"I seriously don't need this stuff" seems to be a recurring theme on this blog, so in the interest of not boring you out of your mind, I shall not repeat it again today.

Instead, I'll just show you the treasure trove of Making Memories Vintage Findings stuff I bought at Michaels for a whopping 80% off. Yup, you read that right, the big eight-zero. The last time I got a deal this good at M's was when I found BasicGrey Sugared and Archaic paper, stamps, and embellishments at 90% off (I was so excited over those $2 paper pads).

And what good is a bragging post without pictures?!? Check this stuff out! All these mini kits were 79 cents each. I got several of each- I thought that at the very least they'd be great for the next round (or three) of cupcake toppers I make.

This lovely "Baby" themed page kit was only $1.99. I usually bypass the baby stuff, but since my brother and his wife recently announced that they're expecting their first little bean next July, I thought it might come in handy. The medium sized kits below were a whole $1.39 each.

I was quite excited to find vintage-y flowers in the package for 59 cents, along with labels and the sheets of metallic embellishments at the same price. The little bits of hardware, tiny circle tags, and word stickers were only 39 cents a package. I think that the binder rings are one of my favorite finds from this shopping trip- they have a nice aged look to them, unlike the shiny new ones I buy at the office supply store.

And now the happy shopper is retiring from purchasing until at least after Christmas. It's time to settle in and work on my December Daily/Journal Your Christmas album. I'll be posting the first half of my foundation pages from that tomorrow. I imagine that completed pages will come grouped several to a post once or twice a week as I have time to photograph them.

The Last Few Weeks in Geek

I've been a very happy little geekling for the last little while. Want to see what's been keeping me smiling?

Probably the biggest news for me in the tech world lately has been Amazon's release of a Kindle reader for the PC! Now I can download and read books on either my iPhone or my computer.

Unfortunately, the first book I was really, really looking forward to buying on it was the upcoming Star Wars book- Backlash- which has been delayed a month from its original March 2010 release. (sniff)

I guess I will just have to console myself in March with the release of Scarecrow and Mrs. King's first season to DVD. FINALLY!!! I loved this show when I was in school. I remember two things about it. First, when I was younger, one day the station that it aired on was out because of a satellite switchover. I remember very clearly calling the cable office very concerned because I was missing my show. Second, I was watching an episode- "All That Glitters" I think- on 9/11 when my Mom called to tell me about the attack on the World Trade Center. I had just moved into my first house and had recorded it off cable and was watching it on tape between classes (which is why I didn't learn the news when it broke on live TV).

I love this totally spiffy Stormtrooper iPhone cover from the Star Wars shop.

Speaking of Star Wars, check out this awesome halftime show by the Penn State Marching Band. They cover Batman, Star Wars, Back to the Future, and a couple other movies, all in 10 minutes!



Or maybe an R2-D2 mailbox in Iraq?

And, not to digress, but did you know that Chuck Norris is a Jedi Master?

And if one video isn't enough for this post, how about Nathan Fillion reprising his role as Malcolm Reynolds, just one last time?

Happy Birthday, Dad!!

Last weekend I got to take a break from working on one house or the other and instead go visit my family for my Dad's birthday party. His birthday was actually in late October, and we'd planned on having the festivities the week before, but then I found out I was having Revenge of the Knee Surgery and the party was put on hold for a few weeks.

I got in pretty late on Friday night, but when I got there I found a beautifully made bed and chocolates by my pillows. :)

We almost always have a bonfire for Dad's birthday, and luckily the weather cooperated and it didn't rain and wasn't too cool or too warm that night. It's always a busy morning and afternoon beforehand, though! Dad is chief bonfire builder and tender, and the fire has to be started fairly early in the morning in order to burn down enough to be comfortable to sit by in the evenings.

He did take a break from that, though, to attempt to decipher the ingredients list on the back of a truly cheap can of store-brand orange soda. Darren and Jon really enjoy their cheap store-brand orange sodas. :)

I didn't get to see Dad nearly as much as I would have liked during the day because I was busy making cupcakes and decorating for the party. Plus there were a couple of trips to run errands in there, too!

