Gosh – I’ve had so much to blog and then when I sit down to do it, I can’t think of anything I wanted to say. I hate that! And most of what I think of blogging is a bunch of random snippets that run through my head and are not cohesive in any way, shape or form.
The first thing I wanted to tell is that I have to backpedal on my Mother’s Day disappointment. Steve totally surprised me with a gift that he had planned, but due to his breathing problems before Mother’s Day, he wasn’t able to get it. Then came finals week (and no decent teacher can do anything other than prep & deal with that)and before we knew it, school was out. Needless to say, I was really surprised when I opened up the envelope he gave me and saw the receipt for the new Droid Incredible. I had expressed that when my iPhone contract is up next year, I wanted to cancel and get a Droid like Steve’s. But I hadn’t even thought any more about because I’ve still got an entire year on mine. I’m so thrilled about it and really excited to see it! It won’t be available until the end of the month. Then I’ll give my iPhone to Maggie until my contract expires. She’s totally excited about that and I hope she can handle giving it up when the year is up. So a big THANK YOU to my husband. Like, seriously.
I realized the other day, as I drove past the local farm fields, how much I love driving rurally at this time of year. See, the corn has started coming up, but is still rather small – like ankle height. When you drive by a field, all the rows of emerging corn go by really fast. It’s always looked to me like someone running really fast. I can remember as a child driving to Iowa for our summer visit with our dad and just watching those fields go by, imagining that we were racing some really tall, long-legged person who was running incredibly fast. I just kept racing and racing. So I always think of that when the beginning of June rolls around.
As far as the exercise goes, I tried to do the Bollywood dance one the other day and majorly failed. It totally frustrated me because I’m actually a pretty good dancer, but for some reason, I could not put these moves together at all. Perhaps it’s moving in a very different way than I’m used to or something, but I could NOT do it. And felt so stupid just bouncing around, so I gave up. Still having trouble with the yoga and the crampy feet, too.
Let’s see…reading. I’m reading Melissa Gilbert’s autobiography right now & just finished Kristin Chenoweth’s. Kristin’s is quite good and appropriate enough that I could let Maggie read it, too. She LOVES Kristin. Melissa’s book is a little more tawdry because she’s apparently lived a more gossipy, troubled life (though it’s not like she was Dana Plato or anything), but it’s interesting to read about growing up famous and all the people she knew. Plus, remembering Michael Landon is cool. I HAVE to start reading faster. I’ve got 2 more library books here that I have to get through, plus another NINE that I’m waiting to come into the library. Plus a bunch of books here I haven’t read. Gotta read, gotta READ!
I’ve also done some more scrapping! I hadn’t really done any since about March, but I pulled it out again. Here’s what I’ve done:
Since I’m not designing anymore, I thought I might offer up some of my old stuff as freebies here on a monthly basis. No biggie – just a kit or something that people might like to have. I mean, it’s made and is just sitting on my hard drive – maybe somebody would like it, y’know?
This month is a kit I made last year for Christmas time. It’s called Sparklemas (with a tongue-in-cheek nod to Edward, the Sparkliest Vampire) and is filled with traditional Christmas colors and tons of sparkle. Just click on the pictures to download. And don’t forget – if you use these for your layouts, please link me up!! I LOVE seeing how people use my stuff, so please, please share!!
I know, I know. “Christy!!! You changed your theme AGAIN?? Can’t you focus on anything for more than 10 seconds?!?” No. No, I can’t. I am a gnat on crystal meth.
