Road Trip - Day 1

I set my alarm for earlier than a work day this morning, so of course I got a late start. I have yet to figure out how that happens. Anyway, I left at 6:30 am instead of 5:30. Oh, well. It usually takes me 8-9 hours to get to the Detroit area from Maryland, unless I hit traffic or something. Or something. Today that something was rain, and lots of it. It rained the...whole...way. And I'm not talking drizzle here; I'm talking all-out wipers-on-high-and-your-speed-on-slow-so-you-can-see-the-car-in-front-of-you rain. Ugh. Twelve hours ... it took me TWELVE HOURS to get here. But that's okay, cuz my Dad and Cousin and Brother and Nephew and I all went out to dinner, and we had a lovely time. And it is still raining, by the way.

So anyway, last night as I attempted to pack for this weekend, I had laid out all my clothes, but did not haul out the suitcase too early - I did not want the cat to have heart palpitations before she needed to. As it was, when we went to bed and she saw the suitcase on the floor, she stopped dead in her tracks to check it out. Then she glared at me. Did you know cats can glare? She'll be fine, though. The cat sitter totally spoils her.

Between the laying-out-of-the-clothes and the packing steps, I stamped sumpin'. (Surprise!) My new SU goodies arrived last night so I HAD to break into them. One of the things I pulled out was the new Calendar Kit. Here is the insert from the package:

It is very cool. It is all pre-printed - the calendar and lines on the front of all the pages, and the page backs are all printed DS paper in about 4 different colors. It comes with a die-cut card stock sleeve that when first assembled looks like this:

All the pages slip nicely into the sleeve, but it just seemed...I dunno...lame. So I tried this:

Instead of decorating the sleeve with the sticky die cuts, I covered two pieces of the Small Book Basics chipboard with Bashful Blue and Close to Cocoa DS papers, and stuck the die cuts onto the blue cover instead of the cardboard sleeve. Love it!

I had to trim down the pages a little bit to fit on the chipboard, but that's okay because I did not like the lined parts anyway. I also rounded the corners of the pages:

No, this is not what the kit page looks like! I covered the bottom of the January page with a piece of last year's Christmas DS paper and added some of my new felt flurries. I also stamped a new snowflake from the Tree set (I do not have it with me, or I'd put the real set name in here ...) from the Holiday Mini. I added a piece of ribbon to hide the seam, and called it done. I really like how it turned out.

Here is what the January page looks like next to the nekked February page:

Oh, and those tabs are soooo crooked. They are tricky to place, especially since I hacked off a bit of the page and also rounded the corners. I think they would all fit under normal conditions, but we all know I am not "normal". I put the Jan tab on, lined up the Feb page and put a pencil mark where the Feb sticker should be, and I just did them all that way. The last three months start at the top again...it looks fiiiiiine, like I meant to do it that way all along.

Now I have to finish all the pages before I can show it to my customers. They are all excited that I might offer a class for this calendar, and the class fee would include the kit. But I literally put the original calendar together in about 10 minutes (it was uber-easy!), so if I do a class, I plan to jazz it up like I did with this one - chipboard covers, DS papers, flurries...the works. That will certainly take an afternoon!

One final note before I hit the hay: I am in love. Yes, in love ... with the heated leather seats in my Brother's car. Turns out my Nephew has them in his car, too, and he swears by them. OMG, it's like therapy! I can just imagine sitting on a heated seat in that hellish daily commute of mine. I might even be nice to the people that cut me off in traffic! Maybe not. But I still want the heated seats! I'll be shopping for them next week, mark my word!