Terry has been calling me FINCH [or FINCHY] all day today… let me explain…

T had a project for work that he was struggling with, a graphic design project and he asked me to help. Well, at 11pm last night I basically took his entire project, based on horrible consultant files [he was trying to cobble this crap into something half decent], rebuilt and redesigned the entire thing and finished 12 HUGE Open House information panels at 1am last night. Now THAT is love! He was suitably happy and more than a little impressed with the work I did, and the fact that I did it in 3 hours was a BIG bonus [means he didn’t have to finish it at work today and could do other things]. 

He started calling me FINCH last night while I worked on his project. FINCH, as in Miles Finch from the movie ELF. Now the Miles Finch character was the ‘go to‘ guy in the movie… a children’s story development genius. When the main characters get into trouble trying to develop a new children’s story and suffered from a creative block, they called in the pro - Miles Finch. So, since I’m the graphics ‘pro’ in Terry’s estimation, he now calls me FINCH. I like it… and think it’s a cute nickname.

Now, on to the Letter D.
When Terry calls me FINCH it makes me realize that I really know graphic design, graphic software and trends in print and publishing design. All in all, by calling me FINCH he’s telling me that I’m good at my job and that he’s proud of me… and THAT makes me want to shout out loud for all to here that DAMN, I’m good! So today… the letter D stands for ‘damn I’m good’!

I’m usually not one to crow about my skills [whether artistic, design oriented or other] so doing a page about my graphic design skills is pretty unusual. I generally don’t journal about myself, other than as a witness to events around me; however, today made me want to shout out for all to hear that "Damn, I’m good!", especially being validated by both my husband, his co-workers, my co-workers and my boss.  Today, in this layout I’m doing just that… letting you all know that yes, I excel at something and that yes, I’m proud of those skills.

Man am I sleepy! Two cups of coffee, a Dr Pepper [diet vanilla cherry - yum!], and lots of water and I’m still forcing my eyes to stay open. Clearly my poor sleeping pattern lately and staying up until 1:30am almost every night this week [2:15am last night] is catching up to me.

I’m wiped… If I had a ‘George’ desk [a la Seinfeld] I’d be snoozing away in my little cubby with a blankie and pillow for comfort. The office is so quiet - which is making it harder to stay focussed and awake - maybe if I line down under my worksurface I could take a nap amongst the boxes of brochures. Yeah, they are hard and pointy… But I won’t, I could NEVER sleep in the office, the guilt would kill me.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend all.

One of the few Canadians, Jenny Galt [from my hometown Vancouver BC!] got the boot last night [boo hoo =( ]
Wasn’t surprised she was in the bottom three… I called that one! But I was surprised she went so earlier in the game.

Navarro was right… she played it waaaay too safe and just wasn’t right for the band. As Tommy put it: ‘You’ve gone soft on us… when are you going to get hard again?’ <grin grin, nudge nudge!>. He’s such a perve LOL! It was inevitable for her to go.

It was nice to her on ET Canada and to hear her say that she’s supporting fellow Canuck Lukas in his bid to win the gig. She thinks he’s the front runner, and surprise surprise - I have to agree =)

Gotta say, Dana totally surprised me by really belting out her tune last night. Wow! What a shocker!

Anyways, sorry to see you go Jenny, but life ain’t over EH?

Here is today’s submission for the Letter B - Been there done that.
The idea came to me today while chatting with a friend. We were discussing shoe purchases [Terry just bought me a pair o’ baby blue Crocs] and how we [my friend and I] spend to much on shoes… when we both could have easily spent the money on art supplies instead. Been there, done that!

Products used:

• paperWERX metropolitan paper
• Bazzill Library Pocket
• Little Black Dress Designs monogram
• MM alphabet rub-ons in black
• vintage white LetraSet rub-ons doodled on with brown Sharpie
• fiberWERX metropolitan fiber [a velvet cording]
• paint chips by BEHR

Thanks for looking…

I actually started with the letter ‘C’ yesterday. So here it is today…

Products used in layout:

• paperWERX metropolitan Collection paper
• Little Black Dress monograms
• Maya Road Chipboard frame
• snippets from Readers Digest
• Polaroid image transfers of the transparent Random Thoughts alphabet overlay and the original, partially developed polaroid
• handwriting in Pilot Fineliner on brown craft paper

I’m inspired by my friend Carmi’s regular posting of art on her blog.

