Project 365 and I'm Going to Chicago!

Trying to stay a bit more caught up with this since I'm going to CHICAGO! I am going to try to post some photos and do some blogging when I'm out there - but in case that doesn't end up happening, wanted to get these two Project 365 photos shared :)

August 25th - Cashing in the Coin Jar


We decided to cash in our coin jar as it was getting really heavy!


August 26th - Hanging Out with Family


My mom and I hanging out with my aunt at her house... we are a techie family :)


August 27th (today) - iPod with Movie Rentals


Got some rented movies and some new music - I am sooo ready for the plane ride!

Well I'll be leaving home in 2 1/2 hours to catch my plane to Chicago. I am REALLY looking forward to my trip! I've been spoiled by already seeing my best friend 3 times this year because of the wedding... but it's never enough and I can't wait to spend time with her. We are going to make a trip to IKEA because Ian and I want to build a custom desk and need some pieces that aren't available online and I'm going to see if I can have the store ship to me. I love IKEA so will definitely be taking pics and video there :) I can't wait til we get one here in Colorado! Supposed to be next year or the year after.
I also know we are supposed to be having a Friends Scene-It party so I am excited for that, too!
Who knows what else we are going to do... but I know we'll start things off with a trip to Portillo's for chili dogs :-D

Project 365: Week 2

Here are my Project 365 photos for the past week! Thanks for looking.

August 18th - Rug Shopping @ The Great Indoors:



This will be my aunt's new living room rug! It was a big ordeal to get it... so I'm glad it all worked out because I think this rug is beautiful!


August 19th - First Day of Online Classes:



Now this is the way to do school!
Today was my first day of online classes. I am starting out with "Creating Web Pages" and "Intro to Photoshop CS3"... Today was easy, but I know it will get much more complicated!


August 20th - AMC @ The Orchard Town Center:



My aunt, mom, and I went to see The Traveler's Wife.. Thurs Aug 20th
Great movie! This is the first movie my aunt has been to since moving here, and she was really impressed with this huge movie theater near her house.


August 21st - Ice Plant Blooms:



These are a couple of the blooms on the ice plant in our little flower bed by the front door. I love the color of these!


August 22nd - Sunset Over Mountains:



I already had other photos to post for this day, but Ian pulled over to get something out of the trunk and I snapped this photo. I know it's over exposed, but I don't care... it looks peaceful and I love it!
This field is at 84th and Federal in Westminster, CO.


August 23rd - Phoebe Helps Me Scrapbook:



This is my Phoebe... she likes to pin down my arms/hands when I'm on the computer. Makes it hard to get anything done. At least this time she only pinned down my left arm, so I could get some photos :)


August 24th - Dolphin Fountain:



This fountain is located in the shopping center on the east side of 92nd & Sheridan in Westminster, CO.


I also created another set on my Flickr called "P365 Extras" where I'm posting photos that I took for Project 365 that I really like, but they didn't make the cut for my photo of the day. Here are a couple from that set that I still wanted to share:

My Ring After Cleaning:

Took it in for its regular 6 month checkup and cleaning. It's super sparkly again!

Lawn Bunny:

Ian was leaving work one day this week and this bunny was just sitting in the parking lot. He brought it home for me (since I'm his bunny) and it's now happily sitting in our yard.

Ian Taking His 365 Photo:


My Sunglasses:




Ian's been keeping up on his Project 365 also so check out his album too if you'd like to!

Sunday Drive to Mt Evans

The Sunday before last, we decided we wanted to get out of town and enjoy some mountain driving. We just love getting up into the mountains. Neither of us had ever been to Mt Evans, so we decided that would be a nice drive! The road going up to Mt Evans is the highest paved road in North America, starting in Idaho Springs at 8,700 ft and ending up over 14,200 ft at the summit.

We had a really fun time on our road trip and took lots of photos. We did some geocaching early on... nothing too exciting though :) Next stop was Echo Lake Park... we walked around expecting to find the lake, but didn't. So we left... only to pass the lake on the road. Haha. When we got up higher, we could look down (waaay dooown) at the lake which was pretty awesome.

Up and up we went, with another stop at a cool rock formation where we took quite a few photos of rocks, flowers, mosses, and the view. It started feeling colder and really windy at this point... but we weren't feeling the altitude too badly just yet.

As we got higher, we started feeling more and more tired. Each time we got out of the car to take photos, it felt a little harder and I would notice myself gettng tired as I got back into the car. :) When we got to Summit Lake, we were 2/3 of the way up. It was so pretty! And again, we found flowers to photograph :)

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During the last stretch, once we were above treeline, we got to see some big horn sheep and mountain goats!! Including two baby mountain goats!

(Doesn't that last one totally look like he's smiling?!)

