Metal Monday: White Zombie

(Sorry, I was eating a sandwich while I took these.)
Today's Metal Monday: White Zombie. This t-shirt came into my possession at a White Zombie show that I went to in 1996, when they were touring with Pantera and Deftones. Back when they were White Zombie – not Rob Zombie – in the days of yellow/green-haired bass player Sean Yseult. Who I loved. (Did you know that both Rob and Sean went to Parsons? Anyway.)
It was possibly one of the most memorable shows I ever went to, because it was one of the roughest. I rode along to the 5 Seasons Center in Cedar Rapids with some boys from high school, got separated from them when we got into the Pantera pit, and then got kicked in the head and mouth by a pair of huge stage diving Doc Martens. After that, a big guy in the pit half-carried/drug me out to the perimeter of safety and said "Dude, be careful." And then I found my friends.
I am excited to see Rob Zombie (again ... this might be the fourth or fifth time) next weekend. Maybe I'll wear this shirt. :)

happy mother's day. :)

Can't wait to see this...

A Week in the Life: check.

It's done! Except for a few pages that I still want to write on.I used a ton of Amy Butler paper (because the colors and bold floral patterns are ridiculously awesome.) And as I've mentioned before, I used a 7 x 9" gray fabric binder (and mini page protectors) from Russel + Hazel.
My opener page was cut from Keri Smith's Non-Planner Datebook and I used lots of pages torn from her book throughout.
So I basically ended up with three types of pages: a journaling page (some of which will be slipped into mini page protectors,) a 5x7" photo, and a multiple photo page.
The multi-photo pages all have a theme, instead of being divided up by the day of the week. There's a food page, a page with photos from around the house, a page devoted to what we wear, etc.
The page protectors will also serve as holders for memorabilia and tags and notes and drawings that I collected during the week. Sorry that I didn't show those here.This was such a fun project to work on and Ali really is the master of great ideas. Reading her blog always gives me a nudge to document the story and the daily a little bit more often. I'm so happy I stuck it out with this project, even though at first glance it seemed a bit daunting. Everything came together so quickly once I had my photos developed, and now I'm just going to transfer the notes I took onto my journaling pages ... and there you have it.

A week in our life.

* If you want to see all of my Week in the Life photos/process on this project, you can find them here.

introducing ... METAL MONDAY! (with Megadeth.)

Welcome to Metal Monday: a weekly series (starting today) where I'll be unearthing concert t-shirts from the past out of my closet to share with the universe. Some t-shirts have fascinating stories behind them ... and some do not. (Are ... you ... ready?)
Megadeth. This t-shirt is like an old friend, circa 1993. I wore it during high school, when I listened to Symphony of Destruction, Sweating Bullets and Foreclosure of a Dream every day. When I was a sophomore, I wore this shirt to church camp while cleaning up a park in Des Moines after the floods of '93 ... and was told that it was inappropriate for church camp.

(Happy Metal Monday! More next week!)

putting it together

I used a little bit of free time over the weekend to get started on putting my Week in the Life book together. I pulled out some spring papers to use for my page backgrounds ... Amy Butler florals, American Crafts (I love the blue and white raindrop, cloud and flower prints) and then I cut up a few file folders.
After Jamaica gave me a heads up about Avery page protectors that would fit into my smallish Russel + Hazel binder I accidentally stumbled upon a pack of sleeves at Target! They're the exact size I needed and of course I look at the packaging, and weirdly enough, they're made by Russel + Hazel but I haven't been able to find a link to them online for some reason. I would think they'd be on the Target site or the R+H site, but they're not. Anyway.
Got my 4-up prints back from Shutterfly/Walgreen's one hour pick-up. I know I'm not going to use all of these, but I'll use as many as I can (and I'm printing a few more 5x7 faves.) I cut them all up anyway and so I can throw them in a folder for future use; they'll be easy page starters.
My photo pages will start off looking like this, and then I can write notes or add stuff later.
Some of the facing pages with more writing/less pictures will be ripped out of Keri Smith's Non-Planner Datebook. I love writing on her hand-drawn pages with a black pen ... I just think it looks cool. I'm using Ali's journaling cards as photo backgrounds and also to write on. They ended up being just the right size to frame my little pics (plus they give each page a mini-title.) This project is not even close to being done yet, but it should still be quick to put together and easy to fill in the details. That's the plan, anyway...

a week in the life: my plan

A Week in the Life! So now that it's already Tuesday and I'm looking back at last week (and going through all of those pics I took ... ) I'm starting to figure out my plan of attack.
Because it would be a shame after all that diligent daily photo taking to just let all of those files stay hidden in folders on my computer. (How sad!)
It would also be a shame to let my little gray binder and journaling cards sit empty. And I know myself. If I don't tackle – and finish – this project this week, I may never get back to it. Ali's post today inspired me to keep going.
So today, I'm going to pick out the best of the best photos from each day and upload them to Snapfish. When I want photos in a hurry, I personally choose Snapfish mainly because I can choose one-hour pick-up at Walgreens, which is just easy for me. I might still print a few at home on my printer, too.
My binder is 7.5 x 9" so I'm going to get 5 x 7's of my most favorite photos. And of course some 4 x 6's and then I almost always choose several photos to shrink down and lay out four or six up on a sheet; and I see that Ali is doing this, too. (I always leave lots of white space around the edges so I can cut things up or write on the bottom white edge of a photo.)
So that's the plan for today! I'll probably pick out some papers to use but I'm pretty spontaneous when it comes to projects like this, so I see myself just jumping in and grabbing things as I go.
Are you brainstorming this week about how you're going to put everything together? What's your plan?
* Want to see my Week in the Life set on Flickr? The whole thing? Here it is. :)

more from a week in the life ...

