One Little Bird | Beach Santa

It’s almost the most wonderful time of the year!  Document Your December 2013 debuted at The Lilypad today.  Just so many awesome digital & printable goodies for digital or hybrid mini albums to document the holidays! 

I made a page with my friend Peppermint’s (One Little Bird Designs) new digital holiday kit, Evergreen.  I love the modern look and colors in this kit!

Supplies:  Evergreen digital kit by One Little Bird; Amatic SC font.

Here’s Evergreen the kit.

AND Evergreen coordinating printable journal cards!
 
And… a little bird told me (ha!) that if you purchase Evergreen the kit by Nov. 17, 2013, you’ll save 20% PLUS you’ll receive the coordinating journal cards for FREE!  How awesome is that?!  Go get yours!  And while you’re there, check out all the amazing digital and printables for Document Your December as well.  I love it all.  If only I actually did a December album, ha ha.

Have a great weekend, everyone!  ♥

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Where In The World Is Noodle?

Just like Waldo, Noodle can be found in many places lately.

I came home from work last week and found him trying to imitate that closet scene in the movie “E.T.”.

I guess he really likes Gordo the Monkey.

One morning I woke up and found him on our dresser.

And then another day I got out of the shower and found him in a strangely sunny spot under the bed.

Let’s see, what else is going on with life?  I’ve been listening to the new Steven Curtis Chapman album “Glorious Unfolding”.  I always listen in the car on my commute.  And without fail, when I hear the song “See You In A Little While”, I start crying.  I miss my mom so much and that song resonates with my heart right now. 

I hold your hand and watch as the sun slowly fades
Far in the distance the Father is calling your name
And it’s time for you to go home
And everything in me wants to hold on
But I’m letting you go with this goodbye kiss and this promise
I’ll see you in a little while
I’ll see you in a little while
It won’t be too long now
We’ll see it on the other side
The wait was only the blink of an eye
So I’m not gonna say goodbye
‘Cause I’ll see you in a little while

I was there by my mom’s bedside when she passed away.  I can hear this song five times a day and every time it makes me cry.  But it’s a hopeful cry.  I’m going to see my mom again.  I just miss her so much sometimes, my heart aches. 

And when I think of heaven, I imagine it kind of looks something like this.

Isn’t that amazing?  This was my view on my coastal run on Saturday 11/2 in the late afternoon.  Glorious.

Todd hadn’t been riding his bike on Sunday mornings because he was gearing up for Tough Mudder.  So the last couple of Sundays we’ve been able to go out for breakfast.  While breakfast food is my favorite food, it’s Todd’s least favorite food, lol.  So he’s quite the sacrifice when we eat breakfast out.

We tried out the Stratford Court Café on Sunday 11/3.  Todd had waffle with strawberries and banana.

I had the vegetable frittata.

I really liked their coffee there, but the frittata was only ok.  But I appreciate Todd taking me out for breakfast!

Then on Sunday 11/10 we went to Pacifica Breeze Café.  We’ve been there for lunch but never for breakfast!  The best thing there is the ocean view from the balcony.  So awesome!

I loved my Wild Mushroom Frittata there.

Afterwards we walked around the beach in Del Mar.  The sky was super-blue due to the Santa Ana winds.  It was gorgeous.

A sunny selfie.

We are really blessed to live 15 minutes from such an awesome place.

I’ve been sort of obsessed with watching Youtube makeup videos.  I find the transformations fascinating.  I especially found this one amazing, where Michelle Phan transformed herself into Daenerys Targaryen from “Game of Thrones”.  So one day I played around with putting on false eyelashes.  These look super-fake, but are a lot of fun!

We cooked a new dish recently and it was so good that I have to share.  It is “Halibut with Bacony Corn Sauté” from Cooking Light.

All I have to say about the bacony corn is…oh myyyyy!  The halibut is really good too.

At work I’ve been really busy, working on the budget for next year.  

You wouldn’t think studying floor plans would be part of my job, but I had to figure out our facilities allocations cost for next year, and we’ve had a lot of floor plan and cube changes in the last year. 