At the top, the view was wide and expansive. We could see a slight pink haze as we looked out. There were tons of bikers up there, not sure how they do it!! Snapped a photo of the sign showing the high elevation - oh yeah, we were feelin' it! We saw this stone structure but didn't think much about it. Came to find out from the Mt Evans webpage that it used to be a restaurant and gift shop. You could eat there and look out over the view... but it burned down in the 70's and was never rebuilt. What a shame, I bet it was fantastic!!

That last one shows the elevation reading on our GPS :)

On our way home we made one last geocaching stop and photographed some more wildflowers. :)

If you'd like to see the rest of our photos from Mt Evans.... here's the whole album on Flickr!!

Thanks for reading :-D

Power Scrapping Review & New Pages

Earlier this week I read this post at the Daily Digi entitled "Power Scrapping." This was a guest post written by Katie the Scrapbook Lady.

I had started to gear my thinking in this direction when I read the "Getting it Done" post on the Daily Digi a while back. It talked about having a folder where you put the photos, papers, etc together for a page and hang onto it to work on later. I made an attempt at this, but once I got those things together, I went ahead and scrapped the page. So it never really made any difference for me.

This idea of power scrapping took the same idea a bit further. Instead of working on one page at a time, you are working on many pages at once. First you just make folders for each page you want to scrap, and gather the photos you plan to use. You can do this for as many pages as you want. Then you go back and start looking for templates or layout ideas to use with the photos you've chosen. The next step is to start choosing kits, papers, elements, etc that you think will work with your photos.

Once I have all those things done, I open a template I've chosen and place the photos into it, without worrying about any papers... or possibly just placing in the background paper. Then I close it and move on to the next folder/project.

The next step would be to place all the papers and embellishments on the pages. The final step for me would be titles and journaling.

I took Katie's outline and honed it to be slightly more specific to the way I scrap, but it's almost exactly what she has laid out.

So what's my verdict on time spent?? I wish I could say I got a 3 layouts done in an hour, as she says in her post. Not the case. But I did get 3 2-page layouts done in about 4 hours... which for ME is a really big deal, because it's not uncommon for me to spend 2-3 hours on ONE 2-page layout. So this definitely sped things up for me.

I have to say though... the time was not the biggest benefit for me. I actually had more FUN! Always one for variety, I found it much easier to keep my creative juices flowing by hopping around from one page to the next. I think when I'm working on a layout and I tend to have a 'block' on what to do with something, I just sort of zone out and stare at the page for a while, or get distracted by tv... or facebook.. LOL. That's why it takes me so long. By splitting up the steps, it seemed like I never got stuck. I never felt that burnout where I was just tired of looking at the page. Every time I opened that page back up, I felt refreshed and ready to try something else.

I was concerned that by jumping around my pages might not end up looking as well thought-out or cohesive... but that wasn't the case at all. I'd say they look just like any of my other pages.

One tip I would share - she doesn't really touch on this as she said "choose kits and embellishments that compliment your photos" - is where do you keep them? What do you put in the folder? The first page, I copied all the papers and embellishments into the folder of what I was working on. I found this harder to work with, so the next time around I took just the kit preview image to put in my folder, and when I scrapped I opened up the kit separately. I left minor embellishments like staples or brads to choose later instead of trying to find them and drag them into the folder. That's what worked best for me.

So, all in all I have to say I am in LOVE with this idea of power scrapping!!!!!!!!! Thank you so much Katie the Scrapbook Lady!!!

And now to share my first round of pages done with this method. I am even thinking of it as "Scrapping in the Round" since I'm basically going around in circles. :)



















I've already started another batch of pages, this time I am tackling more at once. I currently have 7 folders going, and a couple of them are going to be at least 4 pages for that subject. It's so exciting and it actually motivates me to scrap more!

I should mention that besides all of this, I also got 5 pages done for my best friend's parents' wedding album on Friday. It's half done now!

Our Weekend So Far

Hey guys! Not too much report but thought I'd pop in for a minute. I started my classes Wednesday... everything was super easy since it was just the first day. My next lessons were available Friday, but I won't be doing them until Monday. Gotta love online!! I might get to them tomorrow if we stay home.

Friday I spent most of the day working on a wedding scrapbook I'm making for my best friend's parents. I got more than half of it done in just one day!! I am really hoping to finish it before I go see them in Chicago on Thursday.

Today we had another showing, so we went out to lunch and ran some errands. We've been having 3-4 showings per week pretty consistently, which is great. The flyers go pretty quick outside by our sale sign. I put out 15 flyers at a time and they are gone in 3-4 days.
But still, no real interest. The people who saw it today said they really liked it but are looking for turnkey and don't want to have to re-do the basement. Fair enough! But sigh.

This afternoon we went to a BBQ at our friends' Joe & Jenn's place. There was a huge turnout, tons of food, and we had a really nice time. I talked with some friends of Ian's I've met before, as well as met some new really nice people. It was a HOT day though... yuck!! At least we were in the shade :)

That's really all the news I have for now. I've been doing lots of scrapping... when I share new pages soon I'll talk about the new method I've been using that is working great for me. I'm keeping up with Project 365 so I will have a whole week of photos to share in Monday's post!

