I think it's spring!!

Wow, this weekend was gorgeous!!! We actually turned on the air conditioner yesterday, got a bit hot in the house. But the weather outside was beautiful. We cleaned off the outside table, put up the umbrella and had lunch on the patio. I had to scramble around to find the sunscreen because both kids had baseball games in the afternoon and the sun was hot.


We went hiking this morning with some friends at a new spot called Whitney Canyon trail. It was freeeezing when we got there and windy. But once we got down into the Canyon, it was beautiful. No wind, nice and calm. A nice sunny morning! We hiked along a little creek and had to keep crossing back and forth over the creek. The kids loved it.



Here's one of the 3 kids on a pretty cool log. The sun was in the wrong place for this photo, but when the kids are ready to pose on a log, I have to go with it!!


The Lupine was in full bloom and was gorgeous. I couldn't remember what it was called, so I had to consultant the expert (my hubbie!) when I got home for the name of the flower.




We then went to lunch at Corner Bakery (which I had never been to, it was delicious) and then shopped a bit for Craig's birthday. What a fun day with the kiddies! Hope you all had a great weekend. I've been busy crafting and scrapping for April kit reveals so stop back on April 1st. No foolin'!! Ha! I'm so funny....

When the Bobbleheads come out of the closet...

You know it's Baseball Season!!!


My husband has his fantasy baseball 'Knuckleball' draft today at our house. Lots of testosterone flying around here today. He gets out alllllll the Dodger bobbleheads to decorate and enhance the experience!


Some of them are hilarious because you have to look really carefully to see who the heck they are!! LOL! But some are amazingly good likenesses. Ah, baseball season!

And being the good domestic wife that I am, I made these for his buddies! Chocolate chip cheesecake brownies and Oatmeal Crispies. Except this time I put chocolate chips in the crispies instead of cranberries and white chips. They are SO good! So maybe I made them a little bit for myself too...hee hee!!




Hope you're all having a great Saturday!!

I've been tagged...and a layout!

The lovely and very talented Kristii tagged me this week. And what I have to do it take a photo of me...RIGHT NOW!!! Okay, now that's just scary. This was taken when I got home from work, so glamorous!! I wear no makeup to work and get away with jeans and running shoes. Love that!!


Ah, the joy of a Friday afternoon!! Now i'm tagging these lovely ladies...Beth, Kimmie, Joni, Sarah, and Aimee!! Take a photo of yourself right now and post it!! You're IT!!

And here's another little layout share. I did this at a scrap retreat last winter. I love this photo of my daughter. She just loves the swings in the backyard, our swingset is the best thing my hubbie ever built! Lots and lots of Basic Grey on this one. No surprise there, huh???!!




Hope you all have a great weekend! I'll leave you with a little peek of the April kit from Moments 2 Remember. Such great colors in this one, you are going to love it!!

My Weekend

Are you ready for lots and lots of photos? I had a great time last weekend with my family. It was my mom's birthday, so I flew up to my sister's house to surprise her. But first things first...had to taste my BIL's homebrew!!

He just got all the stuff to start brewing for Christmas and this is one of his first batches, some sort of pale ale. I think!! It was clear and crisp and delicious. I could seriously drink this all day!!

My sister and I then drove up to my mom's, where I jumped out of the backseat of the car to surprise her. I think she was surprised!! And here's what I got for me, a super cute custom apron from Etsy. I got my sister one and of course had to get one for myself. See the white on mine? They are skulls, SOOOO COOL!!! My sister forced us to pose by the Kitchenaid mixer for this photo, LOL!!

Then my youngest brother and his girlfriend came over and even brought a yummy cake!!


We then met my other brother and his wife out for dinner. My mom and 2 brothers all have birthdays within a week of each other, so it was one big birthday celebration!! Cheers!!


And look at this yummy dessert, some raspberry chocolate thing...can't remember the name but it was delicious!


The next day was the scrapbooking expo. We were excited!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Here's my mom, contemplating the huge wall of stickers.


Lots of fun stuff to look at, but not very many things I wanted to buy. I did get some glimmer screens from Tattered Angels that I can't wait to try and filled up my pink bucket at Queen & Co. Had fun watching my mom buy some Pink Paislee papers and lots of Stickles!! My sister and I just had fun being goofballs!!


And here we all are! We were in the Close To My Heart booth and totally made a scene trying to take this self portrait. Then two ladies asked me what kind of camera I had and we chatted about cameras for a while and then got pretty loud. And the ladies wanted to take our photo for us and my sister made us take the photos again because she wanted to be the tallest, etc....all the time the Close To My Heart consultant was giving us the stinkeye! I don't think she liked us making her booth our own personal gabbing space!! LOL!


Thanks Mom and Sarah for such a fun trip! And it was great seeing my two brothers, too. Don't worry Paul...you'll get your very own post very soon! Stay tuned...!

Happy Monday with a treat box!

Happy Monday everyone! I had a great great weekend visiting with family. I flew to my sister's on Friday to surprise my mom for her birthday. I think she was surprised! Then met all my siblings Friday night for dinner to celebrate mom's birthday and my 2 brother's birthdays. Lots of birthdays in March for us. Then my mom, sister and I hit the Scrapbooking Expo on Saturday. I think we boosted the economy for the day!! I then had lunch on Sunday with my very oldest dear friend Beth and that was wonderful. I didn't want to catch my plane, just wanted to sit and talk all day with her!! I have photos and will share them as soon as I get them off my camera.

