We have been doing stuff...

...I just haven't been posting about it! But, here's a selection of photos:

In February, I went bird-watching at the Riparian Preserve.
(this is a female mallard, getting a drink)

 

besides birds, I also spent lots of time trying to get
good pics of the bees collecting pollen.

In March, I attended a 3-Day scrapbooking event in Tucson,
where I scrapped (almost) non-stop
from Friday afternoon till Sunday afternoon.

I did get some scrapping done, though-- and had a really fun time doing it!

In March, we also attended the Chandler Ostrich Festival...

...we missed the ostrich races, so these two guys were the only ones we saw.

But, we did see A Flock of Seagulls! (which is a band from the 1980s).

back at home, Zola honed her high-wire skills on the clothes drying rack...

We also went hiking at Boyce Thompson Arboretum.

We marveled at the spring flowers and the beautiful scenery...

 

...and were amazed to see an abundance of cardinals!!
(neither of us have seen any of these in AZ since we moved here.)

...we also attended the 10th Anniversary Salsa Festival here in Maricopa.
(there were some good entries, and some baaaad ones.)

 In April, we took the dogs to the new dog park here
in town, which they absolutely loved!

There was a lot of this.
(Prescott, chasing Bisbee, who's chasing the ball)

So, that's the 'Cliff Notes' version of what's been going on in the AZ Desert!! 

There's also been lots of working (I love my new job, and Tom's been really busy at his), some reading, some art journaling, some scrapping, some television (Justified, Sons of Guns, Deadliest Catch), a few movies (watching the DVDs I got at the book sale, lol!), and planning our first two-week vacation, which we'll be taking later on in the summer to celebrate our 10th Anniversary.  

...and I'll try to post sooner than 3 months from now!

Phoenicians love books

and so do plenty of other people! Know how I know?? Because we will do this:

The line of people outside the VNSA book sale last weekend, waiting to get in the building at the State Fairgrounds. This line wasn't  too bad; I got there at 11:30 am and got into the building about noon (fire codes, you know- they don't let everyone in at once). People will camp out overnight (even though they're really not 'supposed to') to be first in line- or at least towards the front-- for this sale!! A volunteer told me someone was there since Thursday, staying in his RV, so he could be sure to be first! Why were we waiting, you might ask?? 

For this!! Books, books, and more books, as far as the eye could see! This was looking one direction, and the picture below was looking the other. It takes the volunteers a week or more to get set up, and that's after having everything sorted and priced already. It is truly overwhelming, and you could easily be there all day. I was there for about 3 hours, and spent all my time in the movie, crafting, history, and nature/science sections. I didn't even venture into the Fiction areas, because I knew if I did, I'd never get out of there. 

This charity (originally part of the 'Visiting Nurse Society') collects books all year long and sorts and prices them at a warehouse they have somewhere. According to their website, 150 volunteers work year-round to sort and price books for the largest charity booksale in the Southwest. 'more than 7300 boxes of books' get donated, categorized, sorted, and priced. (hmmmm... I wonder if volunteers get to pre-buy?? probably not...) Their website also says the 2013 sale had more than 500,000 books and book-related items (they also sell CDs, bookmarks, magazines, record albums, sheet music, puzzles, board games, etc.), and had more than 12,000 shoppers. Impressive, isn't it?? It also attracts shoppers from all over the US- a couple years ago I was in line behind some people who came in from California specifically for the sale!

Here's a you-tube video of the sale from a couple years ago, so you can see a bit of it in action. 

my cart after my first-pass: movies, a few craft magazines,
and a huge pile of scrapping and crafting books.

This photo is the 'first-pass' of books in my cart, along with my 'book sale fuel' of Diet Dr. Pepper and a protein bar. (some people have carts brimming to the top; mine was actually pretty puny in comparison.) If it looked interesting at all, I tossed it in my cart to go through later. Get while the getting is good!! I learned a couple years ago (the hard way) not to deliberate too long at the tables, otherwise someone else will grab it while you're still thinking about it. I do all my thinking later, after I know I have it in my grasp, at least.

At the end of my search, I hunkered down in a quiet corner of the exhibit hall to go through my haul-- flip through the crafting books, look at the DVDs, and weed out what I really wanted from what would go back onto the tables. Since Saturday was 'full-price' day, I deliberated more about them than I would have on Sunday, when things would be half-price: i.e., "How much did I want them versus what I was willing to pay for them?" (Deliberating over how much I wanted a $3-$4 DVD could seem a bit silly, but then again, I had 20 or more of them in my cart, and wanted to stick to somewhat of a budget!) Some people will go back on Sunday (half-price day) and shop all over again, too, but I knew I wasn't going to do that, so Saturday's prices were it for me. (and again, they're always super-reasonable, anyway.)

a map of the exhibit hall-- and believe me, you need a map!

