Teaching, newsletter and stuff

First I gotta say Happy Birthday to my good friend Rachel!



Then I need to tell you to head over to Scrapdish where Rachel's having a HUGE birthday sale and where you can get the issue of THE DISH, which has lots of great stuff in it - a Q&A with MelissaG, some previews of awesome new kits, some crafty stuff and the more!

We've got some Scrapdish news too that you can also read in the newsletter. We're having another Scrapdish contest. Use the Heartfelt Heritage kit by Jeanine, Correen, Rachel and me, and post your LO in the Scrapdish contest gallery at RAKScraps by March 20 to win TWO kits by Jeanine! :)

And I am really excited about this news...


We've had so many great designers join us at Scrapdish that we feel it's time to expand our Creative Team as well! We'll be looking to ad a few more talented scrappers who'll get to use kits by our Scrapdish chefs! If you have any questions, you can contact me. I can't wait to see who applies!


Oh yeah, and the teaching stuff! I went to my sister's school yesterday to talk the kids about newspapers. The kids really impressed me with their questions. Things like - what kind of stories go on the front page, how do you write a good headline, should you put opinions in news stories. Some of the classes were really active - expect for the 2nd period - and kept me talking the whole class. I got so confused by the end of the day that it was all starting to blur, having repeated the same things 6 times. I also got to sit in on Mike's class for a bit - and all I'll say is that he and Randi have very different styles of teaching! (My brother & sis work in the same school.) I really can't wait to see all the projects.

Lazy Sunday

I am having one of those lazy Sundays where I'm doing little things, but not too much! :) I've been doing a little cleaning, trying to organize hundreds of photos I had printed, and even scrapped a bit. I'm waiting for the delivery guy to get here with our dinner!

It seems that I'm on a pink kick!

This is a little gift I got for v-day from Rocky. He always remembers his favorite aunt. And those chocolate hearts are good. Choxie from Target - yum!
(Robin Carlton's Sweet Shoppe from Sweet Shope Designs)

This is a photo I've been waiting to scrap. Taylor really asked this question to Rocky! (Carrie Stephens' Fandango kit)

I'm going to miss tonight's Night Owl chat because I need to be in bed early. I'm teaching my sister's classes tomorrow about newspapers. She's doing a really cool project where they're going to have to create their own newspapers about the Depressoin. I've spoken to classes before, but not 6 in a row!

This is my first page for Tania's Mom's Advice mini album project at RAKScraps. :) I'm the only one making a funny face on purpose of course. Every week Tania's going to have a different quote as inspiration and it's been a ton of fun so far. I used my Funky Chicas kit and the little flower is form Tania's Funky Bunches of Flowers kit (both available at Scrapdish!). I think I'll be using these two kits for the whole album because I love them. These 2 kits are technically the first 2 Funky Chicas creation!  I'm scrapping this at 6 x 4 so that Ginger would be proud and because it should be easy to make lots of prints for mother's day.

I just LOVE Correen's new kit called Just for a Smile. (You can get it at SBB.) I took this photo of Taylor earlier and knew I wanted to use this one. It's just so fun and happy and just perfect for this silly little girl. :) 

Nerd Love

I had to scrap the new love of my life for the lastest Chick's Life Challenge




(Amy Knepper's Shabby Geek kit)


And I also scrapped one of my other loves....




(My Comfy papers & elements at Scrapdish)


Speaking of things I love, check out these pages that were in the RAKScraps newsletter.
Kim's Tribal Ink
Shelly's Girls in Pink
Amy's Love You
Tania's Comfy Hugs
You gals are awesome!!!!!

Withdrawl

I miss my computer!!!!!!!! I don't want to be on this Mac. I want to be in my office playing with my own computer and photoshop. I can't believe how fast it is to make kits now. I used to read (and I mean pages and pages) while my computer was saving and now I'm getting so much done. :) Nancy gave me some tips for CS2 on all the new features the other night. She is just the best!

So my first creations with CS2 are for a new project I've been working on with Jeanine, Correen and Rachel. :) You'll have to wait to find out what it is!

So much to catch up on!

This has been such a busy weekend for me! I have lots to catch up on!

We released the RAKScraps Feb. Newsletter this week! These just get better all the time, and our news Newsletter Team did an awesome job. (So did Correen!) Check it out for some AWESOME freebies and read the nice review Kim wrote about me! :)
Scrapdish was one of this month's sponsors so I was just so blown away by all the LOs from our Sponsor Team!

