I've been tagged on facebook by my friend Matthew; "Rules: Once you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 16 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 16 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it's because I want to know more about you."



Since my blog is linked to my notes I'll compose here.



1. I love to iron. I feel guilty when I do it because I know that there are so many other things with much bigger impacts that I "should" be doing.



2. I make something crafty almost every day (not that you'd know it from my lack of blogging).



3. I love to read but not to write. Though I compose things in my head constantly I can never seem to get them down properly. I blame my ADD.



4. I want to eat only raw food. Its much harder for me in the winter (mostly because of availability-I miss my farmers market CSA share). Veggies, Fruits, nuts, seeds. Yummy and digestible. Wish I wasn't so easily tempted to eat other things at this time of year.



5. I have a negative sense of direction. I get lost a lot. When I get somewhere without getting lost I'm really proud of myself.



6. I'm a spin class junkie. If I could get myself out of bed at 4:30am I'd go everyday (I have to alternate the 5 am class with the 10 am class on days I can figure out babysitting). I like to ride outside even more but its hard to remember that its even possible when its 11 degrees F (that's -11 C for my Canadian friends). I love hills!



7. I'm neither a "morning" nor a "night" person. I just need my eight hours of sleep. I get kind of grouchy otherwise.



8. My husband and I take dance classes with a group of mostly retired people at the community college. We've learned East and West coast swing (though no flips etc considering our classmates are mostly in their 60's and 70's), tango (love it), cha-cha (my favorite), polka (hilarious), waltz and foxtrot. Its fun and he is a fabulous dancer (better than me as I have no rhythm). I can follow pretty much any lead though.


9. Everyone in my family is musical except for me. My sisters tease me about my horrible singing (its not that bad they're just mean :-). My kids can all play instruments, my husband plays guitar, banjo, violin, and piano...and well I paint, sew, draw and make stuff. But I love too sing and do so regardless.


10. I ran my first two marathons this year with six weeks of each other. My favorite distance is a 10k. I'm not too fond of the pounding that 26.2 gives you. I do love that sense of accomplishment and my running abs.



11. I've swam (swum?) in the Arctic Ocean.



12. I have a huge problem with procrastination. I find it really hard to focus on jobs even when I like them if I feel like I "have" to do them. For example I should be wrapping gifts right now since my children are at school but instead I'm doing this. (I'm embarrassed to say that its true for paying jobs even more...I have my dream job as an illustrator and a 3/4 finished project sitting on my desk and I'm having trouble finishing it and all I have to do is ink it. there are some deep seated psychological problems with that!)



13. I make cards for a living but never actually give people cards on birthdays etc. I never send Christmas cards. If you know me and you haven't gotten a card from ever, its not because I don't love you, see # 12.



14. My favorite thing in my studio is my Royal Deluxe typewriter. I use it all the time to add text to things that can't go through the printer. Plus it looks really cool.



15. I had three of my five children at home. I'm adding it in here because its kind of "weird" and random. They were water births and I loved it and recommend it to anyone with a low risk pregnancy.



16. I met my husband in October of 1993, got engaged in Nov 1993, and married in January 1994. We are complete opposites and that seems to work for us pretty well most of the time.



I don't seem to be particularly deep after reading these but I'll add a bonus one; I have developed an aversion to self-analysis of late. LOL

I'm tagging:

Nancy, Nyla, Sarah, Jessica, Emily, Susan, Sara, Lora, Alli, Solana, Cami, Rebbekah, Kara, Andrew, and Matthew (my brother and the Matthew that tagged me).

Mini Cupcake pan Advent Calendar

Instructions for these have been floating around for a bit, my sister made a cute one last year http://nancydavies.blogspot.com/2007/12/on-sixth-day-of-christmas.html . I have a few tips born from frustration: Don't use the thin printable magnets you find in Office supply places, go to a sign shop that makes magnetic signs for cars and either buy it by the foot or ask if they have any scraps. If all you can find for a pan (I got mine for $4.50 at *blush* Walmart ) is a teflon coated one be sure to use a wire brush on the end of a drill or other heavy duty tool to strip it before you paint (or leave it grey) PAINT WILL NOT STICK TO TEFLON...at all. Not even a little. You can wash it right off with a cloth even after it has dried overnight. Sanding is not enough.
Besides that it was fun and easy to make. The stamps that I used for the numbers are Melissa Francis and the papers are Basic Grey, My Mind's Eye and Cosmo Cricket. Ribbon is May Arts.

thanks for looking,
Nicole

Penguin Pants

I am so in love with these stamps!Penguin Pants have fabulous stuff!

