Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Oooh Look, Another Stitching Related Post..



They are so few and far inbetween. Here is the promised picture of the Angel of Love WIP. The first picture is from 2 years ago, which I'm only including for comparison purposes. So that you can see I *am* actually stitching. LOL. The 3rd picture is the truest in terms of colors.

As of December 4th, 2004


This picture is on webshots and it doesn't let me download the bigger one as JPG. Link takes you there.

As of November 19th, 2006



As of November 25th, 2006




Thanks Erin and Sene for the sweet comments. The journaling makes me cry too, everytime I read it :)

Many thoughts



This isn't going to be a coherent entry :) (Like it is ever. Huh)

First off, Thanks for the comments on the new look. I can't take credit for the new title "Expression Alley" though. While watching TV and creating the new header, I started thinking along the lines of "Expressing". This blog is all about expressing, afterall. Expressing in written form, or in art in the way of scrapping or stitching.

First thought was "Express Lane". Created the header and asked DH what he thinks. He said "Huh? This doesn't make any sense and makes me think of Grocery Store Express Checkout Lane." LOL! I said that this is where I express my thoughts, so it is *my* Express Lane. He said it still makes him think of the checkout lanes. Dumped it. Next thing he said was "Expression Alley". Bingo. My first thought was it's something out of Harry Potter. Diagon Alley, Expression Alley. Love it. I LOVE Harry Potter. So, that was it. The design was all mine. At first, I had Mehul and my picture in there too, but after rearranging things around, I liked this version best :)

Calendars. Again, I can't take credit for those either. They are quick pages by Ztampf. LOVE them. All I had to do was slide the photos in, and add the text. I had received a coupon from DigiShopTalk on my Birthday for 50% off Ztampf products, plus, they had a sale going on so the calendars were already marked down. I got them for about $2.00 I think. I ordered a bunch of stuff.

I am really happy how quickly I got done with the calendars. I'd been thinking about doing some sort of calendars for some time, and then I saw Erin's. WOW! (Sidenote: I am excited about her calendars. Can't wait to hear about the reaction they receive.) I wanted to do them, but was concerned about the shipping to India (which is where they're going). I wanted them to be ready to use, and didn't want to spend a whole lot ;) They are basically 4x6 photo size, front is the calendar and the back is the photo card, and they are laminated together. They came out to be $2.50 each! I got 15 done. Now, that's cheap!

One word of advice about Laminating at Staples. They charge separately for cutting the laminated sheets. We had used the big size sheets and inserted 5 calendars per sheet. They charge $2.00 for each piece they cut out! This does not include the cost of laminating. They hadn't told us this before, so we got a discount and got charged for 10 cuts instead of 15. We have a paper cutter and may even have cut it ourself if we had known. But, it's still cheap I think.

Holiday Cards. Got them out of the way too for the most part. I'm waiting on some addresses. My sister has just moved one month back, and my SIL too has recently moved. Got the rest sent already. I can't wait for their reactions. ATC cards are mailed out too. Now, I can rest easy.

Concluding thought. There is a party at our place this Saturday. Some of our friends couldn't attend the last one, so this one's for them! About 15 people excluding us. Menu has changed a little bit from the last time, but most main dishes have stayed the same. I'm trying to cut down the # of dishes that require cooking the day of. LOL. That wasn't fun!

Can I write an entry without a LO to show? Nope. Here it is.

Wishes Do Come True



Credits:
Just about everything from Lisa Whitney's ScrapArtist Apprentice kit "A Beautiful Mess". I got it for $2.00 (How come everything in this entry is $2.00?? That's mind boggling.) while the contest was going on.
Also used Steph Krush's Paper Tear.
I used Gina Miller's Fun with Fibers Pack 1 to create the twisty tie. Can you guess how much they're for?? LOL!

Monday, November 27, 2006

Recap



Let's do it in Fast Forward.

Thursday

Start cooking Thanksgiving Lunch/Dinner early morning before breakfast. Done in 1.5 hours. Breakfast, cleaning, etc. until the guests arrived. Grey's Anatomy after they leave. I'm supremely pissed at ABC for showing only a couple of minutes extra of GA. In the Ad, they said "A thanksgiving episode so big, we couldn't fit it in 1 hour!" So, instead of doing a 2 hour episode (which I assumed), they tack on a couple of minutes. Arghh. But, it was a darn good episode, so I guess I'll keep watching :p

Friday

Sleep in a little and then get ready for shopping. We didn't really need any electronics so we missed the craziness at Best Buy, etc. We went to Lowes instead. No breakfast, we decided to do brunch a little later. We had to get the Christmas Tree. No sales on the trees, and to add insult to injury, the tree we selected was out of stock already. Had been for 2 weeks, and no more were ordered. They checked the other store in the area and told us there was one available in the store 10 miles away. Off we went. We did get it, thankfully! Brunch at IHOP. Yum. Back home to relax, stitch and scrap. To the mall in the afternoon to get Mehul's hair cut.

Saturday

Regular Saturday stuff, phone calls back home, laundry, etc. I bought some calendar templates from ztampf which will follow this post. Trip to Costco to drop off the calendars to print. Put up the Christmas Tree and hang the ornaments. Dinner was a N's house.

Sunday

Got the calendars laminated at Staples. These are going to the family members with the New Year cards! I got the front and back printed separately, and snuck a little tape to keep them together while laminating. They came out gorgeous. I don't have a picture of the finished product, but I do have the photos before printing.

2007 Calendars




Saturday, November 25, 2006

Quick post



I'm sorry about the header issue. I'm working on fixing it. It seems very attached to that spot in the template and won't move forward. Arghhh.

BTW, How do you like the new title? I rather like this one, so this should be it for a while.

Thursday, November 23, 2006

Yummy Thanksgiving



I'm stuffed! M & M had brought Pav Bhaji - a dish made with mashed potatoes, and a whole bunch of boiled veggies, spices and lots of butter. It is eaten with hamburger rolls. Yummm. We had this as a snack with tea, but it was so tasty all of us were pretty much stuffed to eat lunch! We hung around till 6 and then had lunch. LOL. I had prepared Mutter Panner and Aloo Gobhi curries along with regular sides. Not very elaborated, but yum. No more eating today.

Layout time!

Brrr



Credits:
Everything from Miki Ferkul's Winter Weather Warning kit at ScrapbookElements.

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Just to show you



How hard my life is! LOL! I have all these pretties to play work with over the weekend. The only obligations are with the CT kits, which are so pretty themselves!

ScrapArtist








Robyn England


Robyn England is giving this kit free on her blog if you sign up for her Friends Mailing list!




Gina Miller


Gina Miller has her goodies at ScrapBook Byts for 50% off this week!



Ztampf




CT Kits - Miki Ferkul




I also have another Miki's kit - Velvet Vision that is being released on Sunday! Not sure if it's okay to post a preview without her permission, so I won't.

Apart from all the scrapping, we are celebrating ThanksGiving tomorrow with some friends. I also will do some stitching and hopefully get an updated picture of the Angel of Love.

Last, but not the least, Happy ThanksGiving! Have a great holiday weekend.

Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Eek!



I just realized that I've got the year wrong on the Christmas LO It is 2004, not last Christmas!! Mehul wasn't so small last year!

We have decided to wait for the Day After Thanksgiving sales to see if the price on the tree we want goes down. DH also has plans to tour at least 2 other stores (Staples, Sears) that day. Should be interesting to go bright and early with Mehul in the tow.

I'm finishing up some work that was due end of this week, but since it's a long weekend, I have to finish it early. Grump!