We also tried something new this month! You can check out the RAKScraps February Kit here and then download the pieces. Correen, Rachel, Jeanine and I created this add on which is available at Scrapdish and will help us cover the costs of RAKScraps new server and upgrades.


You can also check out Jeanine's blog for a little freebie!

I watched season 1 of Grey's Anatomy on DVD this weekend. What was I doing last year that I didn't watch this show? I just loved it. I don't want to send it back to Neflix!!!

And, this is my first post on MY NEW COMPUTER!!!!!!! I got it set up yesterday and it is just soooooooooooooooooooooooo fast! I still need to move a lot of things, but I had my priorities: email, Hello and photoshop are all working! I also just upgraded to PSCS2 and was playing with it all night, figuring out some of the new features.

Wish list

For Amy's Blog challenge 4 in need to come up with a Wish List!
But I am a shopaholic and an impulse buyer so my wish list is usually pretty short. I just snap things up when I can!

I am love the Spring Decor Line by Jen Wilson. She's got a new set on sale every day! It's just hopeless for me. I love Jen's stuff, and these new kits are just so pretty!

And now of course, I went to look for something else and found Trish Jones's Circuit Collection. And it's a really good bargain. 6 sets for $14.95. Trish is another one of my favorites!

Love these Gypsy Blue papers by Dani B too. She's got a bunch of great new stuff this. (Glad I'm on her team!)

Gina Miller's Worn and Weathered Collection looks pretty cool too.

I think I'm in trouble now!

Read this magazine!!!!

I just got my copy of Digital Scrapbooking Magazine and I was so shocked! I had totally forgotten that April asked me to write up a little piece about all the nice things RAKScraper's have done for charity and for others. But she also used TWO of my LOs! That's my crazy face in the magazine. And there I am right next to a page by Melissa and Samara, who I met at the convention, in a the middle of an article by the awesome Clara Wallace!

Go grab a copy. You can get the paper version or just download it. There are some LOs by some of my favorite scrappers and some great articles too!

My new little paper pack Girls Bike now at Scrapdish

It's should be here!

My new computer was delivered to my mom's office yesterday. She couldn't bring it back because of the snow. (I never have things delivered to the house because I usually miss it or they leave it outside and it gets stolen!). So I am just dying to play with it and install my PSCS2 upgrade. And I just found out some good news that will be a HUGE help. My friend and favorite Nebraskan NancyS has just joined the SBB team and will be writing CS2 tutorials! I can't wait to see what she can teach me!

Lots of Scrapping

The good thing about being snowed in is getting a lot of scrapping done.






(Credits: Drama for Dinner - Correen Silke's Dinner for Two; Taylor & Kylie's Valentines - Dani B's Lovey Dovey; Spin - Mindy Terasawa's Oh So Sassy; I hate snow: Jen Wilson's Winter's Grace)

Mmmm, Donuts

Day Old Donuts
(Thanks Tania!)

RAK Week Blog Challenge

We're having a blog challenge as part of RAK Week. So for challenge 1 I added those postcards------> as my decoration.


And here are my answers for Challenge 2

1. What colors do you use the most when you scrap?
I use a lot of pink because I like it and it looks cute with photos of my nieces. And I love reds and blues too.

2. What is your favorite kit theme? (like boys, girls, heritage, special event, etc)
I don't always like themed kits - and I often use them for different purposes. I tend to like boy kits because I like blues, greens, oranges, and earthy colors.

3. What are your favorite elements to use when you scrap?
Love ribbons, tags, alphas, brads

4. Describe your style (even if you don't think you have one!)
I don't like a lot of clutter, but I wouldn't exactly call my style simple. I think I compose my layouts the same way I compose newspaper pages. I like there to be a focal point that's going to be eye-catching, as well as movement on the page and clarity.

5. If you could have one kit made especially for you, what would it be for? (one lucky blogger might see this wish granted )
Girly, but grungy, with darker, earthy colors.

Snow is boring!!!!

This has been one boring weekend. I have been sick and snowed in. We had a record snow fall here in the NYC area. 26.4 inches in NYC!

Here's the view out the back door

My graffiti on mom's car

And at least the snow was partly melted on my car. Digging out wasn't so bad.

I've also got some new 10 things. If you haven't been yet, leave your 10 ten lists.

It's RAK Week!!!!

It's RAK Week at RAKScraps




Here's the prize for my Things You Hate challenge.

