How To Be Martha Stewart on a Whim

I love time to myself. Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with Alex, family, and friends, but sometimes I like to be alone. It gives me a chance to catch up on my tv shows that Al won't watch and to be lazy. Monday night, I had the opportunity to do whatever I pleased. Al headed to my parent's house to give dad a tutorial on the iPhone. After reading the chapters for our bible study this Wednesday, I turned on the tv and decided to indulge in House. Since I can't just sit and watch tv, I decided I would be crafty.

Al had asked me if I was ever going to complete the shoes I had started that had taken up residence in the corner of our kitchen. He always knows how to give me motivation to finish what I started. Thanks honey! Needless to say, I started with the shoes. With lack of creativity, I covered the remainder of the shoes in silver and the bow in gold glitter. No idea where the heck I would wear this to, so maybe I can build a Halloween costume around them. Any thoughts?

 

the silver shoes...glittered and glossed

After completing the shoes and making a huge glitter mess, the creative spirit took hold of me. I got this bag full of goodies that I had purchased on a trip to Michaels. Among other things, this contained feathers, bobby pins, and thin wire. I started out easy by taking a pre-made feathered piece and gluing bobby pins on the back. It made for a pretty extravagant hairpiece.

feathers

Next I grabbed the wire and started playing around with it. I'm not that creative, so I couldn't quite figure out what to do with it. I cut some off, molded it, folded it, twisted it. Nothing. I had made the start of a necklace and gave up on it because it wasn't doing what I wanted. So, back to the bag. That's when I found the butterflies. Originally, I wanted these to be hairpins, but decided that was too seventh grade. Fortunately, they weren't terribly hard to string onto the wire. And the wire curved at just the right point that I could make it a floating necklace of sorts. I was very proud with how it laid and the overall look. I wish I would have gotten a full body picture of this with the original outfit because it looked amazing!

the floating butterflies

Oh, but I'm still not done! I still didn't know what do with the wire I cut originally. I curled it and twisted it until I decided to make it a bracelet. But a plain wire bracelet is boring! I had to add some sort of detail. I covered up the end pieces with an old tank top strap (this way the cut ends wouldn't scratch my delicate skin). Still not enough. Then I found the bag of feathers. I started looping them in and out of wires. When I tried it on as a bracelet, I realized that every time it would come off and go back on that I would lose feathers. That's when it hit me that I should make it a "pendant" for a necklace. I grabbed an old chain and added the feathered circle.

feathered mess

All in all it was a pretty successful evening with not having anything planned. Oh how I do enjoy attempting to be Martha Stewart!

Accessorize away!

--Am

the three pieces

How To Make a Baby Shower Diaper Invitation

Most of you know, my sister's expecting. Her friend Brie is throwing her a couples baby shower, and I am lending a helping hand. Since I've gotten crafty lately, I offered my skills for the invitations. I researched baby shower invitations and one of the first pictures that popped up was of a diaper invitation. I had to do that! I searched around for templates, cut some examples, and had my coworkers choose the best looking style. It was hands-down the more classic-looking diaper as opposed to the boxy, modern-looking diaper.

Upon returning home from work, I dragged Alex out to Hobby Lobby for the supplies. I grabbed baby blue card stock for the diaper, white paper with blue polka dots for the info card, and safety pins. Mind you, we walked around the store about 30 minutes just to get this stuff (and a picture frame for Alex's Paramedic certificate--I'm so proud of him!). I was glad Alex wasn't rushing me along, but actually helped me make decisions. Sometimes I need that!

Home again, I start on the computer typing out the card insert. It takes a minute to get the wording right and make sure I make the cards the correct size, then I can print. I always print on scratch paper before I use the real thing. However, be it my luck that I screwed up and didn't put enough scratch paper in there, so one of my good pieces of paper was jacked up. Good thing I kept that invitation for myself and had just enough for the rest.

