Happy Birthday to Me!!!

Well, I turned the big 22 yesterday. It was a busy day. I taught at the middle school for a good portion of my day. My students were pretty excited to get to spend the day with me. Made a quick stop at Subway--which they have a new chicken sub that I am in love with--and I ended up eating it in class. Had class and a quiz, and then headed to Buffalo Wild Wings for a quick dinner with my friends. They all had a night class, so it was an early meal. They even brought me a cookie cake--my favorite.  I had to share the collection of cards I got. I even had a few handmade.

My little sister remembered my thing for owls, and made a pretty nifty card. I give her a lot of credit for using what she could find in her dorm room.

My friend Becky pulled out her sewing machine for my card. I have never seen machine stitching in person before,but it was beautiful. She even misted on her flower, which I love the golden shimmer.

And of course my sweet little 4 year old goddaughter made me a masterpiece. It was a day late, since she used so much glitter glue, it took forever to dry.

It was a great day. Super busy...which is pretty much the norm right now. We got a bit of snow on and off during the day, but we still have a month of winter left up here.

A Fall Favorite

If you haven't figured it out already, one of my favorite places in the world is Door County. The colors are absolutely gorgeous up there in the fall. The last two years in a row, for my fall break, we have gone up for a trip. And both years the weather was phenomenal. We had high 70's the last two years. So we have been spoiled.

One of our favorite places to bike, no matter what time of year, is at Peninsula State Park. This place is huge. We ride anywhere form 10-15 miles at a time, and there are great trails. I have mastered the art of taking pictures while on my bike.

 

There are definitely more fall pages to come. I needed a creative break from lesson plans this weekend, and I wanted a simple one page layout before I went to bed. I have been planning this page for some time. I love the paper (Little Yellow Bicycle) and the cute little felt trees. We had an awesome trip up to the Door this fall. 

I'm looking forward to summer already. Last weeks 80's have been replaced by snow and 30's. I was not a happy camper breaking the coat back out this morning. 

A Very Special Birthday

Its a very special day today! Its my Grandpa's 85 Birthday!!!! So I had to show off his card. I am hoping he likes it. It was a little more abstract than I normally do.

My Grandpa is a great guy! Not just anyone lets their granddaughter eat fudgesicles on the white couch at 9am in the morning. Or plays football in the house with their six year old great grandson. Or buys you a watermelon when you visit in the summer. We love our Grandpa!

As I was searching through pictures, I realized I need to get some new ones. This is a really old picture-December of 2006 to be exact. I was a young 16 here. This is my grandparents and my little sister!

My not so scrappy weekend

I had the best intentions of having a scrappy weekend! I didn't have much homework and I was going to get ahead on all my lesson plans.

And then it was 80 degrees out. This is not normal for us. We should be in the 30's and have mounds of snow. So I had to take advantage of the gorgeous weather! Two weeks ago my car was buried up to the hood from a blizzard. I was sweating that day just digging out. Fast forward two weeks, and I'm jogging down the trail along the shores of Lake Superior. And there are hundreds of people at the beach....and people are actually in the water. Lake Superior is always cold, so you can really jump in as long as there isn't ice. I didn't swim, but I did walk in it for a bit.

I was in shock. I had to take advantage of this weather. And of course, I got lots of pictures! I don't stay at my apartment in the summer, and boy does it get hot in there fast. We had the windows open, and it quickly jumped to 85 inside. I never thought I needed a fan in the spring...but this is just summer weather. I had soup on the menu for this weekend...but that quickly got changed to ordering pizza, I had no intentions of adding anything else with heat inside.

I will not be a happy camper the next time it is snowing...but for now I am going to enjoy my flip flops, sun dress, and the fact that all my coats are hanging up in the closet. We will still get our April Blizzard. It happens every year-never under 10 inches. Until then, I'm going outside.

When Life Gets Tough...our little joke

A good friend and I always joke that when college gets tough we are running away to Florida to be Princesses at Disney or Penguin and Dolphin People at Sea World. The good news is we are only 8 more weeks from finishing our degree's...so hopefully we don't need to do any running away.

So was my friend's birthday yesterday, and I made her this card. I am hoping she doesn't read my blog post, because it just went in out the mail a few minutes ago.

I cute the cute little guy on my Cricut from the Create a Critter Cartridge. The twine is my ever favorite doodlebug, and who doesn't love some stickles! Needless to say I have a lot of card to keep making. In a 7 week period of March and April, we have a good 15+ birthdays coming up...including me!

The Start of Senior Year

I like to start every year of my college albums the same. I do my first two page spread about the first semester. I include my schedule of the classes I took and the teachers I had. I also put pictures of where I lived. I finally was out of the dorms this year, and I don't miss it one bit. The day before I started this page, the deans list came out in my parents newspaper. I always make it archival, and then include the deans list.

I always struggle to get everything I want on this page. I decided to only use a few pictures, since I had more writing this time. I was really excited to make my own stick pins. A friend gave me some pins to play with, and I had some beads from my dabbles in jewelry making long ago. 

I love how the pins sparkled and shined with the rest of my paper and embellishments. I used some Prima and Imaginscense flowers. The aqua brads were Making Memories. I am also in love with American Crafts Glittery Buttons. The big aqua flower was too bright for my page, so I ended up inking it with some metallic silver, and it toned it down a little bit.

I am very excited to start the rest of my senior year pages. I did so much through the fall, and have some really fun supplies I am looking forward to playing with.

Inking with the Cuttlebug

Over break I had a chance to try out a new technique with my cuttlebug. I mainly use my cuttlebug for embossing, since I have a cricut to do all my die cutting with. I saw this video by Lisa K (http://stamptv.ning.com/video/distressed-letterpress?xg_source=shorten_twitter) and I had to try it out. It took some experimentation, but now I have a new technique.

The first thing to do is pick your embossing folder. You pat the ink onto the folder, on the side of that will be pressed down into the paper. My embossing folder is Paisley from ProvoCraft. The ink is night of navy from Stampin Up. You can see how the groves of the Paisley are raised, and that is what I inked.

Then center the paper in the folder, on the opposite side of the ink, then close.

I ran all of this through my cuttlebug. It was a normal embossing sandwich with the "A Plate" then the first B Plate, the embossing folder, and then the second B Plate on top.

When you pull it out, you can leave it as is, or run a second color of ink along the top. It is important to gently swipe from side to side, that way you are not pushing the ink down into your already inked areas. I am looking forward to using this on some of my upcoming pages. I have a lot of earth toned fall pages, and this will be perfect. I was looking for a new way to use my cuttlebug.

My second layer of ink (more mustard from stampin up)

I learned some things along the way. It is better to put your darker color down first, and go over it with a lighter color, or else you will loose the light color if that is your first color. Also, you must use a water based ink such as Distress Ink or Stampin Up's Ink. I used Stampin Up Ink, with good success. I was able to clean all my embossing folders with regular stamp cleaner and a paper towel.