Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving to you from us!

ASG Meeting & Elections - You're Invited Too!

Tonight I am attending a General Meeting & Election for my local ASG Chapter here in Salt Lake City, UT.

I'm pretty excited, it's been a while since I've seen some of these girls, and these meetings are always fun.

Plus tonight everyone will reveal their Ugly Fabric Challenge entry - I can't wait to see what everyone came up with, but of course I'd like to win! Wish me luck!

Want to come?

If you are not a member but have ever been curious about ASG and live in the area now is a perfect time to check us out! 

Want to learn more about your serger? 

Tamra will be presenting "Creative Serging" to take you beyond seam finishing!

There will be refreshments, door prizes and our Ugly Fabric challenge will be judged-

and it's all free!

Hope to see you there!

Want to know more? Check out our new blog here: ASG in the SLC

 (Pardon the dust, I'm still working on it)

From Haunted to Stranded to Home Again

We took a little trip to Estes Park Colorado

to see the grandparents and lots of aunts, uncles and cousins too. 

We stayed in the historic Stanley Hotel

Over 100 years old, the hotel and grounds are beautifully maintained. 

Stanley, Estes Park Co

The Stanley is considered the "Most Haunted Hotel in America"

We took the History & Ghost tour, I was there for the history - the kids for the ghosts, of course!

To their disappointment, we never ran into any ghosts, but we left some candy for the "children" who haunt the 4th floor.

We also got to peek at the infamous room 217, where Stephen King stayed and was inspired to write "The Shining".

room 217

And yes. 

we did watch the Shining in anticipation of this vacation.

Mom of the year.

'redrum" on the bell tower door

The elevator was one of my favorite spots. All brass and shiny, it felt very opulent.

...and our reflections in the door made for a kinda cool and spooky picture.

We Also did some hiking at Bear Lake.

Bear Lake, Rocky Mtn Nat'l Park

It was pretty icy, but  I managed to not fall down. 

All the way. On my butt.

be Nice or Leave, Oscar Blues

One night we went to an awesome little spot called Oscar Blues for dinner.

A group of retired Marines were there celebrating Veterans day.

Dru's mom, who has never met a stranger, some how got got the Sarge into the middle of this rowdy celebration.

They kept calling him "Marine" and he kept replying "Air Force". 

Maybe they were too drunk to care, or maybe anyone with a high & tight is a Marine on Veterans Day.

Either way, I was happy, because they had chocolate cake.

One our way home we stopped in Wyoming.

Quite literally. 

On I-80 

because it was closed due to weather conditions.

After 3 hours of not moving we pulled a U-turn on the median and headed back to civilization.

because I had to pee.

really bad.

And in case you have never been there, Wyoming is prairie.

And there is no where for a grown women to pee on the prairie.

Especially when stranded on the highway, surrounded by Semi's.

The kids endured the extension on our vacation by spending all their time in the pool.

It's a hard knock life.

Now I guess we all have to get back to reality. The kids have a ton of make-up work and I have a General Meeting for ASG on Friday I need to prepare for! I have my ugly fabric challenge ready to go (more on that soon!), but I need to get to work on the favors/door prizes.

Going on Vacation

We're going to be away for a few days...
Taking a little family vacation and staying in hauntingly beautiful, and historic spot I've always wanted to check out!

image credit

Be back in about a week!

And The Winner is...

Connie!

who said "I would have to say Day 31 Throw a Party because the moving and unpacking is all over. I have moved maybe 5 times and once its all unpacked you are ready to make it your HOME"

Check your email Connie, you have a gift certificate for YoucanMakethis.com waiting for you!

 Thanks for playing along everyone and hanging out with me over these 31 day posts!

I {Heart} National Digital Scrapbooking Day

I love to play with real papers, but I don't actually make any paper layouts. 

All my Scrapbooking is done digitally, and today is National Digital Scrapbooking Day (DSD).

I love Digital scrapbooking, 

but I don't limit myself to just making Layouts with my digital scrapbooking supplies!

