A new color for the year! My favorite color!

Just a couple weeks ago I announced to Dakota that I now had a new favorite color. I also made sure to tell many many other people! To describe it, I did not call the color by name. I told them that my favorite color is an aqua blue, but it is more greenish, but more vibrant, and yet earthy. It is a happy color that really excites me. I refured to old vintage photos with the bright blue hues and the blues associated with the southwest. I told them to boil all those together and the result is my favorite color. this favorite color of course is not my only favorite. One of the reasons that I love it so much is that it goes so nicely with my other favorite color - pink in every shade and hue! I love it so much because it makes me feel positive. It makes me believe that life is beautiful and great and fantastic. I painted my finger nails with it, and now as I type, I watch them and smile simply because they are pretty, and girly, and lovely, and happy!
Shortly after I made the huge decision to give this amazing color a spot next to pink with the glory and title of "favorite," I found out that Turquoise was announced as the color of the year for 2010! Yes! Yes! Yes! the color is called turquoise! My favorite color has a name! Hooray! So, here is the article from the Pantone website that discusses exactly some of the reasons that this color deserves our attention this upcoming year:
I am reposting this from the Pantone.com website:

CARLSTADT, N.J., Dec. 8, 2009 –Pantone LLC, an X-Rite company (NASDAQ: XRIT), and the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries, today announced PANTONE® 15-5519 Turquoise, an inviting, luminous hue, as the color of the year for 2010. Combining the serene qualities of blue and the invigorating aspects of green, Turquoise evokes thoughts of soothing, tropical waters and a languorous, effective escape from the everyday troubles of the world, while at the same time restoring our sense of wellbeing.“In many cultures, Turquoise occupies a very special position in the world of color,” explains Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®. “It is believed to be a protective talisman, a color of deep compassion and healing, and a color of faith and truth, inspired by water and sky. Through years of color word-association studies, we also find that Turquoise represents an escape to many – taking them to a tropical paradise that is pleasant and inviting, even if only a fantasy.”
Whether envisioned as a tranquil ocean surrounding a tropical island or a protective stone warding off evil spirits, Turquoise is a color that most people respond to positively. It is universally flattering, has appeal for men and women, and translates easily to fashion and interiors. With both warm and cool undertones, Turquoise pairs nicely with any other color in the spectrum. Turquoise adds a splash of excitement to neutrals and browns, complements reds and pinks, creates a classic maritime look with deep blues, livens up all other greens, and is especially trend-setting with yellow-greens.
In fashion, Turquoise makes a statement that can look elegant and dressy in fine silk and gemstones, or casual and fun in cotton and athletic apparel. Because of its versatility, Turquoise is a great accent color in jewelry, purses, shoes, hair accessories and even nail polish for women, and ties, shirts and sportswear for men.

For brides wanting a flattering choice for attendant apparel and accessories on their big day, Turquoise is now one of the nearly 200 PANTONE WEDDING Colors available from Dessy, a leading manufacturer of bridesmaid, social occasion and flower girl dresses, as well as destination wedding gowns under the labels Dessy Collection, After Six, Alfred Sung, Lela Rose Bridesmaid and Sandals Destination Wedding Dresses. PANTONE WEDDING exclusively from Dessy provides a collection of color tools to make it easy for brides to achieve perfectly color-coordinated weddings – from inspiration to “I do.”Additionally, Turquoise is one of 3,000 colors available in Pantone’s line of superior-quality, eco-friendly paint. PANTONE Paints combine the accuracy of PANTONE Colors with the beauty of high-performance Dutch paints. Perfect for a powder room or bedroom, Turquoise is an evocative, spa-like hue that adds an undertone of warmth and excitement to any cool space. In the kitchen, Turquoise adds a unique flare to tabletop and appliances.
About Pantone Pantone LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of X-Rite, Incorporated, has been the world’s color authority for 45 years, providing design professionals with products and services for the colorful exploration and expression of creativity. Always a source for color inspiration, Pantone also offers designer-inspired products and services for consumers. More information is available at www.pantone.com.About X-RiteX-Rite, Incorporated, is the global leader in color science and technology. The company, which now includes color industry leader Pantone, develops, manufactures, markets and supports innovative color solutions through measurement systems, software, color standards and services. X-Rite’s expertise in inspiring, selecting, measuring, formulating, communicating and matching color helps users get color right the first time and every time, which translates to better quality and reduced costs. X-Rite serves a range of industries, including printing, packaging, photography, graphic design, video, automotive, paints, plastics, textiles, dental and medical. For further information, please visit www.xrite.com.

