Europe Prints!

I just finished listing a few color 8x10 prints that I took in Europe. Be sure to check them out in my etsy shop. I'm really excited about how great they turned out.
Last Sunday we celebrated Helen's 93rd Birthday (Dan's grandma) at the Van's Restaurant.
I adore how beautifully they decorate it for the holidays.We spent Friday night at Kelly's apartment watching The Office and making cutesy things with perler beads. I have so many funny quotes from that night.
I made the mushrooms and Dan made the star & square. Sorry for the harsh shadows. We had Natalie and Mark over on Saturday night for Wii. We love playing it because its a fun night & its free.They introduced us to a game called Raving Rabbids. Its a great party game, but let me warn you, its really odd. To the extreme. Rent it and see!
So last night I got a little crazy and decided to try the Hula Hoop challenge on the 10 minute version. And I spun 3177 times!

Thank you for all your warm wishes for my Grandmother. Each day she is getting stronger. My Grandfather (on my Dad's side) had an incident with his heart last week, so we are hoping that everyone gets back to their normal health asap.

I'm off to work on that to do list. I've been enjoying this blog a lot lately since I'm trying to simplify.

Happy Father's Day!

Happy Father's day to all the Dad's out there! I hope my dad is relaxing on the couch a little today. He works so hard. We're going out to dinner with the family in Belmont later today.

There are a few Happy Birthday's in order as well. Happy Birthday to my grandma. She turned 83 yesterday. Here is a simple little card that I made.


Happy Birthday to Vicky who celebrated on Thursday. And to Cathy on Friday! June is a very busy month.

I had Friday off. It felt like the weekend and I loved it! It has been beautiful here all week and the fog started to come in. It stayed off shore for most the day. Kelly & I shopped at Joann's and I bought some yummy puff paint. I'm so addicted to those little guys. They have the best tips too!

Then we walked to the end of the beach and Kelly spotted a starfish. We had fun sifting for beach glass. I found out that I am an excellent beach glass finder!



Had a great time yesterday. After I got off work, I took BART to Walnut Creek where Dan whisked me off to visit my grandma for her birthday celebration. My aunt, uncle, and cousin Kelley were there. We played scrabble and I lost but I put up a pretty good fight.

Then we drove to Danville to celebrate Vicky's birthday. We had fun washing their car since it was so pretty outside. Dinner was great and we talked about their upcoming trip to Washington DC.

I read a lot of my travel book for London while riding BART back home. I'm even more excited since I'm almost done with the first of my stack of travel books! Planning to make another visit to the library tomorrow and do some scrapping. Have a great rest of the weekend!

Happy Birthday Kelly!

The March EBB Kits are here. This is the wonderful main dish kit and I'm totally in love with it! It features the yummy new Manhattan line by Autumn Leaves. I haven't had much time to play with it but I love what I've seen.

I added American Crafts alpha thickers, silver stars from Daiso, and duck stationary from Daiso. This is a lift of my newest favorite artist, Nikki Peterson!


A project came up that I decided would be a wonderful experience. For the next 2-3 weeks I will be occupied with it. I apologize if I haven't responded to e-mails or read your blogs lately. Believe me I can't wait to catch up with all of you!

I did take a break long enough to celebrate Kelly's 23rd birthday last night. Happy Birthday Kelly! We had a fun time bowling in Palo Alto. From left to right: Ercilia, Ryan, Kelly, me, Andrew, Tiffany, and Jenna. Caroline and her beau were there too but they left before bowling was over.



Then we went back to Kelly's apartment for ice cream cake and relaxation. Hope everyone has a Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Lots more photos from my past few weeks

Jenna brought home two Robo dwarf hamsters. They are half the size of our other ones we've had in the past. Their names are Major Sugar Smack and Corporal Fruit Loop. She also brought home a gold fish and named it Sidney Gunggerolf.


I met Lisa on Wednesday at You Name It and we antiqued for a while. I found some great sheet music with beautiful designs and an old copy of Treasure Island.


Then we had lunch at Taco Bell. I had to take a picture of her adorable polaroid camera shirt that she got from Charlotte's Russe.

Dan & I went to Chili's for dinner and they over compensated with our drinks. I've started a new rule that I can only drink from those mini Dixie cups. I fill up on drinks before I even get my food. And in case any one is wondering, i love my strawberry lemonades!


Thursday night we did experimented with Xerox transfers in Maureen's class. I had so much fun and really miss going out on photo shoots. I'll add photos of these since i haven't finished with them yet.

