Its that time again for a sneak peek of Urban-Anthology's new monthly kit. This was the very last kit I was commissioned for by my friend Kari, and I had an absolute ball with it. I wanted to go out with a bang! So it has all my favorites in it! There are tons of Webster's, Making Memories, Hambly and ohhh a smidgeon of Sassafras and a bit of Marie Antoinette herself too! (shhhh! dont' tell anyone I leaked that last part out).

You can pre-order "Let Them Eat Cake" now... just head over to the Urban Anthology Store, and it will ship before January 15. December's "Its a Wonderful Life" was SOLD OUT so I'd rush over to get this one before its SOLD OUT too.

I've had an absolute BALL in designing the last 6 monthly kits for Kari at Urban-Anthology because we got to grow our friendship during this time. Its definitely been both a learning and eye opening experience into the industry, and I have nothing but kudos for all those kit club pioneers who came before us. Its HARD work!! But to see the fruit of our labor is sooo sweet!! I'm soo very very thrilled for the success Urban-Anthology has achieved in such a short amount of time. Cheers to you Kari!!

And thank you, Kari, for inviting me to continue as your Kit Designer for the next 6 months!! I"m thrilled and wish you continued success!! (And I can't WAIT til CHA!!! Whoohoo!! We're gonna have so much fun seeing all the stuff IN PERSON this time around.)

Another Belated Tutorial: "Our Vacation" Travel Envelope Accordian Mini Album

Its almost Hump Day and just 9 more days until Christmas!! So I thought I'd dig out these class instructions for this "Our Vacation" Travel Envelope Accordian Mini Album class that I originally taught at Scrap 'N Yap in Monrovia, CA this past summer to share with you all here.

If you have any questions, please feel free to leave a comment and I'd be glad to help you out. Enjoy!

Materials Needed:

• 5 envelopes or any odd number – any size will do, but the larger the better as the envelope size will determine the size of your work surface on each panel and how large your pocket will be, should you decide to use the pockets. NOTE: my envelopes measured 5.5 x 8 inches each.

• 1 Extra envelope to use as a pattern template (you’ll be using this to trace the inside pages as well as the inside of the cover flap. This extra envelope will NOT be incorporated into your envelope accordion album.

• A few sheets of coordinating patterned papers (I used a total of 5 12x12 Heidi Swapp World Traveller patterned papers as I was able to cut 2 qty of 5.5x8 panels from each sheet).

• A few sheets of coordinating solid cardstock (I used 1.5 sheets of 12x12 Bazzill cardstock.

• At least 1 yard of ¾ inch wide ribbon which will be used to tie your accordian album together.

• Various embellishments (I used the entire package of Heidi Swapp World Traveller chipboard accents, a few Creative Café chipboard frames and colored office tags, a handful of prima flowers, 1 Karen Foster large round rhinestone brad, stickles, MM tiny alphabet stickers, Heidi Swapp “Escape” acrylic stamp, and travel themed stickers from Blue Cardigan.)


Tools Needed:
• Exacto Knife to make slits to attach your ribbon.
• A really good adhesive. I used UHU glue stick. I swear by that stuff.
• Glue dots – I can’t live without these boogers as I used it to attach the bulkier embellishments like chipboard and ric rac ribbons, etc.
• Pencil or pen for tracing.
• Paper Trimmer
• Sharp scissors – I prefer the short handled yellow Cutterbee scissors.
• Distressing tool – I prefer my distresser from SU to distress the edges of all my papers and the Basic Grey Distressing Kit for all their various skinny sized files.

Instructions:
1. Glue the INSIDE of the FIRST envelope flap (the area that is usually gummed) to the bottom of the FRONT of the SECOND envelope (this is the area underneath where you would normally write the addressee information (vs. the return address which would be written at the top left).

Here’s a picture of a few of the envelopes lined up, so you can see what I’m talking about. Hope I didn’t confuse you.



I stagnated the envelope flaps so you can see more clearly in this picture.


And here’s what they look like normally when the flaps are glued to another.


