11.1 Gratitude Month

My favorite scrapbook store in the bay area has had a lot of guest teachers and designers from around the globe come to teach and demonstrate lately. Tonight, Teresa Collins, a popular designer and artist in the industry, came and taught a 3 1/2 hour project. Fittingly, she showed us her Gratitude Journal and gave us all the materials to create one of our own.

Once again, as I try to do every November, I'll post every day, keeping with the topic of gratitude. Thankful for what may have happened during the day, recognition for what may have happened in the past, grateful for whatever the future may bring. I've enjoyed doing this little tradition in the past, it helps me focus on the positive and ultimately shines a brighter light for the next day to come.

Project Life Rewind

I haven't shared any of my Project Life pages since the beginning of March, so I thought I'd take a moment to update on how it's going. Mostly for my own record-keeping. For me, it's a way to make sure the simple every-day things are accounted for. Sure, we all remember the major events in our lives, but the little things are important, too. So truthfully, all of this will be completely boring to anyone reading this. But it's what makes me me and my life my life.

Here's a quick rewind of Weeks 7-37:
Week 7: Valentine's Day. My SIL's bday. Lunch with my other SIL near Delores Park. Bay Bridge Lights were turned on.
Week 8: Spent some time with the Bowen kids and Cousin and her kiddos then the weekend at the cabin.
Week 9: A day with Cousin and her kiddos, weekend watching roller derby with Jimmy. One of his co-workers is a skater.
Week 10: Went down to San Diego for oldest niece's wedding.
Week 11: St. Patrick's Day parade with Jimmy, met up with an artist friend while she was here for a show, went to a dance performance in Berkeley with my SIL.
Week 12: Hanging out with the Bowens and the Brewers. DeYoung Museum. Cabin time.
Week 13: Cupcakes with the baldwins. Also (not pictured) Cousin's mom in town, explore SF with the whole family.
Week 14: Ninja Nephew's birthday party.

Week 15: Chinatown with family. FIL's birthday dinner at Benihana's. Dinner with a friend I haven't seen in over 5 years.
Week 16: Class in Berkeley with Amy Tan and card 'marathon' with Doris in Sunnyvale. The new Exploratorium opened this week! Movie nite with Jimmy and John Roy.
Week 17: Went to SFMOMA and lunch with SIL. Silly time with Princess Neice. Hideaway weekend.
Week 18: Oh.My.God. So very sick.
Week 19: Both of us Still So.Very.Sick but had tickets to see Paula Cole at Yoshi's so tried really hard not to cough on anyone. We had front row tickets so at least no one was in front of us except Paula.
Week 20: Still sick. Yikes. Doris took that photo of my friends because I couldn't go to our monthly get together. So sweet.
Week 21: Finally feeling better. Visited Ninja Nephew and Princess Niece. Cabin weekend.
Week 22: A whole week at the cabin. Lots of work to do! But we managed to go out for a couple of rides on the Rhino, too.
Week 23: Time with the Bowen family and my cousin's family this week.

Week 24: Roller Derby night at Craneway Pavillion in Emeryville.
Week 25: Father's Day at the 'rents. Visited Mr. Peck's memorial at Washington Park. San Mateo Buddhist Festival.
Week 26: Mike and Virginia's wedding at Golden Gate Park (awesome!). Marriage equality! Cabin weekend.
Week 27: 4th of July. Ninja Nephew's golf tournament.
Week 28: Early bday celebration at Kincaid's with the family. The deck is finally being torn down! Cupcakes with the Baldwins.
Week 29: Sake and Sushi bday dinner w/ family. Benihana bday dinner w/ Jimmy. To the Cabin.
Week 30: Camp Retz week at the cabin!
Week 31: MIL's bday dinner in Sausalito. Volunteering with the Giants Race. A couple days with cousin and kiddos. Saturday dinner with the Bowens. Yelp family night at the Exploratorium.

Week 32: Our microwave broke! ugh. But my handy-man took it apart and fixed it! He even had the part that broke, which isn't something he normally has. Pretty cool. My hero! :)
Week 33: Ninja Nephew and Princess Niece came over for a few hours and they loved playing with my crafting tools! Bad Kitty birthday card for Jimmy from his Mom. Hilarious!! Monica and her son were here for 3 1/2 days!!!
Week 34: Our weekend at the cabin ended up being a bit of a nervous time because of the Rim Fire. Thankfully, despite the 256K acres burnt, our community was ok. It's still burning, over 4 weeks later.
Week 35: Heart Concert at America's Cup Pavillion. Turned out that Jason was there, too! We saw his check-in on Yelp so we met up with him and chatted a bit.
Week 36: The new span of the Bay Bridge opened! We crossed it the night it opened after the initial crowds died down. Friday night in San Jose with the family.
Week 37: Kiddos here for a few hours. Celebrated Jeff's birthday with all the Purple Magma friends. Another wildfire, this one near the parentals. Thankfully it was contained within 5-6 days.

Covering a lot of ground

I've been all over the Bay Area today. It was wonderfully a busy day.

Doris and I spent the 1st part of the day in Pleasanton at the Scrapbook Expo. Imagine a huge building at the fairgrounds filled with scrapbooking supplies. A crafters heaven but a budget nightmare. Actually I didn't overdo it, surprise surprise. We met up with our friend Marah Johnson. She's an amazingly vivacious and edgy artist with the most positive and outgoing spirit.

After dropping Doris off, I came home for less than an hour to change and freshen up before heading to Berkeley.
My SIL and I went to a modern dance performance by the Trisha Brown Company. It was one of the oddest yet most amazing dance performances I've seen. My SIL is trained in dance so she was certainly more impressed with their abilities. I was awestruck and wished I could understand technically the magnitude of the skills they had. It was at Zellerbach Hall on Cal Berkeley's campus.

Downtown Berkeley is just a short BART ride from San Francisco but this was the 1st time I've been there since we moved to SF. I've probably been downtown less than a dozen times in the 20 years we've lived here, which really is a shame. It's an oddball of a city, but so very full of character and life. Now that I know how easy it is to get there from BART, I might have to go more often.

On the {crafting} table

In January, I mentioned that I was starting a new project for the year, Project Life. We're 7 weeks into the new year and so far I've kept it up.

Week 2: Jan 6th-12th
Finished the quilt I started in May. Humiliated myself by walking hard into a glass door and extended the humiliation by posting it on FB, which seemed to make my friends laugh a lot. Doris and I visited our friend June who suffered a series of small strokes during the holidays. The photo I have in this album is from 2 1/2 years ago.

Week 3: Jan 13th-19th
Saw a couple of movies: "This is 40" and "Zero Dark Thirty". Jimmy and I went ice skating at Union Square when it was 40 degrees out at 11pm. Visited the princess niece and ninja nephew (who are shy).

Week 3 addendum
I did an extra page with photos from our anniversary road trip to Point Bonita and Rodeo Beach.

Week 4: Jan 20th-26th
Jimmy was oh so very sick for 4 days. But by Saturday night, he was feeling well enough to go to Supercross in Oakland.

Week 5: Jan 27th-Feb 2nd
Jimmy left for a 10 day work trip to Austin then Boston. Wanted to see "Les Miserables" before the Oscars. Drove down to San Diego County with my MIL and SIL (who are shy) for Ashley's shower.

Week 6: Feb 3rd-9th
Superbowl Sunday! The 49ers were in it, but lost against the Ravens. Playing dolls with shy Princess niece. June passed away on 2/3/13, she was 92. Jimmy came home from Boston right before a big storm hit. His flight was one of the last ones out of Logan Airport before it closed for 2 days.

Week 7: Feb 10th-16th
We were in San Diego during my SIL's birthday so we waited till this weekend to celebrate. Explored Dolores Park. Valentines day. The bay bridge got a new lighting installment! So cool!