Onto the diaper, all the templates I found were either too small or the wrong style. So, I had to freehand it. Not usually a good idea on my part, but it worked. Of course, I tried it out on a spare piece of paper, and then it was off to the races. Outlining, cutting, folding, inserting. The outline looks kind of like a martini glass.

diaper template--aka martini glass

After it's cut, the bottom is folded to the top and the triangle sides are folded in. It's not hard. I mean, if I can do it…you know the rest. Once folded, the info card was inserted. Then it was on to hole punching and putting on the safety pins.

I enlisted the help of Alex because it was taking me forever to cut the info cards to size and fold the diapers. He was fabulous by helping cut some martini glasses and by hole punching the tops and inserting the safety pins (which he thankfully spray painted white). He's just AWESOME!  Thanks honey!

I must say that's I'm pretty proud of the finished product! Anybody want me to make invites for them? I'm getting pretty crafty. :)

Invite Away!
--Am

the finished product

the insert card--you can slightly tell it's a little imperfect

How To Lounge and Gamble Away a Saturday

As I sit down to watch Nanny McPhee Returns, I think that I should probably complete the financial statements for my,upcoming audit. However, I'd much rather write about my day yesterday, when I also should have been doing some work. Instead, I spent my day doing anything but something productive. That's not entirely true.

I woke up pretty early for a Saturday, say 7:30, to take the dogs out. Since Alex has to get up so early during the week, it's only right that I be the first one up to let them out on the weekends. But once I'm up, I'm up and can't go back to bed. So, I coddled Diego for a little while as he was in pain from his surgery on Friday, then I ran on the treadmill to an episode of Angel. Yeah, I'm like ten years behind, but I love it!

Once I was showered and Al was up and going, we made our way to run our few errands for the day. Stopped by the vet for meds, perused the Indy Winter Farmers Market, and made a spur of the moment decision to head to Sam's Club for lunch and chicken treats for the dogs...geez, are they spoiled! On a side note, I had the location of the IWFM wrong, which put Alex in a mood. Or maybe he was already in a mood because I wouldn't let him buy the iPhone then. Who knows? When we finally made it to IWFM, I picked up my yummy marshmallows from 240sweet.com and we basically ran through the rest of the stops because Al wasn't interested in anything there. Anyone ever want to go, just let me know because Al is no fun at those kinds of things!

me with my marshmallows--one of them

(I came home with 7 bags)

Upon returning home, I did absolutely nothing. Watched tv and played stupid computer games. But it was oh, so nice! After lounging for approx four hours, we decided it was time to get ready for dinner. We had dinner plans at Maker's Mark at Indiana Live! Casino with my parents and Em & Tony to celebrate Em and Al's birthdays. Dinner was pretty good! I consumed the lobster tail (and was ridiculed by Al for eating the meat from the fins--see How To Eat a Lobster Blog), while everyone else had steak. It was slightly on the pricey side and in the middle of a casino, but it was still tasty.

Afterward, we walked around the casino and probably gambled about $150 between the six us of (Al only lost $10 and I only played with my dad's winnings). I have a hard time understanding how people can sit, press a button, lose money, and call it fun. Not what I call fun. And it's crazy the kind of people there. Lots of old people, white trash and (with fear of sounding racist), blacks. I figured there'd be lots of hillbilly types there, but not the rest. I also couldn't believe the older people that were walking around with masks on. Seriously?! You enjoy this so much that you'd risk your health to sit in a stinky, smokey casino? What is wrong with people? I guess that's why they call it an addiction. Doesn't seem worth it to me. When it was time to go, we snapped some pictures and piled in a five seater car to take me and Al back to our car. It was a tight squeeze, but we made it work.

 al & am at casino

tight squeeze

On the drive home, we decided to hit up redbox and partake in some movie watching. Don't know what I was thinking because I was knocked out tired. I didn't even make it through half of The Town. All in all, it was a nice, relaxing day that was topped off with some good food and company!

Lounge away another day!
--Am

How To Cover Your Clothes in Animal Fur

No, I'm not talking about a fur coat made of minx, rabbit, or fox. I'm talking about a coat made of synthetic materials that is littered with domestic animal fur. This is really easy to do…just get three dogs and a cat. Really only one dog or one cat would suffice, as it just gets worse with multiples. Alex often complains about eating fur with every meal consumed at the breakfast bar. I can't disagree with him as the fur is EVERYWHERE! When we clean, the space is re-furred in ten minutes. It's hopeless.

