Mrs. Geek

Episode 25: Magical Story Hour | Capturing Magic

via capturingmagic.me

I had such a blast recording this episode of Capturing Magic. Have a listen.

Podcast | Capturing Magic

via capturingmagic.me

I had such a blast recording this episode of Capturing Magic. Have a listen

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Just some quick ramblings this morning. Yesterday I spent the day at the Scrapbook Expo. I took a class on the Latest & Greatest from CHA and got some very cool things in the class materials. I also purchased the newest boy lines from My Minds Eye & Echo Park. I'm looking forward to more scrapping of Baby Geek's cuteness with these supplies! There weren't any must haves at the show, although it is always a great place to get adhesive refills.

The one thing that stood out for me was a store with tons of Disneyland page kits. They were incredible!It got me to thinking that I need to play some more with my Sure Cuts A Lot software and some coloring pages I have from on-line and as well as a coloring book I got in Disneyland a few years back. I'm now in search of a more recent coloring book from the revamped California Adventure.The images from the coloring pages make great templates for cutting files.

I'll be sure to post any new creations.

Keeping the magic close.

It is no secret, I love all things Disney. I display it proudly with the this decal on my car, along with the three stick figure people of Dr. Geek, Baby Geek & myself. (Although they are starting to chip away, I've told Dr. Geek that we must go to Disneyland to get more decals, he told me we could buy them on-line, I told him that was crazy talk, why purchase something on-line when you could go to Disneyland instead?!)

One thing that has set me apart is my iPhone case. I saw a company at MacWold in 2010 and immediaely placed an order when I got home that night! Uncommon makes awesome phone cases. They have a gallery you can choose from or you can upload your own image. I searched my iPhoto gallery and selected this image of the castle for my iPhone 3G.

It was a hit, even a cast member at the Character Breakfast a the Plaza Inn was impressed with the case.

When we upgraded to the 4S last year I ordered a new case with a different image.
I didn't love it as much as my original case. The sky turned out to be much too dark for my taste, but it is still an awesome case.

Last year I completed a survey for Uncommon and was given a $10 off coupon. I decided to create a new case. I got a little bit fancy. I used a collage program from the Apple App store to create an image with a total of 10 pictures from various trips we've taken. I scanned the park map as a back ground that you can see peaking through a few areas. I really love how this case turned out. The one bummer is that I was constantly tweaking the image to make sure it fit the dimension of the case -- making sure heads weren't cut off etc-- that I forgot to include one of my most favorite pix of Dr. Geek & Baby Geek in Toontown. Oh well I'm sure we'll be upgrading our phones at some point in the future so I'll have another opportunity to create a new case.

 

Some of my favorite Disneyland memories

I've recently discovered the Capturing Magic site. It is full of awesome resources for just about all things Disney -- the parks, how to get the most out of your stay and how to record the memories once you return. After listening to their podcasts and catching up on some posts, I  decided to recap my favorite Disneyland experiences.

 

2005

Dr. Geek & I go to Disneyland for the first time together. This was also the 50th Anniversary year. Dr. Geek grew up on the opposite side of the country and had only gone to Disneyland once when he was about 9 years old. The telling moment in our trip planning was when he asked "do they still have ticket books?" We had a great trip highlighted by adding gold ear hats to our growing collection.

2007

I had a training conference at the Disneyland Hotel (I know rough ) that coincided with our anniversary. Since Dr. Geek is a major foodie, I booked us reservations at the Napa Rose. We sat at the chef's table which made for a very fun evening.

That same trip we made reservations for preferred seating for Fantasmic. That year they closed the balcony on the Disney Gallery and created the Dream Suite so the preferred seating was in front of the Haunted Mansion. After having to wait nearly two hours for Fantasmic the first time, Dr. Geek declared that preferred seating was the only way to go! On this trip we added the blue & silver light up ears to the collection.

 

 

2008

I once again attended the training conference and it was the same week as our anniversary again. Earlier in the year I had a conversation with someone about Disneyland and favorite trivia etc. During the conversation the topic of Club 33 came up. Through this conversation we were able to secure reservations to the Club for our anniversary dinner. It.was.AWESOME! It was one of those once in a lifetime experiences that I still can't believe we had. Luckily we have the Mickey Ears with the logo to prove it, along with a few pictures as well.