I use digital elements to make postcards I can email

And to create my own printables, like cards

or recipe cards

we've made printable signs for Boo-ing

I made this printable "chore reminder" for my teenage son

I almost always use digital elements to make invitations

Sometimes I make "Hybrid" projects:

...like cupcake wrappers

 Or this flyer and matching "edible image" for the cake

Or notebooks & planners

 Now that I have a silhouette I'm going to have to try the "print and cut" feature - I've seen some awesome digital element/silhouette projects out there!

Two places where I shop for my digital supplies are having sales to honor National Digital Scrapbooking Day,

Mymemories & Scrapgirls, check them out today for some great savings! And if your just getting started, or are digitally curious both websites have a bunch of freebies to get you started.

What do you make with all your digi supplies?? Leave a link so I can check you out!

Mailbox Make-Over

You may remember seeing my mailbox in this recent  31 days post.

 It was in pretty sad shape, with a bad paint job that was starting to fade and rust.

Add a bit of spray paint and some vinyl....

and, ta-da!

I used RustOleum in a brown hammered finish. This paint is made to go directly over rust and hide any ugliness imperfections in metal. Perfect! Even better? I had it on hand already, so I didn't have to spend a dime!

This is the first time I've used my Silhouette to cut vinyl.

I made a ridiculous mess of the situation. 

I kept getting the vinyl stuck to itself,

then the transfer paper stuck to itself,

then somehow stuck to each other, wrong sides together. 

It took a couple of tries, but I now know exactly what not to do next time.

Okay, so it won't win any honors, but it's no longer the ugliest box on the street. 

Yay me! Sucks to be you white mailbox 3 houses down!

Yes, yes, it has been brought to my attention that I should have done something with the post while I was at it. Oh well, I'll get to it someday!

Kadences New Wenwen {karate kid} Hair Cut & How-to

Have you seen the newest Karate Kid movie? (the 2010 version with Jaden Smith)

Wenwen Han plays Meiying, the girl Dre meets in the park who plays the violin. 

We love her haircut!

is it long? is it a bob?

it's a little bit of both!

{want to know to achieve this look? keep reading}

I took Kadence down to get a trim this Sunday, and she floored me by asking for the "Karate Kid" cut.

I was unprepared for this request so I didn't have a picture on hand. The first Stylist hadn't even seen the movie, so she had no idea what we were talking about...so we moved on...

The next stylist had not only seen the movie, but said she had a girl request it while she was in school. She kept shaking her head and saying she couldn't believe the odds of doing this cut twice.

Before:

After:

It's actually a very simple cut. 

So if you want this cut but have a stylist who doesn't know what it is here's the low down.

Make a part across the back of your head from ear to ear. 

All the hair below that part will be left long.

All the hair above that part should be cut into an A-line bob with layering.

Easy!

She loves it!

Our stylist cut Kadences hair to about her shoulders for the bob-part of the cut (which is about where the inspiration cut falls) and took about 2 inches off her length.

When we got home Kadence wanted more contrast between the 2 sections so I cut off a few more inches and gave her a chin bob. It still has an A-line, but she wanted her bangs to be longer on the right and we added some layers to the back (of the bob) as well. (I wish I had just cut the whole thing myself to begin with, at the least the part between the 2 sections would be straighter, and I would have saved the time of redoing it anyhow.) So now Kadences long hair is longer and her bob is shorter than the inspiration cut.

Then we dyed the long half red. Don't freak out on me, its only the semi-permanent.

She wears the long part in pigtails or a side pony tail, and it looks so cute! I can't wait to curl it up like Meiying does in the festival scene.

Halloween Hangover

October is a fun month, but between Kadences birthday and Halloween I'm glad it's over.

seriously, do you know how many parties those two events alone entail?

I needed all day yesterday just to recover.

On top of the normal craziness of Halloween, Kadence got her hair cut on Sunday 

but was unhappy with the results so I had to re-do it on Monday for her. 

(and it looks freakin' awesome if I do say so myself - post on that tomorrow)

She also wanted it dyed red. 

Did I actually just dye my 11 year olds hair?

yes.

yes I did.

Obviously, after dealing with the hair, we had to style it appropriately for Halloween.

Then onto the make-up.

Oh yeah, guess I have to make a costume too, huh?

So we sewed this up quickly and got her out the door just in time to trick or treat.

Anthony was a zombie at a neighborhood haunted house. 

He looked pretty awesome - but took off early so no pictures of that kid this year.