Quick easter shots and a chance to win something....

Ok so here's the deal, I have TONS and I mean TTTOOONNNSSS of cute pics to post about the Easter weekend but unfortunately I don't have the time to share them all with you at this point. Life is life, what can I say. But to give you a little teaser... here's the kids (small and big kids) getting their easter eggs hunted down.



-PULLED OUT FOR PUBLICATION-




Oh and if you go over the coconutshop's blog there's a chance to be in a drawing for free stuff! gotta love that! here's the link- http://coconutscrapbooking.blogspot.com/. Goodluck!

I promise I'll be better at the end of the week.

Have a great day,
Grace

a spontaneous day plus a confession.....

Ok so if you know me and I mean REALLY know me, you're very familiar with my love for routine. I have kids that are very active and the only way for me to have some kind of sanity is if I put all of us in a routine where they know what exactly they're gonna do on a certain time of the day. Well it's worked well for us. We usually go out in the mornings running errands, going to school/library/park then go home for lunch, watch some videos then they take naps while I go get some "me" time before they're awake again and needs my attention.


Well today I actually threw caution to the wind and was SPONTANEOUS!!! Didn't have any real plans. The only thing in the agenda was picking up my mom from the train station then going to JoAnns with her plus my two kids and that was it! Well after JoAnns we decided to go to McDonald's for lunch, but it was only 10:45 am. So we ended up bringing the lunch to the park so the kids can play a little and then eat their food. I then started telling my mom that Marcus needed a haircut before Sunday and I'll have to do it sometime this afternoon. She immediately suggested to take him to a barber shop to get a "decent" cut. Yeah, I admit my haircuts are very choppy! Well since she said she'll pay I went for it. After lunch we drove to the place my dad gets his haircut and oh boy was I up for a challenge. Marcus has never set foot in a hair salon before. He's the kind of kid that anything new and unknown is scary for him but I didn't realize how much fear he had for hair cutting. It took me about 20 minutes just to convince him to sit in the chair. Then after that another 15 to get him to actually agree to get his hair cut! I ended up sitting on the chair then putting him in my lap while keeping a tight grip on him so the lady can buzz his hair. I got so frustrated! I keep telling him that he needs to get use to this experience cause when he grows up Mom's not gonna be there to cut his hair. So after all the tears and countless bribery here he is in his new do....





So while we were at the salon, Mom turns to me and tells me I should get a haircut too. Definitely was not in my plan for the day but again she offered to pay so I can't pass up a free cut, right? LOL.




So as for the confession......I feel so horrible that I had to lie to my child while we were at the hair salon. It wasn't your typical white lie either, it was a full blown I know it's totally wrong but I felt I HAD to do it type of thing. You see in the midst of me begging Marcus to get his hair cut, I tried to bribe him. I tried everything I can think of! Tried the candy- didn't work; tried the taking away points from his reward system- didn't work; and finally after many struggles I ended up saying- "I'll call the easter bunny and tell him not to come to our house anymore on sunday since you're not being a good boy for mommy right now!" And I didn't stop there, to reinforce the idea that I meant business, I grabbed my cellphone and started punching numbers as if I was dialing somebody. Placed the phone on my ear and started talking to an imaginary "bunny". Told bunny everything that's going on and the worst part- Marcus just started crying! He didn't like the fact that the bunny's not coming and yet he STILL didn't want to get his hair cut!!! So I ended the pretend call and told him the bunny is definitely not going to stop by our house!
Mom told me to not give up on him and so after finally getting his hair cut, guess what he says to me- Mom can you call the Easter bunny again and tell him that I got my cut and if he could visit the house on Sunday!!! Yeah by now there was no turning back, of course I HAD to play along!!
I did call back and yes the bunny is STILL scheduled to come to our house. All is well now but I'm sure I need some major repentance to do. Sheeessshhh! the things I HAVE to do.

So now that I got that out of the way, I'll leave with a happy news.... this page was picked to be a featured layout at the Creating Keepsakes website today. Fun, fun, fun!!! For those that are not scrappers... they are a huge magazine and for them to put me on their home page is huge (in my eyes at least).

