A Herd of Holiday Happenings

I've been a negligent blogger. I missed posting about a few special happenings in the last few weeks. Firstly, the bulbs that I got for Christmas are blooming! I know that's not a big event, but we must find joy wherever we can... {grin}

And speaking of flowers... Happy Valentine's Day everyone! My wonderful hubby of 27 years, gave me TWO bunches of tulips. He said that he couldn't decide which ones to get me, so he got them both.

Here are the pretty pink ones. Oh, also notice the new pictures that I put up in the entry way.

I think these are my favorites... the white ones! They are so big and beautiful!

I also missed mentioning the birthday of my best-est friend, Mary. Happy Birthday, Mary! I hope you enjoyed your day!

I make Mary a new rolodex card on her birthday every year. This is the card for this year. LOOK! It's us in She Art style, lol!

It was also my niece's 10th birthday. I can't believe that the youngest of the cousins is now 10! They are all in double-digits now!

It was also my brother's and SIL's birthday. My brother is the youngest of the cousins of my generation, and he just turned 50yrs! Now I'm feeling old {sigh}. BUT I still had some people at his party convinced that I was the younger sibling... Take that, Randy!

Saving the best for last... It was Jim's 60th birthday! Happy Birthday, Honey. You're not getting older, your getting better!

That was an "all over the place" post. Thanks for stopping by!
I hope that everyone has a wonderful "Day of LOVE"!

Typography 101

I'm taking a typography class with Chris's friend, Thalita. It's an on online class. She's in Costa Rica, I'm in the US... isn't the internet a GREAT thing? It makes the world so much smaller.

I've always been interested in typography. I tried to take a class at the local community college, but it's always full. When I found this class taught by Cathy Z, I signed up! The first week she gave us 10 tips for creating and placing type. This week we are supposed to use what we learned and create a scrapbook layout.

Here is my homework assignment. It's a layout of Cheryl's birthday:

Here is my challenge assignment... a layout from the Disneyland 5K:

Look! TWO layouts this year! I've already doubled the number of layouts that I finished last year! YAHOO!

Disneyland 5K - take two

Here are a few more photos from the Disneyland 5K.

If Cheryl was one step more forward, this would have been a picture of all three of us:

There's my girl!

And look! I have proof that I beat Chris! I need to bask in the glory now, because I know it will never happen again, hahaha!

That's all for the Disneyland 5K... now we are looking forward to the Brea 8K!

Disneyland Neverland 5K

Welcome to the "Happiest Place on Earth"!!! We are planning 12 races in 2012, and this is our FIRST! It's Friday and tonight is the Neverland 5K through Disneyland and California Adventure (this is probably the only time when you will ever see Chris wearing a Tinkerbell shirt).
I took half day off work. Cheryl got home from school about 2pm. As soon as Chris got back from class. we left for the park.

We spent about 5 hours in the park and went on a few rides.


We stayed until the park closed. It was very peaceful being in the park while no one else was around.


We had time to head back to the Mickey and Friends parking structure before the race. We got suited up!

And one of us got in a power nap.

We went back to the park... and it was one BIG PARTY! There were costumed characters walking around, floats, music, and fireworks! I added a short video below of the starting festivities and the race.




We started in wave #3. We stayed together, passed everyone in our wave, and passed all the walkers from wave #2. We finished in 28:08... that's a new PR for Cheryl.

This was Cheryl's second race ever. She had a great time and can't wait for the next race in February!

Poor Jena-girl, got left out. Since we all ran last night, no one feels like taking her running this morning.

We didn't get home until almost midnight and it was 1am before all the showers were done. We all slept in and had a late starting weekend. I hope you are having a great weekend everyone!

Inspiration, Sketches and Family Fun!

I had a very fun week last week. First, last Sunday night, we went to Hollywood to see:


Jim got tickets for the whole family for Christmas. It was at the Kodak Theater on Hollywood Blvd. That's the same theater where they hold the Academy Awards. It's a BEAUTIFUL old theater! We had great seats, right down in the orchestra section.

It was amazing! It's so hard to describe what it was like... it was a sensory overload and made my mind open to all different kinds of possibilities. I saw things that I wouldn't have thought were possible. It was very entertaining, a wonderful show, and a great evening! I'm telling all the guys at work that they need to take their wives/girlfriends for Valentine's day.

Only a few days later, I went with my mom and dad to see Cat's at the OC Performing Arts Center. It was a GREAT show! I didn't know what it was about and was a little confused in the opening scenes. With the space ship taking off, I didn't know whether it was going to take place on another planet, or if the Cats were aliens. On top of that I thought they were saying the cats were "angelical" or "evangelical"... turns out they are just "jellical," hahaha! I still don't know what the deal was with the space ship, but they are on Earth and the Cats are cats. It was my dad's first Broadway play, and my mom's second. They both really enjoyed the show. (Not as much as Jacob's shows, of course)

From great works flows great inspiration! Here is my start on a couple of new She Art girls. This first one features Scarlett, the female lead in Iris:

This second one is inspired by Cats... Hmmm... This one needs work. The cat needs a more cat like pose. The background needs more interesting content too. BTW, did you know that the play Cats is inspired by a book by T.S. Eliot?

