...{...another studio calico glee club...}...

i thought by now i'd of used up most of the studio calico glee club kit, but i still have quite a bit left. today i pulled it out along with one of the add ons that month - pep squad. however i didn't seem to have a paper i liked for the background, so i found this sheet of fireball from the sugar rush collection from basic grey. added some spritz of studio calico in calico white, orchard and warm calico. i wanted to add a bit of some hard metal piece and decided to go with some staples. however i looked and looked all over and could not find my tim holtz mini stapler...ugh...but i found a regular staple which works just as well :-)

the pic was from my birthday trip this year...my birthday was at the end of may and we went early in june. we just went to tulsa for the weekend, but it was a fun trip and i'm so glad my friends took the time out of their busy schedules to take me. while we were there we headed over to utica square to do some shopping and so i could go to anthropologie...which i LOVE... while walking around we ran across this adorable red phone booth, just like the ones in england!  of course we each had to stop and get a pic of ourselves in it...

~ jess

...{...october - authentic blogging...}...

saw this over on stephanie's blog --> whom i adore and often wonder how she does it all!...head over there NOW if you've never stopped by her blog.  even if you don't scrapbook just seeing her adorable family is worth it...

thought this 'authentic blogging' was a great idea.  i think a lot of times there's two sides to blogging - those who just share it all, every.single.detail. and those who paint this picturesque idea of their life.  why can't it be a mix of both?

here's what's been on my heart...

--> ever been on a diving board scared to jump...yeah, me neither, but i imagine if feels something like this...ahhh...deep breath...jump...

1. sometimes i feel my life is wasting away.  while i'm at work i just think about getting home and accomplishing sooo many projects that are running around in my mind.  but then when i get home...it's like laziness slaps me in the face and most nights you'll find me glued to the tv going through my dvr trying to watch as much as i can to free up space to fill it all up again.  i wish it wasn't that way but i just always feel soooo tired.

2. i've been thinking about the path that God has for me and wondering if i'm still on the right road and if i'm as far along it as i should be.  most of the time i feel i fall short of my potential.  there's so much more i could/should be doing and yet...i'm.just.not...

3. i worry about becoming an old maid.  that i'll never get married or have kids.  and since i'm an only child i then worry that i'll be all alone when i'm old and end up dying alone.  some days i do just sit back and realize i've got this opportunity to do some amazing things while i'm not married...things that might not be possible if i had a family...things that tend to define being in my twenties.  but then when i see so many people i know...especially those younger than me...getting married and having kids i begin to wonder if i'll ever get my turn.

4. i'm a bit terrified to get on the scales at the moment.  no gym for weeks.  lots of fast food and junk food in general.  i just know the scales will not be my friend.  of course i do look for honesty in friendships...

~ jess

...{...happy birthday and a check of the list...}...

guess what today is...did you guess? it's my blog's birthday!!! one year ago today i made my very first ever blog post. i can't believe it has been a year already! i thought and thought about what i wanted to post about today... and i decided i'd share with you guys a check mark i made off my birthday bucket list!

here's a clue...

that's right...i marked off number.11 from the list! i didn't run, but i did walk a 5k which supported our local cancer support house. it was a bit chilly that morning and the race started at 8am. so when i woke up at 6:15 i was definitely asking myself "what was i thinking!" luckily i'd teamed up with some other people, so i knew i wouldn't be alone in my walk that day. at one point in the walk i did tear up a bit...there was this steep hill and a person cheering on the sideline held up a sign that said if they could beat cancer then we could conquer that hill. it was a rather sobering moment realizing just what our walk/donation truly meant. i want to start back training and be able to run the 5k next year!

my friend Shelly...her daughter walked with her while her husband and son ran the 5k

with my friend Lydia whom i walked with...also she's the one who let me know about the event

the 3 of us after walking the 5k...goal next year is to run it!!!

i'm pretty happy with myself for the 76 posts that i've made in the past year and look forward to lots more posting in the next year. also, just wanted to let you know a couple of other places you can find me --> pinterest - twitter - instagram - youtube - i'd love it if you'd come follow me of course here on my blog and also at the other places just listed. and of course leave me a comment letting me know where i can come follow you too!
~ jess

...{...end of summer beauty haul part 2...}...

~ jess

...{...love you so card...}...

hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. i've missed blogging... seems like i had gotten into such a routine with it. it's been pretty busy around here. i had a yard sale with my mom last friday and saturday and oh.my.goodness do those ever wear you out! we had a good sale on friday but saturday was almost a complete waste. i'm glad it's over...although it's a busy week for me at work.

this is just a cute little card i made a while back.  sold it at a craft fair last month and realized tonight that i'd never posted it.

