Project Life Update - Week of 3/4 to 3/10

Check me out!  Getting stuff done, yo.

Part of my slacking off has apparently been slacking off with photos.  I barely had enough to do a one page layout for this week.  Actually, it worked out wonderfully because I only had enough to do a one page layout for the following week as well.  I've committed to trying to take at LEAST one photo a day this week to remedy the situation for the future though.

This week saw my tenth celebration of International Badge Day.  Yup - I was in a sorority in college.  While it may not have been as great of an experience for me as it was for some of my sisters, I still wouldn't give it up for the world.  I'd also recommend it to anyone.  It pisses me off when people refer to girls in sororities as "sorostitutes" or "sorority bitches" or crap like that.  It's so rude to tell someone who you know was in the Greek system "Well, I'd NEVER allow MY daughter to become involved in THAT TRASH!"  I guarantee you, you can be just as big of a drunk or a slut regardless of what it says on the front of your tee shirt, and to say that just because someone joins an organization that they must be those things is prejudiced.  I was not a drunk or a slut in college, but I know plenty of girls who were who were not Greek.

Off my soapbox.  :)

I have a really pretty bible verse that I found on Pinterest (original here), and my 24 week belly photo.  You know, it's a good thing black is slimming!  I also started knitting a sweater for the baby.  All I've done up to this point are dishcloths and those easy baby hats, so this is a HUGE step for me.  If you click on the photo to enlarge it, you may notice that the pattern is called the 5 Hour Baby Sweater.  Um...  yeah.  It took me five hours to get to the one hour mark!  In my defense, there were some problems with the stitch counts in the pattern.  I went through the comments on Ravelry and found another version of the same pattern with different counts.  On some parts, my sweater matches one, and in others, it matches the other pattern.  I decided that as long as it matches ONE of them, I'll be okay.  :)

The big thing that week was me getting my typewriter back from the shop.  I had seen this darling typewriter journaling card as part of a digital set on Pinterest, but the problem was that I didn't want to pay for the whole set just to get the ONE card.  Solution?  I sat there and stared at it and sketched that thing!

Do not underestimate my creativity when it comes to my cheapness.

Finally, after a few weeks hiatus, the freebies are back!

I came across this font and thought it would be fun to color it in for some cards.  I put a post on the Facebook page looking for some words to use on them.  A lot of the words were just too long and didn't look good when I tried them, but as you can see I did get some good ones.  As always, these are free for your personal use.  You just need to "like" my Facebook page to gain access to this and all my other printables.

Enjoy!

Project Life Update - Week of 2/26 to 3/3

Third trimester must be approaching because my energy is starting to wane again.  BOO!  This baby is putting pressure on my lungs so I find that even the bare minimum of physical activity (um, taking a shower?!?!?!???) leaves me short of breath and with a racing heart... kinda like I actually exercised.  I talked to the LPN (my doctor was out) when I went in for my monthly visit and she said that this is a perfectly normal symptom of pregnancy, and may just be a bit more pronounced due to my advanced age.

I've decided I don't particularly care for the LPN.

Due to said lack of wanting to do anything, really, I'm still woefully behind on my Project Life pages.  I was coming close to being caught up and then slacked off again.  I did just finish the pages from two weeks ago, so there's that.

I've been dreaming of pretty colored and patterned washi tapes lately.  Since I said no unnecessary spending for Lent, I haven't bought any.  I see such cute pages made with these little scraps of bright tape though, and I want to make some too!  Then I realized - I may not have washi tape, but you know what I do have a shitload of?

Heidi Swapp tape.  It's in a Ziploc because I was actually going to give it away, but then I figured, what the heck?  I may as well try to get some use from it.  I am in awe of how shoddy this product is.  Part of the pattern for the next roll is usually on there.  They're not cut straight at all.  A lot of them seem to have hesitation marks from cutting, like the machine got stuck and someone was trying to go back and forth to force it through.  Luckily this was given to me and I didn't spend my money on it.  I wonder if the stuff she's releasing these days is still as plagued with problems as it was when she first started her own line?  Remember the chipboard alphabets with the dried up adhesive?

Here's my left page.  I found the felt letter stickers at Michael's.  It was a bag of 100 that was part of their Creatology line for only two dollars!  They're really nice quality too.  I wish they had more colors.  My clothesline finally got put up that week.  The clothespin journaling card was found on Pinterest and came from here.

I did my own baby size/food comparison:

This is why I'm a fat kid, y'all.

