You're all winners!

In a very real sense, you ARE all winners. And I love you for it. You are winners because you're amazing people, you read this amazing blog (in all humility), and you encourage me in my amazing pursuits. It's...you guessed it...amazing. (If you guess the word of the day, you win a special prize*.)

The winner of the Thank You card giveaway, which was chosen by a panel of two judges, in a double blind experiment, is:

Sarady. YAY!!!

Sarady and her husband have just been through a difficult time with their family and have stayed strong throughout. Their strength is an inspiration.

And just because I'm feeling ultra generous, and her comment on my post about Jimmy ["I'm pretty sure Maya would love a pal like Jimmy (the thinning hair line will remind her of daddy)..."] made me laugh, Melissa (: wins Jimmy.

For the rest of you, thank you for your comments, encouragement, and friendship. You are all winners. Just imagine me jumping up and down like the lady in this clip.

* Special prize is TC's love and admiration. Void where prohibited.

That "Just Been to the Salon" Feeling

What ever happened to the days of going to the salon to get your hair fixed? My grandmother used to go once or twice a week to have her hair "set" and then she'd be worried about getting her hair wet and carry around with her a rain bonnet but her hair always looked just the way she wanted it to, unless she slept on it a little bit too much and the back got all mashed up until she had a chance to go to the salon again.

I got my hair cut and styled on Friday. the haircut itself isn't anything new and exciting, just a trim and some body added back in to my hair that for some unknown reason I'm growing out. But when I left the salon I felt like a million bucks, even though I had only spent $50. That's a good ratio, right? Celi, my miracle worker stylist, made me feel beautiful again. And that got me to wonder why I don't have her do my hair on a regular basis, like every couple of days (it sounds excessive now that I write it down, but in my head it sounded completely reasonable).

The benefits: She's nice, the conversation is good, I feel great, she's better at styling my hair than I am, she's more patient than I am, she takes her time when blowing out my hair, she doesn't get all frustrated when her arms go numb from being lifted over her head for too long, and she knows what neato and expensive products to use to make my hair look fabulous. And she knows the secret to getting my fine and limp hair to have body and not lay flat on my head without a multitude of teasing and spraying. She's a mystery bottled in a beautiful hair dressing machine package.

The disadvantages: scrila, money, paper, fetti, chedda. Or in other words, cash.

Why does that one measly disadvantage have so much weight? Why should I let money get in the way of looking great? Psh. Nothing should get in the way of looking great. Except all those things that are more important than looking great.



On a different note, you still have two more days to enter the giveaway. So all you lurkers and visitors that think that I'll think you're crazy because you check my blog but really I totally know you check my blog and that you wish your girlfriend's blog was hot like mine, enter the giveaway. Unless you are complete ingrates and don't want to thank anyone for anything thus negating the need for thank you cards in your life... Are you an ingrate? I didn't think so.*


*Guilt ridden requests are not company policy, and do not reflect the views of this network.

Creative Juices

I have an announcement: I opened an Etsy store. I know, can I be any more cliche? I'm an LDS woman, in Utah, with a blog, who likes to scrapbook and craft, and now has an Etsy store. Yikes.

All that aside, I'm excited to share my designs with other people. I've been making greeting cards, recipe cards, stationery and other stuff for a while now. I love graphic design. My creative juices have been overflowing making it difficult for me to complete tasks that are not in the creative realm.

To celebrate the grand opening of Cambalache by Gordita Designs, I'm hosting a giveaway (let's just pile on the cliches). I'm giving away one set of 12 Thank You cards (3 different designs not even listed in my store yet).



To enter, just write in the comment section about a time that you felt extra grateful. Simple, right? Comment by 11:30pm, mountain time, Friday, August 28, 2009 to enter.

In the meantime, try not to be too disappointed with me. I'm still me.

Buho Decals

Remember I told you about my talented SILs? Well SIL2 has opened an Etsy shop selling decals. You can find it here.





She is an amazing graphic designer and now her designs are available as vinyl wall decals. Her designs are color customizable, and I love them. Check out her store and bask in her talent (and buy something if you are so inspired)!

Giraffe comb over

Have you ever seen a giraffe with a comb over? I hadn't either until I created one.


Meet Jimmy the Giraffe. Other contenders for his name were Jimmy "In Denial" the Giraffe, Jimmy "Receeding Hairline" Giraffe, or Jimmy "Cueball" the Giraffe.

Using a reproduction vintage pattern from Simplicity, I made Jimmy.


