delight in life

project life, week 6

Welcome to week 6! Big news this week is that I got a Silhouette Cameo diecut machine. We got our tax refund, so Chris and I each bought one "toy" and put the rest into savings. This was my pick! (His was music. So boring!) I played with my mom's Cricut a while ago and it definitely made me want a diecut machine. Right around then, it seemed like every scrapbooker with a blog got a Cameo and I thought they seemed super cool. And now I can tell you, yes they are.

Here's the spread. I added an insert for my "day in the life" documentation, which I'll talk about in a second.

(You can click on any photo to view it larger.)

Chris had a recital last Tuesday night, and I used the Cameo to cut out the word, then stapled it to the photo. I really love the way it looks. We had lunch with friends and I finally remembered to grab a few photos with people in them. I used to be very much in the habit of good-naturedly forcing my friends to smile and pose once or twice at every gathering, but I dropped that sometime over the last few years. I'm pleased to be starting to pick that up again, thanks to this project.

We stopped at Krispy Kreme on the weekend—I can't pass up that hot doughnuts sign—and they gave us a sheet of KK-themed valentines! Totally made my day. Funnily enough, the first thing Chris said was, "this will be perfect for your book." I also swiped the Foursquare mayorship at my office, so I had to include a screenshot of that.

Ali Edwards encouraged people to document "A Day in the Life" on Wednesday of this week, so I gave it a try. I wasn't too pleased with my results. I didn't take too many photos, and to be honest, I didn't like most of the ones I did take. I think my weekdays are pretty boring so I found it difficult to pull much of interest from the day.

Once I cropped the photos down to 2.5x3.5 to fit into a baseball card protector, they looked a little better. Ali offered the "day in the life" square as a freebie on her blog, so I cut it and the cute little camera out with the Cameo. I love the transparent aspect! I included a spot of journaling on each side and a file tab on the edge with the date.

Even though I didn't think the events of the day were very interesting, I am glad I did this. I even got Chris in on it, and he took a few photos of his day. I think I might give this another try in a few months! Below is the back of the Wednesday insert:

Page two: we had a Super Bowl party on Sunday so I included a few photos (and a beer label) from that. A picture of my Starbucks cups that have been collecting on my desk, and a funny shot of Oscar on top of the bookshelf.

More journaling, a tea bag wrapper, and a shot of a self-promotional image that I liked a lot on my Metro bus.

This makes me officially caught up, and I'm very happy about that. I love flipping through the pages in my book, and I can't wait until it's totally filled up.

(You can see the rest of my Project Life pages here.)

valentimes

It was a lovely February 14 over here in the Buckley house. When I came home from work I saw this:

That is our apartment, cleaner than it's been in some weeks. That is also roses on the coffee table. Then I turned to my right and I saw this:

That's my sweet valentine, cooking dinner. Which turned out to be this:

Tasty, tasty chicken tostadas and fresh guacamole. Which we devoured while watching a few episodes of my latest tv obsession, Friday Night Lights. 

This Valentine's day was low-key and sweet and perfectly us. He makes me know I am so loved every single day, and I am so lucky.

project life, week 5

Week 5! This is the week I started my job, and I took very few pictures. It was really a challenge to fill up the whole spread, but I am happy with the results. (Actually, the reason I'm just now sharing is because it took me a week to remember to snap a photo of my new desk.)

(You can click on any photo to view it larger.)

I decided to do the main journaling for the week in a 4x6 slot, mostly because I didn't have enough photos to fill it up! In order to keep it looking neat, I typed it instead of handwriting it. I don't often do that but I am happy with how it came out.

My 2012 calendar came with tiny images of each month on the back—perfect for project life, especially on a week when I was scrounging for stuff to stick in the pockets.

That card on the left is a broken sewing machine needle! The journaling says "weirdly proud of my first busted needle." I totally love that I had somewhere to put that.

A while ago we ordered a cat scratch lounge from Fab.com, and it came during this week. We were ecstatic to discover that Battlecat liked it. We have been trying for ages to get her to stop using our carpet as a scratcher, and finally we are making some progress. This "Thx" card was part of the packaging from Fab.

