I had a great time today!  Hanging out with my ma, looking at various crafty eye candy, and shopping.  Who can not like shopping?  Well, maybe the next day if it was overdone, but still fun.

Ma drove herself up to the house early in the morning and we all went out to grab some breakfast.   We went to Gilbert’s Deli in downtown Bellevue.  Always good food and always too much.

Jeff then dropped us off at the Meydenbauer Center where there was long long lines to get into the vendor faire.  It was quite funny how long it was because after we got our tickets to go in, the line was already gone.

We walked all the whole faire and gazed at all the new scrapbooking paper, embellishments, and tools like this glue tape gun.  We tried it after the lady showed us how ease it is to remove the carteridge as well as place it in backwards to cover the tape end while traveling.  Very handy!  So we both got one.

We also found this awesome booth / group called Cocoa Daisy.  I think I saw there stuff before and its basically a kit company where they bundle stuff together to do scrapbooking and have a new kit every month.  I ended up signing up for their subscription.  There kits had awesome stuff like 7Gypies, Jenni Bowlin, Basic Grey, etc.  All companies that I dig.

After this booth, we found good $1 bargains as well as the booth is what I all “Basic Grey” booth where they have all new Basic Grey lines.  Wonderful paper goodness. Everywhere in the faire had awesome scrapbooking products, but we soon got through the whole faire and was tired.  So we left to go home and upgrade Ma’s mac to OS X 10.6.

While the computer was installing 10.6, we popped over to the Value Village in Redmond where there is always awesome findings, but only lasted so long as we missed lunch.  So we picked up a pizza on the way home and called it a day.

Was that enough craftiness for the day?  Sure, but I did get in a bit of actually using crafts and created the front to one of my albums.  Finally.  With my newly bought stuff too! 

Now I am tired and so am sleeping in tomorrow.

Busy week.  that’s all i gotta say.  Did as much art as i could do everyday but haven’t posted to share with all AEDM peeps.

As part of {12.31} project, i’m working to find out what colors I want to use. I thought the project would start today but it sounds like it’ll be awhile before. So playing with colors and any holiday stock of paper and things to be ready for when the project starts.

Sleepy now.  Getting up early to do the scrapbooking convention and hanging out with the mother unit.  It’ll be fun.

Hey you.  Long time no writing.   Well, I’m back and might just write a bit more after this get together…

I’m not one for words or too chatty.  I wonder if anyone even reads this blog or is even interested in anything I post on here.  Write me a comment below if you do.  I’m curious.

Things going on around here?  Well, too much work is what I say.  What too much work give you?  A sore back and hips.  Oh am I sore.   It’s so easy to get off of work and sit down to cruise the web.   So easy in fact that it’s addictive and could keep a person occupied without too much thought needed.

First your looking at your email or the news or a blog you like to read.  A topic pops out at you so you go and search more on that topic or there’s a link on that leads you to more information.  Soon enough you’ve spent hours on end just going no where.  Sure. You’ve learned a bit more about sewing, saw a cute design of a room, or found out the next soap opera moment for Jon & Kate.   Is it really worth the few hours spent mindlessly in front of a computer after the amount of time spent at work in front of the computer?  Its addictive and as bad as a couch potato.

Of course, then there’s the mobile phone.   I work for a mobile phone company and so its easy to land the latest new phone, but is that a good thing?   Everytime I’m sitting and waiting I have the urge to pull out my phone and do something.  Look at email, at text messages, at facebook, or surf the web some more.  There’s always an urge to keep busy, to get that stimulus, or to be entertained.  It makes me wonder what’s all this media leading us to?

The only thing I can imagine what all this stimulus addiction would lead to is that scene in Wall-e where all the people on the ship “ark” are sitting in floating chairs with a screen in front of them.   Barely any body movement.  Barely any phyical interaction except for through the tele that is always on and always feeding info / stimuli.

So with this back pain, stiff hips, and irritable mood, what’s really worth my time?  Sitting in front of the computer or tv?  This is what I ponder.

This weekend ending up being a pretty good one.  Usually the weekend goes by fast

and I don’t get anything done.   I’ve cleaned out my craft room and made the extra stuff disappear.   THEN on Sunday, I found a great deal on a solid wood standing table off of Craiglist.  I’ve been looking on CL for-ev-ah!!  So I had to switch my organized room around to accommodate for it.

I have a little more organizing and cleaning to do but I am SO HAPPY!  I got a standing workstation.  So awesome.

I’ve also signed up for “A Prompt A Day” by Kelly Kilmer.  It’s a month of getting techniques and prompts from a person who does fantastic art journalling and collage.   I already done the first day’s work.

The background was interesting to make.  Adding a little paint when applying and adding layers of paint as you go.   This prompt was “Things that make me Happy”  With such a great day today, it was easy to make a list.  Jeff is at the top of course and today is our 5th anniversary!  Woo hoo!  Even though we got married on a leap year day, we chose today to be the one to celebrate.

On Friday, i surprised Jeff with a cake. On our wedding day, we bought got one bite of the wedding cake we got from Hoffman’s Bakery in Kirkland.  So I ordered one with what I could remember what we ordered for our wedding day.  Well, it turned out a bit different and freakishly heavy buttercream frosting.  When we got there, I realized I needed to ask for a princess torte.  The inners of the cake was good, but the thick buttercream on the outside was nothing special.  Totally could do without it.

So all is good.   Jeff and I went to Tully’s after picking up the table and the total came to $7.77.  Then later on we went to Relax the Back for a new tempurpedic pillow for me but came out with buying a tempurpedic mattress.  They cost a pretty penny but we got a floor model that hasn’t hit the floor.  So it’s new and we get 25% off.  Such a bargain that we went with it as we have been thinking about it for some time.

I swear we need to buy a lottery ticket with this such luck.

….is….   Ledeczki Anna!   Congrats!   This is my first blog giveaway and having more than 5 people post on one post.    Please send me an address to maryjojo (at) gmail.com and I’ll get it out the door on Monday!

Thank you all for playing.  It was a blast!

It’s exciting that many blog folk are doing this handmade exchange of birds to signify the new year to remind us of hope, positivity, and openness. I’ll post a picture soon but I am going along with the other blog-a-rinos and giving one of my handmade birds. So just comment on this item by Friday at 5 PM PST and I’ll randomly draw a winner. Woo hoooo!

Update: So I just added the lovely first bird I finally got embroidery done on.  Turned out pretty awesome I say.

I got Mochi done a few weeks ago.  It was quite fun to use the same SIS kit as well as the same Hero Arts stamp.   I’m definitely starting to get the hang of some of the tools I’ve had for awhile.

With the same kit, a few more LO came out of the blue. Since it was a kit with music theme items, it was easy to use some of the musical photos I have.


So fun! What a great KIT!

I just might get addicted to designing my own t-shirts because it was so dang easy and fun when creating these two lovelies…

I made one for Jeff and one for me.   We wore them both to the Ringo Starr and his all-star band.   It was unbelievably easy because I used my cricut machine to cut the stencil in freezer paper then ironed it on to some tshirts I bought.   They both turned out to really nice.   Toot toot.

Alpy!!

Originally uploaded by MaryJosie

Omg. Alpy was too busy today so jeff and I turn around at head home

Bunnies!!

Originally uploaded by MaryJosie

Oh so cute !!!

Gessoed art journal page.

Originally uploaded by Mariana.Josephine

Check out my art journal. It is so ready to be written and painted. Woo hoo!

FYI – this is also a test in publishing from Flickr. I have joined the other photo sphere (i.e. not google’s picasa)

So I’m lazy and posting all our images / videos at once. Enjoy!

More Images…

And another video: