A Life full of Scrap

No phone call for me today...

but that doesn't deter me from giving up on submitting for design team calls. I am sure they picked a very talented team. I now have to hope that I am one of the 65 people who either will be a guest designer, blog spotlight or product testers. So I will have to wait till Monday to find that out. So if you are a hopeful like me, or if you just want to join us for the reveal party, make your way over to the GCD studios blog on Monday. They are going to be doing more giveaways as well.

Hoping for a call tomorrow...

  from GCD Studios. I love their paper collections and couldn't let this call pass me by. Even if I don't make it, I am happy with the two layouts I created for the call. I am really excited about how GCD decided to handle this DT call. They have been very professional and forthcoming about what it was all about. They are picking 8 people total and yesterday, DT Leader Heidi Sonboul said that they had gotten a total of 471 submissions to this call. WOW!!! And the best part is that they are offering up 3 spots to newer scrapbookers. I love that because too often you end up seeing the same people on design teams over and over again. And I believe that a lot of companies are really passing up some uber talented people that surely can offer a lot to the scrapbooking industry. I would consider myself a newer face. Yes I am on a manu. design team, but that is the only one I have been able to get on. Not for a lack of trying though. LOL. And I am not published a billion times...again, not for a lack of trying. So I am so glad that GCD decided to step outside the norm and actually recognize newer scrappers. Bravo Zulu to them on that!!!

So yeah...I will be pacing around tmrw hoping that I will get a call from GCD. I would love the chance to design for such a professional company. If the DT call was any indication on how this company is run, I definately want to design for them!

So here are my two layouts I did for the design team call.

 

 

Come join all us hopefuls on the GCD Blog tmrw for your chance to win some fabulous prizes! Best of luck ladies! Cannot wait to see who makes the team.

http://gcdstudios.blogspot.com/

April Kit and Limited Kit Videos

Here are two videos for you. The first one is showing off the beautiful April Kit at My Scrapbook Nook. And the second is the Limited Edition Spring Kit. Enjoy!

VA Beach Tournament Report

Okay so this weekend was tournament Saturday here in VA Beach. Region 111 was hosting a Class-B event. Class-B tournaments are single points towards Top Ten. And it was held at the VA Beach Convention Center near the Oceanfront.

I got there around 750 and reported in for Black Belt Meeting. This is first thing in the morning where we discuss rules about the event, tropheys, etc. It is pretty much the same everytime but we always have to cover it because we do get new black belts and if there are any changes they are brought up during black belt meeting.

Tiny Tigers (ages 3-6) start out the day first. Since they are younger it is hard for them to wait around all day for their ring. Then Opening Ceremonies kicked off at 900. I was singing the National Anthems (Korean and American) for the second week in a row. Last week I sang them at Spring Nationals in Las Vegas, NV. Our Grand Master and his wife were here in VA Beach for the tournament as the special guests. I have been singing the National Anthems at regional tournaments since 2005. I get asked by the Masters of the region to sing them at their tournaments. It is quite an honor and priviledge to be able to do that. And even though I do them, it is nerve wracking. You are the only one singing and I don't use any music. So if I mess up, I mess up. But so far (knock on wood LOL) I have not made any mistakes. And the fellow ATA members in my region enjoy my singing, which is nice because I know in my heart they appreciate it. I have had lots of people come up to me and express their appreciation for my singing, some people have been moved to tears and then in turn I am moved to tears because they have enjoyed it so much. I have had Korean people come up to me and thank me for singing their National Anthem with pride and they are thankful that me as an American can sing their National Anthem as well as I sing my own Anthem. I did not get a video of me singing this year, but I do have a video of last years. Here it is if you want to here it. 

Then the competition started after Opening Ceremonies. Usually black belts go first because then that will free us up to judge throughout the day. So the 17-29 2nd and 3rd degree black belts got to go first. I have a few friends in this division so I got to watch them compete. Here are a few of them competing.

 

 

 

 

Then it was the 30-39 2nd and 3rd degree division. We didn't have a full ring so they combined us with the 1st degrees to make a full ring, so it was 30-39 1st-3rd degree. This makes it nice because the people who are earning points for Top Ten, get the full point value for the places. I am going for Top Ten and it is frustrating when you don't have a full ring. And in Top Ten, every point counts. So we start out with forms. I was set to go last. I did make a few silly mistakes in my form...doing a move backwards, doing a move before another move...but unless you know the form you wouldn't know where it is. LOL. But there are mistakes. Here is the video of my form.

My scores were 9.8, 9.8, 9.7. Based on a scale of 9.0-9.9. Not bad even with the mistakes. I was happy with it. So I placed 2nd in forms.