My final haul, pared down QUITE a bit from my initial pass. A number of DVDs (a couple of them never even opened!), a selection of books, magazines, and a couple counted-cross stitch patterns. My personal score of the day? A book discussing the history of scrapbooking, with gorgeous photographs of historical scrapbooks- I looked at it in the bookstore, but never wanted to spend $40+ for it. My VNSA price? $4!! (I know; it's great, isn't it?!?!?!!) It all fit into two shopping bags, so not too bad, overall! 

Now, if I could just find the time to read them!!?!? (oh, and a place to put them all, too!!)

balloons in the desert (photo heavy)

last October, one long weekend, Tom and me on a a road trip to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. Staying up late, getting up (insanely!) early, standing in the freezing cold dark, waiting for sunrise, and taking well over a thousand (yes, over a thousand!) photos... I still haven't edited most of them (plenty of them really should be deleted, too, but I can't bring myself to do that yet), but here are some that hopefully give you an idea of what it was like to be there.  Most of my pictures aren't 'real-photographer' quality, but they do give a pretty good sense of what it was like to actually be there.

Okay: after looking at and editing some of the pictures, this post is only going to be the Friday afternoon and evening we arrived when we got to see the  'Special Shapes Glowdeo' Balloon Glow, which was the where they featured specially shaped balloons at dusk. Check out pictures of some of the balloons here, on the Balloon Fiesta Website. (you really should click on the link- there are some really fun shaped balloons!) It was Visual Overload, for sure!! (it was visual overload all weekend long, actually.)

(And as usual, click on any of the photos to see them a bit larger!)

just a couple shots to show you how many people were there... It was packed! But the launch field is 78 acres, so it didn't feel too cramped... until the balloons started going up, that is! 

here goes one of the first ones- not sure what it is, yet!

they are sooo much bigger in person! Members of the launch team hold the
opening in the 'envelope' open to fill it with air (with a fan) before turning
on the hot air to make it rise.

here it goes! it's a clown! (see the moon, near the clown's nose?? lol!!)

the 'whoosh' of the flames is really impressive!!

you can just walk around, and they're actually going up all around you-
it was just crazy, and sort of surreal!

here's a longer shot-- the Sandia Mountains can be seen
just along the right-hand side of the photo.

Tom, posing amid a few of the balloons.
Everywhere we turned, there was something interesting to see!

The 'Little Bees' Joey, Lilly, and Joelly. (two of these are from Phoenix, I think)

I was close; I got two of the three while they were glowing!

nope, not that time!

closer! 

whoops- missed again!

whew- finally!! 

This is Pigasus, or Mr PUWP (for 'Pig Under Wing Protection')

he was happy to be here! (this one was made by a company in Brazil)

an Angry Bird!! (we were happy to see him!)

Ham-let: When Pigs Fly! 

 The Glowdeo was a static event, where they only lit them up; they didn't actually go up at night (I'm guessing that wouldn't actually be very safe). We had to wait for Saturday morning to see the balloons actually lift off- but seeing them glow like that? That was pretty darn cool whether they went up or not!!

A really good fireworks show topped off the night. Then it was off to get a little sleep before getting up at 3 am (yes, I agree that was absolutely crazy!!) in order to see them lift off at dawn the next morning. 

It was an amazingly cool experience, and I really would love to go again! (and I'll definitely take gloves and a hat next time, lol!)

my other 12-hour crop pages

Here's photos of the other pages I worked on during the 12-hour crop on Saturday; I didn't think I had that many photos, till I started selecting them-- I'll try not to write so much to hopefully keep the post a bit shorter! 

Here's my Christmas 2013 collage page- we didn't put up any Christmas decorations to speak of, partly because of Zola (kittens + trees + glass ornaments = a disaster in the making!), and partly because there was so little time between Christmas and Thanksgiving. I did get out a couple small decorations, so this page is going to be titled 'a small Christmas.' (the crocheted tree reminds me of crocheted decorations my Grandma made, and the lighted ceramic tree is from Tom's Great-Aunt Marie, if I remember correctly.) The rest of the page is a mosaic composed of various pieces cut from the Christmas cards we received. (I always wonder what to do with the cards once Christmas is over, and this was a good way to keep them by saving 'parts' of them.) I did keep a couple cards whole; they'll get put into a regular 8.5x11 sleeve in the album next to this page.

a detail shot- hexagons are 'trendy' right now, so I thought it would be fun to use my hexagon punches to cut bits out of the card fronts. These particular ones are vellum (punched from part of my sister Judy's handmade card), and are attached using metal brads.