2. Now you have 2 envelopes glued together which are connected by just one of the envelope flaps. Continue to glue the envelope flaps together to connect all the 5 envelopes. In the end, you should have a chain of envelopes glued together. On one end, there is just ONE envelope flap which will serve as your cover for the entire album.

If you lay out the entire “chain,” all your pockets should be on the same side. For the rest of this class, we will refer to this side of the chain as “Pocket Side.”

Ditto for the other side, which should be the “front” of your envelope that would normally be the place you put the return and sending addresses. For the rest of this class, we will refer to this side of the chain as “FRONT Addressing Side.”

3. Take your EXTRA envelope that I had you set aside for your measuring template. Measure yours to determine the size of your panels. Cut 10 panels (in my case 10 qty of 5.5 x 8 panels) from your patterned paper stash.

4. Adhere each panel of patterned paper to each of the envelope panels on the FRONT ADDRESSING Side of your accordion chain. You will have used up 5 of the 10 patterned paper panels so far.

5. Now take the same EXTRA envelope that now serves as your template and use it to trace

a) The envelope flap - For the envelope flap which will be the accordion album’s OUTSIDE top cover, I measured the entire flap and allowed a few extra inches so that it will wrap around partially on the other side (which is the FRONT ADDRESSING Side) so that when you open and close the flap on your finished book, its smooth. In my example, I used the the brown swirly HS patterned paper that overlays the houndstooth 5.5 x 8 panel.



b) The envelope flap – for the inside of the envelope flap which will be for the INSIDE album cover flap. In my example, I cut mine out of just black cardstock.



c) the lip of the pocket portion of the inside of the EXTRA envelope using the remainder of your 5 patterned paper panels. I used a pencil to trace onto the backside of the pp panels, and then used my cutterbee scissors to cut off the excess.

TIP: BE SURE to cut along your traced lines ALONE. Because the small remaining part can be used as LINERS for the top insides of each envelope pocket area.

6. Now that you have all your pieces traced and cut out, grab your accordion “chain” and lay it out so that the “Pocket Side” is facing up.

7. Adhere the larger patterned paper panels to the coordinating top side of your envelope pocket panels.

8. Adhere the remaining trimmed pieces to the TOPS of the inside of each envelope pocket so that they become liners. In effect, you have created an envelope accordion book with functional pockets.


9. Adhere both the top cover and the inner cover of the envelope flaps. Now all the surfaces of your envelopes are now covered with some sort of patterned paper or cardstock.

10. Grab your exacto knife and make slits to allow the width of your desired ribbon on both sides of your LAST envelope panel which still has the cover flap. See my picture. Thread your ribbon through. I glued my ribbon down so that it would not get loose as a result of regular handling of the accordion album.


11. Decorate/Embellish each panel and cover as desired. NOTE: I distressed all the edges of my patterned paper panels before adhering them.

12. My finished product, when laying “Pocket Side” face up with the envelope flap on the my left hand side, should fold into each other, one panel at a time beginning from the right side.

Here are pictures, panel by panel of my finished Envelope Accordian Album. I can’t wait to see yours!!!

Cover:


Cover Open with Flap Open:


Page 1 -2 (This is me unrolling the accordion pages AWAY from the envelope flap)



Page 1 -2 -3 (This is me unrolling the accordion pages AWAY from the envelope flap)


Page 1 -2-3-4 (This is me unrolling the accordion pages AWAY from the envelope flap)


Page 1 -2 -3-4-5 (This is the ENTIRE ”Pocket Side” Pages all unfolded out..the entire accordion chain on display)


This is the ENTIRE “Front Addressing Side” accordion chain on display:



Thanks for looking! :)

Blunders of a Blogging Newbie - A Belated Tutorial Share

So, I'm cleaning up some files on my laptop when I realized that I never did share this tutorial on my blog for a challenge I shared for Paper Popsicles way back in July for one of our cyber crops.

My challenge and tutorial was to create a card using a "fishscales" border since I was and am still very much in love with circles. My fishscales was inspired by Christine Middlecamp who had done a tutorial on her blog earlier this year on the same technique.

