I’ve been tagged!

Liddy tagged me and I now finally have a few minutes (during the commercial of Dancing with the Stars) to sit down and think of 7 random facts about myself..

Here how it works:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and leave a comment on their blog, so that their readers can visit yours. Liddy tagged me!

2. Post the rules on your blog.

3. Share 7 Random facts about yourself on your blog.

4. Tag 7 random people at the bottom of your post, linking to their blog. Let each person know by leaving a comment on their blog.

Ok, well here are 7 completely useless facts about me:

1. I was an incredibly shy child. When I was 10, I was really interested in playing golf so my parents enrolled me in a week long golf school for Spring Break. I was the only girl in the class and on the first day someone called me Rebecca by mistake. I was too shy to correct them. So… for the rest of the week everyone called me Rebecca. On the last day of the course they presented us each with little diplomas. When the instructor came to mine he said “oh, it says Jessica on it, they got your name wrong”, so then I finally spoke up “my name is Jessica” I told him quietly. “Then why did you let us call you Rebecca all week?” he asked. I was really embarrassed and mumbled I didn’t know. To this day, whenever I hear the name Rebecca I still think how it was my name for an entire week once a long time ago… lol

2. I was always afraid of dressed up people when I was little. I’m talking about Mickey Mouse, Goofy, Pluto, all those incredibly SCARY characters out there! hehe. We have pictures of us at Disneyland where I am clinging to my dad for dear life and there is Winnie the Pooh standing there in front of us – and I was 6. We also have a picture of me standing beside Chuckie Cheese one day – I was actually standing with him alone – this was a big moment for me. The ones that really freaked me out were the really tall ones, like Goofy, Brer Bear, Captain Hook, etc. I would lead my family in the opposite direction whenever I saw one of them. Well, as embarrassing as this is, I never really truly grew out of this odd phobia. Last year when Brent and I were at Disneyland, we saw (of course) Goofy making the rounds on Main Street one day. Naturally, I turned and went in the opposite direction. Brent noticed right away (as he loves to tease me and tell people about my little “fear”, (thanks for that B!!)) and of course he had to speak up and point out WHY I was going the other way, AWAY from Goofy. Lol, well ok, at least I can laugh about it.

3. I can watch certain movies over and over and over until I know the lines off by heart. Such as: Sweet Home Alabama, Wedding Crashers, Just Friends, The Holiday, American Pie 1 & 2, Dirty Dancing… and the only movie that makes me cry (and it does it every time right at the end) is Armageddon.

4. I really want to take ballroom dancing lessons (thanks to Dancing with the Stars)

5. I’ve been to New York City twice and both times we really wanted to go up the Statue of Liberty. The first time we were there they wouldn’t let anyone onto the island as they were doing repairs on the statue. All we could do was stay on the ferry and circle the island. The next time, years later, we actually made it onto the island. We were then told that the elevator has broken down so if we wanted to go up, we had to walk all the way up. There were so many people it was about a 3 hour wait or something ridiculous like that. So we visited the gift shop instead.

6. I love visiting museums and science centers. (we were just at the Indianapolis Children’s museum yesterday – it was awesome!!)

7. I am completely uncoordinated when it comes to ice skating or rollerblading. I have a lovely new pair of rollerblades I’ve had almost 2 years. After being out on them once and not having much luck, they have remained in their box in the garage. One day I will try again. Yeah. One day.

So, these are the people I have tagged (sorry girls :)) – I randomly choose team members from the ISA

Allyson

Shimelle

Ally

Lucy

Cami

Nancy

Lissa

This is my third night in Indianapolis already and it feels like I just got here! My drive from Cincinnati to Indy went rather well, despite it being very boring. It was a bit confusing getting out of Cincinnati, having to make my way to a few different highways. But then things went smoothly until I got into Indianapolis. Then I made a wrong turn and ended up in bumper to bumper traffic trying to find somewhere to ask directions. I was in some sort of semi-industrial area (hard to explain, you kind of had to be there to see it) so it took a little while to get out of the slow crawl of traffic to find a gas station. I was starting to get a bit panicky by then, as my sister was waiting to pick me up at the car rental place and I really had no clue where I was. I will admit that I get lost a lot, especially when on vacation, but it’s just not fun at all when I’m all alone! Anyway, I eventually made it about 45 minutes later. lol

My 5 year old niece was really excited I arrived and she presented me with a huge banner that said “To Auntie Jess, welcome back. I wanted to give you this banner for a welcome back present. love Madeleine”. (it wasn’t all spelled correctly as you can see from the picture but she spelled everything out herself – I think she did really well for 5 years old :)) She drew a picture of the 2 of us with a big welcome back cake in between us. (she is all about cake and parties, hmmm… looks like she shares my love for sweets). She also gave me about 12 Easter cards she had been making for me and some new art to bring home for my fridge (I previously requested some new artwork).  So so sweet!

My other niece who is 3 had an Easter parade at her preschool yesterday that we all attended – so cute to see a bunch of 3 year olds parading around wearing little easter hats they made!

