i'm in the o.c. but where's seth cohen?

so, i've arrived at cha all safe and sound! man is that 6 hour flight more than a little boring! i got into the hotel around 9ish and unpacked right away, i totally have to like move in to a hotel room, i hate that living out of a suitcase feeling! the "closet" is full, the bathroom counter is covered and my work station is all good to go. and yes, i am a total nerd. i had a killer quesadilla, a sierra nevada and went to bed early, well early for west coast time, and had an odd time with the feeling of this huge king size bed. at one point i woke up sleeping on it sideways, there's something really disconcerting about sleeping on a perfect square!

my slow morning consisted of  watching "jumper", doing a little preemptive class planning so that i know what to order extras of and going over my notes for the show via text message with dawn. then i headed over to the convention center, making a quick stop at the starbucks in the hilton on my way. much to my excitement they had the hot cup sleeves i need for my class next month, and the barista was nice enough to give me a bunch of them! anyway, i got my pass printed, it's best to beat the rush there will be tomorrow morning, grabbed some of the catalogs that were out on the literature spinny thing and then sat outside enjoying the palm trees for a little while. you just can't beat some palm tree shade in january, it does my state of mind good!

so, right now i'm trying to decide where to have dinner before i head over to the s.e.i. presentation party and then it's time for some more notes and resting up for the first day of the show tomorrow! i should have some way more exciting posts after tomorrow! 

i'm good, i'm (almost) gone

so i've been running around like crazy getting ready to leave for cha tomorrow (well i guess today, legally, eek!). some of you may know this about me, but i love to have things perfectly set up when it comes to stuff like this and pretty much love any excuse to label, make lists & create organizational systems. so, before every show i make myself a little notebook to keep all my notes, booth listings (alphabetical & by booth #)  and any items i need to remember to re-order at the show all in one place. anyway, here's my little notebook for this years winter show, gotta love that bind-it-all!

ooh! i also wanted to share my most recent workout mix for all you peeps with the wii fit, or any sort of workout plan, i guess. this is the latest draft of what i listen to when i'm doing the "30 minute free step". it's just over 30 minutes, and it starts slow, gets more upbeat and then winds back down so you aren't dieing by the end. i usually do nerdy little moves like changing my lead foot & knee lifts during the faster parts of the upbeat songs so that i get the most out of it.  just make sure you are listening to the bass beat on a lot of the tracks or you'll end up going too fast for the balance board to properly read your steps. for the most part though i don't really worry about going to fast for it because it's about the workout you're getting, not the end "score" or whatevs. anyway, here it is;

01. "walking" by the dodos

02. "i'm good, i'm gone" by lykke li

03. "sunrise" by yeasayer

04. "i don't wanna be in love" by good charlotte (yeah, i said good charlotte.)

05. "get myself into it" by the rapture

06. "shut up and let me go" by the ting tings

07. "pot kettle black" by tilly and the wall

08. "electric feel" by mgmt

09. "for emma" by bon iver

a little random, but it totally works. i'm sure i'll need a brand new one in a couple of weeks, but for the time being, this is one is totally doing it for me.

anyway, i'm off to finish up the packing i can do tonight, dvr all my shows for the week, and then it's off to sleep, if i can stop making lists in my head that is! my flight leaves at 5:30 tomorrow evening so i still have time! i'm not sure what form it will be in yet, but i'll definitely be blogging from the show, promise!

the new little miss in my life.

that little lady over there is little miss emma burd! marykate and i have been friends for so long that we're pretty much sisters, and we defenitly act like it, so we've decided that emma is my pretty much niece, haha. 

it's been so fun spoiling her with adorable outfits, little boots and her very first hoodie. she's over 2 months old now and marykate & i were hanging out at my house finishing her announcements the day this photo was taken, hence the sweatpants and bad hair, oops. 

yes, 2 months post-birth is probs a little late, but it was worth the wait because the announcements turned out really cute, if i do say so myself.

marykate's married name is burd, which makes my creative life very easy when it comes to making things for her, cori and now miss emma. i.e. "the burds have a new nest" "love burds" and most importantly, "there's a new burd in the nest!" i know, i know! supreme cheese, but it is supreme cheese that is supremely necessary!  

so for emma's birth announcements i used the adorable bird paper from basic grey's "urban prairie" collection with a little touch of pink patterned matting. the little egg shaped photo of emma tucked into the nest is actually a magnet when you pull it out. squee! (sorry!) anyway, of course they needed the embellished envelope touch, so i used my favorite memory box stamp  (the branch with nest is mounted regularly & the bird is mounted on the side of the woodmount, genius!) for the fronts of the envelopes. 

marykate sent them out this past week so hopefully we'll hear some feedback about them pretty soon, but in the mean time i'll share them here! what do you think?

oh yeah... i blog.

so, to sum up the past few months, i've been working, movie-going, rocking, shopping, creating, reading & a bunch of other things, but i was definitely not blogging, or even keeping up with people's blogs for that matter. sorry guys! (if anyone still reads this.)