 Again, this layout was inspired by a scrapbook layout I came across on the internet and had pinned for safe-keeping. Mine turned out quite a bit different, but I love that I'm actually using some of them to make things from instead of just pinning more and more! (click here to see the inspiration layout, if you're interested.) 

This next layout was alot of fun to make, and turned out pretty much how I envisioned it would- do you know that feeling, when you know your project is working just like you wanted? I don't have that feeling very often when I craft (sometimes my projects seem to have a mind of their own and take a turn I don't expect), but I had that feeling when I made this one! 

the letters for this page were cut using my Cameo- the font is one I downloaded from the internet, called Airstream. (and yes, I can spell: I just need to cut another exclamation point,
because I lost the 'dot' that went with this one- lol!)

It's a fun, light-hearted subject, but one I knew I wanted to make a layout for. Tom and I both love authentic Chicago-style hot dogs, so when we heard they were building a Portillo's here in the Valley (finally!), we knew we had to go. The decor, the food, and the service were all top-notch, just like we remember from 'back home' in Illinois. I tried to capture that 'vintage diner' feeling of the place with the page layout (which is based on another Scrapbook Generation sketch). The journaling will go in the open space under the photo on the right-hand page, probably typed on a tag or on strips of white cardstock.

Somewhere along the way, I found a piece of scrapbook paper that I knew would be perfect for this layout; the paper design was all diner-style signs, which I cut out and put in that vertical area of embellishments. And the 'hot dog' is the Portillo's logo, which I cut from one of the paper bags our lunch came in! (They will ship their food all over the country, in case you're interested- lol!) 

The (somewhat obvious) page title is letters I cut with my Silhouette Cameo-
the font is one I purchased from their online store, called LD Brown Nose.
It's nice and casual, and I think I'll get a lot of use out of it. 

This layout is one I'm glad I finally got to work on- we did this hike back in early April, 2007!! I'm not a hiker at all (my idea of hiking is strolling through the preserve looking at birds, after all), so this is the first and only actual 'hike' I've been on since we've lived here. It was beautiful and impressive scenery, though, so I am glad we did it. (Only Tom managed the last bit to the very top; I wimped out right at the very end where you had to pull yourself up by cables using pretty much just your arm strength.) Oh, and I also got bitten by that cute squirrel you see, there, too- I need to add another page to this layout to explain that, and to add in the rest of the pictures I chose to include. (I also need to add some embellishments to this layout- with just paper, it looks a bit 'flat' to me, especially looking at it in a photograph.)

This shows the rest of the pictures I still want to include, along with scraps of the papers I used and a piece of coordinating cardstock. It's stored in a bag with the rest of the layout for now, till everything is finished. (I want to keep it all together so I don't accidentally use the patterned paper for some other project!)

And here's an example of a page kit I put together for some photos I didn't get to work on Saturday- but the papers and extras are all together in a gigantic zipper bag, so when I do have the time (and the inspiration) it will be a bit easier to get started. The photos are from a day I when visited the Arizona state Capitol in downtown Phoenix. I never got to visit the Illinois state capitol building when I lived there (Springfield isn't exactly next door to the Chicago suburbs, and I just never got around to traveling down there), so I really wanted to visit the Capitol here since we live so close. (It was pretty neat; I'll show some of the actual photos from the trip in a separate post.) 

Since it's the state capitol building (I'm not sure: are you supposed to capitalize 'Capitol' when you write it?), I chose some red, white, and blue papers, along with some more 'Western-type' papers like the denim patterned paper that I think is a photograph of real denim fabric, with actual sewing on the paper. Not sure which of these I'll use when I make the layouts, but they're all together, so they're easier to get to and part of the decision making is done already. 

One more photograph, that probably only another scrapbooker would 'get' my fascination with, lol! The dome of the Arizona Capitol building is covered in copper, and since copper- and mining in general- is an important part of Arizona state history, I included these two specialty papers in my page kit. It was tough to get a good picture of them, but both of these papers are metallic sheen to them, and the one has a brushed-metal feel to the actual texture of the paper. I don't know how I'll use them exactly, but I definitely will try to get at least one of them in there somehow! 

(apparently I don't know how NOT to be wordy... thanks for reading, if you made it this far- lol!)