{me}anderings . . .

dear mr. snowbird . . .

dear mr. snowbird,

we wanted to take this opportunity to thank you from the bottom of our southern hearts for your generosity this winter.  we have enjoyed seven snow days because of you and we are ever so grateful. 

if the fits of flurries floating in the air for the last three days are any indication, you must be getting quite tired.  we don't want to be greedy, so if you need to take a break for the next eight or nine months we'll completely understand.

enjoy a much needed rest mr. snowbird.

sincerely,

longing for flipflops

a little announcement . . .

 
i've been sitting on this bit of information for a little while;  i had so much fun passing out these cards at show.  it was delightful experience.  jenni bowlin is total awesomeness and i'm truly proud to be a part of her team.

also enjoy american crafts a great deal and appreciate their amazing generosity.  i made this wedding mini-album from their new release "i do."  all their winter lines are proving so inspiring and easy to work with.

i'm also very thankful for debbie hodge for letting me teach at her site; it's always such a wonderful experience and i like the way it pushes me to think and grow.

i love my day job too!  life is so full of blessings!  :D

p.s. if you're following the great race, celeste is at 182, paula is at 93, and i am trailing with 69.  i really need to bust a move.  i'd at least like to make a respectable third place finish by hitting triple digits.

sign up for my really awesome class!

scraproom with a view starts march 1st!  and it's on sale!  only $20!  the sale price is scheduled to end tonight, but i think i'll ask debbie if she minds extending it till monday at least since i'm just now blogging about it.  i just reread the class last night and i still love it.  it's very fresh and inspiring.  you'll think about your life and how you fit in it, draw inspiration from your own personal style, and even experiment with a few new techniques.  just the thing to get your mojo flowing this spring.  hope to see you there!

hello world!

this morning when we left the house it was 26 degrees out.  florida girl was not happy.  by noon the thermostat had hit 34.  heatwave!  the ride home from school saw us at 49 degrees!  bliss!  i have thawed.  i have been productive.  pseudo spring i adore you.

this is last weekend's layout.  new american crafts botanique.  those glittery roses were cut from a sheet of patterned paper aptly named rose.  it's currently my favorite thing in life.  no, i lie.  dosidos are currently my favorite thing in life.  or maybe kraft cardstock.  although kraft is a love bordering on obsesion.  do i use it too much?  10 of my last 12 layouts were on varying shades of cardboard taupe.  is that excessive?  do i need a 12 step program?  be honest with me now.  i will admit i've recently been going to jamie waters' gallery for a little patterned paper background counseling.  maybe there's hope for me . . .

february jbs mercantile . . .

while i have fallen drastically behind in the great race (celeste 84, paula 70, me 33) i don't at all feel like a loser.  seriously, 7 layouts, 20 cards, and 6 pages completed in my honduran mini-album in just 11 days ain't too shabby.  plus, the month's not even half over.  slow and steady wins the race.

here are my contributions to the february gallery over at jbs mercantile.  i challenged myself to use up as much of the kits and i possibly could.  10 layouts and 20 cards later . . .

i love adding pattern to enhance theme.  i got the idea for the rows of punched circles stitched to the page from the rows of corn kernals in my yummy focal photo.  mmm.

i loved the combination of text prints and fonts in the main kit and add-on kit this month.  one can never have too many of those in my opinion.  the vintage dictionary pages make such perfect backgrounds.

i seem to have been in a sarcastic mood the day i made these first three layouts.  if you read the journaling on them you'll notice that right away.  believe me, the irony in the pretty flowers with the horrible ugly bird is not lost on me.

day two working with the kits saw me in a sweeter mood.  i mean come on, boy with kitty?  awwwww.  first time with gesso here.  warped the heck outta the chipboard i used as my background.  i didn't think it was supposed to do that?  left it upside down under a book all night and it turned out okay.

using pattern again on this one.  doesn't that clothesline full of butterflies remind you of an old-timey wash day?  not so old timey really as i fondly recall hanging the clothes out to dry in my childhood.  it was one of my favorite chores, believe it or not.  and i'm not claiming old-timey, lol.

and patterning again here.  the little strips of paper are suggesting steps.  climbing you know.  and i didn't cut any of them intentionally for this layout.  they're all leftover bits from previous layouts!  cooooooool.

continuing with my mood to use leftovers, i saved that bottom strip from when i was puching circles for my corn cob layout.  i just thought it was neat looking so i saved it and was inspired by it to create this little design with bits of this and that sitting in the empty holes.