There's a little blurb about finally finding a pint of Schweddy Balls (heh) flavored ice cream.  I included a little something for Leap Day (tell me you watched that episode of 30 Rock!) and some of my tweets for the week.  I mentioned Bubba's sleep issues (journaling card found here) and his new found love of Diego.

I just did a Google image search for Diego and then messed with it in Photoshop to get it the right size and to add journaling.  

On the right side, I have a cute little quote I found on Pinterest.  I shared some things I made that week, as well at how I'm trying to prevent charley horses this pregnancy.  The big thing we did that week was to go to a street festival and vintage car show, so there are lots of photos of old cars on this page.  I got all fancy and made it look like they were on old scrapbook pages in Photoshop.  I used some of the journaling cards that I designed on this page as well as one that I found on Pinterest (found here) for the Friday card.  You can find links for those on my Pinterest board for Project Life.

Oh!  And what's that on which my pages are resting?

I finally got my Olivetti back from the shop!  I just love this typewriter.  It's a whole heck of a lot smaller and lighter than the Royal, for starters.  The typeface (I was gently corrected when I referred to it as the font, heh) is just lovely.  It's smaller than the type on the Royal, and a bit more contemporary in style.  If you click on one of the photos of my pages to enlarge it, you'll see what I mean.  It's also a lot more quiet than the so-called "Quiet de Luxe."  I still love my Royal, for it's gorgeous classic charm, but man, I REALLY love this Olivetti.

I found it at an antique mall a while back.  It didn't work at all, due to the carriage being totally locked up.  The man at the repair shop said it looked like it may have been dropped.  I paid five bucks for it because I thought it was pretty and would look nice in my scraproom for display.  A few weeks ago I decided I'd take it in to the repair shop Busy Bee Lauren recommended to see if it could be fixed, and how much that would cost.  I was quoted $60 for the repair, and after discussing it with my husband, we decided to go for it.  I mean, how awesome would it be to have a typewriter for my Project Life stuff?

After I took it in, I decided to Google it.  The Olivetti Lettera 22 was designed in 1949, which I take to mean it was sold in the earliest part of the 1950's.  I found the original advertisement for it online.

According to this, the typewriter cost $88 new sixty-two years ago.  I paid $5, plus $59.95 for the repair (including new ribbon!) so I'm going to say I came out WAY ahead on this.  Hooray for antiquing!

If you live in my area, I highly recommend Mesa Typewriter Exchange.  Bill does good work! He must be a lot busier these days, because there are a LOT more typewriters in there than you see in this video.

Oh, and just for fun, let's tie up two random things from this post into one link:  hahahaha!  Google RULES.

Finally, I leave you with the good news that my Project Life pages have finally been freed from their plastic Generations by Hazel envelope and given a proper home.  Last weekend a quick browse through Hobby Lobby's clearance section scored me one of my favorite American Crafts 3 ring binders in the most perfect shade of green for a mere $11.88.  SCORE.

I just need to decorate that opening on the cover.  I'll get around to it... right?

Twelve of 12 - March 2012

Or should I say, nine of twelve?  I didn't really get through all twelve this month because my time was pretty evenly split between the sofa and the kitchen table where I worked on a quilt.  There's just not a whole lot of which to take photos in that small of an area!

Here's what I did get:

1.  After three years of loving my old iPhone 3G, I finally upgraded.  My husband insisted I upgrade when we got our tax refund because the old one had been acting up and running slow.  The new one took me almost SEVEN FREAKING HOURS to get all set up, but oh, it's worth it.  It's super fast - even faster than my laptop, I swear - and it can hold all my music now.  LOVE.

Now I just need to take it to get some Ghost Armor (did it on the last one - worth every penny) and a case.

2.  I did a bit of crafting for Miss Kelly.  I started a quilt top on Saturday for a friend and made an error cutting my fabric.  That meant I ended up TWO four inch squares short for my final count.  GRR!!!  I had to run back to the store to grab more of that fabric.  While I was there, I figured since the sewing machine was out I'd make some burp cloths for my girl too.

I was able to find some of the regular cloth diapers with the padding in the middle this time, as opposed to the flat ones that I used for Bubba's burp cloths.  That saved me some work.  I did applique her initial to them using some Steam-A-Seam and then hand embroidered the borders of those.

3.  Said quilt top, finished and ready to be basted.  I embroidered the baby's name on the bottom corner.

4.  I'm a quilting dinosaur.  I still pin baste.  I know people love the spray basting stuff, but I don't trust it.

5.  Trying to get my apps organized.  After I got everything on to the new phone, I pulled all the apps off my old one, leaving just the toddler and baby apps, plus any kid friendly games, behind.  Then I made a few playlists for the boy so that it's only Bubba-friendly music on there. My husband suggested adding the Netflix app so he could watch Go, Diego, Go on there too.  Finally, I hid all the apps that I couldn't delete in a folder on the last screen.

