Magic the Gathering Celebration 2012

Years ago, my husband and I played a card game called Magic the Gathering. Our son grew up watching us play, and he started playing once he was old enough to understand it and keep up. It's something we do together, and it's lots of fun.

Recently, a gaming shop opened in our area, so we've been going to play Magic there. This past Saturday, there was a Magic Celebration, and let me tell you this much- if you ever have the opportunity to attend one of these (and you play), then by all means GO!!

My husband, our son and I spent all afternoon at the game shop, playing in a tournament and laughing. We met new people, and played with people we already knew. The best part of the day was how the tournament was set up, though.

The typical setup runs something like this: you pay a fee to join the tournament, and then you play in different rounds to see who wins. So for example, 16 people will play in pairs, then the 8 winners will pair off again, then the 4 winners, etc until there's a single winner. That winner then gets packs of cards as a prize.

Magic Cards With Googly Eyes is awesome!

Saturday's tournament was different. Instead of paying to join, the tournament was free. Also, instead of using our existing decks, we were given a pack to start with. Then, we could get up to 3 more packs of cards by winning each of our match ups! We wound up with a ton of cards, and it didn't cost us a penny!!

So yea... lots of fun, laughter, and free Magic cards? It was a wonderful day!

And since I'm talking about Magic cards, let me just share this link I found earlier. When I found Magic Cards with Googly Eyes I had quite a giggle. I hope you have the same!

Til next time!

Family games are awesome!

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6:44 am already?? New goodies at Redbubble!

This is available as a sticker or as a shirt, it's your choice!

Have you ever had one of those days where suddenly, you're inspired to do stuff? Yea, this has been one of those. Well, yesterday was, I suppose. Last night around 7pm I had an idea- I could work on a few things to put into my husband's RedBubble store! I'd done an image years ago that I used as an icon on LiveJournal that I fell in love with, so I figured I'd start with that.

I didn't stop. It took me a good hour and a half of hunting through fonts, more fonts than I could even keep track of. I was hoping to find the font I'd used 10 years ago and somehow lost track of...

Would you believe I actually found it? I could barely believe it, but I was VERY happy! Then it was a matter of tweaking and kerning and fiddling, changing the letter shape for the one letter I didn't like the look of. I'm a bit neurotic when it comes to text. :D

Then I started thinking about nails, and how they could translate to RedBubble. I've got the start of some fun stuff to share.  First is a sticker that I think would go well lots of places. It comes in black or in rainbow, because let's be honest- this is me we're talking about!

EDIT: Stickers are down for the moment til I tweak them to be exactly the way I want them. Too much white space as it is right now!

I fussed with this for probably entirely too long, including tweaking the tail of the Q in lacquerhead to face the opposite direction. What can I say, when I want something to look a certain way, I want it to look just the way I want it. I'm neurotic, and I own that. :D

You can also get that rainbow lacquerhead on a shirt or a hoodie in your choice of about a bazillion colors (or like, 12 or something... )! I won't lie, I'm itching to get one of these for myself. Soon!

So yea, I've been buried in design for the last... erm, 12 hours. I think I should go to sleep now. But go look, and if you like them, share the links with your friends!

Sometimes inspiration isn't a good thing!

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Post-Isaac update

Good news- Hurricane Isaac was mostly a non-event for us! Although my dad's house regained power a couple of days after the storm, we didn't our power fixed until a couple of hours ago. Whee, hurricanes. The good news is, we only had a few branches down from the storm, and our houses took no major damage. :D

Now we get to do fun things like clean up the yard and clean up the refrigerator that's been without power for a week. Boy, we're looking forward to that. I expect to wipe out a burgeoning ecosystem when we get to the fridge.

Click this to see it full-sized. It's worth it!

The best part about being at dad's this week has been the wildlife. Dad's got 20 acres, so we're surrounded by lots of nature! We got awful pictures of deer, and no picture of the bunnies or the foxes. My husband spent a lot of time outside by the hummingbird feeder, and got some amazing shots like these!

He also got some amazing video that I'm hoping to upload to YouTube. It was like having the nature channel on my camera!! :D

How amazing is that photo? You can see the little feathers on its feet, and the separation of its beak! They're such tiny little animals, around the size of my thumb. I love watching them, and at times there would be 8 or 10 birds around one feeder. So crazy, and so amazing!

So, we're off home this evening once the house cools off, and hopefully I'll stop flaring once I'm home. I'd hoped to get so much accomplished this week, but about all I could manage was lying in bed reading and hoping I would stop hurting.

Ah well. Spoons, right?

Hummingbirds are amazing. :D

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Let's evacuate!! :D

We've got better information now, and the current projected path of the hurricane goes right over my house. Literally- look at the image!

However, you don't need to worry. My family and I will be perfectly safe. My dad built his house to be able to withstand hurricanes, and even during Katrina he only lost a couple of shingles. Not bad!