Puppy Pug Party / Papercrafting!!

I am INALLY getting around to posting a few pictures. Here are the pictures from Kaye's birthday. I made the carrot cake and decorated it too. My cake decorating has gotten pretty bad becaue I never do it anymore! Anyways, it was my birthday the same day.Here is the cake before Kaye got to it!

Then Kaye saw it... Oh man was she excited! I just had to do the whole cake in her face picture thing. The is my baby ater all and it was her firt birthday!

Here is one of the baby girl and mommey together with our pretty cake. I'm surprised that I somehow managed to get this picture. It was just the two of us, so please understand that I was not only the subject of the pictures, but I was the photographer too.


She loved the cake. Don't worry, I just gave her a little bit, and she did not get sick from it.

And here she is with it all over her face! Cute.

Time or the presents! She got a pretty new sweater that is brown and pink. It has a picture of a bone on the back of it. And....a bone!! She was the happiest puppy ever! That sweater will keep her warm when we go up to Michigan in the snow for Christmas!

Happy Pug Puppy!!!

Now, for some papercrafting.I saw this Christmas gift bags at WalMart and instantly thought of what a cute mini album I could make with them. I cut the bottoms off and sowed the sides of each bag together to create one page. Then, I added the foam snowflakes to each page, bound them together, and completed the cover with glitter, thickers, and ribbons! I just love it! So cute for holding this years Christmas pictures!

A picture of the tiching and a couple snowflakes....

I used different sized bags...Just love that

I made some journals for the little sister. There are four of them and I took pictures with my phone, but not my camera before I tied them together in a cute little bundle. I'll have to post the individual ones later ater I get them off my ohone. They were so easy though. I cut paper down to 12X6 size and folded them together. Then I punched holes in each side and tied them together with bows for the bindings. I applied a little embellishment to each one. There is a heart or this one as you can see.

And here is the Christmas Tree. Its fake this year because I don't know where to get a real one around this little villiage, and its just me and the pugster, so I'm not sure I would have been able to get it stood up in a stand if it were real. I'm absolutely loving the silver and turquoise this year. so pretty. By the way, turquoise is the color for 2010, and happens to be my new (tied for first place with pink) favorite color!!

And finally, to leave off, a cute little battery toy. When you push the button it sings "We Wish You A Merry Christmas," and the little penguins ring their bells as the snowman sways. Too cute. Happy Holidays!! More to come soon.

I'm So Blue!!

BlueMoon is a fabulous site about all kinds of fun stuff. They feature a lot of inspiration and product features that you will just have to get your hands on. I'm just loving them. I'm loving them even more after this morning when I found out I am their weekly winner for a gorgeous pack of Christmasy yummies!! Hooray! I'm so blue!

