My CHA experience

It's come and gone and my first time going to the Craft and Hobby Associations big show was a blast!!!
Yup all four hours of it!!! I went on Monday morning. Walked around with Robin. Thanks Robin for letting me tag along with you. I did some make and takes and just cruised around the diff. booths.

But isn't CHA a whole week thing? you ask... Yes but unfortunately with little kids, work and my so called life just couldn't let me enjoy it anymore than that. But I'm not complaining. I got to observe a lot of things and let me tell you.....there are a TON and I mean a TON of cool stuff coming our way. I can't wait till all the new releases hit my local scrapbook stores' shelves.

Here's my recap in pictures....
Here's me proudly showing off my ID. This was actually taken when I got home. I felt I needed something to visually represent where I was so I had my son Marcus take this photo.

So onto the details...
I got there bright and early. Walked around and when I was just about to start making a very cute make and take, the fire alarm of the convention center went off.....I'm not that fazed about this cause we always get it at the mall but apparently there was a small fire so everybody had to be evacuated. And I thought the show was 'inside' the convention??? LOL.

So after that whole thing we were let back in the building and I was able to finish this cute project from Daisy Bucket. I made the pink one. These chipboards are so adorable and can't wait for them to start shipping to the stores. The prices are great too.

And here's some great projects that was on display. Man! there's definitely talented people out there....
Kaiser Craft

EK Success

Martha Stewart

7Gypsies

I just love the whole feel of this booth.

I was very surprised at the "traffic" during that time. I really honestly thought that the center would be packed and I would be walking around continuously bumping into people. I think the economic problems have hit CHA. Just my thought.


And when I thought things couldn't get any better than this...I met up with my good friend Heidi. She's a blast! I loved seeing her make her ways through the booth. She certainly have such a fun spirit. Love ya girl.



So there.... CHA was a lot of fun, met up with new and old friends (all of them fun), got to do some cute projects, took home a LOT of Catalogs (can't wait to see what I can do with them), learned a few things about the industry and definitely wanting to go back there again (if they're in town)

Till next time,
Grace

Together forever card

With another challenge blog and a new embossing template in hand I was inspired to make this card....


I loved the result! I was very surprised at how easy this all came together. As you can see I'm a big fan of die cut machines now and can't see myself not using the cricut expression and my cuttlebug.


added an SEI ribbon to finish off this card.


thank you for looking.

Till next time,
Grace

My Valentine Project for this year......

I was inspired by this challenge and made this for valentine's.......

"heartfull" frame


I made 2" squares of different kinds of hearts. Used pretty much scraps here.




a close up of each block....
word block


painted, glittered and added a rubon


full of flowers


stitched with bling


buttons


transparency plus a heart felt


I stitched a ribbon in the middle.


I added a word "love" outside of the frame. It was cut from cricut. I added it outside cause with the middle ribbon in there, I knew the word wouldn't hold up so I left it outside.


thank you for looking.

Till next time,
Grace

misting away.....

I finally tried a new technique. It's been a long time since I went out of my "box" and tried something new. I've heard about glimmer mists for a while now and have been in awe of all those projects that are made using it but really have never had the interest to try it for myself until now......

This challenge blog got me all intrigued. I love the samples the DT's made and decided I'd jump right in and give it a try.

First, I had to buy the product. (embarrassed red here) I do not have that item in my stash and now after trying out one color, I wanna collect them all. I got mine from this company.

I got the copper one since it looked like it was the most popular one. You know how I've come up with that conclusion? it was the last bottle on the shelf. hahahahahaha!

So I got home and tested it. Word of warning- it's pretty messy. If you spray it on your project, you have to spray a little far from your project so it wont be blotchy. Therefore the mist gets to a lot of things. After that incident, I decided to mist away inside an empty box. This way, the mist/mess is contained in the box.

Ok so onto my project....

Flawless by nature



I used the mist as a mask here. I punched out a few 2" square scraps, laid them onto white cardstock with a grid design in between each one. You can adhere the blocks with repositionable tape but since I didn't have that I just laid them on and it was fine. Then I sprayed away, making sure I was getting enough mist in between the blocks to show that grid design. Then I let it dry overnight.


