Everyone has a story to tell, here's mine sprinkled with some creative projects along the way.
Thank you for stopping by and I hope you come back again.



Saturday, March 28, 2009

It's a cupcake kinda day

Hello Saturday!
How's your day coming along?
Well for me it's been packed (like always) but with the sun shining, how can I not be in a good mood? The new challenge over at Cuttlebug is also making me feel cheery. Be inspired challenge #24 is all about cupcakes. Yummy!

Have a SWEET day card


I was so inspired with the theme that I literally made a cupcake card. I hand drew it and cut it out. Added some fun glittered pattern paper and spruced up the blue cardstock with the Swiss dots embossing plate from Cuttlebug. Love that product!



For the scallops, I just punched out some 1" circles from cardstock, cut it in half and layered them under the pattern paper.



I also added a cupcake liner (for more cupcake effect *wink*) for the top of the card then finished it off with a button.

So there you have it, wish you all a "sweet" day.

Till next time,
Grace

Friday, March 27, 2009

Bumper bowling

First off, I wanna say thank you for the sympathy and kind words I received about my "cold shower" complain. Just to update, Mitch finally was able to bring hot water back into our home last night (Thursday). Woohooo! I can't wait for my warm shower tonight! *wink*

Ok so onto the main purpose for this post. Maddie's preschool class took a field trip to our local bowling place on Tuesday. I rarely take her to the school's field trips cause we've pretty much done it before but this one was a first for her so I knew we couldn't miss it.

But of course, since my week was stressful and overwhelming, this activity wouldn't be complete without a little "problem" to tackle. You see, the kids' feet were too small for any of the bowling shoes in the place so the teacher asked that if they (kids) could wear white sole tennis shoes. This way we can prevent any scuffs and scratches on the floor. Made sense! But being the overwhelmed person that I am this week, I spent all that morning scrambling for some shoes for Maddie to wear that fit the bill and I couldn't find one! So I had to run to Walmart and get her some new shoes. When I got there, I was surprised that there where no white sole shoes! How can that be?! Finally after going through them, I found one, hurried home, had to hand wash some of the kids clothes (cause at this time we still didn't have our washing machine set up) cleaned up and then hurriedly went to the bowling place. When I got to the place, guess what....... the sole underneath Maddie's shoes wasn't all white after all. Crap! By this time, I was so tired (and this was only 10 am) that I didn't care. Luckily nobody checked and we were all good.

So onto the good stuff....Maddie enjoyed her time (I think) She was a little bored in the beginning. Everybody (moms, teacher and bowling attendant) were all busy getting everybody situated that the kids were kinda left to entertain themselves. But after a few rounds of bowling she was getting it. The ball was heavy for her and most of the time, she would just roll it.



My favorite part is seeing her reaction as the ball slowly reaches the pins. I love her many facial expressions.



it was fun! and to top it all, my little girl won! Woohoo!


so to treat her, we had lunch at Burger King.


This girl deserved her reward. *smile*

Till next time,
Grace

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

I can never be a pioneer woman plus a layout....

Wow what a mouthful for a title! So here's the story behind that.....
For my loyal blog followers, you know that we are in the middle of redoing our kitchen. Well this past weekend, hubby decided to work on the plumbing. He figured that since we've already torn down everything, why not change the pipes to copper and change our water heater. Yehey, more more money to spend! Not!
Anyways, he planned everything that he was going to do before hand cause he knew that he only had ONE day to complete the job. Well the one day job turned into a three day project (and still counting). He's been staying up till midnight, and we've been without hot water since Saturday. Now I grew up in the Philippines, and I know how it feels without running water but with the cold weather that we have right now, COLD SHOWERS ARE SO HARD TO TAKE!!!
We were talking at the dinner table last night and I asked him what his next project would be. He said that if he's not done with the plumbing by Saturday that he would continue it then. I said... "Woah! you mean to say we'll have to have cold showers for the rest of the week?!" He started laughing. He thinks this is a big ADVENTURE. Having to wash our dishes in the bathroom sink, filling up jugs and containers of water since some of the pipes were not working and now bathing with cold water! C'mon now, we live in the age of technology and he's bringing us back to the pioneer days! I gave him "the look" and he promised me that he would get it done soon. I don't know how soon that "soon" is but I hope I don't have to take another cold shower!

