2013: A Year in Pictures

January: Lots of Fresh Grapefruit Juice and Vodka Greyhounds Thanks to our Tree and Electric Juicer

February: Pack Walk With Our Big Friends

March: Dinner With Sara and Angi at Gertrude's is Just What I Need

April: We Say Goodbye to Our Friend Strega Nona

Joe Makes Us a Game of Thrones Dinner

and We See Oblivion with Jake

May: Funny Hat Bike Ride with Stephanie et al.

and Corey Meets Grumpy Cat

June: A Day at Rosie's Dog Beach

July: Kathleen and Mark Get Married

and We Go to a Diamondbacks Game to Celebrate Our First Date Anniversary

August: Corey Fixes the Sliding Glass Door

September: We Eat at Venezia's Like We're in Breaking Bad

October: Stephanie and I See The Avett Brothers Again

and We Take the Dogs on a Halloween Pack Walk After the Trick-or-Treat Parade

November: Corey Surprises Me by Reserving the Cotton Club for My Birthday Party

December: Corey Turns Our House Into a Winter Wonderland

and Greg Takes Tito and I on a Volcano Tour

Love and Happiness to All in 2014!

Project Life March

I'm currently working on June but I'm behind on my posting. Here is another favorite week of mine, but I had to cover a lot of it to share on the internet because I have a lot of pictures of kids from my school.

This week documents a student earning a Happy Meal for completing all of his timed tests in math, my tutoring kids, giving Strega Nona her medicine, the new pope getting elected, a field trip to the Arizona Science Center (best field trip ever!), spelling with Play-Doh, and finding some clips from my Amazon wishlist in Target.

I used a felt blue star border for my math star, and Lego letters for my tutoring kids. I used packaging from the Sparrow Clips to share the story of coveting the clips for so many years.

My friend Alana gave me a guinea pig calendar from Etsy a few years ago when she was my secret santa. I saved it and cut out all the cute guinea pig pics at the end of the year. I got those out to document Strega Nona getting her medicine and found the one of a pope guinea pig. Coincidentally this was the same week the pope was voted in so I had to use it. I don't know why I followed the story so closely on NPR all week, being an agnostic, but it was interesting to learn about the special shoes and all that stuff. However, Corey and I had a little off-color joke about it which is why it's covered for you. We are pretty PC people but sometimes we can't help ourselves.

Here's the rest of the week which documents the boys basketball team winning the championship, watching The Fighter and Property Brothers, and having lunch at Jimmy John's on St. Patrick's Day.

I printed The Fighter movie poster from the internet but The Property Brothers came from a magazine ad. I had a marathon and graded a lot of papers that night. Probably something I normally wouldn't deem interesting enough to share but with their picture from the ad I had to do it.

When we go to Jimmy John's I try to save the tape that holds my sandwich closed for this Project. I'm sure they had a whole team of people working on that tape design which saves me some crafting time. The St. Patrick's Day card came from an old Creating Keepsakes magazine insert. I cut it out and painted the letters with watercolor paint. It feels good to bust out the paint every now and then.

There's also an 8.5x11 insert this week. I made a collage pic from the multitude of exciting pictures I took on our field trip. It's a great way to get up to 20 pictures on one page which is why I mention it, but of course I can't share it because of all the innocent little faces on there. I get my collage prints from Walgreens but you can also make one yourself using Photoshop and help from The Nerd Nest.

Project Life 2013 Week 1

I haven't been sharing my pages, but I'm still doing Project Life this year. In fact, I've almost completely switched over to this form of scrapbooking. I like it because I get more of our life documented and it's easy to keep up with. Although there are special kits (super cute, coordinated to help you organize) that you can buy, I'm trying to use the supplies I've been hoarding since I started scrapbooking in 1997 (!) and the paper things that infiltrate my life: newspapers, maps, brochures, junk mail, magazines, fliers, and cards. That's the way I like it because it makes my album more personal to us while saving money and reducing the amount of waste I contribute to the world.

I love looking at other people's Projects so I'll share mine for others out there like me. I'm only going to share some of my favorites this year since it takes a lot of time to photograph and post everything; last year I only got to post the first half of my album before the year ended.

Behold, week 1, not one of my favorites but the very beginning is a very good place to start.

This is the first week of the year, which I fit on the first page.

This shiny Happy 2013 is actually junk mail from Hallmark. Free and saved from the landfill.

I took Strega Nona to the vet (who couldn't believe how old and healthy she was) and got my hair did on this day. The paper I used was a page divider in the address book section of a card organizer I have. I only use the organizer part, so I tore out the address book section and saved the artwork for this Project. Free and saved from the landfill.

My friend Audrey is teaching me how to knit. I always like to take a picture of her with her knitting project, but I forgot this time so I got myself with the handle to my yoga mat bag that I completed! Now I'm working on the bag.

I used some scraps of scrapbook paper, a Degas sticker from an art exhibit I went to 10ish years ago and never scrapbooked, and a cow pizza sticker that I would probably never use in a traditional scrapbook page. I feel like I can make some of those old, out of fashion supplies make sense in this Project. I used the Degas sticker to document a day I spent reading The Painted Girls and the pizza cow sticker to memorialize a trip to Pizza Hut.

Now I'm finally on Spring Break so I can get caught up on my Project and work on sharing more of my pages. Thanks for looking and please feel free to leave a link to your Project in my comments!

Project Life Week 17

A lot of school pictures this week! Looks like teaching is my life. Tuesday I took one more mural picture of a student who was absent on the day I took everyone else's. The desert was my favorite one too. Wednesday we did Play-Doh spelling. Thursday I had another student pass her timed test so we had McDonalds and she talked my ear off. So cute! That night I went to yoga. Friday we went on the lamest field trip of all time but at least it was free.

Here's a closer look at Monday. Strega Nona got a special visit from the pre-schoolers. She is a celebrity at my school!

Then it was Spring Break! Yay! I took this opportunity to use some goofy old letter stickers for my title. Somehow things I can't get to work in a traditional scrapbook look o.k. to me in a Project Life album.

Our nephew came for a visit on Saturday and played guitar. He's getting so good. I can't believe how much he's improved already since then.

We took the dogs for a walk on Sunday and coincidentally this was in the Sunday paper. I even cut the date out from the paper. Easy!

Monday I went for my annual! I always treat myself after. I got this post card at a book store that day to document the day.

Tuesday I knit with my friend Audrey at Starbucks. Corey called me a hipster.

Wednesday I had dinner with a friend I hadn't seen in awhile. Spring Break is my time to see friends I don't have time to see when I am totally consumed by school!

That's my week and a half!

P.S. Here is Nerd Nest's Week 17.

guinea pig fun

guinea pig + thug humor = good times

how I get crazy on a friday night

I just watched this rerun of Glee while cleaning Strega Nona's cage. I love this episode -- it makes me want to listen to Fleetwood Mac nonstop.

Speaking of which, when I went to the Avett Brothers concert in October, I took a picture of this guy standing in front of my friend Stephanie and I:

How rad is that?

And here is a gratuitous cute picture of us:


P.S. The Rumours/Glee picture came from gothamist.

P.P.S. Next I'm going to watch Project Runway All-Stars! EEK!!

quote of the week

Last weekend our friends Stephanie and Neil came over for some birthday tidings and to meet Stellaluna.

Neil couldn't get over how little she is. He said, "I didn't know chihuahuas came smaller than...chihuahuas."

Introducing...Stellaluna!

Once Corey got home and held this little dog he fell in love. He said, "'Looks like we've picked up another pathetic life form.'"

Since my school is not in the nicest neighborhood there are always strays running around. Most of the teachers have taken home dogs that we've caught on campus, a phenomenon known as "Crockett Dog." I've been at my school for 8 years and I've held out, but now I have my own.

Right now her name is Stellaluna, going with the bat theme and naming our pets after children's books. She has the bark of a big dog and loves following Corey and I around with her tail wagging. I think she weighs less than Strega Nona.

