Creating... finally

Well, it's been a long summer.  I have been shifting, reorganizing and purging all summer.  Sadly, I still have a bit of work to do, but it's coming along nicely.  I finally downloaded a bunch of photos that I have taken in the last few weeks and wanted to focus on my crafts for a bit.  April got married last weekend and I took the opportunity to make a few things for the wedding.  Here they are, in case you weren't one of the lucky ones who got to see the goods or got to wear one around your neck.  :) 

 Here are April and André's toasting glasses.  They are the first of their kind that I have made, but they really turned out great.  My biggest problem is capturing the beauty in pictures.  They were gorgeous and were made in all the colors of the wedding.  I also made the necklaces for us bridesmaids.  April and Kimber came over to help me design them and here they are.  

Each necklace was made to match our dresses which were five different colors.  It was wonderful to have a little hand in the wedding and it was great to see it turn out so beautiful.  This is the necklace I got to wear.  I was the pink girl.  :)

One of the other things I did were the cake serving utensils.  They were just beautiful.  Sadly, by the time they were out and used it was dark... I'm not sure they were even seen by many, but I once again just loved getting to help out with the little touches that helped make the day beautiful.

So that's it for now on the creating side of things.  I am looking forward to making a few frames in the near future as gifts and then I finally plan on working on the typeset drawer that I plan to fill with pictures for the photo wall I just created.  More on that later.  :)  

I will leave you with the only photo I have to represent April's wedding.  Sadly, when you are running around like a crazy lady all day, the camera never makes an appearance.  Here are the colors of the wedding, represented in my bouquet.  :)

Grrrrrr....

I am just so angry right now that I could spit.  It's too late to call anyone to complain so I just wanted to tell someone (all of you).  I was saying goodbye to Justin tonight on my front porch when I notice that my big red star that hangs by my front door is GONE!  SToLeN!  I am just so mad about it.  I spent good money on that star and it has been on my house for years now.  I can't believe someone is so horrible that they would do that.  (I guess I do believe it... but I can't believe that they have any family or friends)... I want my darn star back and wish I knew who took it so that I could yell at them.  :(  Okay... I'm done ranting... clearly they must need the star more than I do... but GRRRRR.

What a great day!

I meant to write last night, but fell asleep on the couch instead.  Yesterday was one of those days you just have to remember.  There is really no particular reason except that everything just seemed perfect.  Justin woke me up with breakfast ready.  French toast... yummy.  We then watched golf for a couple hours on t.v. and I might have even taken another nap :).  We then went to Michael's to purchase frames for some of Justin's artwork that he had reproduced for the house.  We had such a wonderful time at Michael's... We went back and forth on what frames would look best and Justin was just so wonderful.  I just can't explain what a great mood we were both in.  We were there for probably an hour at least just searching the store.  Then we went over to the scrapbooking area where he let me look for another 20+ minutes for something that I wanted... no complaints :).  From there we went to lunch at Red Robin and had a great time talking.  All afternoon Justin was talking about these books he had when he was a kid that taught you how to draw.  He decided he needed to find them again and buy them for the children he knows in hopes of inspiring them as well.  So we went home and got online to find out who wrote them.  He was SOOO excited when he found them online.  I can't even tell you how much the thought of these books lit up his face.  So, we went over to Borders and found one of the books, then to Barnes and Noble to find another one of the books.  For those of you interested they are by Ed Emberley.  I'm guessing some of you had them as well.  They are pretty cool.  After the book stores, we went to TJ Maxx... my favorite and then headed home.  Justin made me dinner and we both fell asleep on the couch while watching Saturday Night Live.  What a wonderful, relaxing, stress free kind of day.  I don't have them very often, so it is worth writing home about.  :)  

What a weekend!

Last weekend was such a wonderful time.  There are lots of pictures to share and a wonderful story to tell about that first night, but really tonight I just wanted to share a fun picture we took on Sunday after some of the girls had to leave us.  :(  

The five of us that were still around after Saturday night laid low until just before sunset and we finally took a walk down to the beach.  We found an old log and stood it on end to take advantage of my camera's timer.  We then proceeded to climb up this dune probably almost 20 times in an attempt to get a good "jumping" picture.  Needless to say, it didn't really work.  The timing was just never right and although there are many "almost" shots, none were perfect.  And then I saw this one.  It's one of the last shots while using a continuous mode where the camera took about 5 shots one after the other.  This is a moment where we are exhausted from climbing, jumping, crashing, and laughing our butts off when we all landed in a pile.  It was so much fun to get to this picture and be pleased with it's imperfect qualities, rather than getting hung up on the imperfections of the other ones.  Here we are, thrilled to be here and thrilled to be together.  I do wish some of the girls could have stayed longer to be a part of this, but understand that they had to leave.  We will do this again soon.  We just have to.