We celebrated Krista's birthday on Friday night with a bunch of friends at a Mexican restaurant in San Mateo. We had a great time just goofing off.


Went to lunch with my family on Saturday afternoon to celebrate my Dad's birthday. There was a huge storm coming in so we didn't want to go out for dinner. Ended up at Rock & Rob's in Rockaway Beach. Jenna had her normal chicken tenders. Mom & I did the grilled cheese sandwich. Yum! We had a relaxing family evening in watching the movie Michael Clayton. It was better than I expected.


Met Mom & Dad at the home & garden show after I got off work on Sunday. The three of us went to celebrate Dad's birthday at Trader Vic's. He loves the Pacific Island decor and great food. The food was great and the service was refreshing. Here are Mom & Dad in front of the restaurant.


I met up with a photographer on Monday to discuss building a photo retouching relationship with him. It was a unique experience. I beat my grandma at Scrabble by 40 points on Tuesday. I beat Kelley later online. It was a great feeling!

Wednesday I found out that I was needed for photo retouching at a publishing company so I was preparing for that. Dan took me to Mel's to celebrate my new job.

Thursday I worked the morning shift at the Christmas store and then ran home. Printed out my resume and then jetted over to San Mateo for my orientation at my new job. I met a ton of great people and several sweet dogs. Brad the dog was my official interviewer. He brought me a toy to play with and he's never done that with a stranger before... I was crazy enough to go to photo lab after work to talk with Maureen.

Friday was pretty low key. I watched Rob Schneider in Deuce Bigalow Male Gigolo. That movie always makes me laugh. Went over to Kristi's on Saturday night to scrap the newest Scrap Mojo challenge. Had a great time talking and creating. I wish I took pictures but I was pretty involved in my project.

Monday was the big day for Jenna. We did presents in the morning and then we all went to work/school. I had my first full day at my new job. Met many more nice people. I really like the environment. Its really laid back and friendly. After work I met Mom, Dad, Jenna, Kelley, Aunt Sandra, Uncle Harry, Zena, & Dan at the Hong Kong Flower lounge. We had a pretty entertaining time. Jenna & Kelley managed to spill tea on the table. Aunt Sandra dropped beef into her beer and then continued to eat it. Oh and we can't forget how our waitress through Dan's napkin at him. They had different ideas of quality service.

We had dessert and more presents back at our house. Kelly & Tiffany joined in the festivities. Here's Jenna with her cake that Tiffany baked! If you're wondering about those native american dolls on the chair in the background...chalk it up to my mom's garage sale sprees.


Our required birthday goofy photo:


Went to Bing Crosby's restaurant in Walnut Creek with my grandma yesterday. She wanted to take me out to celebrate my newly acquired job. I'm so happy that Browntrout gave me a chance! And yes, that is a Shirley temple. I just love how they didn't make me dig for my cherry. Jenna must have told them I offend her with straws. ;)


Jenna, Tiffany & I drove to Redwood City to hang out with Kelly at her new studio apartment. We had a fun time eating pizza and hanging out. We watched American Idol and I am totally in love with David Archuleta's voice.

Confectionery Savage

I finally broke into my November Red Velvet Art Kit this weekend. I added a few other Love Elsie things to the mix. This is one of my favorite layouts right now. I did it as a lift challenge from our myspace group and as a challenge for EBB. Check out the challenge here.

Since I haven't figured out how to journal on the page yet, I'll explain. This is my friend Lisa eating cake at our graduation party in May. Jenna dared Lisa to eat the whole frosting flower off the cake. She told her she'd be a savage if she did. Lisa did and it was caught on memory card. I adore the photos and the saturated colors.


Friday was my first time to bake cupcakes. How did I get to be 23 without ever having made cupcakes? Either my mom or Jenna always made them. But one of my things that I want to do before 24 is to learn to cook. Baking is close to that so I thought I'd start off easy. I had a lot of fun with it.


I brought the outcome to Kristi's Friday night shindig. Dan & Bob played XBox 360 while Kristi, Krista, and I scrapped. The cupcake that has pink and blue was supposed to be a yin yang sign but I messed up and it became spumoni or something...


Kristi and her purple light saber. May the force be with her on Tuesday! :)



Saturday was a low key day. Hung out with Kelly and organized my scrap stuff a bit. Sunday Dan took me to lunch at Jeffrey's Hamburgers in San Mateo. I heart diners! Can't go wrong with my favorite grilled cheese sandwich.
Jenna called me when I returned to work. Banana Hammock's life had run its course and it was a long one. Dwarf hamster's life expectancy is 2 years maximum and he was much older. He will be missed. I don't have many photos of him because he was always moving so quickly but I plan to make a page just for him.

a New Style

Kelly came over and hung out with Jenna and I on Friday night. We played dress up with my great Aunt's mumus. Priceless memories that we'll never forget.

