Sunday, June 30, 2013

I’m Back!

It’s been almost 6 weeks since I went on my blogging hiatus.  I still posted all my design team projects during that time, but there were no personal posts.  My evenings were so refreshingly free!  I had gotten into the routine of spending quite a bit of time on the computer in the evenings prior to my blogging break.  When combined with working all day on the computer, it had gotten tedious.  My break was much needed and much appreciated!

Why did I decided to come back to blogging?  One reason is that I’ve been blogging regularly for 5.5 years and I’ve enjoyed most of it.  Another was this picture.

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I was looking for vacation photos to scrapbook a page for a Lily Bee assignment and decided to use this photo.  For the life of me I could not remember the name of this place.  I half-panicked.  Then I remembered I had blogged our entire trip to Oahu, Hawaii in December 2011.  So I found my post about our hike to the Makapuu Lighthouse.  I read the whole post and it was so much fun to remember the details of the trip and all the fun we had.  Then I realized that THIS IS WHY I BLOG.  I love to document all the fun that Todd and I have together.  (And sometimes apart, when I’m scrapbooking or doing crafty stuff, ha ha.)  Without my blog, I wouldn’t remember even half the details about all our adventures, local or far.  When I blog, the details of the everyday are preserved and I don’t need to feel bad if I haven’t scrapbooked it yet.  I can scrapbook about a trip 1.5 years later and look up all the details on my blog.  This is why I blog, and I’m going to continue to do so.  And of course, the scrappy and crafty posts will continue too.  I will probably have less of the types of posts where I spend hours researching or making something and spend hours blogging about it.  I don’t really have the time for those on a regular basis.  But it’ll be a good balance and I’m happy to be back!

While I was gone from the blog, we had a lot of fun living life, hanging out with friends, seeing the sights, and eating of course.  We had the meal of our lives at Addison at the Grand Del Mar, which Todd blogged about here on his blog

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We got to visit the kitchen and meet Chef William Bradley!

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We also spent a week off work and had a staycation in San Diego.  There was a lot of fun in the sun, eating, and furniture shopping for our master bedroom redo.  You can read about our staycation on Todd’s blog.

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Lots of things happened while I was on my blogging break.  The most significant being that Todd was recruited to a new job at a new company.  So after 7.5 years with the same company, he left that job, had two weeks off, and started a new job.  Coincidentally, around the same time I was offered the manager of financial planning & analysis position with our R&D division.  After considering it for a few days, I turned it down. 

Here are some other things we did:

  • Saw Star Trek Into Darkness twice.  Once on 5/23 at Cinepolis (first time!) with Dejah & Roby, and once with Todd’s parents while they were visiting.  Yes, we loved it that much.
  • Ate at Mia Francesca for the first time.  Yummy Italian pastas.
  • Went to visit Sally & the babies on 5/25. 
  • Got Midnight Edition of Project Life. 
  • Todd made salmon cakes.
  • Went to visit AJ & Meera on 5/26.  Made ninja cookies.
  • Todd finished ripping every single CD he owns, and filed away his CD collection for storage.
  • Had meal of a lifetime at Addison Grand Del Mar on 5/29.
  • Ran at the beach on 6/1.  Found a new favorite Mexican place to eat at called Lourdes Mexican.  The best chicken soup and tortilla!
  • Met up with Donna Jannuzzi to exchange Project Life cards and to hang out.
  • Made lots of crafty things.
  • Went to Bencotto for dinner on 6/6 with Dejah & Roby.
  • Todd had his goodbye happy hour on 6/7.
  • Went to a String Art Workshop and made CA string art on 6/8.  Met up with Linda Barber at CKU.
  • Todd's parents visited.  We watched the NBA Finals.  We visited a new church.  Hiked Lake Poway.  Had Father’s Day dinner at Stone Brewery.
  • We had a week of staycation which included lunch at Hotel Del Coronado, furniture shopping at West Elm and IKEA, dinner at Buona Forchetta,  We bought a new bed and mattress.  We went out for breakfast.  We made homemade double chocolate ice cream.  We had chicken shawarma after watching The Avengers for the 3rd time.  We went to Nighttime Zoo on Summer Solstice.
  • A raccoon died in our backyard under our deck.  Todd and his dad took care of it, but it was so gross.
  • Todd cat-sat Roby & Dejah’s cats for a week while they were gone.
  • Todd rented a carpet cleaner and steam-cleaned the carpet in our entire house.
  • Todd started his new job on 6/24.
  • Went running at the beach again.
  • Made homemade udon noodle soup, so good!
  • Celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary on 6/25 with dinner out at Gordon Biersch and picking up our new West Elm dresser.
  • Todd painted an accent wall in our bedroom before our new furniture start coming.
  • I went to a crop with Kelly, Donna, Samantha, and Pearl.  Was there from 12 to almost 6!  Donna made peanut butter chocolate brownies and they were so good!  Had a lot of fun with the girls, and got two layouts done too!

