I want to share another project that I was able to complete at the Paradise Scrapbook Boutique “Holiday Workshop” back in November . . . this JOY banner kit was created by the most talented Christie . . .

Christie was not able to attend the workshop as she lives in Idaho . . . and even though she is very very very busy helping to prepare her sister’s upcoming wedding (December 5th) and getting her design projects out for Graphic 45 (she’s a member of the Graphic 45 design team) . . . Christie still found time to create a number of really cute kits, of which this banner was one of . . .

I do have to say one thing . . . no matter how hard I try to copy the original item exactly something always happens along the way and I end up making little personal changes to the design (sounds so much better than “mistake”) . . . in this case I thought that I would add just a touch of glitter glue around the edge of each letter and they looked really cute and I was very careful on getting each letter to my car without smudging the wet glitter . . . what I didn’t count on while driving home was the car in front of me coming to a sudden stop to make a left turn and when I slammed on the brakes my purse fell on the letters . . . sooooooooo when I got home I covered each letter glitter glue . . . I also didn’t punch the holes correctly (there is only suppose to be 1 hole on each side of the circle cut out) . . . soooooooooo each of my circles has holes going completely around them . . . even with all these “personal changes” the banner is turned out cute . . . it is hanging in my smaller office at work and everyone who sees it, wants it . . . so again thank you Christie for sharing your wonderful talent with us . . . BTW . . . the paper that Christie chose to use is from BoBunny’s St. Nick paper line . . .

Well that’s all for now, thanks for stopping by . . .

Do you believe in magic??? I DO!!!!! . . . I DO!!!!!

Back on November 21st I was fortunate in being able to attend the holiday gift workshop at Paradise Scrapbook Boutique where a number of beautiful kits were created by four extremely talented women . . . I have been dying to share the treasures with you that I was able to make but in keeping with the holiday spirit I decided to wait until December 1st . . . welllllllll it’s almost December 1st and I just can’t wait any longer (I also don’t think that I will be able to stay awake much longer) . . .

The first treasure I want to share with you is this beautiful vintage antique bottle . . . the creator of this kit was Deb (sister to the owner of PSB) and she shared with us (from her personal collection) a number of ribbons, glitters, vintage do-da’s, sayings and different sized old bottles for us to create are own little treasures . . . it was MAGIC! . . . you can see more of Deb’s vintage antique bottle creations at the PSB website and find out who inspired her . . .

Thank you so much Deb for sharing all your “MAGIC” with us . . . it was great seeing you again and I can’t wait for your next trip up to “Paradise” . . .

In the next few days I will be sharing more “treasures” that I have been able to create from this workshop . . . in the meantime thanks for stopping by . . .

I finally finished this year’s Holloween layout of my granddaughter. Kyra had been saying for months and months that she wanted to be a princess for Holloween this year . . . I don’t know what happened when she went shopping with mom for her costume but she couldn’t wait to show me that she was going to be SUPERGIRL this year . . . well needless to say that began my search for the right shade of colors to go with such a bright costume . . . who knew that there were so many different shades of basic blue, red and yellow . . . sooooooooo . . . at this time I would like to present SUPERGIRL KYRA . . .

These pictures were taken at a church Harvest Festival on October 31st. They had 4 bounce houses and my daughter was able to get plenty of pictures to be able to tell a story. By the way . . . after I made my selection of pictures and laid them out . . . I had my granddaughter them me in her own words what was happening . . . my favorite is when she says “Hmmmm . . should I help them or do the dishes?” . . . makes you wonder and appreciate a child’s imagination

Oh . . . one more thing . . . all of the paper was basic card stock . . . I stamped the plain blue cardstock using Technique Tuesday’s “spin cycle” clear stamp and VersaMark and put little dots of Stickles “Golden Rod” down the middle of each title letter to add a little sparkle . . . the giant letter “S” I was able to purchase from Dillon’s Laser Designs (www.dillonlaserdesigns.com) at the Scrapbook Expo that was held in Sacramento, CA in October (it was the perfect find and worth the 1-1/2 hour drive to Sacramento) . . .

Well that’s all for now . . . I can’t wait to share with you some of the projects I completed last Saturday at a Holiday Workshop at PSB in Paradise . . . thanks for stopping by . . .

