49ers baby girl blanket

After 6 weeks, I have finally finished the baby blanket my husband asked me to make for his friend's new baby.

The majority of the blanket didn't take too long to make, but the border took me a few tries before I was happy. And just a fun fact, there are 49 rounds to this 49er blanket :)

You may think why a football colored blanket for a baby girl? Well first, I don't think my husband wants to give a girly blanket to his friend (hahaha), but more importantly, the baby's mom is much more into sports than into girly :)

Happy World Card Making Day!

In order to celebrate World Card Making Day, I wanted to make a Halloween card.

I was happy with only completing one card, but while looking through my Basic Grey papers, I found a Basic Grey card making kit I bought a while ago at Ross.

Now I have 8 kit cards to go to in a pinch.

Project Life~Week 5

Wednesday~Toy shopping for my niece's birthday!

Thursday~Chuck E. Cheese for my niece's 4th birthday!

Friday~Watching the Space Shuttle Endeavor fly above us at work

Saturday~First day of Fall--my Seasonal pumpkin finds

Sunday~Using my Cricut Craft Room to make mustaches

Monday~Spirit Week~Pajama Day!

Tuesday~Deleting my Social Network {very liberating}  

(The girl didn't dress up for Twin Day during Spirit Week)

My Cricut and "Craft Room"

The day after Thanksgiving in 2008, I woke up early for the first time ever and we went Black Friday Shopping.  The main purpose was to get some tv related plug-thingy (I still have no idea what it is and does, but it was a really good price for what it did).  Since we were in the neighborhood (even though it was about an hour after the doors had opened), I stopped into Joann's Fabrics to see if they still had any of the original Cricuts that were on sale.  I scored!

I have used it a few times and even though you were not supposed to, in 2009, I bought SCAL which allowed you to use fonts (and other type of files) on your computer to cut images.  I used that feature a few times, but when I upgrade my computer last year, SCAL was not only illegal to use with the Cricut, my original purchase would not work on my Mac.  

After I figured out I couldn't use SCAL, I looked into how to use my Cricut on the computer and found that Cricut has a program called Craft Room that is free!  (I love free!)  It allows you to see the image on your computer before cutting it...you can resize and weld the letters together.  Even though you can see all the cartridges Cricut has to offer and play around with them all, you can only cut images from the cartridges you own.

Forward to now--In July, Cricut started offering free image usage for a week at a time.  I didn't figure this out until late August, but I have been able to take advantage of some of these freebies.

This week, they had Mustaches and Glasses for free.

  

[as you can see, the "Cricut Craft Room Basics" is always free--there are hearts, butterflies, basic letter shapes, as well as a "plant" that looks like a cupcake, and much more!  Currently through Election Day, they also created Obama and Romney files--that cut in the shape of their faces.]

This was pretty awesome because even though I don't "get" the mustache craze, I am planning to put together a photo booth in June for my daughter's graduation party.  

The first go round, I cut them out of black paper--It wasn't bad, but it was a bit flimsy for my needs.  

Then I found some old felt I had lying around.  But that was way too flimsy.  See how you can't see the curled detail!  

This morning, I wandered over to Michaels and paid 99 cents for some very sturdy 9 x 12 felt.  It was perfect!  (I used a Deep Cut Blade on 6, Speed at 2, Pressure at 5, and multi-cut at 2--I found multiple help online using the same criteria.)

Now I have to figure out how to attach it to a stick :)

You could also cut glasses, but they were too thin and you couldn't "bold" them to be a bit sturdier, so I chucked that idea--I am sure I can find "real" cheapy glasses somewhere else.

See that blob of a mustache at the bottom?  It should look like this:

See the major difference?!

Here are all the cuts I made trying out the Mustache and Glasses files for free!

I do have to say though, even if I need to go back, the digital Cricut file is normally only $1.99 for 6 mustaches (plus 6 "shadow" mustaches--which I used) and 3 different glasses.  Not bad if I really need more mustaches.

{they do not only let you try out the cheapy files either!  In August, they had a popular Life's a Party file available that is normally $29.99!  Now if they would only let us try Life's a Beach for my beach themed graduation party I am planning--ha ha ha}

Project Life ~ Week 4

Wednesday~Senior Portraits arrived!!!  So many decisions to make

Thursday~So You Think You Can Dance which was DVR'd from Tuesday.

Friday~My trip to the Library (I love reading, but have to limit it since I can waste days reading)

Saturday~Car Wash (not fun, but kinda old school)

Sunday~The boys at the 9ers game (Picture (c) of the 49er website--they were online!)

Monday~Season Premier of Bones!  (sorry for all the shows, but I love my tv and it is the start of the Fall Season!)

Tuesday~College Information Night

Project Life ~ Week 3

Wednesday~Senior Portrait Day--aaahhh (exciting and kinda sad in a good way)

Thursday~Apple Products (slow news day--hahaha)

Friday~The "girl" getting her eyes examined

Saturday~I took portraits of 3 little ones for my aunt :)

Sunday~Official start to Football Sundays

Monday~Season Premier of the Voice!

