Life in Color Photo

In case you didn’t see these sweet little peeps in the Ribbon Jar newsletter, or our ideas page I thought I would share them here. Sara Neuburger makes these over at The Small Object. Here is a direct link to the peeps. I asked her to be a guest designer a couple of months ago because I was pretty much just getting scrapbooking submissions (which are awesome, but I have to mix it up) and I was really looking for people who stretched ribbon usage. Well she does just that. I love love love what she did with all of our differnt ribbons and trims. She is so creative, and was really great to work with. See all the peeps on our ideas page.  You can find out more about her over at her blog. Thanks again Sarah.

P.S. always looking for designers, or people who used my ribbon in a cool way (if you have email ideas at ribbonjar dot com and if I use your image in a newsletter you get a 25% off coupon for your next order). Only one person has taken me up on the newsletter thing so far. So I don’t know whether people are hoarding the ribbon or what… hmm.

The promised pictures. I’ve been working on these little guys, collecting jars, scrubing them clean, and putting together cool sets of ribbon. I started on the tags for everything for the show last night. I love the jar tags. Each jar is numbered, and have an old ledger that I keep track of all the jars in since they are each unique. Some jars are made for wrapping things, with 2 or more yards per ribbon, and some are for various crafty persuits. I had so so much fun putting these together. I’m going to see how they do at the show on Wednesday and then hopefully put some online on Ribbon Jar as well. Here’s another beauty shot of my ribbon:

Sciarrino helped me put the first batch of these together. I’ve also been making more cute stuff with ribbon, and so have my designers. I can’t wait for you all to see what November’s designer has done. She is so amazing. A real creative soul. Newsletter will go out today or tomorrow.

Yesterday was a race down at the old boathouse on the Willamette river in Corvallis. When I was in college I lived and breathed crew. It’s so odd going back just for one day, and it’s all fun, no stress, very opposite from actual racing season. I did have fun with all the rowers during my four years on the team so it was really awesome to see everyone… And kind of strange, half our boat was married, 5 of the 9 of us! I was pretty nervous going into it because the race is on the river, much scarier than a lake from a coxswain’s percpective (I’m the coxswain, the one who steers, gives calls, ect.). Oh and the fact that my super senior year (I stayed an extra year in college to cox) I hit an f-ing log. This is a coxswains worst nightmare, hitting something. I’d actually gone four years and only hit tiny little twigs or debris like that (which is really impossible to miss in a swift river). Then one fateful day after being gone from the river for a weekend (for a race) we came back and I was doing drills in my boat. The varsity girls, and the newest best boat we had. I was headed down the left side of the river doing my drills like normal when all of the sudden BAM. I yelled for my stern six to back and try to get us away from it, but then BAM again. It turns out there were two logs right next to each other. I asked if everyone was alright, they said yes. It’s so hard to see the back of the boat, since I sit lower and can really only look around the rowers. I started crying, I was so so scared of what I had done. My coach was right there, we had been the only boat with him at the time so he actually took resposibility of it, told me he should have told me about it. I turned the boat around and headed up to the docks with only six rowing since the bow was busted. Charlie said when I picked up the boat it was going to look bad, but not to worry because it could be fixed. It was fixed and we did race in it no problem (thank god because new boats are tens of thousands of dollars). It turned out the log had shown up after heavy rainfall that weekend. The mens team knew about but never told any of our coxswains. It sucked. You know what sucks more… now they call it Amber’s log. The stupid thing didn’t come loose again like most do and it just sits there, my log, ahhhhhhh.

It’s a lot more fun with friends!  Bj and I had a photo shoot with each other this weekend taking turns with the camera. We also went on a long walk, met up with an old friend, and chatted the nights away! It was truely a great weekend! Bj came up with jumping in the pool with all his clothes on. It seemed only fitting since the heat was turned off last night and this would be our last chance to get in. Unfortunately we missed the actual jumping, but I loved this one:

Babe your foot looks wonky! He turned the camera on me too:

It was a little bit of a blowout because I had the settings a certain way and he forgot to change them when he took over, but I love it. I was laughing because on the iPod shuffle you can’t see what song is going to come next and all the sudden Metallica’s Enter Sandman comes on and it’s this nice tranquil day, funny.

