Shopping with E-Mealz

On Sunday, my youngest daughter and I went shopping at Walmart with our E-Mealz list in hand which I must say is awfully convenient. We altered it a bit because this week is yet another busy week and we will only be eating from the plan three times during the week if we are lucky. I already had some meat thawed out for dinner for the weekend, but we didn't use it because we had people over Sat for a steak and crab feed and then on Sunday we had leftovers. Who wouldn't love leftovers from a crab boil and grilled steaks instead of ground venison?

Anyway, we headed to our local Walmart Sunday afternoon after my daughter cleaned her dad's office. We had to get a few things other than the things on our short list so I don't know what the final total was on the food end of the bill. Plus, I found a few things I didn't need in the scrapbooking aisle. They had some adhesive on clearance and who doesn't need adhesive, right? The cool thing I bought though was a Fiskar's craft knife. I needed a new x-acto knife, but hadn't purchased one yet. I got the one above for $3! I've always wanted this knife, but couldn't justify it. Now I own it and I am very excited to use it. So much for saving money with my E-Mealz plan.

When disaster strikes, go shopping

So this past week, I have been doing a little retail therapy to replace the paper I lost during my art studio flood. I've spent a little bit too much money on paper I plan to use, but may just become my stash. Fortunately, there have been a few sales at my local JoAnn's as well as Michael's which I have to rely on because we don't have a LSS here on the north side of town anymore. In fact, I think there is only one place left in this big city of ours. We really have to rely on chains and big box stores for supplies or drive to the valley which is about a half hour away. I miss getting all of the new and latest and greatest and settling for what the chains have in stock. My old LSS owner used to go to CHA and buy the coolest paper. That store was truly current. I could order online, but there is just something about browsing and touching paper that is just so exciting to me. Even though I had to settle for chain choices this week, I was able to find a few cute things that I didn't have in my currently inventory. Here is one of my favorite pieces I bought from Cloud 9 Designs. This is Cinnamon Stick, but I also bought Chocolate Mint. Both so cute! Glad I got it because it looks like it is unavailable online. Maybe there is an up side to a chain store with old stock.

What did you buy with your Michael's coupon?

A little more retail therapy here! Last weekend, I went to Michael's with my coupon in hand to buy something. What? I was clueless but I had a coupon that I just thought I had to use. After all, it was my birthday so I deserved a little gift right? Not that I needed anything mind you, but I wanted something new. Well, I wandered the store. Up and down the aisles. I wanted a Martha Stewart scoring board, but my coupon said no Martha Stewart products. I thought, hmmm what big ticket item could I buy. After all, it is my birthday on the 11th. I deserve something fun! Of course, no Cricut items included. So I headed to the cutter aisle thinking I might enjoy a new cutter for the cabin. Sure enough, I found this cool cutter that I wanted. Just then I looked up and saw that it was already 40% off. So I took it off the hook and handed my coupon to the lady next to me. Thing is, I like it so much that I may have to go back for another because I want this one for home. I love the pre-marked measurements. The only drawback it that it doesn't fit in my 12x12 plastic boxes which I use for hauling projects. Maybe I will just save my money.

Too Many Photos

I just had to pick out my photos out for my i.Scrap class. I am supposed to pick out nine photos from last year to go with my i.prompts. Wow did I take too many photos last year! I love to take pictures and I am always worried that I may miss that one great shot so I take about three of everything. I think when I am done here, I need to go through my photos and do a spring cleaning as I'm backing them all up to my external hard drive. I did finally get down to nine. Here are a couple of my favorites pictures of the year. I have uploaded all of them to Walgreens so I can pick them up tomorrow and then get started on the rest of my assignment. I am probably about a day behind, but it won't take long to catch up. One thing I do know is that based on all of my photos, 2010 was one amazing year! By the way you can still sign up for this fun class at BPC.

Another fun crafter to follow!

Here is another great lady that loves to craft. You should take the time to get to know her by following her blog. I first met Missy when I somewhat randomly became her roommate at the SLC Cricut Swarm. We had the best time! She is a warm, funny and creative person who I would bunk with anytime. Missie is also full of great ideas she wants to share with you. Hop on over to her blog, Created by Missie at http://createdbymissie.blogspot.com/ She has so many creative projects to share with you!

i.Scrap

Well, I did it! I dove in and just signed up for the i.Scrap mini album project with Stacy Julian on Big Picture Classes. Stacy is the co-founder of Big Picture Classes (BPC) and was the editor of Simple Scrapbooks, one of my favorite publications although it is no longer in print. To top it off with a big red cherry, she lives right here in the same town I do! I am so excited! I think it is just what I need to get a little motivated to scrapbook right now. I need to create. I feel a need to create. This will get me off the couch so to say. Plus, it is online so I don't have to leave my snowy driveway except to go to work and pay for said scrapbooking classes and paper addiction.

