heh.

 

from LOLCats : .)

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Fan art for Ty's band...

Requiem for the Dead

(I really suck at photography.  

no matter what setting I used 

[I guess I should figure out how to shoot manual...]

I couldn't get this the color I wanted!  grr!)

 (click to see it a bit better)

The Terrible Tale of Two...

(oh, and I think my new years resolution, 

if I were to make one,

is to stop using butterflies and hearts in my art.

the end.)

Owner of a Lonely Heart

Marit's Musical Blog Party, parties on!

The piece I did today was inspired by...

Owner of a Lonely Heart by YES!

I had scraps and this cute little guy on a stamp

with a little glittery heart he's dying to share.

He's not really that scary, right?!  LOL!!!

Plus, this is the grin I like to make, 

it covers many different situations.  

I think the two of us are MFEO.  

("Made For Each Other"... 

You'd know this if you are a Meg Ryan fan 

and have watched Sleepless in Seattle
as many times as I have.  

And I need to mention,

I find it ironic that this is one of my fav movies,
because of where it was filmed!)

Otherwise, it was a lazy kind of day...

I finished my first DT piece 

and sent it off for its January preview. 

I had to go to Staples for ink to finish the piece. 

(That's supplies, so its on the "ok to purchase" list : .) 

Talked to Als for 49 minutes, 

and did a load of dishes.

I'm also attempting to finish a fan piece for RFTD.

I did have a moment of anxiety, 

trying to decide if I should have red or white wine 

with my frito pie this evening, 

but it was a moot point

as the spicy chili and the jalapeno peppers

have burned the taste buds off my tongue

and I can't taste the wine anyway.

heh! 

I'm thinking of trying this with
ground beef and brown gravy, 

since I'm not a fan of chili... hum...

ok, that's it for this eve...carry on!

: .)

One Love and Let's Dance!

A couple more pieces for Marit's Musical blog party!  Late!  I don't do deadlines well!  LOL!!!

One Love by Bob Marley & the Wailers

and

Let's Dance by David Bowie

Its a party!  There's gotta be lots of dancing!!!

This is all I've done today... I've had two cups of coffee and its 2:22 pm.  I need FUDS!!!

Yesterday was such a good day...  I did errands in the am and then Jack picked me up for an Imax showing of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.  

One word:  AWESOME!!!  

So sad however.  Can't wait for the final movie!

Afterwards, Jack took me to the Fairmont for a glass of wine.

Later in the evening, I had an appointment with my IT guy for some new memory for this ole computer!  Yowza!  What a difference.  Now I can put off buying a new computer until next year!!! Yay!!!  Thanks Andy!!!  Mary cooked split pea soup, it was very yum!!! 

On the day after Xmas, Shan invited me to dinner & we watched Alice in Wonderland.  She broke the rules and bot me a present...

It has my name, not Edward's!!!  LOL!!!

Very cool!!!

Do You Know the Way to San Jose???

I'm done with Christmas.  Thank you.

I hope you had a great day, however...  : .)

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Today's contribution to Marit's Musical blog party was a must do!!!

Trinjintje Oosterhuis, who's a Dutch singer did an album 

of covers of Burt Bacharach's songs

and one of them was "Do You Know the Way to San Jose?"

Here's my piece...

fun!

You Should Be Dancing!!!

MERRY, MERRY!!!  : .)

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In other fun ...

From Christmas day, continuing to the beginning of the New Year, there's a radio station in the Netherlands that's playing the 2000 favorite songs of its listeners. What a list!!!

Marit is throwing a musical blog party in conjunction with the Top 2000 & I decided to join in!!!

I'm currently rocking the mid-70's and dancin' my way thru Marit's party with a Bee Gees hit...you remember it...You Should Be Dancing!  OMG!  I was in 7th grade and my Mom let me go see Saturday Night Fever, can you believe it?  I don't think I understood most of the movie at the time ; .P  Of course, I got the (double) album for Christmas that year.  Such good memories dancing and singing to the songs on those records!!!