It’s been a while since I last wrote on my blog . . . it was a very busy summer and fall is almost over and has been just as busy (with a couple of illnesses thrown into the mix) . . . I do want to say something right up front . . . I am not an ORIGINAL designer . . . I cannot look at paper and know exactly what to do with it . . . I take classes, buy kits and get ideas from layouts I see on the internet, magazines, where ever . . . I don’t always follow the examples I am given or see but they are close enough so that I do not claim them as my “original . . .

So that being said I would like to share some of the layouts I have done since my last blog (way back when) . . .

When my mother-in-law passed on I was told to choose one item that had very special meaning to me . . . it was a very hard thing to do as I had known this women for over 46 years and considered her to be the mother I never had and always wanted . . . there were so many memories wrapped up in “things” around the house . . . I choose the wooden duck sewing box that her father made for her shortly after she was married . . . my mother-in-law hated to sew and when she found out that I did sew . . . well every time I was over at her house she always needed something hemmed or a seam fixed or even a button sewn on . . . . sometimes she even called me to get me over to do a little project and I was only just dating her son . . . so it seemed very natural for me to choose this duck as my special memory of her . . .

Now I knew that I would be doing a layout about this little box . . . but I kept on putting it off . . . that is until I saw a layout that Robbie Herring did with the July 2009 Limited Edition kit from My Creative Scrapbook club (Robbie is on the MCS design team) . . . I just fell in love with the layout she did using Graphic 45 Fashionista Collection paper . . . so here is the layout for the “sewing box” . . .

The next layout I am sharing is of pictures of my daughter and granddaughter from their annual “mommy & me” beach trip to Santa Cruz, California . . . this layout was from a kit I purchased at Magic Moments & Keepsakes in Chico and was designed by Stephanie Southam who also happens to be a Close to my Heart consultant . . . as is usual I didn’t follow her design exactly . . . instead of using beige paper for the “turf” on the beach I used regular old sandpaper from my husband’s workshop . . . I think it makes the beach look more sandy, don’t you . . .

Layout number 3 is about my granddaughter getting ready for her 1st day of preschool . . . she was sooooooo excited (can you remember how excited you were very year . . . how you couldn’t sleep the night before and then you were up at the crack of dawn making sure that you looked perfect and that you would not be late . . . I sure do!!!!) . . . well Kyra has followed in her mother’s and YaYa’s footsteps . . . so being the good little YaYa I look pictures of her getting ready . . .

Inspiration for making the owls for this layout came from the paper itself . . . the owl below that was used on the layout came from a kit I purchased at Magic Memories & Keepsakes way back in May 2008 (only made the owl & used the strip of owl paper from that kit) and it had to be pieced together . . . and yes I did actually sew a running stitch around the edge of the owl . . . I decided to make a couple of baby owls for the second page of the layout – with one of them taking flight . . .

Inspiration for this layout came from a challenge from Inspired Blueprints using one of their drawings (www.inspiredblueprints.typepad.com) which I meant to enter . . . but I got very sick and missed the entry time . . .

Okay sooooooooo only one more layout to share . . . and this is a very special one to me . . . my friend Christie taught her last class in Paradise (before moving to Idaho at PSB) using Graphic 45 “Baby to Bride” paper . . . she designed 3 beautiful projects – a single page layout, a card and this wall hanging (which hangs above my computer at work and every time I look up I see my smiling/happy granddaughter and all it bright & sunny in the world) . . . thank you Christie . . .

Well that’s all for now . . . thanks for stopping by . . . hopefully my next blog will not be soooooo long and wordy . . . til next time . . . hugs and kisses . . .

While “blog surfing” one day I came upon this virtual cat from Widget . . . sooooooooooooo . . . say “hi” to my new kitty . . . Maukie (he’s there on the right hand side where the clock use to be) . . . Maukie is very easy to take care of . . . you don’t have to feed him or anything . . . okay you have to put up with the ad (to get rid of the ad all you have to do is click on the ad “x” square and the ad disappears . . . you can now play with Maukie) . . . his head and eyes follow your mouse around his body and at certain places he swats your mouse . . . he meows when you touch certain areas of his body and Maukie evens purrs when you touch his tummy . . . isn’t he cute!