Step 1: Pull out a circle punch (I used a 1 1/4th sized circle punch as it was closest to the circle design of the patterned paper.)

Step 2: Punch out circles from 2 different types of patterned papers. Choose one with a pattern or bold color and for the second, choose a plain one.

I hand cut the round medallions that was in the patterned paper, and then used a metallic gold paint pen to outline all the edges to give it a bit more dimension. I chose my circle punch that was most similar in size to the medallions and punched out solid grey circles. I outlined the grey circles too with my gold paint pen for consistency.

Step 3: Now in this picture, you can see that I drew a straight line on my base cardstock where I wanted to line up the circles. This base line ensures that I have straight "fishscales" once they are all laid down.

Step 4: I laid down the FULL grey circles first along my pencil line.

Step 5: Then I put down the medallions from the patterned paper that were cut into halves.

Step 6: Lastly, I slipped another row of medallion halves UNDERNEATH the 2 completed rows.

I trimmed the excess from the sides as needed.

Voila!!

Here's my finished card using this technique. I loved it so much that I used the same technique to create a border for a layout too!



Here's my layout I created of my sweet kitty. The Paper Petals paper mixed well with my Making Memories, ki, Hambly, 7 gyspies and Prima stash.

PICTURE WILL BE BACK ON FEB 18TH, 2009

Here are some close ups of my layout and of the fishscales border.

PICTURE WILL BE BACK ON FEB 18TH, 2009

PICTURE WILL BE BACK ON FEB 18TH, 2009

I will share additional belated tutorials in the next coming weeks. As a blogging newbie, it didn't occur to me, back then, to actually share them on my blog too when I was posting my tutorials on message board forums. Live and learn!



"Happy Birthday" Card
Paper: Upsy Daisy "Paper Petals" line; Bazzil Grey CS
Embellishments: American Crafts Apha Stickers; Michaels brand Ribbon
Accesories: Circle Punch; Metallic Gold Paint Pen; Martha Stewart Royal Butterfly Punch

"K is for Kitty Cat" Layout
Paper: Upsy Daisy "Paper Petals" line; Making Memories Noteworthy Ledger Paper; Basic Grey Euphoria; Hambly Transparency; Bazzil Grey CS
Embellishments: 7 Gypsies "K is for Kitty Cat" 97% (Phrase) Stickers; KI Bloom Chipboard; Lil Davis "Simply Adorable" chipboard; Prima Flowers; K&Co Wild Saffron Fabric brads; CK jeweled brads; Heidi Swapp bling; Doodlebug Paper Lace Trim; Journalling Spot from Etsy; Upsy Daisy "Paper Petals" Rub Ons; EK Success Stickers
Accesories: Circle Punch; Metallic Gold Paint Pen; Martha Stewart Royal Butterfly Punch

Papercraft Planet 12 Days of Christmas Challenge ~ Prize Alert!

It's the Eleventh Day of Christmas Contest at Paper Craft Planet, and Embellish-Online is the proud sponsor of Today's Challenge!!

Visit Paper Craft Planet: An Online Community for Paper Crafters

Here is the challenge: "On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me Eleven Pipers Piping"....No problem -- 11 pipers piping... definitely, lets make a paper craft using musical instruments!

Load your creation into the photos area using the keyword/tag "12day11" (all lowercase) and you'll be entered to win a $25 gift certificate from Embellish-It Scrapbooking. You have until midnight EST to enter. (That's 9PM for us California girls!)

If you are not a member yet, be sure to join the Embellish-Online group at PapercraftPlanet.

Good Luck Everyone!!!!

Its Beginning to Feel Alot Like Christmas - Design Team Gallery Reveal @ Embellish-Online

Come see our Design Team's December Gallery over at Embellish-Online. It's full of inspiration featuring BasicGrey's new Christmas collection, Wassail, which is available in the store for 20% off if you use code GLITTER.

The warm colors give the projects a cozy feel...and we have lots of eye candy....cards, gift ideas, decor.....come check it out!

I'm a HUGE Basic Grey fan and when I saw this latest Christmas themed line from BG, I just KNEW I had to have it!! I still love Blitzen, BG's first Christmas line, but Wassail is simply irrisistable, wouldn't you agree?