Just today in my stash, I found the little people getting down to their favorite tunes, and with a few stamps and some hand cut lettering, I got together my first piece for the countdown...FUN!!!

I hope you're having a great day!!!   : .)

you stink. you smell like beef and cheese. you're not santa.

Its not every day that I get to hang with the crew sporting new xmas pjs!!!

Thanks Aldien!  I'm so tickled!

They're perfect!!!

 Did a piece in my art journal in honor of said pjs : .)

I wanna mention one last awesome thing for today...

I got my Phoenix badge from this fab-o site 

for writing for a 100 days in a row!!!

Patting myself on the back for the accomplishment : .)

I'm really proud of myself!!!

750 words is based on Julia Cameron's daily pages, 

if you recall me mentioning The Artist's Way, 

Julia has you do a creativity exercise

 consisting of 3 pages of daily long-hand journaling.

(Stream of consciousness dumping : .)

750 words takes this concept a bit further...  

and sends you an email to remind you to write,

awards the badges for milestones and accomplishments,

calculates stats, and 

keeps track of your progress.

Its quite cool!!!

On work days, I get up at 5:30 am to get my pages in.  

 The badges alone are very motivating!

Love it!
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Oh-Kee-Doh, I'm off to watch A Nightmare Before Xmas!

I hope Santa brought you everything that was on your list!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

: .)

seeking my inner German

Grandma always said we were English, Irish, Scottish, Dutch, and German.  (I'm also half Japanese, but you know that already, right?!)  I think I mentioned before, I spent my entire life thinking I was a lot Irish because of the last name.  Come to find out, I'm Welsh.  Talk about an identity crisis.  Makes me think of that Starburst commercial with the Scotch-Korean kid, the contradiction.  I wonder if he had an identity crisis when he made that commercial ; .P

But I digress.  Lately, I've been craving green beans.  Specifically Green Beans and Spaetzle in Bavarian sauce.  (It figures, the sauce has BACON!!! Which btw, Adam Richman of Man vs Fud called "meat candy" today... yeah baby!) My Mom fixed this a lot when I was a kid.  I loved it!  I haven't been able to find it for years!!!  (Obviously, I never considered Amazon as a source!!!)

I finally found a recipe online.  I bought the spaetzle pre-made, all I had to do is boil it.  I left out the sugar. (Eww...green beans and sugar?!)  And I used center cut bacon (which I don't recommend and would dice into really tiny pieces next time), I added butter and some flour to make the sauce thicker and more creamy, and definitely more fattening : .)

The verdict (I stole this statement from A Year of Slow Cooking):

The dish was ok.  Not sure I'd serve it to anyone without a disclaimer.  In the future, I would find a recipe without beer.  And cook the green beans a lot more because in the Bird's Eye version the green beans are squishy, not squeaky.  I'd also use regular bacon.  Oh, and add more spaetzle.  Carbs, swoon!

Hey, I've got an idea.  Cook more spaetzle and eat it with BUTTER, salt and pepper!  yum!!!  LOL!

Since I haven't posted a boot pix lately, here's one.  We are definitely out of the honeymoon stage of our relationship and truly, I wish one of us was moving out (das boot, thank you!).  As it is, I haven't been wearing it consistently (don't tell Dr. Rob!) because my foot still hurts and you'd think that after almost 7 weeks in boot, and a round of NSAIDs, then a round of prednisone, it'd feel better, not worse.

Seems like there's no point in continuing the suffering and awkwardness, especially since I'm pretty sure the next treatment will be cortisone shots.  yay. 

And seriously.  I really need to run.  I'm getting super poofy.  sigh.

some more things I made...

felt garland.  aren't those pom poms cuuuuttteee!!!

I stitched the heart with and strung it, on jute.  I love the rustic-ness!

