New blog!

Hi Everyone-
Can you believe I've had my blog for over a year now? I'm finally becoming a bit more committed to it so, I bought it an anniversary gift: a new background and blog header. They are from House of 3 and was super easy to put together. They have full instructions and it only cost $3 for both of them. I hope you try it.
Cheers!
Christy

Our Fun, Free Friday

The sun is shining! The flowers are blooming! And my kids are full of energy! Every Friday is designated as "Fun Friday" in our house. We get too caught up in running errands, cleaning, and all those "have-to-do" stuff of life that on Fridays, we do something strictly for fun. And Mama doesn't cook on Fridays! Fun for all!

Last Friday we went down to the lake to feed the ducks. The wild flowers were blooming and we had a lot of fun exploring. The kids were so distracted I didn't get many good photos of them both looking at me but here are a few favorite pictures.
Sam smelling the "yucky" flowers.Cheers,
Christy

New classes

I'm so excited to be teaching at Yellowbird Scrapbooking again! My last canvas class at Yellowbird sold out so I'm planning to do another canvas class there this round. I've had babies on my mind lately (hint!) so this canvas is called "Oh Baby!" It teaches basic collage techniques and students can choose to do a pink version or a blue version. I think these would be a nice wedding gift too. Just leave off the title. The class is only $20 and everything is included in your kit. If you can't make it to the class, you can just buy a kit. I've included instructions.The other class I'm teaching is a 2-sided acrylic layout. I only opened it up to 5 students this time since none of the acrylic classes seem to sell well at Yellowbird. Not sure if its the projects or that ladies just aren't interested in working with acrylic. I'm calling this one "Shabby-Chic Dreams". I'm not crazy about it but there's a lot to learn in this class and it comes with a ton of product. If you wanted to take any of these classes, you can register here.
Thanks for checking in! Have a great day!
Christy

Our "Staycation"

There's a lot of talk about "Stay-cations" lately. You know... where you take a little vacation in your home town. Stay home but explore in a vacation-like way. I think its a great way to spend some family time without spending a lot of money so we thought we'd give it a try. Except, we drove about 2 hours for our "Staycation" so I'm not sure it counts. Nonetheless, we had some good family time and it didn't cost a lot.

Overlooking the desert floor.We went out to Palm Springs and stayed at the Las Palmas Resort & Spa in Rancho Mirage. Its a 4 star resort but we got a killer deal on hotels.com for a weeknight deal. (There are some amazing deals there--try it!) The weather was over 100 degrees so we spent almost all our time in the pool, on the lazy river, in the "spray grounds", or at the "beach."The gardens were beautiful at the resort too.
It was a great 2 days. Thanks for checking in!
Christy

That which does not kill me only makes me stronger.

I've been such a bad blog poster.... so many things coming our way these days. Many I can't share to the general public... yet.... Which is totally not my style! If you know me, you know that I don't have much to hide in my boring, happy, normal life. But things have not been boring....

Something else that is totally not my style is this latest creation I made for my bike-crazy husband. He's been training for a race called the "24-hours of Adrenalin." This is a race where he will ride his mountain bike for 24 hours STRAIGHT! He is insane! And he has been training like a mad man. I made him this 11" by 14" canvas to celebrate his achievement/cheer him on. Here it is....Yeah! Crazy, huh? No flowers. No pearls. No lace. Nothing sparkly. And yes, that's a real bike crank set and chain attached on the canvas. Had to get the old drill driver out for this one! Not a typical scrapbook tool in my room. I made some good use of my new Tim Holtz Distress Crackle Paint. I also painted the back ground with ... hold onto your seats... Glimmer Mist from Tattered angels. Yep! The brown is the "Cocoa" color and the green blotches are "Olive Vine." The words are a combo of magazine cutouts and letter stickers. Although its not my style, I really had fun making it. Its fun to branch out and try something completely different. Also, I'll leave you with a few pictures from Easter.

