Jan 30th 2008 05:00:26 pm

I made it to Las Vegas. That is a photo of me in front of our booth at the convention center. We set it up today and now we have the evening off. All I know is that I am going shopping with some of the girls at Sephora and we are going to a Cuban place for dinner. I’ll take more exciting photos…

3 Comments » Categories: Trips, Work

Jan 29th 2008 09:23:16 pm

Super-early tomorrow morning I am leaving for Las Vegas to attend the Photo Marketing Association (also known as PMA – The Worldwide Community of Imaging Associations) yearly conference in Las Vegas. A sizable group from PhotoTidings (my employer) is going to run a booth and attend some important meetings. I will be working the booth. I am excited to learn more about the photo industry, but I am a little nervous about going to vegas. I have never been and the only things I know about the city I learned from Travis’ favorite television show, Las Vegas. According to the show, everyone there wears mini dresses and bikinis all of the time… and they are super-tan… and skinny. Ugh. Good thing it is too cold for bikinis right now. I can only think of one good thing about Vegas and I am trying my darnedest to come up with a way to convince one, or more, of my co-workers to go there with me. Any suggestions?

3 Comments » Categories: Trips, Work

Jan 27th 2008 01:08:43 pm

I received this lovely matchbox from Caam for the Red, Pink, and Purple Valentine’s Matchbox Swap on Swap-bot. I just love the felt embellishments. She also included tons of great stuff inside. The swap-botters are definitely upping their game when it comes to matchboxes. I need to work on my own technique!

Speaking of which, here are three matchboxes I made for upcoming swaps. The last one is for my own February Love Matchbox swap. All three will be mailed tomorrow.

3 Comments » Categories: Crafts, Swap-bot

Jan 25th 2008 10:42:58 pm

omg. ugh. This week has been crazy. It is a monster of my own creation, but I am paying for it just the same. It has not been bad, just busy… And I am so behind on just about everything. I am ok with being behind. I am really ok that dirty dishes are stacked to the ceiling and clothes are sitting in the dryer. Really, I am ok. The only thing I am not ok with is the fact that people are counting on me and I am not coming through for them. If I owe you a call, or an email, or a thank you card and you haven’t received it, I am sorry. It you are a swap-botter with a swap-botting emergency and you haven’t heard from me, I am sorry. My excuse is only that I can’t keep up with it all on a daily basis, but I think maybe I will catch up this weekend. Maybe.

Travis and I released a beta version of GROUPS on Swap-bot, which is exciting. Although, it is a much bigger project than two people can handle while working full time at other jobs… Oh well, we will hold it all together with twine and duct tape like usual and everything will work out. The awesome news is that there are some amazing swap-botters who are being a tremendous help. It is so rewarding when our members respond positively. It just makes me wish we could make Swap-bot perfect for them. Someday…

I created the little image above with elements from a digital scrapbooking kit from Two Peas in a Bucket. The graphics are by Rhonna Farrer and they are for personal use only. (This is my personal blog, so I hope that counts.) I basically do digital scrapbooking everyday at work and I have been using Photoshop almost everyday of my life for the past eight years, so I am curious about the digital scrapbooking stuff. I should really create my own designs, but I wanted to see how the kits work. How many people do digital scrapbooking? I mean it is pretty intense. You have to have a powerful computer, not to mention Photoshop, which adds up to a pretty pricey endeavor just to make scrapbooks… I figure the people who have that type of equipment have to be graphic design professionals of some sort and could basically create designs themselves… of course that takes time. I am just wondering if digital is popular in the scrapbooking world…. let me know if you are a participant.

Ok, I am off to answer emails. Wish me luck! xoxo

1 Comment » Categories: Projects, Swap-bot, Work, design

Jan 18th 2008 02:09:16 pm

I am not quite ready for the whole child-rearing stage of life, but when/if I am, I am going to read Cookie magazine. I picked up the latest copy at the gym to read while on the elliptical. (It was either that, or a raggedy old copy of Entrepreneur magazine. All of the InStyle mags at the gym seem to go missing within a day…) Cookie seems smart and stylish, yet practical – for people who have a family, but also continue to have adult interests. Not really a “parenting” magazine, it has more of a “family lifestyle” focus. Having kids really scares me because I don’t want to lose myself in the process. It is good to see people who are amazing individuals and who also happen to have strong families.

