On the road less traveled...

Happy Valentine's Day

[photo taken in St. Pete Beach, Florida - February 2, 2012. Shell found on the beach]

Where does the time go?

The last few months have just flown by.  I'm not really sure where the time has gone!  There are lots of things that I could update on...but where do I start?

Here's the finished product from the last post...hung up downstairs.  I probably should have planned just a little better with the colors, but it works.

[Tribute to Kayci, 2011]

Almost all "extra" time right now is spent on putting together my Stampin' Up! adventures.  I've been having a ton of fun with it, and am realy hoping that it will pick up more and more.  My website and blog are HERE and HERE.

Forever Young

When I turned 30 this year, there was something tough about it.  It was another decade.  I was no longer "twenty-something."  I'm not really sure why, but that kind of hit hard.  It was like I was starting some other chapter, although not.  I remember, as a kid, when I was with friends and we pretended to be older we were never over 29.  So somehow "30" was old.  Wasn't I supposed to be somewhere else in my life by now?  I had once thought that I'd have 2 kids by the time I was 26.  But where am I really supposed to be.  Maybe I'm in exactly the place that I am supposed to be...wherever that is!

[self-portrait, 1998]

Today (well techincally yesterday, since it's after midnight) would have been Kayci's 30th birthday.  But 13 years ago the world lost out on her and another bright light, Nick, in a fatal car crash.  ((My posts from 2008,  2009).  Each year that goes by it's like I have to recalculate how many years have passed, because it just doesn't seem possible.  But 13 years.  In 3 years she will be gone as many years as she was here.  Crazy.  She will forever be 16.

Tonight, my mom and I went to SweetLife for a birthday dessert to remember her. Kayci would have loved this place.  A creative little bakery, with a large variety of teas to choose from.  It would have been right up her alley.

[Happy Birthday!]

The anniversary this year, October 6, had an added layer to it in that last year the night before the anniversary her dad was diagnosed with multiple brain tumors that took his life within just a few short months.  I do find some comfort in knowing that this is the first year that her and Bob are together again.  I spent the anniversary of her passing working on a painting- I wanted and needed to be creative with paint to remember her. 

[Painted Oct 6, 2011, in memory of Kayci Mc-Curry-Armstrong and Nick Ferrer]

Nick and Kayci- we all still miss you so very much.  I have no doubt that the two of you would be living amazing and unbelievably creative lives.

Challenge Completed!

So here's what I selected as my inspiration piece of my pinned "want to makes":

 
(My pinterest site isn't loading right for a good screen shot right now)  But this was pinned from Noodle-head.com with a great tutorial.  I loved the look of the gathered front, and wanted to try it out myself.  The tutorial on noodle-head includes a divider and card pockets, I eliminated both from my version because I wasn't going to have time to try that and make this challenge deadline.

 
[The supplies I would use.]

Stampin' Up! recently came out with fabric, and I ordered a pack (it comes in a back of three coordinating prints...perfect for this project) and thought I'd try it for this little bag.

 
I won't include a tutorial, because there's one on the original website (although I modified this some).  The button was originally going to be a decorative element on the front.  And as you can see, I had the zipper all ready to go as a closure...but that didn't end up working out for me.

I fought and fought with the zipper, and then my bobbin wasn't cooperating, so I had to do a lot of seam ripping...

 
...and finally I ended up giving up on the zipper and just focusing on the bag itself.  I'd need to find Plan B as a closure.  I even did the french seams on the inside, so that there are no fabric ends hanging out.

 

[And then, just when I was almost done...my machine needle snapped.  urgh.  Thankfully I stock up on those kinds of things and had an extra couple of them stashed away!]

 

The ruffle effect was pretty cool, and not very hard.  I will find other projects to use that on for sure!  A button closure ended up being my Plan B.  I would have rather the zipper...and I'll probably try this project again with a little more patience and a zipper that is a better size.  (Part of my problem may have been that I had to re-size the zipper and let's be honest, that was a ways past by sewing skills!)

 

The inside was lned with a coordinating fabric...and then the back was just plain...no ruffles.

 

One more picture of the completed project!  I'm glad I managed to finish it!!

 

I have to admit I kind of hurried through this project...for one I really wish it had a zipper, and if I did it again I'd change how I sewed the liner.  I'm much prouder of projects like my TV unit that we redid a few months back.  But that also involved a lot of prep time in my mulling-it-over stage before I even tackled it.  I am, however, inspired to pin more and try more thanks to this challenge!