I have a couple more cards on my crafting table:
I'll use them for my exchange cards for stamp club next week and the week after.

Holi-de-licious {December Daily 21}

4 more days and counting. Actually, it's 3 more days because you know everyone really starts celebrating on the 24th.

I've been busying myself with creating the yearly family calendar. This is a sneak peek of January's page.

Of course I need nourishment whilst doing all this crafting so I decided to try a new recipe that my friend Kristina gave me. Here's her recipe on her blog.It's a Gooey Pumpkin Cake and it is wonderfully delicious and a perfect fall dessert. Sure, today may be Winter Solstice but who's gonna nitpick about cake?

These are the ingredients.

I halved Kristina's recipe because there's only 2 of us. The full recipe makes a 9"x13" pan so I made mine in an 8"x8" pan.
Also, I should have blended the cream cheese with the pumpkin better than I did. In hindsight I should have used a mixer because my hand got too tired trying to mix it together. There's only so much a crafter's hands can do in a day. lol. But it was still fantastic! It's like a layer of yellow cake topped with a pumpkin cream cheese gooey goodness.

I have a personal theory that coffee is better in the afternoon than in the morning. When you need a little pickmeup during that afternoon drag, the savory sweet flavor of coffee with lots of milk and sweetener hits the spot. mmmm. a great accompaniment to a piece of Gooey Pumpkin Cake, too!!

SD27: Slow Sunday

we've been at the cabin for 8 days (minus my quick round trip back to the Bay) and today was the 1st day that we pretty much did nothing...so it's another good day for a crafting flashback.
"I am a Visual Journalist"
I can't remember who I got that quote from, but I love it. Essentially, that's what I am!

Pic is of Jimmy from 1987. I love this pic of him. We were at Calico Ghost Town and had only been dating for a year.

Jimmy and his sister Lauree in the Marin Headlands looking for a geocache at one of the old batteries.

SD25: Not all play days

although really can't complain about the wee few hours Jimmy and I put into tending to yard work at the hideaway today.

So I thought I'd do another flashback craft project since we didn't do anything exciting.


These photos were taken during our trip to Anchorage for Jimmy's brother's wedding in 2007. Our friend Linda and her son are coming to visit us in July for a little more than 2 weeks and I'm looking forward to her visit. Believe it or not, the entire time will be packed with things to do.

We've got a very busy summer ahead of us!!

SD12: scrapping again

I haven't been doing much scrapping lately mostly because I used to craft on the coffee table and it had gotten uncomfortable leaning over the low table. But last week I moved my crafting stuff to the kitchen table and I spent most of today scrapbooking.

All these pics are from last year. I printed a bunch of photos last year but never got around to scrapbooking them till today.
Trip into SF when niece Ashley was visiting spring of 2009.


The next 2 are from my trip to Seattle last year. Miss these kiddos so much, haven't seen them in a year!

Summer Daily 9: Beautiful Girls

Doris and I took a class with Suzy West in San Carlos tonight. I've missed Suzy so it was great seeing her and taking a fun and as always, energetic class with her.
We made this cute little mixed-media minibook using canvas, chipboard and acrylic pages.

Here are a few of my favorites parts:

Using a mini-baking cupcake type liner as a flower.
Learning how to make french knots.

Altered and distressed roses.

Fun paper pleating.
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Summer Daily 4: Flashback June 2005

This scrapbook layout from 2005. Oldest nephew was only 4, youngest just 3 months.

Can someone please stop time? I can't keep up with how fast they are growing!
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Summer Daily 3: Imagine Peace

It's Easy if you Try.
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Sunday in the City

We've been toying with the idea of moving to the city for a while now. I've been keeping a close eye on rentals and prices, but there are so many different neighborhoods that we've never even explored that we decided to spend the afternoon in the city and drive around to check them out.

We had a blast despite the clouds and rain.

We also had a fun Saturday with friends. Lunchtime, got a spur-of-the-moment call from a friend wondering if I wanted to join her and her daughter at the local Indian restaurant. I couldn't pass it up.

