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There is someone out there who's waiting for a pair of hand-knit socks. Is it you?
Hint: You have a size 11 foot!
We emailed about this a while back, but since the demise of my computer, I have lost the correspondence. If this is you, please email me or leave a comment! Your socks are done!
Where did the week go? Or for that matter, the past two weeks??? It's almost July and I don't even have a base tan established yet. Yikes! I have been brainstorming with my cute editor, Megan, about how to promote my book at July's CHA show. The book itself will not be out until November, but CHA is the only big show before then. And I want to make a splash! Got any ideas?
Remember that five-product challenge I issued a few weeks back? Well, here's mine...
1. Cardstock
2. Patterned paper (polka dotted) (My MInd's Eye)
3. rub-ons (Heidi Swapp)
4. plastic letters (KI)
5. Patterned paper (backing letters) (Ummm... Daisy Ds??)
I incorporated the above products with deco-edge scissors and punches to create this layout. Simple. Quick. (The hardest part was punching, cutting, and positioning the strips and circles of cardstock).
Many of you told me this was hard for you. Tell me -- did you pick five products first, or start creating the page and stop when you hit five? Your approach can have a big impact on how hard or easy it is. I like to pick my items FIRST and then play with them. That way I'm exploring to the edges of pre-established boundaries, rather than saying, "Oh, I'd love to add xy or z but I can't." Does that make sense?
Anyway, our winner...
Michelle from KY! Send me your address, dearie.
For next week... I would like to see a 30-minute layout that is a scraplift of a layout in a magazine or online gallery. I scraplift all the time -- I'll talk more about that next week. But for right now, create the layout, let us see your inspiration (if you can), and show us how you re-interpreted it!
I thought summer was here... but somehow, I am more busy now than I was during school! (Just kidding. But almost.)
Here's what we've been up to chez Ehmann:
-Summer school. Ben is taking algebra, and with John out of town I find myself magically transported back to junior high with questions like this doozy:
"If Mr. Smith, the owner of a candy store, wants to create 30 lbs. of a candy mix to sell for $1 a pound, and he is mixing together Candy A ($.95/lb) and Candy B ($1.10/lb), how much of each candy should he use?"
If you don't think that is giving me flashbacks and the DTs, you are sadly mistaken.
-Baseball. Yeah, I know, you thought baseball was over. Never. Around here, baseball goes from about January - September. He has practice for all-stars every night, plus games... it's a little crazy. Good thing I like it.
-FUN STUFF! I've been channeling my inner Stephanie the past few days, crafting my little heart out. I had some serious withdrawals coming back from a week on the road.
If you are local, you may want to swing by the Bobbin's Nest Thursday evening for their Vin et Fromage (wine and cheese) evening. Their featured artist is... moi! I've been crafting away, creating some goodies to show (and sell). Festivities start at 6 PM.
Altered notebooks, address books, checkbook covers, greeting cards... and my favorite button jewelry!
Not local but interested in purchasing? Send me an email and we'll chat. :)
Lots to say about our last days in C'town, but I left my camera at my mom's house! Until I can get it back, here is something to amuse you...
Yes, that is me in all my '80s glory! I looked pretty dang good, even with no under-eye concealer. :)
The latest issue of Simple includes an article on teen-inspired products and pages. A bunch of the ed board created layouts for the website. Check out our teen pages here. And for a fun challenge, do your own teen page and link me to it in the comments. Who knows, I may even send some goodies to my favorite embarrassing page -- especially if you include scrunchies!
And Mudville it was. More rain, rain, rain, rain.
I actually should change the title -- there was a little bit of joy. We won our last pool game, which positioned us well for pool play in the tournament. We got a bye in the first two rounds -- meaning we got to sit around for several hours waiting for our games to start. And then just before our evening game in the single-elimination tourney was scheduled to begin,
Rain.
We sat around in a big tent, staring at each other. The boys were actually really well behaved. It was my girls I had to keep an eye on -- they kept sneaking out to play in the rain!
Here is Cal with one of her favorite new babysitters, Paige. Isn't she gorgeous? (She's the awesome Brett Leber's daughter -- he made me write that!):
Callie has a definite "Rosie O'Donnell" look about her in this photo. I think it is the grimace-like smile.