Decorating eggs was a hit with both kids. I couldn't believe how patient they both were!
The egg hunt we went to was great fun even though it was really cold and windy.
How funny is this?!? Sam would only pick up the blue Easter eggs. Guess what color is his favorite now!Thanks for checking in. Have a great weekend! Cheers!
Christy

The sun, the beach, and yummy scrap goodies

The sun has been shining and the birds have been singing! Life has been good. Sorry I've been away from the blog for over 2 weeks! Y'know the old saying... time flies when you're having fun. Well, not all of it has been fun. I potty trained Sam a couple weeks ago. He was so easy. I won't bore you with the potty details but it really wasn't that bad. I expected much worse!

It was warm most of all of last week so we blew up our cheesy, cheap swimming pool and the kids had a blast!

Then, it cooled off again. Our friends had their 3rd baby so their older kids came and stayed for a couple days. Once again, the kids had a blast. Just look at Maddie and Bella this day. They insisted on looking like twins. If you didn't know it, they could pass as sisters! Oh, and here's the latest celebrity. They named him Xavier Todd. Mom and baby are healthy and happy. Isn't he beautiful?!? How's that for stoking the "I want a third child" fire?!?Then Saturday was another warm day so we thought we'd brave the beach. It had been a while since we'd been there and we wanted to go before Spring Break next week. (All the tourists in San Diego during breaks is really crazy for us locals. ) Sand! Sand! Everywhere!!!And then, of course, I make time for my scrapbooking obsession. I just made this wall hanging with some papers and sticker journaling spots from Jenni Bowlin. Each month her site has full instructions on how to make something new. This was the February idea. I didn't follow it exactly, but you can find it here. For the red paint, I used my glimmer mist (Candy Apple Red) and painted the edges and back of the cardboard base. I'm loving the glimmer mist these days! I also used that same shade of Glimmer mist to paint this Maya Road chipboard album. I know it's weird to some people but I scrapbook backwards. Meaning that I make something inspiring, and later add, or even take pictures for it. There are no pictures in this album yet. I'm in the process of evaluating and photographing "what I live for today". It's a good introspective process for me. I used all my new and old favorite things that I'd been saving for "the perfect project". I was even generous with my favorite vintage lace. I can't even close this album so I guess I'll find someplace for it to stand. Ha!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Nope, we're not Irish. But I think nearly every American pretends to be Irish every March 17th. Its about the beer. Really! Who doesn't love a holiday dedicated to having fun and drinking a couple beers? That's what it's about here anyhow. But I don't let the kiddos drink the beer. To them, St. Patty's Day is about dressing up in silly leprechaun gear (left over from our partying days). Here is one of my lucky charms modeling his new costume.

I hope you have a lucky day! Cheers!
Christy

It is Spring!

I found this lovely Spring poem and I wanted to share it with you. It could be referencing the Spring season or perhaps, the Spring of a child's life. But it definitely goes well with these pictures I took of Madeleine at our peach tree.

Yesterday the twig was brown and bare;
To-day the glint of green is there;
Tomorrow will be leaflets spare;
I know no thing so wondrous fair,
No miracle so strangely rare.
I wonder what will next be there!
~L.H. Bailey

Enjoy your day!
Christy

Something old, something new,

You know the old wedding adage... "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue." That phrase, my Mother-in-law's upcoming marriage, and some new scrapping goodies inspired me to create a wedding layout. In May, Brentt and I will be married 10 YEARS! My how time flies! Since I've only been scrapbooking for 5 years, I never scrapbooked any of my wedding photos. So...I bought some old vintage lace from a FABULOUS store on etsy.com called $5 French Market and it found a perfect home on this layout.
The papers are the brand new Cosmo Cricket line called Ever After. Its so different than any other wedding papers- the colors are awesome. I bought it at Paper Tales in case you're in the San Diego area. The flowers and bling are from Prima.

Speaking of Prima...last weekend my friend Shalamar and I went to a class by Prima at Yellowbird Scrapbook Store. We used the paintable pages, bling, flowers and painted with Glimmer Mist to make this card: and this mini-book made from 1 12" by 12" sheet of paper,

AND this paintable layout which I'm sure will showcase some fabulous photo.... someday...And so now... all this creativity has left me with THIS MESS of beautiful new favorite products! I don't dare show you the rest of the room!!! But some goodness will come from this mess. You can already see a half done layout and a mini-book, right? Maybe make a card with the left over scraps...? Someday... hopefully this weekend.

Cheers to you and yours! I hope you have a great weekend!
Christy