I love this project album because it is about "I" statements. We have to come up with nine photos and "I" statements to go with those photos. What I like most about the project is that it focuses on me and allows me to tell my own story which I said in an earlier post is so important. No one else can tell people who you are or who you were or if they do, I know they will get it wrong. It also allows me to go through a years worth of photos and figure out which ones I really love. It is almost like scrapbooking my year in one little album. I haven't come up with my photos yet and I haven't gotten my i.Statements figured out, but you better bet that I will be thinking about it all day when I should be doing other things. Bonus: I get to go do a little retail therapy after the loss of my paper in the laundry room flood. I am soooo excited about this project. Did I mention that already?

Hooray for Other Bloggers!

Hey all! I just want to give a shout-out to a great lady named Liza who I met when I went to a Provocraft Swarm in Salt Lake City last Oct. My sister and I met her and even hung out with her in her room when we hanging out with some of the members of the Cricut Circle of which I'm not, but they let me hang out with them anyway. Liza's blog, Hoo's Crafty is a lot of fun to follow if you like paper crafting. Liza is full of great ideas and crafty projects to share. Take some time to get to know her by reading her blog at http://hooscrafty.blogspot.com
Enjoy!

Project 12 Questions

As promised, here is a list of the questions I used for my version of "Project 12." If you missed what I'm talking about, check out my previous post. This is so easy anyone can do it and the best part...your journaling is once a month and in the cloud so you can do it from anywhere you have internet including a smartphone! Follow me to see how I complete my project! Only one more month to go!

March ??, 2011
The best thing about today:
My favorite TV show right now:
My favorite song right now:
The last movie I watched:
The last book I finished:
The last blog I read or podcast I listened to:
Major accomplishment:
Something I am looking forward to:
Something I am dreading:

Most fun/exciting thing I have done this month:

Someplace I went/shopped/visited:

The nicest thing that has been done for me lately:
What I ate for dinner last night:
Someone I'm thinking about today:
The last person I spoke to on the phone:
The last person I texted with:
Something new I have learned or tried:
One thing I love about my life right now:

Google Docs for a 12 Months Worth of Journaling Project Made Easy

I am almost at the end of a year of a project I may actually complete since I haven't been very good at the Project 365 thing. It just somehow seems like a lot of pressure to take photos and download them and upload them and then write about them every single day. Then there is the question of what to take do I take a photo of today. I somehow miss some step along the way and it is usually the take the photo part. Seriously, our life isn't very exciting and even the boring photos became redundant. Just how many photos do you want to look at outside my window at work?

As a family historian and scrapbooker, I do feel that it is really important that we tell our own story and chronicle our lives. Frankly, no one else can do it and no one else will try until we are dead and then as we all know, they WILL tell it wrong. So last April, one month after my birthday and several failed attempts at Project 365, I decided to do something I could keep up with instead of something that was fun, but created a lot of pressure for me.

I guess you can call it Project 12. I took a series of questions, typed them into Google Docs and saved them. Then I copied and pasted them 12 times following a month so what I had was April and then the questions and then May and then the same questions and so on. Then around the middle of each month, I would go into the document and answer the questions. I tried to do it close to the 15th of each month, but sometimes I did it around the 20th. I didn't want any pressure. I also knew that I would have at least one photo of myself and/or my life each month because I am always snapping photos, but it always comes in spirts. Again, this was not difficult and I didn't feel pressure to keep up. Now I am almost at the end because today I completed my second to the last entry. Only one more month to go! Yay me! I may actually finish a project! Keep a look out here at my blog or better yet, follow me as I will give you my questions in a later post.

Jan 9th Photo/356

Jan 8th and 9th brought a visit from the man in brown. The UPS man delivered two packages from Creative Keepsakes over the last two days! Yesterday, he delivered the December kit which has been in route for over a week and a half, but wasn't delivered due to poor weather conditions. The Dec kit is called "Little Stories" and comes with 12 little board books. I ordered it to do a little book once a month to cover our lives in '09. In fact, I was going to call the set that, "Our Lives in '09". After I ordered it, I found out about "Project 365" through an email newsletter which sounded like a lot of fun and I wanted to do it instead so I ordered it on Jan 1st. Today the 365 kit was delivered! It is pretty cool! I couldn't wait to open the box. Becky Higgin's this is a great idea and will be very simple to follow as long I continue to follow my photo routine. See Becky's blog entry about understanding the concept of Project 365 and how scrapbookers and non-scrapbookers can succeed in documenting 2009m using this kit: http://www.beckyhiggins.com/blog/2008/12/understanding-concept-of-project-365.html

Now that I have both kits so I'm going to do theme albums for each month with the "Little Stories" kit as follows:

• All about albums for the months of Jan, March, April, September, and October because those are the birth months for the people in our family.


• Feb: Skiing


• May: Livestock Shows


• June: Camping


• July: The Pool


• Aug: Back to School


• Nov: Thanksgiving


• Dec: Christmas

Then I'm going to work on the "Project 365" Album daily. I'm very excited! Here is a picture of both of the kits I've received in the last two days. Plus, I even tried the manual settings for the first time on my Cannon SLR when I took the photo. Thank you UPS man and Becky Higgins!

Canon Rebel EOS XT, manual, no flash