Taylor & J

J is what Taylor calls Khoder. They get along so well because they are basically the same age. :) I just love this kit - Nature's Patchwork by Correen Silke.

Good boy

Check out what Tania and I have been up to...


It was so much fun to work with Tania, even though we have serious Matt Damon A.D.D.
You can find Good Boy at Scrapdish.

I love Rocky!

I used Dani B's Lovey Dovey Ribbons and Papers from SBB for this page. It's my latest Chick's Life entry. And since this one was supposed to be about love and all that mushy stuff I scrapped the dog.

Word cloud

I saw that Amy did one and I think mine has more shout outs than hers did. :)


You can get one at www.snapshirts.com

When are you going to die?

This is pretty scary! As if I didn't have enough to be depressed about - this says I'm going to die at 58. :(
Death Calculator

Big deal

I finally saw Brokeback Mountain and all I was kinda bored. I had decided to check out what was playing after I left Randi's on Monday. I was the only person in the theater, and when the movie started there was a big Loews logo in red right in the middle of the screen. There was no one around on the 2nd floor of the theater so I decided to call the theater on my cell. And it worked. Got the screen fixed and a comp pass too!
But back to the movie. I had already read the story so there were no surprises. It was pretty short and it seems like they really had to drag it out. Sure Heath & Jake were very nice to look at, and they had great chemistry. I didn't buy that they had aged 20 years, especially since Jake has such a baby face. I think it was good, but a lot of the scenes seemed a little repetitive or pointless. I don't see why people get so upset over the gay cowboys - get over it!!!

Tonight, I saw Munich, which I wasn't going to see, but I was bored and off from work. Pretty disturbing movie and Eric Bana was really great in it. Not sure what Spielberg's message was, but the movie does speak to a lot of what's going on now. I think more than anything, the last scene disturbed me the most, because it all wraps up with NYC in the background. Just made me think that the cycle of terrorism and retaliation is endless.

I need to see more comedies.

Heartbroken

My new mini kit is autobiographical! :) It's a Day Old Donut - all funds help keep RAKScraps fun & free.

Her so cute...

That's what Taylor says about her sister.



I used A Bit of Black kit by the fabulous Helen O'Daniel from Modscraps. Did this one for my art inspiration challenge.

Rocky tries to help me scrapbook. I used Amy Knepper's super cool Shabby Geek Kit from Scrapdish for this LO. He is visiting today. It was pouring this morning and as soon as he came in soaking wet he jumped on my bed. Nice way to wake up!

Some ramblings & cool stuff

So I just found out that the "bad news on the doorstep" in Don McClean's American Pie was a reference to The Standard Star of New Rochelle. He was a paperboy for the Star, which was one of the papers that was merged to form The Journal News, which is where I work. And to think I studied the lyrics to that song - because I am a rock n roll nut - back in college and didn't know I had a 6 degrees of separation to it.

Check out these cool new heart tears from Steph at Digital Paper Tearing. I cannot for the life of me make a tear look good and Steph's tears make life so much easier. Plus she is a sweetie. We worked on the Chain Gang together once upon a time.

I gotta show off some more pages! I love Audra's Intentions and Pri's Watching Monkey's and Wheeee! You gals are awesome!!!

Cool blogs

So we finally peer pressured Rachel into starting a blog. Now we'll have to nag her to keep it up! :) Love ya Rachel!!!!

And this isn't a scrappers blog but it is HI-lariuos! New York Hack. It's writting by a gal who's a New York City taxi driver. Came across it because we're doing a story on her in the paper.

RAKScraps new team members!

I am so excited to have some very talented ladies joining our team at RAKScraps!!!! I am so bad at keeping secrets and have had people asking me, but we've just announced our new additions. You can see it HERE. Congrats to all and I look forward to working with everyone!!!!

All about January

The latest Chick's Life challenge was to recap January. Man, I am BORING! LOL! I did enjoy throwing in the Count Olaf reference because I am obsessed. And if you lived in the NYC area, you'd notice that I'm now listening to Free FM, which replaced KRock, which I was crying about in my 2005 review page. I guess I can get over things.

Pri commented on this page at RAKScraps saying she'd like to see a photo of me playing princesses with Taylor, and I will say it's hard to take my photo and play Cimbella's castle at the same time. heehee


(Credits: Jen Wilson's Seasonal Scraps CD)

hee hee

Tagged

I've been tagged by AmyK

WHAT WERE YOU DOING 10 YEARS AGO? I was 19 and at Rutgers. I had just become a News Editor at The Daily Targum, which pretty much took over my life. That semester I had the same boring professor for 2 classes back to back, so David and I would cut and go to Pizza Hut instead. Between skipping class and spending all our time at Targum, that’s how we started to became good friends.