anyway, this is what my table at home looked like on sunday. i have a new work form home day that i'm totally loving. and since i'm heading into philly tommorow, which would be my normal work from home day, i switched it to sunday. at this point i was taking a little break from class prep to check on the status of some orders and search for more cha release sneak peeks (has anyone else noticed that there really haven't been many this show?)  

ooh! and that's my brandy-new macbook aluminum in the photo, which i am on as we speak and still totally adjusting too! there are a few things i miss from my pc days (y'know like last week) like cutting and pasting and ms paint, which although a little ghetto, got me where i needed to go, haha. i'm really excited that's it's nice and light and it will be so much easier to travel with than the 20 pound dell.

speaking of travel, i leave for the winter cha show in anaheim friday evening and i'm kind of nowhere near ready. eek! or at least i don't feel ready. i'm probably closer than i think. i'm definitely curious about a lot of the manufacturers that haven't given any sort of peaks. i was thinking about doing a little video blogging from cha, but i'm not quite sure about that yet. i did a little test "filming" today and i'm a little spazzy and not very articulate, haha. but maybe i'll get used to it. who knows if anyone would even watch, haha.

well, i'm off to have my lean cuisine before the my class starts. i'm teaching the first of two sessions of "maximizing your 6 x 6 paper pads" heavy stuff, i know, haha. you can kind of peak the samples in that photo up there. : ) 

i promise to be a better blogger! 

lately...

say hello to little morgan, haha. i'm working on an 80's kid mini album using the sassafras "happy place" collection and it was pretty hilarious going through all the old pictures of myself. these here are some of my favorites (i left out the naked bathtub pic where i'm playing with all my snorks, mr. men, little miss', hello kitty and care bears figurines on the side of the bath tub). it's so funny to see what a totally weird kid i was, haha. but, there are defenitly some faces in these pictures that i still pop and i can see where a lot of my little personality developed. it's like totally radical!!! haha.

kristina (who is an awesome friend for many reasons, the lesser of which is her willingness to travel through the city to come to new jersey at ungodly hours in the morning) came to visit thursday to saturday. we took the train into philly thursday morning to get my hair did, which took way longer than it should have, and then we spent the rest of the day and evening people watching in the park, taking photos (which you may see later), sharing beers, a little bit of shopping and meeting up with my friend ashley and her mister, simon, at a really cute bar called apothecary that serves old-timey cocktails with like a million ingredients. k also came to work with me on friday which was followed by chinese food and a mini movie fest (baby mama - nay, iron man - yay) and then a slow day about town(s) saturday. all in all a relaxing little weekend.

the spoils of said day about town on saturday include the october 2008 issue of "print" magazine which is filled with yummy articles like; "pushing the envelope: an unusual treasure trove of letterheads", "kill your darlings: book designers' favorite covers that didn't see the light of day" and "breaking the news: designing tv's political satire" not to mention all the ridiculous eye candy/inspiration to be found in the press packets, package design and event art. so yum. anyway, i also got conor oberst's self titled & jenny lewis' new album "acid tongue". usually i'm a downloader of tracks, but with artists like these who i know i love i usually buy the actual album because i love to have them in my hands. i am really loving the new conor oberst, but i have to say i'm kind of dissapointed with the new jenny album. maybe i just need to give it a re-listen in a little while, but as of now all it's doing is making me want to listen to the previous albums. what has everyone else been thinking of it?

other than all the above i've just been ticking things off my long list of scrappy to-do's. i made a little mini of my pictures from our little daytrip to sea bright using the new crazy thick acrylic atc sized album from maya road, a ton of the new "urban prairie" line, new hambly & mini faux-laroids. i just took some pictures so i'll share soon. other than that i've been making lots of card kits for the store, working on class samples and getting back into a scrappy kind of upswing, which is a nice place to be. i've been spending a TON of time getting donations and planning for the crop too. i can't believe how close it's getting, november 1st really isn't seeming so far away anymore! like at all!!!

well, i'm off to work, i'll leave you with the lyrics to one of my favorite sing-a-long bits from a tilly & the wall song called, "the ice storm, big gust, and you." it's become my kind of mantra for lightening up that heavy boots feeling and energizing myself to just deal with things. ---

"we will sing pretty songs about love, and we will fight if that's what it takes, and we won't back down. no we won't shut our eyes and go to sleep. we will write all over your walls, and we will dance to no music at all. we will do what it takes to get through to you. no, we won't back down. no, we won't shut our eyes and go to sleep!"

dreaming of revelry...

okay, if anyone who lives in or around tennesee ever sees caleb followill (singer/guitarist) please let him know i would like to smooch his face! kings of leon always put out those albums that you can listen to all the way through without skipping a single song, but their newest, "only by the night" is the most addictive so far, although it is a tight race between their newest and "aha shake heartbreak". anyway, i've been listening to it pretty much non-stop since the day it came out and i had to share "use somebody" which is one of my favorites, and let you all know that even though he is rockin' some sort of crazy cut off sleeves i still totally love this dude.

and p.s. here's a quasi-random list of more albums that have come out in the past year that everyone needs to give a little try;

01. "re-arrange us" by mates of state (one of my all time fave duos!)

