link friday....

Hi all,
quickly popping in here to wave hi and to share some links.

I'm hosting some fun challenges and games this month. All of them have prize packages up for grabs so be sure to check em out...

CCS Product challenge

SCS Journaling Challenge

SCS Gallery Hunt

My playlist is expanding week by week.

Borrowed this cd in the library and it's bringing me back to High School.
I know I'm "too old" to like him, but I really like this song.
Maddie and I can't stop singing her "bleeding" song in the car.

Went here today. Spent a ton of money but now I'm set on food for the rest of the month.

California friends and family, we all have an important duty to vote yes on this. Watch this for more info.

And finally, hubby and I are going on a little and much needed date tonight. We're going here. Will post pictures tomorrow.

Have a great weekend,
Grace

Coconut Scrapshop October kit...

Jen never disappoints with her kits. It's always filled with yummy supplies. In this month's kit, my favorite would have to be the BoBunny paper, all the fun buttons and the etsy finds. Here's what I made with it. (I made two pages but one is still needing some journaling so will post that later)

Still Madly Inlove


this page was also inspired by DT Pam's sketch which you can find in the CCS message board and in the inspiration sheet included in the kit.


When I was making this yesterday, I was stumped with a title so I turned to hubby and asked him what he thought. He gave me the title and I went with it. See, who says husbands can't help you scrapbook?! *laugh*


I just love, love, love the Bobunny papers, The intricate design was just so inspiring. It took me a while to handcut it but it was worth it. The buttons were fun to play with here as well.

Happy Fall card

*the green buttons and "happy" stickers are not included in the kit. I love the glittered journaling shape. I added some of those Daisy d's rubon to make everything even.


because the "tree" was a little heavy, I added pop up adhesive on the back of the black circle so it's not resting directly on the paper.

Rustling leaves hanging decoration

-PULLED OUT FOR PUBLICATION-

I bought shaped frame at the dollar spot in Michaels a long time ago. I liked the shape and the wires but didn't like the painting on it so I covered it up with more Bobunny papers (I used up all of that design!) layered some of the fun embellishments that came in the kit and voila.... a cute thing to hang on my wall for this season.


-PULLED OUT FOR PUBLICATION-

as you can see from the back of the project, I changed this item up big time. Hubby came in handy with this project again. The wires had some pink and blue beads in there that I had him take out with some pliers. Bec. the wires were twirked, I didn't want to undo them just so I can get the beads out so he just broke them off with pliers.


-PULLED OUT FOR PUBLICATION-

I love the layers on this.

Kits can be found here.

Will post the other page soon.

Have a great day,
Grace

World Card Making Day

Last Saturday was World Card Making Day. I know what other kinds of day can they have out there, right? But for me this one was fun! And to celebrate I made a couple. I've actually been on a card making streak this week. Going through my scraps of paper got me to be creative. Here's some of my card share....

Always card

this took me a mere 5 minutes to make. All these stickers were from a sticker book I got (a long time ago) at the dollar spot in Michaels.

HI! card

Again playing with itty bitty scraps here. Love these self adhesive blings.

Let's party card

trying some shaped card here. I'm seriously loving my fiskars water threading punch (scallop). I mean I use it on pretty much all of my projects/pages lately.

Love....always

The circle and "always" papers are from a Creative Imaginations journaling pad. The colors were inspired by the fall season.

one-derful card

this one was a fast one too. I like to use scraps of paper to test my stitching before I do it in my project so I have a lot of those scrap cardstocks that have stitches on them. One example is the brown background here. Everything here are still from my scrap bin.

Ok so hope this inspires you to go grab those scraps and make a card or two. Nothing beats a handmade card. :)

Have a great day,
Grace

a Maddie post

Hello October!
One of my favorite things about this month is that we get to celebrate our dear Maddie's birthday. Her special day falls on the 4th. I still can't believe she's already 3!
Anyways in line with her birthday, this post is all about her, our dear little princess!!!

First off, on tuesday (sept. 30) her preschool class went to Liberty park for a "field trip". It was hot but she sure had a lot of fun. Here she is conquering the wall!



and a thumbs up when she got to the top.


and then on Thursday (Oct2nd) we brought snacks to school and I made some strawberries and cream for a treat to the kids. They sang the bday song to her and the teacher got her this crown. How cute is she...