Tomorrow's plans are undecided. Going to get a good night's sleep and see how we feel. We might go for a mountain drive again. Tomorrow is our 3rd "monthaversary" since getting married :) We might just stay in and do things around the house... but if we get a showing, that might make our decision for us!

Thanks for checking in :-D

Starting Project 365

For those who haven't heard about it, Project 365 is basically a challenge to take a photo every day for an entire year. You can read a lot more about it here.

I've wanted to get involved with this for a long time. It seems to be really big with digital scrapbookers this year. I was just way too busy the first half of the year, with all the wedding planning, to think about diving into it then. Now, I feel ready! :)

Right now I don't have a specific goal for my photos other than to just make sure I take one every day. They have a lot of challenges and themes out there you can work with if you start running out of ideas.

Anyway, without further ado, here are my first three photos:

These little white flowers popped up in our planting bed next to other flowers we put in there intentionally. We don't know where they came from, but they are blooming like crazy and we're enjoying them!

This was taken at the Colorado All Mustang car show. It's the headlight/front end of a 1964 1/2 Mustang. The color is "dynasty green" and it was only made for this particular year.

These items are wedding gifts from my mother in law. I really enjoy them. They are on the top center shelf of the book case in our bedroom. The photo in the frame is one of my favorites from our wedding day.

Note to self: dust things before photographing them.

My plan is to post my photos once a week, on my laundry day, because that's a really easy time for me to remember :) I just have 3 this week because we started Saturday. That's right I said we! Ian is doing Project365, too! I don't think he is going to be blogging his photos, so if you want to follow what he does, bookmark or subscribe to his Flickr set!

And of course, you can do the same with my Flickr set too :)

Hope you enjoy the pics! There will be more next week!

Penny's, Please!

This is my new favorite shirt. Yes, it has horizontal stripes... and no, I don't care! It makes me feel so cute. I got it in 3 colors (all except the grey/white) but the other 2 colors are on backorder, so for right now I'm rockin' the purple and lovin' it :)

I have to say that lately, JCPenny is totally stepping up in the Women's Plus department. They were once known (at least in my mind) as one of those stores where plus = 65 year old with no style. That has changed so much, and every time new stuff comes out it just keeps getting better.
I have bought myself new shirts twice this year - and both times I have chosen Penny's. In my opinion they have more styles than Old Navy, and they are cheaper than Lane Bryant - so they are the perfect compromise. I know there are lots of fashionable plus stores out there - but places like Kiyonna and Igigi - while I love the styles - are just too expensive, and they don't offer enough variety for my tastes. I have found myself going there, or LB, when I need a dress or something nice for a special occasion... but for my everyday stuff, I've become a huge Penny's fan.

All the basic tops I bought in March were from Penny's (and a couple nice tops from LB).... and I have been wearing them over and over and over and OVER. It was time for some new ones so I went shopping online again last week. Another bonus - being able to return them to the store and get my money back right away. Yes you can do that with Lane Bryant too, but I don't have one close by to me anymore.

This time I don't have ME in the clothes, but these are the other tops I am keeping:


In burnt ochre:



In both the color shown (raspberry) and in chocolate brown.


In Academy Purple:



In both the purple shown, and in chocolate brown.


I also got this one in 3 colors, all except the grey&white. They are SO COMFY.


Got this one in the design shown. I ordered the solid colors too, but the material was much thinner and didn't hang right. So only keeping the patterned one.


I got this red/blue combo.

Also on backorder along with my striped shirt in other colors, is this ruffle plaid top:

I ordered the red/brown shown as well as one other color, although I don't remember which one. :) I want some feminine plaid tops for camping, hiking, etc. I ordered another kind that didn't work out so hopefully these will when they arrive.


All in all, I kept 12 tops, and I'm returning 11 tops. This is usually the case - 50/50! I over-order because I know I usually keep half or sometimes just a quarter. I'm really happy with my haul this time. I think this is approximately the same amount of tops I got last time, and I've been wearing them constantly for six months so it's time for some new ones to rotate into the mix.

For those who care... the only gripe I have is not being able to see the shirts on a plus size model, to know how they will really look on me (or at least get an idea). However, they do have some shirts that are plus only, and those are on plus models. I hope someday they start putting the effort into photographing clothes on a regular AND a plus size model, if they carry both size ranges.

They are also now carrying some items in 4X & 5X, 28W-34W, and carry plus petite sizes. Go Penny's!

They also JUST came out with a new line (AFTER I ordered my stuff) called Unity, that looks really promising:





Damn it Penny's, now I want some of THOSE tops too! But, I will wait. :)

All in all, I kept 12 tops for about $200. Average price of $16/top. That works for me!!

Anyway just wanted to share, in case anyone feels like shopping :)