02. "fleet foxes" self-titled

03. "o" by tilly & the wall

04. "rhumb line" by ra ra riot

05. "oracular spectacular" by mgmt

06. "keep your eyes ahead" by the helio sequence (check out "love & distance" while you're at it)

new essentials for the autumn transition coming soon! as for now, i'm off to work on card kits for the store.

bzzzzzz!

i know i posted previously about being psyched for "pushing daisies" to begin, but tonight's season premiere night! eek! i only know a few people who watch it, but all of us who do love it like craaaaazy! y'all might know that i'm really not the romantic, mooshy squishy kind of girl, but this show is the perfect combination of quirkiness, gorgeous sets & costumes, adorable characters, sarcasm, inspiration on par with moulin rouge & crazy adorable love story that i actually care about! i always want to scrap afterwards and after making that little mosaic up there with pictures from flickr i want to scrap now!

here's my top 5 fave things about "pushing daisies";

01. the way ned & chuck hold hands (since they can't touch or she would be dead again)

02. when olive snook breaks out into song

03. chuck's adorable outfits

04. the awesome guest stars (joel mchale, molly shannon, paul reubens)

05. crazy inspiration; sets, colors, character names, cinematography: it's all totally fabulous

right now...

here it is. the little mini i was talking about. i've been using the heck out of this new october afternoon paper and this little mini book & embellishments that all pops out of one sheet of chipboard is genius.

it's full of the little things i'm loving, listening to and doing right now like peacock feathers, sweater dresses, pumpkin beer, "tilly & the wall", mustard yellow, making cards and other random stuff.

i used lots of the "hometown" paper, the love, elsie "forrest" chip buttons, my new trusty fancier dymo with more fonts, blingy bits & that little bit of hambly you see in the front window.

and i'm back in the game...

so this is what i've been up to lately, haha. lots of fall and halloween card making and a little "right now" mini that i'm dieing to share but it's been way too grey and rainy out to take pictures of it.


i've also gotten a lot of mass production type projects done. invitations for my best friends' baby shower and a ton of thank you's and a smaller batch of invites for another friend who is throwing a baby shower for someone. i'm defenitly over mass production for a while though, that's for sure


i've just been teaching a lot, loving work, playing with lots of paper & stamps and getting into all the fall tv. loved that everything thay made us think was going to happen on "greys" actually didn't and i'm totally into that badass army doctor dude, haha. hoping "heroes" is going to be better than last season because i'm soooo close to not even watching anymore. "the office" was hilarious as always, and i'm not gonna lie; i may have gotten a little misty-eyed during the truck stop scene, haha. i really can't wait for "pushing daisies" to start, i should probs just plan on scrapping every night after it's on.


the charity crop planning has been going really well and donations and registrations are already starting to roll in. everything is going to be all autumn-y and i'm even going to try my hand at making those chocolate pop thingies because i fell in love with some owl molds they had at one of the big bad craft stores. i should probably start practicing now, haha. and of course i altered myself a kraft colored composition notebook with some "mr. campy", complete with tabbies and the whole nine for all my crop planning stuffs because you know how i love to organize!


we've been spending a lot of time at work getting ready for our national card making day / holiday open house this coming saturday. putting together a wishlist/registry program, decorations, samples, a stocking stuffer bar and make & takes. i'm off now to work on the samples for my holiday wrappings class.


hope everyone is all comfy cozy on this rainy night!

+/-

i haven't done a good ol' plus/minus post in a while, or any blogging for that matter, oops!

+ current musical obsession = "pot kettle black" from the new tilly & the wall;



- it's stuck in my head like woah!

+ finally got to catch up with kristina! fun in long island followed by me kidnapping her for more fun/take your friend to work day in jersey.

+ it's officially fall since i got to have a pumpkin ale (with cinnamon sugar rim) with kristina

+ new fall clothes that i can't wait to wear (hello sweater dresses, grandpa cardigans, sweater vests and really cute flats on the cheap)

- my thirst for cute flats may be near satiated, but darn anthropologie for having the raddest selection of boots i can not afford!

+ at least i'll "totes" (hehe, k) be rockin' sweet feather headbands all fall!

+ "hometown" collection from october afternoon = love at first (well second, really) sight. it's not often that i buy a stamp set and use 5 of the stamps right off the bat!

+/- i can't stop making halloween cards! it's no secret that i'm always smitten with tons of halloween paper, but there are so many adorable halloween stamps out this year! there is really no end in sight.

+ for y'all since that means i'll be sending tons of halloween cards this year!

+ the new (october 2008) issue of nylon arrived today and zooey descganel is on the cover, love that girl!

+ fall tv is finally starting! it probably deserves it's own +/- list but for now, it simply gets a +. although, i will say this;

- i never thought that i would be so much more invested in chuck bass (a.k.a. the basstard or basshole) & b than s & lonely boy, i mean what the h?

+ my mum & i are planning a charity crop (just for this year, to help a friend out who was going to have to cancel it because of illness) and we just found a great venue for it. i've already started e-mailing companies, kit clubs & generally rockin' people for donations for baskets, door prizes and table gifts and i think it's going to be really rad.

+ i have scrappies to play with, which is exactly what i'm going to go do right this very minute!