Costa Rica - part 1

I'm not sure how many parts this Costa Rica blogging will take. Since I wasn't there, I'm a little vague on the details. The boys left here just after midnight on Friday, March 9, and arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica at 9am Saturday morning (there is only a one hour time difference).

Thalita and her dad, Randall, met them at the airport. It's a good thing they did too! The rental car company lost Jim's reservation. It took Randall and a long conversation in Spanish to straighten it all out. On their way back to Parrita, they stopped at a "soda stand" for lunch. Here a photo taken by Randall at the soda.

Here is another picture (with Randall in it) of the kids on a bridge over a river.

Hey, Chris! Whatcha looking at?

42 alligators!??... like I said, it's a whole different world...

Thalita's parents own a restaurant and hotel in Parrita. Here is the front of the restaurant.

Jim tells me that the restaurant is completely open one side. There are two sides... a take-out side:

And a sit-down side... This place looks wonderful, and Jim and Chris say the food is GREAT!

One more CUTE photo to share today :oD

With Love from Costa Rica

Here it is... the photo that everyone has been waiting for... Chris and Lita:

It's Card Kit Time!!!

It's the most wonderful time of the month! Card kit time!!! AND what makes it more wonderful is that I got to put the kit together! There is so much I wanted to share... I started off with some yummy new MME paper. I was origianlly going for a cupcake theme, but ended up switching to a butterfly theme. I topped it all off with some wonderful sentiments from Unity Stamp Co.

And here are the cards that I created with the kit:

What only three?!!! Yeah, well... I've been sick, lol!

This first card is my favorite. It was in my mind as I was putting the kit together. It uses those gorgeous flower roses and the Be Happy for this Moment sentiment from Unity, and one of the cute butterflies from Dream Big.

Here's a close up of those rolled flowers:

This card is made from the cupcake template that I sent with the kit. I added some old paper flowers, a cute girl stamp from Me & My Big Ideas, a cute Hello my Friend sentiment from Unity, and another one of those cute Unity butterflies.


Here's my last card. Of couse I need to add some mixed media in the mix... not too much this time. The sentiment that I used on this card is from The Best from Unity Ippity.

Thanks for stopping by, now go checkout the inspiration and creative genius of the other ladies in the group!

Mary
Beth
Mara

Happy Birthday, Chris!

I want to start this post with BIG birthday wishes for my BIG guy in Costa Rica... Happy 19th Birthday, Chris! I don't know how my baby got so big so fast! I'm doing the mom thing, by posting a very cute and embarrassing baby picture. Wasn't he the sweetest little guy?


He is a wonderful young college man now! I'm so proud of of the man he is becoming!

Well, while my boys are gone in Costa Rica, I'm at home sick and Cheryl is busy studying for finals. Here's Jena, helping Cheryl study. Jena loves stealing Cheryl's note cards, then Cheryl chases her to get them back. There's nothing like a quick romp around the coffee table to break up the tedium of studying.


The day started off overcast and drizzly, but the sun did break through and it was a beautiful day. Cheryl took a break to enjoy the sunshine, and I managed to drag myself off the couch. This handsome guy came over to play... his name is Ziggy. He's a labra-doodle and just as sweet as can be!

Jena loves Ziggy!

The boys are doing well in Costa Rica. Today they were going to the National Park to see the monkeys. I hope they have FUN!

How I roll a die cut flower

Creating a tutorial video is harder than it seems. I tried three times to get this video right. I kept moving my hands off frame. I was so careful in this last video, but you will still see me move out of the video frame at the end. I really hand it to those ladies who create those online video classes.

I hope this works and is helpful to those who have die cut flowers to roll!

FFF Friday Card Share

I wanted to share this super easy card that I did using the Unity Stamp Co, Fun-gi stamp. It's such a cute stamp and a clever sentiment. I just love Unity's sentiments. They are sentiments that you can't find anywhere else!

Visit the other friends sharing on FWF Friday starting at the Unity blog!

Brea 8K

Here we are at our second race of 12 races in 2012. This is the Brea 8K. Why 8K? No one seems to know, but the good news is that we all PR'd! The Brea 8K has been run for 21 years and benefits the Brea School District. I got the lunch group from Panasonic involved in this one. We registered as Team Panasonic. Even the kids are part of the team. There were two others who were supposed to come... I'm sorry that they couldn't make it.

I even got everyone matching shirts. Okay no one wants to run in a polo shirt, but it makes for a good picture, lol!

Team Panasonic came in 14th out of 81 teams! Yahoo, go us! We would have posted even better, but for some reason they used the top 4 gun times instead of chip times to calculate the team score. We started at least a minute from the starting line.

Like I said... everyone PR'd. Here are the stats...

Chris did a really good job, especially since he hasn't been running. He was our first team scorer. By the time the rest of us got in, he'd already been around the FREE food court once and had a grocery bag full of free food and goodies.



I finished in the top 10% of my age group, that's pretty much where I always finish. 8K is an unusual distance. I didn't want to go out at a 5K pace and not be able to finish, so I went at a 10K pace, but had too much energy at the end. I was the 4th scorer for our team.



