a while back

i made this album for monica.

i actually put it together about two days after she left for fiji. i had all these pictures left over from my rainbow wall collage, so i thought i'd put together a book of our colorful fun times in college. along with each picture is a quote from our 'quote board' - a place we wrote all the funny little things we said.

she loved it :]

happy holiday decor

my holiday garland, inspired by jeremy's pretty mantle :]

handmade christmas stockings!
[they still need embellishing]

holiday wreath, tutorial here by catherine oakley for making memories.

decorating for christmas is definitely my favorite. now if only i could buckle down and get my christmas shopping done...

my new favorite thing

skype with monica.

i don't know why i avoided skype for so long. it was suggested to me by many friends that i join skype after i received a $300 phone bill for an hour long conversation with my bff in fiji. who knew long distance phone calls were $3.50 a minute? not me. so i joined skype, and had a two and a half hour conversation with monica, for free, and it was the first time i had seen her since she left for fiji last may. i encourage everyone to check out her blog, she is doing amazing things in the peace corps and i am so proud of her. she is one of the most beautiful people i've ever met. she inspires me everyday, and is constantly trying to get me to live with her and well, it's very tempting.

here are some layouts i've done recently, dedicated to miss monica.

[click images to view larger]

and now i'm off to listen to the rain and watch the pretty lightning :]

such great heights

a few paintings i've been working on, requested by a fan of my work? needless to say, he got me painting again.

forthcoming.

i'm coming out of retirement.

in may, i got a text message inquiring about my weekend plans. a few days later, i was on a plane to minneapolis. this is the story...

[click on images to view larger]

third time's a charm, right?

once in a blue moon, i'll get the urge to blog. and then i won't, because lately i have been so incredibly unproductive in the scrapping department that it's down right depressing. but after much coercion by my dear friend kari, i've decided to give it one more try.

she made an excellent point, you don't have to always have a new layout to share in order to make a new blog post. for example, i could have posted pictures from my little brother's SF state wrestling tournament at the end of january. it's interesting how much his style is changing in college. he's learning again. he doesn't always win. but he always has a great attitude about it. he's always looking for ways to improve. and he always makes me proud.
i also could have blogged about my cabin trip in march. every year my friends and i get a huge cabin in tahoe for four days. we don't worry about work or bills or school; we relax in good company. we usually go in january, but this year we went in march. kim and griffin came down from oregon. gina came up from san diego. the weekend was a blast, as it always is. from the homemade lasagna family-style dinner to the mile we walked in the snow to get some decent margaritas. this year's cabin was epic. here are some of my favorite moments:

jess and i after the long drive to tahoe with no windshield wiper fluid.

melissa surprised us by stopping by our cabin on her way to mammoth on day two. griffin was only upset that she wasn't staying. this resulted in a red velvet cupcake fight.

the guys vs. girls flip cup battle.travis getting his mind blown with various theories about what's going on in the final season of LOST.
and yes, we really did walk 1.1 miles in the snow to get these margaritas.
worth it.

i suppose i also could have posted a blog about our day to mount diablo a few weekends ago. it's strange to think that in all the years i've lived here, which is pretty much my whole life, i've only been to mount diablo twice.
we hiked and ate chicken apple sausage and played with steve's dog that looks a lot like a weasel.

give a boy a basketball
he'll play hacky sack with it
give a girl a basketball
she'll pretend it's a baby

well, as it turns out, i finally did some scrapbook pages. finally, right? i got together with renee and kari yesterday, and we scrapped until our brains were mush, laughed until our stomachs hurt, and made everyone at starbucks jealous of our dollar cones. i was able to finish two layouts i'd started about a month ago, and create a new one. not bad for the first time scrapping in monthsss.
this picture is kind of weird, but i dig it. it was one of the first days of summer, a long day indoors behind my computer screen at work, and monica calls me and says, "we're going to happy hour." so we went to the Grad, grabbed a pint, and made shadow puppets in the cool lighting.
monica had the coolest job ever: working at the international extension in davis. she got to go to all these awesome places with exchange students. one saturday, i tagged along on a trip to marine world. this layout took me three hours to finish, and here's why:
yep, i might be insane. my new favorite thing to do is embroider my layouts. and it takes foreverrr.
this picture was taken at my graduation party. our apartment was known as "the den," and i miss these girls so much. it's almost been a year since we've all been together. i'm thinking a reunion needs to happen :]

so i guess i could have kept this blog interesting for the past few months. moral of the story: stop being so lame and update your blog more often, mallory.

well kari, how was that for a blog post?
<3