Then we went out to dinner with the Bowen's at Maggiano's, one of our fav's but they hadn't been there before. Ended up being a 3 hour extravaganza and very busy and loud...Miss A said "It's as loud as a playground in here"..so cute! Always a lot of fun hanging out and chatting with them. Have to admit we were surprised how busy the restaurant was considering the economy. At least on the weekends, that restaurant doesn't seem to be suffering.

I did a bit of crafting too:me and my BFF from over a year ago. Speaking of...I'm gonna see her this weekend. Can't wait! I haven't met her newest little one yet and he's almost 4 months old!

I also made some custom colored buttons inspired by Marah Johnson.Easy to make when you have the right supplies. Even Miss A and Prince W made a couple on Saturday night.
Clear buttons
Tim Holtz alcohol inks
Tim Holtz Alcohol Ink Applicator (same link as above, scroll to bottom)
Glossy Accents (or similar)
printed ephemera or stamped images
-squeeze a couple of drops of ink onto applicator and pounce pounce pounce onto the back of a clear button till color is how you like it. Use 2 or 3 colors if you'd like. let dry just a few seconds.
-apply glossy accent on back of button, directly on the ink you just applied. Use glossy accent like a glue.
-Center button over the printed or stamped image you want to show through. You'll have a few moments to twist and turn the button on the image so it's positioned the way you want it. Also, twisting the button on the image helps spread the glue around evenly.
-Let dry. this'll take several minutes so make a bunch more while you're waiting!
-Cut excess paper off button once dry. Re-poke holes if needed.
-Use buttons as extra dimension on your projects.

I'm planning on doing separate posts for each neighborhood we checked over for the next few days. Hope you enjoy the ride. :)
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commencing december freak-out

The countdown is on and there are only 14 more days till Christmas. I'm a little bit in freak-out mode right now, because it seems like I'm spending much of my days running errands but adding more to my to-do list than I'm crossing off. I suspect this sounds familiar to many of you, too.

I suppose taking a class shouldn't be a priority during the busiest time of the year, but when an artist whom I've admired for a few years comes to the Bay Area to teach, I'll drop all my Christmas errands and pause for a few hours in the day. Marah Johnson taught 2 classes at a local scrapbook store yesterday and she is such a high-spirited, soulful and edgy artist.
The morning class, she taught us this beautiful Christmas mini-book.Great techniques, lots of glitter and each page alternating pulls up, or pulls out.

The evening class, she taught this wicked accordion pull-out album.I have a friend who went to the Africa last year, so I'm thinking about giving this to her. But not until I make my own nearly exact replica using either Marah's Rock Star collection or her Heiress Collection.

This is a layout I did last year using Marah's Love Struck collection. There was a meme going around last year that had you list a few random things about yourself and I decided to do a layout on it.

Phantom of the Opera was great. The music is amazing and really sticks with you. So much so, that during the 2nd Act, I actually cried! OMG, i don't think i've ever cried during a theatre performance before. Sure, at movies all the time, but not at the Theatre (make sure you say it with a snooty accent, lol). I have to admit my eyes got a bit droopy in parts of the 1st Act, but I would definitely see it again. Coincidentally, the movie was on TV the next day, so I TiVo'd it, but haven't watched it yet. I'm so behind in TV, here's my list of what I need to watch:

Ugly Betty (3)
Oprah (5)
Ellen (5)
Reeves, Keanu (7)
Pushing Daisies (1)
Eli Stone (3)
Funniest Videos (2)
My Own Worst Enemy (5)
Heroes (1)
Big Bang Theory (3)
Jon and Kate (2)
Brothers & Sisters (2)
Phantom of the Opera
Lipstick Jungle (5)
Ghost Whisperer (3)
Sanctuary (5)
Grey's Anatomy (2)
What Not to Wear (6)
Twins, Twins and Sextubplets
Life on Mars (1)
Ryan, Meg (4)
Extreme Makeover Home Edition (2)
Tim Gunn's Guide to Style (1)
Hepburn, Audrey (2)
Californication (5)
And really, a whole lot more.
I say I watch a lot of tv, but the truth is I record a lot of tv. Then I watch in 5 hour marathons. Like Heroes, I had 6 unwatched episodes, but decided to spend a few hours watched 'em all. Same with Grey's, Pushing Daisies and The Mentalist. I may never get to Lipstick Jungle. Anybody out there watch it? Should I invest the time in it?

