Journalism Portfolio

Today I was having one of those mom days where I felt a little left in the dust. Right now at this point in my life, my career is being a mom. I am completely content with this decision on most days, but it seems lately many of my friends are going back to school, getting or finishing their degrees and finding fulfillment in a new career.

After just recently working over time to finish my daughter's school yearbook, I honestly don't know how working moms do it. I have been a total zombie all week trying to catch up on housework, take care of the kids, run errands and fix meals.

At any rate, back to my point...so I was feeling a tad inadequate and went down to the basement to try and locate my design portfolio in hopes that seeing what I used to do would somehow make me feel better. Well, I didn't find the design portfolio, but I did find my journalism portfolio. Here is a page I did of my most memorable interview ever...with Heather Locklear!

Holy Eyebrows Batman!...clearly I hadn't yet discovered eyebrow waxing yet. LOL!!! So here's the scoop...Heather Locklear, Timothy Busfield, Chloris Leachman and Micheal Beck were in town filming a made for TV movie called "Fade to Black" (this was before her Melrose Place days). I piped up and volunteered myself to interview for this story...as a journalism major this was about as exciting an opportunity as I would get, so I jumped at the chance. Heather was "nice" or should I say polite. She didn't want to be photographed really, but then agreed to let our photographer photograph her from a distance. Fortunately, I was friends with the photographer who used her zoom and got a tight shot anyway!!! I could tell by her non verbals that Heather Locklear wanted the interview to be short and sweet, so I tried to accommodate.

Later that same afternoon, my editor got to interview Timothy Busfield (from "Revenge of the Nerds" and "30-Somthing") and I got to sit in on the interview. Unlike Heather Locklear, Timothy Busfield was so cool and extremely friendly. He sat down with us and just kind of hung out for a while. It was a fun day for sure.

These layouts are pretty basic and just contain clips from the articles I wrote.

Nursery Rhymes

I just got back from roller skating with my 7 year old at a skate/birthday party. It was so much fun...but I'm sure I'll feel sore tomorrow! Right now I'm just killing 5 minutes before Survivor starts and I thought I would post some more cards I made at the beach last week.

I love this Nursery Rhymes set from Stampin Up! I bought the set right before it was discontinued (several years ago), but I never assembled the stamps and therefore, never made anything with it. Sadly I have many more sets just waiting to be put together, but that's another issue altogether. Anyway here are some cards I watercolored:

...cow jumped over the moon, my favorite!

April Fools!!!

Gotcha!

I came across this kitty litter cake idea while searching Madonna's (yes THAT Madonna) blog some time last year. I went back later to write down the instructions and her blog was no longer set up...little did I know that a simple Google search would turn up multiple instructions and even some photos.

My kids though it was gross!!! Heehee LOL!

Without further ado, here's the recipe:

Kitty Litter Cake
Serving Size: 24Notes:
This is a fun cake! It might look gross, but it does taste good!
Ingredients:
1 (18 oz.) box spice or german chocolate cake mix
1 (18 oz.) box white cake mix
1 pkg. white sandwich cookies
1 large box vanilla instant pudding mix
12 small tootsie rolls
1 litter box (preferably a NEW one!)
1 plastic scoop
green food coloring

Preparation:
Prepare cake mixes and bake according to directions (any size pans). Prepare pudding mix and chill until ready to assemble. Crumble white sandwich cookies in small batches in blender, they tend to stick, so scrape often. Set aside all but about 1/4 cup. To the 1/4 cup cookie crumbs, add a few drops green food coloring and mix using a fork or shake in a jar.
When cakes are cooled to room temperature, crumble into a large bowl. Toss with half the remaining white cookie crumbs and the chilled pudding. You probably won’t need all of the pudding, mix with the cake and “feel” it, you don’t want it soggy, just moist; gently combine. Put mixture into clean litter box.Put three unwrapped Tootsie rolls in a microwave safe dish and heat until soft and pliable. Form the three softened Tootsie rolls into one roll. Shape ends so they are no longer blunt, curving slightly. Repeat with 3 more Tootsie rolls and bury in mixture. Sprinkle the other half of cookie crumbs over top. Scatter the green cookie crumbs lightly over the top, this is supposed to look like the chlorophyll in kitty litter. Heat remaining Tootsie Rolls, three at a time in the microwave until almost melted. Scrape them on top of the cake and sprinkle with cookie crumbs. Place the box on a newspaper and sprinkle a few of the cookie crumbs around. Serve with a new pooper scooper.

Spring Break Getaway at the Oregon Coast

Contrary to what it looks like, this was taken near Lincoln City on "Spring" Break last week...yes, that is SNOW!

Here you can see the snow in the foothills along the coastline...it was pretty crazy to see snow in March at the beach!

Here I am with my kiddos all bundled up!

I actually brought my stamps with me to the beach. It has been sooo long since I've made any cards. Quite a few of the stamp sets I brought weren't even assembled yet, so the first night I put them all together and then spent all day stamping. I love this little picture I made using the "All in the Family" set from Stampin' Up to represent Zander, Natalie and Hayden. The image of the kids is water colored using water color pencils.

This gate fold card was made with the "Time with You" set from Stampin' Up and is also water colored. I forgot to bring my foam dimensional with me, so I just used the mounting foam I had leftover after I cut out my stamps the night before. I peeled off the rubber and the adhesive back and and was left with double-sided sticky backed foam. I then stamped, colored and cut out the top part of the umbrella and used the foam to mount/layer the umbrella over top of the original image so it pops out more. I'm sure this is clear as mud, but it looks 3 dimensional.

Here is the inside of the card which reads: "My very favorite thing to do is spending time with a friend like you."