Valentine's Gifts....

I'm starting to work on a few Valentine's Gifts I want to give next month...
Here is one I just finished for my girlfriend. We're having our 3CMG Recipe Club Meeting in 2 weeks and I'm giving one of these to each of the girls.



This keychain album is made from laminate chips you get at your local hardware store (Lowe's, Home Depot). This idea came from Suzy West's book "Scrapbook On The Go" - project idea by Michelle Tornay.



One down, 2 more of these to go! Luckily one of the ones I need to make is for myself - (a resolution I have for this year, make gifts for myself as well as others!!!)

Cute class kit I made...

I didn't take this class but my local store (suzy's scrap garage) sells class kits with instructions so you can do them at home. I made this for one of the gifts I'm giving my husband for our 12th anniversary we'll be celebrating this Sunday...

My day...

Nothing too exciting happened today. Dropped my son and the neighbor's kid off at school and then headed to the grocery store to buy ingredients to make some recipes in my bread machine manual.

Got home, started the food dehydrator with all my jerky meat (it's 7:30pm and the stuff is still drying and probably has another hour or two to go). Made banana nut bread, and just finished a loaf of white bread for my friend who lent me her food dehydrator.

Went to the school to drop off a snack and basketball shoes to my son and then came back to the school to watch the school's basketball game. It was a really exciting game. They played against a really good team but won in the end 28 to 27!!!!! My son only got to play in the 2nd quarter but he scored 4 points that quarter. I am so proud of him!!!!! I'd post pics but it has the school name on their jerseys - for security reasons I'll just write about it. =0)

Anyways...came home, made a quick dinner (if you've never had it, the Harris Ranch Pot Roasts from Costco and their instant mashed potatoes taste like homemade!!!! - that's what we had for dinner, yum!)

Took leftovers to my neighbor next door (we always do that for each other - if one of us brings a dish next door, when the other returns the tupperware it's got another yummy dinner or dessert in it!).

Well I'm going to go get some laundry done and get ready for bed, I haven't slept much lately and I think I'll turn in early. Good Night!

My exciting day...

After finishing my little canvas and spending a few hours doing housework, I decided to get out of the house and take a quick trip to Walmart.

I have a bread machine that I bought a few years ago and never used. I took it out of the closet and decided I am going to make homemade bread today. Oh..the things I get excited about, I tell you! ha ha!

Anyways, I dont' really care for Walmart that much but my friend said they sell bread machine mixes there and also that she bought a food dehydrator there and I want one so I can make dried apples and beef jerky. =0)

Well I went to Walmart, and they didn't have either. I did find a food slicer so I can slice the meat for the jerky but that was it. I went to a bigger walmart (cause the 1st one said they would have the dehydrator) but no luck. =0( Called around to linen's n things, bed bath and beyond and none of them carry them in their stores or they were sold out. So I borrowed my friends machine, bought a bread mix from the grocery store and went home.

I thought I had lost the manual for the bread machine because I've had it for at least 5 or so years and just didn't think I still had it. So I just dumped everything in and turned on the bread machine. I didn't realize there was this bladethingy twisty-tied to the power cord which turns out it's the kneading blade. I realized what it was when the mix and water wasn't mixing, it sounded like it was doing something but it wasn't. So I scooped out all the goop, put the blade on, put the goop back in and started it over, it worked! It mixed and kneaded it and started to look like it was suppossed to! AND.....I decided to check my filing cabinet just in case I might have filed it under I dunno...maybe MANUALS...and what dya know, it was in there!!!! After I had already tried finding the company and emailed them for a copy of the manual and asked if they had recipes as well for the machine....I know have the original copy..I was so happy and because there are tons of great recipes for breads, rolls, bread bowls, etc. that I can't wait to try!

Anyways....3 hours later, the bread is done, it's cooling now, I'm so excited! It looks like it's suppossed to, now we'll just have to see how it tastes.





Tomorrow I might make a banana nut loaf.

As for the food dehydrator, I sliced the meat with my new slicer, have it marianating with some teriyaki, soy sauce, worcestershire, and brown sugar and tomorrow I'll put all that in the dehydrator...

I have to say I've accomplished quite a lot today....but I'm pooped from being up til 1:30am so I'm off to bed now!!!!!!

Good Night!

Just a quick little canvas I did...

I hung some family pictures on the wall above my piano, and it needed something in this one little spot (see before pic here):



So I made this with a canvas I had sitting on a shelf in my scrap room for 2 years waiting to be made into something.....(I think I bought these at my first ever canvas class several years ago at Suzy's garage):




Here is the finished wall, what dya think?

just my luck...

My Dh got out of work early yesterday so we decided to go do something fun. We picked Dave & Busters ( this place is a blast if you haven't ever been, www.daveandbusters.com - it's like a chuck e. cheese for adults and kids, super fun!)

Anyways, we drive 30 minutes to the place and notice there are flyers on all the doors and windows and employees standing at every entrance / doorway. The place is closed for maintenance or something. I was so bummed. So...since my DH hasn't had lunch we go have some Rubio's (fresh mex - YUM!) and hit Barnes & Nobles because my son has a gift card for there from Xmas - I dunno about you, but I don't reallyc are for Barnes & Nobles...I much prefer Borders.

