march flicks

i realized after this showed up on networked blogs that i hadn't finished editing this post. so here is the recap. this month was the first time i had ever been "blessed" with a broken dvd from netflix. yep. check out the crack on that beauty! i discovered it on my "scheduled" movie night, so i ended up pulling out the dvd i got for my birthday instead [it was baby mama that was cracked. watched rumor has it instead] i do have to say i commend netflix for being speedy on their shipment of a dvd replacement. impressive. also, three months in, and i have realized movie watching gives my mondays something to look forward to.
what's your number? (2011)
breakfast at tiffany's (1961)
fried green tomatoes (1991)
rumor has it... (2005)

baby mama (2008)
roman holiday (1953)
run fatboy run (2007)
date night (2010)*

benny & joon (1993)*
about a boy (2002)
the other guys (2010)
marley & me (2008)
office space (1999)

bazinga cross stitch sampler

yesterday my sister turned sixteen. you know, the same little sister that would come to my basketball games in 7th grade and eat goldfish crackers with her Sissy cat. yeah, she's the one. weird that she is officially legal to drive (if she only had her permit...) and all that crazy "sweet sixteen" dating kind of stuff. As you could tell from her christmas gift, she leans towards the nerdy things in life. she's big in to science & star trek, and wants to do something involved with science after high school. well, insert big bang theory here. i'm by far no way at all interested in the star trek side of her television watching, but when it comes to big bang theory, i am all there. something about the posse of nerds living out their social awkwardness just makes me smile. of course between my sister, my cousin & a few others in my family, i feel so much like penny on a regular basis. i made this cross stitch for her on the drive to vegas, altering the original pattern i based it off of a little big. i used the same colors from her starship sweet starship cross stitch so that they can hang side by side in all their nerdyness. it sounds like she's planning to redo her room next week over spring break, so between those two things i made her & the sheldon poster lisa & brett gave her on sunday, she should have a good starting out launch pad for room decor. and following along with her christmas gift theme, i also had to get her the "soft kitty" t-shirt so she can alternate with her "bazinga" shirt when she's in a big bang theory mood for school. or maybe it will be for her sick days... since that's really the only time that soft kitty is an appropriate song.
original cross stitch: big bang theory swap rnd.2 by edie22

march reads

i've totally been a book reading slacker this month. was the month shorter? no. did i have a week i spent out of state? nope. do i have a valid reason for my lack of book reading? not at all. with that said, i reached mid month, and i hadn't even finished book one at that point. i crammed in a second one, finishing just days before this was set to post. yes, you can tsk tsk me all you want. i'll try to get back on track for next month :)
dear john - nicholas sparks
what happened to goodbye - sarah dessen

wordless wednesday

bridal shower invitations - a photo walk through

hey peeps! so last week i busted out these invitations start to finish for erika's bridal shower, and thought i would do a quick little photo tutorial of them. yeah, they are pretty easy, but i figured why not? the part of this process i left out was the grumbling and beating of the printer while things weren't printing right... and the three cards that got stuck in it as a paper jam. so you get the pretty and sparkly part of the process!supplies
cards - mine were originally planned to be 5x7 flat cards, but when i saw pink and the right size, i bought them. came home to find they were folded cards. long story short, i liked how they turned out better
glitter - as you can see, i used pearl glitter. purchased at beverley's
modge podge
blue tape - standard painter's tape.
paint brush
paper bowl to catch falling glitter/pour back in to jar
wax paper - important if you are messy like me, and do your crafting at the same place your computer keyboard isstep one: lay out tape to section off the area(s) you want glittered. for mine, i did a basic stripe to keep it simple and classy, but still sparkly and tie in her second wedding color (orange)step two: slop on that modge podge! the lines taped off help keep everything in exactly where you want it and prevents bleeding of the modge podge.step three: carefully peel off the tape. something about the blue painters tape allows for tape to stick down and do it's job, but not rip away whatever it was stuck to. i only had a few paper peel mishaps, but with my money practically invested in blue tape stock, these slip ups were minimal.step four: pour on that glitter! i started from the top and let it drift down to the bottom that way in to the bowl. it generally stuck really well, and then i tapped the card a few time to knock off any excess glitter that may have come loose.step five: let dry. and really, that's it! i finished my cards around 3pm. then got home from work around 8pm, and they were good and ready to stack up. no glitter flaking off anywhere or anything.
and there you have it! simple, easy... only five steps to go from blah plain cards to glitter fab. let me just tell you, this whole bridal shower planning process has been very glitter involved. so come the end of april, there will be much more glitter pink & orange-ness to be shared once the bridal shower is over. stay tuned, my friends!