Here's what I created for our "Oh Christmas Tree" theme for December.

I've been enamored with this card sketch (SCS #201) challenge over at SplitCoast Stampers for awhile, so I was inspired to create this Christmas Bird card with it.

LOL...I also just got my SU Bird (Sizzix) die back from my good friend Eva who had borrowed it from me a couple of weeks ago. When I saw those beautiful holly leaves, I just knew I had to have my birdie rest on a few twigs of holly. I applied the BG Wassail holly leaf and twig rubons to the solid greyish BG patterned paper, then hand cut them out and used foam pop dots to give them some dimension on my card. The bird is cut from accompanying solid red paper that's included in the BG Wassail 6x6 paper pack. I wanted to give my card a very wintery feel, and that row of BG snowflakes was the perfect finishing touch along with a few dabs of Distressed Gold Stickles and my golden Prima leaf. The SU sentiment was stamped and then punched out using one of my smaller SU oval punches.

Next up is my Surprise Message Card that's interactive. When I saw those gorgeous present rubons in several sizes, I knew I had to do something to highlight them on a card. I, again, rubbed them onto the BG solid greyish paper as well, hand cut them out and then used foam pop dots to give them dimension again. I do love dimension, lol.....can you tell? When you pull at the top of the card, it reveals my Christmas sentiment which I got from Michael's $1 bin last year. (I'm stoked that I'm finally using my $1 stamps. Seriously! I've bought so many over the years and they just sit. LOL...I know I can't be the only out there who rarely devirginizes her stash until years later, right?) Here are a couple of views of my card.





My third card is my version of the circle medallion technique that cleverly makes use of the many corner punches I own. I used to be a punch queen fanatic with almost 400 punches!! When I had contemplated moving to Europe once upon a lifetime ago (due to a guy - we talked about marriage, etc...but that's another story), I began selling off most of my punches. While I'm sad that my relationship didn't work out because I did truly love him, I'm glad that I did lighten my load, so to speak. :)

Anyways, thankfully, I still had my Wrought Iron corner punch and hadn't sold that off back in the day, which allowed me to attempt this technique. I'll admit, the birdie makes another appearance because my spacing was off on the medallion, so .... it was a good use of some left over red scraps. :) I want to thank my friend Stacey for teaching me how to make these folded paper flowers.



And here's my last card highlighting more of the BG Wassail snowflake rub-ons that was inspired by SplitCoast Stampers Card Sketch #205. I used my EK Success Circle cutter to cut out all those custom sized circles containing each of the snowflakes, then used my Gold Metallic Leafing Pen to outline the edges before I used foam pop up dots to give them dimension on my card. I got to break out my new QK Jolly Font Set for this one....lots of fun toys for Christmas, indeed.



We have so much in store for you at Embellish-Online this month!

Check out the Special Offers page - there are always tons of things on sale - this week it is Just-Rite stamper, Basic Grey papers- 12 x 12 and 6 x 6 paper packs!, and SATIN May Arts ribbon too!

We even have an on-going affilitiate program, which is a super offer!! You could earn 5% of any sales that have been linked up through your blog!!

And if that isn't enough, our November/December contest is up and running!! You could win The Fairest of them All Collection, plus Rub-Ons, plus Stamps!!

Lastly, Embellish-Online is a proud sponsor of a new hub for crafters called PapercraftPlanet, and we're participating in their Twelve Days of Christmas Event.

Visit Paper Craft Planet: An Online Community for Paper Crafters

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas (tomorrow, Monday) there will be a very special challenge and a very special prize for one lucky person.

If you are not a member yet, be sure to join the Embellish-Online group at PapercraftPlanet as this very special challenge will be held over there. Stay tuned for more details and get ready for some fun-fun-fun!

Our Friday Challenges will resume NEXT Friday. Don't miss out on this one as it will be hosted by Michelle Pearson.



