everything yellow

pantone love.

For the non-design geeks, Pantone is a color library system the designers use to coordinate consistent color use. Being a geek myself, I am ALL over the various fun Pantone brand products that have cropped up in recent years. First it was the mugs, then these fun little babies (on my xmas list!), and now this bright yellow bag tag. Love.

deck the halls!

Just before leaving for Thanksgiving, Page and I took an entire afternoon to deck our house for the holidays. It is so fun to come back from a long Thanksgiving weekend (with lots of driving!) to a house all ready for the Christmas season. I always stock up at Target the day AFTER Xmas when things are half off, so over the past few years, I have accumulated quite a collection of festive trimmings. I made a point to go through and let go of a few things I no longer needed, and limited myself to ONE little shopping trip for anything new, mainly ornaments. I change our "main" tree every year - last year it was all aqua blue with packages below wrapped to coordinate. Not too subtly, Page let me know he does not approve of blue Christmas things, and so we are back to a funky version of red and green this year - reds, lime and bright greens, with a little bright pink and white thrown in for good measure. The wrapped packages have begun to accumulate beneath the branches, so an updated photo is probably in order. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas around here! :)

Our main tree in the living room - this one needs to be replaced - we are still using the little 75 wonder I purchased in college on a tight budget!

Pager's office tree - it began with a lodge/ski theme, but quickly expanded to include the Starbucks, poker, and dirty martini ornaments that also reflect his tastes and hobbies :) It is through and through, a boy's tree.

My heart almost burst when I stopped in Crate and Barrel last month and found these yellow birdcage ornaments! I already had a bunch of black and silver ornaments, so I combined them all (with a Hawkeye ornament here and there) for my little office/scraproom tree. Makes me so happy!

Finally, our bedroom tree, lots of silver and copper to go with the touches of brown around our room. I have yet to add the 2009 frame ornament with this year's xmas photo. My goal is to eventually have an entire tree filled with only frames and photos.

And finally, a few more snapshots around the house...

 

 

 

 

Happy decorating in YOUR home!

Christmas movie countdown!

It isn't officially Christmastime until I have busted out the stash of holiday DVDs. While there are certainly more, the top 5 that I MUST see every year:

• 5. The Preacher's Wife
• 4. Dr. Suess' How the Grinch Stole Christmas (both versions!)
• 3. Christmas Vacation
• 2. Elf
• 1. Miracle on 34th Street (the 1994 version)

What are YOUR must-see holiday faves??

thoughts. musings. wonderings.

I have had the strangest urge lately. Maybe not so much an urge as it is a thought...well, a lot of randomly combined thoughts...

I am wondering if I want to quit scrapbooking.

Now...either that statement makes you laugh out loud at the sheer level of dorkiness and yet seriousness with which I am thinking about this...or if you know me well, you might gasp, as scrapbooking has become a huge part of me in the past decade. So many of my friends who I have come to know THROUGH this hobby and can't ever imagine giving it up, probably are thinking I am downright crazy.

Let me backtrack for a second...I've been doing this since I was a freshman in high school, with my mom, during my spring break on which I was recovering from having my wisdom teeth out. In college, I worked for a scrapbook store and learned so much more about the vendors, the products, the industry as a whole and just how big this business of memory keeping really is. I served as historian for my sorority, compiling pages of memories for future pledge classes to thumb through. When my post-college life took me to various parts of the country - North Carolina, Illinois, then eventually back to Iowa - I used scrapbooking to cure boredom, soothe stress, and the result is several books of pages I am so glad I have to look back on.

I don't regret a minute of this hobby - or a single cent of the money invested in supplies that now take over the better part of our spare bedroom. I in fact came up with a rough total last year while doing a home inventory - it shocked me to my core - but as I said, the books I have as a result, and the joy the hobby has given me, have been more than worth it.

All that said, I have not scrapbooked in several months, with the exception of taking a couple layouts to Galena over Labor Day weekend - something my mom and I like to do during our down time up there. Before that, it was most certainly pre-holiday time LAST year that I did anything with paper, scissors, and all that other good stuff. What's more than the time I've been away, is the fact that truthfully, I haven't really missed it. I no longer work in this industry, so maybe I feel less compelled to participate in it? I have some mixed emotions about my experiences there, and maybe that is influencing my inclination to stop?

Perhaps it is that I feel like I do my own versions of scrapbooking in the form of this blog - an archive of photos and stories (plus bonuses scrapping doesn't give you, like YouTube videos, and the ability to link to sites!). I post albums of photos to Facebook and make comments and captions about them. By the time I actually print the photos and tell the stories yet AGAIN on physical paper, it starts to feel redundant.

Between a full time job and a side job that is taking up more "after work" hours than ever before, my creativity is stretched a bit. Both jobs require a good bit of brainstorming, making things "fit", layout and design, drawing/illustration, and creative messaging. I truly enjoy both, but I find that it leaves me with very little extra creative "oomph" to take on layouts for my scrapbook. Rather than the fun release it used to be, I find myself with an occasional spare hour, look at the wall of supplies and think, "Ugh, that is WAY too much work". And to think most people start scrapping when they have children - I don't even have any and it's already becoming a chore to keep up with.

So there must be the reason - lack of time and energy. Except that when I DO have the rare intersection of time and energy, I find myself pulled in other directions much more willingly - decorating the house, brainstorming for a party to throw with Page, wrapping gifts for a friend's birthday. I realize the times I scrapped most have been when I needed a distraction, needed an outlet, just needed something in general. Now that life is settled and there are fewer unknowns that in years past, maybe I don't NEED scrapbooking anymore?

