Mrs. Geek

Donna Downey is at it again!

Check out Donna's blog for another great give-a-way!

via donnadowney.typepad.com

Check out Donna's Blog

Check out Donna Downey's blog. She's giving away awesome stuff!

Goal: Tidy up my Space

A major goal of mine is to get more scrapping done. In order to do that I need to have a work space that has well, SPACE! I started to do some tidying this afternoon and I have much more that needs to be done. I need to see things in front of me so that I know I have it and will use it. Perhaps I should review my pictures and memorabilia first and shop through all of my stash before even starting a layout. I just might give that a try and see how that works.

Routine

What do I do everyday? Sometimes I wonder. I wake up with one idea in my head of what I'd like to do but that doesn't always fall into place like I'd want it to. I do find that a large chunk of my time is spent grading papers. Just when I get to the bottom of one stack another mound crops up beside it.

One of the main things about my routine is that there isn't a routine. I try to get through a to-do list but I'm inevitably pulled away from the task. It could be a quick question on how to enter an assignment into our on-line grading or something more complex, like why the Internet is broken. I've tried to explain why that statement is incorrect, but oh well it's here to stay.

The thing I do need to add into my routine though is being better at avoiding time traps. The few minutes checking something on-line that turns into hours of surfing with no focus, or getting sucked into a marathon of NCIS. I could use that same time, finishing the stack of papers, the laundry, or even better having more time to be creative with all the fun suppliess I've allowed myself to collect!

Faves right now

Today I just did a quick layout listing the first 5 favorite things that came into my head and threw a layout together with a minimal amount of supplies and ephemera.

I do love me my Sprinkles cupcakes. When the store  opened at the nearby mall the wait was insane! I won't wait in the horrendously long line but I have waited 20 minutes to get one of their delicious red velvet cupcakes. It is one of my most favorite treats.

I'm not a coffee drinker but I am a big fan of Starbuck's hot chocolate in the fall/winter and the Mocha Frapachino in the spring/summer. During the Holidays my drink of choice is the Peppermint Hot Chocolate.

My iPhone is the item that I have with in arm's length at all times! The Apps are fabulous. I'm so a Mac girl.

Two years ago I upgraded my point and shoot camera from a Kodak Easy Share that had 2.4 Mega Pixels to a Cannon Elph that gets about 7.1. Oh the difference it has made! I love that it is so small that it can fit in my purse. I carry it everywhere.

Finally, I'm just mad about Bare Minerals. I've been using their products for well over 10 years and I'm lovin' them!

The details

This is what happens when you try and take a self portrait with a point and shoot camera that still has the zoom lens engaged. Dr. Geek and I were on the beach at sunset and we're trying to get a shot of ourselves with the sunset in the back ground. After making the necessary adjustments we did get a lovely picture.

On the layout I created I put a quick snippet about the picture on the journaling tag and then put more details about why we were taking a long weekend on another tag and slipped it behind the picture.

I had fun playing with my new Glimmer Mists as well as my favorite distressing ink, Vintage Photo, from Tim Holtz.

Over sharing

Shimelle brought up some interesting thoughts to ponder. When using this wonderful world of blogging as a forum to be careful about sharing too much. All good ideas to think about. Another thing to remember is who is reading your blog. I'm not talking about strangers in your audience, I'm talking about the folks you know. That's just something to think about!

Blogging for Scrapbookers Day One

Here I go on another Shimelle class. I can't help myself, I JUST *HEART* her stuff! This topic is one that I knew I had to try, Blogging for Scrapbookers. Since this blog is woefully ignored for 11 months out of the year I figured it couldn't hurt. Some notes that I jotted down on the handout, and incorporated into my first layout, are:

Being creative makes me happy

I can't really argue with that. Dr. Geek notices when I haven't been doing something "creative" and suggests that I might want to go and do some layouts of go with a friend to a local crop.

When I thought about how I can make more time to be creative this is what I came up with.

Make an effort

Tiddy up my desk and crop table

Bypass the couch and TV upon entering the house

In other words...

JUST DO IT!

Halloween 2009

Dr. Geek and I had fun on Halloween. We spent the evening with friends before heading out with their little one for some trick-or-treating. Our pumpkins were a hit. Thank you to the Disneyland.com/halloweetime website. I'm thinking of getting some artificial pumpkins next year so I only have to "carve" the fancy designs once and then reuse them each year!

Hello Ella

After hearing of so many scrapbooking businesses struggling or going belly up (both stores and publications) it was very nice to hear of one starting up. Ella publications is a venture started by some great names from the Simple Scrapbooks team. The concept is to produce great quality eBooks available for download at a fraction of the cost of traditional scrapbooking publications. Check them out and see what they're all about.