Now onto weapons. As a 2nd degree I have 5 different weapons forms I can choose from to do for competition. When I test for 3rd degree, I will be able to add 3 more different ones to compete with. Today I did the Sshang Nat. It is like a Japanese Kama, but since we are a Korean Martial Art, we have different words obviously. An for every weapon there is a specific form you have to do. While you are a color belt, you can use weapons in competition, but there is no set form. So in color belts, the form is creative based.

While I was in Las Vegas for Spring Nationals, I took the Sshang Nat seminar and got certified to teach the weapon. In the seminar they teach you the form. I really like this form. It was very easy to learn too. So I decided to do it for this tournament. I was happy just to get through the form and not miss any moves. That was until I smacked myself in the face with one of my weapons. You are not supposed to do that. LOL. If you watch the video, after the first front kick you will see me pause for a few seconds. That is when it happened. I ended up hitting my cheek area, just below my right eye, with the butt of my left handed Sshang Nat. When I crossed my arms to do the double low chop, I didn't move my arm out more to the side and I whacked myself. So now I have a nice shinner starting to appear. So because of that, I really didn't pay attention to my scores, so I cannot tell you what they were. I remember getting a 9.6 from one judge, but I did take 3rd place. So that was good. For my first time doing it I was more than happy. So here is the video for that one.

So then we move onto sparring. I don't have any video or photos of me sparring. I wish I would have asked someone to take some though. My first round I faced a girl from Maryland. I ended up beating her 3-5. Then in the final round I had to face a girl who I have never been able to beat. Not ever. She is just a very good martial artist. She had taken 1st in forms and weapons. So anytime I face her in a tournament, I am often right behind her in the standings. So we exchange points back and forth. It is a pretty good match. So we are tied at I believe 2-2. I have her over to the side of the ring and I do a round kick to her torso, she blocks it. Then I repeat my kick by pulling my leg back and then kicking again and my kick landed right in her face. Now we wear face shields, so don't think I kicked her in her bare face. LOL. As soon as my foot landed, the crowd let out an audible OOOO. And I let out an audible gasp. I was more shocked that I had kicked her in the face because I haven't been able to even get close to her head at all. And I ended up kicking her facemask in the shin/cheek area and her facemask went into her chin. Her mask didn't have a chin pad in it so the impact was pretty good. So she went down. I was like SHIT...the one time I get a decent shot in, I hurt her. She was more stunned because of the blow from the facemask and I was down on the ground with her asking if she was okay. We are friends, we compete with each other all the time and we do this ultimately for fun. So I was very concerned for her well being. She got up and shook it off. And I was happy she was alright. So that made the score 4-2. I got up to the line to get ready to spar again and Sr. Master Leitske looked at me and said, Ms. Kimsey, sparring is done, time has run out. I was like OMG, I won? So we bowed out, shook hands and I gave Wendy a huge hug and asked her again if she was alright. She said yes. I was continuing to be apologetic because I really felt bad. But she then said, Don't worry, you got in a good clean shot and I should have had my hands up, you wanted it more than me, but I will try and get ya next time. :) I love her for that. She is a great sport, so fun to compete with and glad that I can call her a friend. She is the reining World Champion for our age/rank division for Forms and Weapons, and placed I believe 3rd in sparring so she is GOOD!

So then we handed out slips for tropheys. I only picked up one because I have so many tropheys in my house. I am okay with just having the slips that said how I did. And my friend David snapped a photo of all the ladies in my ring. So here we are.

I have been fiddling...

around with my blog, if you haven't noticed. LOL. I change the background colors and the colors of the sidebar stuff. I have also decided that having two blogs is just too much to keep up with. I started out with a family blog which was only for family stuff and pretty much only for family. It was password protected and a few friends could view it as well. But then I started submitted stuff for publication and also for design teams. So I made up a scrapblog. Well, it got to be such a hassle to keep two blogs and keep the content separate. So I have decided to just bring everything over to my scrapblog. I will keep the other one because I still have stuff over there, but all of my life musings will be posted here. I am going to try....see that I said "try"...to update as much as I can. I have told myself that it is OK to not blog everyday. It is my blog, I am paying for it, and I am not on a schedule that I HAVE to keep.

So with that, I hope that you will enjoy reading more about my family and also my scrapbooking stuff. I want to thank my readers who read, and also leave comments. I have changed the comments a little bit. Thanks to my homegirl Sasha, I can now comment to your comments. How cool is that? And I believe that you can comment to other comments.

I have been super busy the last couple weeks. The first week of the month I was down in Kings Bay, GA for a Change of Command ceremony. I was hired to be the photographer. It went very well. I was supposed to go to Atlanta, GA the first Saturday of the month for a martial arts tourament. But I didn't end up going.