 

 

 

2009

We spent the week of spring break at Disneyland. I always like to go into the park for a few hours on our last day. I tell Dr. Geek that it helps with that Post Disney Depression you feel when you leave the resort and you see other people excitedly heading towards the park. It also helps to go to the park for a few hours to wait out the Rush Hour traffic in Orange County & Los Angeles. On this occasion we decided to try the California Adventure Sequway tour. It was an awesome tour. We got to ride sequeways through out the park in the 3 hours prior to the park opening.

 

2010

This year the big promotion was "Give a Day, Get a Disney Day" if you gave a day of volunteer service at a select organization you got a free ticket to one of the parks. Dr. Geek & I, along with some of our close friends all gave a volunteer day so we went to the park together. This was an interesting trip for us. I was about 30+ weeks pregnant at the time. Thankfully it was overcast for most of the day so I was spared the blazing July heat. The friends we went with had a 7-year-old and a 3-year-old. The 3-year-old and I were ride buddies since we has he same ride restrictions. It was a great trip, until Dr. Geek came down with the stomach flu. We purchased Baby Geek his first Mickey Doll. It has a sweat shirt covered in their 2010 logo, we felt that was an appropriate choice since he was born in 2010.

 

2012

I've been telling Dr. Geek that I wanted to be on a Disney Cruise for my 40th Birthday, but since I've been at home with Baby Geek that wasn't in our budget. Our splurge was the Grand Californian. It is a beautiful property and you can't beat being able to walk right on into the park, but I have to say that the Disneyland Hotel is still my favorite of the propery hotels. It was so much fun to bring Baby Geek to the park. We got Baby Geek his first set of ears and I got the Happy Birthday set.

We don't have another trip on the books just yet, but it's just a matter of time. I can't wait to make more memories with Dr. Geek & Baby Geek!

Jumping Back on the Project Life Bandwagon

I attempted Project life in 2011. I used the basic kit from Becky Higgins and didn't really do any outside embellishing. I kept it rather simple and it worked out pretty well as a place to keep track of the weekly pix of Baby Geek. I did a fairly good job of "keeping up" I'd say I did about 80-85% complete. Not bad.

Last year I was so impressed with the examples I saw from the likes of Elise Blaha, Nichol Magourick, Amy Tangerine, Ali Edwards and Cathy Zielske that I've decided to give it a go again. I've been stalking the Becky Higgins site in anticipation of the Seafoam kit being available for sale. In the mean time I've been browsing Etsy, Pinterest and all other creative places on-line in search of great project life printables, and boy have I found some wonders!

There are tons of great options out there, and so far I've used FREEBIES! There are a few paid kits I have my eye on, and I'm still planning on buying a Seafoam kit to sprinkle through out because there are going to be many times when I won't have, time, energy and or creative mojo to whip up an awesome layout!

One thing that I've done differently right from the start is to look at the week as an overview not 7 individual days. That was one of the things that I'd get hung up on the last time and end up "staging" a photo to fill in the missing spot.

Another great resource was this tutorial on how to create multi-photo collages that I can print at home or at Costco. This technique lets me print 2 3x4 images on a 4x6 or have more fun with Instagram, or other square images, by printing 1 4x4 and 2 2x2's. The one problem I've run into is if there are any borders on the images when I print them at home or upload them to Costco the borders get cropped oddly. If anyone has a fix for that I'd be glad to hear it.

So far these are the items I've used in my project life album:

Live Free Love Free Project Life Printables	Facebook Journaling Cards	Project Life Layout D
Small Variety Pack	Project Life Layout A Pages	Amy Tangerine Album

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Happy New Year!

New Year's Classes from Lettering Delights Cut-It file

    Another trip around the sun begins. I'm not one for making resolutions because well, I'm of a lazy nature and I'll be successful in the epic failure of said resolutions. Instead I have some goals for this New Year.