My three year old now has his own iPhone.  True, it's just a glorified iPod at this point, but still.  I never thought I'd see the day.

6.  Bubba's getting better at building his own train tracks, but not so great at making them loop.  As a result, it's not uncommon to find long, snake-like tracks going from one end of a room to the other these days.

7.  We have a rule in our house:  No bandaids unless you're bleeding.  I found this has cut down on the bandaid use considerably, because you know how little kids are with those things.  Well, this means that the second there's any kind of teeny cut with blood, no matter how slight, Bubba actually gets excited because it means he gets to have a bandaid.  In a way, it's sort of cool because it means he doesn't freak out as bad when he does cut himself though!

8.  Since I spent a good portion of yesterday in pain (quilting is hard on a pregnant back!) dinner was sort of a mish mash of self serve options.  I had the last of the fish sticks that were in the freezer.  Bubba had a few too, plus some macaroni and cheese (gag) and a WHOLE (yay!) banana.  We've been giving him lollipops to help with his cough since cough drops are still a choking hazard at this point.

9.  I finished the quilt!  How cute are those elephants on the flannel backing?  I picked two different sets of fabric at the fabric store, then let my husband decide which set I'd make into the quilt.  He also picked the binding.  It was between chocolate brown and pink, and he went with pink.  Also - I'm getting better at those mitered corners on my binding.  Kick butt.

I'm usually a little wary of giving homemade gifts, because too many people still think you're being cheap when you give hand made.  Trust me, for the money I spent on supplies I could have easily picked up some trinket at Babies R Us and had money left over!  That doesn't even take into account the time and effort put into something like this.  Therefore, I only give them to people I really like, and who I know will appreciate them.

Since I didn't get all twelve photos this month, and three of the nine that I did get were of the quilt, I decided to skip scrapping them this month.  I'll incorporate some of the photos into my Project Life pages instead.  I finally got an album for those!  Yay!  Hobby Lobby had the nice American Crafts albums on clearance for $12 so I grabbed a pretty lime green one.

Thank Goodness Black Is Slimming!

Some thoughts about this 24.5 week belly photo:

1.  I should really clean that mirror.
2.  HOLY HELL I STILL HAVE FIFTEEN FREAKING WEEKS TO GO.
3.  Juicy Couture terry warm up pants (the regular kind, not maternity) were the best maternity wear purchase I made when pg with Bubba.  They're perfection in comfy terry cloth form and I can wear them still after the baby is here. WIN.
4.  Hopefully my next belly pic will be with me holding my NEW white iPhone 4s!!!  I'm so excited!!!  I've been rocking the 3G for 3Y, yo.  I'm a few generations behind.  :)
5.  I just measured around my belly.  I'm exactly 48 inches around. That is four freaking feet.  Damn.
6.  I'm kind of scared of what I'm going to look like in June.

Project Life - Week of 2/19 to 2/25

Remember before when I was saying how every week I'd get to the end of the week and feel like I hardly took any photos, only to find I took WAY too many photos?  Um... that wasn't a problem this week.  Well, should I say last week, because I'm still a little behind here.

Luckily, there are tricks such as using ephemera, printing my Tweets, having "filler" cards and of course, using lots of journaling to fill space on my pages.  Plenty of words are always a good thing.

Left side - Japanese curry doesn't photograph well. It's one of those foods that looks really kind of gross, but tastes wonderful.  When we had it for dinner I asked my husband to save the box from the sauce mix for me to use on this page.  I also gathered some of my tweets from the week and spliced them together in Photoshop.  I haven't done that in a while.  There are my February Photo Of The Day pictures in there too.  I've been seeing a lot of pages with doilies on them, and since I have a HUGE box of them that I scored while working at the hotel, I figured, what the heck?  I stuck it on a card from here (found on Pinterest) and then added the letter stickers.

Right side - LOTS of inspiration from Pinterest this week!  I had an extra space, so I went through my "Quotes" board on there and found that cute Live Simply graphic.  The Wednesday card was another Pinterest find this week, from this blog.  I totally lifted the design of the "lil' cook" card from this layout.  The "Today" card is from this set.  The foam letters came with a foam Easter egg decorating kit I picked up at Target for the boy.  He can't spell yet, so I called dibs.  HA!

No printable this week, because I'm trying to get caught up again.  I can't do that if I'm horsing around in Photoshop, you know?