Although her bday fell on Saturday, with work and other commitments, we only were able to celebrate yesterday. But she didn't care, as long as she got her gifts and BOY was she happy to open her presents.
Here's my "attempt" at making her the castle cake. I know it's more like a leaning tower of Pisa if you asked me but I tried.



and here she is modeling all of her beautiful princess dresses. I'm grateful for grandparents, uncles and aunts cause I could've never afford all these fun stuff for her.




we're still missing Cinderella but Christmas is just around the corner. *wink*

She had a blast playing with her favorite cousin Cassidy. They played dress up, exchanged princess shoes and watched the Cinderella movie.

And here she is this morning. Looks like this is what I'll see for the rest of the week. *laugh*


Happy Birthday little princess!

Have a great day,
Grace

right now tidbits....

Right now.....

I'm loving the two days off I got from work. Eventhough it was only two days it made a BIG difference. I was able to make 5 cards and finishing up 3 layouts. Wow now that's progress!!!

I'm addicted to these shows.....




I don't mind eating spaghetti with meatballs in every meal. Doesn't even have to be fancy, just plain spaghetti noddles with red sauce and some great meatballs from Costco. Yum, just thinking about it makes me wanna eat some right now.

I'm planning on making this cake for Maddie's 3rd birthday this weekend. My dear friend Becky made one for her girl and Maddie never forgot about it.

I've "somewhat" reorganized my space. I say somewhat cause I just shoved most of the stuff wherever there was a space but now my table is all empty and going through my stash truly sparked up some creativity in me.

I wanna buy these at Aero. I'm totally addicted now to becoming aero cool.






I'm vowing that I'm not going to buy those paper packs at Costco and JoAnn's. The quality is not good and there are just far more designs that I don't care for. They're just cluttering my space.

I'm feeling rejuvenated and excited because it's another month. I have some goals planned and can't wait to be able to execute them.

Feeling blessed. Got my complimentary copy of this and some fun scrapbook goodies. I have two mini albums in this book and I'm so cheery about all the fun stuff I got for "payment". Nothing beats free scrapbook stuff.


I got a happy email. Got picked up for publication again. It's been a long time since I got one of these happy emails.

So there. I hope I didn't bore you. Have a great start of a weekend,

Grace

my style showcase

Lately I haven't had time to actually sit and scrap. Can you believe it that it's been WEEKS, yes sadly weeks since I've made a page and all I can do is sigh. But I still love to look at inspirations in blogs and galleries and got me thinking of what my personal style really is. And I've come up with the conclusion that I don't sway to any "style" that's been put out there. I just love trying them all. So with this new conclusion, I'll share some pages I've made that fits certain styles.

Digital


Graphic


Sassy


Romantic/Shabby


Sleek/Simple and Traditional


As you can see I like to try them all. So for those that are looking for a midweek challenge, why not try making pages/projects that are out of your comfort zone and make one for each style and see what you come up with.

Have a great day,
Grace

hiking with the family and some links

Hey all!
What a gorgeous weekend we had here in southern California. It was so perfect that hiking with the family turned out perfectly. Mitch and I have been going through some weird schedules that we don't seem to have time to be together as a family so I suggested we go on a hike on Saturday since I don't have to work till that night.
We went up to the San Gabriel Mountains. Didn't hike that far or hard since we had the kids but it was still a lot of fun.
I packed some snacks and the moment we started on the trail, Maddie kept on nagging me for some pop tarts, so after a quarter mile we stopped and ate our sugary snacks.



see the nice clear skies behind Mitch. It was definitely gorgeous up there.


Mitch took a shot of me. It's nice to be in front of the camera once in a while.


Going through these rocks was a breeze for the kids. They didn't even care if they fall in the water.


After about an hour and a half of hiking we finally settled in at this quiet place by the river. Maddie liked to play with the rocks. She would find the most interesting shaped rock and give it to me to throw in the water.


and Marcus couldn't wait to explore in the river. Even the slippery rocks couldn't keep him from having a blast.


All of us definitely needed that time away from our routines. What a great trip!

and here's some fun links to start off your week...

Fall frenzy is almost here at Coconut Scrapshop. If you haven't signed up in the board, do it now. There's so many fun stuff instore for this week long event.

Scrapwords (one of my fave sites) is holding their 09 "Wordsmith" DT search. Check out the details here.

A dear friend was so kind to toot for me that this issue was out and she saw my minibooks on page 98-100, 106-107. How cool is that!

If you're looking for a fun and quick way to spruce up a part of your home for Halloween, check this out.

Have a great week,
Grace

busy bee......

or maybe just a headless chicken running around. I really don't know how to describe myself right now. I'm burnt out, feeling overwhelmed and not really feeling like I'm accomplishing anything these days but I'm chugging along. I can't complain cause I'm sure there's far worse situations out there.
So with that in mind today, I've decided to update my blog. I needed some kind of normalcy (sp?) around here and getting this post done definitely brought some sanity in me.......