I really should update more often again instead of doing these long 'ol posts once a week. We are staying local this weekend. Baking on Saturday. Sunday a GTG and cookie exchange with some friends. Maybe finish up those cards and get 'em in the mail by next week (does that sound like a repeat from my last post?).

Have a great merry cheery weekend!
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Fall Crafting

Some of you might remember the button tree I made last Christmas. Well, when I saw this cute little pumpkin at my local scrapbook store, I had to make one for myself, too! Just painted a Styrofoam ball orange, glued the flowers on randomly, then glued orange buttons on randomly. Used craft wire to make the tendrils of the stem, glued on 2 green flowers then stacked a bunch of green buttons to create the stem.

Have you seen the Good Sheets at Starbucks that offer little tidbits of information relating to election issues? I found/read my 1st one the week before the election and devoured it almost as heartily as I devoured my tall nonfat no foam latte. By then, they were already on Week 7, so I missed 6 little cool factoids wrapped up in a tidy little newspaper. Well, I decided to take my week 7 Good Sheet and reuse it to make ATCs. Since then, I got Week 8 and 9 and have created stuff with them, too. I had gone almost 2 months w/o a Starbucks fix, but now I have to get my tall nonfat latte no foam and a good sheet once a week.

This photo was taking a few years ago, but I just made this scrapbook page last month. Jimmy and Miss A are at the San Francisco zoo, laughing at all the silly things that were happening.

Made this very labor intensive card during one of my stamp club meetings this month. You stamp the stamp 6x onto blue cardstock, emboss in silver, then glitter and intricately cut each layer to create this snowflake card. It's very dimensional, 6 layers high, and very glittery! Beautiful, I must admit, but wow, a lot is involved to make just 1 card. I made 2 and said, "ok, i'm done." Imagine the mess of glitter I had on my floors afterward. uh yea, the cat had glitter in her fur for days. Well, I send out 60-70 cards every Christmas, so those 2 weren't gonna cut it. So while I was sick, I made 58 more Christmas cards. But the hardest part for me is addressing the envelopes. I refuse to use labels, but hand addressing envelopes is just a task that is always so tedious to me. Not exactly sure why. Why can I spend 20 hours making cards gleefully, but 2 hours of addressing envelopes seems overwhelming?

Speaking of Christmas...anyone start their Christmas shopping yet? Not me. Last year, I was done before December 1st. I suppose I better get cracking if I wanna be as prepared as last year. I suspect that's not gonna happen.
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getting my craft on

I'm taking my first sewing class tonight. Looking forward to it, but also wondering...do I need another hobby?

This is what's been keeping me occupied while I've been enjoying the new fall TV schedule.
I just made this whimsical layout using last year's photo. We're missing a brother and his wife, a niece and a nephew. Big family, right?

I made this a little while ago but this is where we're all going for Thanksgiving this year.

I've been on a card making frenzy lately.
I made these during one of my craft nights at a friend's house. 4 or 5 of us get together on the 3rd Tuesday of every month and work on our own projects. I'm getting ready for next year's birthdays.

Some of you might see one of these in your mailbox in the next few weeks. Email me your address if I don't already have it! :)

When you watch tv, do you usually do something else too or watch intently? For me, it depends on the storyline. I can't do anything else when I'm watching anything action or intense like Heroes, Fringe or Law and Order. But if it's a home improvement or reality show, I get a ton of crafting done.
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