Thanks to Katie and Sherry for starting this awesome challenge with Emily and Lana!  Totally loved it.  Did anyone else join in?  I want to see what you all did!!

Summer Pinterest Challenge

Because I have nothing else to do.  (see last post...) No other challenges or goals that I have set for myself.  (note: heavy sarcasm).  Why not take on another thing?  *sigh*  Why can’t there just be more hours in the day?  Why can’t the clock just stand completely still for one week so that I can catch up with everything around me? So what am I adding to my list of things? 

One of my favorite blogs, Younghouselove, has partnered with Bower Power along with Emily Henderson- from HGTV's Design Star and now her own show, Emily Henderson-Secrets of a Stylist for this very cool Pinterest Challenge.  The idea is to make something that has been pinned on pinterest. 

Here's their video 

 

Pinterest, ...btw, TOTALLY addictive.  How great is it that I can now peruse the web, and with the click of one button catalog that picture later I'll know where I got the idea from.  Perfect.  All on my boards.

Seriously though.  It's a great place to catalog ideas and when I am in need of a little inspiration...there it is! And I have a few ideas of what to make.  They said to post by tuesday...hmmm....can I make that happen?

So...

The project that was...

Once upon a time I started a project that I called Project 365.  Yes, and then suddenly, it was the end!  Yikes.  Here’s what it looked like when I started...

I was doing good keeping a decent mix of journaling and pictures.  Doing something to document each day.

There were a couple of spots I was going to pull blog journaling later...but I was keeping up.

I was excited when I made it to month #2, and so I had kind of a fresh rush with the project.

And then by mid-February I was playing some catch up again...

 

And it wasn't long after that that the wheels totally came off.  I started putting a sticky on each day so that I would remember what I wanted to do for that....but then it was just stickys...and then I just skipped a whole bunch all together...stuck in a random one for my birthday (bottom right corner) and the rest of the binder is blank.  Blast.

It’s actually really cool to go back and look at my entries for the days that I did.  I wih I had been better about keeping up on it. 

Ali Edwards has been doing this project (with the actual kit) this year too.  I've been paying more attention to how she has done it- and it looks like she collects over the course of the week and then works on it at the end of the week.  I'm thinking that maybe that would have worked better?  I was trying to be in my studio every day...but the reality is that it just didn't happen.  And then I was out of the groove. 

Ali also does an annual “Week in the Life” project, and a few weeks back I thought that maybe that would be something more up my alley.  Doing the project for a full year got lost…but for a week?  I managed 2 full months…I could do a week.  So I printed out these great little PDFs that she made to help with the project.  And then I didn’t think about it again.  And then as I was doing my usual blog tour (the blogs I try to hit with real regularity to see what’s new) I discovered that she started the project on Monday.  And it’s now ... it's Sunday and her week in the life documentation is over.  Urgh.  The beauty of it, of course, is that it can be started at any time.  I just have to find the motivation for it.  And I need to be ready for it so that I don't just let it peter out again.

So now the question is what do I do with the 3 months of my P365 that I started?  I may just have to incorporate the pieces into 12x12 scrapbook pages.  Then I can at least stick them into my albums....(which I am sooooo far behind in too!)  That or a mini album...but the format I had just doesn't make as much sense now that it's not full.  I suppose that I could also leave it in the dividers and put the 8.5x11 pages into a bigger scrapbook too...we shall see.

D keeps telling me I need to cut projects, not add them.  He says I have too many irons in the fire, I'm not quite able to do anything completely.  *sigh*  I refuse to believe that.  (Although I know he's right.  shhh.....don't tell).   But I can't stop trying new things.  Hello.  My name is Sarah and I'm a craft addict.

And stay tuned...because I found something else I want to do!  ;)  of course.

Mischief Managed

About 3 weeks ago I remembered there was a project that I've been wanting to get around to for...oh, a year?  :)  So out came the sewing machine…oh what might it be?

[Sewing Machine hard at work…circa 11:30 pm on July 12, 2011]

Some time later and more frusteration than I'd like to admit later before I figured out how to make all the seams look the way I wanted them to...these were created:

And by the 14th, it was all wrapped up like this:

And off I went to deliver the owl post to McKenzie.  (I also had a small one for Marcus).

This was one exited girl!  SO AWESOME!  When I got to the door, she had already drawn the lightining bolt on her forehead.  But when she told me she had the scarf from last year and a cloak, I nearly had a heart attack.  You have a what?!  I was relieved to hear that it was just a black cape from a former halloween costume.  Whew!!

[The opened owl post!]

[And here we are...ready for the movie!]