Transformation

I am going to start this whole story tonight and will probably have to finish it later.  For those of you who know me or have been to my house, You know that I have pretty much allowed my scrapbooking and crafting habit to take over about 40% of all available space in my house.  Both spare bedrooms have been craft rooms for years and for some reason, I still have to work on large projects in either the kitchen or on another folding table that I place in front of the tv.  It is ridiculous... I agree... yet I work a certain way... apparently in creative chaos.  :)

On a separate note, Justin has agreed to move in with me at the end of the summer.  (Thank you Arctic Blast 2008 for causing a water pipe explosion and convincing him that I am not that bad to live with... and that he really isn't THAT allergic to cats after all :)  Although Justin doesn't have too much stuff along the lines of furniture and other large objects, he does need an office.  And a studio to paint in.  To most people, this space wouldn't be too hard to find... but to me... it meant A LOT of shifting, purging, and reorganizing.  SO... the day after school got out in June, the race was on.  I removed all of the stuff out of my current "scrapbooking room" and re did it.  From painting the ceiling and woodwork to learning how to use a mitering saw and refitting all of the floor moulding, it was quite the chore.  The only thing that didn't get redone was the carpet... and frankly, I just couldn't spend the extra time with the room empty, nor did I want to spend the money.  Here is a before photo of the scrapbooking room as it was for many years.

Yes, the closet is bright green.  When I bought the house the choice to paint it such a horrible color was my rebellion to the life of apartment living where everything is always white.  Looking back, maybe lime green was the wrong choice.  :)  Anyways, here is what it looked like before, but really the wood around the door was gross wood colored, stained maybe 6 times over the years.  In this picture I had already started painting the woodwork.  This room was the original scrapbook room, but the other room had most of my newer stuff, the goal was the combine the two.  The sheer amount of stuff that I unloaded from both rooms literally took over the ENTIRE house.  The photos are actually too embarrassing to post... it was horrible.  The fact that I didn't seriously injure myself is actually amazing.  

Well, after I finished this room, and bought an amazing desk from IKEA that I insisted I put together alone (not a wise choice), I started reloading everything.  The next picture is from the day I started reloading.  It looks different now (more stuff) but it looks amazing and I 

can't believe that it all fits!  In one room! 

So now, it's time to redo what used to be the "frame room" and turn it into Justin's office.  I am so excited to get the paint back out and get another room organized and finished.  I bought the house four years ago (I think?) and it seems like there are things I thought I would do before I even unpacked that are still undone.  It's always something isn't it? 

So, that is what I did in June.  I will take more pictures soon, now that it is all here and organized and post again soon.  Looking at this picture is deceiving because since then I have hung stuff on the walls floor to ceiling and it looks much different, but you get the idea.  It feels so good to have an organized space to be creative.  I will update later on the next room and how it looks once I get it finished.  To be continued...

I'm siiiick... and cornhole

Okay... so I got home after a wonderful weekend in Brownsville and Eugene and have finally come to terms that I am sick.  It is no fun to be sick, and because I don't get sick very often... It sucks even more.  I have already blown through (no pun intended) one box of kleenex and have moved onto box #2.  Hopefully tomorrow I will wake up feeling better.  

On a happier side.  This weekend was quite a lot of fun.  Even though I did feel ill most of the time.  I started the weekend at an antique fair in Brownsville.  This is where Justin's parents live.  For those of you who aren't familiar, Brownsville is about 25 minutes north of Eugene and is the town that Stand By Me was filmed in.  The town still looks the same as it did in the movie.  It is the cutest, quaintest, (is that a word?) town that I have visited.  It is a trip to walk around and have Justin's parents know pretty much everyone.  The antique fair brought me a few good treasures, I will keep you updated on what I do with my finds.

Later in the day, we took part in a cornhole tournament down in Eugene and actually managed to find our way into the winner's bracket for some of it... only to lose dramatically in the end.  For those of you who don't know, cornhole is a game I have been introduced to through Justin's friends in Eugene.  They have these ramp like things with a hole in them and your job is to toss bean (maybe corn?) bags into the holes from across the yard.  There are teams of two and each bag can be worth 1, 2, or 3 points.  The points cancel eachother out and in the end you go until one team reaches 15... or sometimes 21.  This was my first go at the game and it was very entertaining.  I think there were something like 20 teams there and it was quite nice that I actually had at least met most of them.  It was good food, good times, and good people.  I do wish it hadn't have been so hot, but other than the mild heat stroke... we had a blast.  

Here is a shot of the championship game, taken on my cell phone.  The hosts of the party won... probably because they actually practice the game of cornhole... rather than just trying their luck at it once a year.  :)  Good stuff.  

We ended the night at Dairy Queen.  Funny how a trip at the end of a long day with a bunch of friends to an ice cream shop can bring back so many memories of summer and childhood.  It was a blast to have some greasy food and tell crazy stories.  It was a good weekend... but I am so glad to be home now that I am officially admitting that I feel terrible.  Good night for now.