The girls are so excited about the Easter bunny coming tonight. I can’t wait to see their faces when they see their Easter baskets in the morning. There is just something very magical about occasions like this when kids are involved – kids that still believe. It is truly amazing seeing things from their eyes.

I am really excited that I can post this (I asked today and was told I can :)) – the reason why I am in Cincinnati right now, is because I am here for part of the photography for my book. Outstanding Mini Albums: 50 Ideas for Creating Mini Scrapbooks.

We did all the photos for the step by step tutorials in the book and we finished ahead of schedule by 2 days. There will be 38 step by step photo tutorials in the book as well as additional technique photo tutorials, and 50 mini books of various themes and types will be featured.  I met lots of the fabulous people from F & W who are working on this book in some way (editors, designers, marketing, sales, photography) – what a fun team they are! Now that I’m all done here, I’m kind of sad to be leaving. My editor Kristin is awesome, had lots of fun with her. (and she introduced me to Graeters Ice Cream today!!! YUM!!!) So the book won’t be out until next January, but now I can relax a bit cause all the mini books are finished and are at F & W waiting for the next round of photography.

I leave tomorrow for Indianapolis – lucky for me my sister lives there and its only a 2 hour drive from Cincinnati! I rented a car today and thought I’d take myself on a little tour of the city before I leave it. After looking up some addresses online of some stores I wanted to visit, I wrote down the directions and set off into the dark, rainy evening in my little red Kia rental, lol. The area I was heading to was about 20 minutes down the highway and I actually made it there no problems. Getting back was the issue. I started off ok, but was then thrown off by the only 2 signs – one way was Kentucky and the other was Columbus. Um, where is Cincinnati???? I chose Columbus, apparently was a good choice. Everything was fine, until I got to the Cincinnati turnoff, there was an accident right on the exit ramp and it must have just happened, so it kind of threw me for a loop but I could still get around them. As soon as I did the round about thing to the other highway I was suddenly on another exit ramp and before I realized it, it was too late to turn off. I had then done a complete loop and was heading back in the direction I had been coming from. ergh. Had to go down to the next exit to turn around,drive all the way back and when I got back to my exit, there was a cop car blocking it off! I had to go to the next exit, turn around and backtrack to the same exit but on the other side of the highway so I could take it. Then I missed my turnoff and got detoured about 40 minutes until I managed to find the street the hotel was on. What an adventure! In the dark, rain, and a city I’ve never been to before! I wonder how many times I will get lost on the way to Indianapolis tomorrow, hopefully not many!

one of the boxes of mini books after we finished the photos

The lobby at F & W

I’m here in Cincinnati this week, at F & W Publications (home of Memory Makers).  It is so cool to be here! Everyone at F & W is so nice – I’ve been having lots of fun there :) It is really cool to learn more about the book process and all the many elements that go into it, there is so much involved that I’ve never realized before.

Yesterday F & W launched a new website: MyCraftivity  – they had 2 huge cakes there to celebrate, so of course we took a quick sugar break to enjoy some cake mid afternoon – it was seriously the best cake I have had in so long – and the icing was amazing (and I don’t normally like many icings).

Now I’m back in my hotel room for the night, trying to catch up on emails. It’s pouring rain outside so I’m not really feeling like venturing out on any walks tonight (even though the huge mall across the street is tempting me….). Yeah this rain is incredible – and I’m from rainy Vancouver and this is worse than the rain we get there! lol

These little albums are so much fun to make – and they are so easy and quick! You can make them vertical to hang on a wall, or horizontal so they sit on a shelf or desk.

You can download the instruction sheet here

Supplies needed:

- razor cutter/ with scoring blade

- adhesive

- 1 sheet 12 x 12 cardstock

- 1-2 sheets patterned paper, 1 additional cardstock sheet coordinating color

- ribbons and embellishments

- corner rounder

1. Cut your 12 x 12 piece of cardstock exactly in half, so you will have 2 pieces each measuring 6 x 12″

2. Score each piece twice – once at 4″ , once at 8″, fold along the score lines accordion style (one piece forward, one piece back, etc)

3. Glue the pieces together so you have one long piece (glue the bottom rectangle from one piece overlapping the top rectangle on the next piece)

4. Cut 2 pieces of the coordinating color of cardstock and 2 pieces of the patterned paper to 5.75 x 3.75, ink the edges. Round 2 opposite corners of each piece.

5. Glue down your pages. If you’d like any of them to be pockets, simply put a thin line of adhesive around 3 outer edges only, leaving plenty of room in the middle so you can fit a tag inside.

6. Have fun adding photos and embellishments to your album!

Once again, it was incredibly hard to choose my favorite layout from the February entries for Year in Review Contest.

The one that stood out the most to me this time was by Tristann:

Our random draw winner was Angb!!