This was Cheryl's first BIG competitive race. She was actually in front of me at the 1 mile mark. I passed her at the water station around mile 2. Jim took this picture of Cheryl just before the finish line. Look at that smile! Do you think she was having a good time?




I think that a good time was had by ALL! The race was very competitive, yet no one was pushing or being mean... The Brea 8K might have to be our annual tradition!

A new challenge card

I really love card challenges! They get me thinking of new ideas, new designs, and new ways to use the supplies I already have.

Here is my card:

I started out with a sketch challenge on Scrappin' Mojo.
I CASE'd this cute card from split coast stampers. The card was done with die-cuts, but the cute Ippity "Now & Always" stamp collection made a perfect BIG flower for this card. The elegant looking sentiment is from the PTI Signature Greetings Stamp Set.

Don't you just love that sparkly button? I got that idea from PTI Make it Monday

Thanks for stopping by!

Book Tutorial

Some of you might remember this little "She Art" that I did of the two girls.

Well, I sure hoped the girls liked it because I turned that She Art into a book. One for each of them!

Here's how it's done...
1) Take a digital photo of the She Art canvas (or you could scan it);

2) Resize the image in Photoshop to fit the cover of the sketch books

3) Print them out on plain printer paper.

4) Cover the sketch book with two coats of white gesso.

5) Add a coat of paint to match the background of the She Art printout. Notice that it's not necessary to paint the middle of the front cover.

6) Cut around the printed she art cover design

7) Adhere the cutout design to the book cover using modge podge

8) Use other colors of paint around the edge of the printout to blend it into the painted cover.
9) Add rub-ons and stamps.

10) Continue the painted design around the spine and back of the book.
11) Cover everything with a thin coat of modge podge to protect it.

12) Attach a ribbon bookmark to the top of the spine.

That's it! That's all you need to do to make a fun gift book!
Thanks for stopping by!

Good President's Morning!

It's kit club day! The brains behind the group is Beth. Every month the members take turn putting together a little kit for the other members to play with each month. We create a project using at least two of the items and share on our blogs. This month it was Mara's turn to send the kit. I know Mara from a scrapping MB that we were on together a long time ago. That site isn't in business anymore, but we still managed to keep in touch through our blogs and our love of running. We almost met once at the Surf City Half-Marathon in Huntington Beach. We must have been within 50 yards of each other, but there were thousands and thousands of people between us, lol!

Here is the February kit from Mara. Look at all the BRIGHT colors! This is sure to cheer up the ladies in snow country...

I had only one card planned, but my plan kept growing and growing. Here is all I had left when I finished playing with all the goodies!

And here is what I created with the kit:

This first card is the one that popped into my mind when I saw the kit. I needed to use all the beautiful colors to create a bright and colorful card. The stamped tree is from Unity.

Mara included some adorable stamped images from PSA Essentials. I knew that I wanted to create a card using one of them as a focal point.

Mara also sent some die cut tags. I'm a BIG fan of tags and happily proceeded to add another one of those cute PSA stamps to a gift tag. The stamp on this one is from PTI.

Now some mixed media madness! LOL! All those bright colors went together so well that I created a paint blend background with all the brightest papers and paint. I used the cute buttons, brads, and bling that Mara sent as the center of the flowers. The sentiment on this one is another stamp from Unity.

BUT I'm not DONE! Mara introduced me to baker's twine, and she sent three colors of the twine in the kit. I've also developed a love of baker's twine. I may never go back to ribbon! Here is a card I made for a challenge at Scrappin' Mojo. I used the baker's twine for the kit to wrap around the bottom of the card. It adds a perfect touch!

Lastly, here is another challenge card from Scrappin' Mojo that I made this weekend. Mara sent a lot of bling with her kit that I used on the center of all these little flowers. It's the perfect sparkly touch to an otherwise dreary looking card.

That's it for this month's kit... I think... I do have one more stamped image left. I'm saving it and the rest of the goodies for a rainy day (hmmm.. from the looks of those clouds that might be today, hahaha).

If you'd like to see what the rest of the group did with the kit, head on over to their blogs. Be sure to tell them I sent you ;oD

Mara
Mary
Beth

Have a GREAT holiday Monday, everyone!!!

Puppy and Plumbing

We completely missed Jena's birthday yesterday. Yep, the puppy is now 2yrs old! We had a good excuse... a pipe burst under the slab in the master bathroom. I noticed one of the tiles in the bathroom was warmer than the others. The following evening, 6 tiles in the bathroom were warmer than the others. We shut the hot water off and the next day I called the plumber. So, after 2 full 50+ hour weeks, I'm dealing with plumbers and insurance AND still trying to finish my software release by the 7pm deadline. Whew! I'm sure glad those two weeks are over with!

Anyway on to Jena-girl's birthday post! Jena has really gotten to be part of the family. She thinks she's just another one of the kids.

She even helps me with folding the laundry.

I must say that she's a sweetie, and she puts up with a lot...

We love you Big Girl!