I went to a Book Binding Workshop with Urban Craft Camp on Saturday.  More to come in a blog post soon about this.  It was really fun!

I’ve been working on Project Life!  I’ve got sort of a new process.  I hope to blog about it soon.

And I’ve actually started designing our Christmas cards!  I’m making these 4x6.  Why?  Because they fit into Project Life pockets, ha ha!  And 4x6’s are cheap to print.

That’s all for now.  Thanks for stopping by!  Leave me a comment if you feel like it.  I love reading your comments!  :)

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He’s Tough 3X!

Yesterday Todd and his friends Shannon & Mike completed the 11-mile hilly and obstacle-ridden Tough Mudder race.  This is Todd’s third time completing Tough Mudder, and his best one yet!  I guess you could say he’s tough, times 3!

So let’s start from last weekend, when I helped Todd make his Tough Mudder team’s “Team Dumpling” t-shirts.  Todd’s sister Amy came up with the Team Dumpling idea after they did the Tough Mudder together back in February.  Team Dumpling wouldn’t be complete without custom t-shirts!  So I went to H&M and bought some blank solid-colored t-shirts.  Then I found a graphic of a cartoon dumpling that I really liked.  However, it was low-resolution, so I took it into Adobe Illustrator and performed a Live Trace to convert it to a vector graphic.  Then I took it into Photoshop and added the team name and cleaned up the graphic.  (By the way, since I was just using the graphic for personal-use t-shirts, I didn’t try to find commercial-use graphics.  If you plan to sell t-shirts, you should definitely obtain commercial-use licenses for any graphics that you didn’t design on your own.)  After I was satisfied with the graphic in Photoshop, I printed it out on 8.5x11 iron-on transfer paper.  Then I cut the shape out and peeled off the backing and Todd ironed the designs onto the t-shirts.

The Iron Master!

For the back of the t-shirts, we purchased iron-on letters from Michaels to spell out their personal Tough Mudder names.  (They are all dumpling-related.)

Todd was “Hot Pork Buns”.

Shannon was “Lil Bao Wow” (yes, a play on “Lil Bow Bow” – since “Bao” means bun in Chinese)

And Mike was “Dim Sum Lose Sum” – ha!

All together.

So that’s the story of the Tough Mudder Team Dumpling t-shirts.  But how did the actual race go?

Todd and Team Dumpling jumped from a two-story structure into dirty water.

He crawled in the mud under electric wires.

He climbed up big hills.

And he monkey-barred across a pond.

In short, he did awesome!  This is the strongest he’s ever felt finishing the Tough Mudder race.  In the February race he did with his sister, he actually hurt his ankle and BROKE a rib and still finished the race!  (He didn’t know the rib was broken at the time.)  This time?  No injuries and stronger than ever.  I’m super-proud of him!  If you’re interested in seeing all his photos and his own account of the race, you can read about it on his blog.  :) 

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Write.Click.Scrapbook. | I Dream Of…

The November gallery has gone live at Write.Click.Scrapbook.!  This month’s theme is “Dreaming”, and I love the different interpretations of the theme from my team mates!

Here is my layout:  I Dream of Yummies Without Calories

12 x 12 | materials cardstock (American Crafts, Recollections) + patterned paper (Crate Paper, American Crafts, Elle's Studio, Pebbles, Gossamer Blue, Webster's Pages) + tag (Elle's Studio) + alphabets (American Crafts, Pink Paislee, Recollections, Basic Grey) + sequins (Tree House Studio) + enamel dots (Freckled Fawn) + stamps (Studio L2e, Kelly Purkey, Evalicious) + ink (Tsukineko, Prima) + punches (EK Success, Martha Stewart) + stapler (Tim Holtz, Swingline) + adhesives (Scotch, Therm-o-web, Glue Dots, Tombow) + scissors (Tonic) + pens (Sharpie, Stabilo) + digital cutting machine (Silhouette) + font (Lobster)

As you know I’ve been on Weight Watchers since July 1st.  I’ve had some success but there’s also been weeks where my weight stayed stagnant.  I love to eat, so my dream would be to be able to eat everything I want to eat without gaining any weight, ha ha!  I guess it’s my humorous take on the November theme.