4 Comments » Categories: Family, Magazines, Thinking

Jan 16th 2008 03:44:19 pm

watching: 

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles… even though it is on Fox. I love the Terminator movies and I am quite attached to Linda Hamilton, the original Sarah Connor. In fact, I don’t really like this new chick pretending to understand what it is like to be Sarah Connor when she hasn’t lived through all of the tough stuff that Hamilton survived. Maybe I will warm up to her… The show is basically T2 with a little more time travel and a female Termy (that is my own shorthand) mixed in. Basically, it is awesome. Although, I would watch anything that expands on the Terminator story line…

eating:

Raw almonds… because Dr. Oz says to.

reading:

Domino magazine… ick. When I first subscribed I thought this home decorating magazine was right up my alley. Now it seems like everything featured is from France and costs an average of $3,000. Cottage Living is way more my speed.

listening:

To the Juno soundtrack.. and yes, I love it just as much as you do.

6 Comments » Categories: Food, Magazines, Misc, Television, music

Jan 13th 2008 08:05:02 pm

I washed dishes, did laundry, vacuumed, and made chicken noodle soup today. Plus, Travis and I put in a solid amount of time working on Swap-bot. Travis is creating a very cool new groups feature for the site. We hope to release it sometime really soon (this week-ish) and I think it is going to rock the socks right off many of our users. I am looking forward to it. Right now I would like to be cuddled up on the couch eating Hint-O-Mint Newman-O’s and forcing Travis to sit through another amazing first season episode of ST:TNG… but Travis is at his basketball game and I can barely work the tv-xbox-dvr-stereo contraption without him, so I am putting in some quality crafting time. I am creating a few matchboxes for my upcoming February Love Matchbox Swap. Go join up if you haven’t yet. The deadline in coming up! Ok, now back to gluing tiny bits of string to glittery paper….

1 Comment » Categories: Crafts, Swap-bot

Jan 13th 2008 05:03:55 pm

We made the plunge and ordered the bedroom furniture from this post. What can I say, I am a Pottery Barn addict – it is troubling, but I just can’t stay away. Most of the items will arrive before my birthday, so I am super-pumped. I can’t wait to put my clothes away in an actual piece of furniture! All of the plastic bins are being relegated to the basement so that I don’t have to look at them anymore. Can you believe that we are finally going to have an actual bed with actual side tables?! Wild!

We also picked up a few of the graphic garden plates while we were in the store ordering everything. Is it possible to OD on the barn?

3 Comments » Categories: Birthday, Home

Jan 12th 2008 04:19:28 pm

I received all three of these craft books, Craftivity, The Crafter’s Companion, and Lotta Jansdotter Simple Sewing, from my parents for Christmas. Thank you, Mom & Dad! I haven’t read them all cover to cover, but I have given them each a good browsing. Lotta Jansdotter’s book is my favorite so far. I want to try out just about every sewing project contained in it. They are all so simple and elegant, just like everything Lotta designs. She is a Scandinavian-born designer who creates all sorts of things, like fabric, stationery, bags, clothing, and home goods.

The Crafter’s Companion , by Anna Torborg, is my second favorite because it is just about the exact book that I wish I had put together after I did my master’s project on indie crafters. The book profiles indie crafters, shows photos of their studios and work, and gives a project created by each one. The photos are all lovely and the projects are sweet.

Craftivity is a book dedicated to the DIY lifestyle and I would say that it is the most unisex of the three. It has more hard core projects like dining tables, beds, and screen doors, as well as your usual knit scarf and felted wool sweater pillows. Unfortunately, I have already seen many of the projects in Craftivity elsewhere, but there are still a bunch of technique tips that will come in handy.

I can’t wait to get started on many of the projects contained in my new craft books! However… this weekend’s crafting project is called Swap-bot site maintenance…

1 Comment » Categories: Books, Crafts, holidays

Jan 10th 2008 12:24:06 am

So, I guess there is this blog “thing” where people pick a focus word for each year. It is just supposed to be something you want to keep in mind throughout the year, like your one-word mantra. Two of my favorite bloggers chose AM and VITALITY. Very good choices. I am gonna go with HOPE – but not the feely-touchy, “hope is the song of my spirit” type of hope – more like anything is possible. I mean anything and everything actually is possible. I plan to make big plans all based on the HOPE that any, or all, of my goals are possible. HOPE is a belief in a positive outcome. And that is all you really need.

3 Comments » Categories: Just for Fun, Projects, Thinking, Website