Create my own website & online store for my paper crafting goodies (this requires me to get a business license, resale license, separate bank account what have you -- a multi-step project)
Dive into Project Life again this year -- I did this in 2011 which was great to document Baby Geek from 3-15 months of age, I think it will be fun to do again and really have fun with it
Do some more blogging, "I can blog, I have thoughts!" I need to be more organized on this one, I have some great resources from classes I've taken I need to, you know, follow through and use them (see lazy comment from above)

Complete some class samples for a local scrapbook store, I really want to get back into the swing of creating and teaching.

I also need to complete a wedding album for an aquaintance from the mom's group. I think I need to set aside a large chunch of time and just "get'er done"

So there they are my goal for 2013. Nothing too huge, hopefully as the year progresses I'll be able to add to the list. I do that regularly, I'll add something I've done to the to-do list just for the joy of crossing it off.

 

The Party Wrap Up

Saturday was party day at the Geek Household. I think it went great! Everyone had a great time including Dr. Geek & I. Last year we were so rushed that Dr. Geek didn't get a chance to jump into the shower before the first guests arrived. My goal was to have everything done prior to the guests getting here AND for us to both be showered. Keep the goals simple I say!

We hit a few bumps along the way, trying to determine the right amount of batter to fill a cupcake liner so that we can come up with the two dozen the recipe calls for, but we got it all together.

 
After making a second batch of cupcakes early in the morning we ended up with a total of 3 dozen cupcakes. Dr. Geek will be sharing the leftovers at the office.

I made the goodie bags with the help of Oriental Trading, felt and a glue gun.

Inside each bag was a water bottle with the first initial of the party goer, ears and two custom Mickey Mouse crayons.

I saw a banner like this one on Etsy, so I fired up the Cricut and the Mickey Font cartridge and made my own.

While searching Pinterest for ideas for the party I saw a sign similar to this and put Dr. Geek to work making the sign. I cut the letters on the Cricut with Sure Cuts A Lot software. The fonts are Jumping Beans and Mousebats, the arrow is from the standard shapes library.

The gate to our back yard greeted the party goers. I used the text from the Seek & Find book Baby Geek got as a gift last year.

Parade of characters greet the guests.

We are now having a restful post-party morning. Baby Geek is exploring one of his presents. We're going to store the gifts and introduce the new toys gradualy over the next few weeks, no sense in completing overwhelming the kid.

The paper crafting continues

I loved working with the Digicute shop on Etsy. She quickly came up with a PNG file of Toodles that turned out as an awesome paper piecing file after I worked some Inkscape magic on it. I've made a large Toodles and Clubhouse paper piecing to add to the character decorations around our yard.

For the background I omitted the half tone circles from the PNG when I converted it to an SVG file. I used a Martha Stewart circle tool to create the inner circle designs. For the "mouseketools" I used the Sweet Treat & Mickey Font cartridges. I mounted the images with foam squares to add dimension. I think it looks awesome!

 

I also used the files as PNG's with some Avery 1.5" circle labels to make the cupcake toppers. After I printed the desings onto the label paper, I cut pinked 2" circles with two slits in the middle with Sure Cuts A Lot. I inserted a lollipop stick into the slits and then placed the label sticker over the circle.

I'm loving how everything is turning out. I hope once it is all put together the party will look how I imagine it in my head!

Mickey Font Cartridge

Cricut Sweet Treat Cartridge

Martha Stewart Circle Cutter

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Cast of Characters

Continuing the overview of birthday party preparations are the decorations. I plan to have the six main characters from Mickey Mouse Clubhouse decorating our back yard. I bought the 12 x 24 size Cricut mat and found a retailer that sold the sheets of cardstock in the same size. I set the machine to "Fit to Page", but forgot one important thing, always start with the biggest piece. In this case that would be the background image for each character. I ended up just cutting another solid base and offsetting the grey to look like a shadow instead of a complete outline. Another lesson learned was to pay attention to the width of the character as well as the height. for Donald and Goofy they were both wide characters. I should have picked different images that were a bit more narrow and they could have been made taller. If I were going to group the characters together I would have also paid more attention to the ratio of heights. Goofy should be the tallest character and then set the rest accordingly. Since I'm going to scatter the images around our yard it won't be as obvious as if they were right next to each other. Overall I'm pretty happy with how they all turned out.

Mickey & Friends

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