While we were sitting, I took this one for you,Tracy:
Hi, Mom!
The sun did finally re-emerge...
And the boys played their hearts out, but it just wasn't our day. We lost by a couple of runs. And of course my son thinks it was all his fault. He held it together during the game, but afterwards just fell to pieces, convinced the coach and the other players would blame him for the loss. I tried to convince him that there are 11 other players on the team, but I am not sure he believes me.
A learning lesson, right?
We are done playing now, so we will spend Thursday watching other games and going through the closing ceremonies. All the players get inducted into the Youth Baseball Hall of Fame, so that will be fun to watch. Then we'll wrap it up and get ready to leave tomorrow. Back to our normally scheduled programming!
Five days already - can you believe it? For the non-baseball fans (and I know there are a few) you are probably breathing a sigh of relief, knowing that these updates will soon come to an end. For the rest of you, here's the latest on the Monarchs...
We're ranked #15!!!
That might not sound like that big a deal... but trust me when I say it's a gol-durn-diggety big deal. We came here with few other teams (or "organizations," as those up on the lingo like to say) knowing who we were. I think it is safe to say that now we're starting to generate a little buzz.
The other coolio thing (as we California girls might say) is that out of the 97 teams competing, the higher you're ranked, the better chance you have of making it to a Thursday play-off game. And stayin' alive is the theme song.
We played two fairly easy games today. I won't go into too much detail other than to share some photos... My favorite:
Callie has taken to calling Ben her "bunny" which is simply too cute for words.
And this is for you, Kristina. It's not the best picture in the world, but between the rain and the fence and the scorebook, it's the best action shot I got. I think I need to work on my multi-tasking skills!
And what about this one for the Bellos...your little boy is so darned cute! (don't tell him I called him "little.") Thank you for sharing him with us!:
This afternoon we were able (ordered) to take our kids until 9:30 so the coaches could have an evening kid-free. You'd think they'd go somewhere swanky, but I have photographic proof they were eating corn dogs (at least it looks like a corn dog -- either that or a swamp rat on a stick, a la Shrek. Once I figure out how to get the photos off my iPhone, I'll show you and we'll figure it out for sure).
Actually, I have to admit that our coaches are starting to bear more than a passing resemblance to everyone's favorite ogre. Spending 120 hours with a dozen 10-year-olds will do that, I suppose. Or then again, maybe it's just the odor.
We play our last (!!!) regular pool play game tomorrow morning at 8 (which means I should be in bed right now). If we hold steady, we should be in good shape for the play-offs. Keep your fingers crossed for NO RAIN and fast bats!
ETA: Here's the pic, folks. You tell me... corn dog? Swamp rat? Other?
There is a movie called "The Longest Yard."
Today was "the longest day."
Due to things not heard and seen in California, like sudden torrential rainstorms in 75 degree weather...
...the 11AM game against the Tidewater Bombers was delayed -- first to 12:20. And then again, at the bottom of the fourth inning.
Watching 1000 people evacuate the baseball parks simultaneously was quite a sight to behold.
We had just enough time to get back to HoJo's, get in the pool and relax -- and then get called back to the field to resume the game.
That didn't go so well. It started pouring again, and after several rousing rounds of "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," followed by "Gilligan's Island," we were evacuated again.
And called back again about an hour and a half later... and this time we actually got to play!
Lovin' that scoreboard. Sorry about the lack of photos of the game -- my camera batteries died. I'll pick up some new ones tomorrow (Jolene, guess who forgot to bring her rechargeable ones??).
Because of the delay, we only played one game today. We start tomorrow morning at 8:30 (which my body will insist is 5:30). Stay tuned!
Piggy Tales has been one of my favorite manufacturers since the company launched several years ago. The owners are adorable, their product is gorgeous and innovative, and it's made right here in the USA -- often from recycled materials! Oh, and their product lines are named after nursery rhymes. What's not to love??