Since we ate outside, there weren't any decoration in the house, but I did dress up a tiered cake stand, and I'd cut lots and lots of cupcake wrappers with my Wishblade the day before.

Please excuse me if I'm including too many photos of this, but I'm rather proud of how it turned out! I made all the cupcake toppers, too, and taped them to lollipop sticks before sticking them into the tops of the cupcakes.

It's really hard to take pictures of people sitting around the actual bonfire- I have to use the flash and they get kind of annoyed. :) Tina said she was holding up her hand to block the heat from the fire- not to keep me from taking her picture. I think Avery actually was blocking me, though. :)

Dad does good bonfires, doesn't he?

The next day Dad and I were able to fit in some time to take the cameras out and shoot photos of the fall leaves. We had a lot of fun arranging them in the creek. I haven't gone through them all yet, but I've seen several that I really like already.

Dad also tried to help me cut some books apart to scan in (I'd already confiscated the bindings from them to use for a scrapping project), but we broke his bandsaw in the process :( and the jigsaw was just too difficult and slow.

And I caught this shot of my brother and one of his cats out on the deck. J found Azzy while he was in college (J was in college, not Azzy :) ) and the cat now lives full-time with Mom and Dad and is spoooooooiiiled!

It was a such a fun family weekend. :) And I get to go back to see them again the day after Thanksgiving. Dad and I will shop black Friday sales from the comfort of their living room. :)

Friday Favorites- Thanksgiving Ideas (and new Basic Grey!)

Better grab a cup of tea (or hot chocolate!) and settle in for this post because it is loooooong! The blogs have been a hoppin' this week with some great ideas! I gathered a large number of Thanksgiving ideas together here, but you just know I'm gonna sneak some Christmas in with them. :)

First up are these sparkly glittered candles from Martha Stewart. I gotta admit that I have some candles in less-than-thrilling colors sitting around, so I'm definitely going to have to try this out on them. If the glittered candles aren't enough, the link above actually points to a whole gallery of blingy goodness.

If you're in more of a scrappy mood, Karla Dudley created a free set of digital brushes with a gratitude theme. Plop these babies over your Thanksgiving photos, print, and scrap away! Easy-peasy, lemon-squeezy (learned that one from one of the guys in the software lab earlier this year).

I love this adorable fall banner found on the A Million Memories site. The tutorial is posted in 3 parts: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

I also love these spray-painted walnuts as a table adornment, and Design*Sponge has several other great ideas on using them in fall decorating. Everyone repeat after me: Ooooooh, shiny!

The last Thanksgiving project for the week is this tutorial by Danielle Thompson on making these darling fabric pumpkins. You really should check out the instructions- they're well photographed and explained in such a way that even I think I could make these!

From here on out today, this post is all scrappy, all the time. :)

Scrappy, like the new scrapbooking papers from Basic Grey that were released last week! I love, love, love Origins. Sugar Rush not so much, but I've never been into the doodling thing.

And how about a couple of mini albums? This post from Sassafras Lass comes complete with instructions on how to make the binding.

And this post by Allison {Kreft} Abad shows how she makes the foundation of her mini-album before adding photos.

The last two items I have to share this week are December Daily projects. I need to get in gear and make my album foundation!!! That's what I've got planned for Sunday afternoon. :)

First up on Pinefeather is an adorable December Daily album made from a Little Golden Book. I actually had to just look past that part, because my Little Golden Books are precious to me and I could never cut them apart!! But she found hers at a thrift shop, so I guess it's all cool.

Last up, Noell Hyman posted on her Paperclipping blog about her stress-free method for putting together her December Daily album. She emphasizes speed in her approach, but I like to think of it as just having fun and not worrying about it being perfect.

If you want to see the rest of her album, she's posted it here on Flickr.

Whew, that was a lot of stuff! And probably the only thing I will be making this weekend will be my December Daily, but I'm really looking forward to that project.

Happy crafting!

