Set for Germany!

Posted on | August 26, 2010 | 6 Comments

I think I have everything set for our trip to Germany and I’ve finally recuperated from this weekend!!

This past weekend we all went to the market and we all did go to London (yea, Savitri drove there and back, did the tube, and had a fabby time). We didn’t make it to the museum though. The girls and I didn’t wake up until 9 a.m. and by the time we were all ready to go it was 10:15 BUT we had so much fun window shopping and M thought Hamleys was wonderful. She did get to pick one item up — well threee, it was a 3-in-1 deal. How was Hamleys? It was big, four stories big, but I don’t think it’s as nice as FAO Schwarz (and probably as big too). I was surprised, even though we only went to the ground and third (girl) floor (fifth too if you count the toilet stop), I didn’t see any Le Toy Van’s stuff. It’s my favorite toy brand and a UK company. One thing is for sure, Hamleys is probably THE oldest toy store at 250-years-old!!

Then, between the market and London, Saturday night I participated in a virtual crop with some best blog female friends, bbff: Ashley Cannon Newells, Ayana Posada, Claudia Shadler, Laurel Beard, Naomi Chokr, and Sarah Martina Parker. There were also others who popped in just for a tad bit, Courtney Baker, Kelly Marie, Tiffany Johnson, Tina Fussell, and Paulina Nakamura (Kelly and Paulina I actually didn’t get to meet) and it was so much fun!! The above page was I made that night. I just got one thing done the six hours I was up with them (it was 9 p.m. – 3 a.m. for me) because we all were chit-chatting the first few hours. But hey, that’s normal for a crop, right?

As for the trip… I’ve decided to go with the B&B closest to everything and feel best about, Chardon Room, with a slight change of plan. We’ll only stay a night and then we will stay another night in the town of Bouillon, Belgium. I want to pass by, see what’s there, and plan another trip sometimes in the near future to see more of this place. There are TONS of awesome places in this region and one night doesn’t do justice. Now, here’s a tip for you… DO book your hotel early IF you have a family traveling to a touristy place on a weekend. I think I booked the last hotel in Bouillon. There are openings but they’re singles or small doubles. I got tired of emailing B&Bs and getting the “we’re full” replies so I just got us a room at this place called Hotel Cozy. Granted we can be lucky like we were in Germany and got probably THE last B&B to have a decent size bed I don’t want to chance it with Jovie.

I’ll tell you more about what I learned the past few researching for places to stay in Belgium for now, let’s just see the details of the page…

It’s a VERY simple page. I just added a few big stuff to make this layout interesting. The design came from Pencil Lines, sketch 200, but I didn’t follow their colors because I didn’t have anything complimenting that’d fit the photo.

For the corner there I just layered some My Little Shoebox chipboard. I almost used the whole package. The paper were scraps. I think it’s a bit of KI, My Mind’s Eyes, Prima, and Making Memories. The alphas were Cosmo Cricket and Prima.

Well, that’s it! I’ll share more later about Belgium!

How

Posted on | August 15, 2010 | 5 Comments

Do you keep your craft room/studio/office tidy? You know my space isn’t big so I have to stack a few things but man, one thing I hate about paper crafting is the mess that I accumulate after one project. When I crop I have this habit of tidying up after each page and I try to do a bit of that at home too but often time I find things ending up stacked up (neatly) on one corner of my table. What do you do?

Today I have a little card for WPlus9’s color challenge: Red, aqua, yellow and vanilla/cream/off-white. For this piece I used Magical Moment and Background basic II. The design’s pretty simple. I was trying to go for the simple but fun. I’m not sure if I captured it but I like it. It’s CAS but with some bulk.

Today is yard day. I’ve decided to just stay home and do yard work. Our landlord hires a gardener to mow the lawn, tidy it up now and then and to rake the leaves but the bush trimming only comes every so often and they need some love. There are other things that I need to do too. They’ve been neglected because we’ve been out and about almost everyday. IKEA isn’t going anywhere. They’ll be another time!

I hope your Sunday’s fabulous!! Have a goodie!!

Another Saturday Sketch

Posted on | August 14, 2010 | 11 Comments

At Waltzingmouse! Sketch #10!!