Anyways, after the bookstore we go to the movie theatre. We decide on watching NIght at the Museum with Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson.




I didn't really know what some of the other movies were. We get up to the window to pay and the lady tells us that the heater in that theatre is broken and they are offering complimentary tea or hot chocolate. So we say okay we'll take the cocoa. We hang out in the arcade for a while since the movie doesn't start for about an hour and play some games..




Check out the groovy carpeting in this old place....I used to go here when I was a kid and it still has the same carpet! We went to this theatre cause no one barely goes you can always get a good seat, the new one by our house is always packed.



Of course my son beat both of us and remains the family Air Hockey Champion!!!




After playing video games in the arcade we decide to go get our hot cocoa and find our seats. We put the cocoa in the cups, hand the cups to the teenager behind the snack counter and he goes off to fill them up with hot water. Boy did he ever fill them up. They were burning hot even with the little cardboard sleeves. He put the lids on (you know the plastic coffee lids that are like sippy cup lids?) I think he filled the hot water all the way up into the plastic lids cause stuff was sort of leaking out, at first I thought I was just not balancing the cup right cause it was so hot but when we got in our seats and I was trying to just hurry and get the stupid thing into the cup holder the lid popped off, the hot cocoa spilled all over burning my hand, spilling on my peacoat, shoes, pants, shirt, etc. And boy did it HURT like H*LL!!!!!!! I went out and used the bathroom to run some cold water on my hand and try and clean up, how embarassing. Then went to the snack bar to ask for a bag of ice from burning my hand.

I swear I have HORRIBLE luck, these types of things happen to me often.

All in all, the movie was pretty good, I could've probably waited for it to come out on DVD but I do like Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson and they did a good job on this movie.

This will definitely get the ball rollin....

One of my resolutions for 2007 is to scrap more. I don't know why I always say I'll scrap more and then don't allow myself the time to do it. It brings me so much happiness to create things, and is a really BIG stress reliever for me. I'm so behind in my scrapping it's not even funny but I'm not going to worry about that, as long as I'm scrappin something I'm happy, I'm not going to stress out about how many events I haven't scrapped yet, that my 2006 album never got started or finished, and my 2005 stopped at Summer.

My friend Suzy who owns BAY AREA SCRAPPERS aka Picture Me Perfect asked me if I would be a "Garage Girl" for a 2 month assignment. ONe of her girls is recovering from surgery and unable to design for her so Suzy asked me if I would like to. I was thrilled she thought of me, and think it will be a great opportunity to try new products, and challenge me as well. I get to do 3 projects / layouts using products she carries in her store, turn them in for her to display in her store and on her site and then in a month I get everything back. And get new products to play with for next month! How cool is that?!?

Something crafty to post....

This is for my friend's bday (it was a couple days ago, I just finished it this weekend and am poppin' it in the mail on Monday....V-if you see this, it's a preview, trust me it's even cuter in person!!!!!! hope u like it!)

2007 is HERE!!!!!

I don't know about you but 2006 seemed to go by so fast! And the holidays this year were just a blur. It seemed like as soon as October hit, the next few months just whizzed by.

Anyways, for our first day of 2007, we have a tradition on New Year's Day to have Pork, Sour Kraut and Mashed Potatoes. For as long as I can remember ever since I was little we had this for dinner on New Year's Day. IT's suppossed to bring you good luck to have sour kraut on New Years. A german thing I'm told by my mom. Whatever, I go along with it, I could use some good luck, hasn't seemed to work for me yet but we'll see.

Here is me and my hubby:




My DH and my sis getting some food, my son in the background being a HAM!!!!





The kids (my nephew, my son and my niece:




Me, My Mom and my sister (not the most flattering angle, my bro-in-law was sitting down looking up at us to take this shot):



My mom and her "friend" =)



My sister and her DH:

My New Year's Eve

I wanted to post this sooner but I was waiting on a friend to email me all the pics we took from our New Year's Eve party. I don't have them all back yet but these will do for now. =0)

We had a great time on New Year's Eve. We went to our friend's house, the guys played poker, we did karaoke at the piano, watched the ball drop on MTV, ate yummy food and hung out with good friends! I hope all of you had a very happy new year with family & friends!!!!

Here are some pics from our fun night:

Me and Trisha -



3CMGs -



I had quite an audience around the piano....



The whole gang, any suggestions how to fix the shadowing at the bottom of the pic? I think the flash reflected off the book we had the camera propped on:



Here us girls are, we're a little tired in this pic...



The hosts of the party Ed & Liana and their ADORABLE little guy Jordan...I love this little dude!!!





and one of me and my family:

Don't worry, I'm still alive!!!!

I haven't dissappeared, I'm waiting for a few of my friends to email me all the pics we took on New Year's eve (I didn't take any pics which was a BIG mistake!!!) once I get them I'll be posting an update and lots of pics of my fun night!!!!!!!

Be Back Soon!

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!!!