Holga

I put in so many hints and emailed JB so many links with ideas of what I wanted for Christmas, that I had no idea what I was getting.

I was totally surprised when I opened up this baby:

A Holga Camera!

Though I don't have much experience with the whole wet side of photogaphy (I did take photo 1 a few semesters ago and LIVED in the dark room), I have had my eye on one of these for a while. I looked into the original 120mm film size Holgas, but I decided to take the easy way out and go with the 35mm version. It seems much easier to buy film and get the film processed! I am all about easy.

HOPEFULLY I will soon be making beautiful Holga images like these:

found here.found here.
found here.


All I know is that I have much to learn. Thank goodness for google and the WWW.

Christmas Card

I made a Christmas card this last week by taking one of the "Merry Christmas" shapes (below) that I designed for the silhouette and using it as a mask to spray paint the phrase on muslin.

The card was posted in the challenge gallery on the scrapbook trends card blog this week!

Christmas Tags

Christmas is almost here! There is pretty much no chance of buying something online from here on out and getting it by Christmas, which is a very sad thing for me. 95% of my shopping this year has been online and it has been great.

Yesterday I designed a few "print and cut" labels for the Silhouette and can't wait to try them out on something!

Gift Tags

I made these gift tags today and was way excited about how cute they turned out so I wanted to share. I used a grocery bag from trader joe's with a great winter pattern on it and cut out the tag shapes on my silhouette. Then, I stitched them all together on my sewing machine!

Also, if you check out Scrapbook Trends Card Making blog, these tags were chosen as part of the challenge gallery.

Joy!

Christmas is going to be here soooo soon! I still have a million things to do. Oh well.

I just stumbled across this link to Scrapscription, a scrapbook kit company. They are using my "Joy" artwork as part of their kit.

Etsy Shop

I just opened an etsy shop last week called Cactus and Olive. It doesn't have much in it yet, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that one of my items was picked to be featured on the the etsy homepage yesterday! I didn't get to see it, but the person who bought it emailed me and let me know. It was these snowflake gift tags:



I am planning on posting more later today!

Pumpkin Dinner

There is a somewhat-tradition in the Pilcher family to have meatloaf dinner in a pumpkin around Halloween time!

JB and I are having a few friends over on Saturday night for dinner and this will be the main coarse. What else is there to do on Halloween if you don't have children? I am attaching some photos from my sophomore year at Utah State when we made it as roommates!


After looking at this photo of the pumpkin in the oven, it has made me wonder if maybe I should draw a really sad face on the pumpkin this year... the smile just doesn't seem to fit!

RECIPE:

8" pumpkin, cleaned out
1 pkg. hear and butter stuffing mix
1.5 lbs ground beef
3 eggs
1 8oz can tomato sauce
1 tsp vinegar
1 tsp garlic salt
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2.5 Tbs chopped onion.

Make the stuffing as directed on package. Mix the rest of the ingredients together (except the pumpkin, of course!) Mix that with the stuffing and put it the pumpkin.
Cook for about 3 hours at 350 degrees. Don't forget to put the pumpkin on a cookie sheet!



Decoration for the party? Still haven't quite decided but will probably consist of cut out leaf shapes from my latest submission for the Silhouette.

Where's Waldo?

This weekend JB and I made a quick trip to Blanding for the opening weekend of the deer hunt. We, with our nephew Derek, headed out before dawn.

I have an analogy. Looking for deer is like looking for Waldo in a Where's Waldo. Only you don't know if they actually put Waldo into the picture. You just keep looking and looking and hope they did. Obviously, I get very bored and distracted while doing this. So... I played with my camera! The sun was just coming up behind us and it was sooo beautiful!

I am still alive.

Pictures of our latest adventures:













ALSO! Quickutz used my "baseball design" on their company blog for a tutorial. The funny thing is, last week I did the same thing with a volleyball version of the design, on t-shirts with spraypaint. it turned out pretty cool.

Tucson!

Well, we made it! JB and I are now living in Tucson. So far we really like it!



Sad thing is, as I was "pretending" to hug the cactus, but I ended up really getting stuck by one of the needles. I would.

The photo is from the Tucson Botanical Garden . My dear/sweet mom drove down with us to help move, and before she flew back to SLC we went to the garden. It was cool to go there and learn about the vegetation in this area. I never knew there were so many different kinds of cacti. My favorite was the "Old Man."



After that, we spent a little bit of time shopping at 4th Avenue in downtown Tucson. My favorite shop was Pop Cycle-- Everything in the store was either remade from other products or vintage. For example, she took old Arizona license plates and cut them into strips, making them into pieced together plates that spelled things. Very cleaver! I plan on going back and buying one as soon as I save up enough "allowance." (Sometimes I feel like I'm still a little kid.)

Leaving Cache Valley

One of the last projects that I have been working on here at USU before we move is a day-to-night shot of the valley, from the top of the business building.

Everytime I have opened it to work on it, I can't help thinking, "What are we doing leaving this place?! It is so beautiful!"

This is real life.

It is official. We are moving to Tucson, Arizona.

JB flew down there and interviewed with a company on Monday and they offered him a job!


We are heading down there in two weeks.
Now we just have to figure out where to live...



JB likes to tease me about my initial reaction to us moving:
"THIS IS BIG! THIS IS REAL LIFE!"
Because before this life was fake, or something like that.




(photo via tucson daily photo blog. I found it when I was trying to decide if I wanted to live there, and the images on it were much more appealing then when you google image search "Tucson.")


ps did I mention how long it took me to remember how to spell Tucson?

Quickutz

I have recently started freelance designing for the Quickutz Silhouette. The silhouette is a digital craft cutter-- it cuts shapes out of paper from your computer. And I design those shapes. It's been a blast. Basically, I doodle, then scan it in and trace it out. Who ever thought I would get paid for doodling?

Here are some of my favorite designs that I have done.

Finally!

A reality show I am excited to watch!



The show premiers in 2010.

I wonder how many average americans will tune in to watch drama over typefaces, picas, color pallets, layer masks, layout and logos? I sure can't wait!

Up

I LOVE this movie.



We have seen it twice and I am not ashamed to admit that I cried 5 times.

USU Backlit Signs

When I was first hired at USU, my boss told me that my first project would be these gigantic backlit signs in our student center. Two years later, after the project got put off over and over, they finally got installed today!

Wedding Reception

oh hey! here are the pics from my reception. A family friend, Sarah Jones, took them. I was really happy that she took a ton of detail shots of the decorations, because we probably spent way too much time on them!

Whahoo! We got married!

I just got our wedding pictures back from the photographer. I am really happy with how they turned out! More from the reception to come...