For his little eyes I used turquoise fabric I had leftover from the last project, cut into teensy circles and sewn on using a zigzag stitch. Then using embroidery floss, I sewed little eyelashes.

So here's where Jimmy gets interesting: I should have used fringe for his mane, but I didn't have any, so I decided to improvise using more embroidery floss. Yeah. That wasn't the best idea I've ever had. Look.


The floss doesn't hang well, and sticks to his back and each strand is kind of far apart. Poor Jimmy looks like he's balding. I like to tell him it gives him character.


This is his backside. I think it's cute.


More of his little backside.


Here's Jimmy posing with the pattern.

So here's the deal. Jimmy was supposed to be a consolation gift for one of the gals I visit teach who just had a baby (four months ago). I say consolation gift because I'm pretty much the world's worst visiting teacher, especially since my favorite companion ever moved. So I feel like I need to console her.

But Jimmy's kind of a mess. And I'm a horrible VT and I don't want to make things worse by gifting a deformed, follicly challenged stuffed giraffe. So Jimmy stays in my closet for unsuspecting young visitors to play with.

In all truthfulness, I'm in love with Jimmy, despite his challenges. Maybe I'll try making another little Jimmy as a consolation gift.

Projects, productiveness and porcupines

A few weekends ago I was productive. It was a fantastic weekend. I set goals, and reached them, as opposed to not setting goals and accomplishing nothing, which is what I normally do. I was so productive, in fact, that I decided to ride the wave of that weekend for the last week and a half and do nothing. Yeah. Ride that wave.

Productiveness leads to completing projects. (Neither leads to porcupines, by the way. I just like alliteration.) So here's what I worked on:


A banner for SIL1's little boy who is celebrating his birthday in a few days. It says his name.

Now before you get all excited thinking that I came up with this idea, let me tell you that SIL1 saw a similar banner that someone had made online and asked me if I could recreate it. She gets all the credit. ALL of it.

So, I took some pictures of the steps, just so I can lengthen this post, because long posts are better, right?


First, using my Cricut (which is pronounced cricket, which I did not figure out until I'd had the machine for months and was staring at it and the reason for the cricket logo finally clicked), I cut out the letters in Sebastian's name.


Second, using repositionable adhesive spray I sprayed the front of each letter, let it dry for a few minutes, then stuck the letters on pieces of felt. Then I cut the letters out using the sticky letters as a pattern. Then...can you guess what's coming...I peeled off the sticky letters.

Then I sewed the letters using a close zigzag stitch to 8 inch squares I cut out of fabric. I didn't take any pictures of this step for some reason. Huh. Weird.


Then, using whole felt rectangles (you know the 29 cent ones you can pick up at any fabric or craft store?) I folded down 1 1/2 inches and sewed it in place.


Then I sewed the 8 inch squares to the felt rectangles using a wide but close zigzag.


See how fuzzy my presser foot gets?


Then I strung a ribbon through the tops of each felt piece, hung the banner up and voila!


Voila!

And one more for good measure: VOILA! There you have it folks. A fabric banner.

I have another project to post about soon. Stay tuned! You WON'T want to miss this.*



*You may want to miss this. There's no guarantee that you even want to read such detailed accounts of projects and things. There's also no guarantee that you DON'T want to read them. You decide.

First Presbyterian

This is a photo of the lovely First Presbyterian Church on South Temple in SLC.


Here is a detail of stained glass window.


And here's my attempt at being artistic with the flowers and the beautiful wooden doors.

But here's my question: Have you ever heard of a Second Presbyterian Church? Or a Third? Stupid question, perhaps, but last night as we were out on a walk and passed the church I wondered this and dwelt on it and asked TC and then found other examples where there is only a first, and no second or third or eighty-fifth (like First Security Bank) and then dwelt on it some more. Why is there only ever a first? WHY?

At any rate, those First Presbyterians have got a beautiful building.

Neighborly correspondence

Dear Ms. Neighbor,

You were loud the other morning. I know it was the wee hours of Friday morning that you were loud, and here it is late Monday morning and somehow I'm still stewing about it, but you were really LOUD! It was a lovely evening, so we slept with our window open. It was a lovely evening, so you took your BORING, self-centered conversation outside, in the courtyard, where every noise bounces off every wall, and travels and amplifies and echoes. I KNOW. I heard every word. It was 3am, and I heard every word. About how he broke up with you, and how crushed you were although a keen listener could have been fooled since your voice was monotone and devoid of any emotion whatsoever. Your poor listeners were fairly quiet, only piping in once in a while to say a deep and low, "Uhuh."