~ jess

...{...wedding shower gift...}...

friday night i went to a wedding shower for a cute young couple at my church.  they are getting married on 11/11/11...what a fun date for a wedding!  both of them are such sweet people and i wish them all the best!

for years now i have been creating canvas art for gift at church showers and birthday parties and now they expect them ;-)  used to the canvas' i created were more like a scrapbook layout, in that they featured a picture and embellishments.  but now that i've been working on the paper-pieced and painted figures, that's the only style i've been creating.  so for their gift, i had to make them one too!

hexagons make good lanterns ;-)

~ jess

...{...beauty haul part 1...}...

goodmorning...just posted a new video to youtube...it's a beauty product haul of things i bought at the end of summer...made the video several weeks, okay over a month ago, but just now getting around to editing it...there will be one or two more of these coming up soon...

~ jess

...{...studio calico glee club layout 3...}...

i truly think one of the best decisions i ever made was to sign up for the studio calico kits.  they just make it so easy to put together a layout!  yesterday i sat down and was finished with this layout in about 15 minutes...which is monumental for me.  usually it takes me at least an hour per layout...and part of that is because i am always stopping to go through my stash of product to find coordinating pieces.  it's not that i don't know how to coordinate, because i do...it's just so great when a company does it for you.  now don't get me wrong, i'll still be using my stash to scrap layouts too...but right now it's just so much easier to grab that cute brown bag of goodies.

this summer i took a pic of me enjoying some summery drink.  i'm kind of obsessed w/ getting food and drink pics.  so i decided to create a page dedicated to my love of liquid goodness...whether it be water, tea, cola/pop...or some new cool drink i ran across at a store or restaurant...i've always got a drink close by!

i also pulled out my studio calico mister huey's for this layout...calico white, piglet, applejack and bluegrass. and i also grabbed a prima flower center and a gemstone from paper studio. final touch was to add some stitching on the sewing machine!

~ jess

...{...haute look nyx haul...}...

a while back haute look had a nyx event and i purchased a few things...

~ jess

...{...rachel's canvas and card...}...

friday could not get here fast enough for me this week. try as i might, i was never able to get in bed before midnight most of this week, so i am really looking forward to sleeping in saturday morning!

wednesday was the 18th birthday of a dear friend of mine from church, rachel.  and as i learned this week, she shares that date w/ a lot of people in the us as it's the #1 day to be born.  anywho... :-) i decided to make her one of the canvas girls.

i love all the yummy textures

rachel LOVES coach purses so i wanted to incoporate that into the design

that's a strip of washi tape!...

look closely and there is more washi tape above the lanterns

what's a birthday w/o a birthday card!?!

my favorite combination is to mix floral and animal print...of course a dash of sparkle is nice too

rachel really seemed to like it and especially the fact that i'd incorporated a coach purse ;-)
~ jess

...{...september eco emi...}...

just a quick post to share a video of my eco emi box...enjoy!

~ jess

...{...art canvas...}...

back in the spring i took christy tomlinson's she art class. LOVED it...however i was so busy at the time that i never actually made anything during the class. but lately i have been sooo into making these! i LOVE it.

here is one i recently made.  this is only 5x7 on a canvas board.

~ jess

...{...studio calico - glee club...}...

so i finally signed up for studio calico last month. when i signed up i purchased the main kit - glee club and one add on - pep squad. and...this weekend i pulled them out. i wanted to challenge myself though to only use the main kit for at least one layout...not only did i do that, but i also used it for two layouts w/o adding in anything extra...well, i did add a few drops and sprays of some gold glimmer mist and the calico white mister huey...

this first layout, the title is really a double meaning...not only is it about the shoes...but also all the hexes i used on this layout. i can't get enough!

originally i wanted the hexes to be a continuous pattern across the page w/ the big hexes near the photo leading to the smallest hexes along the paper edge. but after i started working on it i decided to keep it a bit more simple. it's so hard for me to stop adding to a page or card but i wanted the challenge of using restraint...

i knew as soon as i saw the heart shaped clip i needed to add it to the photo

loved the wood grain look to the thickers...and i'm also obsessed w/ thickers...lol...

why not use one of the hexes for journaling...it seemed more fitting than adding a journaling strip

ahhh...a chevron hex...be still my beating heart ;-)

pulled out my mister huey...which i loved!

i used my silhouette to cut out all the hexes

and i cut quite a few...too many probably, but now i have them to add to other projects

this next layout i worked and worked on...i had all those hexes left over and knew i wanted to use them up again soon. i figured 'why not' use it right now so the two layouts would look similar since they would be facing each other in my album...i kept arranging the hexes around trying to come up w/ some kind of pattern...finally, this is what i came up with...

worked and worked to come up w/ a cute border strip for the hexes

cut the title on my silhouette...the font is wisdom script

more of those lovely hexes...with a dash of mister huey!

~ jess