Carmi went through a self-imposed art challenge and commited herself to a collage a day for the MONTH of June. Throughout the month I eagerly checked in with her blog to see what wonderful art she had created, and she never disappointed me once. Since then she has kept up the practice and now is a habit she is trying not to break.

I admire her courage and fortitude in undertaking a project like that… Posting art on your blog like that opens you up to criticism and judgement, and really really shows you just WHO is reading it LOL! Good for you Carmi. You did a spectacular job keeping up with both the schedule you set for yourself and the quality of art.

So… because of said inspiration, I have decided to take up my art challenge and I too will be doing a page-a-day art journal. For 26 days… why 26 days you ask, because that’s how many letters there are in the alphabet silly!

My art experiment will be taking 1 letter of the alphabet per day and creating an art journal page based on that letter and how it inspires me. Theartjournal is a panoramic chipboard journal I made myself; it measures 12"x5" and I love the look of the long pages! Here is my first journal entry…

The Letter A:

Products used:

• paperWERX FRESH! and Big Kahuna papers
• Little Black Dress Designs monograms
• Heidi Swapp chipboard alphabet
• Bazzill cardstock and
• snippets of text from an old Readers Digest condensed book.
• Handwriting done with Pilot Fineliner

So… last night was interesting. The rockers are beginning to take this really seriously and are all fighting for the songs they want.  A few of the rockers all had stellar performances, and my picks for the final three Rockstar:

• Lukas delivered a huge performance [as usual] and toughened up a Stones classic "Lets Spend the Night Together". I loved Navarro’s comment "When ever your perform, you look really arrogant…" [insert HUGE awkward moment here] "Dude, that what you have to do to lead THIS band! Awesome!"
• Dilana performed her own take on the the Cranberries hit "Zombie" and again she put her own spin on it. Amazing… again.! This chick is the real deal. Lukas better watch out… Oh and the fact that Tommy Lee wants in her pants bodes well for her too [wink wink, nudge nudge!]
• Patrice did "Helter Skelter" by the Beatles, and fought HARD to get it. Bit of a bitch fest on song selection night between her and Jill Gioia [best girl won in my opinion - Patrice!]. She was strong and did a great job again this week… But it’s going to be tough for her to beat Lukas and Dilana.

A few other preformances of not: I must make mention of Magni… his perfomance of "Plush", by one of my favorite bands Stone Temple Pilots, was wicked! He’s surprising me all the time, but I don’t think he’ll make it past Final 4. Another surprise was Zayra… anyone else think she sounds alot like Bjork? She was good last night too… but I don’t think she’s right for the band.

My picks for the bottom three tonight… in no particular order:
Jenny Galt, Dana and Josh

My pick to get the boot… Dana. Sorry honey, you’re just waaaaaay too sweet. Tommy and the boys would eat you alive.
Rockstar Nazi says… "No ROCKSTAR for you!"

Here’s a photograph I took a couple of weeks ago featuring my new brush set. So cute! I love that look of drawing on the photograph.

New set of Sketchy Flourish brushes available in the digiWERX section of our retail store!

Fun, doodlie sketch brushes [20 in this set!] to enhance your photos, cards and layout. Here is a sample of the brushes, let me know what you think!  … and thanks for looking ;^)

[p.s. these were doodled in a recent staff meeting… now that’s effective time management LOL!]

Did you know… I was a celebrity headliner on a cool paper arts website in March this year called SS Reflections? Here is the link to my archived page on SS Reflections website if you’re interested: Celebrity Headliner.  Who knew I was considered a celebrity LOL!?!

This month we’re pleased to have sponsored the SS Reflections Designer’s Challenge with a selection of our collage and architectural rubberstamps. Here is a link to their great work: July Designer’s Challenge.
Great work ladies!

Tune in later today for my recap on Week 3 of Rockstar: SuperNova. Rock on!