Project Life ~ Week 6

I am a bit behind posting my PL pages.  But here is week 6.

I have decided to go back and rounding all the edges of my pages, because I like the look better.  

So far, keeping up isn't that hard.  I usually print the pictures once a week, but this last time, I had about 4 weeks of journaling to do--I had the cards in place, but I just had to sit down and write.  Some days I am trying to fill up the space while other days I am trying to squish the rest of my sentenance at the end of the card.

Wednesday-  Spirit week continues Super Hero day--her shoes are Superman too!

Thursday-  Spirit week--Disney day

Friday-  Spirit week Skit--her first time participating

Saturday- We went to a street fair in Morgan Hill

Sunday- Season premier of Dexter!!!

Monday- More tv...Love my Castle

Tuesday- Work "summer" party

Happy "I Love Yarn Day"

(image from the Craft Yarn Council--yes, there is a council for this!)

I cannot believe there is a day for loving yarn...I will take it :)

When I saw it was I Love Yarn Day, I knew my POTD (Picture of the day) for my PL (Project Life) would be about my yarn.

Then I started pulling out my stash of yarn...eek!  It must have multipled while being stored ha ha ha.

Here are a couple of my favorite thick yarns--Lion Brand Wool-Ease Thick and Quick and some leftovers of Lion Brand Hometown USA

I like using Spinkles Cupcake bags as storage :)  These bags contain Red Heart Soft (I love using this yarn for baby blankets--it is soft for babies and come in more colors than just pastels) , Lily Sugar and Cream, Lion Brand Lion Cotton, Bernat Handicrafter Cotton (for Susan G. Komen for the Cure), Lion Brand Lion Organic Cotton and a skein I picked up at a craft faire.

More of my favorite:  Lion Brand Cotton Ease (my favorite for bags!), Lion Brand Baby's First (similar to Cotton Ease, but thicker--and only pastels), Bernat Softee Chunky, and Yarn Gang (Discontinued Michaels brand).

And the rest of it...Red Heart Super Saver (I don't care for this at all, it is cheap, but I am not that cheap), Stitch Nation Bamboo Ewe, Stitch Nation Full o' Sheep, Lion Brand Vanna's Choice, Lion Brand Wool-Ease, Lion Brand Homespun, Red Heart Baby Clouds, Plymouth Yarn Heaven (the only yarn I have overpaid for at a Yarn store--I know support the local stores, but I am cheap), Red Heart Designer Sport (this one is a bit thin), Patons Classic Wool, Loops & Threads Impeccable (Michaels brand), and Bernat Waverly.

When I first started crocheting, I thought buying yarn was like buying pretty scrapbook paper--but it doesn't work that way :)  I have since learned to have a project in mind then buy the yarn--although I still buy yarn in hopes to do project that never come to be.

(this must be a record--4 posts in 1 week!!)

Craft Room update

It has been a few months since I started to rearrange and paint my Craft room.  So far, I have only completed about 1/2 the room.

Here is a look at the first completed wall.

All of the items hung on the wall are repurposed (hopefully I will blog the transformations I made on the boards).  The desk was here but I did finally add some handles.  My husband uses the desk sometimes when he is on a conference call for work, but for the most part it is all mine (and most of the time it has mail piled high--the magazine holder isn't usually as clean either :p)

Here is the before...

The calendar white board and cassette (now stamp) holder did not change, but were moved.  I have previously blogged about how I repurposed the cork and magnet boards from Target.  Gone is the fax machine, but now we have a much larger desk hogging printer that has fax capabilities as well, as you can see from the 2nd wall that is completed.

Unfortunately (fortunately?), this wall has the door and my tiny window, so it didn't take too much time to complete this wall :D  {I didn't shut the door because the back of the door has not been painted (it should have been painted way too many years ago, but we always forget it isn't painted on the back).

It feels so much cleaner and less cluttered.  You can see from the before picture that the right wall doesn't have all that stuff on it--woo hoo!  But that wall has a few more touches to add before unveiling it.

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.)