He's got a generator that will power the whole house and the air conditioning, so we'll even be comfortable if (when?) the power goes out. The worst part is listening to the weather as the hurricane passes, and that's not even that bad in his house thanks to all the insulation!

Now, our home may not do so well, but even it came through Katrina with no real damage to speak of. I'm crossing my fingers, and I'm fairly sure this whole thing will be a non-event.

Thanks for the well wishes, though! I appreciate it.

See you on the other side!

Anyone up for a hurricane party?

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Soon-to-be Hurricane Isaac

Original image from AccuWeather.com.

Well, now, this isn't good. As you can see from that little star on the map there, I'm gonna be affected by the coming hurricane. Oh, how fun.

Because of this, my family and I will be going to camp at my dad's house. He's got a wonderful whole-house generator that means we won't have to go without power even when the power goes out. That means we'll be able to sit in air-conditioned comfort there, instead of dying of heat stroke at my house. (Ok, it's hyperbole, shoot me.)

I may post a bit here and there, depending on ... well, stuff. We'll see, right?

Cross your fingers for me that I'll still have a home to go back to.

Hurricanes suck.

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Jessica Fall 2012- Spicy Dream

Holy wow. Can I just say I'm in love with the Spicy Dream collection from Jessica? Seriously, I cannot even begin to tell you how much I love these polishes.

When I saw the flyer for this collection, I have to admit my first thought was, "Meh." Gee, more browns and bronzes. Yippee. That only lasted til I opened the box containing these sweet polishes, though, because even in the box I could see the texture that these polishes have! There are two creme polishes, a shimmer, and three gorgeous glitters.

Let's look at the cremes first. Crimson Tattoo is a red so deep it almost looks brown. This is my kind of red...rich and lush and dark. It makes me think of fall, and maybe of steamy activities better left to the imagination! ;)

Brown Sugar is a creme brown that's well named- it's the brown of brown sugar, like the gingerbread cookies that appear every winter. Both of these polishes are gorgeous on their own, but they make amazing bases for the glitters... but we'll get to those.

Next is the single shimmer of the collection- Cinnamon Kiss. This color? Omg. There are no words. This is the color that I bought and rebought for years, loving the deep red and the gorgeous shimmer. It's not terribly unique, but it sure is gorgeous. The first car I bought using my own money was this color!

I actually wore this color first, and loved the way it looks against my pale skin. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of it. I'm scatterbrained, apparently. It's gorgeous, but I made the mistake of applying it right before a bath, and soaked a bit too long. I don't know WHAT I was thinking!!

My favorite polishes of this collection are definitely the glitters, though. When I opened the box, I saw these and actually squealed in delight! The glitter in these is so incredibly fine that they're almost a foil finish. It was really difficult for me to figure out what to call these!

Champagne Bubbles is a very pale, almost white glitter, and I haven't tried it on the nail yet. Gingersnap is a golden/silver-leaning polish, and Pumpkin Delight is more bronzey/red.  Gingersnap and Pumpkin Delight both have a duochromey, color-changing feel to them that's really difficult for me to describe.

So, instead of wear these as they are, I knew I needed to layer these. I paired Crimson Tattoo with Pumpkin Delight, and let me just say that I am absolutely in awe of the finished look.

See what I mean about the color? It's so dimensional, and it looks simply magical on. I've gotten compliments wearing this too, people asking just what I'm wearing because they can't stop looking! It felt good to share the Jessica love!

If it will stop raining for a bit, I'll try to get outside and show you what this looks like in sunlight. It's definitely worth looking at. It's been so hard to photograph!

Since it's 3am, I'll go ahead and show you the rest of the photos and hopefully get to bed. But I had to share this with you... these colors are simply magical!

The Spicy Dream collection was provided by the brand for consideration.

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Some sketchbook pages and an update

I worked on this page for quite a while over a span
of weeks. I think I'm happy with it? Maybe...

Whew, this last week or so has been a rough one. I'm not sure why, totally, but I think I may be fighting with a cold. When I get sick, the fibro pain tends to intensify, and I end up not good for much. I haven't even been journaling much, and my nails have been bare for two weeks or more. So sad.

So, in the interest of forcing myself out of my shell and writing a bit, I wanted to share a couple of images from my sketchbooks. This first one is in my tiny notebook, only 4" x 5.5".

I'd started out with the profile in the corner. I've been trying to learn how to draw pretty female faces, as I've written about before. This was an exercise in patience, as it took a lot of tweaking, erasing and redoing to come up with the finished sketch. Overall, though, I think she's a pretty one, and I actually really like the band in her hair. Small victories, yes?

Then there was this. I'm very interested in hand-lettering things, interesting ways to create letters. I found some interesting fonts (are they still fonts when they're hand-lettered?) in a book, so I sat down and played with them. It was fun.

Sorry it's been so quiet here. I'm hoping that when the weather cools off, I'll feel more like myself again. This summer has been a tough one, as usual.

I look forward to fall.

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