At any rate, in recent months I have taken on the mindset of purging. Negative thoughts, unnecessary tasks that just drag me down, extra physical STUFF around our house we don't need - the more I purge, the more free I feel. I know; it sounds like I've been taking a few too many hot yoga classes. But the truth is, if it's no longer fun, and it's becoming a "have to" rather than a "get to"...maybe it's time to wind it down. Life is too short. I have to laugh...I was sitting in my scrap space the other night just looking at ALL of the stuff I've accumulated for this hobby...and Page walked in, gave a penny for my thoughts, and when I told him I was thinking about quitting, he all but freaked out a little. "Um, I don't think so, Liz. That would be like losing part of my wife. I'm not sure I would know what to do with that." Haha. As long as he's known me, I've been a scrapbooker - I'm not sure he knows how to separate the two! ;)

But looking at the massive amount of STUFF made me realize just how much of it is there is to let go of, and also made me wonder, how does one even begin to dig themselves OUT of this hobby? I guess it would mean hours on eBay, listing "kits" of supplies, and all those tools...yikes, that could be a lot of work! On the upside, I would have that whole big shelf and fun containers available to hold all of the other, non-scrap, artsy fartsy supplies I've collected and use on a regular basis!

So my plan from here is this; get through the holiday madness and the busiest time of year for my little side biz, and see what the start of 2010 brings. Maybe I will find myself drawn back to all the photos and supplies, craving some cut and paste time. I might find more free time when Page starts his weekend ski trips. With the snow and ice season approaching, I may find myself home more often and no outdoors to go play in.

Or, I might find myself at Target, stocking up on the tried and true (and oh so simple) photo albums. In the end, I think as long as I have the ability to physically flip through some pics of years past, I am happy.

I apologize for anyone who made it to the end of this post and is bored to tears. Sometimes a blog is just a place to type through your thoughts, exciting or not. :)

love it.

Love it. I've never heard anything holiday from these guys, so this was a treat!

Gift Certificate Giveaway!!!

 
Want to win a Liz Ink & Paper gift certificate just in time for your holiday card order??? Hop on over to the Liz Ink & Paper blog for details on how to win one! Two lucky winners will receive a gift certificate to apply to their next order!

creeping in.

It's true - all I needed were a couple more weeks of fall before I could start thinking about the holidays. Now that we are halfway through November, and the website launch is behind me, I can start to think Thanksgiving and Christmas. The holidays have indeed started to creep in around our house. A couple random bags of new holiday finds sit in the corner, and a new tree, still in the box, is resting in the corner of Pager's office. I officially let myself start shopping for the holidays while in KC this week for work. My one "play" item on the itinerary was a stop at Crate and Barrel (which expanded to include neighboring store, Z Gallerie - another fave!).

I kept it under control, but a handful or ornaments did make their way out to my car, including some really fun copper glitter ones for our bedroom tree, and three of the yellow birdcage ornaments (seen above) for my office tree (which, naturally, will be a black and yellow theme!). So it is official, my post-Halloween, "I'm not ready yet!" syndrome has subsided and I am once again pumped for the holiday season. Bring it on, Santa.

Liz Ink is LIVE!

The brand new Liz Ink & Paper site is live! Check it out!
 

24 hours to go!

 
Here is just a sneak peek of what is to come very soon!!!

So much has been done and there's still so much to do! The brand-new Liz Ink & Paper site will debut tomorrow evening...T-minus 24 hours!!! Stay tuned...

I have to take a moment to thank my A-MAZ-ING hubby/web designer for this site. Fortunately, I was able to save him a good amount of work by building images/graphics myself, but make no mistake - this guy has put his heart, soul, and 110% of his energy in the past several days, making my imaginings a reality!

He has been an awesome resource to bounce ideas off of, and his suggestions to improve visual impact, navigation, and ease of use have been invaluable. I absolutely love collaborating with him, and it is a total creative high to brainstorm ideas with him. If you are looking for a web designer, LOOK NO FURTHER!

 
Next up, you will hearing about his own site's re-design. Like me, he started so quickly and became busy so fast, there was no time to dedicate to his own homepage. I plan to return his favor and help him compile content and images so he can put himself first for a change :) and get all of his hard work in showcase format! Much love, Page Smith Design - thank you for EVERYTHING!

crock pot oatmeal

In recent years, I've become a huge fan of oatmeal. I'm not a big breakfast person during the rushed weekday mornings, but on weekends, I'm allll about it. So I may have found the perfect compromise in this yummy (and healthy!) dish you can prepare on the weekend and have on-hand all week long. I found a couple versions of this recipe online, and then tweaked it to our liking. Throw all of the below ingredients in a crockpot on a Fri or Sat night and you'll have a delicious breakfast (that can feed an army!) the next morning. Enjoy!

2 to 2.5 cups steel cut oats

3 cups skim milk

3 cups water

1 cup fat free half-and-half

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

4-5 Tbsp butter (melted)

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

2 large apples (peeled, cored, diced) - I used Honeycrisp

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup craisins (dried cranberries - we were out of raisins, so I used all craisins - still delicious!)

Grease the inside of the slow cooker and add all ingredients. Mix well and set on low heat for 8 hours/overnight.