So now that's out of my chest, how about a layout....

I've been trying to stay up late with Mitch during his long plumbing sessions and on Sunday, I was a little bored, didnt' really wanna play with my scrap stuff so I turned to my computer and made this digital layout....

Mama, I shrunk!


Found this gem of a picture in our March 08 folder. It cracked me up!

So there you have it, an all around funny post.

Till next time,
Grace

Saturday, March 21, 2009

I'm jumping for joy...........

literally

me jumping on the trampoline, having fun with my son and our camera.Gotta love the sports mode.

and figuratively because of these......
I have been so fortunate to have these two digital layouts picked up for the March issue of Scrapbook Trends


Your Point of View


Lucky shot


and my little daughter's becoming famous around her preshcool class because of this picture which is in the April issue of Creating Keepsakes.



This is funny cause the first time I saw this in print was when one of the mom's at preschool showed me her copy of the magazine. She said, she was browsing through it and then came to this picture and had to take a second look at it cause the face looked familiar. Hehehehehehe.

and finally a couple of pictures that I love right now. It's Maddie during the schools' St. Patrick's day "gold" hunting.
Here she graciously posed for me while I *try* to get a good shot of her and her "gold".



and this one is when she wanted me to keep her treasures for her.


I love that this picture shows how close (literally and figuratively) we are right now. Seriously we are inseparable right now. We do everything together and have I told you that she's the perfect child to shop with? She would ask me every 10 minutes if she was being a good girl!

I'm such a lucky girl!

Till next time,
Grace

Our First Performance

Over at the MM blog, Crystal Jeffrey Rieger had a great color combo challenge that I just had to try. I wanted to see how a "twist" on a classic combo would look like when I put them together. I have to say I'm lovin this combo and had definitely opened my eyes to trying new hues of classic colors.


So this layout was all about my kids participating in a dance routine for our stake's (church) big anniversary program last October. The blue in my little girl's skirt fit the combo perfectly that I knew I had a match!
I wanted this page to have a focus on the pictures since I had a few here so I limited my embellishments to just buttons and a ric rack. The hand cut flowers from a paper by American Crafts.


the journaling says...

Our stake had a big 50th year anniversary celebration and they've asked the primary of each ward to perform a dance to the tune of a 50's song. Our ward picked "Splish splash". The best part for me was seeing my two kids be a part of the show. At first Marcus was very hesitant to participate. I didn't push the issue too much because, well frankly I didn't want the headache, until finally his Dad got him to commit and I'm so thankfully Mitch go to him. At the end Marcus said he had a lot of fun and that he'll do it again. I didn't have any problems convincing Maddie to dance. All I have to say was that she'll get to wear make up and she was right on board. Now the problem we had with her was her short attention span. On most parts of the dance she was oblivious to what was happening and by the time she gets the steps they've moved on to another routine. Funny kids! I made sure Marcus and Maddie were partners so that I can teach them the parts of the dance at home and they'd know exactly what each other need to do on the stage. It was hard work getting to accomplish this task but I’m glad we, especially my kids, stuck to it. This is definitely a memory never to be forgotten.


Thank you for looking and till next time,

Grace


Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Stories around here plus an invitation

I've been flooding this blog with all scrappy things so today I feel like I'm stepping away just a little bit from it and talk about funny stories involving my kiddos....

While jumping on the trampoline yesterday with the kids....

Marcus said "I wish I didn't have a sister, I wished I had a brother instead!"
Me- "but why? sisters are fun"
Marcus- I want a brother Mama!
Me- but if Mommy has another baby, I wouldn't be able to take care of you guys well since babies need a lot of work and attention.
Marcus- But we're big kids now, we can take of ourselves.
Maddie- I'm growing up now Mama, I want a cat!

Now how did this conversation turned into a cat? Needless to say both of the kids won't be getting what they want!