Congratulations ladies!! Please email me your addresses and I will have your prizes sent out to you right away

The next round of challenges for the Year in Review Contest will start tomorrow, so get ready :)

Our Portland trip has come to an end, but we will be back next year! After we checked out of the hotel, we went off to find the Craft Warehouse, then spent quite a bit of time in there. :) There was a Ross right across the parking lot so we checked that place out as well (worth it for me as I found the cutest shoes there!), then we headed for the border as it was already after 2pm. We stopped off for dinner somewhere around Everett I think it was. We found this really cool Mexican restaurant, purely by chance. It was odd cause it was right inside this movie theatre building. They had the inside walls of this building painted like a town so it felt like we were sitting outside on an outdoor patio. The food was awesome too. The border line sucked though, we waited for more than an hour and a half to get back into Canada. Nicole dropped me off at home just before 10pm. What a fun trip – I can’t wait until next year when we go back :)

Nicole at the cool Mexican Restaurant

Another busy in Portland! We spent the day checking out various places, our favorite being the Lloyd Center Mall. The last 2 classes at CKC went really well, then we made a mad dash for the Outlet centers that were 20 miles south of Portland. They closed at 8pm and we didn’t get there until 6:30 so we didn’t have very long. Along the way the car beeped that we were out of gas – so not wanting to do a repeat of our Seattle trip where we ran out of gas on the highway, we pulled off and filled up in a place called Wilsonville. We were both starving too, so we grabbed a bunch of snacks from the store there. We are not making the healthiest food choices on this trip…. Wetzels pretzels for lunch (they are the best though!), then our convenience store purchases included laffy taffy, chocolate bars, quesidilla chips, beef jerky and chex mix. We only had luck at one store (Guess) at the outlet center but it was totally worth it, we left happy, lol. We got back in the car and Nicole says “It smells like a convenience store in here!!”

Then it was back to the hotel to get ready to go out for dinner. We finally decided on a restaurant called Stanfords – it was right by the mall thats near here and it sounded like a great place! The write up about it said it was always busy, the place to be and had the busiest bar around! yay!! We got dressed up and headed for this hot spot. However when we got there, the hostess took us to the dining room and it was empty! She asked if we would rather sit in the lounge/bar area and Nicole is like “um…are there people there?”  LOL. There were a few tables but it definitely was not booming like we expected, but it was already 10pm… but it was also Saturday night too…  The food was awesome though!!!!

6 classes down, 2 more to go.

Today was such a busy day but fun! I am pleased to report that we only got lost ONCE today (opposed to 5 times yesterday). We started our day at the CKC show – in the vendor fair. Crazy busy! We did some shopping and left about an hour later so we could find Joann’s. (We don’t have Joann’s in Canada so this was quite the excursion for us, lol). We found it with no problems, and NO MAP!! Amazing! We were only going on directions given to us by the parking attendant at the conference center as we were driving out of the parkade. There was so much on sale at Joann’s too! I had to buy a bunch of ribbon for one of my classes today, then we went next door to Walmart to get sanding sponges for the class as well (which I forget to get yesterday). We were taking our time as I had in my mind that my first class wasn’t until 4:10. After stopping at Wild Oats (I absolutely LOVE this place!) we got back to the hotel with all our stuff, dumped it on the floor and prepared to lie around for awhile. Nicole took a look at the room and said “oh we forgot to put out the sign on the door that we needed the room cleaned, so I guess they just didn’t come at all”. I was looking at my bed which was perfectly made and said “What are you talking about?” then I saw her bed, which was a disaster! Lol!! She had left so much stuff on it, that they didn’t even touch it! We had a good laugh over that :)

So then while I was cutting ribbon for the class, we were watching tv and stuffing our faces with almond hershey kisses (the bags here are WAY bigger – like twice the size of the ones we normally get). We ate half the bag in about 5 minutes. Nicole suddenly asks me what time the first class starts and I was like” 4:10, we still have awhile”. We actually had 4 classes today all back to back and all in the same room – my 2 classes were first then Nicole’s 2 classes. She questions that saying that is an odd time. So I was like “yeah its 4:10 to 5:10 and then 5:30 to 6:30…. wait…. how can that be if your first class starts at 6….” We both grab the schedules at the same time to frantically look and Nicole exclaims “It’s at 3:10!!!!”. YIKES – it was 2:40 and we weren’t ready AT ALL. We hadn’t even gotten changed yet, I hadn’t finished cutting the ribbon, we thought we had plenty of time. I don’t think I’ve ever rushed around so much, but within 5 minutes, we had both changed our clothes, thrown all the kits and stuff in the bags and were down in the car heading out of the parkade. We rushed through the doors of our classroom at 2:55. Whew!

Anyway, all our 4 classes went really well and we had a lot of fun with everyone – what awesome groups of people we had! The funniest comment from someone was “so where are you from that makes you talk like that?” LOL – another reference to our “accent”. Nicole and I find this hilarious.

After the last class ended, we headed off to PF Changs for dinner – so yummy!

Our door today :)

evidence of the eaten hershey kisses….

our half cleaned room, hehe

shopping? ….what shopping?

PF Changs….mmmmm