See, this weekend is Internation Digital Scrapbook Day. (Yes, I know. A ‘weekend’ cannot be a ‘day’. However, the celebration of a day can last a weekend. Trust me.) With this holiday comes a boatload of sales at nearly every online digital scrapbook store in the universe. And I did a little shopping. I was visiting ScrapbookGraphics.com and one of my favorite designers, Flergs, and saw she has blogwear that works in WordPress. And I said YIPPIE! Because most designers who do blogwear only do it for Blogger and I can’t use it. Plus, she used my new favorite kit of hers to make it, so I had to buy it. I love the black/yellow/green/white combination. It’s so crisp and clean and friendly. Reminds me a bit of my grandmother (don’t ask me why – I cannot explain how my subconscious works), so it was a must have. Love the touches of glitter and I think the flowers are stunning. I’m having a little trouble keeping the white background there – it seems to flicker on & off with each refresh & I’m not sure why. Going to have to fix that because I can’t expect y’all to read my blatherings off a dotted swiss background.
I haven’t actually done any actual scrapbooking yet this weekend, but I sure have taken advantage of the sales. Wanna see what I bought?? Oh, I’ll link up the pictures, too, in case you see something you’d like to buy yourself.
At Scrapbook Graphics, I bought:
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Then, at Digital Design Essentials, I got these great things:
Aren’t those just the coolest alphas ever?? And they were (and still are) only $1!!! I love them and can’t wait to use them.
Finally, I got all these layered templates from Digichick:
By the way, I LOVE layered templates. Truthfully, I use them with almost every single layout I do. See, I can come up with my own layout, but it takes me a while to get it laid out nicely and it’s never quite as good as I envisioned. With the templates, not only can I count on the fact that it will look AMAZING, I can also get layouts down much more quickly. For me, it’s about getting the memories down, so I don’t mind not being so much of an “artist”. Anyway, I can change it up if I want to, as well, so I’m not stuck to what’s there. I love it. Some of my favorite templates are by Kitty Designs (hers are called “The Sketch”), TaylorMade (called “TaylorSketch”), Ali Edwards, Katie Pertiet, and Tiffany Tillman. They rock, they’re inexpensive and they’re a great jumping-off point. <end recommendation>
And discussing my scrapbook purchases made me realize I haven’t shown off my layouts in a while. So, here’s what’s new!
Been so long! I’m sorry! I’ve actually been spending less time on the computer because I’m either napping or cleaning or creating something, so I just haven’t been online much. No excuse. I’m sorry.
Okay – first I have to share something that literally APPALLED me this morning. Seriously – jaw on the floor, eyes bugging out, calling out “scumbag!” at the TV. Because I couldn’t believe this happened. I’m watching TV and, you know those Direct TV commercials where there’s a famous person recreating a scene from something they’ve done in the past? Like this:
At first, I didn’t realize it was a Direct TV commercial – the one I was watching. I thought it was just a clip from Tommy Boy. You know, the scene with Chris Farley & David Spade in a hotel room and Farley tries on Spade’s coat and sings, “Fat guuuuy in a little coooat“? Hysterical scene, actually.
Suddenly, present day Spade is “in scene” and he’s giving the Direct TV pitch. By PIMPING THE WORK OF HIS DEAD FRIEND. Supposed friend, anyway. I could not believe he sank that low. I’ve always thought Spade was a bit of a scumbag – riding Farley’s coattails and just letting him self-destruct because there was money to be made off him – but this was REPULSIVE. Using his friend who’s dead from coke to make money off a commercial. David Spade? You should be ashamed of yourself. This commercial is terrible and I can’t believe someone who’d call Chris Farley a friend would use him in this way. You utterly and completely fail at LIFE.