I guess this would be as good a time as any to say talk about a super SICK new product from apple (who else?). It’s called Aperture and it is so going to be on my Christmas list! It’s designed for professional photographers to deal with “everything you need after the shoot, delivering the first all-in-one post production tool for photographers.” You must watch some of the quicktime videos on the Aperture home page. When you import digital raw images they never get changed in Aperture, no matter what you do to them, you have a working raw and then your orignal stays safe. Plus it is all saved in a sort of iPhoto like library, so like the picture of me up there would be next to any I tweeked (a black and white version for instance). Plus there is super fast browsing, fixing, everything. It looks awesome. Of course to really justify this program I’ll need that digital SLR under the tree too :). Seriously check this program out!

Sciarrino is now in town, so lots of fun ahead!

I love this pictures, I look like the skinniest human being ever, I am NOT this skinny. But I have officially found my favorite angle of self. Set up the tripod as high as I could get it to go and figured out the auto timer on Bj’s camera, yay me! Now I have to figure out how to get rid of that pesky tripod leg.

Mei Lian: Please approve:

oh and also I forgot how much I LOVE CRAYONS!

Okay got some great music today. Damn those iTunes emails, “other people who bought these songs also bought:” well of course I have to check out what cool people who bought what I bought got. Phew, too many boughts and gots in those sentences, anyway. I checked it out and purchased Better Days by Goo Goo Dolls for my self (and also gifted it to Sciarrino because it’s totally the kind of song we would listed to over and over together). It’s very good, uplifting, love it. Then I had to get the whole freaking Plans album by Death Cab for Cutie. I would tell you how good it is, but I think this review by dabigc sums it up the best: “It’s too bad I can’t push a button that gives this album 20 gold stars each autographed by God.” I wish I could be that witty. Oh I just found another good one by anonymous: “If you can listen to “I will Follow You Into the Dark” and sincerely say that this song, this album, and this band aren’t brilliant and amazing, then you have no soul.”  So ya, these suggestions are going to make me go broke. I’ll offer up the gift of an iTunes allowance again to anyone who wants to give me one.

-Jamie, I know isn’t my room wonky?  My house was built by my dad and I really wanted an east facing room. The only way to squeeze that in was between the round stair case (hence the round wall), the eves, and my mom’s walk in closet. My room is pretty tiny, but I have my very own bathroom, which in my opinion is the BEST THING EVER! Oh, and I love the little boxes in the wall next to my bed so I don’t have to waste space with a nightstand. Here this will give you a better understanding of my room:

Hmmm mom and Bill looking at this I’m think I’m going to live here for a few more years. 🙂 Obviously I don’t scrapbook here. I might show that later. But I don’t think it’s as aesthetically pleasing. K, now go buy the Death Cab For Cutie album.

Making me happy:
–Hung up by Madonna, I’ve only listened to it about a million times already.
-My new place for favorite layouts:

-yes that is in my bathroom, another thing making me happy, it’s so clean:

-And if we’re talking clean check out my room:

Yo. I broke this frame that sat in that little metal holder, turns out it’s the perfect size for my slang cards, Sweet!

Grandma, Oprah so does not have a hidden love child, glad I won that bet, Buddah is very happy at my house.

My window seat, sometimes better known as the only place I get decent cell phone reception, “hold on I have to run over to the window seat!” Oh and check out that sky!

-My bed is making me happy right now. See I made that quilt for my little sister. It took me for freaking ever, and then when I was baby-sitting her I found it cramed in a closet. I was sad. But then I highjacked it for myself and I feel much better. I didn’t have a quilt for this bed and the white coverlet was so blah it was killing me.
-I finished a layout I love so much that I’m actually saving it for HOF entry (yes, last year kicked my ass, but I’m trying again, third time’s a charm).
-Sciarrino is coming on Sunday night!  Maybe I’ll do some more artistic drawings of her exploits!
-Smallville and Ballet tonight!

Making me not so happy:
-Not picking Bj up at the airport tonight. It’s really for the best because his mom is in town and it just makes more sense for her to drive a short ways to get him then me a long ways in the dark (!)… but I love airport reunions. They have this magic heroic quality to them I think. Plus it reminds me of my best airport reunion ever: Coming back from camp summer 2002. Bj and I had been apart for months. I could not wait to see him and ran towards the waiting area. Bj had been working at a hardware/lumber place over the summer and got RIPPED. Plus he developed a skin condition that his doctor had him treat by going tanning (weird huh?). So he was tan, buff, oh and wearing a hoodie and backwards baseball cap. So ya, I like airport reunions.
-My spell check on typepad no longer works, what the?!?! I can’t spell, argh.