Spreading some Love

Guess what I just found out thanks to my friend Michelle? I got a shout out in the December issue of Creating Keepsakes!! I know it isn't a huge deal.. but I feel totally excited because I tend have a very non-traditional style of scrapping and I love that I got noticed!!! YEAH!!! I have been a little behind on my reading of the mags so I probably wouldn't have figured it out until Dec of next year had it not been for my pal Michelle!

Also wanted to take the time to thank Monique for giving me this cool award!
Here's the rules for this one:


The winner may put the logo on their blog.
Put a link to the person who sent you the award.
Nominate 5 blogs.
Provide links to their blogs.
Leave a message for your nominees.

I nominate the following gals:
Karin-you rock and keep me in stitches at the same time!
Michelle-Your store inspires my creative mojo and I love drooling over the pictures of your new arrivals you post on your blog.
Britta-my home girl blog buddy
Callista-you and I are clearly twins seperated at birth on the things that we like and that catch our attention. Thanks for the holiday tag by the way :)
Greta-My fellow crap scrapper and girl who turned me onto the world of Twilight.

P.S. speaking of Twilight.. I finally saw the movie yesterday.. oh my Edward is a hottie.. I would let him bite my neck any old day :)

Holiday Hit List Craft Show

This weekend I got the pleasure of helping out my super talented friend Karin in her booth at the North Park Craft Mafia Holiday Show. She had sooooo many amazing choices and her booth was a favorite among the shoppers. Next to us was Amy who is another amazing talent. Our friend Michelle who owns the store Paper Tales came by to give us some moral support! She even bought me the cutest little collage! It was a day of friends, crafting, food and girl bonding.. I really enjoyed myself so much! Here are some pics from the day:

(Me and Michelle with my adorable Collage!)

Here's the beautiful Ms. Karin with one of her creations.. more of her stuff is below...



Here's Amy with Karin and some of her very hip stuff:





These gals are always such an inspiration to me! So lucky to know them :)

P.S. I got tagged yesterday by the super cool Monique and Callista
and I just realized I am going to be late for work! UGH!!! Those darn jobs always get in the way!! THANK YOU BOTH SO MUCH!!! I promise I will get my responses up in the next few days!! Love to all of you!!

It's beginning to look alot like....

You know it's Christmas in San Diego when you can go out in your yard and take a photo on a warm winter's night in front of your poinsettia plant that you didn't need to grow in a greenhouse.
That's about my only note from nature that it's time for me to drag out my artificial Christmas tree and start myself a decorating! That's the task on the agenda today. I am taking a little break from it right now because the lights were giving me some trouble... as lights like to do...

Last night I went to December Nights.. which is a big free celebration in Balboa Park to ring in the season with all kind of festivities... I think I may be starting to feel a little tingle from Kris Kringle in my jingle.

If you want some inspiration for those Christmas cards we still all need to crank out.. check out the work we did over at the Scrap Your Crap blog...

Oh and before I forget... So I started a page on facebook.. finally because my friend Shanna has been bugging me to get on that site..WOW! It's a crazy place.. Do any of you facebook? If so, please come on and be my friend.. http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/profile.php?id=1042652696

Gobble Gobble 411..

Wow! Thanksgiving weekend went by as a blur... I hardly stopped moving long enough to catch my breath....

As some of you guys know...I have had some major changes in my life the last few months. It was important for me to create some new traditions...Thanksgiving day I took a 2 hour long walk along the beach in Coronado... let me tell you.. it was a little slice of heaven. I went to have dinner with a few friends at a Veggie/Vegan restaurant and then spent the rest of the evening playing board games with Shanna...I ended the day just as I should..grateful for my bounty in life :)

Friday found me hanging out at the kitchen table of the wonderful Ms. Karin. We were busy little beavers working on projects for her booth at a holiday craft fair next weekend....I of course was the rogue designer (that you all know me to be) and she kept having to remind me to reign in my avant garde style and do as I was told :) Take a look at some of her AMAZING creations...

The crafting fun continued on Saturday as Karin and I headed over to hang with the hostess with the mostest Michelle at her Paper Tales store. A Christmas open house was on the menu and we gorged ourselves with cookies, glitter and ribbons, talks about our fav reality shows and then of course more cookies!!!


Yesterday it was up to Ramona (my small hometown..before I became a big city girl) for a hike and an amazing lunch with two of my oldest friends Lisa and her mom Kate... we made ourselves go for a super long walk so we could scarf up a delicious lunch as we hung around in the garden... Kate has the most amazing begonvilla growing and a cool collection of yard creatures hidden all over the place....



Soooo we are all caught up with me.. what did y'all do?

A 3 Hour Tour...

Do you ever get to do something touristy in your home town? Doesn't it make you really appreciate where you live when you get to kick back and enjoy it from another side?Today my pal Heather and I took a Harbor Excursion Brunch Boat Cruise around the harbor here in San Diego... MAN!... I live in a pretty city!!!! So thankful on this eve of Thanksgiving for the blessings I have in the ability to soak up a beautiful sunny day in the month of November :)

We be crafty!!

Yesterday I got to hang out with one of my favorite pals Michelle..she owns the fabulously wonderful store Paper Tales here in San Diego. She taught a class making these endlessly cute bird house boxes. I of course got carried away with the glitter... I think I even ended up with some in my underwear by the time I was done! All around a perfect day.. Michelle AND glitter.. what more could a girl ask for?

Johnny On the Spot

Everyone should be lucky enough to have great friends. This is my pal Johnny. I have known him forever and he is always there for me. John is gay and recently married his wonderful partner Chip. A few weeks ago the law changed here in California and gay marriage is no longer recognized. We don't know what is going to happen to marriages that were performed before the law went into effect.

No matter where you stand on the topic, I think everyone knows what it is like to love someone so much that you want to be married to the person that you want to spend the rest of your life with.

I think everyone knows what it's like to want to be acknowledged as having a relationship that is beyond dating or living together. I think everyone can also understand at some level the amount of pain it would cause to be newlyweds and to have that feeling overshadowed by a sudden revoking of your right to be married. What do you say or do for a friend that views the issue as one of civil rights. What are your views on the topic?

Marvelous Madonna!!!!

Last Night my Pal CarolAnn scored us some all access passes to the Madonna Concert when she played here at Petco Park. SO AMAZING!! We danced non stop for two hours only stopping long enough to sip our martinis :) I can't believe how many people dressed up like a boy toy to see the concert. I so needed a night out and this was just what the doctor ordered! The sets were amazing, the dancers devine and how fab does Madonna still look after all these years?

When will fall get here?

Ode to fall... when will it get here? This is a pic of my pal Shanna and I on Sunday.. it was 85 degrees and has been in the 80s the entire month of October.. I am dreaming of running and jumping in a big pile of leaves while wearing a cable knit sweater and drinking some cider..sigh.. I guess I should dream about jumping in a swimming pool with this crazy weather! Go ahead-make me jealous..what's your world look like outside?

Animal Activism

This weekend I volunteered to spread the word and hopefully convince people to vote YES on Prop 2 here in California on election day. The proposition is aimed at stopping animal cruelty to farm animals who are being crammed into cages that are so small that the animals can't even turn around, lie down or extend their limbs. My friend Shanna, her adorable whippet Rocket and I spent the afternoon working in the booth and passing out stickers and leaflets to attendees at a canine halloween costume carnival. There were sooooo many adorable pooches. Here some pics from the day:






If you are interested at all on more info on prop 2..here's a link to the official site.

Scrap Your Crap Halloween Challenge

I had a belated birthday lunch with my adorable friend Dawn today. She is so sweet... she remembered I love all things Paul Frank and got me this awesome book!!
She is so thoughtful and makes me laugh so hard! It was exactly what I needed today :)

Over at the Scrap Your Crap Blog we are challenging you to blow the dust off that mega old halloween embellie you haven't wanted to use beacause you were saving it for that "special" project that never happened.. use it now!!!

Gone too Long...

Hey Blog Buddies.. I know I have been a bad blogger and haven't posted in a bit. Life has been beating me up a little but I am alive and well :)

I have managed to create a couple of layouts.

What have all my pals been up to? I am off to check out your blogs and leave some long overdue love :)

P.S. I got my package of goodies from the Halloween Swap I participated in with Ms. Rachel. Take a look at my swag!

Love you all! Have a great rest of your week!

Attending a Palin Party

This is my friend since 5th grade.. Lisa. She is a big time Republican party supporter and huge fan of Sarah Palin. So she calls me on Friday night and says she scored some tickets to her rally in Los Angeles the next day and wants me to come along. This could be a very amusing request considering that I am known to her family as their "token liberal friend".. but she knows that I am always up for a new adventure and that I am absolutely always open to hearing all sides of any issue before I form a decision. So off we went on our road trip yesterday. This is her holding the sign she made for the big event. This was just one of many interesting signs I was to encounter during the day.
This is us waiting in line with the over 20,000 other people that attended and had to wait several hours in some pretty tight security to get in. (notice our new friend behind us trying to get his face time in our shot)
Since I have never been to a rally, I guess I was suprised at the protesters present. As we waited to pull in to the stadium we had our windows rolled down and the several hundred protesters were booing us and throwing flyers in our window urging us to stop "voting with our vaginas"......There were even more protesters standing inside who were yelling back and forth at the rally attendees while we waiting in line. Planes were flying around with messages and the news media was everywhere trying to catch a good sound bite. I wouldn't say that anyone was particuraly hostile but there was some pretty bold language and some harsh comments passed on both sides of the party.
I was really impressed with the amount of people who came out to support the process and a leader they really believed in when there is so much negativity about politicians these days. It really is something to feel the energy of a group of people gathered together with a common cause and the feeling of empowerment that you get that you can make a change.

This the actor Jon Voight who gave one of several speechs to create energy in the crowd before the big rally speech. Here's the woman of the hour and yes, she is just as pretty in real life as she is on T.V.
I am really glad I got a chance to attend and have one of those important reminders about one of the privileges that I have living in America.. sorry to get all patriotic on you but just thought I would remind everyone to appreciate some of the gifts we have and urge everyone to make sure to vote next month. Have any of you ever attended a rally? Did you have a similar experience?

Assume the Position

This is my addition to the newest challenge at the Scrap your Crap blog.. We want to see how many eyelets you can get on a page. I somehow managed to use three different kinds...I really dug into the far reaches of my craft stack for these babies :)

Also saw a great play on Tuesday called BACK BACK BACK at the Old Globe Theatre. It's all about the steriod controversy and followed the time line of everything that went down leading up to the senate investigations. I admit I not much of a sports fanatic.. do you guys think that using steriods is cheating?