Once it's in our living space, it's on our clothes and in our cars. It's probably all over my office and my coworkers and now their homes and our parents' homes and well, the world. Sorry to all of you for that!

No matter how much we vacuum the floors, wipe down the counters, or lint roll our jackets, it will never be fur-less. Here are some pics of my coat after it's been lint-rolled using at least four of the tapes:

up close and personal of the fur covered black jacket 

the back of the black jacket--see the little white lines? 

yep, that's the fur. 

sleeve with more fur

In case you can't see how bad it is, let me give you a little story. I was once at lunch at Pita Pit (yum) with my friend Leslie when the guy at the table next to us felt the need to interrupt our conversation. He stated his name as Jared and commented on Leslie's coloring and my earrings and outfit. While talking about my outfit, he mentioned my coat (which at this time was my long, three button, tie-around-the-waist, cobalt blue coat). It went something like this, "I just have to say that your outfit is great. The jacket, although it looks like you rolled around in dog hair in it, with the earrings, is just fabulous." He proceeded to give us the name of his friend's blog, to which he sometimes contributes (see circlecitystyle.blogspot.com). It was awesome how he called me out on my fur covered coat, and somehow managed to compliment me at the same time. 

However, it's still not enough for me to care to have it de-furred. I'm just too lazy for that, unless there's something really important I need to attend or there's someone I need to impress. That's not very often and not many people. Sorry if that offends anyone who sees my fur-ridden coat day after day.  

Furry tales to all!

--Am 

culprit #1: Hallie 

culprits #2, #3, & #4: (from left) Dodger, Daisie, and Diego

How To Use Skype

If someone could teach me (and some of my cohorts) how to appropriately use Skype, it would be much appreciated. We just spent fifteen minutes trying to get four of us to conference in. Since Adam didn't have a mic, he was going to join via chat, while the remaining three (Ray, Kristi, me) would talk.

Here's how it went: Adam could hear me (and Alex having a discussion about taxes), but I couldn't hear him (no mic as mentioned above). Adam could hear Ray.  Kristi was having mic problems and Adam was the only one that could hear her at one point. Great! This skype thing is really working for us...NOT!

Ray had to restart his computer a couple of times. Kristi was a little late in joining, while I was way early. It was probably about 5 minutes into when the call should have started that it was actually started. Since nothing was really working, I started playing around with my settings and thought maybe I needed external speakers. Alex to the rescue! He had a headset that consisted of earphones and a microphone, so I looked like a telemarketer or phone-in customer service rep. Very stylish! But hey, it worked. With this in, I could hear Ray. A small step for some new Skypers.

 the headset (please don't mind my make-up-less face)

Since Ray and I could now chat, Adam would call me and I would put him on speaker and Kristi would call Ray and put her on speaker. BAD IDEA! There was lots of echos, similar to when you stand between two mirrors and it looks like you go on forever. It was like that only with sound. Does that make sense? After 30 seconds of that and realizing it was not going to work, we decided to scrap using skype and just meet first thing tomorrow morning. Whew!

Although it didn't work out, Ray and I were able to video chat with each other after it ended and he got to see little Diego. I hope that made his day!

Happy Skyping! 

--Am

How To Be a Lover of Animals

Let me preface this by saying, we love animals. More specifically, dogs and cats. If we won the lottery, one of the top things on the list would be to open an animal shelter/home. I feel so awful about the many animals that are brought into this world unloved. You can give the same argument for unwanted babies, but there's something about puppies/dogs and kitties/cats in shelters that tugs at my heartstrings. Not sure why, maybe it has something to do with this book this lady named Pat gave me when I was born, maybe it's because I used to have to moo at the cows when I was little, maybe it's genetic (my mom's family is known for taking in strays and my dad has a big soft animal-loving heart too). Who knows. I just love animals.

