Hi from D.C.!

Just a quick hola from the nation's capital - having a great time about halfway through my vacation. Tonight we went to watch Wait Until Dark on the Mall - it is a summer Monday night weekly event. So fun! To see more of what I've been up to, check out the Washington D.C. set.

And I've started up with the 365 days Flickr group - a daily self-portrait challenge. 5 days, so far so good! Flickr set is here, and the group is here.

Also, this group is making me laugh.

I know I've already gotten some great things from etsy (like this and this), but don't you think I need one of these?

Music, kid art, and nostalgia

Today at Preucil, we had a special concert by Dave Zollo. His son attends the preschool, so lucky us for that connection! It was great music and hilarious to watch the little ones once they decided to get up and boogie.
Friday will be the last day of our summer session. I can believe that it has flown by so quickly! This week has been pretty quiet with a few kids on vacation and a couple home sick, so we've been playing and drawing alot. Went down by the garden for snack time yesterday and a few kids did some flower drawings. Today I captured this great rocket ship taking off!
Speaking of kid's art - I've been scanning some photos of myself as a baby and toddler tonight to use in the album class I am taking with Shelley tomorrow night and I found this great picture of me with portraits of my mom and dad on my legs! hee hee!
In other news, I'm getting ready to go visit my friend Steph in Washington D.C. I am SO excited! She is a great friend from college and I haven't seen her in a long time, so I am definitely looking forward to hanging out with her and getting my tourist on in D.C.

Also, Wendy and I had our first sale in the Etsy shop! Thanks Dona - you rock my socks! I also bought a couple of great things from two Etsy sellers - which I will definitely post about when I receive.

Thinking about buying this skirt pattern which I saw on Ali's blog. I haven't sewed any clothing for forever, but I think these look pretty basic and lots of potential to use fun fabrics! Plus I signed up for an Amy Butler class at Scrapfest - so it would be impressive to show up to class in a skirt I had made from her pattern and fabric! Alright - that's all the linkage I can handle for tonight :) Stay cool everyone...

S is for Sunday

Today I had some surprise visitors to Iowa City - my bro and sis came to visit. Bethany for the scrapbooking supplies - Zach for a little video game action. It was fun to hang out with them.
And, the time in the art loft gave me a chance to get my deco page mojo flowing again... and I managed to work on 12 or 13 pages today, which is probably a record. Feels good to be able to move these out before I head out on vacation next weekend.
But for tonight... I have to make an important choice - laundry and ironing - or - this special fellow who has been calling my name since yesterday...

Mini-book and Cow Adventures

Took some photos of the mini-book we made in my Love,Elsie class on Tuesday. 4"x4" and so quick and easy. I *love* that self-adhesive fabric paper, especially for the covers! If you want to see the whole thing, check out the flickr set.

And... the cows are back! This week we had a calf escape into our yard! At first, it was just surprising, but then I felt sorry for the poor little guy. Bill got in touch with the farmer who came back to pick the calf up.

New jewelry in the shop!

These are some photos of the new earrings and pendants Wendy and I posted in our esty shop last night. Go check 'em out!

Weekend in Minnesota

Back home after a big weekend in Minneapolis with my sister. We started off by making a stop at IKEA - oh IKEA - and found lots of things we couldn't live without. Then we headed over to the hotel where we were signed up to attend a class with Mitchell Kraft as part of the Those Were the Days pre-CHA party. The class was fast-paced but fun and I love how the albums turned out. Then we headed over to the Mall of America for a stop at Urban Outfitters and a quick sushi dinner. Then back to the TWTD crop. Bethany and I worked on finishing our albums from the class, then worked on some other projects. It was a pretty small group of scrappers - including a few well-known scrapbookers including Kristina C. and Nisa F. - a couple of my favorites. It was fun to see them in person and to hang with Bethany. This morning - back to IKEA for more shopping excitement and then back home. The worst part of the weekend was I though I had left my camera at home and we didn't get any photos, but then I discovered it had been under my driver's seat all along. Booo... Thank goodness for the new camera phone at IKEA.
Looking forward to my Love, Elsie class - anyone who meets the criteria of being into scrapbooking, in the greater Iowa City area and available Tuesday night should sign up! It's a bargain at $18!