And then yesterday at Maddie's preschool class. We were having some fun St. Patrick's day events. The teacher and mom's pretended that there was a leprechaun that came to the class. The moms scattered little rocks outside by the playground that were painted gold. One of the mom's shouted that there were leprechauns outside. All the adults acted like it was really going on that the kids believed it. My little daughter started shaking and being very fearful. I held her hand and continued to comfort her, telling her that it's ok.
She went outside and picked up "gold". All was well. While we were outside, Mrs. Hom got the room all looking trashed. The chairs were all tipped over and some of the visuals on the wall were mixed up. She continued to act like the little leprechauns were messing up the place and this made Maddie really anxious. She wanted to go home! I even whispered to here that this was all PRETEND! I told her that there's no such thing but that she shouldn't tell the other kids about what I just told her. You can tell she was still buying into the whole lie cause she just couldn't relax until finally the teacher just had to tell her that it was all pretend.
I wonder if ,by the teacher doing this that, it spoiled the fun for the other kids? Oh well at least my child is pacified, right?!

My goodness, kids are the funniest people I've ever met!

Now onto an invitation.....
On Friday, I'm doing a FREE make and take project at the SCS board. It's part of their Friday Happy hours. It's going to start at .
Come on over and check it out. Who knows, it might even inspire you to create your very own version.
Here's some sneek peeks....



Till next time,
Grace

Monday, March 16, 2009

Meet a REAL outdoorsman

I love Sundays. It's more laid back than my Saturdays. See previous post to learn more about this. Anyways, I love that I go to church in the morning and then spend some quiet time for the rest of the day.

We usually go to my parent's house for dinner but they were busy yesterday so we just stayed home. Good for me, cause I was able to play a little in my scrap space. And here's what I made....

Meet a REAL outdoorsman


This one was inspired by a few challenges.....

OLW- the word for this week was REAL. I loved the word so I used it as part of my title. I even went beyond that and used the word as concept for my embellishments by using "real" items like leather.

Pagemaps challenge- This page was made by using the sketch up in the pagemaps blog right now. I love that it's very linear and yet gives you a lot of room to put your own fun twist to it. I used the main photo spot for my title.

Method Playground- (Non traditional stamping) This week's challenge was to stamp on something other than paper. I stamped on the leather to give it more personality. I've never done this technique before so I was super excited when it actually worked! I love trying out new things.



I got this leather scraps from Mitch. Gotta love that my husband consults me first before he throws his trash away. *wink* There were two kinds, I used the darker one for a tree top and the part of my title and the lighter ones were stamped on and used as tree tops.


I had fun playing up my trees. I added a button with paper thread and used shelf liner for some leaf.


For the title block, I crumpled a cardstock piece, colored it in with ink pad and added my handcut leather plus letter stickers.

Thank you for looking and till next time,
Grace

Fun Saturday!

It seems like weekends are always the busiest days in my family. You would think it would be the day we can start relaxing from a whole week's worth of activities. Well in my family it's the opposite. Last Saturday was unusually super busy.

Mitch helped out a friend moving while the kids and I spent the morning with my mom at Downtown Disney. There's a boutique that we usually go to in the Disneyland hotel and thought that since we were already in the area that we "tour" downtown disney as well.

After that we went home, and got ready to go to Grandma's house. Mitch's brother Dana has a two week vacation from his army tour in Iraq and that was the only day to visit with him. Got there and saw him but only spent less than an hour visiting with him cause Mitch and I have committed to go to the temple that night.

Oh the miles that we were traveling that day was unbelievable. After the temple, we had a late dinner at Applebee's with some friends. It was fun. Lots of laugh going on. It's great to getaway once in a while from the kids.

We finally got to my inlaws house a little before midnight. Talk about late! Whew! I wonder what next Saturday's agendas would look like?

Anyways, can't have a post without some pics. Here's some shots from that day....


you knew that the kids were getting excited when they saw this mickey mouse image just outside the disneyland hotel.


I can't believe that it still feels like winter here in Southern California, I mean we're already in mid march?!


This could've been a great shot if only my kids cooperated!




this little fella was super excited when we got to the lego store. He was already putting together his birthday wish list while we were in the store. Funny kid!


I soooo love this area! The colors just inspired me! I wish I had this kind of storage in my scrap space.

When we got to the disney store, my mom was so kind to get a little something for each of my kid to take home. Marcus got a Pirate's telescope and Maddie picked some princess nail polish. She couldn't wait to get home and try it out.


