Squeaking in a June post

Yes, another month has gone by without a blog post. I justify this because I literally have hardly been home since summer vacation began 4 weeks ago! 

The first weekend of summer I ran my second-ever half marathon. Ginger & I ran this race last year so training this year went much smoother. Here's my all ready to go at the start of the race:

Ginger & me mid-race

Me somewhere between mile 11-12. Not sure where I got that burst of energy for the photographer. Obviously, Ginger & I weren't running were time. We were running to finish!

At the finish line!

Two days later we left for a camping trip. This was our third trip to Gualala River Redwood Park. I love this place! The weather cooperated so the kids spent most of the time in the water, riding bikes or climbing trees.

Group photo!

Here are some pretty things around us:

After we got back from this trip I was headed back out again a week later to Lake Tahoe with my parents, my brother and his family. 

I'm finishing up a short session of summer school with one of my students and after the 4th of July holiday we'll be off again on our next big camping trip. 

On the crafting front, I've been working hard on finishing my 7gypsies mini drawer project from Paula & Debbie at 2gypsygirls. I managed to do the cute make & take at Art Inspired Studios when they were there to teach a few classes but I couldn't make it since I was headed out to the Prince concert {um, best SHOW ever!}so I simply bought the class kit and am just finishing up adding photos. Love it already.

I found these 2 cute projects on my blog roll this afternoon. Yet more projects that to add to my never-ending list of things I want to work on this summer!

This thread rack looks so easy to make. Just buy a few wooden rulers, a bit of fabric I have on hand and some nails and viola! Total cuteness. Thanks to Minitoko's blog for the tutorial! Check it out!

And how about this totally awesome 3D calendar I found on the How About Orange blog. You simply print out the paper and follow the tutorial over at Curiosity Group. Yeah, I know, I have a serious fascination with camping!

.

Happy Monday everyone! What are your plans this week?

It's a Miracle!

I know I have been away from the blog world for close to three months now. I think I needed a break from blogging, keeping up on my blog roll and trolling the goings on in the craft world. I didn't know it at the time, but the time away felt good and now I'm ready to blog it up again!

Lots has transpired since my last blog post. Most notably, my sister had her twin boys! They are now 2 months old and the most precious things ever!

Darren couldn't wait to meet his new cousins. He wasn't able to visit them in the hospital since they were in the ICU for 6 weeks.

Darren and cousin Devin

I called Darren the Baby Whisperer because the moment each of them were put in his arms to hold they were immediately content with each other.

Grandma and baby Griffin

So let's see...on the home front, we are T minus 3 days left of school!  We have back-to-back camping trips planned and I cannot wait! This has been the busiest year for me work-wise so I am definitely looking forward to some R&R.

I have been doing a bit of crafting here and there. I finally finished my Jenni Bowlin Studio/Kenner Road deLovely project kit. I love all things JBS and Kenner Road so when this exclusive kit was released it had to be mine. It's happily hanging in my craft room so I can adore it on a daily basis.

I love this banner because I created it as a homage to my maternal grandparents.

Aren't they sweet?

My most cherished photo ever of my grandmother when she was a little girl. {love!}

Although I wish my grandfather was in this photo, I get a kick out of having proof that my grandparents were campers! Yeah, tents have come a long way since then!

I'll leave you with a sight from my quaint little town of Brentwood:

Yup. Went cherry picking today after picking up Darren from school. That kid managed to pick 3 pounds of cherries in 5 minutes flat!

babies on the brain

My sister's baby shower finally happened last weekend. It's a lot of work to give one but it certainly was satisfying to see the look on my sister's face as she gathered with family and friends and celebrated this momentous occasion. 

She is expecting twin boys and has another 8 weeks to go! I relished in the ability to take a photo of her because I knew that other than this pregnancy and her wedding last year that these were going to be the only times she would gladly pose and smile for my camera. :-)

My sister's mother-in-law is also quite the crafty gal and made these super cute diaper cakes that were used as the table centers.

She also framed these cute baby pictures of my sister and her husband when they were babies. I'm sure my sister is mortified as she's reading this. Ha Ha! Rock that big white collar, sis! Bless mom for making many of our dresses when we were young. I have to give a shout out to her mother-in-law for finding those vintage baby blocks spelling out their last name. Love it!

I was inspired by the lovely Amy Tangerine to make an on-the-spot baby shower mini-book for my sister. I simply pre-made the book cover, pre-punched holes in the bingo game cards and use those as the pages of the album. While guests arrived I quickly took their photo and asked them to write their well-wishes to my sister and her husband on the back on their bingo card. When everyone's photos were taken I printed out all of the photos on my trusty Epson PictureMate . Once the bingo game was over I collected the cards, glued their photos on the front of the appropriate card and bound everything together with binding rings, a few embellies on the first page and added a few pieces of pretty ribbon to complete the look. It was a mad dash to get it all done while my sister was opening her gifts but I managed to finish it. Here's the finished book:

My sister loved the album as did the guests. They were amazed at how quickly the book came together. Just call me fast fingers. {wink}

{Happy Heart Day}

I'm not really a big Valentine's Day person. I told hubby in our first year of marriage that he didn't need to go out and spend perfectly good money on overpriced roses on Valentine's Day. For one, I can't seem to keep flowers alive for more than 2 days without killing them. And two, if he were to buy flower bunches I can't arrange them for the life of me...so, just don't bother. I'd rather just get a new pair of shoes. LOL

I've been on a crocheting rampage of late and I decided to finally make myself a cozy. 