 I found this really cool setting on my camera the other day...color accent.

you can choose one color and the camera picks up only that color

and leaves the rest of your shot in black and white.

I found I have a lot of red in my house : .)

and not just 'cause its christmas!

 I found this camo fabric online at Beverly's Fabric and Craft 

and made this pillow cover out of it.  

its tractors if you didn't notice : .)  

my Dad will love the John Deere logos!

I got the instructions from here!

it was sooo easy, I would recover all my throw pillows...

if I had any, hee!

today's list of awesome brought to me by the letter D!

 I've been a bit lax in my blogging.

I'll have to start backwards from today and record the last few days...

today's awesome was happy mail from Danica!

one - picture of Evan. (and you thot it'd be the SC stuff, huh?!) omg!  he's sooooo darling!  I love it!  its going up on my kids wall at work when I go back next month.

two - insight into the boy/man that is Sidney Crosby (Pittsburg 'zine) swoon... (he could be my son, he could be my son... snort.)

three - Pittsburgh Penguins beanie...that's HOCKEY! (it was 50 degrees today & I did wear it D, to walk [don't tell Dr. Rob] from the Mazda service center to McD's and back!  : .)

four - Mickey Mouse Christmas cling, its on the fridge as we speak! (no good windows to put it on, and I'll see it there all the time!)

five - scrap goodies... love love love those tags!  hee!!!

six - yum tea!

you shouldn't have D, but THANKS!  made my day!!!  I am one lucky woman : .) 

Scrapping the Music Guest Designer Week 4 - Times Like These by the Foo Fighters

(Lets try this again...)

Here's my final guest designer submittal for Scrapping the Music.

This week's song is Times Like These by the Foo Fighters.

I am a one way motorway
I'm the one that drives away
Then follows you back home
I am a street light shining
I'm a wild light blinding bright
Burning off alone

more holiday craftiness...

 made my mickey mouse icon head wreath

 most beautiful christmas tree...

tutorial here!

I think there's more than 300 cut circles, yowza!!!

12 (?) Days of Christmas???

straight, no chaser...

I'm a big fan of the happy meal!

baby fries!!!

me & Venning at the McD's by Cost Co.  

December 8, 2010

: .)

ah * pah-si-tive * ah-ti-tude!

is important you know,

especially regarding this boot thing.

cookies help : .)

ack-chul-ly...

this is my submission for the current challange @ Simply ArtisTiC.  
this round's theme is "hidden message" inspired by 
the art of Patrycja Zywert.

this challenge took a lot of brainstorming. 
I always found binary coding to be a bit mysterious
so I did a little research and used binary to create a "hidden" message. 

yeah, the key is right below, so its not exactly hidden...

(makes me think of those pictures that they saw in the coding of the Matrix! ; .)

very good mail day!

handmade by Pens - north pole sign post

soooo cute!!!
hee hee!  so happy to have my very own!

isn't the snow just the best?!

there's also a PRESENT!!! my first under the tree!!! 

LOL!!!

love, love <3

 merci beaucoup, mon amie!!!

the things I did...

painted and glittered my Kaisercraft funky wreath

(it needs a banner or something)

hung crochet snowflakes from the branch I put up in my bedroom

made a peace banner

(idea from here...)

baked some christmas cookies

(check out the cute MM sprinkles)

started a new bebe blanket for the NICU

made a new Mickey  Mouse icon head wreath for my front door

(photos later)

made an ATC for Simply ArtisTiC

(it still needs to be finished)

cooked my Mom's fried rice for dinner

hung out with Als &

made it to Barbara's party and ate lots

ran over a dead skunk in the rainy dark

now my car stinks

was invited to join the design team
over at Scrapping the Music in January
how cool is that?!

: .)

I can't believe I've gone my entire life...

not knowing about FRITO PIE!!!

OMG!!!

