Animated Sketches...

This is just so beautiful. 

I am an Awesome Seamstress

and by "awesome" I mean SO. NOT. awesome. 

Hear my tale of woe...

This weekend I finally had nothing pressing to do AND was in a highly motivated creative state.  This never happens!  The stars were aligned!  So off I go to JoAnn's fabrics to get fabric for the back of this quilt and also to get some fabric for a super fun pillow pattern I had. 

Well being the awesome seamstress I am, I had no measurements with me whatsoever.  So I eyeballed it.  I thought I knew how big my quilt was...and actually I WAS right, but I forgot that I had sewed some borders on it making it only this much bigger and therefore I needed this much more fabric than I ended up purchasing.  So I drive all the way back to JoAnn's to get a smidge more fabric. 

Feeling confident about my purchase and ready to sew, I lay out the backing of my quilt, iron it, and pin it in place.  I pull out the batting I purchased for the middle and of course, I bought the wrong size!!  The dimensions on the package are marked in inches and I guess my math totally failed me...well there's that and the fact that I didn't exactly know the dimensions of my quilt to begin with.  Lordy. 

At that point, there was no way I was driving back to JoAnn's a third time, so I decide to start my pillow instead.  I get to step one and OMG.  I can't cut the shapes she asks for out of the size fabric she told me to get!  I really, really tried hard to understand the pattern.  I mean, it wasn't difficult.  I could totally make the pillow if I HAD THE RIGHT AMOUNT OF FABRIC.  urg.  I think it was a typo. 

Forget it.  I'm making a neck pillow. 

And here it is.  The fruits of my creative weekend...

It's actually kinda cute huh?

I'm a Nerd

Nothing like a little geeky designer humor to jump start your weekend.

I dig this stuff.  Like, I find it so super funny.

I'm a nerd.

For. Sure.

Anyways, I particularly liked these tee-shirts as I can personally relate to both...they seem to sum up my life at the moment quite well...ha!

image credits: design shack

Photo Book Bonanza

I've been MIA around here because I've totally gone nuts over Photo Books.  I can't stop making them!

I just finished the ABC Inspiration class I started last month and at the end we publish the little photo book we build during the course.  I LOVED my book SO much that I decided to make another book using of photos from my recent New York trip...

Well I adored that book so much that I then thought, why not place my digital scrapbook layouts in some books too!  And well, that was that.  Let the photo book craziness begin!  I happen to have TONS and TONS of layouts and I wanted them all to be in photo books...sooooo...now you can see why I've been a bit busy ;) 

I also started comparing photo book websites.  I can tell ya this, I have been very pleased with Snapfish thus far.  I do not like PaperKiwi, which was recommended by my class.  iPhoto has always had excellent quality but it's pricey and they never have deals.

BUT, drum roll please............ 

My new fave...like absolute total big time fave is Mixbook.  You can totally design your own front cover with backgrounds, stickers, fonts...it's totally like digital scrapping!  It was too fun and very much the reason why I have been up until 12:30 AM for the past two nights.  The site is very user friendly and seems to have some sort of social aspect to it which I don't participate in but may be appealing to some.  I also love the way they animate your book when you are completed.  Overall I found it to be a nice site and they have lots of deals!  Right now they everything is 25% off! 

I also found this blog which is fantastic!  PhotoBookGirl has everything you need to know about every photo book site!  I found it to be very helpful and suggest you do check it out.

Totally unrelated....

I finally got a pair of Toms...the silver glittery ones!  OMG.  They are the cutest ever.  They just make me smile.

Ok well I want to get to bed before 12 AM tonight so I am going to get going...
Have a lovely evening!

It's a New Month Already!

Why does time go by so fast?  I feel like it's still January, like it's still the start of this brand new year.  Only this isn't a brand new year anymore...we are five months in...FIVE!  That's almost half way through.  Goodness.

Well being that it is the start of a new month, that means that the latest issue of Ginger Scraps Street Magazine is published and online!  My article for this month is about pets and how special they are to us.  I wrote this article two months ago not knowing it would be published this month, so it is kind of weird that it was published this week because I just lost a pet that was very near and dear to me yesterday.  She was such a good girl, so sweet and had the biggest heart.  I will miss her so very much.  If you have a spare minute, take a look at the article...it's filled with some layouts of some cuties.  And speaking of cuties, here is a layout I did of my niece that is showcased on page 25...

I happen to really like this one :)

Well as time flies by I seem to fall further and further behind in my work, my crafts, and just life stuff in general.  So I am going to skidaddle and try to tackle a few things on this lengthy To-Do list of mine...good times.