Tuesday~Blondie concert at Mountain Winery

*This Tuesday was the 11th Anniversary of 9/11 (a day I will never forget), but I chose to record what we actually did since I have photos of Ground Zero and will someday to a Scrapbook just of that single event that changed our lives completely.

Project Life~Week 2

This past weekend, we had a 3 day weekend due to Labor day.  We made a couple of day trips, but on Monday, we laid really low...as in watched tv the majority of the day :)

Wednesday~ My Cricut machine and cartridges

Thursday~ Our "foster" dog Lucy

Friday~ Trip to Hobby Lobby (feeding my hobby addictions)

Saturday~ Antiquing in San Juan Bautista

Sunday~ Fort Baker on our way back from Sausalito

Monday~ Labor Day spent watching most of Season 2 of Boardwalk Empire

Tuesday~ Son hitting whiffle balls at my back door

This week, I found the Cricut and TV Guide logos online and printed them out for my journaling cards.  I actually made a template for the TV Guide journal cards since I am sure I will be writing about my television addiction often.  On the Hobby Lobby journal card, I used part of the gift card my mom gave me to the store.  The others are from my stash of papers.  Very slowly, my stash is being used finally.

(I really need to work on my picture taking of my layouts during the day light.)

Project Life-Week 1

It will be kinda strange, but my weeks will run from Wednesday through Tuesday each week.

Wednesday~A picture of wild turkey while my son is practicing driving to school

Thursday~Realizing that in a year, I will not be in Puerto Rico like I had planned

Friday~Spirit Week--my daughter dressing up for the first time as a Senior

Saturday~In San Francisco at a Giants game with the family

Sunday~Working on my Project Life!!!

Monday~Braces off!!!  Exciting day

Tuesday~My goodies from Joann...I love supplies (and yes, that is another magazine!)

Journaling seems to be my Achilles' heel, but I am working on it.  I hope this helps me get over that part of scrapbooking and improves my writing (which would be nice here as well!).

Project Life--Cover

I am embarking on a second try at Project Life.  (In 2009, I made a go at it, but stopped about half way through--at that time, I was not printing any of the pictures as I was taking them...they just sat in a folder on my PC.)

Earlier this year, I bought the page protectors that make it a lot easier to layout each page and have been waiting and waiting to start.  I did not buy all the cards and accessories--instead, I plan to make my own since I have a ton of paper! (and stamps, etc...)

I started on my 39th Birthday and felt that since 4-0 is a big one, it would be cool to take a photo each day to chronicle my life through such a milestone in my life.

Since this is the cover page, I left a space for an "after" picture--me at 40.

I am really hoping this time I will get through a whole year (and I will look a lot healthier).

My weakness for Magazines

These are the piles of magazines and idea books I have compiled over the years.  And these are only the scrapbooking and card making magazines.

So far, here is my organization of magazines.

In this corner, we have my Scrapbooks Etc. (with more space to add to), PaperKuts (RIP), Simple Scrapbooks (RIP), Scrapbook Answers (RIP), and all my various idea books and special ideas magazines.

It would be perfect except for the fact that I still have all these Creating Keepsakes magazines!  These date from June 2003 through April 2010--I have actually been good with this magazine and have stopped buying them.

I also have this pile of Memory Makers (RIP)--I have gotten rid of some of them and I plan on getting rid of all the rest as soon as I look through them again.

All of my Paper Crafts magazines are in a different area of my room (with my card making supplies) along with my Cards magazine and various card making idea books.  I have gotten rid of a year's worth of Card Making magazine--so I know I can edit myself--it is just really hard to toss magazines.

And finally, these were not in the photo of my piles of magazines.  These are my photography magazines and photography books.

My problem with magazines?  I love buying them, especially if the cover pops out at me, but I really don't read them.  I like looking at the pictures and scanning the titles and subtitles, but I rarely read them and sometimes I am so bummed out and disappointed after I bring them home.

Over the years, I have collected Latina magazine and Health magazine--both have been recycled years ago.  I received a free year subscription to Better Homes and Gardens--after the year was up, I gave them to my friend because I had no room for them.  Right now, I am receiving Weight Watchers magazine (it was also free).  I might clip some of the recipes, but those will be toss in the recycle bin soon (I hope).  

I also have a small collection of Crochet Today magazines, some crochet books, and a couple of knitting books (even thought I have yet to learn to knit).

I know that I don't need any more magazines or idea books and I try not to subscribe to any more, but I do have such a weakness.

My purchases after the magazine organization.

I mean who can resist covers like that!!!!

(and just to be fair, my husband has subscribed to Sports Illustrated for over 15 years and we have boxes in the garage of those!  Are we hoarders or what? ha ha ha)