Halloween

This month Kerry Lynn Yeary has been jacked at Scrapjacked. Our challenge is to use her shadow box as inspiration and put a Halloween spin on it.

Each box with a little collage inspired me to use my Fuji Instax pictures from last Halloween. I made a mini collage on each picture. The blocky patterned paper lent itself to the boxiness as well.

The witch Strega Nona drawing came from a calendar my friend Alana got me from Etsy.

quote of the month

Me: Will you help me trim Strega Nona's nails?

Corey: Can we do it tomorrow?

Me: Ok, but you have to give Strega Nona a raisin.

Corey (turning to face Strega Nona & in a slightly louder voice): Because I have to call Michael.


P.S. Bet you haven't seen many pictures of a guinea pig running before. I call this one "Heading for Cover."

quote of the day

"In my whole life I've never seen a guinea pig pee before."
- a student (who will be 7 next week), after seeing Ratatouille pee this morning

Captain Skippyjon Jones

ScrapMojo Challenge 37 is: We want you to scrap a page about your name (or someone else). Do you love it, hate it? Perhaps you have your heart set on a different name. Well we want to know about it. Second part of the challenge is to try something new.

I did the origin of Captain's name. I thought scrapping the story of how he got his name would be a good place to begin anyway so this challenge was well timed.

I had a dream the other night, and when I woke up all I could remember about it was vividly seeing lime green and red. So my try something new is using colors from a dream as inspiration.

And I had another excuse to make a treasure map somewhere! It is our map to his name. I stamped it with the letter l and then filled it in with a brush. His name is hand stamped with acrylic paint as well. I managed to keep the mess to a minimum. The piggies and Captain helped.

I just got that cute picture of Captain in the reading tent printed too.

Some people make scrapbook pages about their kids.

The last challenge at ScrapMojo was, "We want to see a page telling us what you would do if you ruled the world. The second part of the challenge is to use stars."

Instead I did what it would be like if Ratatouille ruled the world, and she herself is a star. Everyone at school knows who she is after all.

Whenever Corey and I go to a salad bar I imagine how much fun it would be to let the piggies loose in there.
Corey said if Ratatouille ruled the world he would never go to a salad bar again.

In her spare time, Ratatouille enjoys long walks on the beach and surfing the web.

Ratatouille pretended she was a groundhog today.

The relationship between animals and children has always fascinated me. I've had a few pets in my life that have taken a liking to children more than others, and I wish I understood it better. I once had a horse that tried to buck everyone off her, but if you put a little kid on her back she plodded around like an old plow horse. Ratatouille is one of those animals.

Today my class and I took Ratatouille outside to see if we could see her shadow. Ratatouille is the best guinea pig for an activity like this because kids are her favorite. When kids reach in the cage to pet the piggies, Strega Nona runs inside the house and hides but Ratatouille soaks up the loving. Normally timid, she sat proudly in my arms this morning as I held her in the sunshine for the kids to observe her shadow. When we were done everyone got to pet her of course, and she held her head up high like a beauty queen. What a great pig.

So if you ask Ratatouille there will be 6 more weeks of winter.

In the picture above she is in the classroom cage waiting for some first grade loving.

My family is crafty.

I come from a family of quilters. I think quilts are cool. Sometimes I pretend like I'm going to make a quilt too, but sewing kind of makes me feel crazy with impatience so if it ever does happen it will probably not be for a long time.

In October my mom's quilting group held a quilt show. The quilt above is one my great grandmother made a long, long time ago. It's so old that the material is disintegrating. That is my dad with his grandmothers quilt, and he is wearing a shirt my mom made. He is also wearing a leather belt that he made and hand stamped.


When we first arrived at the show I wanted to take off and start looking around. My mom kept stopping me and making up nonsense and I started to get annoyed. The reason was that her friend Robin helped her make this class quilt for me as a surprise, and she was trying to find her so they could show me together. My bad.


Even my oldest sister is a quilter. She made this quilt for my mom.


My mom also made this quilt for the grandchildren Corey and I are never having. This is as close as she's going to get:

Strega Nona says she loves it!