Belated Thanks!

Eek!  So I had a whole thankful-for-blog-friends post planned for Thanksgiving Day, but then somehow time got away from me before we left to spent the holiday with my parentals (which was loads of fun by the way.  Also, if you are ever having a small Thanksgiving and don't want to do a lot of prep work, I would highly recommend La Madeleine's take-home dinner.  It was SOOO yummy!) and then I've been a bit crazy here the past couple of days since I've been back.

BUT it's never too late to be thankful, right?  I'm thankful for all of my loyal readers who stick around even if I don't post every day (or week).  And I'm thankful for the following blog friends who sent such nice happy mail!

Angela of The Paper Cupboard is a wiz at putting together all sorts of fun elements, like these labels and flower and patterned paper!  The flower is so pretty in real life, I almost want to wear it!

Lindsey of Bashful Blogging sent me this awesome Hallowe'en card (the apostrophe is for her benefit).  I love that swirly purple paper that looks handmade and the glowing vellum moon!

Emily of Art from the Heart sent me this OTTER MATH card to thank me for sending her some silhouette die cuts.  Did you see she even paper pieced that fish!??  Plus did I mentioned it has an OTTER and MATH on it? 

Maria of Crafty Cre8tions sent me the most gorgeous Thanksgiving card. She has magical distress ink powers that I wish I possessed--this card almost looks lit from within!  And I got it right as we were pulling out of the driveway to drive to Houston, so perfect timing!

And speaking of Maria, she recently celebrated a milestone birthday, so I made this birthday card for her:

Ha.  I totally crack myself up.  I used a little print-and-cut magic for the label, with patterned paper adhered behind the 39 and the "th" cut out and glued.  How much do I like Maria?  Well, I cut into my red metallic paper for the "happy birthday."  I think that says it all, doesn't it? 

And speaking of saying it all, I think I'm all done with my thank yous!  I hope to be back later this week (or weekend) with some new Market Street goodies as well as a big project I've been working on for my parents.  Stay tuned and stay thankful! 

Market Street Geek Love

Who's ready for some geek love?

I've been wanting to make a graph with the Pretty Perfect Grid ever since I got it in my hot little hands.  I started by stamping the grid in gray onto gray cardstock, leaving a bit of a border. Of course, we all know that you should always label your axes, and the two sentiments from Simple Joys were perfect to show my love for the hubby growing over time (to really geek out on you, I wanted it to be an exponential graph, but I think I would have gotten to x = 4 before it went off the card, so I went with the linear equation y = 2/3x + 1).  I thought about just adding some bling for the points, but then remembered this small little heart from Gone Campin' that was the perfect size!

Then, being the good stamper that I am, I clean off the sentiment stamps and start putting them back on the sheet, when what do I spy?   Yes, there is an actual equation in Simple Joys.  It was like Angelica knew there were geeks out there wanting to make a love graph.

One more note: If you enjoyed this post, thank your math teacher.  Or any teacher.  Maybe get your kids in the spirit of Thanksgiving and have them write thank you letters to their teachers.  Maybe write one yourself to that teacher that inspired you to _____.  Believe me, it will make his or her heart grow-and this time it definitely will be exponentially!

Market Street/Twinery Fishhook

As my dad always says when we pull in the driveway..."Fishhook!  End of the line!"  If you've just come from Monique's blog, then congratulations on making it all the way through the blog hop!  If you're just stumbled upon this fishhook (ow!), then you'll want to start back at The Twinery and leave a comment on each blog in the hop for both today and Friday in order to be entered in the big drawing.  You have until Friday, November 25th to comment.  The Twinery is giving away a free ultimate sampler pack and Market Street Stamps is giving away a $25 gift certificate!

I must give props to both Mr Corgi and my pal Emily for this card.  Emily always has the most creative, out-of-the-box inspiring ideas for using twine, but it was Mr Corgi who came up with the idea of cross-stitching with it using the cane background.

After I worked out the letters on a scrap sheet, I pierced the holes, then just backstitched the letters.  Doesn't the Computer Cutie look so happy to be blogging?