On Sunday we celebrated my Aunt Jean's birthday in Redwood City. I always love going to their house. For dessert we had chocolate covered strawberries, chocolate cake, and ice cream. Here is my Aunt Jean and my Uncle Pat serving dessert.


I played scrabble with my grandma on Tuesday and nearly beat her! I played the word "Zoned" on a triple word score. I beat her for about 4 plays before she ended up winning (by only 30 points). I'm getting better!

I made a 6x12 chipboard album for Jen. I'll be making a lot more of this once my order of chipboard arrives. I can't wait to start doing 6x12 layouts. I plan to list a few on my etsy for $10.

I watched the movie Stardust and was really inspired by the art direction. I've always been a big fan of Claire Danes too. Also watched a cute chick flick called In The Land of Women with Adam Brody in it. We enjoyed watching 310 to Yuma. The story was very touching and the actors were casted well! Leo lent me a musical documentary that I loved called Colma: The Musical. Jenna even recognized one of her classmates father in it!

Dan & I went to see Juno. I laughed so hard and cried too. I really identified with Juno's sense of humor. The writing was really well done and I loved the student film feel to it.

Lisa & I went and got our hair cut today. Before:


After:


We decided to take pictures at the Holy Cross cemetery (Colma) and found Joe DiMaggio's grave!


I adore Lisa's hair cut. Its so perfect for her. We picked it out of magazine while we were waiting.


Its convenient that we are both photographers. I decided it was time for a change. I'll be going to CHA in 9 days and I wanted to have a cute style for the millions of pictures I'll be snapping.

Bind It All and more

Friday night was Golf tournament night for Paradise Valley Spas. Both my mom and Dan work there so I was their guest. I brought Dan's flash since I knew people would ask me to take photos. Here are a few fun shots from the night.

My mom is wearing the purple jacket. :)



If you want to see a great musical, check out the movie Guys & Dolls! I had the pleasure of shopping with Kristi and picked up this exciting new toy, the bind-it-all. I've been drooling over it for a while and got it with a coupon for the retreat! Kelly and I are scrapping tonight. Woohoo!
Some other stuff I picked up during some quality Kristi time.

And just a little peek of something I've worked on for the past few nights... I am quite pleased with how it turned out and should be able to post real photos in a few days. Wish me luck on all my dt submissions. Everything is due tomorrow! Have a wonderful weekend.

Casablanca!

Tonight Kelly and I went to see Casablanca at the Stanford Theater in Palo Alto. I love love love going to old theaters. My favorite part is the organ player in the beginning and end (if its not a silent film). It was so nice to go to a film and not have to take notes. The first time I saw this film was in film school. The cinematography is amazing, so if you haven't had the pleasure of seeing it, go out and rent it now!


A few people have commented on wanting to learn more about photography. I frequent here because he is an incredibly talented guy and knows a lot from his experiences. Check out this article for inspiration!

I'll be away on vacation in Yosemite Monday-Saturday, so expect lots of photos when I return!

This is Friends week

I am addicted to Flickr. I love to leave positive comments for people and I get so inspired by seeing through many different perspectives. It makes me want to travel so much more!

Thursday night Dan and I went to Lisa's new house for home made pizza. It was absolutely delicious!


Lisa was a wonderful hostess. I loved how they decorated the house. The living room was my favorite because of all the colors. All of Lisa's room mates are a blast!


Yesterday I planned to finish my wire wrapped necklace with Kelly. Jenna thought she was coming over to scrapbook so she got all of her stuff out (second time to scrap).


Jenny called me and said she was Pacifica, so she joined in the creativity. I was so happy that I'm seeing nearly all of my local girlfriends in the same week. Incredible!

I love taking photos as everyone already knows. Jenny likes to draw so I gave her my art journal. Nothing wrong with having a guest artist in it, right? :)

Kelly finished her necklace and we are so proud of how beautiful it turned out. I think she's a great model!

I finished mine as well. I took the picture here at work and the lighting is not great, but I was too excited about it and wanted to share. I feel like I've grown in jewelry making now that I have learned how to wire wrap. I also expanded my color choices and feel great about them. The focal bead is a piece I made with a blowtorch (lampwork) last year. I was so happy when the class instructor on Monday complemented it!