Here’s my card for this week’s challenge. It’s pretty clean and simple. Goes along with the feel of the sketch — at least to me. BUT, you should see all the cards that the other DT made. WOW WOW WOW. Makes my card look pitiful!!

As for this weekend… it’s a weekend already? Goodness, time did fly this week!! The last few days the weather’s been gray. Rain, rain, rain. What you’d think of when you hear: England. It’s wonderful that I’m not working because the girls and I could lounge around in our jammies all day.

What are your weekend plans? We’re just going on base to check the mail and do some basic needs shopping. I am thinking about going to IKEA too Sunday but we’ll see how motivated I feel. I’ve never been and hubby doesn’t care to go so while he’s away I might as well go there and stay as long as I want — or the as long as the kids let me.

Have a great one, everybody!!

The Birthday Cake

Posted on | July 7, 2010 | 41 Comments

M’s been to three birthdays now and each one of them we noticed that the birthday cake was never eaten at the birthday party but it’ll be wrapped in tissue paper and sent home inside the goodie bag. The first time it happened we thought it was because it was not a sit-down party but one of the last party was a sit-down one and the children did have ice-cream but the cake was still in the goodie bag. M’s been to a few birthdays in Missouri and all the cakes were eaten at the party.

M’s not too fond of the birthday cake in goodie bag. So not a fan that she said: “Mommy, on my birthday I want the kids to eat the cake at the party. I don’t like cake in the goodie bag. I want an American birthday!” Ha!

I keep forgetting to ask about this cake deal. I’ve been learning quite a bit from the ladies at school each day I drop/pick M up from school. The latest was on tea time and buying real estate. Quite interesting!! Can anybody enlighten me on this birthday cake deal?

This is why we chose to live off base so that we can experience things that are different than what we’re used to and have silly things like this to ask people about {::SMILES}.

On to the card…

I made this card at 3 a.m. for a challenge at the Shabby Tea Room and the Color Throwdown. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of this color site! Lately I’ve been paying more attention to challenge sites and some of the color challenges that I’ve seen are just BEAUTIFUL!! I will be doing more different types of color challenges for sure but for today let me just focus on this!

If you’ve never participated in a Color Throwdown challenge this week is a GREAT time to do it. It’s they’re 100th challenge celebration and they have loads or prizes to win, about $1700 worth!! Clear and Simple is sponsoring one of the prize, a $25 gift cert to their awesome store!! So hop on over there right now to check out all the details. The deadline is the 12th!

For my participation I created this card using their colors, they use Stampin’ Up! color names but you can use whatever that’s close to those colors: Baja Breeze, Real Read, Certainly Celery, and Regal Rose. For my color I used all those colors but the Certainly Celery. For my green I used Mellow Moss. I got my SU stamp pad set before Certainly Celery came about. For the embossing I used one of the Nestabilities label #10.

I hope you all have a great one! More crafts and stories later!!

Materials:

Cardstock: SU
Pattern paper: My Mind’s Eyes
Stamp: Clear and Simple Kind Deeds and Waltzingmouse Very Vintage labels #10
Accessories: Martha Stewart ribbon, American Craft butterfly and rhinestones
Tools: Nestabilities labels #10 and Sizzix

The Color Room

Posted on | June 27, 2010 | 11 Comments

Happy weekend everybody! Hope you’re enjoying a wonderful Sunday. We are!!

Last night I got the chance to do some scrapbooking. It was NICE!! The picture I used was the one I did a tutorial on at TDC. While I was looking for some inspiration I came upon the Color Room’s colors and sketch. The sketch I didn’t quite follow all the way. I have the title and three photos and although the journaling isn’t quite where it’s suppose to be on the sketch I did add some. I don’t journal much on my pages. While I love scrapbook sketches I’m not a big fan of color challenges. Unlike cards it’s very hard for me to stick to certain colors on a page. There are just too many pretty embellishments or paper with other colors on it ya know. But I did it and pretty happy with the end result. The page is pretty simple. It just looks busy with all the patterns on the paper.

Page Details:

Let me see… all that you see here came from part of a Studio Calico kit and an October’08 Scarlet Lime kit. Yes, I am still trying to use my old stash up! There is a KI Memories La-Di-Dah flower button, some Prima flowers and alpha, Martha Stewart butterfly punch, Basic Grey paper and stickers, and Creative Imaginisce paper.