I wanted to help her out so that her nails would look perfect but she kept on saying "I do it! I do it! " Gotta keep my battles here!


Till next time,
Grace



Friday, March 13, 2009

My 251st post and some fun cards

I can't believe that number. It's crazy! When I started this I thought that I would be really bad at this blogging thing. Back then it seemed like getting a post published took a long time. There's editing and down sizing the pics plus uploading them, then typing and then if I had some links I wanted to add, I had to do that one by one. And now I feel like I'm such a pro at it! hehehehehehe.

Anyways, this post is about cards. I'm really enjoying cards right now, I think more than making pages. I know that's kinda bad to say but I think this is good, I'm learning a lot and deviating to a different type of craft always creates new inspirations.

So onto the cards....shall we.....

Just a little note to say THANKS!

this was inspired by cuttlebug's Inspired challenge #22 , where we were to stamp an image and add glitter. Now I didn't read the challenge very well and realized that I HAD to stamp onto the stamped image. Duh! Oh well, this is only for share anyways.


I stamped my sentiment and added red stickles all around it for some impact.


I used my embossing template to give my background card a little more personality and then used my scrap papers to make my flowers. The die is also from cuttlebug. I believe it's the asterisk one.

Your Special day card

This one was based on the CPS sketch #106.


I used scraps here. The starts were cut from a punch and I distressed the edges a little. The sentiment was cut from a pattern paper.


I made the stars "pop" out with pop up dots.

have a great weekend and till next time,
Grace

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

all the girly things

Ok so let's pause a little bit from all the "crafty" posts that this blog's been doing and let's focus our attention to girly things. After all this household has two of them and I'm lovin all the cute, feminine things that I have been seeing around here.....

First, I got this at Target yesterday.

I initially went in there cause I heard that Target was clearancing a lot of their scrapbook merchandise. I didn't have any luck with my local target since most of the sale items were gone, so I decided to look around instead. Window shop, for inspiration, of course *wink* Then came across the purse in the clearance section. I fell in love with the happy color and fun design on it. It just screams spring to me. Don't you think so? Oh and it was only $7! Definitely a must have!

Then we have these.....

I'm finally pulling these out of my sweet daughter's drawer cause as of Sunday she was officially potty trained! Woohooo!!! I have to tell you that it was a long time coming. We started it last year but after a couple of days of trying we would end up reverting back to diapers. Finally on Friday, I was almost out of the diapers and decided that I would try again. I made such a big hype about being a "big" girl and for some reason, this time it worked! Well the skittles reward helped a little too. hehehehehehehe! She even refuses to wear a diaper at night. She thinks that I will wake her up when she needs to go to the bathroom. Funny kid!

Aeropostale is now selling some cute flip flops. I got this one and decided that it's time for me to put some color on my toenails and since my girl was showing so much maturity, I thought of rewarding her by letting her color her toenails too. Oh was she ecstatic about that!


and yesterday, Maddie and I jumped on the trampoline. Dad was out doing some home teaching and Marcus was taking a nap so we figured we'd have some fun bonding time and take pictures too.

darn that camera strap!

I'm so proud of my little Madelyn. She's truly a gem to have. I love that we're both girly girls. She never complains when we go shopping, especially at Tallmouse, which just happens to have a gum ball machine at the entrance; She loves all the Princesses and I love seeing her twirl around in her many costumes; She makes me laugh when she tries to copy what I say, like "whatever you say" or "do you understand me?" and she gives me courage with every hug and kiss.


I'm so grateful to have her and look forward to the many things we have yet to share together.

Till next time,
Grace

Sunday, March 8, 2009

National Craft Month

Did you know that MARCH is the official "National Craft Month"?

Well since I have officially dubbed myself as a Paper ambassador. I strongly feel that that's one of my purpose in why I continue to do what I do. I wanna invite anyone out there that have been thinking of crafting, most specifically "paper" crafting to get up and DO IT!!!

Why this month?

Because the time to start crafting is TODAY. When we put it off, we just end up not doing it at all. We create too many excuses that at the end we believe those excuses. If you're overwhelmed, start small. If you're intimidated into trying out new things, grab a pattern, idea book or try a class and just DO IT!!! Remember even the most talented and creative people started somewhere. They didn't just wake up one day and was extremely crafty. Though I wish I was. *wink*

Because it is Craft month, I betcha there's going to be a lot of great sales at your local craft store. It's the best time to check out what Michaels, Joanns, local scrapbook store and even online stores have cooked up to get you into their store. Remember retail would use any kind of holiday/special events just so that they can have sales and you'd want to come in their store. Believe me, I know!

Crafting can be very therapeutic. Having your hands do all the work while you rest your mind is very relaxing. Of course there's a little bit of thinking here and there but I'm telling you, even when I'm picking what pictures to scrap or which colors to use on my next card, I'm still very relaxed.

It's the best time to do it yourself. With all the cost of things going up and all the financial problems many are facing now. Doing your own invitations or making a personalized gift is the way to go. It's economical, gives you that good feeling knowing you made it yourself and your recipient would appreciate the personal touch you added to your gift.

So now that I've shared some reasons on "why" to craft, it's time for you to execute and commit to do something "crafty". Again start small and be realistic.

My goals for this month.......

1. Finally finish this felt quiet book that I've been draggin myself to accomplish.

Did you know that I've been making this since Marcus was a toddler. Yes that's over 3 years ago and I'm still not done. It's funny cause my kids would be too old to use it now but I'm determined to still finish it. This month's going to be the month I'd check this off of my list!

2. Finish the reward charts that I've planned in my head since late last year. My kids are good but I think a chart will motivate them more to continue doing good.

3. Accomplish all the challenges and projects that I've planned this month. There's a lot out there and sometimes they're the best inspirations to use for your next project/page.

So if you're with me, raise your right hand and repeat after me......

I (state your name) will inject a little craftiness in my life this month. Today is the day and I won't make any excuses. I will pledge to visit my local craft store and try something new. I'm going to start small and be realistic. I will give someone a handmade gift. And most importantly, I'm going to have fun!!

If you've been inspired, be sure to let me know what you've planned to do this month. I'd love to hear, see or read about them.

Till next time,
Grace

Cuttlebug #21

Here I am again with another card. This one was for the Be Inspired #21 challenge over at the Cuttlebug blog.

This week's challenge was to use water color. Now I have to say that I was very intimidated by it. I mean, the only time I pick up a water color set/pack is to open it up for my kids' to use. I never really gone to that degree of being an "artist".

But since it is a challenge and I wanna go out of my comfort zone, with a little hesitation, I grabbed the brush and painted my bunny with water color. I'm glad I started with a small project. It wasn't too overwhelming.

Some bunny loves you! card


I used three embossed folders from cuttlebug to "spruce" up my cardstocks. I love, love, love my cuttlebug right now. The embossing folders are very addictive. *wink*


The sentiment and the bunny stamps are from the dollar spot at Mikes. Gotta love great deals.

Till next time,
Grace

Saturday, March 7, 2009

Under construction

Mitch and I are finally doing something with our kitchen! It's been in the plans since last year and I'm so excited that we're finally in the execution part. Of course this is the messiest, most stressful part but I can't wait to step on my new tile floor and prep food in my new granite countertop and put my stuff away in my new oak style cabinets.
I know I've been saying "my new" alot but Mitch has been so kind to let me pick all the things so far. I'm telling you, it's going to be great!!!!
Here's our kitchen right now....


Hopefully in a month or so, I can repost this picture as a before picture and put a much different and of course more pleasing "after" picture next to it.

and here's how we are going to live for the next few days....

Everything was moved to the family/living room. Glad we had room there enough to fit the dining table and all the kitchen stuff. That's Mitch putting the refrigerator on the corner. It's standing next to our entertainment system. Bet you don't see that set up in a normal house plan before. LOL

And all our stuff are in boxes right now.


As for cooking.... Mitch set up our camping stove in the backyard for that. I'm also planning on cooking a lot with my crockpot and the microwave. Can anybody recommend some great microwave recipes? This is definitely going to be an adventure! but in all honesty, I'm not too stressed about the cooking part, it's the washing/cleaning dishes that I'm not looking forward too. I mean, using buckets or small bathroom sinks just doesn't scream efficient and comfortable to me, but then I just have to remember the prize at the finish line, right?!

Will definitely keep you guys updated on the major project!

Till next time,
Grace