I also cut out this vine flower design from that wonderful machine I call the Cricut *wink* using the home decor cartridge. I cut it out from a purple cardstock and felt that it needed to have the glimmer mist on it as well so I sprayed some of it on there too. It's a good thing cause it matched the theme better than if it wasn't sprayed with the mist. After it dried, I added some paper flowers from Petaloo.


Made the block title using some fun things cut out from the cricut again (frame block and Nature word)


I'm inlove with these ticket stubs from Creative Cafe. They're so much fun!


So there you have it. My first experience with glimmer mist was great and you can bet that this won't be the last time I try this technique.

Till next time,
Grace

I want these......

I was going through my fave blogs and stopped by the Queen and Company page and found these fun new products that will debut at CHA. I'm so excited, I get to go this year and I'm looking forward to seeing these fun stuff in person. The best part of it all for me is it's totally affordable!!!! Now that's my kinda scrapbook supply.

Queen & Co New Felt Fusion Borders - Retail $1.29
We have created all new 1" wide felt borders sold in 12" strip packages that retail for only $1.29. These great self adhesive embellishments make perfect borders! Or, grab the scissors and start cutting!


Queen & Co Foam Letter Stickers - Retail $2.99


Queen & Co New Bucket Kits
Included in this release are new Queen & Co Bucket kits. Fabulous themed embellishments poured into adorable, reuseable buckets! Grab yourself a Bucket of Baby, Boy, Girl, Summer, Magic, Queen or Love. Buckets are overflowing with fabulous embellishments including, big brads, glitter brads, flocked brads, printed brads, sequin flowers, felt flowers and ribbon buckles! Everything you could ever need to embellish your hand crafted creations!



See some great projects sampling these products here. I'm sooooo excited!!!!

Till next time,
Grace

I'm a challenged kinda girl....

I don't mean in a physical handicapped kinda way! I just LOVE scrapbook challenges! I like that an outside influence can determine the next project that I'd be making. Here's some of the finished layouts that I made for specific challenges. I'm adding a link for each challenge, just in case you are in need of some inspirations, you can join in too! *smile*

Scrap Schemes
I found out about this great blog from Scrapbook.com message board. I love that they give you a non scrapbook item to be inspired from. I used the curtain inspiration for this layout.

Family Movie Night


I was inspired by the elegant feel of the curtain and used the 5th avenue line from Making Memories for this page.


Scenic Route
There monthly challenge for this month was a free for all, meaning you can use whatever lines from that manufacturer you want for your page. I jumped in the game cause I really wanted to use up the great Sonoma line. I love the colors of that line.

Superbowl Sunday


Love that the papers are double sided too. I torn the edges of some of the papers and the pattern from the other side added a great little touch to the torn part.



Journaling:

Sunday plans were that we were to go Dana’s ward for his baby's blessing then off to his house to eat and watch the big game. We did all that except watch the game there. Mitch and I had to bring Maddie home early because she wasn't feeling good. Our poor baby had been running a fever, throwing up and had a bad case of the cold. The other kids wanted to play with their cousins so Grandma and Grandpa took them home later that night.

Here are some pictures of what our "quiet" Sunday night looked like- TV on, a sick baby underneath a thick blanket with a "puke" bowl right close to her, some experimented mixture of snacks, Daddy doing some bill paying and Mommy sneaking in some pictures

SCS Stash challenge.
Every month Kristi of SCS hosts a challenge where the focus is to use products that we already have in our "stash". This months products were:
Stamped Image
rub-ons
transparency (no specific size)
paint
any type of hand punch
1 piece of solid cardstock (use at least 1 12x12 piece)
alphabet stickers
felt or fabricand

I used- felt, alpha stickers, transparency, paint and a hand punch.

The cost of love


I used an alpha sticker as a mask to make my dollar sign.


Journaling:

We didn't do anything to celebrate on Valentine’s Day. Our expedition was having problems and Mitch spent all day fixing it. When he got home he apologized that he didn't have time to buy me flowers. I didn't really expect it; all I wanted him to do was fix my car. :) But then the following day he surprised me with a dozen of roses. What a sweet guy. The funny thing was that he was so proud of himself that he got the flowers for a bargain. Since it's the day after the hearts day, the flowers were half off! You might think he shouldn't have told me that, but I thought that was the best part of it all.