A Christmas Bird
Paper: BG Wassail; Bazzil Barkley and Java CS
Embellishments: BG Wassail Rub-On's; Prima gold leaf; Ranger Distressed Stickles in Gold
Stamps: SU Small Script
Ink: Versafine Black
Accessories: SU Small Oval Punch; SU Ticket Corner Punch; Sizzix Bird Bigz Dies; Foam Pop Adhesives
Size: 4.25" x 5.25" rectangular

Christmas Gifts Surprise Message
Paper: BG Wassail; Bazzil Barkley CS
Embellishments: BG Wassail Rub On's; Red Sequined Ribbon from Joann's
Stamps: $1 Michael's stamp bin "Merry Christmas"
Ink: SU Baroque Burgandy
Accesories: Fiskars Scoring Blade; EK Success 1.25" Circle Punch; Foam Pop Adhesives;
Size: 5.5" x 4.25" Pop Up Card that folds down flat

Circle Medallion
Paper: BG Wassail; Bazzil Barkley and Java CS
Embellishments: Heidi Swapp Clear Bling
Stamps: SU Best Yet
Ink: SU Baroque Burgandy
Accessories: EK Success Wrought Iron and 1" Circle Punches; SU Scalloped Border, Ticket Corner and Designer Label Punches; EK Success Circle Cutter and Swivel Knife; Sizzix Bird Bigz Die.
Size: 6" x 6" square

Be Jolly Snowflake Flurry
Paper: BG Wassail; Bazzil Java CS
Embellishments: BG Wassail Rub On's and Brads; Gold Leafing Pen; QK Jolly Font Set
Accesories: EK Success Circle Cutter and Swivel Knife; Foam Pop Adhesives;
Size: 5.5" x 4.25" rectangle

TOO Much Fun This Holiday Weekend

Man! was this long holiday weekend jammed packed or what?!?! I think I need another 4 day long weekend just to recover from all the fun I had this Thanksgiving Holiday.

I got some great deals both on Wednesday night and on Black Friday at Old Navy and Macy's! I'm mainly happy over the great deal I got on my new cashmere sweaters. It was amazing how low the prices were everywhere on everything that I really found it hard to spend more than $5 to $10 for most items. But I stuck to just getting some new basics that needed updating, so no overspending this year for me! I didn't turn mush just because I saw a sale sign!

Friday, it was Design Team Leader Suzy Haghighi's turn to host our weekly Friday Challenge over at Embellish-Online which was to use your left over scraps. Click here to see her gorgeous card along with what I came up with for this week's challenge in our gallery.

Come play with us and be sure to use keyword FC18 when you upload your projects to the gallery so we can all see your beautiful work! To see everyone's submissions click *here*

Then, on Friday as well, I spent most of my time at Scrap 'N Yap getting ready for our Holiday Extravaganza Make and Take Event. The staff (Jenn, Erna, Roseann and of course, Elizabeth, the owner) and I, along with Yap customer Julie, cooked up 8 different make and take projects ranging from super quick and easy ones like the tree candy favor box to more time consuming detailed projects like Roseanne's Recipe Book. Click here to read and see all about our super fun day at the 'Yap on Saturday.

I was pleasantly surprised and grateful for my good friend Susan's support when she came by the store for a suprize impromptu visit with her hubby. We had time to chat and have lunch together at Jake's Roadhouse since my pics from my previous blog post seemed to have piqued Susan's taste buds.

Here's the project that I designed and taught which was totally fun especially with customers Allison and her niece Jade. These two were a giggle fest indeed! We made a super cute 6x6 album from American Crafts featuring Teresa Collin's Christmas paper line and Bazzil Dots Cardstock in under an hour!! For those of you that know me, you know that that timeframe was a huge feat even for me!



Sunday was my cousin's baby daughter's birthday. Addison turned one!! She was the Guest of Honor at her very own 10 course Chinese style luncheon banquet. Here are some of the dishes we feasted on today. (We Chinese traditionally do this for our babies at either one month or one year old with red dyed eggs...I'll spare you all the cultural explanation 'cuz I'm in major cooing mode right now.)







Here's Addison with her Mommy, Daddy (my cousin Randy), her big sis, Taylor and big bro, Jacob with her yummy chocolate birthday cake.



