Working on Christmas cards

madness!

Christmas cards are on their way

As you can see below, I just finished designing our family Christmas cards for this year's holiday season! And as you probably know, I love paper and planning and designing and pictures... so this was über fun :)

Can't wait for them to arrive (eta: 12/15) and then I'll be writing, addressing, and stamping them all the way to the post office. Now I just have to get to the important part of Christmas... shopping & eating.

xxo, S

5x7 Folded Card

Our Photo Gallery Christmas Card

Turn your favorite pictures into personalized Christmas cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

HALLOWEEKEND

Happy Halloween to one and all!

My friends and I had a great Halloween weekend. I had four different costumes, which my friends and I spent weeks coming up with. A bunch of us got ready in my suite beforehand and then partied all together.

getting ready to go out: music playing and costume-altering

betty crocker (a real southern girl) as a belly dancer with me, a sassy texan girl, and our cowgirl sister

 group of us before heading out on friday

 mk and me. troo wuv!

 me and miss bananaanna

 more dz sisters!

flight attendant, ballerina, and "walk of shame"

 stu and me

she is some sort of circus performer/ 80s workout instructor

 stu and doug in matching jumpsuits! 

 betty boop (as betty "boom!") and me

i'm a flight attendent from hawai'i

liv-love and stu

princess jasamine and a grecian goddess - so pretty!

The other cosumes I wore that aren't pictured here (sad!) are a lax bro and a tacky tourist. These were pretty funny... the lax bro one didn't do too well in the cold weather, however.

Can't wait for next year! Or just another costume/theme party in the near future!

xxo, S

Autumn Sunday

Last Sunday, Doug and I went for a little bike ride around our Denver neighbourhood. We rented bikes from the Denver B-Cycle system and rode to the S. Gaylord St. shop street and Washington Park. However, this was before that lovely snowstorm we had on Wednesday, so there were still bright fall leaves on the trees and it was shorts/dresses weather...

riding down s. gaylord street

doug on her bike

we stopped at whole food to grab some picnic food - so green!

our "picnic"

eating in wash park

me and doug :)

Afterwards, we headed back to campus and my dad picked me up for dinner at Uncle T's. Dad was going back to NY in the morning, so it was a fun dinner and the last time I'll see him before Thanksgiving! Also last weekend, I got NEW SKIS & GEAR!!! Pictures to come soon, but be warned: everything is freakin' awesome!

xxo, S

First snow

You'd think that by now I'd be used to unpredictable weather in Denver. Nope! On Monday, it was about 80 degrees at the warmest.... and last night, it dropped to 30 and SNOWED!!!!

Woke up to these beautiful sights on my way to class at 8am

I hope it warms up a bit for this weekend (Halloween!) and cute costume-wearing, hehehe

xxo, S

Guess who's...

...coming to visit this weekend? MY DAD!!!

It's Parent's and Homecoming week at DU and my dad is coming to visit - yay!!
We get to go to a hockey game tomorrow, a BBQ at the ∆Z house, and my dad gets to meet all my friends at DU. All so much fun! Oh, and visit some of his friends who live out here, too :P but it's mostly about me. Like always. (Kidding.)

He's arriving tonight and I CAN'T WAIT!
Hooray for the weekend :)

xxo, S

Foo fighters!

Last night, me and my suitemate, Betty Crocker, went to see the Foo Fighters in concert! And it was the greatest show ever!!!
We got there just in time to see the second opener, Cage the Elephant, and settle in our scary seats. They were waaaaaay up there. I'd never sat so high up in an arena setting before (the show was at the Pepsi Center) and climbing up to our seats I had a touch of vertigo.
But it was so worth it!!! Of all the (very few) concerts that I've seen, this was one of the most intense, passionate, lively, engaging shows. The band was so into it and the lights were phenomenal. And they sounded so loud and awesome and fun! Pardon all the exclamation points everywhere, but I loved it!!!

 us at the concert

 walking through the crowd

 on a high-up, rising, stage thing

 acoustic encore

 my t-shirt!

We were really lucky to be able to go to this show because I won the tickets and almost sold them away because I didn't have anyone to go with... but then Betty was like, "I really want to go!" so we went together! YAY!

Can't wait for more concerts :)
xxo, S

Cool addition to the Penthouse

A few weeks ago, Alan, Stu, and I went to the new Ikea in Colorado. Per usual, we found the coolest, funkiest, sometimes useless stuff. One of our great finds was a roll of paper for a kids' easel - a great idea to keep your child endlessly supplied with doodle paper.

Growing up where I was fortunate to eat out often with my family at numerous restaurants that laid butcher paper over the tablecloths, I knew that there is endless fun in a big sheet of paper. My dad would bring crayons to the not-as-child-friendly restaurants, and we would be good, quiet kids doodling on paper.

Ikea's Mala Drawing Paper Roll recreates these fun memories for me. I created a fun, easy contraption to make my dorm room wall into one of those restaurant tables - look!

You will need:

-one Ikea Mala Drawing Paper Roll (not available on-line)

-two, 3M Command hooks (I used the general purpose 3lb-capacity)

-one wooden dowel, 1/2" in width

-6 ft. of 1"-wide ribbon

-glue, or some form of heavy duty tape

1) place the dowel through the paper roll. do not unwrap the paper roll until the entire project is finished.

2) tie the ribbon around the dowel, about 1/2"-1" in from the ends. secure with heavy duty (packaging) tape or glue

3) find someone to give you a hand for this step. position the paper roll about 12"-18" below the ceiling, or whatever height you would like the paper to start at. hook the two Command hooks so that they support the ribbon. the hooks should be about 1 ft. apart.

4) mark where the hooks will attach to the wall. follow instructions to use Command hooks.

5) finally, hang the paper roll on the wall, and cover in crayon or marker doodles!

You can place a basket or box on the floor below the paper roll so it can recollect. Be careful about using Sharpie or permanent markers on the paper roll as the ink may bleed through the paper and onto the wall. Also, there is an element of balance in keeping the paper roll horizontal; the roll may require occasional readjusting along the dowel.

Now look how much fun my friends and I can have!!!

It's also a great system to leave messages and allow guests to leave their mark :)

A project I've always wanted to try that ended up being super easy! Love it!

xxo, S

Recruitment 2011!

I'm not going to bother to even TRY and explain how formal Panhellenic sorority recruitment works, but basically, there are a lot of rules, a lot of days, a lot of girls, and a lot of preparation...

We meet and greet possible new members into our house and chat with them to see if they'd be a good fit for our house. The better connections you make, the more likely they are going to feel comfortable at your house. And then, at the end of four days, you have new, baby, DELTA ZETA members!!!

day one, sweet home delta zeta

day two, aloha delta zeta

day three, painted turtle camp philanthropy

day four, preference night

Today was Bid Day, which means that the girls we wanted got our bids. If they accepted, they ran down to us on Driscoll Green and we welcomed them with matching t-shirts and goodie bags and had a celebratory party back at the house. SO MUCH FUN!

party at the house

It's really important to have a good recruitment because these new members are literally the future of your house. Also, if you don't recruit enough girls, then you won't have a big house that year.
Luckily (and of course), we got forty nine wonderful new members! Can't wait to get to know them all better and love them like I do all the rest of my sisters :)

xxo, S