So there you have it..... Have a great weekend.

Till next time,
Grace

PSA

Some public service announcements here.....

Aeropostale is doing something great. Click here for more information. It'll make buying that new pair of jeans that you've been eyeing, worth it.

and I've added some new items in my etsy store. I made some handmade cards and put together some cool sets from it that I'm sure you wouldn't want to pass up on.

Here's some sneek peeks....



More info in the store.

Till next time,
Grace

want some love???

some scrapbook love, that is!!! Well SCS has this great stash of stuff to give out. Follow the rules in their blog post and you might end up with all this yummy products. Ooohhh, I LOVE em all.



Till next time,
Grace

Abalone cove

On Saturday I was scheduled to work the closing shift. It's unusual but I was happy cause that meant that I had the daytime to scrapbook.
I did scrapbook but not as long as I have hoped for. It's all good though cause Mitch decided we should take a trip to the Abalone Cove Shoreline Park and see the fun sea creatures you can touch and feel by the tide pools.
The kids and him have been there before ( on one of those days that I was working all day) and thought that I might like to see the beauty of it for myself.
It was great! The weather was nice, the hike to the shore wasn't bad (and a little exercise didn't hurt me) and the fun I spent with my family was priceless. I can honestly say that I didn't mind trading my scrapbook time for this. Here's some pictures from our trip.....

When we got to the park, the sun was at it's highest so this is the best that I can do....


Here's Marcus proudly showing off a hermit crab. I cannot believe how much he's grown.


Here's dad and Maddie exploring what's underneath the water.


Dad finding a starfish.


and me and Maddie. One of my goals this year was that I wanna make sure that I have a picture in every activity that we do. I was going through my pictures from last year and felt kinda sad that I wasn't in on any of the actions. I took lots of photos but not a lot of me in it. So I'm changing that this year!


I was trying to catch a picture of the waves here.


We also saw some dolphins swimming by and sadly a dead seal on the seashore. Maddie freaked out about it and said that she didn't want to walk pass that again cause she was afraid the DEAD seal will eat her! Funny girl!

And since today was a historical day for the nation, here's my picture of it all. I wasn't one of those lucky people to see it in action but I did watch and listened to it. I was in the middle of my workout when Obama was sworned it. Great speech but not the perfect one to listen to while running, I might say. *smile*


Till next time,
Grace

don't know what to talk about.....

I really feel that there's a need to add a new post today since it's been a few days since the last one was added but frankly, I really don't know what to say???? Ok I do have stories to tell but I don't know where to begin. What's so important that I need to tell the world about? Hay, decisions, decisions, decisions!!!!

And because I can't decided, I'm going to make this post a smorgasbord (sp?) of all sorts of things......

First off- family is doing ok. We are trying to get Marcus to start reading but we're not off to a good start. He's very unfocused! I consulted my preschool teacher today and she says it's bec. he's not mature enough. I hope so but in the back of my head, there's a little voice saying that he might have some learning disability. I'm going to talk to his teacher tomorrow and see what she thinks.

Second- fun links....

I'm so excited to go to this! It's my first time and I can't wait to see all the new products that's coming out for scrapbooking. I know I'm going to be like a little girl in a BIG, HUGE candy store!!!

Did you know that SCS has a blog? and did you know that we give out friday freebies? Check it out here and you might just win something fun. *wink*

It's winter but it doesn't feel like it here in SoCal. I know I shouldn't complain about my 85 degree weather considering some states have average highs of 35 but I still want it to be a little cooler so I can make this. I just love this dessert for winter time.

One of the things I love about my job is that I get to see new clothes come out. I just love the new colors that Aero has instore for spring.
I want to buy this,

this,

this

and this.

Went on a date with hubby last friday. We went with our good friends the Williamsons and we ate here. It was my first time and I liked it. I loved the tri tip and the St.Louis Ribs.
Then we watched this.

Great movie. It's one of those that makes you think about age and death.

And finally a couple of new layout shares....
You're One of a kind

Sweet Makers

Thank you for stopping by and till next time,
Grace