I had to take this next picture of Addison and her Grandfather (my uncle) because my Uncle used to "eat" her daddy's hands when he was a baby too just like he is doing to her in this picture!! I thought it was cute because I can still vividly see my Uncle doing this so many years ago. Randy is only 3 years younger than me. :) His son Jacob looks so much like Randy...its very endearing to be around this little boy.



I couldn't help myself when I saw Addison's adorable little golden ballerina slippers peeking out from her matching Princess style birthday dress while she was napping.



Lol...these aren't even MY kids and I can barely contain myself from over-sharing pictures and stories about these sweet, sweet, dear children of my cousin, who I regard as one of my brothers. Lol...can you imagine what I'll be like when I have kids??? OMG! I'll be hopeless!

I have to leave you with one last picture of Taylor, who is now 6, enjoying the lollipop that served double duty as our favors and table place cards. My lollipop indicated that I was at Table #2 - the table of adults who still have no children!



It truly was a super fun party with High School Musical songs playing in the background while we ate, talked and then were later entertained by a full fledged magician. It was cute seeing baby Addison sway back and forth to the music in her high chair. :) (Ok, I'll stop now....lol!)

But the night wasn't over yet. I then drove over to visit my friend Kari and her hubby at their new house that's now located a whooooole 12 miles farther away from me!! Sniff!! Sniff!! She and her hubby were painting their new house to get it ready for their move in a few weeks. It truly is one of the lovliest homes for the two of them to build their family and future in. I'm so very happy for Kari, but sad she's so much farther away now. lol

But what's amazing about Kari is that she's soo on top of things!! She's got her December Monthly Kit, entitled "Its a Wonderful Life," for her Urban-Anthology store packaged and ready to mail while she's in the middle of taking possession of her first home and packing/moving all her stuff! Wow!! I'm not worthy!! I'm not worthy!!! Check out the fabulous December kit from Urban-Anthology.




How cute are they in matching outfits??



But before I go, just one more baby picture. For those of you that know me and my fetish for babies with round heads with soft hair I can pet so that their hair bounces.....juuuust lookkkeee at this liddle baybeeee?? Look at that face! Look at those cheeks!! This one is Christian, and he's TWO!! He's Addison's first cousin, on her mother's side - so no blood relation to me. But he's my current favorite baby in my extended family.



Whew!! Definitely TOO much fun this long Holiday Weekend. Yes, baby petting is very exhausting! :) I'm already looking forward to next weekend for much needed relaxation!

Try Not to Wobble Too Much Today! :)

Wishing everyone a wonderful day of family, tradition and celebration as we reflect on those things we are most grateful for!!

And Whoohoo....this is my 100th Blog Post!!

A Toot and a Couple of New Gigs For Moi!!!

Guess what??? 


Scrapbook News & Review, an online scrap mag is publishing my "Laugh" scalloped circle card featuring all that scrumptious BG Sultry that I won from Barb over at Embellish-Online waaay back in May of 2008 ....before I got my DT gig at Embellish-Online. I can't share a picture of my card because my signed contract release requires for me to take down all my online images of the card until after its published in their e-zine in January 2009. I submitted to their call when I saw it late one night last week on pubcalls. Cool huh?? This is the first time I've been "published" so to speak, and then of course there are the "pubs" in the Basic Grey online gallery the past couple of months. I'm really stoked!! I can't wait to check it out in January!!

I also have a few new gigs I want to share now that I can officially announce them. I guess I just like to stay busy. :)

First up, a couple of weeks ago, Robin over at Moments-2-Remember has officially asked me to continue on as their Charming Diva (I was just volunteering before). lol...what is that you ask? You see, they are brilliant over at The Charmed Place as I dub them because they have this amazingly cute virtual charm bracelet incentive program to encourage participation on all aspects of their community, i.e. gallery uploads and praising, message board posting, and challenge/online crop participation. Every time a member meets their criteria, that member earns a special virtual charm. So...that's what I do! I"m the official Charming "fairie" Diva that goes around and inserts virtual charms in everyone signature lines. I swear, its the most FUNNEST place in virtual land. You gotta check it out! I have sooo much fun here; I truly love it and everyone there! Their December kit is just about to be released right after Turkey weekend. If you like colors that make you go brrrr, you're gonna love it. Click here for some sneak peeks!

