A Valentine's/Birthday Book of Notes

Listening to The 1975 "Chocolate." I heard it on the radio, and I was like, "I have no clue what they're saying, but this is bouncy as crap!" So now it's on my phone.
    Applicable song choice given this post is somewhat Valentine's related. It's also birthday related, since Corey's birthday is on Valentine's day. Y'all may have seen a post or two before about my little mini scrapbooks that I make him, and last year's birthday present for him that had to do with balloons, but this year I trolled Pinterest for cute easy mini-scrapbook ideas so I could do another little "Book of Notes." I got the original idea from Danni over at Oh, Hello Friend: You Are Loved. It was just too cute and fun not to try! This is the fourth reincarnation I've attempted, and given the fact that I'm completely incapable of writing in a straight line, or cut in a straight line for that matter, I think I did pretty great!

    I freakin' love the texture of this paper. I used something similar for the little scrapbooked box I made him for Christmas. I just think it's so fun, and I wanted it to be sort of a neutral backdrop for the main colors I was using, which I sort of want to use as wedding colors - pale blue-grey and eggplant. Since Corey's overseas right now, obviously his present had to be sent by air mail, and when I saw these stickers at Michael's I couldn't resist buying the set. I wrote the "deliver immediately" part, which you can probably tell because it's blatantly crooked. The berry-colored chevron part is a washi tape I found, and the button and beads were scavenged from around the house.

    When you open the book, this is the first thing you see: a cute long-distance quote that I attempted to write like cool typography, but since I write with my paper sideways I couldn't tell just how crooked it all was. The quote on the top left I saw on an e-card from Pinterest and I thought it was hilarious. Then the arrow on the bottom picture is pointing to a little mini envelope with a very inappropriate dirty joke in it (not photographed for obvious reasons). I just wanted something that wasn't as sappy as the rest of the card and that would make Corey laugh since he's stuck overseas for the next five months. The heart sticker came in the same set from Michael's with the "air mail" sticker.

     When you open the long distance quote, you see these two panels. Please ignore how horribly crooked the bottom left is, and the fact that my thumb-print heart was a complete failure. I would've redone it, but the black ink-pad was almost completely dried up at this point and it didn't look as cute without the "Love" frame. The elephant is because I'm Sarah Elephant. Duh. But how cute is that stamp? I've been using it to make these super cute "Thank You" notes for one of my classes and everyone loves them. Plus it's so personalized without being too difficult.

    Alright, now opening the top right flap from the last picture, you get this! The top left is the inside of the flap, a quote from Corey's favorite book and movie of all time. Then under that is a picture of the two of us from after our anniversary dinner this past December. We were both slightly tipsy and exhausted so excuse our weird expressions. Then under that is the note pictured on the right. It's basically just a sweet birthday note.

    This just shows how almost everything works together. The top flap is Corey's birthday and the date that he proposed... I was just trying to make the point that there must be something special about the 14th of the month. Then on the right is the picture of Corey proposing and a little joke about how it was supposed to go - he'd bought a little bottle and put a note in it that said "Will you marry me?" that we were supposed to "happen" upon when walking down the beach. Then the quote sequence on the bottom is what happened after he gave up looking for the bottle his brother had hidden and was prepping to drop to one knee. It was frenzied and fast and so cute. I can't help but smile thinking back on it.
    So there you go! A cute idea if you're into scrapbooking at all, which I'm really not. Just for Corey. But he always thinks they're cute and neat and I know he appreciates the work that goes into them.