WHAT WERE YOU DOING 1 YEAR AGO? I was on the design team at RAKScraps and I threw together RAK week totally last minute. Then they asked me to become an admin. RAK week was going on while my family was in Disney World and I was at home watching Rocky.

5 FAVORITE SNACKS: Chips and cheese dip, muffins, celery and peanut butter, chocolate, oreos

5 SONGS TO WHICH YOU KNOW ALL THE LYRICS: I am horrible at lyrics – I usually need to hear a song to trigger it. Bruce Springsteen’s Rosalita and Born to Run, all the songs in Grease and the Sound of Music, and Bohemian Rhapsody.

5 BAD HABITS: Biting my nails, chewing on my hair (I know I am GROSS), hitting the snooze button, butting in on conversations because I am nosey, talking to much while I am driving and then missing my turn or exit.
(And Amy, blogging is NOT a bad habit!)

5 THINGS YOU LIKE DOING: Watching movies, digiscrapping, reading, hanging out with friends, Rocky and the nieces, talking

5 THINGS YOU WOULD NEVER BUY, WEAR OR GET AGAIN: Perfume (aachhoooo), shots of Jagermeister, heels (I hope! Darn weddings), cds by MC Hammer, the flu

5 FAVORITE TOYS: my camera, my computer, photoshop, playstation 2, Darth Tater

5 TAGS: Anyone who hasn’t been tagged yet…. and RACHEL who needs to start blogging already!

And if you all want, you can do this one too. :)

WHAT SCRAPBOOKING PRODUCTS DO YOU DISLIKE?
Bottlecaps, papers without texture

WHAT IS THE HARDEST THING YOU'VE EVER HAD TO SCRAP?
I really want to create an album about my cousin Ashley. I was really inspired by Auntie Pea’s Jacob album over at SBB, and wanted to do something like that. But all I’ve been able to do is this.

WHAT TECHNIQUE DO YOU USE MORE THAN ANY OTHER?
I am super picky about my shadows. Also love to use virtual photog on my pictures.

EVER BEEN PUBLISHED?
Once in Digital Scrapbooking Magazine. I just do not have the patience to submit nor the desire to deal with rejection!

WHAT IS THE SMALLEST SCRAP OF PAPER YOU SAVE?
Do post its count? I have a bunch with phone numbers on them.

EVER HAD ANY SCRAPBOOK-RELATED INJURIES?
Back ache, shoulder pain, sore eyes, stiff neck – all from sitting at the computer too long.

FINISH THIS SENTENCE: "IF I WASN'T A SCRAPBOOKER, I WOULD SPEND MY MONEY ON... booze! That’s what I did before. Was a big time barfly.

GIVE US YOUR BEST STORAGE OR ORGANIZATIONAL IDEA:
I am not the person to ask this too. I have clutter everywhere but I know where to find things in it.

YOU JUST WON A WEEK-LONG SCRAPPING CRUISE FOR 4. WHO IS GOING WITH YOU?
I’d have to sneak some people on or book the whole cruise – couldn’t just pick for of my favorite scrapping chicas!

It's coming...

It's being custom built and should be here next week!

- HP Pavilion d4100y
- Intel(R) Pentium(R) D 930 (3.0GHz, 800MHz FSB)
- 2GB DDR2-667MHz SDRAM
- 500GB RAID 0 (2 x 250GB SATA HDDs)
- 160GB Personal Media Drive
- LightScribe 16X DVD+/-R/RW drive
- HP Wireless Keyboard, Wireless Optical Mouse

**Cowboy hat not included

Ok that felt better

Feel so much better after venting a little. I have had too little sleep, have been working too many hours, spending too much time at the computer, not consuming enough alcohol, getting sick of my living arrangements, and then had a nasty spat at work.

But here's something that cheered me up. I opened up my pay check. I think I have enough for my new computer now! WOOHOO!

Thanks for listening to me whine.

Do you ever?

Ever feel like your head is going to explode? That you want to go live in cave somewhere?
That is the kind of day I have been having and it's not over yet. I really try not complain a lot here - but I really feel like I could scream and I don't want to do that in the middle of the office.