Please help me earn my November Virtual Charm. Please register at Moments-2-Remember and post that I referred you. I earn 10 points for every new member that registers citing me as a referral. I need to earn 80 more points in order to earn my November charm, and today being the 25th of the month, I only have 5 more days to meet the criteria!!

Elizabeth at Scrap 'N Yap, my lss in Monrovia, CA has asked me to step into the Design Team Leader position beginning .....now! I suppose. I'm very excited at this opportunity and am looking forward to this new adventure (Yippee!! I get to go to CHA Anaheim!). I looooove the current staff at the Yap (Erna, Renee, Jen, Mykle (who's a fellow DT Instructor), Roseann and Shawna!) and loooove hanging out there on Friday nights (that awesome nightime Farmer's Market right outside the store doesn't hurt any either!) as well as on the weekends. Its such a pretty store and just soo much fun with the girls. I'm really looking forward to working with Elizabeth(the owner), Erna, who'll be doing the calendar coordination, and all the current and future DT instructors. Now, speaking of DT instructors, check out what my good and talented friend Mykle did with a freakin' frozen OJ top!!! Sheesh!! She's featured on the 7 gyspies site today!! I looooove her work and am blessed to call her my friend, so I wanted to give her a shout out!

Before I sign off for the day, I hafta hafta let you know that Scrap 'N Yap is hosting an all day Holiday Extravaganza of various make and takes priced from FREE to a few dollars! I'll be there with two projects...I promise you, after the tiring day you're sure to have on Black Friday from all that shopping, you'll WANT a day of fun and cute make and takes the day after on Saturday, November 29th!!

Scrap-n-Yap
830 South Myrtle Avenue,
Monrovia, CA 91016
Click here for Map

Friday, November 28th
Black Friday Sale

Saturday, November 29th
10AM - 4PM
Holiday Extravaganza Make and Takes - FREE to no more than $20

Friday, Saturday and Sunday
All Quickutz Dies are 40% off
(Dies Only)
*** I just got the adorable OWL, fox and bambi (that deer one) November release dies...hmm and the Jolly alpha/shaped die set too! ***

Yep, I know it sounds crazy, but I do really thrive on staying busy. January will be a crazy month indeed with CHA, co-designing new kits for Kari at Urban-Anthology, DT coordinating at Scrap 'N Yap and creating new projects for my DT assignments at both Embellish-Online and Scrap 'N Yap. And of course all that fairie business over at Moments-2-Remember in "blinging" everyone with new charms as they earn them. LOL....Yeah, I'm crazy...I know!! But I can't wait!! Its gonna be fun!!

Mikey....He Likes It! He Likes It! - The Most Funnest Day Evah!

I'm blessed to have very good friends with whom I get to crop with regularly. Lately, my OC friends have been making the trek up to my 'hood in LA to visit my home lss Scrap 'N Yap. :) Its sooo nice to just have a 10 minute or so drive home after a 10-12 hour crop.....for once! For years, I've been driving out to another lss (which has been a long time favorite) in Orange County, so I really appreciate Eva, Jackie (who came out the previous week of the scary brush fires), Karen and Yolanda for coming out my way.

Yesterday, my friends Kari (who's moving away from living just right down the street from me soon...sniff, sniff!), Karen and Yolanda had an absolute BLAST at Scrap 'N Yap! I felt like saying "he likes it, he likes it!" (remember those Mikey Cheerio commercials?) because Karen and Yolanda both liked the store.

It truly was one of the most FUNNEST day (yeah, my grammar gets wonky when I'm im'ing with Kari after midnight) evah with these three ladies!! After getting situated with our loads of scrap stuff, we walked down a block into Downtown Monrovia to a restaurant called Jake's Roadhouse and treated ourselves to pulled pork/chicken sandwiches and baby back ribs. Here's a picture of Yolanda's boobs with her baby back ribs (lol...you had to have been there for all the boob's-getting-sauce-dripped-on jokes).