(image source)

I am salivating like Pavlov's dog just thinking about it!

o.k. basically, you take fritos, and cover 'em with chili (beans or no beans?!), and cheese!

as you can see in the pix, you can add xtras...like onions, and jalapeno peppers, and sour cream.

oh yum!!!  

someday I will make this for myself.  maybe after I run marathon,

if that ever happens again.

heh.

I made stuff, cleaned the house, finished decorating,
(Als is coming over to see the Xmas decor),

need a shower, need to make cookie dough.

I'm buzzing along like you wouldn't believe...
Dr. Rob put me on prednisone.

(This should be an interesting week...)

tonite is Barbara's annual tree trimming party.  lots of gud fuds are to be had. 

this year is a mexican theme, complete with pozole, my fav mexican soup.

maybe they'll have frito pie, LOLOLOL!!!

we're dating for 4 more weeks...

me & das boot.

cute pix : .)

I meant to post this picture last month.  Luckily, I found it in my email today...

This lovely group of ladies (minus JT's Mom) donate their time, talent and yarn...
and crochet baby blankets for the NICU Unit at Good Sam Hospital in San Jose. 
How great is that?!

I'm so tickled at the diversity of this group and I think its sooo funny that the "minority" group represented is the Caucasians, LOL!!! 
(And btw - Susan was the one who crocheted the record 10 blankets in the last batch, yowza!!!)

Scrapping the Music Guest Designer Week 3 - Suds in the Bucket by Sara Evans

The song for week 3 of my guest designing gig at Scrapping the Music is ...

Suds in the Bucket by Sara Evans.

"you can't stop love"

I decided to pay homage to my love of Starbucks hot beverages

...giggle...

since I really couldn't relate to the subject of the lyrics.

(Nor the genre, really.)

Anyway, I like how it came out and I LOVE the color combo!!!  LOL!

(and uh, the last piece for STM was hot pink and blue, not red and turquoise! hee!
annnnnd wow, my last piece too!  ohmygosh! I think I need to expand my color usage!)

{title unknown}

seriously...this needs a title and I just ain't comin' up with one!

any ideas?

I was thinking "Mousekelove"

too cheezy??? 

me and Mickey & Minnie in Xmas garb!  cuteness!!!

I have to laugh, I was intending to do a 8 1/2" X 11" piece and forgot to cut off the last inch.  

distracted much?

guess no one will know its longer, if I don't tell 'em, right???!!! hee!!!

I lifted a card idea from here...I wish I could read Russian.  I think its in Russian.  

amazing artists on this challenge site!

one more day til December, can you believe it?!

workin' on my Christmas

me and das boot.

we're festive like that!  : .)

I put my Martha punched garland over the arcadia door instead of on the tree...

not sure I like it there!

ornaments manana!!!  lol!!!

the friday after thanksgiving

so, I'm contemplating my next move.  what to do?  I'm typically paralyzed knowing I have time for me.  I have a list and I can't decide what to do first. 

I went to Starbucks in the Safeway across the street.  Jack called about watching the last few episodes of season 3 of True Blood.  going to his house means I need to shower.  really not motivated to do that. 

so, in procrastination, I've made a cup of tea and ate some apple cranberry cobbler/crisp with whipped cream.  I also finished watching Letters to Juliet in my efforts to waste time.  I was also watching episodes of Dr. G, Medical Examiner.  why is it you watch a show you rarely watch and you end up watching a re-run???  why never a new episode?  

did y'all get enough to eat yesterday?  Donna and Gregg did a huge spread and sent me home with tons of leftovers.  can't wait to repeat that dinner!  LOL!!!

I worked on a few ornaments recently.  I got the idea for the round ones from Nina Bagley.  Nina's work however is incredibly lovely..she uses all vintage beads, paper & lace, copper, and I just used cardboard and beads and charms from my box.  That idea spurred me to make the rectangular ornaments, I used photos from the back of a calendar. 

Revised piece for Simply ArTistiC, Rob Ryan inspired, for the Typography prompt.