Tuesday after that, I flew out to Las Vegas, NV for Spring Nationals. Allergies hit HARD and I was sick the whole week. I took a weapons clinic and got certified in that weapon. Saturday I was to sing the Korean and American National Anthems. I was busy trying to get well enought to sing. I did sing...very well and people all day came up to me to say so. So I was happy even though inside I was still sick. I competed Friday afternoon in weapons...didn't place, but came back Saturday for Forms and Sparring. Took 2nd in forms and 3rd in sparring. Flew back Sunday. I will post in a few days about my trip to Vegas along with photos.

This week has been trying to get used to Eastern Time Zone again. Monday night/Tuesday morning I talked with Sasha on the phone for 6 HOURS PEOPLE!!! Teehee. I love that girl cause she can talk. Kinda like Leah. We can talk on the phone for hours as well. And of course my best friend Tenaya who just had a birthday yesterday! I can talk on the phone for hours on end with her too. So yeah, I have been up at night and then going to sleep way late and then napping till my little guy gets up. I do get up with Vincent to get him off to school and then it back to sleep and then when Allister gets up I get up. One night I am just going to have to stay up all night and all day...stock up on the Red Bull...and then I will getback on track.

Tmrw night and Saturday is a tournament here in VA Beach. I am singing the National Anthems there as well. Our Grand Master will be there as well, so this is two weekends in a row I have to sing in front of him. It is nerve wracking because he of course speaks Korean and will know if I fudge up his National Anthem. But he has not told me anything so I am good. I am competing in weapons, forms and sparring. I am going to do the Kama weapons, which is what I certified in last week in Vegas. I plan to do well because that weapon overall scores high. It is flashy. I will take a video of it and post it for y'all.

In the meantime I have rearranged my scrapbooking room...AGAIN! I go through this about every few months or so. But this arrangement I really like, so this might stay here for a while. I picked up my brand new (again) Canon 50D. My other one just stopped working. It wouldn't turn on at all. So Pete at the Ritz store here at the mall replaced the whole thing. I was very happy. So yesterday I picked it up and it is nice! I love that camera. Next year I plan to purchase the Canon 5D Mark II body and use that as my primary and use my 50D as the back up.

Anyway...I have to get back to cleaning up. Not being home for the first couple weeks of the month has set me back in cleaning up and stuff around here. I will try and get some updated photos up tonight in a post. And of course in the next few days I will post about my trip to Vegas.

Hope y'all like the new look to the blog and hope that y'all will come out of lurkdom and say hello. Of course everyone likes comments, so please say hello.

Yeah, I'm in March Cards

I picked up the March Cards issue at Michaels a few weeks ago and was super excited to see my work in print again. I hadn't been published in print media since February 2007. So to be in print again after all that time in between was was exciting. I had submitted two cards to this particular issue and by the grace of God, both of them got picked up. I was happy when I got the email for one card and then was overjoyed with I got the second email for the other card.

So here are my cards in the actual magazine. Cloud 9 over here!

 

March Magistical Memories Creations

Here are my March projects for Magistical Memories. Thanks for looking and enjoy!

 

Created this layout using the March Sketch #1. Used the Connected By Circles Border along with some Graphic 45 papers and American Crafts Thickers.

 

Created this card using the new Monkey Business Boy from our Winter 2009 release. This is such a CUTE chippie! I paired it up with Reminisce papers and Making Memories Sticker letters.

 

Created this card using the Ranger Star, along with new Basic Grey Marrakech papers and American Crafts Thickers. 

Remember that every month we have a monthly challenge and 2 sketch challenges. You can enter to win some fabulous chippies. Come on over to the message board to check them out.  

My Scrapbook Nook March Kit

 

 Okay, if you feast your eyes on this kit, I bet that you say WOW! The kit landed at my house a few days ago and I've been having fun playing with it. Leah Killian has a tremendous gift for putting these kits together. I wish I had her touch. Being on the design team is a sweet treat because we get to create stuff with the kits she creates. I love that the best about being on this team.

This is what you get in this wicked cool kit:

12 sheets of double sided Cosmo Cricket-Ever After papers
1 sheet of double sided Cosmo Cricket-Ever After Border paper
1 sheet of double sided Cosmo Cricket-Ever After Journaling paper
1 package of Cosmo Cricket-Ever After Rub-ons
1 sheet of Cosmo Cricket-Ever After Sticker sayings
1 12 inch piece of Fancy Lace by Prima
1 package of "Say it with Crystals" by Prima
1 sheet of Basic Grey letter stickers
1 package of Jenni Bowlin buttons

 

This is all from the recent CHA-Winter release. I love this time of year because we get to create with NEW stuff. How cool is that? I also grabbed some Cosmo Cricket-Ever After ribbons which is one of the add-ons for this month's kit.

Be looking out for some new layouts in the next day or two. Also if you aren't a member of the kit club and you want to get in on this, just click HERE to become a member of the kit club.