I love fall

Even though its crazy busy with kid-sports, mom and dad-marathons, crafty deadlines and halloween costume crafting (my kids have high expectations now-go figure), this is such a great time of year. I could do with less candy temptations but thank goodness for fresh local apples, YUM! Oh, and I hope to be teaching again at A Stamp 4 All soon (tenatively Nov 6). The card above is a done using Inque Boutique stamps.

I'm also very excited to be designing for Penguin Pants ! Theresa, Jan and Anali are wonderful, and Anali's artwork is fantastic! I'm actually a little intimidated because, besides being great business women, they are amazing card designers in their own right. I'm hoping to explore more fun and unusual techniques and I can't wait to get started. With that said I'm off to craft!

Catching Up (again)

Wow its been a long time! This summer kind of kicked my butt time-wise. I decided to take a scrapbooking break and focus on the kids and house and exercise. It worked out pretty well. Now I'm back with a fresh perspective, happy kids, a (somewhat) organized house, and three triathlons and two age group wins in road races under my belt. Oh and my husband is an Ironman!

The card is made with Ek Sucess and Melissa Francis papers, MF sticker and a stamp by Lost Coast stamps. I stamped it on Matte Coat paper by Judikins and they detail is amazing!

I promise to be a better blogger from now on! (until the kids get out of school next year ;-) ).

Ten Minutes, Yay me!

I didn't make my goal of 1hour 30 min but I did take ten minutes off of last year's time so I feel pretty good about it. Its a tough race with really competitive people (most belong to triathlon clubs). I'm looking forward to the one I'm doing with my friend Sarah in August and very possibly doing my first Olly (olympic distance) at the Titainium Man in Tri cities this year. I'm working on uppping my mileage running wise as well since I'm doing a marathon in October.

but you might want to see crafty stuff, so here is a three page layout I did for my good friend Donna. I gave it away so its not here to double check but I do want to point out that in real life, the lines are all stright and the papers are not stuck down crookedly. (I'm not sure what happened photographcally here). I do love these and the Daidy D's paper and diecuts made them pretty quick and easy.

I can hardly ever think of good titles!

This is a super busy week but I thoughth I'd share a sneak peek of my Inque Boutique design team project and my card that didn't get me through to the first round of PC gallery Idol. Oh well, I love it!

I'm Taking the Plunge {Cosmo Cricket}

Yup that's me one year ago right before my disastrous swim in the Kal Rats Triathlon. I say disastrous but I really mean slow. Last place in my age group slow. Pulling a size extra large man-shaped bucket slow. I will not be wearing my husband's wetsuit this year. And I'm twenty pounds smaller. I have high hopes for not coming in last.

While I'm looking forward to redeeming myself in two weeks, that's not actually what this post is about. When I say I'm taking the plunge what I'm really referring to is that I'm applying for the Design Team. The competition for this is tough, but I love their products so much that I have to try. So I am interupting your regularly scheduled program to bring some of my favorite projects featuring Cosmo Cricket. Sorry I had to take the slide show out for a bit as one of my cards was picked up for publication (yipee!)Do you recognize that square mini album with the belt closure? Yup its the same one that spent a few months as the icon for "Gallery Projects" on the Two Peas In A Bucket home page. There are two more that I want to point out but that I can't post here. One is my entry for Paper Crafts Gallery idol, which you can see Here . The second is a card I had picked up for publication so we can't see until October. I'm mentioning it because its one of my favorites and a Cosmo pub can only help me here, right? My brand spanking new scrapbook resume can be found here . and just to sum up, Please, please, please, please pick me!

Ugly Card

I had fun making these guys, I need to clean off my desk but got distracted and made this instead. :D

As Promised

Here are a bunch of the things that I haven't had a chance to share for the last month or so, while I was swamped with non-scrappy-busy-kid-family-life-stuff. (I can't believe my daughter is in junior high now-eek!) Hope you like it, I actually have some more that I'll try to put up tommorow. If you are really anxious you can see more of it in the gallery at Inque Boutique :D

More Birthday Stuff

I just made this for the {Caardvarks} Birthday Dude micro challenge.

I have a bunch more stuff to share with you and I'll post it a bit later.

tfl,
Nicole

Baking with Power Tools

Today (well really yesterday since its taking my images so long to load)was Miles' 3rd birthday. I have this weird thing where I can't seem to see around the corner from month to month. What that means is that the kids who have a birthday at the very begining of the month kind of don't get a "planned" birthday celebration. I don't keep track of days very well and things at the begining of the month sort of sneak up. But I balance that with quick thinking and MacGyver-like ingenuity. Case in point: I made Miles' cupcakes this morning and was feeling great about remembering to have powdered sugar and butter etc on hand for the frosting. However when I went to mix the frosting I found that my eight year old Kitchen Aid stand mixer was not working right. I couldn't get it to turn. The motor worked, the beater just wouldn't go around. So (its not under warrenty anymore) I took it apart. I found the problem (with some wonderful help from my husband) but the parts store is closed on Mondays and I needed frosting ASAP. (Not that yucky store bought kind, either. I have my standards. Even though I don't even eat sugar anymore).

Since I am so rescourceful :p I solved my problem. With a power drill, a paddle mixer, and some sanitary covering (a double layer of freezer baggies). The cupcakes turned out great (I may have had a small taste).

Miles had a great time. He fell asleep at lunch time and when the kids got home from school I conned *ahem* encouraged them into making it "birthday world" in the house for when he woke up. I think it was pretty cute for such limited planning. I did borrow an idea from the always inspiring Linda Albrecht. I loved her idea for the flags on the strings of mini lights. I was a bit short of time for my version but Miles really loved it anyway.

We had a really fun day, hope that you did too,
Nicole

Did everyone see this? Looks like fun, I'm going to try it.

My Baby is Potty Trained (mostly)

So there is a funny (ironic) story attached to this. On the second day of no more diapers Miles was sitting on the potty and I had given him a couple of M&Ms as a reward and left for a second to close and start the dishwasher (what I was doing when got that look on his face). I heard a bloodcurdling screech from the bathroom and ran back in to see what was wrong. He was crying and holding his finger and hugging it to his belly. He doesn't speak very clearly yet. I was pretty sure he was saying "eat me!" but that didn't seem quite right. I wondered if he had bitten his own finger in his quest to shove the usually forbidden chocolate in too quickly. Nope, no teeth marks. Just swelling (huh swelling? My mom alarms are really sounding now). The boy is hysterically trying to communicate that something ate him at this point (and pointing to his privates-odd?). So I take him off the toilet (brilliant right?) and notice a big welt on his tummy where he had been cradling the sore finger. My first thought was a spider since I'm paranoid about black widows and brown recluses but my little guy was now pointing into the toilet (not at his privates after all) and yelling "eat me!". I look and there is a twitching wasp drowning in a bowl of pee. Seems like a just end to a creature who would attack a vulnerable little kid with his pants down. I let Miles have the honor of flushing the striped villian away. It was a whole day before he would use the big toilet again and only the downstairs one at that. But I am happy to report that despite this traumatic set-back potty training is going great and the stings (on finger and belly) are just a distant memory.

Here is a page I did (actually not related to potty training, but more based on how I'm a little sad not to have a "baby"anymore) with some of the gorgeous new "Isn't It Rommantic" papers from Inque Boutique and of course Inque Boutique stamps.

I really do make stuff!

A Little butterfly album that I created for my Mom and A card that I love. I made from the new Inque Boutique Isn't It Rommantic line (Which will be in stores mid-May). Luke is doing much better today too. Thanks for visiting me today!
Nicole

Road Rash

I just want to point out before I explain what happened that we are a helmet family. We've put helmets on the kids since they were riding in the bike trailer. Mom and dad always wear helmets when appropriate as a good example, and my children have even been known to police their friends about skating/scooting/riding without a helmet.

Today was gorgeous the first really-warm-throw-open-the-doors kind of day we've had this year. Luke really wanted to play video games today but he had used up his allotted 1/2 hour (I'm pretty stingy with screen time and they only get 1/2 hour on non-school days and none on school days). So I told him he could either play outside just for the fun of it or do outside chores to earn a little more time (see I'm kind of nice). He chose play. He was however not happy with the choices and was sulking and not in the mood to go put proper shoes or a helmet on when he grabbed his scooter and started down the hill. I did not see this. Apparently you can not stop a scooter properly without shoes on. so I heard screaming and my hubby saying from the bottom of the stairs "Luke's hurt get off the phone please" (yup I was on the phone, to my sister in Canada... ) I hung up (literally, poor Nancy) and raced down to see my six year old with half his face covered in blood. I can handle this...mostly. I got clothes and we put him in the tub to see what it looked like under the gore and decided a trip to urgent care was probably in order. I was worried that he had broken his cheek bone because he had blood dripping from his eye and he was complaining about his cheek. My very darling neighbor who works for an eye surgeon asked if she could come with me. Since my husband had elected to stay with the other kids I was very happy to accept her offer. They took us right into a room when we got there (I think because the sight of a little kid with blood on his face was disturbing to the other patients, and I had called ahead). I made the mistake of mentioning that the room they had us o into was the one where Lucybelle had gotten her stitches a couple of years ago (duh!). Luke insisted he .did. not. want. stitches. Poor guy. He was really hurting but did really well (though he kept insisting that if I had just let him stay inside and play video games none of this would have happened-so much for healthy fresh air). The doctors and nurses cleaned and prodded and x-rayed and then gave him the good news: nothing could be stitched. Also that he hadn't broken anything. And he could go to school the next day (not likely, He deserves at least one day off after that kind trauma).

Its Monday morning now and he actually looks worse. His eye is completely swollen shut and stuff is draining from his wounds. Plus I've been slathering them with ointment (as directed by the doctor) and the shiny goo makes it look even more frightening.

This our third big injury (unless I'm forgetting one and its not including the minor two stitches mentioned earlier). The first two happened to Max within a couple of months of each other when he was three (eight years ago). So our safety track record isn't terrible (maybe it is, do these things happen to everyone?). But I feel terrible, he's suffering and I can't make it go away. My heart hurts for him.

I've been tagged!

I've been tagged, the first time ever (not sure what that means LOL)

Here are the Rules about the TAG:
1. Post the name and URL of the person who tagged you
2. Post the rules
3. Write seven things about yourself
4. Put the links in to your 7 favourite blogs
5. Name 7 people you are going to tag
6. Post a comment on their blog to say they've been tagged.

Seven things to love/hate about me...

1. I can't type. I hunt-peck my way through countless hours of computer time. (Scramble, blog posts, message board posts...) and I look at the keys not the screen so remember that if you see typos. :D

2. I ran a half marathon last year and plan to do a longer race this year. (I won't say what it is because I'm afraid I lose motivation if I start telling people about it :D I'm weird that way.)

3. I swam in the Artic Ocean. In 1997 my hubby and I drove up to Inuvik NWT and then hopped a little plane to Tuktoyaktuk and jumped in. It was June but there was still ice in the harbor.

4. I've walked on hot coals. My sister in law Chariti arranged a fire walk for us (with a professional) a few years ago and it was amazing! No, I don't know how it works, no, I didn't burn my feet, yes it was really hot. (We built the bon fire and watched it burn down. then raked out the red-hot coals and took turns walking across them).

5. I have five kids. The last three were born at home and I loved it so much that if I ever change careers I will be a midwife or doula.

6. I truely wish to live a simple lifestyle with minimal "stuff". This wars constantly with deeply ingrained pack rat tendancies that I inherited from my mom and are inherent in every crafter. :D I'll keep working on it.

7. I graduated from WSU in 2000 (summa cum laude, BA Interior Design) but haven't worked outside my home since. I do freelance graphic design and scrapbook related stuff and occaisionally I do some sewing/upholstry projects.

Seven places that I love to visit instead of doing _________(insert housework, yardwork, laundry, cooking, etc. :D )

1. http://sarahbowen.typepad.com/ Sara Bowen
2. http://lilybeanpaperie.typepad.com/lilybeans_paperie/ Melissa Phillips
3. http://lindaalbrecht.typepad.com/simple_things/ Linda Albrecht
4. http://www.melissafrances.typepad.com/ Melissa Francis Blog
5. http://nancydavies.blogspot.com/ Nancy Davies
6. http://ashleygailey.typepad.com/is_this_thing_on/ Ashley Gailey
7. http://renegadehealth.com/blog/ The Renegade Health bog (raw recipes)

I'm tagging:
Nancy, Nyla, Jenn, Dawn, Vittoria, Sunni, and Kim

It has been way too long since I blogged. I keep thinking that I'll have time to do a "perfect post" and so I put it off. Well now I'm just going to post. Here are some pictures of the bathroom that we just redid. Its very exciting to be able to take a bath downstairs. One fun thing I will point out is that the floor tiles (20" porcelain, made in Italy) only cost $36. Total. We found them at the Habitat for Humanity Builders Surplus Store. Its a great way to save money and keep excess building materials out of landfills and raise money for a great cause. It works sort of like a thrift store for building stuff: Builders and contracters (and regular people) donate items and people buy them at a discount. The money goes towards building Habitat houses in the community. Good deal, no?

Another exciting thing is that I've been trying out a raw vegan way of eating lately. I feel soooo good when I eat this way. Plus i can eat as much as I want and my thyroid has completely shrunk down to a normal size. and bonus: I've lost some weight (not telling how much yet ;) ). My favorite part is how energized that I feel! With the hypothyroidism I haven't felt energized in years, this is so cool I not even (very) tempted to cheat. The food is really good too! I'll post recipes soon.

A Perfect Day!

This was my Question of The Day at Go Scrapping What would your perfect scrapbooking day be? Mine would be this: In the morning, while I'm fresh and creative I get to work on a project that turns out beautifully and that I've wanted to do for a while and that I can teach as a class. I talk to my sisters and find out Nancy is coming out to visit ! In the afternoon the mail comes and in it is the complimentary issues of Paper Crafts that come when you have something published with them (and the card they pubbed returned). I check my email before I head out to do fun scrapbook related errands and in my in box would be an email from Scrapbook Trends saying that they want the two page LO that I submitted for their vacation idea book. (Yipee) I stop by my LSS and drop off my class samples where they are ooohed and aahed over and people sign up before I leave the store. After that I head over to a different LSS and get to take a class from a famous and talented scrapbooker such as oh, let's say Donna Downey . I come home and post on my favorite message board about my fabulous day and Life is great!

That Actually Happened!!!!! I'll post pictures to prove it.




See! That's me with Donna who is hilarious and incredibly talented I cannot wait for her new book "scrapbooking with Fabric" (due out april 1st). (and "Designing Layouts" due at the same time but fabric is my first love :D ) In honor of that I'll post my favorite fabric scrapbook that I made.


:D Nicole

Two Year Olds

I have five kids so you'd think I'd have the "Mom thing" down. Right? well having a two year old while the rest are in school is like having only one child again (which I think is ten times harder than having two or three :D ). Its turning out to be a challenge, that is leaving me with a messy house and my scrapbooking undone. On the plus side I always having a willing model for photos and he's plenty cute and entertaining. Here are some more of this month's design team projects:

Cardvaarks Micro Challenge

I decided to do a card for a micro challenge on Cardvaarks . Of course I've only got a few minutes to load and link before it ends (nothing like last minute to get those creative juices flowing!) So here it is! The flower petals are Inque Boutique and the boots and sentiment are Penguin Pants stamps. the challenge was to just say "NO" to patterned paper. Hard one for me, but I like the graphic simple look of this one. ;)

cheers,
Nicole

Its March!

Yipee! I feel like spring is in sight.

Karen from Go Scrapping has asked me to be the guest design Team member for this month. I'm honored and was delighted with the fun goodies she sent me to work with.

This is Luke and Lucy hand washing the dishes (which we rarely do since we have a dishwasher). I thought it was so funny how they kept giving each other instructions. Its kind of amazing how life changes from one generation to the next. I washed dishes everyday growing up and for my kids its a fun treat of an activity. :D

Happy Leap Day!

Happy Leap Day! Our weather has been beautiful lately but I thought I'd show you what it looked like a few weeks ago. we had LOTS of snow (as I know a lot of people did). It was quite fun for the kids but the novelty has worn off and we are embracing the spring-like sunshine we've had the past couple of days.

Tommorow I should be able to post some fun Layouts I did for my guest design team spot at Go scrapping.

ETA: I deleted the other LO because...IT WAS PICKED UP FOR PUBLICATION!!! yes I'm yelling but with delight not anger...WoooHooo!

Here are a couple more pages. I love both of these ones (still :D ) Also a couple of pics of the lunar eclipse from last night. I broke my favorite lens yesterday :( So now I only have a fully manual one. I guess its time to actually learn how to use my DSLR huh? Maybe I should practice with some still lifes in Lucy's room. Her entire carpet is covered with Pet Shop City. I swear the giant-eyed-plastic-bobble-headed-critters are actually reproducing!