I did my best to sleep through your dull conversation, and when that didn't work, I tried to listen, to be interested. When that proved impossible, I got angry and contemplated yelling out the window for you to "Get over it." I thought better of the yelling and realized that I lack all sense of charity and compassion when I am half asleep and tired. So instead I stewed. Until TC had the sense to get up and shut the window and turn on the AC. And then I slept and forgot all about you. Until this morning, when for some reason I'm in a fight against the world, irritated and walking around with my dukes up. So I decided that I'm still mad at you, hence this letter.

Next time he breaks up with you, please don't take your conversation to the echo-y courtyard. Talk indoors, with all doors and windows shut, so only those who are kind enough to give you an occasional "uhuh" have to listen.

Thank you,

Gordita

Baby feet

I have nothing interesting to say, but I want to say something. Keeping my typing fingers to myself is not an option right now. So I thought I might tell you all a stupid story.

When we got back from Uruguay a few weeks back my feet had swelled up so much that they looked like puffy, chubby little baby feet. My toes looked minuscule in comparison to how fat my feet were. My ankles disappeared too. But mostly my feet looked horrid. Those puffy beasts wouldn't fit in any of my shoes, except flip flops for obvious reasons. In all the traveling we've done, I've never had any problems with water retention, but this time I was not immune. Honestly, to look down at my feet and see baby feet freaked me out a little bit. Okay, it freaked me out a lot bit. I might have cried a little bit. I might have cried a lot bit. I might have overreacted a little, or a lot. Maybe.

To make a stupid story short, I drank lots of water and walked around and the swelling in my baby feet went down after a day or two, and I could again see my foot bones. And then all was right with the world.

I wish I had a picture of the baby feet to show you all, but I was so appalled that I didn't take any pictures, and even if I had, I would probably be too vain to post it.

For not having anything to say, I said a lot. Thanks for reading.

Happy Pioneer Day

July 24 is Pioneer Day here in Utah. It's the commemoration of when Mormon pioneers entered the Salt Lake Valley, before it was the Salt Lake Valley. We have a great parade here, a rodeo, services and all kinds of celebrations to help us remember the holiday. More about the parade (since I'm a complete parade geek) later. For now, let me tell you about one of my favorite pioneers.

Meet William Carter, aka the dude with the funny beard.



He's one of my great grandfathers and his story is something like this. He was born in England in 1821. When he was 19 and working as a blacksmith, he was invited to attend a meeting by two Mormon missionaries. He listened to the sermon, believed their message of a true prophet, Joseph Smith, and that the gospel that Jesus Christ organized when He was on the earth was once again on the earth in its entirety. He was so convinced that they had truth that he wanted to be baptized immediately. The missionaries said, "Young man wait until you learn more about it." William's response was, "If I could wait another year, I would not be any more ready than I am now, for I know that you have the true church." Soon after he was baptized.

A few months later he left England, left his parents and all of his siblings but one sister to travel to the United States so that he could join up with other Mormons in Nauvoo, Illinois. After three months of travel (and I complain about 24 hours of travel to get to Argentina), he and his travel mates arrived in Nauvoo. William's shoes had long since worn out, so he walked with bare feet. When he heard that the prophet Joseph Smith had come to greet the group William felt embarrassed that his feet were bare and found a fallen log to hide his feet under. When Joseph Smith approached William, he asked him, "Boy, what are you here for?" William said, "For the gospel's sake."

And for the sake of his belief in the gospel he had made so many sacrifices thus far. A few days after arriving, he began working with the other saints to build up Nauvoo.


Now to the really good part. In 1847, Brigham Young, the second prophet and president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, organized groups of Mormons to travel west. William was in one of those first groups and after months of travel arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on July 24, 1847. He was the first to plow the hard desert land and even devised a way to wet the land by diverting a creek so that the land would be soft enough to dig it up (sounds simple, but it was an innovation at the time).

Like so many others, William gave all he had because he believed in the message of the gospel. For the rest of his life he worked hard and lived on very little because of his faith. And God answered his faith with blessings. He trusted in God completely. As with so many other topics I feel strongly about, there's more I could say, but to keep myself from being long winded, I'll cut it off here: I'm grateful for the work William and other early members of the Mormon church did to establish the Salt Lake Valley and the church.

I hope your Pioneer Day was happy!