Rob Ryan inspired Beta 1.

Rob Ryan inspired Beta 2.

Mickey icon head inspired : .)

Martha punch.  Boy was it difficult to make the little Santa hat!

I think I'll put up the Christmas tree and decor tomorrow : .)

Scrapping the Music Guest Designer Week 2 - Need You Tonight by INXS

My second Scrapping the Music guest designer assignment was to scrap  

Need You Tonight, by Inxs.  

Inxs was a large part of and hugely important to my formative high school years, 

heh heh!!!

I was brainstorming my piece and 

remembered this photo that's been in my stash forever.  

Its an ad for flooring, but I love it, so I had to use it!!!

 I choose these lyrics to compliment the photo...

So slide over here, and give me a moment.

Your moves are so raw, 

I've got to let you know

I've go to let you know...

You're one of my kind!!!

Grace and beauty all in one place!!!

Oh, and happy turkey day!!!

Scrapping the Music Guest Designer - Upside Down by Jack Johnson

I was asked to guest design at Scrapping the Music for the month of November!  

Isn't that waaaayyy cool?!

I'm soooo honored to be invited!!!

My first assignment was to scrap Jack Johnson's musical expression, Upside Down.

Not only is this a wonderful song, but it has a great video 

which is done with bits from the Curious George movie. 

One of my Sisters of My Heart, Kath, 

sent me this photo of her son D with his sister's pig, Hiccup.

Immediately, I knew it was the perfect photo for the Jack Johnson song.

Annie decided to raise Hiccup for Future Farmers of America this past year.

As she's a beautiful, empathetic, and highly sensitive girl,

Auntie Linda had no qualms quickly calling Mom

to express her anxiety regarding the end result of the girl raising this pig

and how it would affect her. 

I was quite worried!

Kath and I had many conversations on the subject.  

And in the end, Kath convinced me Annie was up to the task.

What we never thought of, however,

was how little brother D would be affected 

knowing Hiccup's ultimate fate.

D had a real hard time after Hiccup was shown at the fair 

and sold to the highest bidder.

He had to go back and see Hiccup a last time to say good bye.  

(This picture was shot by one of the moms of one of Annie's classmates on Hiccup's final day at the fair.)

I felt these lyrics fit perfectly with how I guessed D was feeling when the photo was taken

and how much he cared about the pig.

Sweet boy!

Here's my piece...

just a little obsessed...

with vampires. 

{or maybe just escapism?}

this weekend: 

did a True Blood, season 3 marathon watching with Jack!

ay carumba!!!

finished book 8 {From Dead to Worse} and 

started book 9 {Dead and Gone} of the Sookie Stackhouse series.

found my copy of The Vampire Book:  The Encyclopedia of the Dead 

{this was written by one of my college religious studies professors...no kidding!}

waiting for Breaking Dawn, Part 1 {Edward, Bella & Jacob, sigh!}

otherwise...

must make peace with das boot.  

must.

gobble gobble!!!

tee hee hee!  

I L.O.V.E. it, Pens!!!

(and I stuck it on the fridge!!!  : .)

red cups are baaaaack!!!

toffee mocha!!!  yes!!!

oh, and does this boot make my knee look fat???

snort.

don't worry, be happy

that's what I'm telling myself anyway...

thank goodness for cycle class!

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I made stuff!

try to contain your excitement!

a Christmas wreath for Als like this one.

 an ATC for the newest challenge at Simply ArTistiC, which is 

Ampersands...

and a couple of other grungy, leftovers cards with the same theme.

oh and another.  weird that red & black are consistently my go-to!

I think I need to visit my 5 good things for today...

1) I already mentioned cycle class
2) Trader Joe's Milk Chocolate Mini Pretzels
3) lazy rainy days
4) making stuff
5) really good leftovers for dinner

{plz note - no knives were sharpened in the writing of this blog post, heh.}