My Softbox

Posted on | February 1, 2010 | 4 Comments

I really didn’t want to make a card last night but I wanted to try out the softbox (photography lighting gadget) that I got for Christmas on a card.

The kit is nice. But putting the softbox together was total pain in my {flabby} ass. On the four sides of the softbox are these rods. They’re straight as can be but if you try hard enough they will bend so that they can fit into the sides of this thing called a speed ring. Well, after much work I got all of the rods into the holes of the ring. Putting the first rod in was easy. The second got a bit tough but manageable. The third made me sweat a bit and the fourth… I had to go for an ice cream break. I almost used the box without the 4th rod in. I didn’t care. I was determined to try it but I finally got it in. How? I broke the manual’s rules. Even though it said to put it together before you hook it up to the light I put the box on the light stand anyways with the last rod loose. Then with all my might I bent the rod and stuck it in the hole. The good news, everything is now put together. The bad news, my softbox is tilted to the right by 45 degrees. Oh well, I ain’t taking that thing apart (takes MORE hand muscles) and put it back together again. How ’bout asking the hub? Well he was out when I did it and despite the crookedness it does work.

So far I love the softbox. I need to set it up now… got to read and experiment. That’ll be fun. I placed the softbox on the left, you can probably tell from the shadow on the right. I like. I can now leave my ISO (film) speed to 200. Why? The higher the ISO the more grain/noise your photo will have. It’s fine if your pics are just small for the web for example but if you want to blow it up, it’s not that pretty unless you want to use the noise for visual effects — which some do and does well. So now I have a little studio kit. I do need a few more things tho, like solid background (white and black for now), flash, and a brolly/umbrella.

Card created using stamps by Stampin’ Up!

SU + PTI

Posted on | January 31, 2010 | 7 Comments

I can’t think of a good title for today’s post. I can’t think of a good story either. We all just had a lazy day today. Both girls are sick and so we all just laid around even though I did get some downstairs cleaning done and a bit of laundry. Nothing exciting really.

Here’s a bit of a blurb for my card… you can read it in the most boring and monotonous way… it’s how I feel right now… I made this card last night. I got some new Stampin’ Up! stamps in the mail and I had to ink ‘em up. I’ve been wanting the Medallion stamp for a while but I never did put in an order until last week. I also wanted to try the new SU cling-on stamps. I like them except that I wish they’d use a CD case instead of a DVD case for storage. It’s nice and all but really, they’re way too big for the stamps I got and they won’t fit into my CD storage unit. The Papertrey stamps I’ve had for awhile but I haven’t really used them until now. I think I got intimidated. I always see all sorts of gorgeous cards using this set and I didn’t want to ruin it. If you’re curious this card is 5.5×5. When I make a card I never think about envelope. Actually I don’t send out as much as I make – a lot of my cards are here with me – and so I never worry about it. It’s a hobby, not a need to send anything out, and so 75% of the time I make them without having anybody in mind to give. I should probably start selling them or something.

Alrighty. I should go take my boring ass away from here. Gnight y’all <– I learned this in Missouri {::SMILE}.

Guess What?

Posted on | January 29, 2010 | 15 Comments

I will be joining the oh so fabulous Maile Belles and very energetic and fun Elise Durenberger at Wplus9 as one of their design team!! I am so excited! Do you know Dawn Woleslagle? She’s the person behind Wplus9 and she’s an amazing graphic artist. What is Wplus9? It’s a new photo-polymer stamp company and if you want to get an idea what Dawn’s stamps might be like, well, take a look at this and while you’re there go and see her card creations. Gorgeous crispy clean designs!!

I got a sneaky peaky of her stamps, just to make sure that I’d be able to fit well in her team (also to make sure that there’s not going to be a lot of coloring involved cause you all know how “great” I am at it), and all I can say is, you big (favorite) companies out there, watch out, Wplus9 is coming!!!

When will the store open? February-ish. If you want to be the first to shop, hop on over to the store’s website and sign-up to be in the store’s mailing list! I cannot wait to receive her stamps!!

Okie doke, moving on… a card a card AND I stamped everything. Proud of me? Just say yes {::SMILE}. I really like this PTI stamp set and I’m kind of liking the process of making my own pattern paper with stamps.

Laters!!

Card for St. Jude

Posted on | January 4, 2010 | 16 Comments

Before I start, I just want to tell you that we got home at 4:45 a.m. Driving at night was way better for our sanity than in the day time. There’s no Jovie cries 5 out of the 9 hours. We were too tired to unload everything and so the only thing we grabbed from the car was the toiletries bag. This late this afternoon I did some unloading.

Hubby: Oh, unloading all he important stuff, huh?
Me: Yeah, I have my hands full!
Hubby: (snort)

That was our conversation on my way up the stairs lugging my craft bag on one hand and M’s on the other. I have my priorities ya know, ha!

My Card for St. Jude… My blog friend, Winter, has a card drive for her 1-yr-blogversary and all the cards that she’ll be collecting this month of January will go to the children at St. Jude’s hospital. Coincidentally St. Jude has a special place in hubby’s heart. Since hubby was a little boy his family would do all sorts of drive to raise money for St. Jude. Via this card drive I want to do a little bit too.

Here’s my card. Something really simple and quick. Unlike Christmas I don’t have a lot of Valentine’s stuff. It’s never been my thing. For Valentine’s day I usually make a card for hubby and M and that’s it. I guess I’m not that big on having one day to celebrate love. I think it should just be any day. Now, hubby has done something special for Valentine’s day and it was very special but in our household it’s not a must do. Actually hubby and I decided to not exchange a lot of gifts on Christmas day also. We’ll exchange a small gift on Christmas day but we want gift exchanges to be anytime during the year. That way it’s less stressful too and more fun. For M and Jovie nothing will change, Christmas will always be magical for them — for as long as they’ll let us.

This card was created using the Whoo’s Your Valentine stamp set from Stampin’ Up!, cardstock’s from Papertrey Ink, ribbon is PTI and the black is unknown, the border punch is Fiskar and I used Copic markers to color the hearts. The color combo came from Embellish Magazine.

Alright, that’s it for now.

Let the Torture Begin…

Posted on | December 15, 2009 | 17 Comments

This weekend… I’m going to start doing the p90x workout (if you’re interested check out E-Bay first. Just a bit cheaper). The lean track. If you’ve never heard of it, here’s a video:

My friend went through this program, she’s on day 60 and looks fabulous. I think I only need to do a p30x to get to my goal {::SMILE}.

I’m not going to do everything they ask me to do. I am still nursing and so I don’t want to go to extreme. I just want to start slimming down a bit. I’m going to watch my diet but I’m not going to go strict on it. I’ll adjust as I see fit. I’m not going to keep track of how many I did for each routine either. I am going to do as much as I can and see what happens. I started working out as soon as I was able and I lost 3lbs in a week but my milk supply also decreased. I don’t want that since Jovie’s only 6.5 months and does not like formula. My goal now is to loose five more pounds and acquire a tiny bit of muscles.

My doc said my idea weight is between 108-120lbs (I like this site too for a weight estimate, pretty close to my doc’s numbers). Before I was pregnant I was 105lbs. I liked it but at the same time I thought a bit more would be ok. So I think if I go mid-way and try for 110lbs with more muscles than fat I’d be set.

K, nuff of my weight…

Here’s a card that I did for Laura’s sketch at 2Sketches4You. It’s pretty simple for many reasons… The sketch is simple and lately I’ve been swamped with moving stuff. But, I still wanted a bit of me time and last night I got a bit. The stamp is SU’s.