In other news, the company Christmas Gala is tonight. I was fighting with myself over whether or not I really wanted to go. Dakota is not here, so I don't have a date. Don't get me wrong, I love to dress up anyways! Mostly, the biggest part of it is that there are only a handful of people I can stand...especially when they are drinking. Most of us are prior military, and I hope that I don't effend anyone by saying that a lot of times military and drinking go hand-in-hand. It is no exception with these people. Open bar means open bar. another thing too that seems so true most of the time, is that these military people have no shame about acting like fools. It does lead to some entertainment, but there is always that point in the evening, that it becomes less entertaining and more plain out annoying. Needless to say, I didn't really want to spend the night alone, when I kow everyone else will be eating yummy food and having some fun at least, so I got rid of my scrudgey attitude, and decided lazt minute to go. Yes, I'm dressing up a little bit. I just hope that my pretty red shoes still fit me while wearing tights. You read it right, tights! This should be very funny, as I NEVER wear nylons or tights.
One last point....I am sorry that I did not post pictures like I promised I would try to do. I could not find my camera for the life of me. I found it this morning though....in my purse where I put it. So, we'll see how quickly I can get those pictures posted. I'd do it now, but I'm at work. I don't have my cable, and who knows what they are tracking now. Have you ever read the book 1984? Well, I feel like that now. We are banned from sooooo many things now, and really should just sit like zombies staring at the white institutional walls all day! I'm honestly not even sure if I should be on blogger! They have blocked every other social networking type thing...it just might be next. Besides, we were told that unless it's work related, we cannot do it. I promise you though, that there is absolutely nothing to be done at work. All my work is done, and has been for a while now. Occasionally something small might come up here and there every day or two, but other than that, I'm not doing anything! Yuck...boring! Alright, I will leave you on a high note...
Less than a week until Christmas!! WooHooo! and just over a week until Dakota comes to visit! So excited. Have a beautiful day!

I am currently....

I was totally inspired by Nancy to create a post about my currents! So here you have what I am currently...
feeeling....

I have no regrets! I love my life right now. Everything that I have done up to this point has made this life worth living now!

Missing....

I miss Dakota each and every minute that he is away from me. Two more weeks before he comes to visit!

Wearing...

Old Navy Diva Jeans. I have mine in a dark wash though. I had to break up with my Boyfriend Jeans from American Eagle after they no longer look good on me since I have put on a little weight. Believe me though, I hope they will take me back when I get down to my size again.

Surfing....

I am addicted....to everything on this site!

Eating....

Jackie sent them to me for my birthday. Love love love them! Awesome friend!

Watching....

Every single night...new ones, old ones, whichever!

Reading....

I have not gotten too far into it. I need to read more often though, and this book had good reviews. Updates to come.

Creating with....

I want about 10 more full lines to play with! I only got 1 to begin with. I need more...hint hint Santa!!

Jody's Rusy Pickle Winner!!

Thank you so so so much Jody! Jody was one of the members that helped put on the Rusty Pickle blog hop over the weekend. She had two awesome giveaways on her blog to celebrate holiday fun. She has been so generous in selecting me as the winner of the Rusty Pickle White Christmas Paper Packet! WooHoo!

Yesterday I got my package in the mail of the items that I bought using the gift certificate that I won from D-Lish Scraps! That was pretty exciting. I will be trying to post up some pictures before the end of the week if I can. I know I have been so bad about posting things up....
Ok, maybe tonight? I know that I have pictures to post of Kaye's first birthday, our Christmas tree, and fun in Texas with my boy! I promise I will try to find time to do all of those tonight if I can. This time of year has been quite hectic. Travels, present projects, birthdays....oh goodness... So I will try. I'm also about to post a fun little what I've been up to post inspired by Nancy. Look for it.

Dakota and I have been texting back and forth all morning. He is sitting through some very boring briefings (in Texas) to get out of the Army and I have absolutely nothing important going on at work. He is arriving here on Dec. 29th for our Christmas together and New Years! I can't wait, in case you couldn't guess that already. I asked him what he would like me to cook for our "Christmas" dinner. Turkey, smashed taters, gravy, and green beans! Oh dear! I told him I would cook whatever he wanted me to...this should be very interesting because I have never made a turkey before EVER! To be honest, I barely explore my kitchen except for the pathway between the freezer and the microwave! I can cook, I just really never do, and it is always a surprise what the food actually tastes like when I am finished. {side story....I once was making instant potatoes and read the directions wrong....instead of 1/8 teaspoon of salt, I added 8 teaspoons of salt!} Wish me luck...I don't want for my house to burn down!

Happy Birthday to ME!!!!