I would love to adopt a new real kitty to keep our current cat company while everyone is gone all day . . . . but my granddaughter is very allergic to cats and dogs (she inherited this from her dad – we are hoping that as she gets older her algery will improve) . . . we have one outdoor cat who adopted us (Cato) . . . and Krya loves him dearly but she knows that she can not give him kisses & hugs . . . so we have adopted Maukie for now . . .

That’s all for now . . . will shortly be posting pictures of some of the projects I completed . . . until then . . . thanks for stopping by and don’t forget to play with Maukie . . .

Okay well it’s NOT officially fall yet . . . had another look at the calendar and autumn officially begins Tuesday, September 22 . . . hopefully I am putting all the correct dates on all the papers I am filing with the court . . . anyhooooooooooooooooo . . .

Speaking of this layout . . . it is not an original of mine . . . when I saw the papers I knew exactly what photo I wanted to feature and somewhere in my brain I remembered a layout I had seen that was perfect-it used these papers and had hand & machine sewing on it (two things that I love trying to put on some of my layouts) . . . if anyone out there in blogland knows who the original designer was . . . please please please let me know because I want to thank them and acknowledge their beautiful design . . .

Now back to that weekend in the bay area . . . we told our son that we would do whatever he wanted . . . so on Saturday we ended up at the Western States car show in Pleasanton, CA (got to love the bay area – everything is only 30 minutes away at the most via freeways) . . . 5 hours at a hot – very loud event . . . then it was back to San Jose and off to dinner at his favorite restaurant and a movie . . . “The Hangover” (very very very funny movie) . . . on Sunday we headed over to Campbell and stopped in at the “Psycho Donuts” shop for a mid morning snack (yes that really is the name of the donut shop – they have found a fun way to get you to eat donuts – I plan on doing a layout later about this unique shop) . . . after that we went to the Campbell farmers market . . . from there hubby & son went for coffee while I went and did a little shopping at the scrapbook store in Cupertino . . . hubby and I finally headed for home about 5 pm (another 4 hour drive) . . . it was a very busy weekend . . . but well worth it . . . BTW . . . here is a more current picture of the birthday boy . . .

P.S. . . this was not at the Pleasanton car show . . . this photo was taken at the Concours d’Elegance Gala here in Chico . . .

Well that’s all for now . . . thanks for stopping by and until next time . . . hugs . .

.Today AUTUMN officially begins . . . can you believe it?. . . I know I can’t! . . . seems like just yesterday it was the beginning of summer . . . I guess when you are very very very busy and having a great time everything moves pretty fast (or maybe its when you turn 60 that you notice how time is speeding by) . . . this summer was an extremely busy. . .

I just realized today that I have not posted to this blog since the beginning of August . . . sooooooooooo I have decided it’s time to “turn over a new leaf” and post more often . . . I will try to catch y’all up to what I have been doing with the rest of my summer over the next few blogs (I won’t bore you by putting everthing in one blog – I have got to get some sleep sometime ya know) . . .

To begin with I would like to share another layout that I did of my cruise to Alaska this summer . . . at 10:30 at night – on the second to last night of the cruise – the ship hosted a “DESSERT EXTRAVAGANZA” . . . I have never seen so many incredible desserts in one place at one time . . . and you could eat to your hearts content (I now know why people who have been on cruises told me to have at least one pair of pants with an elastic waist) . . .

Before my hubby & I went on the cruise I had taken a scrapbook class entitled “Sweet Chocolate Indulgence” which was taught by Christie Bryant at the Paradise Scrapbook Boutique . . . I loved Christie’s layout but at the time I didn’t know what pictures I would be placing on it (thought I was going to have to bake something – heaven forbid) . . . well needless to say I found the perfect pictures for the layout – or at least I think so – what do you think?????

Hopefully you were able to click on the above pictures to get a better look at the layout . . . and I have to tell you my layout does not look exactly like the one Christie did for the class (I even had her original pages in front of me) . . . I have a few boo boos that needed to be covered up . . . which gave me the perfect opportunity to make a brown paper cabbage rose (see the My Creative Scrapbook blog for instructions) . . . I do have to tell you that one of the desserts just made me laugh out load . . . its the picture below of mice eating cheesecake . . .

Bet you laughed didn’t ya (hehehe) . . . well it’s time to sign off and go to bed (oh how I wish I could retire and play all day) . . . soooooooo . . . thanks for stopping by and until next time . . . HUGS!!!