I fell in love all over again when I got one of their new Drawbridge albums to play with. These new board books are designed to allow all sorts of bulky poky sticky-uppy sort of embellishments -- and still close flat! LOVE THAT! I got an early release as part of a special project with Big Picture Scrapbooking, and created this cute mini-album of some of my scrapping friends. The patterned paper is their Cinderella line, and I threw in some other goodies, including WorldWin cardstock (a new favorite), Making Memories glitter alphas, CK rub-ons, Heidi Swapp chipboard letters, Foof-a-la buttons, Cosmo Cricket ribbon (on the cover -- chocolate brown velvet scallops, how delish is that??), Tinkering Ink rub-ons, and KaiserCraft rub-ons, flowers, jewels and self-adhesive pearls (KaiserCraft is an Australian company doing some amazing stuff. I'll share more about them soon).
The big chipboard letters on the cover are from the Cinderella line, too.
Look how the pages flip open! I piled on the embellishments and still the whole book lies flat. Tons of room for goodies.
Because of the interactivity element (fold out/down/up pages), I created a masterpiece in a few hours... totally in keeping with my "Keep it Simple" philosophy. I stuck with a single color palette, added in a few embellishments, and voila!
I actually did most of this at Ben's baseball practice. I used spray adhesive to make it even quicker, and everyone was awed and amazed at my results. ;) Gotta love the "wow" factor!
Want to see more of what folks are doing with the Drawbridge album? Visit Stacy Julian's blog today, and follow the links to some other fabu projects by Big Picture instructors!
And you thought I hadn't been scrapbooking! P'shaw!
If you are getting sick of these updates, so sorry -- but you have about five more days of this! I promise I will have some good scrappy updates Monday, so check back for that.
We had our first game this morning against Bear Valley (PA).
The boys looked so cute in their uniforms! The rules state that they must wear their pants pulled to their knees so their socks show. Aren't they adorable? After a pre-game rally speech (in which the coach actually used the phrase "Gol-darn-diggety," but he's from Tennessee so we will excuse him), we hit the field.
I will save you from a zillion baseball photos ad nauseum, but I will share my favorite shot from today. That's Ben playing catcher -- and look at the dirt flying as the ball smacks his glove! Maybe I don't need a Nikon 40D after all. :)
I guess this is another great photo from the morning's game:
...Because we won! We celebrated at the lakeside restaurant, and our good friend Harryoke (inside joke) was kind enough to shoot this pic. Do I see a Christmas card shot?? If only I can increase my Photoshop skills so I can erase that drinking straw. And maybe change it so we are all looking in the same direction. :)
The second game was a bit tougher, against one of the top-ranked teams in the nation. And guess who was pitching? (We switched to red unis for the afternoon game.)
Yes, that's my little Bubbaloo out there. He did an awesome job -- holding them to no earned runs in the first three innings. But they grow them big down there in Miami:
I'd like to say that is an optical illusion, but it isn't -- number 10 (who they swear is only 10 years old) was taller than their coach. They won their first game 10-0 and came into this game not knowing who Lamorinda is -- but they know now. Their fans did their best to fluster our players, shouting and yelling and singing in Spanish. I am not sure, but I think the chant went something like this: "We will cut out your livers and eat them for breakfast." No matter, we kept our composure. The bats unfortunately weren't swinging hard enough for us, and this was the result:
A loss, but a heck of a game. And that's what we're here for. More tomorrow!
What a day! It went from 10 in the morning until 9 at night for us -- and even longer for the boys (and coaches!).
It was opening ceremonies today. We started by swinging by the Athletes' Village around 10. It took us a little while to find the team, as the Village was full of
1300 boys, all about the same size, wearing pretty much the same thing.
If we come again, I will recommend that we get the team distinctive batting helmets -- like maybe fluorescent yellow -- to make them easier to track down. We finally found them taking batting practice.
We hung out and watched for a bit before we realized that Ben didn't want or need us nearby, so we headed over to the stadium.
The coach had recommended staking out a spot early on in the day, but I think we headed over a bit too early, as we were the first ones in the stadium. And weren't joined by anyone else for oh, about three hours. So we left our stuff out to mark our spot, and then headed over to join up with the parents and team for a BBQ lunch. Lots of standing in line, but great grilled corn on the cob.
Lots of speeches
Lots of people
Not a whole lot of baseball, but I look forward to that tomorrow.
Today was marked by lots of junk food