Introducing...

A new Etsy shop - WeMiKiWi! Cute name, eh? Wendy and I opened the shop together and after much deliberation we decided on that name by combining the first two letters of both of our first and last names. Right now the shop has handmade paper bead earrings, but soon we'll be adding handmade cards and lots of other fun stuff. Hope you will check it out! And you should browse around the rest of the site if you haven't yet - it is a great place to find lots of unique handmade art and jewelry!

New addition to our garden

Now, I certainly don't claim to have a green thumb, but when my dear MIL offered to give me these two plant stands, I was excited to use them on our front porch. Wendy had the great idea to use tea cups instead of pots for the plants. After some thrift store shopping for cups and mugs, and a trip to the garden shop for some flowers, I was ready to go. I love how they turned out! More pictures on my flickr.

Cool!

My Fabulous page was picked as one of the favorites for the Scrapjacked challenge. (scroll down their page to see the slideshow) I'm in extremely good company there. Pretty awesome!

Paper bead extravaganza

finished paper beads, originally uploaded by Kirsten W.

Wendy came over yesterday afternoon and we spent a few hours making paper beads. It is so much fun! I always forget between sessions... these are destined for handmade earrings and other goodies that we're working on for an Etsy shop that is in the works. More pictures on Flickr. Happy Tuesday and Happy Happy Birthday to my mom!

Fabulous...

Made this layout this morning for the latest Scrapjacked challenge - cutting around a photo of a person. Got to use some of the yummy Strano ribbon and Tinkering Ink paper I got on sale at Reminisce while I was working this weekend.

Frida ATCs

Finally completed some Frida Kahlo themed atcs for a swap with Wendy and Maralena. I'm not too sure about them - they're kinda creepin' me out. But I took my idea for them and went for it, and this is the end result!

"Self-portrait with Frida"

"Self-portrait as Frida"

Happy Independence Day!

I celebrated the 4th of July in the most American way - shopping! Headed over to Des Moines last night to spend the evening and today hanging out with my family. A good Italian dinner, some live music, BBQ for lunch and some great bargains made the trip a success! Bethany picked up the dress pictured above but it was too long, so she deftly sliced off some inches and now it looks even better than new (hence my wearing of the leftover fabric).

Here are a few holiday recommendations for you:
Evening - go with your mom (or your sister, daughter, or friend) like I did to see this movie. It is a beautiful story of a mother's life and her daughters saying good-bye to her. Lovely film packed full of talented actresses.

and if you're near Des Moines, IA anytime soon check out Mars Cafe - great coffee shop/wine bar/live music venue. Bethany took us there for breakfast this morning and I thoroughly enjoyed my mocha shake and breakfast croissant sandwich. yum.

And this blog - 2 Views

Now this is what I call a good day...

Gorgeous weather, a new haircut, great hermit crab books from the library, a new sassy phone, take out sushi from Formosa for dinner... oh yeah...

Great Weekend

It was a great weekend! Dinner out with the fam on Friday night... Got my mini-book kit from Kristina Contes yesterday and was SO excited to get started on it that I printed out some photos and got started making it last night. Love, love her style and the choices of materials that were included. I got up and finished it this morning! Love when things come together so quick. Some of the other people who purchased the kit are also posting photos in a flickr group.
Today Wendy and I went over to Des Moines for the annual art show. It was fantastic as always. This year I was especially blown away by the quality of the artists. We had so many favorites - and I came home with a new George Lowe mug and this clock!! Isn't it great? We even filmed a video while we were there as part of this project! More photos on my flickr. Have a good week!