Nostalgia

I read this post on the WiiNintendo blog tonight and was instantly transported back about 20 years to when my Dad and I used to play Super Mario Brothers (the first one!) together. We used motion controllers before they were even in style- we'd lean all the way to one side during a jump hoping that maybe it would give Mario a couple of extra inches.

Dad taught me some cool Mario tricks, like running under Bowser when he jumped to cut the bridge and save the Princess (who was always in another castle). I think the coolest thing he taught me about the game, though, was this awesome trick to get infinite (well, 255) lives. It was here where I was first exposed to all those funky ASCII characters. Cool stuff. Good memories. I need to see if my parents have any photos of us playing.

Friday Favorites (on Monday)

Welcome to another edition of Friday Favorites...on Monday? I had such a busy (and fun!) weekend starting Friday morning that I didn't have a chance to get the post up in time. I considered waiting until this Friday to post, but I already have some great stuff saved off for that (including some awesome fall/Thanksgiving themed ideas), so I'm going to go ahead and get this up.

I'm warning you now, I've turned into a Christmas Elf this year. After spending the last two Christmas seasons either living in another state for work or on travel (hmmm, to the same state, also for work), I'm so ready to have a big Christmas at home. I'm usually irked when the Christmas stuff comes out in the stores before Halloween. This year I'm all, like, bring it on!

That being said, first up is this beautiful gift wrap idea from ScrapScene. Seriously, how gorgeous is that white doily on kraft paper? If I didn't have eleventy thousand rolls of Christmas paper in the attic already, I'd so be wrapping everything in kraft!

If you need a little help with your Christmas bow tying (okay, now I'm picturing kraft paper covered in all kinds of pretty ribbon...) check out this tutorial by Elise Blaha.

I can totally see this bunting done up with Christmas colors. And, yes, I'd include kraft. :) I think if I could never use any other shade of cardstock besides kraft in all the rest of my scrapbooking, I'd still be a happy girl.

Patterns for these adorable pop-up place cards are over on Martha Stewart's web site. Lately I'm loving playing with glitter, so these tickle my sparkly spot.

Okay, that's it for Christmas for now. :)

How about some free scrapbooking sketches from Debbie Hodge?

She also has some great tips for scrapping different kinds of travel/trips in an article here. Hmmm, maybe useful for those Christmas trips? (Okay, so maybe I wasn't totally done with Christmas...)

Lastly, I really need to try to make one of these lanyards. The directions are on the Moda Bake Shop blog, and while it looks involved I think it wouldn't be too bad. I have to wear a badge at work all day, so it might as well be a little fashionable!

As you can probably guess, I didn't actually get to any of these projects last weekend. I'll have to post all about the fun times later this week.

"Comfortably Unfashionable" Mini Album

Sometimes I just get the urge to make something and play with pretty paper and stickers with no real rhyme or reason. I think Elise Blaha once referred to it as "gluing without an agenda."

A couple of weeks ago I did just that- I sat down one night after work with no agenda, some gorgeous Amy Butler paper, a couple of clothing catalogs from J. Crew and Anthropologie, and a few sheets of chipboard (which were actually the backs of some other paper pads) and went to town.

This is the mini album that came together that night- all about the clothes I do and don't like to wear.

I remembered thinking as I flipped through the catalogs that so many of the clothes, while very pretty, were just not my style and I would never, ever wear them. Things like that ruffly pink shirt and the heavily accessorized sweater are not even attractive to me.

This is really more my style- comfy khakis...

Well-worn t-shirts (even better if they have that I've-worn-it-a-hundred-times softness right off the rack from the store)...

And maybe a sweater layered over it all during the winter, just to keep the chill away.

The whole album took just a few hours over the course of two evenings to put together. Is it absolute fluff? Absolutely. Is it pretty to look at? Definitely. Did I put it together just because I wanted to tape down some paper, play with paint, and try out my new Corner Chomper? You bet!

But I say that doesn't make it any less worthwhile. Make what you want, when you want, and because it makes you happy. No other reason matters. :)