Naughty

Listening to the Finding Nemo Soundtrack. Thomas Newman so expertly captures being underwater.. I love it. Also, very calming.
    I'm sorry I've been gone for so very ridiculously long. My primary focus has really been school these last few months. The end of last semester threw a few curveballs at me and I had to take a little hiatus. But I recently told my boss at work I needed to go down to working only two days a week (at the request of my parents who were worried for my well-being), and stopped all the things I normally do during the week so I can have more time to focus on the important things that have been sort of falling by the wayside.
    Conveniently, this should give me more time to blog. Lucky you. So basically this post is to tell you that I've got a few things coming your way. Before the end of this week I should have up a Five Faves and a Flop, and then maybe next week I've got a little crafty post I'm going to write. If I have time to fiddle around with my camera I may get to do a tutorial - I've been rocking a very subtle smoke recently with a color you might not expect!

Hope you guys are excited and haven't forgotten about me. I haven't forgotten about you, I promise.

Let's Try This Again

    No, I have not forgotten. Yes, I am a horribly disorganized failure of a consistent blogger. I'm sorry. Please don't be mad. Please don't leave me. The end of last semester (from Halloween on) kicked my butt to Christmas and back and I had a meltdown. Blogging kind of disintegrated with most of my sanity. Forewarning - if my life becomes unbearably stressful, as it did then, blogging is the first thing to go, because it's something I do on the side. It will not get me out of school or get me a job or plan Corey's and my wedding.
    But I do still love doing it, so I will always come back. I won't go into the details of the butt-kicking, but here's an overview of what I didn't blog about.

In the beginning of November, I met Corey in Charleston for a few days. We moseyed around the city and met up with his uncle and aunt whom he'd never met. They were great and expecting a baby boy in the next week or two. Congrats on baby M!

At the Marine Corps Birthday Ball
The picture taken right after this was my velociraptor impression.

I finished up most of my finals then got sick (as I usually do) during the last week of finals, which was also the first week that Corey came home to visit. I spent the majority of my sickness on the couch with him at his dad and dad's fiancée's new house which is beautiful. We did however fit in our anniversary dinner on December 10 at a local Italian restaurant which happens to be right down the street from the place we want to have the wedding. Haven't booked it yet though, so don't get all excited.

After our anniversary dinner. Should've taken one before hand when we weren't exhausted yet.

For the next week we spent most of our time hanging out with friends and just spending time together. He had two weeks of leave all together; unfortunately, the reason it was so long was because it was a pre-deployment leave. He deployed five days after Christmas and didn't get to spend Christmas at home with his family and me. That was a big bummer.

Christmas was nice, though. My mom got us all up at the butt-crack of dawn because her mother was expecting us before lunchtime (because everyone in her family is a crazy morning person and wakes up at five am every day). We opened gifts and then my dad made his usual big southern breakfast for us (eggs, bacon, and home-made biscuits and gravy), and it was delicious. Then we went to my grandma and papa's (mom's parents) for Christmas dinner and my mom's siblings and their kids were there, which was cool.

Between Christmas and New Year's I did very little aside from work and mope around because Corey's gone. I did have dinner with my bffl Suzie (sushi) and go to the movies with her (Frozen, for the third time. But it felt like the first time in forever. Anyone? I'd see it three more times).

New Year's Eve I had a very last-minute party with a few of my closest friends from high school, Suzie, and my cousin Aaron, and his friend. I made Pinterest Not-Fried Fried Pickles (which were amazing), strawberry-champagne cupcakes with champagne frosting (which I did not ruin), and Amaretto Sours, which are super easy, taste like candy, and are liked by everyone ever. We played Cards Against Humanity, drank (responsibly, most everyone slept at my house except the one person who hardly drank at all), and had a really great time.

Suzie and I. Best friends for almost thirteen years now!

Now it's back to the work-and-school grind. Semester overview:

• I have classes Monday-Thursday and work Monday-Friday-Saturday.
• I'm not sure yet what days I will be posting, and it will probably be only once a week since I only have Sundays off for both homework and rest from the restaurant.
• I do have a fifteen credit-hour semester ahead of me, so bear with me while I work out the kinks.
• If I disappear without warning, chances are I'm buried under the inevitable rockslide of the workload I've taken on.

Looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. Here's hoping I do better than I did last year!