goodness.  this one is leftover bits too.  and notice how they're all rectangular shape and all aligned vertically.  easy peasy little design.

my handsome big boy kitty cat.  this one is mostly from the project kit.  it was packed full of awesome treasures.  for the background, i used the reverse side of one of jenni's new core'dinations cardstocks.  i simply dipped my index finger in some silver paint and fingerpainted in the circles.

can she make one more?  why yes she can!  and more patterning here.  used some of the chip pieces and stitching to mimic the fireworks.  fun!

there you go.  10 layouts (and don't forget the 20 cards . . . i'll post them later) from one box of happy.  i just added cardstock, a few buttons, and one extra piece of the studio calico strip paper.  

in the news . . .

 

wow.  look.  she's actually up with the alarm instead of laying in bed till almost 6:30 and then running late for school.  so she decides to do a little early morning blogging so she will be running late for school.  sometimes she makes bad decisions.  or maybe it's that she just has too much to do?

yes.  we have to go to school today.  what a strange concept.  we've been out for 5 days now.  5 glorious days.  i love the south.  have i said that here before?  the house hasn't been this under control in quite some time.  and  i got scrap happy.  yes indeedy.  current count for this month: 4 layouts and 6 cards.  not too shabby for 3 days.  doing the great scrappy race with celeste and paula again.  it's very motivational.  paula is only trailing me by one.  go paula!  celeste is blowing us both out of the water at 18!  she's a machine!  i won't be able to do much today since it's kit packing night, but hoping to make up some ground on the weekend.

g got a record 20 sight words last night!!!  major breakthrough!  he is also no longer skipping the number 15.  and blow me out of the water, he knows sphere, cone, cube, rectangular prism, and pyramid.  don't ask me why a 6 year old needs to know sphere, cone cube, rectangular prism, and pyramid.  i don't have the answer to that question.  kindergarten wears me out.

the above layout i made for jbs for cha.  i also have 3 new layouts in the february gallery.  i'll be significantly adding do that when we do updates on the 10th.  so far i've done 7 layouts and 6 cards with this kit and i'm not done yet.  love the kit this month.  also have a new layout up on the ac blog.  (family members you'll want to check that one out as it features riley and aunt theresa).  ok.  guess i'd better jet.  catchya later. 

snowbird report . . .

we were better prepared for this snow.  along with the essentials (coke and firewood) we picked up the grilling items (hotdogs and smore fixings) and several other random things that made their way into the buggy (buffalo wings, popsicles, key lime pie).

florida girl fully intended to stay home till the roads were declared normal once more, but to be honest the thought of being trapped alone w the gman for 3 days without social ineraction frightened me.  after breakfasting on hotdogs and smores (g couldn't wait for lunch) we went to visit blake and co. while the light flurries were falling.
 

so the snow started falling at 9 am friday morning and didn't stop till sometime saturday night.  we got four inches!  yippee!!!  and a snow day obviously . . . YIPPEE!!!
 

back at home on saturday we enjoyed sledding in an under the bed sweater bin (ours stores trains, not sweaters).
 

a fine time was had by all.  then we got brave and went to target because mommy needed a new ink cartridge for her very ill behaved printer and g woke up needing a target fix anyway.  the roads were not too bad.  very slushy with no underlying ice.  (florida girl knew this would turn to black ice overnight and vowed to not leave the house on sunday).
 

oh lookie at jungle kitty!  even pepito enjoyed the winter blast, accompanying us to the hill for sledding.

shockingly, the snow was still just as deep and fresh this morning when we woke up.  we're not used to the white stuff sticking around for very long.  i tried to get a picture of how sparkley the snow was, but you can't really tell so much in my pictures.

it was really actually prettier the second day.  i think because the sun came out and everything was so bright and fresh.  course the sun finally began melting the snow by the afternoon even though it barely got up to freezing.  never fear though.  we get another snow day tomorrow because there's still some of the white stuff on the ground.  a little goes a long way with school closings around these parts.  this is fortunate for me as i had to do a LOT of scrappy work today and really need to do a LOT of housework tomorrow. 

 
and here we have my (always) starving boy.  he's been obsessed with eating the ice.  i took pity on him this evening and we went to the chinese restaurant for dinner even though i swore i wasn't going out today.  what can i say . . . the pork chop knows how to push my buttons.