This is our week so far. For A Week in the Life. The everyday; the soap and the water.
The all-important nail polish color choice.
Naps. She's two for four this week.Knitting ballband dishcloths.Playtime with the modern dollhouse.
Dinner on a rooftop with friends.
Fun snacks.
Tea for two.
This kid has quickly figured out that picture-taking is the name of the game this week.
Running at o-dark thirty four mornings a week. (It's pitch black when I leave and looks like this when I return.)
These two usually look like this once I get home. :)
Off-road unicycle in a Vespa with a sidecar? Not unusual at our house.
Strawberry plants.
Walking on daddy's shoes.Wishes made.
Underdogs, please.
Fueling up the hybrid.
Favorite footwear.
Favorite footwear, part II.
Driving, driving.
Entertainment in the car, singing along with any song I play. Ask her what her favorite band is and this week she'll tell you it's Vampire Weekend.A weekday lunch with my better half.A visit to the library.Favorite pal? A huge plastic bug.How many times do we go to Target in a week?So far ... two.My favorite pesto with snap peas from Z'Mariks.
And Rice Krispies are still just as mesmerizing to her as they were to me when I was little.
So why am I doing this again? I've actually learned a lot. These are some of my most favorite photos that I've taken in awhile. (I'm no photographer, but without really trying, I've captured a lot of daily happenings that I've always wanted to catch but never thought I had time to catch.) I'm loving it. I'm taking way too many pictures. I'm probably driving my family crazy. And I'm looking forward to throwing this all into a book next week and jotting down what it all means. Because someday, I'm not going to be the stay-at-home mom to a three year old with a husband who is teaching unicycling classes. Someday, I might find the life I used to lead ... fascinating.

earth day! urban gardening and recycled yarn.

Even though we have enough yard space to hold a regular-sized garden, we've sort of tried and failed at actually doing a good job of maintaining one in the past. (I know ... that is awfully sad.)
So this year, we've opted to do a bit of urban gardening in pots and planters.
It was so fun ... and fast!
We planted strawberries, tomatoes, sugar snap peas, green beans and carrots.
And a raspberry bush (which will obviously go into the ground, not a planter.) We've planted one before, but I think it was either accidentally dug up or mowed over, since it starts off looking like a stick. I have higher hopes for this one.
Tomorrow we'll spruce up a few pots and spaces in our yard with some dark pink and yellow annuals that Lo helped pick out.
She's quite the helper in all areas of gardening. Mostly the digging – I had to keep an eye on her to stop her from digging up newly planted seeds – and she's also really good at the watering.
We are pretty happy with our little container garden and I hope it survives all of the rabbits and birds we have in our yard. We have a raised mini-wall/bench of concrete blocks on our back porch that will serve as a raised home for these plants for now.
Another little project that I wanted to try this week was making recycled fabric scrap yarn. I know people have done this to make rag rugs, but I plan on knitting with this. I had seen recycled yarn several times on Etsy and in books and I'm sure that there are many ways to do this, but I just did it the fast and easy way.
I found a few fabric scraps and random fat quarters and made small cuts along one edge about 1/4 apart.
And then ripped the fabric into lots of strips.
Again, it was wonderful to have a little bit of help. :)
I tied the strips end to end with an overhand knot and wound my new scrap yarn into a ball.
The end result is so cute. I really want to try this with a t-shirt next, because I think that a recycled knit jersey scarf would be just the thing. Totally my kind of accessory.
Happy Earth Day to you!

get gnarly

Dare 161 is up, and this week we have a guest! The one and only Jeremy Kroes. He chose skateboard graphics (and more specifically, this rad photo by Tina) as his inspo and Dare topic. And this made me incredibly happy, because I take lots of skateboarding photos around here. And it gave me the perfect excuse to use black spray paint and neon green washi tape.
Bo's current board was my source for this Dare. This is a brand new one and the graphics haven't even been all scraped up yet.
(Did you know that my husband is a skater? If you didn't know, he's kind of awesome at it.)
He's pretty amazing at every sport he tries, but he's been skateboarding and snowboarding since he was a kid and one of my favorite things to do is watch him shred at the skate parks.
What's even cooler is that he's been showing Lo how to ride ever since she could stand.
And she honestly loves it.
Gnarly ... yes?
Happy Wednesday to you ... so stoked you stopped by. :)

a week in the life

So, I have decided to jump in and document A Week in the Life.
Initially I wasn't sure I'd have time to do this, but there are always ways to make time.
I feel like I haven't done the greatest job of recording the daily stuff that goes on around here so I'm excited to make a little book about the little and big things that we do around here over the course of this week.
I mean, it's spring and for some reason, it makes me enthusiastic about embarking on all kinds of new adventures. Like running. (But we'll talk about that another time. That's a different kind of adventure.)
I'm starting today (Monday) and will be taking photos of our life and jotting down notes through Sunday.
Later, I'll put everything together to make a little book. The book itself will be a gray Russell+Hazel mini three-ring binder from The Container Store. And I'm keeping all the little stuff together in my Liberty box from Target, for now.
I downloaded Ali Edwards' digi file for these journaling cards, only I needed to punk out the colors a little bit (they are normally gray and red) so I recolored them in Photoshop to suit my needs. I liked her idea to carry these around this week, so I printed and cut them out last night and will throw them in my bag in case I want to write something down during the day while I'm taking photos.
I hope you'll join in, too ... it's not too late and you can really start any day you like. Check back here through this week and next to see how I'm doing.