Here's a close-up of the stitching:

Hope you enjoyed the Twinery blog hop, and if you looking for some more nerdy cards, make sure you tune back in here tomorrow!

Questions and Answers

You've got questions, I've got answers.  
Q: Do you just wing it when you print the sentiment directly on the card, or does it come out exactly where you want it? -Maria


I wouldn't say it comes out exactly where I want it every time, but some tricks help me get it good enough ("Perfection is the enemy of the good").

1) Make a rectangle the size of your card in MS Word (I draw one, resize it on the drawing tools ribbon, then holding ctrl and shift, I drag it below.  The ctrl makes another copy and the shift makes it stay aligned.  
(You may be asking why I don't make my page landscape and print on half the paper.  The answer is my printer has really wide margins, so it's just easier for me to waste some paper rather than having the bottom half of the sentiment not print.)
2) Add a shape (oval, circle, rectangle) that best represents your stamped image and resize it to the dimensions of your stamp.  
3) Add textbox and move around until it looks good.
4) Delete the stamp shape, but keep your card lines (I print them in light gray) in case your printer doesn't print straight.
Of course, I usually try it on scrap paper first, too!


Q:  I wish I knew how to make photo collages like this-Crafty Math Chick


I'm probably shouldn't show you this, because when you find out how easy it is, it will be like I told you how they saw the lady in half.
Using Picasa (free!), select the photos you want in your collage and "pin" them using the green pushpin (top left button above the red circle).  Once you have all the photos you want, press the "collage" button (3rd from left)

Tada!  It will give you some options (I chose mosaic) as well as allowing you to shuffle the pictures (you can't drag and drop them exactly where you want them, though, like you can in picnik).  Then click "create collage" and voilà.


Q: Are you seriously holding a koala bear in that top picture? - Cute Animal Lovers
A: HELLS YEAH.  


Q: What is this word, voilà? - People Who Need Some Spelling Help
A: It is the word you are thinking of when you type "wal-lah" or "viola."  In other words of note, you go shopping down an aisle and you go vacationing on a isle.  A good way to remember this is that it is a pain in the a** to go shopping. 


Q: Have any more HYCCT favorites? - No One, Really, but a Good Segue
A: I do!  These were two faves that were way outside my normal card style:

This was for the collage challenge.  I actually made one collage and it turned out like crap, but fortunately I missed reading that it had to have pink, so I ended up making another one and this I actually like!  I stamped the leaves first and embossed them using Amuse Satin Pearl embossing powder, then used some text and medallion stamps to stamp over it. I used a 1-inch square punch because I seriously cannot cut 9 one-inch squares so that they are all exactly one-inch square.  That's why God created punches.  

This one just made me happy because it so unlike me!  I mean, look how girl and flowery and busy it is but I sort of love it.  The stamp is from Waltzingmouse, the paper from Webster's Pages.


Q: Have any good movie recommendations? - Me, because I feel it is my duty to spread the word about this movie
A: Yes!  Crazy Stupid Love.  Go ahead and buy the DVD because you will want to own it after you rent it, if only for the New Balance jokes.  


Q: Did you seriously not realize that segue is the word that everyone is saying when they say, "after talking about movie recommendations, she then "segwayed" into talking about the awesomeness of Friday Night Lights" until last year? - I Though You were Smart
A: Totally.  I knew what "segue" meant when I read it and I knew what "seg-way" meant when I heard it, but I never put the two together.  Thank you, "You Were Doing It Wrong" thread on Metafilter! (also Texas Forever!)


Q: What have you been up to crafty-wise, movie-wise, or grammar-wise?  -Meg
A: Leave it in the comments! 

HYCCT Faves

Edited to add: I am a bit behind in my email, and I just read the update that Katie Renz (of the "Swimming for Katie" blog hop) passed away yesterday morning.  Such horrible news.  When will cancer stop stealing people away when they are needed here? 

The donation link on my sidebar and the fundraising items at i {heart} papers are still live-all the information is here. 