-PULLED OUT FOR PUBLICATION-

journaling: This is how I get most of my pictures, trying and trying until I get the lucky shot. August 2007.
supplies used: software- adobe photoshop cs; green and blue pp plus bookplate- peace starts with a smile kit, two peas in a bucket; red scallop trim- Embrace life by Sandra Krieger, Memory Makers; red pattern paper- Echoes of Asia kit, Jessica Sprauge from Creating Keepsakes; flower brush- eternal love brush set; Fonts- ck_ali’s_handwriting downloaded from creating keepsakes website and Reservoir Grunge, downloaded online.

Have a great weekend everyone and Happy Easter,
Grace

Easy Easter school treat

Just thought I'd share an easy idea I whipped up for my kid's preschool easter treat. The teacher have asked us to limit the candy this time. She had a great point, I mean we "just" had valentines last month and I still have candy from that! So with her advice I went to Target and scored these cute easter themed push pencils at the dollar spot. They were a buck for 10 pieces. Awesome huh!



Anyways I was wondering how to "fancy" it up. So I went into photoshop, used up some of my digital papers and made an egg design that's about 3x2.25" big where I also wrote out the sentiment and my kids' names. Saved it first as a photoshop file so I can change it up next time if I need to and also as a jpeg file. I then opened it up in MS Word, printed off as many eggs as I can in a sheet of white cardstock (cardstock so it's heavy enough to hold the pencil) then cut out the eggs. Then I just ran a couple of eggs at a time through my paper trimmer to create the double slits. Got the pencils in there and viola! cute but cost me next to nothing.



So if you're looking for an easy treat, give this one a try. Oh and if you want my file, i'll be happy to share it, just leave a comment here with your email address and I'll send you either the photoshop or jpeg file, whichever you prefer.

Have a great day,
Grace

Family time

On saturday afternoon we had some "needed" family together time. It's been a while that we've done something since Mitch builts canoes with the scouts on saturday mornings and I have work either in the afternoon or evening.


The first stop was going up the mountains. Mitch is taking the scouts on an overnight camping trip up to "bridge of nowhere" and he needed to see how high the river is. The kids had fun throwing rocks into the river. Plus look at all the texture pictures I took. The weather was cold and overcast. We didn't even stay there for more than an hour cause we were afraid it will rain on us.



Marcus' sweater wasn't gonna keep him warm (Mom's fault for not putting him in warmer clothes) so Dad loaned him his other sweater. Marcus didn't mind although not being able to see his hand was a tough one for a boy who LOVES to touch everything in his sight.




And here's the girls. Maddie really HATES looking at the camera. I tried everything but she really refuses! Hay!




Then when we got down from the mountains and it was only 3:30pm so we decided to check out the Pio Pico Mansion over in Whittier. A bit of history about this place: Pio Pico was the last governor of California before it became part of the United States. It was also a ranch and a farm land. Originally it was around 20,000 acres but now it's reduced to 5 acres. They recently renovated the place and it looks really nice. The lawn area is so great. To my fellow photographers, this is a great place to take outdoor shots! They have a huge grass area plus the patio covered by grape vines are awesome too.






Here's some pics I got of the cactuces they had. (another texture collage)


And here's a shot of the daddy-daughter sitting in one of the benches by the grape vines patio. I love the pic but would have to photoshop that big car wash sign at the back. hehehehehe




And then after touring the mansion ,which is now a little museum, we headed to our local video store and grabbed a couple of videos before heading home.



Oh and we also stopped by a Little Ceasar's pizza place to get some dinner. All in all we had loads of fun seeing some neat places and spending time together is always a treasure.

Have a great day,
Grace

another scrapbook layout.

Sorry if I keep on bombarding (sp?) this blog with scrappy stuff. Promise I'll try to condense them as much as I can.
Anyways this was done for my sweet younger sister (and also for a challenge *wink*). I scrapbooked her feelings/story during the days prior to her wedding. Can you believe it's been about 7 months?

She wrote the journaling and emailed it to me so I can add it to the page. I'm not sure how comfortable she is in people reading her thoughts so I made it somewhat hidden. Here's a sneak peek of it.

So there, thanks Gem for helping me make this page and when you come to Cali to visit, you can take this home with ya! mwah!

Have a great day,

Grace

just lotsa stuff!!!

this entry has lots of things and pictures so I didn't know what kind of title I should name it so for now its gonna be just that- a lot of stuff! hehehehehehe.