On page two, the big news was that our best friends Hiram and Molly moved to town! I totally failed at getting pictures of them, but I did at least get one of their daughter Olivia.

 The stickers are from Olivia. The first night we went over there, she sat next to me on the couch as we all chatted, and when I got home, I discovered these stickers on my feet, cheeks, and collarbone.

The teal card has a text message conversation between me and Molly that actually happened a few weeks earlier, but since it referenced the move that happened this week I thought it was fair game to include.

I knew a sparse week like this would come up sooner or later, and I was worried that I wouldn't be able to complete a spread and it would end up derailing my whole project. I'm so pleased that I was able to fill it up and keep it going!

See the rest of my project life posts here.

bits and pieces

Yesterday, my gardening hero Gayla Trail's newest book was released, and thanks to Amazon, I have a shiny copy on my desk, and so starts my annual garden mania. Last year was pretty much a failure, but this year, I have an idea that will REVOLUTIONIZE the complicated light + cat situation in this apartment. It involves minor construction work, but somehow I already got Chris on board! We'll see how it pans out. For at least a few more weeks, it's all just dreams.

My job is going well so far and I feel good about it. Boy I feel busy, though. I've got a few website projects I'm working on for friends, and between work and those, I am working a pretty full day during the week. I sort of miss my brief period of unemployment, but I don't see myself going back anytime soon. ;) I was used to saving my crafts and sewing for the weekends before, I can get used to it again.

Have you guys seen the show My Cat From Hell? Unless you're also a crazy cat person, you probably haven't. But we love it. People with cats that are completely out of control go on the show to get help from this wacky cat behaviorist named Jackson Galaxy. We really like to watch to get tips on how to deal with our very own cat from hell; although, after seeing some of the insane cats on the show, Battlecat doesn't seem so bad! 

ps, guys, if you're having behavior problems with your pet and he or she isn't fixed? TAKE HER TO THE VET AND GET HER FIXED. There—no need to call in a fancy specialist. You're welcome!

Anyway, all of these cats are crazy, but the best part is that Jackson makes all of them better! It's really pretty amazing to watch him.

Today, I think I'm going to give Ali's "Day in the Life" documentation a try. It might be a little boring, but it also might be kind of fun! If I like the results, I'll find a way to include it in this week's Project Life somehow.

Ok, this brain dump needs to end. Happy Wednesday!

project life week 4

This is a week late, but we had a super busy weekend last week and I didn't get a chance to put this together until Sunday night. Then I started my new job on Monday and didn't have any daylight hours at home to photograph it. I thought I'd just double up this week, but then I got busy again and haven't had time to get to week 5 yet! Let's just say I'm grateful for the simplicity of this memory-recording system right now. I am already a little behind, but I know it will be easy to catch up.

Week four had the US Army Band Tuba-Euphonium Workshop, which Chris played a big role in hosting and organizing. He was really busy all week and I didn't get to see much of him, but it was great because so many of our friends from college were in town for it, including Chris's professor.

This week was fun contrast to the previous week, because in week 3 I had a lot of fun putting a lot of embellishment and detail on each slot. This time, I was crunched for time and put it together really quickly with primarily just photos and label stickers. To me, that's the coolest part of this project: I can do whatever I have the time for, and not worry about making everything super complete and artistic.

Here there's a screenshot of an iPhone game Chris and I have been playing, a picture of my temporary tattoo for the week, a tag from an online purchase, an business card from an awesome store I found, and a photo at the Marine barracks where I volunteered for a few weeks.

The conference had lots of good photo opportunities, so I decided to use a 6x12 divided insert to include extras. I really liked doing that and I'll definitely be looking for more opportunities to use extra pages!

The second page has a ew more conference photos and some journaling about the conference, a photo of Margaret's quilt, some fun wrapping paper from a gift Chris received, a few photos from a nice lunch we enjoyed, and that pretty pinky-purple picture.

One month of project life complete already!

quilt for margaret, number...10?