I did want to share the card and treat box I made for my oldest brother for his birthday. It was the big 4-0!!! It was a challenge to make something somewhat masculine and not foof it up with bling and flowers and ribbon. I used my stamps from Papertrey Ink, I love these birthday stamps!!




I love that little treat box, it's a template from PTI. They have lots of fun templates available and all sorts of great examples of how to use them. I put a iTunes gift card in this one. I used the Offbeat line from Basic Grey and love it. Great, great colors in that paper.

That's about all I have today! Hope you all had a great weekend. I'm going to be a busy crafter this week, I have lots of assignments and lots of things I want to create. I'll see how much I get done! Thanks for stopping by!!

A layout share and a birthday!

I wanted to share a layout that I did back at a scrap retreat last December. I played alot with the Offbeat line from Basic Grey, I just love it. I'm still playing with the scraps!! This is pic of my son at a ballgame in San Francisco. We were at AT&T park watching the Giants play the Dodgers. It's the most gorgeous ballpark in the world. Right on SF Bay, looks out over the water, just beautiful. We were on the side of the ballpark and my son was looking out over the field. I just caught him with the Bay Bridge in the foreground. I so wish I knew what he was thinking??? Maybe if he was wondering if he'd ever be a big time ballplayer?? Or maybe just thinking about asking for more cotton candy!! LOL!!






That's about all I have today. It's been a busy week and there is no break in sight. Lots of baseball and softball and birthday parties this weekend. I do want to give a shout out to my youngest brother. It was his birthday yesterday, so Happy Birthday Paul!!! Hope you had a great day!


He's a fantastic cook, here are some vegan donuts he made at Christmas time. Yum-O!!!


Hope you're having a good week, everyone!

Monday Monday

Where does the weekend go??? I swear, it was just Friday and now it's Monday again. Our weekend was filled with baseball, baseball photos, softball, playdates, cinammon bread, fishing, snickerdoodles and running errands. Sound fun????? Not too much else going on! But I did want to share this cake I made for my BIL's birthday. It's yellow cake in the middle, which I cut each layer in half, so there are 4 layers. Homeade chocolate buttercream frosting...so so good...inbetween each layer and on top. The cake is a wee bit lopsided, but after it was all said and done I could not fix it. So, here it is!



Nice little smudge there on the border! That happened in transit. The kids made a boxful of decorations to use in my BIL's house. The afternoon of his birthday Craig took the kids over to his house and did a full sabatoge. Streamers everywhere, filled the pantry and fridge with balloons, the kids put their decorations up, the whole nine yards. Craig even contemplated putting vaseline on the toilet seat (which my kids thought was hilarious!!!) but in the end opted out of that. Not so easy to blame that on the cute little niece and nephew!!




I am taking another cake decorating class, this time at a real cake/candy shop. I'm doing it with a friend and it's for 6 weeks. I am really really excited because I think i'm going to get alot out of it. My last class was kinda a bust and I can do that scalloped cake border and that's about all. And for 6 weeks my family and co-workers will be enjoying cake every Thursday, so that's a bonus!!

Spring Treat Holder

I've been having lots of fun blog hopping lately and came across this great treat holder tutorial. Actually, my scrappy friend Beth alerted me to this super cute treat holder and I thought i'd try it. I did an acetate treat holder a while ago but it was square and hard to score. This one is a cylinder and thought it would be a tad easier. You can find the tutorial on Betsy Veldman's blog, she's a DT member for PTI stamps and does some amazing stuff!! Here's my treat holder using the March kit from Scrap N Supply Shack.




It's filled with Dove chocolate easter eggs and boy are they good!! hee heee...You could also make this shorter if you think they are too tall. Just cut the transparency shorter. Would make a really cute addition to an Easter basket!!

Hope you are all having a great weekend. We had baseball and softball and playdates today, so it's been busy!! Thanks for stopping by!

52 Sketches...52 Weeks

I recently discovered a 'new' sketch site called 52 Sketches...52 Weeks. They post 1 sketch per week and they are awesome sketches. Enough to give you some direction but plenty of room for your own take on it. Here is this week's sketch, #10:



And here's my take on it. I've been saving these pics from Kayla's birthday for a while and this sketch just really seemed to work for it.



I've been hoarding this Pink Paislee paper forever and finally decided to use it. Love the colors and thought they worked great with the cake. I cut the cupcake holder from a Starbucks hot cup holder and cut the cupcake top on my Cricut.






Notice a pattern here? I've been using tons of sketches lately!!! I like them for cards because i'm still not that good at cards. And I really like them for layouts. When i'm feeling creative but kinda stuck at the same time, sketches are a great way to jumpstart a layout. You should definitely check out 52 Sketches...52 Weeks!!

2 Sketches 4 U this week!!!

Here is the sketch #21 for the 2 Sketches 4 U blog:


And here's my take on it!!


Love this Basic Grey paper, and love using my scraps. Thanks for looking!!!

CPS #106

Here's the Card Positioning System sketch for this week:


And here's my take on it. For some reason, I found this sketch quite challenging.

I pulled my Grungeboard out of hiding and inked it up for that flourish. And I used a new sentiment set of stamps from Hero Arts. I ***heart*** Hero Arts!!

Thanks for taking a peek!!!