First off in the agenda today is to share pics of our field trip to the Children's musuem in La Habra. First time for me and my kids to go there and we had TONS of fun. Well the kids enjoyed it more than I do of course, but for me the best part is the lighting inside the musuem. They had some nice lighting set up, didn't even need to turn on the flash and all the pictures turned out great. I wonder if they thought about moms who scrapbook into the equation when they picked the lights. LOL.

The fun thing about this museum is everything is hands-on. The kids can play, touch, go through all the rooms and "experience" all that the musuem had on display. Very fun.

Pictures from the stage/drama room



Marcus found some "lion king" masks and he kept coming to me so I can take his picture.


Then Maddie tried on a costume dress. She said she was "very, very, pretty".


The only way to get me in the pictures from this trip was to stand in front of a mirror and click from there.


Maddie had fun digging up bones from the excavation area. She loved it so much that that's the first thing she mentioned when she got up from her nap. She kept on saying- "brush and bones".


Right now they have a display of community superheroes, where in they displayed some important people in the community. One of the examples were a waste manager or in other words trash guy. Here's Marcus trying out the outfit.


The kids favorite one was the veterinarian section. They loved pretending to take care of pets. Ooohhh I don't think I'm ever gonna convince my kids that having pets are a pain in the rear!




A grizzly bear display. In this room they had lots of life like animals. Maddie was a little freaked out by the displays.



Ok so onto some other stuff......

Feeling the Easter season so I decided to make a banner. I like the banner idea for each major holiday since I made one for valentines. This one is easy (again).


My thoughts on banners- use your stash (no need to spend money on these things since it's not something you wanna keep forever); make it simple, no need to overwhelm yourself with too many details, unless that makes you happier!; and third with regard to the letters here's what I did....... I don't have a big die cut machine (I wished I had though) instead I went into my word document in the computer, picked out a good font and enlarged it. All 26 letters of the alphabet. I chose a light grey for the font color since I didn't want to waste the ink on making the templates. Printed them off on a sturdy cardstock. Cut them and then used that cut image/letter as my template. Now I use that for everything. The large letters are great for banners and even fabric monograms. Fun stuff.





At Scrapwords, the DT's was given two challenges this month. One of it was to make a page of a fun time spent with family or friends. I chose this pic of me and three of my siblings goofing off in front of the camera. What hams!!!

*Outtake



stuff used from the march kit: love elsie papers and rubons (flower and circles); bracket rubons from Daisy D; flowers from Prima and chipboard circle from Urban Lily

and just for show, a card using the love elsie embossed paper. The bubbles are so much fun to work with. This is a twist on a "miss you" card.





ok so that's it for now.

Have a great day,
Grace

BTW Cheryl asked if I could post a tutorial of the ribbon topiary and Yes, I will be glad to after the class. Just too busy prepping for it to right down/ type the instructions. Oh and this is not my original idea, got it from the Ribbonaire book of Making Memories. just FYI.

manic monday

Multi-tasking is the word of the day here. Too many things to do, so little time!!!

Wanna see my checklist for the day?

1.do laundry. in the process

2.go to the post office to mail my layout for publication plus a thank you card for my "prada" purse. check

3. go to the ribbon store to get materials for the spring topiary I'm teaching at church on thursday night. check

4. Go to the grocery store to buy produce and cereal. check.

5. do some house cleaning. check

6. tend to my garden. spent all saturday getting my spring garden ready and now I need to put watering the garden in my daily routine. check

7. make a family home evening treat. decided not to do this, there's ice cream in the freezer.

8. post some pictures of my kids since this is a family blog and not just scrappy stuff. double check

*these are pictures taken at the tolman machining shop. There was one saturday last month where we hanged out there for a few hours while Mitch changed oil in our expedition.

so now that I've posted something about the family I won't feel guilty to go back to scrappy stuff. hehehehehe. Just wanted to share some fun news.......

my pinkalicious page was accepted in the basic grey gallery. woohooo!

this page won the scrapfaith challenge for the month of february. fun!