I grew up with Midnight (cat) and Sandie (dog), which were both rescues. Midnight passed and in 8th grade we rescued four cats from our church. And when I say we, I mean my dad found a yellow male cat (he had always wanted one) at church and brought him home. Once we found out there were more that had been dumped there, we traveled to the church to gather up the rest. We found four more. One was taken by someone else, so we took the remaining three. Two of these cats went to Dad's shop and we kept Nectar (yellow male) and the runt, which we named Hallie (short for Hallelujah). Note: Hallie is where my zoo starts.

After Sandie (best dog ever) passed, we wound up with Ellie (who was cute but is probably the worst dog ever). Nectar also passed, and I thought it would be a good idea to bring home another yellow male cat from school. This one was named Chester (from Manchester). Big mistake on my part as he is pain in the arse. Also at school, a couple of my friends had adopted a part-Siamese cat named Oscar. He was too much to handle and I couldn't bear him going back to the shelter, so I said I would take him to my Dad's shop. And that's where I dropped him off at. Only to come home and find him at my parent's house. When asked why he was brought home, Dad replied, "He feel asleep in my arms and looked so cute. I couldn't leave him at the shop." Ah! Maybe this is where I get my need to bring animals home?

My last year at school, I brought Hallie to live with me and she became my cat. She lived in Manchester, Castleton, and Downtown Indy with me. She's a good little (I use that term loosely as she's 16 pounds) companion.

Hallie cat

After Al and I started dating and later became engaged, he decided it was time for a dog. I was apprehensive at first (thinking about how Hallie would react), but warmed up to it. That's where Daisie comes into the picture. (I'll give the background on all the pups at a later time; each would be a separate story in itself). We got Dodger because we thought Daisie needed a friend. It took a minute, but they eventually became buds. Most recently we've added Diego, who is so small in comparison that's it's hard to even call him a dog. Wow, three dogs and a cat! I never thought I'd have more than one of each at a time. Just call us the Animal Kingdom! 

Lots of love to my animal friends and friends of animals!
--Am

 

from left: Dodger, Daisie, Amber, Diego, Hallie

How To Be an Artist

I really wanted to call this blog "How To Be an Artiste," but then I looked up the difference between the two. An artiste is someone that is trained and skilled in the arts, while an artist is someone engaged in the arts. I don't even want to claim being skilled in any way, shape, or form in the area of arts. I don't use that side of the brain…I'm an accountant, remember!

On Monday night, I, along with my mom and sister, partook in a Wine and Canvas event at Stone Creek in Greenwood. We used the Living Social deals I had purchased that got us in for only half price (only $17). I arrived first and was able to get us a seat near the front, which I discovered later was helpful. Mom and I ordered a glass of wine, while the pregnant one (Em) had water. We each got an appetizer that I thought we would share, but nope. Well not entirely no, as Emily shared her calamari, but mom did not share her delicious-looking beef crostinis.

I had consumed more wine before the food arrived, so I started off a little tipsy. We began painting by following the easy instructions given by the artist. The instructions were perfect for people who don't have an imagination…like me! I need direction and don't do well when I'm told to be creative or to draw/paint freehand pictures. So, the step by step, hard and straight instructions worked wonders for me.

We painted the background first, which was a sunset. I must say that mom had a beautiful sun and Em had a fabulous reddish sunset. Mine on the other hand was just so-so. After that dried, we were ready for the tree. I must say that my tree was phenomenal! I had thin branches that curved beautifully. This is not to say that mom and Emily didn't have nice trees (because they did), I was just partial to mine. :) Oh, and I cheated a little bit on the tree by moving it closer to the center of the painting instead of keeping it to the left. I can be creative!

After the tree, we basically put swirls all over, as many or as little as we wanted.  Em went for a lot, and I went for a little. I mainly had little because I don't do well with random and get a little OCD making sure that there aren't two of the same colored swirls within a so-many-inch area. I'm a freak like that. Also, my swirls ended up looking more like e's, but oh well. I must say that the end result is pretty awesome. Even Alex (an artiste) said it was pretty good, and I was worried he would have criticized it.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and have signed up for two more trips (at full price)! I can't wait to get my drink and paint on again.

Color me proud!
--Am

painting by Amber

closer-up of painting by Amber