I thought I would share with you some of this weekend excitement...
Saturday morning began with a weet text message from Dakota...I knew there was a reason that I love him! Then off to WalMart with a hopping list. Yes, I actually wrote a list, and somehow managed to leave the store before I bought too many things that were not on the list. Did I mention that I got all the way there without my purse? I had to drive all the way back home, get the purse and drive all the way back to WalMart. So I got some great things...Christmas tree decorations, storage bins, laundry basket, new pillows, new sheets, a phone charger for my car, and some random other things. When I got home I cleaned the laundry room. Yikes! I put away all of my summer clothes into bins to make more hanging room in there for when Dakota comes beause I do not have closets! Gasp!!! My laundry room is outside by the way, so I froze! I then came inide and decided that the kitchen floor needed to be mopped. Smart me put cleaner directly on the floor and thought I would just use the water bucket to rinse the mop....obviously I do not ever use anything other than the swiffer on the floor....I had cleaner sud and water everywhere. It took me two hours to finally get it all soaked up and the suds gone...too long. Then I baked a carrot cake. Yummy! I put up my wonderully ugly new fake christmas tree! I hate fake trees but it seemed to be the only option since it's just me and the puppy right now. Pretty decorations though!! Teal and Silver! I talked to Dakota for a while about random stuff. then I put the freshly washed new sheets on the bed! Oh so soft. The old sheets were two years old and wearing thin. I want to have nice sheets for when Dakota comes. I love them! The only bad thing is that they had the light blue color only in king size so I had to go with the deep brown ones. I have a brown comforter....lots of brown! I did get an extra pair of pillow cases though in the light blue. It looks so luxerious! I think that was just about the end of the day.
At 12:15 am I got a text message from Dakota being the first to wish me a happy birthday but not wanting to wake me up! It woke me up but that is ok. Grandma A called at 7am and I didn't answer. She let a message wishing me a happy birthday. I went back to sleep. Mummsie called at 10am and I woke up. She sang to me. I froted the cake and made it all pretty with leafy vines and pink flowers. I wrote happy birthday Kaye and me on it. I put candles on it and brought it down to puppy level. I got some pretty funny pictures of kaye licking the frosting! I did manage to get one picture of the cake with candles ablaze, kaye and me, then quickly blew them out a cut a tiny peice for her. So many funny pictures of her chowing down. She loved it. I put her new sweater on her and gave her a bone. She likes the sweater and the bone so I got more pictures. Called grandma back. Accidentaly called grams and gramps so I figured instead of hanging up I would talk to them. They had planned to call in the aternoon, but that is fine. Misty, my awesome friend (and only one I really have here) called and wished me a happy birthday and asked if she could take me to the city for sushi. I would be crazy to turn that down! I love love love sushi! So went to eat after I took a shower... she convinced me to go to the company Christmas party on Friday night. I had to go to Target to buy a new skirt to wear. I've gained quite a bit of weight lately and didn't have anything to wear to the formal business dress party. Found a skirt that could not be any more perfect. Fell totally in love with it! Bought it! My ather actaully called to wish me a happy birthday. I was shocked! I have talked to him (including today' call) three times since August. we don't talk much. Then I talked to Staci...his recent ex-wife, who I am still very close to. And talked to my little siblings about Christmas. And that is about it for the wonderful birthday weekend! Hope you are all doing well!

Who wants Paper?

Urban Swank is giving away a bunch of awesome papers! Go check out the blog and enter for a chance to win. Good luck ladies!

Mission Create

Mission Create where have you been all my scrapbooking life? I just found this blog today and I love it. they have somre really great challenges that really will challenge you! I cannot wait to play along. Check out this post from the site today, and visit them for your own chance to win some yummy yummy goodies!

December's
Prize!
Here is a little peek at the prize we are giving away for the
December Challenges!
Thank you to the Scrapbook Cottage for being
December's sponsor!
There will be challenges posted on December 13 th
&
27th and you will have until January 7th to link up your layouts
for a
chance to
win this prize :-)
Living in the land of reality we
know
December is a hectic
month for everyone and we may not have quite
as much
creating time-so we have an
additional way you can try and win
this
prize!
All you need to do is become a
follower (see the left
hand
column!) and post a link to this site on your own
blog!
Once you
have
done both just post in the comments here to let us
know!
**Don't
forget
you have until December 7th to complete Mission 0003,
0004 or
0005 to be
entered to win the November Prize**

Long Time no Post (Kind of long!)

