Life in Color Photo

Before I ode (don’t know if that is a feasible sentence, but whatev): I want to give a shout out to all my IRW home-girls. Some of them were in the next town over for a retreat and I brought my ribbon over so they could all go nuts, hey girls! {for those of you who don’t know I used to work there before starting off on my own} Also Sciarrino found Bj and I Clark bars!!! We have been looking for them since we saw an Unwrapped episode on the food channel about them (like months ago). Okay, so they are an itty bitty size, but we got the idea. And they were pretty good. 

On to Madonna (seriously, have not been up to that much cool stuff at all.)

This is the front of a little book I am making for one of my best girlfriends, Ceara. I am in her wedding at the end of the month and I wanted to make her a special something. Ceara and I have a lot of shared interests, but the biggest one is probably Madonna. We were on dance team together in high school and loved dancing around and singing to Madonna. When I was at camp those three summers Ceara kept me informed of any new records or concerts coming up with clippings from papers. Then in the summer of 2001 it happened. Madonna went on tour. We had a few mishaps on our quest to see her, like purchasing fake tickets and me being so excited for the trip that I left my luggage in the driveway and didn’t notice it until an In and Out Burger ten hours away. But nothing could have stopped us. And when we got to the concert and she came on stage we both started crying. Here is us right before:


The concert was so wonderful and it just cemented in my mind my love for her music. I think she is one super amazing woman and I love, love, love her music. I think she has a song for every mood I could ever be in. So I thought for Ceara I would make a little book with some quotes from Madonna songs. The new Donna Downey book turned out to be just what I needed in the inspiration department so I went with one of the CD books. While listening to all these wonderful Madonna songs I came up with a list. My top ten Madonna songs list (in no order):
-Rain
-Dear Jessie
-Like a Prayer
-Deeper and Deeper
-Vogue
-Nobody Knows Me
-I’ll Remember
-Like a Virgin
-La Isla Bonita
-Love Profusion
(But Madonna if you’re reading, I really do love all your music, and it was hard to pick just ten).

So even if Madonna isn’t your favorite, pick your favorite signer and immerse yourself in their music for a night. It’s so much fun!

Beacuse I just send out the Ribbon Jar newsletter number 2. You might want to make sure you are able to get emails from [email protected].

Hello Independence. Or so my cookies said. Kinda funny, not like I look at Great Britain as any kind of enemy, quite the opposite actually. “It’s London Baby” (as Joey said on Friends). Fourth of July fireworks were great. We BBQed at my mom’s with Emilie, Sciarrino, Bj, Brent, a couple of his friends and Bill. Emilie and I made a yummy cobbler from some berries she picked from the yard. I have to post a picture of Emilie since her hair has been fixed and looks fab now:

My roommates were awesome too, of course. We made really cool cookies as I mentioned above. They were from a great sugar cookie recipe of Sciarrino’s grandmother. Didn’t get any pictures of those but here’s the roomies:

It was the perfect night. Not to hot not to cool. We headed to my dad’s after this to watch the fireworks that the Club House lets off since his place is further up the road on the hill and it has a great view. The fireworks were great and so was the company. We went to Paul and Megan’s after to let off a couple illegals. I just waved a dud sparkler as I am a big wimp. The rest held roman candles in the street:

On Saturday I woke up sick, ew. I actually puked, nasty. So I spend all day laying around and drinking Gatorade and eating Saltines. It was boring, so lets move onto Yesterday. I woke up feeling much better. Bj and I had spend the night before in a tent on the back porch, so I think the fresh air did me good. Sunday morning it was so beautiful that I immediately though “beach!” Bj had too much to do so we weren’t going to go then Sciarrino got up and said, “I think I want to go to the beach today.” “No way, so do I!” So we packed up snacks, magazines, towels, slathered on the sunscreen and headed off. The weather was so nice. We actually laid out in our bathing suits, despite a cooler breeze. In fact the breeze was quite cool and I didn’t really think that I was getting much sun. After laying out for a while we packed up and headed out to the bay front to hit up the candy shop. After that we walked over to a little shop for hand dipped ice cream bars. It was then we started to notice the back of our legs. I realized mine were red, then Sciarrino’s started getting red, but they didn’t really hurt. So we had our ice cream and headed back to Salem around six. In the car I got a better look at my wound and freaked out. I totally did put sunscreen everywhere, and in fact didn’t even get tanned much. That is except for the back of my knees and right next to the bottom of my swim suit which were BRIGHT RED!  Argh! I never get burned. I am always so careful. So I really think this is the worst I’ve ever got, and man it hurts. We stopped at a grocery store to get aloe vera and special lotion. It helps temporarily, but I am pretty sure that I am not going to have any legs left soon but big blobs of aloe. I laid around slathering that stuff on me all night and watching movies. Then back to the tent. ahh the great outdoors.

I finished my back-tack bag last night, filled it with goodies today and shipped it off to my secret partner. What do you think?

um, ignore that weed. 🙂 Remember the fabric and goodies I got?  You can see them here if you don’t.  I used the striped stuff for the lining and the floral as one of the patches for the outside. I pulled from my stash for the rest. I made the bag a little long so Sciarrino had the idea to fold the top over, and I love it. The cord comes through the fold on one side and hooks onto a button on the other. My secret partner knits so I got her a couple of skeins of fun stuff. I also through in some ribbon (well duh, right?), and a few cards of buttons from my great grandmother’s stash. I hope she likes it all. My secret partner (the one sending to me) has e-mailed me a bunch and I can not wait to see what kind of bag I’m getting. I love swaps!!!! (and this is the first one I’ve been in so I’ll have to look for another, I kind of found this one on accident).

I packed up a bunch of orders today for the Ribbon Jar, including my first to the Netherlands and Hawaii, cool! After working all day Sciarrino came home at 4:30 so we could take the path through the park to the post office. I walked over in my bikini top and skirt, I’m such a rebel!  But working inside all day I gotta get my sun where I can (don’t worry mom I put a top on when I got to the post office).  After we laid out at the waterfront and I listened to Harry Potter: Order of the Phoenix on my iPod (gotta get ready for book 6 baby!!! and yes, I’ll be dressing up). Happy sunny day!