The other thing I’ve been working on are some cool decorating ideas for my boys’ room. I read the blog Write. Click. Scrapbook. every day and this past week, Cheryl Overton has been doing the blogging, sharing cool home decor ideas that blew my mind with their coolness & simplicity. The first day, she shared what she’d done for a skater theme room. Basically, she’s made all these projects with fonts and scrapbooking paper/elements that she’s printed out, framed and hung. Which sounds stupid when you put it like that, but it’s not, y’all. It’s SO COOL. I especially liked this one, but I don’t have boys who are into skateboarding, so I didn’t know how to alter the idea for my boys. The next day, however, she showed off her Star Wars theme and I went, “AHHHHHHH!”. This I can copy!! I showed it to Steven and he liked it, but he asked me to do a Bionicle thing instead. I couldn’t find a Bionicle dingbat font, but I found a font of the Mata Nui language, so we worked from that. We searched for pictures of a couple of his favorite Bionicle and I ran some filters on them and slapped them on one of my background papers. Steven gave me a quote, I typed it on and changed the font and added a grunge overlay. And got this:
Printed it out 8×10″, framed it and screwed it into the wall so it won’t be removable/fall off the wall. He loved it! And, since I didn’t want to just do one, I then did one with a Star Wars theme. Using the Forced Reentry font for the picture and Rub This font for the words, I made this and hung it below the Bionicle one.
Then I had to make something for Henry’s side, too. And his, of course, had to be farm animal themed. So, I found this LCR On the Farm dingbat font and using the Rub This font for the words, my scrapbook papers and some grunge overlays I had, I made 3 for over Henry’s bed.
From the left: the cow says moo, the horse says neigh and the sheep says baa. Above that is a picture from The Pioneer Woman’s Photography site that is okay for download & print. I printed that out at 13×19″ and just taped it to the wall because I don’t have a frame that size. I also printed out her Charging Colts picture at the same size and hung it over the changing table. Needless to say, Henry LOVES these pictures and is always talking to/about them.
Now, admittedly, what I’ve done here is not nearly as cool as what Cheryl’s done with decor in the rooms she shows, but it’s certainly a start. And unique. And wicked cheap. Each frame was $3.99 at Target and I probably used about $1 worth of ink & paper for each piece. Plus they took me about 10 minutes to make and print out and then another 15 to hang. I LOVE it. I think I might do a 3 piece set of like “Live” “Laugh” and “Love” to hang over our bed. We’ve got nothing there and I think 3 12×12″ framed pieces would be prominent enough to work over a king-sized bed. I’ll see what I can come up with. I love the idea of creating original design pieces for the home that speak to each individual person. Plus, since it’s inexpensive, I can switch them out as they grow and their tastes/interests change. Oh, I also totally love her ideas for decor in the bathroom (scroll down) and the link she gave for cool embroidery hoop decor. You could totally do that with your favorite scrapbook paper or even a layout! She says she just cut the paper about 1/2″ larger than the hoop and then made little cuts all the way around so the edges would fold back and be hidden by the outer hoop. You could even decorate around the outside of the hoop with ribbon or maribou or something cool so you can’t tell it’s a hoop if you wanted! Plus?? REALLY, REALLY CHEAP TO MAKE!
I hope something I posted here today will inspire you like it did me. This is the kind of cool stuff you can see in a Pottery Barn-type catalog, but since we can’t afford to spend $150-300 on something to hang on the wall, we just sit there filled with object lust and covetousness. Could it BE any easier to buy a sheet of cool paper, cut it in a circle, place it in a hoop and hang it on a wall? I think not.
Nothing to report yet. Everything’s pretty much the same. Had another NST this morning and everything still looks good. William’s heartrate is good and he tolerated the few contractions I had during it. I’m still having sporadic contractions throughout the day, but no regularity or anything yet. My belly feels like it’s sticking out about 4 feet from the rest of my body and weighs about 37#. I feel as if the whole thing is just going to tear away and fall to the floor.
I do have all but one thing from my to-do list finished. I got the car seat and stroller put together and ready to go. Also changed the furnace filter. So all I have to do is clean out the bathroom closet for the baby bath. I need to add vacuuming out the van to the list, too.
Oh, yeah. I finally finished a new kit that I was working on for William. It’s called (shocker!!) William and it’s in the store right now.$5.50 for the full kit, $3 each for the paper pack or element pack and $2.25 for the alpha!
And here are 2 layouts I’ve done using it already.
That’s all I’ve got for today. I’m hoping that I won’t go into labor this weekend – pray for Tuesday, okay? That’s the next time my doctor’s on call!