I’m excited to be back to documenting my adventures on the blog.  See you around! :)

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Lily Bee Projects | Bookstore Date + Summer Printer Tray

Today on the Lily Bee blog, I created a layout using another sketch by Becky Fleck of PageMaps.

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Here’s my layout with this sketch:  Bookstore Date
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Lily Bee Supplies:  Sweet Shoppe Collection (Lemon Drop paper, Pink Mint paper, Cotton Candy paper, Marshmallow paper, Letter Stickers, Label Stickers, Embellishment Bundle, Chit Chat Stickers, Circle & Tag Stickers)

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I love the sketch and the idea of the library card.  But I wanted to use one photo, so I condensed everything horizontally, instead of having my layout stretch all the way across the 12x12 paper.

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I love the idea of a center row of photos, journal card, and other rectangular elements/cutouts.

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Be sure to stop by the Lily Bee blog and PageMaps this month and check out more sketches and layouts!

Last week on the Lily Bee blog, I made this letterblock tray of summer fun. 


I had purchased a 12x10 7 Gypsies letterblock tray a couple of years ago, with the intention of making a Christmas gift for a friend.  That did not happen, but I thought it would make a wonderful wall decoration for the summer.


I measured each block within the tray and cut some patterned paper to fit inside the blocks.  Then I planned out what went inside each block.


I used some of the chipboard stickers from the Sweet Shoppe Collection, as well as some twine from the embellishment bundle, and some Chit Chat stickers.


I used my Silhouette digital cutter to cut out many different summer-related quotes and objects.  Summer is all about bicycling, fun in the sun, ice cream, waves, and flip flops.  This makes me want to go on vacation right now!


I used foam adhesive to adhere some of these cutouts to make them pop up and stand out more inside the tray.


Lily Bee Supplies:  Sweet Shoppe Collection (Lemon Drop paper, Cotton Candy paper, Jujubee paper, Gumball paper, Jelly Bean paper, Licorice Whip paper, Marshmallow paper, Lollipop paper, Salt Water Taffy paper, Pink Mint paper, Strawberries & Cream paper, Chipboard embellishments, Embellishment Bundle, Chit Chat stickers)

Making this summer-themed letterblock tray was so much fun!  I want to swap it out each season with different themed cutouts and keep it hanging on the wall in our entryway.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you are having a great summer so far!

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Write.Click.Scrapbook. | July Gallery Sneak Peek

I made this layout during our week of staycation at home.  It was inspired by our list of favorite things to do for the summer, some of which we did during our staycation.

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Hope you are enjoying your summer so far!  Look at the Write.Click.Scrapbook. Facebook page for more sneak peeks of the July layouts from my team mates!

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Lily Bee Layout | Laguna Beach

In June, Lily Bee Design teamed up with PageMaps sketches to bring double-goodness to my scrapbooking world.  Using sketches is a jumpstart to creativity when you might be stuck or your mojo has left the room.

Earlier this month on the Lily Bee blog, I had a layout using a sketch that Becky Fleck provided me.


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Lily Bee Supplies:  Sweet Shoppe Collection (Jujube paper, Gumball paper, Lemon Drop paper, Jelly Bean paper, Licorice Whip paper, letter stickers, label stickers, chipboard stickers, chit chat stickers, Embellishment bundle)

This layout came together very quickly when I realized that I had the perfect photos to go with the yellow and blue color scheme in the Sweet Shoppe collection. 
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I was excited to see the stitching in the sketch because sometimes I forget to take out my sewing machine, but I always love the look of sewing on my pages when I remember!
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Thanks for stopping by!  Be sure to stop by the Lily Bee blog and PageMaps this month and check out more awesome sketches and layouts!  :)

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Evalicious | Status Update

I blogged at the Evalicious blog yesterday with a layout featuring lots of Evalicious stamps!  As you know, Eve recently had a shop update and there are SO many new awesome stamps in the shop!  I love them all, so I wanted to use a bunch of them on a layout. 

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My layout was inspired by Facebook status updates, or the popular “currently” posts that you’ve seen on blog posts and layouts.  I cut up strips of camera patterned paper and notched them so they look like arrows.  Then I did the same for white cardstock and stamped various Evalicious stamps on them. 

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I added some circle stamps and used a 1” circle punch to punch them out and adhered them to my layout using dimensional foam adhesive.  I also included a camera badge button. 

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I loved this easy way to use lots of stamps in different colored inks on my layout!

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