Traffic was ridiculous this morning. But wait! You say, Shirley - it's not a work day! This I know . . . but the closing of three lanes on I-10 due to construction (they're prepping for laying down rubberized asphalt) made my 3.1 mile drive from Warner to Baseline about 30 minutes. At that point, I decided to try my luck with surface streets and it took me another 30 minutes to get from Baseline and I-10 to 7th Avenue and Indian School. I was very annoyed. I was a half-hour late to my class. I turned out to be the only person in the class though, so it wasn't a big deal since I got lots of personal attention. And Meghan the owner/teacher let me stay and work into the next class as there were only 3 people in the next class. So good. I'm not quite finished with the book yet (and Greg has made it clear that "together" time is not "Shirley work on book alone" time, so there will probably be no progress on the book for the rest of the night).
Anyway, so two tangents stem from above:
1) Greg's parents driving backwards on the I-10 on-ramp, and
2) Some products I used in the class that I thought were way cool (for which Greg shares a false enthusiasm. And I mean false.)
One
So I stopped by Greg's parents house after my class and mentioned how bad the traffic was. Greg's mom said that they got on the I-10 on-ramp at Elliott on the way to Doc & Eddy's, saw just how bad the traffic was, and backed out of the on-ramp. "Ballsy" was the word that Greg's mom used for the move (Greg's dad was driving). That's just crazy to me. I would never be brave enough to do that.
Two
While making my card book, I was exposed to a couple things that I just thought were so cool (but I suppose it doesn't take much for me to think it's cool if it has to do with crafts).
One thing was this Japanese screw punch that you can use to punch holes anywhere (without the constraints of a traditional hole punch!). It wasn't even so much that you could punch holes with it anywhere (because there are other tools that do that too), but it was just so easy and nice to use because of the mechanism . . . it took almost no elbow grease! I want one now, but they're a little pricey.
The other thing were these stamps that clung to clear acrylic blocks, which made them very versatile since you can change out letters, pictures, borders, etc. It was nice that while you were stamping, you could see through the acrylic block in order to line up your stamp. The ones I used at the store were by Technique Tuesday, but Fontwerks has them too. I want some of these too . . . but in good time.