Here's the pulled pork sandwich that I've been obsessing about all week since I accidently discovered Jake's the previous Friday when I was walking up and down the night time farmer's market in search of a place to buy a drink (I was sick then and hacking up a lung!). Ohhhhmyyyygawd, this was soooo good!! (Can you believe its $7.50 for this sandwich alone?)



And if you look past Kari being silly, lol, (I had just been showing everyone Halloween pics of my neice and nephew making funny faces with their hands just like the way Kari is doing), the ambiance of Jake's was just awesome!! Its the kind of place you chuck your empty peanut shells onto the floor.



In between all the internal transactions between us and settling out who owes what to whom, we actually did sit down and scrap. I got this layout of my nephew done finally. I started this way back in the beginning of Oct as it was a layout class designed by Candice Carpenter but, as usual, I added a few things to make it more my own. It's been a while since I've done something scrappy that wasn't for a DT assignment, so this was very very FUN!!

Jacob really cracks me up. Both of my cousin Randy's older kids crack me up actually. They are both very sweet children who have their own sense of humor. I still haven't told Randy that I attended his Halloween party just so I could take pics of his kids to scrap, lol. He and his sisters are all total hams. They stop, pose, wait for a flash to go off, and continue playing. Too funny!



I loved all the dimension that I was able to incorporate into this layout. And yes, I drove to a few Party City's just to find the right colored purple crepe paper for my little Halloween cat circle thingy.





Then we came back and cropped some more until it was time for a caffeine refuel. But we got side tracked and went to Michael's so we could use our coupons. Karen and Yolanda both got the limited edition Martha Stewart snowflake punch. They only had two in their store, so I'll have to hunt it down at another Michael's location and try to get it when I can redeem the extra 15% coupon.

As I was just turning out of the parking lot of Michael's, Karen spies a Church's Chicken so I had to make a sudden sharp U Turn to get into that parking lot. This is another moment where you had to be there to witness Miss Yolanda ordering up a storm of food with all her requests for various extra sauces!! Yeah...the guy who met us at the window pretty much was spot on when he witnesses a gaggleful of women giggling like there was no tomorrow! "Ladies night out?" he said...and we weren't even drunk!

We got back to the crop and apparently this is when everyone's juices were flowing. Our table became the misting center as all the Glimmer Mists came out. Check out Karen with her repurposed Priority box layout in the making.



Kari was definitely Miss Thing! with her string of AMAZINGLY Detailed WOWZER layouts and cards!! Check out Kari's blog to see her layout that I'm literally going OMG-ing about big time!



And then....this was the best way to have ended the evening! We all went to a new place I discovered due to my friend Erna at Scrap 'N Yap. Cherry On Top is a yogurt place like PinkBerry but you get to choose amongst 10 different flavors of yogurt. You serve yourself so that means you can mix as many flavors in whatever quantities of yogurt you want. Then you move over to the toppings bar and do it yourself. They have candies, cereal, cookies, fresh fruit, etc. Its simply DIVINE!!

How CUTE is the ambiance of this store??? That's Brenda, a Scrap 'N Yap regular, who was there too, so we grabbed her and included her at our table.



And this is the yumminess we enjoyed at 10:30pm in the evening!



Yeah, it was a good day!! Can't wait to do this again!



"Jacob, Make a Funny Face for Me!" Layout
Paper: Cosmo Cricket "Haunted" line; Teresa Collins Halloween Label Shaped Paper; Bazzil Wisteria, Cheddar, Jubilee CS
Embellishments: Cosmo Cricket "Haunted" stickers and Blackboard; MM "Spellbound" Glittered Foam Stickers, Tiny Alpha Stickers and Journaling Labels; Maya Road striped and checkered black/cream ribbons; Crepe Paper in Purple and Black; Copper Stickles; Onyx Glitter by Martha Stewart
Stamps: MM "Spellbound" Stamps
Ink: Versafine Black
Accesories: Fiskars Pinking Scissors