Gift Tags for All

I promise I'm trying my best to keep the projects coming ... it's just been hard to find blocks of time that are 'mine'. I seem to get blindsided by the kids' schedules constantly, then there's dinner and dishes and trying to squeeze in any kind of quality time with hubby. Anywho! I've managed to grab onto a small window tonight and thought I'd finally make these since they've been on my to-do list for way too long.

I started by opening a business card template in my Pages program. I split the card in half with the page rulers and set up a simple graphic image and a text box. I grouped everything together and duplicated it to each space. Quick and easy.Then I made another with a word cloud from Wordle.
Print. Cut. Stack. Clip.

With me so far?

Now, we're going to use either white glue (Elmer's) or padding compound, if you have it. Brush on a generous coat and leave it to dry for about half an hour. Use a heavy-duty hole punch to punch through the stack. If you don't have one that is strong enough, then punch them before you glue them together.There are 20 tags in each nifty pad. These are so great to have on hand with your gift wrapping supplies. My next batch will need to wait until I get more ink for our printer, running a bit low these days.

10 out of Tenn Show

Oh my, we had so much fun at the show last night! All of the artists were truly amazing and it was great to see them all sing back up for each other and rotate through the different instruments. The playlist included Trent Dabbs, Andrew Belle, Erin McCarley, Tyler James, KS Rhoads, Andy Davis, Jeremy Lister, Katie Herzig, Butterfly Boucher and Matthew Perryman Jones, not to mention Will Sayles, who played drums for the whole set. There were no other backup musicians. These singer/songwriters literally took turns playing all the backup parts for each other. AMAZING! I can't wait until they come back through town.It was great to see Katie Herzig in person, since I've just recently discovered her through Noisetrade, but I have to say that it was Butterfly Boucher who really rocked the show. Now I want to write music too (and play bass and cut my hair really short). ;) Dang, too bad I have no talent in the music realm at all. I can hardly even carry a tune these days. For my own consoling on this note, I took it upon myself to come home with all 11 CD's they were selling at the show! Now, I should mention they gave us a killer deal so it was hard to resist in the first place. And hey! Now I have loads of great music to keep me company while I wait for them to come back to SLC. Yay me!

Photojojo Shop-o-rama

Ooh ... these items are all on my wish list this year! I have loved the projects posted in the Photojojo Newsletter, but visiting their store is a whole new kind of medicine for me. Just look at these great finds!The Fuji Instax Instant Camera, the new polaroid phenom, at just $90.The Bad-Ass Bowler Camera Bag is as sexy as a camera bag gets for only $50.The uber cool Monsterpod that sticks to over 1.000 surfaces and is the ultimate other-worldy tripod for your point and shoot.And then, of course, there's the infamous Photojojo book, chalk full of DIY photo project goodness and ringing in at $22. Yay! Where to start? I'll talk one of each please.

Catching Up

It's here, the holiday rush. Hustling and bustling around town has only been semi-productive so far. I have little gifts taken care of and that's about it. I've hit most of the holiday boutiques in the area and have taken advantage of every $10 gift card Kohl's has sent my way. At this point I'll take just about any discount I can get my hands on!

I'm just glad that before things really got crazy, I was able have a wonderfully calming morning in Heber at the letterpress class. Eva and Kirk were fantastic and the small class size kept everything nice and cozy. They explained a some of the history of printing, showed us the mechanics of their lovely press and went through the process from start to finish and then we were off! My dear friend Wanja (the coolest girl on the block) and I went first. We took turns printing and inspecting each other's cards. It took a few tries to finesse it, but we got the hang of it and the rest was cake! I felt so industrial. ;)After that, Kirk was kind enough to cut them for us on their heavy-duty-yes-this-can-cut-all-your-fingers-off machine. Whew! We spent the rest of the time cutting envelope liners to pretty up the presentation.Talk about a great way to spend the day! Now I have small buds of a dream forming to get my father-in-law's printing press cleaned up and working again. Ooh ... definite project potential there.

Puppy Update: I am officially a dog person, or at least an Izzy person. I can't believe how much I love this little ball of fluff. She's naps while I'm working and is my buddy when the kidlets are at school. She hasn't asked talked back or asked me to buy her anything yet. She's perfect! :D

Surprise! Introducing ... Izzy

Drumroll please .....

Meet the latest addition to our family, Isabella (aka Izzy)! Isn't she the cutest? We've been planning this little surprise for the last couple of months and were lucky enough to find the perfect little pooch this week. We went over and met her family on Monday, fell in love with her instantly and purchased her on the spot.After that, it was just a matter of deciding when to bring her home. We had originally planned on December 18th, but had absolutely no will power and didn't want to miss these precious puppy days ... so we chose Black Friday instead. We picked her up around noon today and had a nice car ride to her auntie's house where she was able to meet her cousins and have a nice bath.It only took the short drive home to get her calmed down again and then we placed her in our lovely gift box. We told the kids we had an early holiday present for them and they all lifted the lid together. I don't know what they thought it was going to be, but no one predicted a puppy. I've been pretty adamant about not having a dog in the house.What can I say? She's completely won me over and I'm undone. Can you blame me? Jut look at that face!And she has been absolutely perfect ALL day. She's very affectionate and seems to love all of us. She is right at home in her crate. She hasn't whined or whimpered a bit and has a perfect record on the potty count so far. Yay!