I love it. I stitched it while I was watching the Grammy Awards last night. Jennifer Lopez looked great. How does one get that "glow"? She always looks so together.

This chick definitely wins for outrageous outfit of the night {which I'm sure it was what she was going for}

Nicki Minaj

I have to say that I never paid much attention to Arcade Fire but they had an exciting performance last night after winning Album of the Year and now I'm contemplating buying the album.

So going back to my coffee cozy I also happened to pick this up at  Michael's on Sunday:

This upcycle magazine comes from the same publisher as Somerset Studio. It's filled with tons of great upcycling ideas and it gave me loads of craft inspiration. Check it out if  you can. It even inspired me to wrap my Valentine's Day gifts with the funnies pages from my morning newspaper. 

I guess I was pretty busy on the crafting front this weekend because I also finally had a chance to download and create this calendar. 

You can buy the kit at the House of 3. I scored 30% off since I subscribe to their newsletter. If you hurry, you can still get anything in the store at 30% off by using code love30 during checkout.

What did you create for Valentine's Day?

New Love: Crocheting & Paper Meets High Fashion

Yeah, I know. Another Tuesday has come and gone without a Travel Tuesday post. 

Sorry, I've been too busy getting my crochet on. :-P

I tried to crochet my first flower at last Sunday's crop I went to but it wasn't pretty and I'm not showing you the end result. Yeah, it was that bad!

But, after switching to an easier flower pattern and 3 attempts here is my cute little creation:

Isn't it just perfect?

I've also forgotten how relaxing crocheting can be. You should give it a whirl if you haven't. The vast amounts of video tutorials on You Tube are great ways to learn the craft.

I finally finished my JBS-inspired hearts as well at last weekend's crop.

I also  happened upon a really cool exhibit going on at the Legion of Honor right now. It's called Pulp Fashion: The Art of Isabelle de Borchgrave. 

She was a Belgian artist but her muses were textile and costumes. Everything you see in her clothing is made of paper which she then manipulated or painted. I sort of think of this exhibit as paper crafting meets iconic fashion as her works were inspired by fashion legends such as Coco Chanel and Christian Dior. 

Some of these works have come to SF straight from the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, which was one of my favorite art galleries when I toured Europe. The exhibit runs through June 5th so I hope to get there before then!

I have to throw this in here:

Darren asked me to teach him how to crochet. How cute is that? I couldn't resist taking this picture of him. I taught him the basic stitch and now he is working on crocheting a key chain. A key chain for what key? Don't ask me!

No Football Here!

I know I've been a bad blogger of late. I missed my last 2 Travel Tuesdays but between work and my dear MIL who has temporarily moved in with us due to health issues I honestly haven't had time to blog or craft.

Things are gonna change tomorrow because Darren's last basketball game of the season was this morning {let's hear it for no more twice/week practices and games every weekend! ~ Although I will miss watching him play!}and I'm going to the Art Inspired Studios Superbowl Crop {I think it really should have been called the anti-Superbowl Crop}tomorrow with Ginger and Marie. I have no idea what I will work on but crops usually are social outlets for me rather than getting some serious crafting accomplished.

I really should get my December Daily done but I have been wanting to pick up crocheting again to change things up a bit. I did crochet a very basic stitch that my grandmother taught me when I was a young girl and I remember making bedspreads, area rugs and the like for my Barbies. Yeah, it's been a long time! I've seen so many cute embellishments and crafts being made these days and I saw this video on You Tube late one night this week and my goal is to try to make one {or three!}

I would also love to take Jenni Bowlin's Big Picture Class: Re-Purpose, Re-think, Re-invent that begins on March 31st and runs 6 weeks. I've never used an inspiration board but I love the idea of it. Check out Jenni's inspiration board:

If you've taken this class before, please let me know what you thought about the class. I'm sure it's going to be fabulous. Lord knows I have vintage buttons and doo-dads galore so putting them all to good use beyond a scrapbook page, mini-book or banner is something I want to work towards.

What are your plans this weekend that don't involve football? :-P

antiquing escapades and inspire lovely...

Ginger and I went antiquing in Lodi on Saturday and left uninspired and without a single vintage treasure.

Luckily, our friend Marie was home in Stockton and invited us down for a bit of antiquing at some of her favorite haunts.

Wow. What can I say but she has some lovely shops in her neighborhood. We all left with a little something! Thanks, Marie, for having us and sharing your shops with us!

Speaking of treasures, you know I've been eyeing lots of fun things on Etsy of late.

One very talented gal by the name of Debee Campos has a boatload of goodies in her Etsy shop right now. These are just a few of the goodies I am enamored with:

{lovely dearie paper kit}

{felt flower embellishments}

{Daisy Dear Embellishment Love}

{crochet flowers}

Go check out her store, Inspire Lovely, because it is, indeed, lovely!