Hello all!
I know that it has been quite a while since I posted last. I had an absolutely wonderful trip! Dakota was supposed to come home on Wednesday, but got delayed until Friday night. then he had to work when he got back. Yucky! That's fine though because I got to extend my stay in Texas a little while and really get to spend some good time with him. we did so many nice things...played with the puppy, went out to eat, played monopoly, played rock band with friends, and just spent some much needed time together. Don't worry...I have plenty of pictures to serve as memories of this very happy reunion. I am so glad that he is finally home from Iraq. Oh, and he got me an early birthday present - the new Droid phone! what a sweetheart, huh? This way we can talk all we want because we are now on the same cell phone plan. So, even though he had to stay in Texas, and I just had to come back to work in Tennessee, we can talk and text all we want to stay in touch! so excited about that!
I put together a mini-album before I left to display all of the awesome fun we had. Last night I spent most of the night editing the pictures and getting them ready for print. He has to email me the ones from his camera still though. As soon as those are printed, I can put them into the album real quicklike and add some finishing elements! Woohoo! My first mini-album will be completed and I will post up the pictures.
While I was waiting for Dakota to come home, I spent some time in the hotel by myself. I did some 2Pea searching and some blog fun stuff. Out of the Hat announced their November winners while I was there....and.....I won! Now don't get too crazy with the congrats because they had 4 winners. Two of the winners were people choice and people choice runner up. another winner was the Design Team favorite. I managed to squeak in with the random draw winner slot! So, although I won, and I think my layout is awesome, i'm not up there with the pros yet! heeheehee. The other winners did such awesome layouts too! I thought it was a great challenge though....trees and diecuts are so much fun! All about Me also announced their winner for November. Now they also do the random winner thing I believe, which is still pretty great because it gives beginners just as much of a chance at winning as the pros. they have two challenges a month and for each challenge that you complete, you get a chance in the drawing. I completed both. You can see them in earlier posts...I can't live without you much longer and my forever mark. So I just want to thank the wonderful ladies over at both of these blogs. The design teams are totally amazing! The sponsers were also just as amazing! Nikki Sivils, Scrapbooker and De-Lish Scraps! WooHoo thanks so much!
The last thing that I really want to talk about is in regards to a previous post. If you read my post about hating my job, saving money, and wanting to return to school, then I hope you will be interested in a little followup from that. Dakota and I had some long talk going on about my situation here in Tennessee. He knows that I am so very unhappy here, but it does seem kind of silly for me to move down to Texas with him right now. He gets a couple weeks off at Christmas and New Years in order to go visit his family that he has not seen since this time last year. then he will go back to Texas and pretty much just be doing all the crazy things you have to do when you get out of the Army. after that (sometime around the end of January) he is going back up to see some of his other family members that he can't see during his first trip - the ones in Winconsin and his dad I believe. So, basically if you really look at it, he is going to be back and forth a lot and actually done with the Army for good on February 20th. then he will be coming to tennessee with me. I might as well keep working right now and keep paying those bills and saving that money for a little bit longer. At that point, it will be time to start looking for a new place to live up in Nashville so that I can start school. the actual date for the quarter to start at The Art Institute is April 5th. I am working on my application now so wish me lots of luck! I just can't hardly wait!
Well, I truely hope that the holidays are magical for all of you right now. I wish only the best for you all in your family time, fun crafts, and the dreadful Christmas crowds! I'm praying for you all that you continue to be blessed, and that you have a joyous season. In two weeks from tomorrow, I will be heading north to Michigan to spend a quick Christmas weekend with my loving family. I cannot wait to see my mumsie, little sis, grams and gramps, step-dad Rodney who I haven't seen in a long while, Staci, and the whole rest of the gang! Woohoo!

Hugs and Scrappy Loves!