Have a great day,

Grace

Scrapwords march projects + a new baby

I've been so busy this week it's been insane!!! The funny thing was when I started off writing down my plans for this week, it was clear. No pressing appointments to go to and my main goal this week was to get some scrapbooking done. I did that, but didn't realize that I'd be soooo cramped with time that there's no time to "play". Much of the time that was supposed to be alloted for just "play" was taken away by work. As a sales associate, you get set schedules but also if they need somebody to cover other's shifts you can be called in to work. So was the case for me this week. I'm not complaining though cause that means more dough in my pocket right?!
So anyways...... here's the projects I made with the very fun, funky, cool and inspirational kit from Scrapwords.
First of all I have to say that this kit is nothing like the ones I've worked with before. I say that bec. the kit was a combination of all sorts of supplies. There was no specific theme or manufacturer which IS GOOD, cause it shows flexibility and you can use these supplies with what YOU ALREADY HAVE ON HAND. Over all fun stuff.

Layout #1 I love to create



(Also for the newsletter challenge) Our theme for this month was "Fuel your Passion: Ways to live creatively". I decided to take on the challenge and with the bubble embossed paper (Love Elsie line) that was in the kit, I wrote down the ways I live a creative life.
Items from the kit: Pattern papers- Love Elsie Zoe Line Ribbons- various Love Elsie Stamp

Layout #2 Shade Beauties



Items from the kit are: Paper- Love Elsie, Zoe line Ribbon- Love Elsie Stickers- Colorfuls, Dude chipboard flower- Fancy Pants

Project: Spring Quote altered item



There was these fancy pants big chipboard flower pieces in the kit that inspired me to make an altered item/decoration Spring themed with a quote there. Happy with the results.



Inspired to add a daisy D sticker wings and doodled my own butterfly body.

And finally to post today.......
My parents went on a family reunion type vacation last week. They went to the Philippines and Australia to reunite with some of my moms siblings. Anyways, one of my aunts who live in Australia gave my mom this bag to send to me. To mwah!!! It's very nice but what makes this my new "baby" - it's a PRADA purse!!!. Yeah, I'm not one to be vain, but when somebody hands you an AUTHENTIC PRADA PURSE you can't help but say it's name over and over again. That's why it earns a spot/post in my blog. hahahahahahaha!




Ok so as of today I have 5 special people/things to take care of......3 kids (Amanda, Marcus and Maddie); 1 precious dslr and 1 fancy PRADA purse. Yeah that's life here right now. ALL GOOD!!!

Have a great day,
Grace

pictures and more coconut scrapshop goodies

Some of you might be bored with the scrappy stuff and I promise I will deliver some fun pictures from our everyday but for right now please bear with me a little as I share two layouts I did with the Coconut scrapshop march kit.

Layout #1 PINKALICIOUS

Journaling: Pink shoes, pink tea set, pink crayons and pencils, even in jelly beans it has to be pink or forget it! This phase of Maddie's toddler stage is so fun to watch. Her unique personality is one of a kind. Truly pink and truly Maddie! February 2008

Layout #2 WISE CRACK!

Journaling: Sunday mornings are one of my favorite things cause I usually get to sleep in a little before I have to make breakfast for the family. Unfortunately this morning I had to cut my "sleeping in" time cause Marcus woke me up. At first I tried to ignore him pretending not to hear him call my name or feel his slight nudge. But then he said this line....

"Mom I need some breakfast! I need to eat or my bones will crack!"

Yeah, who can sleep after that remark right? Needless to say after sharing his "kid wisdom" to me I got up however not with a frown, but with a half awake proud mama smile instead.

*my last plug for this month, if you haven't checked out Coconut Scrapshop- YOU SHOULD! lots of fun goodies in the store. The link is on the left bar of my blog. <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

Now onto our everyday pictures....

This one shows what I'm working on right now. Paint and lots of them. Fun stuff.

A glimpse of my messy desk. Lots of fun goodies to play with with my trustee glue stick taking centerstage.

and finally, look who's finally letting me put "pretties" in her hair. Yup we've found the way to get her curly hair tamed. My friend got me these really tiny rubber bands. They stay on their for a long time. Of course she still manages to take them out but not instantly which I'm happy with. Heck, anything other than a wild untamed curly hair is better *wink*

The key to this trick for us- make her pick what color band she will use for the day and to ALWAYS call it her "pretties".

So that's all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

Have a great day,

Grace