I really need to ditch the numbering thing; it's not a very effective system. ANYWAY. I mailed off a new quilt last week! Our friends back in Texas just welcomed their first baby into their lives, Margaret June. Isn't that such a sweet name? She needed a sweet quilt to match.

I used nearly every pink print I had in my stash and paired it with the same linen blend I used on Tessa's quilt. The squares are 2" finished, and while there are ways to make sewing hundreds of tiny squares together easier, I didn't do any of them. (Only because I didn't think of them until it was too late.) So yeah. This quilt had many, many challenges in store for me, most of them my own fault. But. There are more corners that line up than there are mismatched corners, and I consider that a win.

It's backed and bound in a soft, cozy flannel, and I hand-quilted it in a pattern of interlocking squares. Mostly with plain white quilting thread, but I did a handful of the squares in various shades of pink perle cotton thread. So pretty! The final size is about 40x60. I'm not sure what I have against baby-sized quilts for baby-sized people, but I'm thinking I need to revisit that because I sure wouldn't mind making something smaller.

I didn't pay any attention to placement of the fabrics as I pieced it, so the layout is truly arbitrary, which kind of goes against my nature, but I really like the scrappy vibe it adds.

 

new things, good things

Well, dear Internet, I am really happy to tell you that I started a new job yesterday. Remember in December, on my last day at American Airlines, when I felt a lot of things, including anxious and sad and scared? Well, six days after I wrote that, I received a job offer. Amazing, right? Really, really, really amazing. A few days after that, on a flight to see family for Christmas, I read an article about how the middle class in Ohio is struggling, and came across this passage:

According to Robek, there used to be a general rule in job searching: For every $10,000 in annual salary earned, it took one month of looking. I schedule an advising session with him, and he explains that nobody has fingered the standard for the new economic order yet, but anecdotally, what used to take 3 to 6 months often now takes 6 to 12. “Or even longer sometimes!” he says.

And I can't even describe the immense wave of gratitude that rushed over me when I read that. Six days. All I really have to say about that is God is good.

After six months of working in my pj's and another six weeks of not working at all, it might take me a week or so to get back in the groove of a non-pajamas-wearing, early-rising adult, but other than that, so far so good.

 

modern block of the month

This is a pretty cool block pattern, right? The tutorial is here, it's for Sew Mama Sew's modern block of the month series. I've never made a block before without intending to have it be part of a quilt, but it was fun! When I saw the picture, I was intrigued, but I thought it would be really complicated. I read the pattern and realized it was quite simple, so I gave it a try. Like I said, super simple, and it could make some really interesting quilt designs. I think a scrappy version would look awesome, too! I might try that version next.

new toy: walking foot

 What is this monstrosity on my sewing machine? It's my new walking foot! Whenever I attach bindings to my quilts, I have a lot of trouble with tucks and puckers. I've tried it with and without pins, but I'm never able to get it all even. I did some research and learned that this little doohickey may solve my problems! It's supposed to help thick materials or layers of materials feed more evenly through the sewing machine.

It worked great on my six inch sample quilt. Obviously the real test is on a real quilt, but we will have to wait a while for that. In addition to attaching binding, I can also use it to quilt straight lines on large-ish quilts! I am very, very fond of hand-quilting, but I don't deny that it will be nice to have a faster option for certain projects.

pinky-purple

Yesterday was a really lovely day: mid-fifties and sunny. After a week of freezing rain and grey skies, it was so nice to leave the house without gloves and an umbrella. Chris and I even ate lunch outside!

I was walking through Capitol Hill this afternoon, and though I've made this same walk six or seven times in the last two weeks, I am always in a hurry to get where I'm going and out of the cold, and I haven't paid much attention to the walk itself. Today, I took my time, I smiled at strangers, and I admired all the pretty-colored houses. The best thing I saw, though:

This beautiful pinky-purple law firm with a beautiful pinky-purple plant (cabbage?) in a beautiful glossy black planter with a beautiful gold plaque as the perfect accent. I wasn't even embarrassed to stop and take pictures on the street with people walking by me. I couldn't get over the colors, or how I'd walked past this building seven other times and never even saw it. It's the little things, man, and I resolve to pay more attention to them.