weekend wips

tuesday i got a text from erika about moving her bridal shower. by that night i was shopping for invitation supplies so that i could get the ball rolling on making invitations and mailing them out by friday. that's right. her bridal shower got moved up by an entire month due to her schedule & mine conflicting with everything else going on in the month of april. at first i thought i had a TON to do still, and my mind was going to explode in such a little amount of time. but when i listed it all out, everything was pretty much good to go. it seems like it is all just down to little things here and there... which feels AMAZING... oh. and figuring out what i'm going to wear, of course ;)
bridal shower: invites done start to finish in two days. joann's had nothing, so i hit up beverley's on wednesday morning and found EXACTLY what i was looking for. but then when i got home and opened them, they weren't what i wanted at all. haha. my bad. but i think they turned out better than i had originally planned :) you'll get to see a little post on them tomorrow! erika & i also hit the mall yesterday & stopped at bath & body works to find some little game prize items. more like spent a lot of time smelling a bunch of different candles. haha! i also made the bath fizzies on saturday afternoon, and they're hopefully going to harden up a little bit more so they don't fall apart before they get gifted. just have to make the soaps, and then i can load the little buggers up! jars have been cleaned and i painted the first layerish of paint on the lids. i'll try another round before i go for the glitter layer.
wedding: pillow is done and delivered to erika. if i didn't mention it already, i'm super happy with it! on our errands running yesterday, we stopped at beverley's and i was able to find ribbon that was pretty dang close to the color swatch to use for her garter set, so we bought some and i'll be starting on that soon as well :)
baby shower: all pieces have been cut out (i think...) and pinned together. after a long saturday of fizzy making & pinning, i couldn't bring myself to start sewing... so hopefully this week... and then i'll find out how much more i really need to cut out.

youtube finds - savion glover

last night, while all the crazies were lined up for the hunger games premier, my super awesome friend chris and i went out for a "date" to the three stages theater in folsom. for christmas i had received two tickets to see savion glover perform and last night was the night! the performance was fantastic! simply amazing to see their feet move what felt like 100 times per second. i thought since i couldn't video the performance, i would pool together a few of my favorite videos i could find of savion's tap dancing over the years :)and of course, this one is a MUST share. helloooooo childhood! okay, that was totally more than a few, but they're all so much fun to watch. and on a semi related topic, if you would like a good movie on tap dancing, might i suggest the 1989 movie "tap" staring gregory hines. it has a super cool dance number where they're all out in the streets :) happy friday everyone!

wordless wednesday

weekend wips

this week i feel fairly productive on multiple fronts. although the rainy weather did bog down my progress on one project, others still got done. so that's a plus, right? i'm heading to the bay area tonight, so i won't get much done today at least, but there is still hope for the rest of the week to finish up things here and there... or get started in other cases. haha!
t-shirt quilt: well, i got everything ironed down as far as interfacing goes. i sewed the "double" squares together, as well as the "half blocks" - this will make more sense probably when i have the final photos. i was ready and game to lay everything out the next day on the deck, since that's the only spot big enough so i could map out my layout... but it rained. and rained every day since. i'm not totally complaining, because i love the rain. and at least it isn't putting a damper on anything that isn't a personal project.
wedding: the ring bearer pillow is done! and i'm SUPER thrilled with how it turned out :) and it seems so is erika (and lisa, for that matter). as far as actually wedding crafting goes, it is just down to the garters and hair pieces for the bridesmaids. i have ideas for the garter, but need to figure out where the fabric pieces went from the pillow purchases went so i could utilize those.
bridal shower: this past week i worked a lot on the memory match candy bar game. printed the cards, cut out letters with my cricut and glued them down. bought some of the candy bars, and repainted the white stripes on the foam core boards to be a lighter shade of pink. yesterday afternoon i started gluing some of the cards down to their places and stacked books on them to press them down while they dry (time to find out how well the rubber cement will hold and see if i need to use something stronger). other than that, i still have favors to make once i get a finalized guest list, and invitations to make and send out. once those things are done, i'll have to determine how much is left to do. which feels like a LOT right about now!
baby shower: on tuesday, i bought the corresponding fabric, and wednesday i began to cut things out. i still have a few more shapes to cut before i can get sewing, but i'm pretty excited about how well the fabrics go and look together. it's a new pattern i haven't tried before, so stay tuned for stress outs! haha

del oro winter guard 2012 - time lapse video

when my dad and i went to vegas, apparently one thing he heard about that he REALLY wanted to try was time lapse photography. my older brother did something like this in the past of his drive from home to school in utah (or the other way, i can't remember) but my dad decided to try it using people. my sister had a winter guard competition last friday night at a local high school, so he dug out the sturdy tripod (that the 4x5 camera was still attached to) and set it up in the bleachers. the camera was started the moment they stepped in the door, and kept shooting until the last person from our school walked out the opposite door. the post processing is where i came in. the loading, organizing and compiling of the images in to the program, then getting the right pace to make the images look continuous, but still look like individual images. lastly, i loaded in the song that their performance is actually to and added a title and credits. there you have it! i'm still working on the set from the percussion show since i currently don't have any of their music to add to it, but as soon as it's done, you'll see it here!

