle myself trying to finish it. If this gives you any idea, I had to cast on with 50 stitches and then knit 60 rows! That's more than I have done for any of my practice pieces and they were 8 inches long! :( The real kicker is that that's only 1/6 of the entire project. *sob* I hope I can do this. I'm pretty darn stubborn. I think. I'm also pretty indecisive. (Ya think? Lol.)

Alright, I'm going to get back to all that stitching. Wish me luck! I'll see you soon. <3

Sunday, April 10

Scrapped Notes

As a few more pieces of the puzzle fall into place, I'm having stranger and more vivid dreams about the future and people currently in my life. That's a somewhat new concept for me. I feel like I haven't written in here for ages but it was only four days ago. I must have been delirious. XD

In the meantime, we're laying out the plans to do more home renovations and I'm working on finishing my first scrapbook. I started it about two years ago and it's three times bigger than it should have been! Well, to give you an idea, it's 38 pages that are 12x12 inches. Oh yes. I am nearly certifiably insane like that. I had nothing but one cheapo pack of patterned paper, a glue stick (which I loathe), dozens upon dozens of pictures, scissors, permanent markers, and stars in my eyes. Oh, and other miscellaneous craft things like some string and origami paper.

It was way too ambitious of a project for my first time scrapbooking and I've learned so much about the products and a few techniques to streamline the process next time around. *snorts* I am so in love with the concept of mini albums but I don't do enough stuff to take enough pictures of to put into albums and it seems a bit silly to continuously make empty booklets. Plus, to mess more of my mind up, I'm not the type to only use one photo and make that page super pretty with embellishments. I'm the type that crams as many words, snippets of pictures, and decor as possible. Ugh, my brain will be the death me. Lol.

Rofl. Our kitty is choosing now to be a complete spaz. That's talent in such a tiny space. Maybe it's because of the super sudden cold and wet front we're under right now.

I guess I shall keep scouring YouTube for new and fun music to listen too while we figure out what the rest of the day will be entail. See you soon! <3

Wednesday, April 6

Card Caddy

I'm sure that caddy isn't the proper word, but it has such a nice ring to it!

I was on a small organizing kick for the past few nights and ended up finally replenishing my card stash. This is going to be an image heavy post. : )

 I up-cycled one of my favorite tissue boxes and a cereal box for this card carrier.

Look at how full it's getting! ( I do have some envelopes and cards in progress tucked in the back.)

The same window-pane inspired layout in a few different ways.

 One of my favorite from that set because I enjoyed how well it coordinated.

 Inspired by the watercolor techniques from my workshop and the "Fun & Fast Notes" stamp set, I went a little nuts.

Different birthday combos.

Baby carriages and I love the Versamark watercolor backgrounds.

The first card has White Craft ink on it and I love the handkerchief-look. 

I used my now retired "Sprinkles" stamp set to add a bit of background.

Decoration was a great way to deplete my collection of scraps.

It's hard to tell with the flash, but the orange and yellow cards have a subtle watermark of flowers in the background.

I colored in the flowers using a blending pen, used punches for the squares, and the sentiment is "Get Well Wishes."

That is a Pear Pizazz green hedgehog. I had that much fun.

 I also made a set of cards using the "So Many Thanks" stamp and one sheet of striped 12x12 paper.

 It's an altered take on the One Sheet Wonder technique using strips and chunks to decorate several cards.

 
 Even changing up the positioning of the sentiment made for a refreshing take on each card.

Using the same idea as the last batch, I used one sheet of 12 x 12 polka dotted paper.

The stamp set is called " I {Heart} Hearts". How sweet is that?

Not only did I distress the edges, but I crumbled up the stamped image and inked it up some more. It was way too fun getting everything messy.

Again, using up scraps is one of the best side effects of using this technique for extra oomph.

I love using strips of paper as a quick and easy faux ribbon technique.