Sympathy cards can be sent to:
The Renz Family
PO Box 5913
Bellingham, WA 98227-5913
For the extra cruel twist that cancer likes to throw in, all of Katie's boys will be having birthdays soon: the twins, Nate and Will, will be turning 6 on Nov. 19th and Hunter will be 12 on Dec. 1.  Her husband Kevin's birthday is November 17.  It has been suggested that we try to shower them with cards, just like Katie would do, so if you are so inclined, maybe you have an extra birtday card you could drop in the mail. Now that y'all have piles of kleenex in front of your monitor, I'll return to my original post: 
 
As promised, here are a few of my HYCCT favorites.  The theme for today is "friends are fabulous."

 

Angela of The Paper Cupboard sent me this fantastic stamp for my birthday. For some reason she thinks I have some sort of "keep calm" obsession.  Ok, so maybe I do have a wee bit of an obsession, and that was before I stamped it in pink.  Love!  The background paper is from the old Amuse website.  The new paper is reversed (pink on white) and I must admit I don't like it as much as the solid color.  A little bit of twine from my pal Emily of Art from the Heart was the perfect touch!

Ang was also kind enough to share one her recent prize packages that included some Anna Griffin stickers and papers.  I have three words for you: FUZZY.  PINK.  HOUNDSTOOTH.  (except blogger is telling me it should be hounds tooth so I guess that would be four words, but I don't think I agree with blogger.  SO THERE!)

Book Report Time!

Book #42: The best thing I can say about this book is that it was the first book I borrowed from my local library on my Kindle!  I really thought it might go somewhere, but it didn't.  Or maybe it did go somewhere and I didn't follow it. Either way, I'm not getting anywhere.  Amazon Link

Book #43: First of all, this book is about Stiltsville (a town in Florida made up of houses on stilts surround by water) in only the most tangential way.  I was really intrigued in how one would live on a house on the water (even if it was fiction).  Second of all, not only was there minimal talk of water houses, instead it turned out to be a (spoiler warning!)  HIP!!!  (Husband in Peril, not to be confused with PIP [pet/pregnancy/parent in peril]).  I can understand how someone would like this book, but it wasn't a subject matter I needed to be reading about at this time.   Amazon Link

Book #44: FINALLY!  I think it's been at least five books since I've had one that I would actually recommend, and recommend this one I will (says yoda).  I like Bill Bryson (loved A Short History of Nearly Everything) and this book was such a treat to read!  Every page had some interesting nugget of information I was sharing with Mr Corgi.  Plus a book that you can pick up any page at any time (although I recommend them in sequential order in the evening during a hot bath) with many discussions about word origins and the British!  What more could a gal ask for?  Amazon Link

Right now I'm on page 400 of The Passage, which means I'm....halfway through.  I've gotten two good reviews of it and enjoyed most of the first half, but it's slowed down quite a bit and I'm still not sure I want to dedicate another week of my life to second half.  Decisions, decisions....

I did it!

If you've been wondering where I've been the last week or so, here is your answer:

Yup, I finished a card for all 33 of the Hope You Can Cling To challenges.

I used stamps from Eat Cake Graphics, Market Street Stamps, Waltzingmouse, Unity, Stampin' Up, Kraftin' Kimmie, PTI, Amuse, Sugar Nellie, There She Goes, The Cat's Pajamas, Maya Road, Skipping Stones, Hero Arts, WPlus9, and Rubber Soul, along with a few items cut with the Silhouette.

Pattern paper includes October Afternoon, Pink Paislee, Anna Griffin (thanks, Ang!), Stampin' Up, Webster's Pages, Aspire Petallics, Amuse, My Mind's Eye, and S.E.I.

Other items used: copics, watercolors, ribbon, twine, foam tape, PTI dies, Amuse impression plates, self-adhesive pearls, clear embossing powder, white embossing powder, nestabilities, glossy accents, homemade chocolate chip cookies, and the latest season of Psych on netflix.

Rather than posting 33 pictures here, I'll just direct you to my SCS Gallery for all of the cards, and I also plan on posting some of my favorites throughout the week. 

Now I need a nap!