And off we went!  First we stopped to visit Casey at work- had to show off the robes!  And then we grabbed Five Guys for dinner and headed to the theater.

And a little magic before we head in...

[Our wands were picked up outside Casey's office...the robes need to be modified for wand pockets!!]

And an iphone photo once we we were in line:

The movie was, as expected, awesome.  But it was a little sad that it was the last one of the series.  I  know that I looked forward to the next movie with McKenzie at least as much as she did!  We went in July 2009, and November 2010.  Had such a good time each time! 

As I was going through blog posts, I discovered I never posted anything last year about our Harry Potter night!  And I barely have any pictures at all…makes me wonder if Casey took the pictures?  Because I doubt we made it out the door without taking any…but must not have been on my camera.  The only one I have from last year is this one from my iphone:

While we were waiting to be let into the theater (we were there by 9pm for the midnight movie) we walked around the mall a little and wandered on into a little store with lots of random costumes, masks and things, including super hero costumes!  (I tried to convince McKenzie that she should wear a superhero costume for her speech for vice president…I didn’t get very far!)

McKenzie- I love this tradition.  And we will have to find something to take it's place...I'm sure there will be more movie costumes in our future!  ;)

Birthday Adventures

In March, a few weeks before my big three-oh, I posted about what I referred to as my “Forgotten List.”  When I turned 29, I made a list of 29 things I wanted to do before I turned 30.  Of course I had forgotten about it entirely.  And so there was a little bit of a mad scramble to check off a couple more items.  To be clear, I have done some of the items before…they were just things I wanted do for the first time, or do again before I turned 30.  So I had just a couple of last minute birthday adventures!

So I managed to complete 8.5/29 of my “to-dos before I’m 30.”  (and to be fair only 7 of the 20.5 items left were things I’ve never done before….namely,  #4: lose 40 lbs and keep it off, #5: Go to the range to learn to shoot, #6: Learn to waltz, #7: Apply to train at a national DV program, #8: Go fishing, #10: Finish the deck, and #23: Watch the star wars movies.  But on to the things I did do!

The night before my birthday I decided that I would try to check of #11, “bake a batch of cupcakes from scratch.”  They were supposed to be some form of Red Velvet cupcakes…I have to honestly say I wasn’t all that impressed.  The frosting was a version of cream cheese frosting.  Personally, I just wasn’t thrilled with the results of either…but others seemed to take a liking to them, as they were gone pretty quick!  I totally forgot to take a picture of the finished product too!!  But here was the mess I made:



Casey asked me to take some time off the morning before my birthday, she had some plans for me.  We went to breakfast, at Off the Waffle...super yummy waffles, with the un-expected on them.  Pears and cheese?  Yes please.

At the end of breakfast she presented me with a card that seemed to lay out the plans for the day.  We would be doing #21 and #12.  Of course I couldn't remember what they were...so I was left guessing for a little while.  First we headed to the mall, for #12, “get a pedicure.”

Then we bummed around the mall for a little while and before too long found ourselves at Cinnabon.  Love their cups.  Casey has turned it into her blog banner, and I love it.  So true.  Life does need a little frosting. (And we were messing around with camera aperture to blur the background).

From there we went to The Potter’s Quarter to get to work on my #21, “Paint a piece of pottery.”



On my actual birthday, I came home to Dave putting out barkdust in the front yard.  While not specifically enumerated as something I wanted to do (other than in just a general get the house landscaped, encompassed in "finish the deck"), I was really greatful to see the front yard looking much better!

And birthday flowers...all my favorite kind.  Love them! 

Dave took me to dinner with Casey, Marc and the kids to Chapala's.  And Casey and Marc presented me with some supplies for #13, “Host a deck party.”  Because every good deck party has margaritas!  So let’s just call that .5 completed!

[neglected to actually take pictures of the glasses....I guess that will have to wait until the other .5 of this to do is completed!]

Dinner wasn't complete without a sombrero either.

...until Marcus stole it that is...

wow.  I can't believe I'm 30.  (Actually 30 and 4 months by now....)

Check it out!

So I've been super busy putting together a new blog/website for all of my Stampin' Up! stuff.  I'd really like to be able to take off with that...

check it out... It's my new CREATE blog (at www.sarahsabri.typepad.com/create) ...there are apparently some problems with the first link

I need to get it all linked up on the side bar on this blog.  A "to-do" for tomorrow!  Let me know thoughts?  I'd love to hear what should be/could be changed or added!!

If Only...

...we were still here.  A vacation would do me a world of good.

[Metolius River.  June 2011]