Each batch only took some time each night to make and was such a painless process. It was satisfying to throw pieces together with such ease and replenish my neglected stash. I'm still learning that I don't have to go crazy striving for perfection and making each card a masterpiece. At that rate, I never have enough and start neglecting writing and sending them out- which was the whole point in getting into card-making in the first place! I'm only kind of backwards. :)

Sunday, April 3

{Not} Fair Enough

The past few (and some of the hottest we've had yet this year) days have been spent on the roof of the house prepping the evaporative cooler for the real summer weather. We've gotten as far as I think we're going to go so the next step will be re-coating and sealing the entire roof. Last year, the SO and his mom patched up the roughest spots but we're hoping that we can get the whole family in on the dealio. Oh yes, I just used that word and it's been that long of a day.

After a series of unfortunate events (:P) FMIL and I went down to the 41st Annual 4th Avenue Street Fair (Spring edition versus the Winter one) and walked around to see all of the booths and roughly 400 vendors. Very cool local shops and bars line that area, it's right by the university, it only runs from Friday through Sunday during the daytime, and it brought in about 250,000 people. Not too shabby, hm? Features local music, petitions, a carnival ride or two, and a lot of yummy food. I actually didn't get anything this time around but it was enjoyable to see so much. I should snap a picture of the ornament I got last time I went. This was my third time!

I really like to go to see all the crafts and goods. Such amazing creations. I was too chicken to take any pictures unfortunately, the thought made me feel like such a creeper. It was pretty toasty and sunny out so I do believe that I'm drained from all the intense sun I've been getting this past week/weekend.

Jumping to another subject, I was finally breaking down a few boxes that have been taking up space in the living room lately to recycle and had the brilliant idea to make a temporary kitty jungle. The packing material were long sheets of paper material like in paper lunch bags so I made all sorts of tunnels and fields and caves for the two boys to play in. It took them a bit longer than expected to get excited about but they finally did play for a few minutes together amongst the rubble and it was great fun to see. I'll try to get a photo or two up eventually. Right now, I don't think I can remember how to work my camera. Sigh.

In almost related news, I. Do. NOT. Like. Cockroaches. AT. ALL. How on Earth do they think that climbing on something alive is a good idea?! Yesterday evening, one was actually climbing up the inside of the SO's pant leg. UGH! Tonight, I was on this very laptop and one was climbing up my friggin' side onto my arm. AAARGH! I yelp often. That's just my abrupt noise of choice for many occasions. Everyone that was in the the house at the time heard me scream-yelp as I furiously swiped it off and tried to squish it. It took a couple of tries because I wasn't whacking it hard enough with my flip flop before it dove underneath the couch a few times. But finally one of the cats not only caught it while it was running out from underneath the couch, but was carrying it in his mouth to go show/give it to his dad. XD He and I are... I want to say having a power struggle, but we both know that I am the boss in the end. I'm such a rotten kitty auntie- when I mean business, I mean business and I always mean business with him. Well, the little booger ended up being my hero tonight, so I fed him a few treats. That still doesn't get me over the sheer rudeness of roaches. Lol. Not. Cool.

I have no idea what else I may start saying if I don't stop myself now. ^_^ See you soon!

Friday, April 1

Spring Is Here

Alright, just because spring is officially here and the times have changed in other states doesn't mean the weather can stop being wonderful.

We briefly had some beautiful 70-something, albeit windy, days and suddenly we're creeping around in the 90's. Excuse me? We're furiously trying to get our evaporative cooler in good working order before it reaches the century mark and we're actually suffering but it's been road block after road block.

However, hours and several trips to our favorite local hardware store later, we have some cool almost clean air coming in through the house! We've gotten to the point of needing a professional electrician coming in to look at  wiring but maybe they could also look at the dining room chandelier that has been on the fritz too.

Ooftah, I've sitting up on the roof in 90 degree weather most of today. I think I want to rest. I'll see you soon. <3
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