wordless wednesday

weekend wips [& front page news]

i feel semi productive this week, now that i laid everything out that i did in to words. to top it off, i used invisible thread this week - something i haven't done in ages, and do not plan to do again anytime soon once these wedding bits & pieces are over - and didn't want to rip someone's face off. yeah, using invisible thread is THAT intense.
the bridal shower/wedding: as far as the shower goes, i got a thing or two done here and there. i painted some pink stripes on 2 foam core boards that will be used for one of the bridal shower games. for that same game, i purchased a blank card set, as well as pulled out my orange glitter scrapbook paper to cricut some numbers on. i'm thinking this week i will crank out the rest of the game and finish it up, as well as hopefully get a start on the invites. for the wedding portion, the ring bearer pillow has been stuffed and sewn shut. texted off a photo, and it was well received with a "cute!" from the bride to be, which makes me happy. the set of buttons also came this weekend, and though smaller than expected, they will still be perfection for the pillow, garter, and potential hair accessories. so crazy how it's creeping up closer and closer every day!
baby shower: the main fabric is still sitting around, and i still have to go cruise joann's for the accent fabric. i ordered the template to use for the creation of the quilt (dang "online only" purchase... found it cheaper on amazon though) and now awaiting it's arrival. once it's here, i guess i will really have to start working on it!
t-shirt quilt: everything has been chopped. it was pretty intense, that's for sure. i mean, did i ever imagine myself hacking these shirts up when i actually was wearing them? no, probably not. but still, it has been fun "remembering" when i got these shirts, when i wore them, and all that jazz. a few of them i had to turn in to half block sets because the writing/graphic on them was smaller than the others. once i get everything all pieced together, then i will be able to determine how many more blank filler blocks i will have to make in order to get the quilt to an even amount of blocks and then get cracking!i made the front page! i finally updated all of my christmas gift projects on to the craft forum craftster and for the first time, one of mine made the "hot new projects" section on the front page! seriously, i kept checking it every time i went back to my computer just to see if it was still there or not :) it was gone by sunday night, but the excitement of seeing something i made on the front page sure made for some "uplifting" excitement over my weekend. and in case you missed the original blog post for the apron, you can find that here!

wordless wednesday

introductions

have you met my cat? no? well today is your lucky day.
the "orange cat" is not the only one roaming the house here (and oddly enough hasn't been shown in any photos) but there are 5. 5 cats of varying chubby-ness, and this one here is mine. the fact of him being "mine" should actually be hypothetical, because i'm sure the last time he liked me was in 2004, when i got him as a christmas gift. ready? let's meet elroy.aww... so cute, right?sure, he appears as he is hissing... but i'm sure it's because he is just saying "HIIIIIIIIIIII"alright. so truth is, the "soft kitty" song was not written about elroy, thats's for sure. i'm sure he hates me even more today for making him go outside... his under the chair bat cave is so not photo worthy. but there you have it. my "el diablo" panda cat in all his grumpy glory. and i was so pleased to find this sketch of the two of us on my pinterest account. yes, it has currently become my facebook cover photo for the time being ;)

weekend wips

there has been a fair amount of shopping, not not a lot of actual sit down and craft-ing. but it was successful shopping. lisa told me about the store "charming charlie" and that erika and i needed to check out the one in roseville. well, i found a pair of shoes online and sent them to erika (kind of as a joke). what happened? she fell in love with them. we hit the store on saturday, found the shoes (but she has to order her size online) and so much more. a whole ton of pink and orange to make her heart content for the rest of her life. after that, i can say she's going to be pretty well dressed and coordinated for all bridal partying activities. and yes, i'm going to use every opportunity to state the fact i found shoes for her wedding for 80% off sticker price... making them a whopping $7.50 after tax. she won't allow me to complain about them though... ever. haha. what are best friends good for? i suppose it's a good thing i have 3 months to get used to walking in wedges!