Ok so last Saturday we attended Mitchell's niece's wedding. She's the first granddaughter in the family that got married so I consider this a big family event, not that weddings is not big but knowing that the last wedding in the family was mine and Mitch's, I think this is definitely up the charts with very important dates to remember. *wink*
Anyways, going to the San Diego Temple was a first for both Mitch and I. The place is gorgeous, it's really interesting how the temples can bring you peace and take you out of the hustles and bustles of life and bring you closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. I hope that Mitch and I can go on a session there someday.
Here's a few pictures from there.....


This picture was taken by Markus Tolman (Mitchell's second cousin, I think)


It was definitely a llloooonnnngggg day!!!
Lots of waiting, sitting and I even broke the heel on my shoe. Yeah fun times! That night they had a reception at Murrietta. The cultural hall looked great. This was the fancy centerpieces that Jenae (the mother of the bride) had.



Here's my boy. I have to say he's really trained to give a great shot. *laugh*


and here's our "tiny dancer". Seriously I didn't know she had moves. Now I'm definitely going to teach her some choreographed dances. She was so cute dancing with her favorite cousin, Cassidy. She didn't want to leave the dance floor.



and finally some scrapbook share....
I made this a while back but being that we're in the fall season now, I thought it was appropriate to share this seasonal page. Here's Marcus in two different years at the pumpkin patch. I love looking at these pictures and see the difference two years makes.


and here's a fun layout that I had to do cause I'm missing my jalapeño artichoke dip at my Costco. Sadly they don't carry these yummy dip there anymore. *crying*



Journaling:

My day is always a little brighter, my smile a little bigger and definitely my tummy a little heavier when I score this dip at Costco. Everything in the world is just right because of the creation of the “Jalapeño Artichoke” dip- September 2008

You can't tell but I added some "stickles" or glitter glue to the flower die cuts.

I just found out that my oncall shift at work is cancelled tonight. WOOHOOO!!! Totally going to get some scrapbooking done tonight!!! Wow things are definitely looking up!!!

Have a great day,
Grace

Fall Frenzy

Join us October 1 - 6 for a week of challenges, contests, and fun! Daily "Fall Kits" will be awarded and an overall winner will be chosen to receive a Guest Designer Spot on our Design Team with November's Kit! Fall on over into our message board to get all the details!

This is going to be FUN!!! Can't wait to see you there. :)

a birthday post and a little advertisemnt....

Hi all,
checked out the "traffic" on my blog today and I'm glad I haven't turned anybody away with my previous post. :)

anyways as promised we are back to our regular banter around here and to start off our dear Mitch turned the big 4-0 last Wednesday. We had a two part celebration, one on tuesday night with the kids. We did the cake blowing AND eating during our Family Home Evening. We didn't have enough candles in the house to make 40 but in a way that's good cause I'm sure it would've been a big fire disaster if we did.


Haven't picked up my camera for a while so I took some "fun" shots of the family as well. With bad lighting and wiggly subjects, I didn't really get great shots but I love this one...


And then on Wednesday night we went to Anaheim Gardenwalk. A new place just around the corner from Disneyland. We had dinner at Cheesecake Factory (yum!) with his parents and his high school buddy Ken and his wife Angie.


The one thing I really enjoy when I eat at fancy restaurants is the way they plate your food. They can make a simple pasta dishes delectable just by looking at it. Tonight I tried their Thai pasta with chicken. Yum-O!


I got the waiters to sing to Mitch. You can tell he feels very awkward having all the attention to him but he was a good sport about it.



And after dinner we watched this on Imax. Great movie, a little too "dark" for my taste but I have to say if Heath Ledger doesn't get an award for this, whoever judges these awards don't know acting when they see one. He is soooo good, I was afraid I was going to have nightmares of him. LOL.


Oh the Garden walk was a nice place. Still very new, you can tell with lots of "coming soon" posts but the vibe is very mellow and had great fountains. We even managed to get this shot.....


And finally a little plug...
I added a few of this in my etsy store. You can purchase them either as a kit for you to make or a premade one that all you have to do is hang it up. More details can be found at my store.



Hope you guys have a great weekend. I have a family wedding to attend to tomorrow so that means lots of great camera opportunities and on Sunday I'm hoping to get some rest cause my week next week is proving to be another busy one.

Catch you guys later,
Grace