I took a screenshot of my “Noms” board on Pinterest. 

Then I cropped it to 4x6 at 300 dpi in Photoshop and printed it out onto 4x6 glossy photo paper.

I used my Silhouette digital cutter quite a bit on this layout, including cutting the title word “dream” out of American Crafts POW glitter paper, and “yummies” out of pink cardstock.

Embellishing the cupcake was really fun, as was filling in some of the heart cutouts with patterned papers.

I wrote my journaling in the cloud-shaped cutout, further emphasizing the “dream” part of my sentiment.  :)

As usual, I had so much fun creating my layout for Write.Click.Scrapbook. this month.  I love that the theme is a guide, but we can interpret it however we want!  You can see my layout in the Write.Click.Scrapbook. gallery here.  You can see the whole November “Dreaming” gallery here.  And you can see the gallery launch post here!

Here’s my detailed supply list if you’re interested.

Crate Paper Maggie Holmes Flea Market vellum paper
American Crafts Peony cardstock
American Crafts POW! Glitter paper
Recollections white cardstock
American Crafts Amy Tangerine Cut & Paste paper - Taylor's Favorite
Elle's Studio Penelope paper - Lovely Day
Pebbles From Me to You paper - Written
One Little Bird for Gossamer Blue paper - By The Numbers
Mitchell Kraft for Gossamer Blue paper - Chalk Chevron & Labels
Webster's Pages Recorded paper - Flashback
Elle's Studio Penelope Lil' Snippets: Labels
American Crafts Thickers - Shoe Box glitter letter stickers in pink
Pink Paislee Prairie Hill Bitty Blocks letter stickers
Recollections Glitter Alphabet Stickers - silver
Basic Grey pink alpha stickers
Freckled Fawn Enamel Dew Drop Stickers
Tree House Studio sequins
Studio L2e Labels & Tabs: Sentiments stamp set
Kelly Purkey Right Now stamp set
Evalicious I Eat stamp
Tsukineko Brilliance ink in Galaxy Gold, Pearlescent Jade
Prima chalk ink in Summer Field
EK Success 1.75" circle punch
Martha Stewart 1" scalloped circle punch
Silhouette SD digital cutter
Tim Holtz scissors
Glue Dots
Therm-o-web 3D Foam Squares
Scotch ATG
Tombow mono multi glue
Tiny Attacher
Swingline long reach stapler
Fiskars paper trimmer
Fiskars shaped edge scissors
Sharpie pen
Stabilo pen
Lobster font

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Digi Dares | My Spork

This week’s Digi Dare 345 is actually hosted by me!  It is also my last Digi Dares layout as part of the Digi Dares team.  This week we are scrapping about a small decision/change that has had a big impact!

My Spork:

Supplies: Good Eats, Digitally Smitten, Parker, and Wood Veneer Serif Alpha by Gina Cabrera @ digitaldesignessentials.com; Darkroom Collection: 1.0 Element Pack by Joanne Brisebois @ Oscraps; Fonts are DJB Smartypants & Populaire

Journaling:  My spork has saved 600 plastic forks + spoons.  Three years ago, I made the decision to purchase this titanium spork to use at work.  It was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.  Such a small change has led to big results.  I’ve saved over 600 plastic forks & spoons from the landfill.  Doing something small yet so big feels great.  I’m making a difference in the world that I live in!

For more details and to participate (I would love it if you would play along this week!), go here to the Digi Dare blog!

I’ve decided to step down from the Digi Dares team for now.  My life has been really busy and it will stay really busy until about end of January, especially at work.  I’m sad to step down from the team, since I’ve made 19 Digi Dares layouts over the last 9 months that I’m really proud of!  It has really challenged me to step out of my comfort zone in both my style and my scrapbooking topics.  It is everything it was to me when I was part of the Digi Dares a few years ago:  making challenging layouts while inspiring others.  I will miss it.

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