the bridal shower: last week was spent scraping paint out of the bottom of a tub in order to try and make things last. well, my tub o' pink paint didn't make it, but after a few different stores, i found more and was able to finish off the name letters for the bridal shower. one thing down, a billion and one to go. but isn't that how things always are when it comes to planning? saturday we hit up joann's for fabric for her ring bearer, and after a whole bunch of fabric bolt dropping, we had success! the design has been chosen, and now it's down to cutting it out and figuring out the game plan for sewing it all together. next trip out together will involve finding ribbon to make a garter set for her. who knows, maybe if these things turn out, i'll go in to business! haha. we shall see ;)
the baby shower: i'm not planning this one, but i'm still planning to get my crafty on! i ordered the fabric this week off ebay (holla! fabric buying off there is addicting, btw) and it actually showed up saturday, so it's one step closer! i am pretty sure i have figured out what pattern to use for it, but the template i need appears to be a lovely little "online only" sort of purchase. bah! so for the time being, it's going to sit here next to my keyboard until i figure out exactly what i'm going to do with it.other stuff: my room was (and had been for quite some time) a hot mess. with all that is going on lately, i figured i needed to buckle down and fix that issue. amazingly, it didn't take as long as i predicted. shoes to get rid of (aka donate to thrift store) have been gathered up and put out of the way. you know a room (mine specifically) is considerably clean when you can run a vacuum through it. and that totally happened yesterday. now maybe i can get down to chopping up ring bearer pillow fabric and t-shirt quilt interfacing. lots and lots of square pieces in my future. and yes, i did publicly post a photo of my messy room online. maybe it will make you feel better about your room... hopefully not worse.

youtube finds - a sense of humor

wonder what it's like to be born without the ability to laugh?

a little las vegas recap

finally! i'm able to squeeze in a short little vegas recap :) in total, we spent nearly 5 whole days in las vegas (give or take drive time) and i personally had a fantastic time. it was great seeing new friends i hadn't seen in a year, exploring the huge tradeshow floors, and listening to some of the best in the industry. here is a little day by day recap. sorry, you get watermarked images today since they're going to be posted on two different blogs :)

saturday we got in to vegas right around 6pm and checked in to our hotel. our hotel booking allowed us two tickets to the recycled percussion show in the hotel theater, so once we unloaded everything from the car in to our hotel room, we got in line. dad volunteered to go up on stage at one point during the "training camp" section - that's him drumming on the trash can with some weird mask on. the show was great! full of energy and pretty incredible to see what four guys can do with a ton of random junk.
sunday was the first day at the convention, and boy was it jam packed. we checked in and got our badges right around 8 and then headed up to the third floor to wait in line. the speakers that day were zach & jody gray, the guys from tricoast photo, and the ever enthusiastic doug gordon. his posing tips are amazing. cannot wait to utilize them with couples! after a hop & skip down the road to in-n-out for dinner, that night was the photographers ignite presentation which was pretty amazing. each set of speakers had 5 minutes and 20 auto advancing slides to give a short presentation. the youngest speaker was maybe 18... having started his business at like, 15. what the crap?!
monday was another busy sort of day. 8am was jerry ghionis, and he talked a lot about light. this kid was at his talk last year. no joke, made the whole audience cry when jerry talked about him. adorbs. wandered the tradeshow with stephanie, and then we headed up (or tried to) to get our seats for jasmine star. yeah, she's already been refered to as my girl crush on facebook... i'm telling you, she's shooting my wedding even if i have to become an indentured servant for the rest of my life. she was amazing as always, and after her i headed down and met up with some of my "fusion group" peeps for the last talk of the day by tamara lackey. BACK up to the third floor for the sony party. last year we met nigel barker. this year, it was pretty much a total bust. minus the free food.

tuesday was a slower paced day. i got to sleep in a bit, and then went to the rainforest cafe for breakfast with the aforementioned "fusion group". and i won a book! finally something good came from these dang business card raffles. instead of going back to wandering the tradeshow, i hung out with kelliana, katie, lori & alej in their hotel room while kelliana photographed each of them. i was a pretty bomb reflector holder, that's for sure. though, it made me miss two chances to win an ipad. oh well! went down to see jessica claire talk (with stephanie) and then dad and i made a dash to chipotle down by harrah's for dinner. made it back just in time for his last platform class, so i randomly chose one to go to as well. after the last platform class, which was on senior portrait photography i headed up to the canon 80s party... not in 80's dress at all because even though i was intending to bring my pink shirt from 80's bowling... i totally forgot it at home. that's okay though. i wasn't the only one not in 80s dress. ate some cupcakes, hung out with stephanie, and then when the party "shut down" at like... 10:20, headed back to the hotel.
wednesday was the last day in vegas, and boy was it my slowest day! slept in a little bit, and once i woke up, i found out from twitter that i had won a camera bag! i guess i can't say i never win anything in vegas anymore. once we checked out of the hotel and loaded up the car, headed over to the tradeshow for one last day. wandered a bit here and there, and then since the weather was so nice, sat outside and ate lunch on the grass. after the final platform class with dane sanders, we began the 9 hour voyage home. overall, it was a great trip from my perspective. i got to reconnect with friends i've only seen online for the past year, become inspired by some of the greatest in the industry, and win free stuff! haha. oh, and drool over camera gear, that's for sure. another good part? besides food, i wasn't DYING to buy anything this year. well, i guess i mean realistically dying... since i could always go for some new camera gear :)