I hope everyone has a great week and stays dry!

Family-Time...

If you are a follower, you saw my card post from yesterday. So what is the rest of the family doing, you might ask...

Well, Jim is spending his free time learning Spanish to get ready for his and Chris's trip to Costa Rica. He's using Rosetta Stone and Cheryl's old laptop to teach himself.

Cheryl and Jena went running today. Here is what the aftermath looks like, hahaha. And here's exciting news! Cheryl's girls are in a tournament this weekend and tied both of their games today!

Chris is doing this and that... He's playing with his new graphics design tablet and teaching himself new techniques in Photoshop. He's also brushing up on his Spanish. Oh, and he's taking care of some miscellaneous details... like mending his jammies.

You can see the spot in the lower part of the picture where I've already mended his pants once. The spot in the upper part of the picture is where he mended it...

Well, hey, it works... no more hole, lol! Don't worry about Chris... I ordered him a new pair of jammie bottoms from Old Navy this weekend. If your looking for a deal... men's flannel jammies are on sale for $5.92.

It's a lazy weekend at our house... AND it's a long weekend for us! 3-days off, YAHOO!!! Happy Birthday, Martin Luther King, Jr!

The Card Kit Club...

We were going to come up for a cute name for this Club, but I don't think we ever did (I'll have to go back through my emails to check)...

Anyway, this kit club is the brainstorm of Beth. She's the brains behind the group. I'm so flattered that she asked me to play! The idea is that the members take turns putting together a little card kit for the other members each month. We create a card using at least two of the items and share on our blogs. Here is the January kit from Beth. Look at all that Valentine goodness!

I had a GREAT time working with this kit... a real GREAT time! After I was done, this is all I have left. I still think there might be something there to use for a special card for my hubby.

I made SIX CARDS! SIX CARDS with all the goodies from this kit!

This first card was my initial brain storm. I just knew I wanted to make a shaker out of those cute conversation hearts!

Here's a close-up of the shaker. The plastic bubble is off a package of buttons.

Here is card #2. I just can't resist using stripes! I actually sewed on this one but it is hard to see. The stamped sentiment is from my stash... with Jim and Chris brushing up on their Spanish right now, I thought that it would be fun. BUT, I think this card is too girly for my guys.

Here's a close up of that card. The pink clay heart had a great patterned texture on it, but it was hard to see, so I covered it with blue paint, then wiped it off. Instant texture!

I love the simplicity of this card. I added some buttons and bakers twine from my stash.

Here's a close up...

I thought it would be fun to use the medium sized hearts as flowers. Here is what I ended up with!

I just love these clay hearts and wanted to highlight one on a card. Again I used acrylic paint to make the pattern stand out more.

By now, I've run out of any sizable pieces of paper, so I grabbed this scrap of heart paper from my stash. I didn't have enough to cover the whole card, but I like the way it came out.

Beth sent us those punched heart borders! What a cute punch!

We'll that's my crafty week! If you enjoyed these cards, head on over and checkout what the other ladies have made with this cute kit!

Beth
Mara
Diane

Happy Birthday Cheryl!

Cheryl birthday and her first week back at school! I made her this card... if you can tell, her week did not go well at all!
Who in the world has a toilet paper stamp? UNITY! Cheryl's classes were completely messed up! It took all week and many hours to get it straightened all out.

Chris got his crafty on and came up with this cute card for his sister. Didn't he do a GREAT job?!!!

What does a 22yr old want for her birthday? GUESS...

Happy Birthday, big girl!

New pictures

I'm on a wall decorating spree! It's amazing how just changing the pictures around in a room can make it feel like new! I've never been a big wall decor person, but with Cheryl's help, I managed to put together a nice wall.

The drawing by Cheryl isn't new... I just moved it from a different wall. And I added a couple of my favorite layouts of the kids. The highlight of the wall is my Christmas present from Chris. Isn't this great?!!! It's a panorama he took of Positano, Italy last summer. I really LOVE it!

The first card of 2012!

Here it is! My first card of 2012! It's in anticipation of a couple of co-workers getting engaged... he said that he's "popping the question" on Valentine's day!




In typical Pile-It-On style, I'm entering it in several challenges:
PIO - Anything Goes
Scrappin' Mojo - January Sketch Challenge
Simon Says Stamp - Something New
Unity Friends with Flair - Anything Goes
Unity Kit of the Month - Sketch Challenge
Color Combos Galore - Challenge 213


Unity Friday Friends with Flair

2012 Word of the Year - GO

I want to get motivated to get more things done this year! I want to enJOY my days (my word from last 2011). So the word I picked for this year is "GO"!!!

I get a feeling of excitement and anticipation before a race. That is the feeling that I want to have each and every day when I wake up. Then "ready, set, GO!" The horn goes, off and I take off running! I want to run into my day with that spurt of energy and sense of purpose. Then at the end of the day, like the end of a race, I want that great feeling of accomplishment! So I am GOing and starting the year off with a BANG! Happy New Year to EVERYONE!

Below are my past year words and a few of my other favorite ATCs: