Cheese stuffed burgers

After watching episodes of Triple D (Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives), Phil made these yummy Cheddar Cheese stuffed burgers. OMG, they were so yummy and HUGE!

He started by taking ground beef and making a patty. Then we cut up some Extra-sharp cheddar cheese and put it in the middle. Then you take another patty and seal up the edges really well. You don't want to have molten cheese all over the bbq instead of inside the burger.

Then he grilled them on the BBQ. I don't normally eat cheese on my burgers anymore, but MAN, this was SO good!! Having the cheese inside the burger just changes the taste of it, and made it a lot yummier.

We served them on kaiser rolls. We're gonna try grilled onions and mushrooms next.

Niles Flea Market

This past Sunday was the Niles Flea Market. They have it every 4th Sunday in August. And it's really fun and interesting. Down the main street there are booths of antiques and now different types of clothing, art, you name it, they've got it. It started out being just an Antiques faire, but there are a lot of booths selling new items now. Most of the houses in the surrounding neighborhood have garage sales. So not only do you get to find really fun things on the main street, but you get to see what everyone else in the neighborhood is willing to part with.

I found these really cute beverage bottles. They're tiny! And they're filled with the actual drinks. I love coke bottles and anything coca cola, so I just loved checking the different bottles she had out there.
I loved these treasure chests. I love how they're painted. They just look like treasure chests! I would love to paint one up like the red one. LOL I need a treasure chest like I need a hole in the head, but these are just so beautiful!
Speaking of treasure chests, while walking back to Jackie's house, I looked up into the trees of this one home, and there was a Pirate ship! Yep, a pirate ship tree house! So of course, being a Japanese Tourist, I had to take photos of it!!

Look at how pretty she looks! Love the details, like the skull on the end and the chain hanging off.
And you can't have a pirate ship without a pirate flag. It was just so awesome to see it up in the trees!

Rack for Paints

This is an oldie but goodie. I painted this paint rack for Phil's sister quite a few years ago. Ok, a lot of years ago. She wanted fun things painted on the side of it for decorations. So I found these birds and things in some book somewhere, and painted them on.


I forgot how cute it was! LOL So she was going to sell it at a garage sale, and I snapped it up before it could go anywhere. Mine is not so painted. Troy actually made these racks for us, and they hold quite a bit of those little bottles of acrylic paint.

Man, that was a way long time ago, I think Alex was a baby when we started taking painting classes. Makes me want to start painting again...

Like I don't have a ton of other projects to work on. ;)

Embroidered logo from a photo...

I have been working on the logo above lately. A friend of ours asked us to redo the logo. All I had to work with was a photo of the logo on a sweatshirt.


No artwork, just drawing the whole thing from scratch. So into AutoCAD it went. I know I could use other programs to draw the logos, more arty ones. But AutoCAD has been ingrained in me for so many years, that if I can't get a line to go exactly where I want it to go, I get frustrated. Cause, "Why can't I put the line right here and have it go right there and connect??" Art programs really get me frustrated because I KNOW in autoCAD I can put lines where I need them to go EXACTLY where I need them to go.

And I've learned that outlines are way better to do then to fill in all the spaces with color. It's just another process to delete all the colors, or sometimes they get in the way.

So, I uploaded the pic, cropped it and made the color go away so I could see things better, then redrew it in AutoCAD. And then exported it out, imported it into the digitizing program, fiddling with the lines on that, then filling in the stitches, and then working on the outlines...it's finally done!!

Man that was a lot of work!! I know some people like to think it's an immediate process, but that is so far from the truth. You can't always just take a photo, load it in, and you have an embroidered logo. There are a few steps in between that you don't even realize is going on.

Life is easier when you have a nice crisp large black and white logo. Little tiny logos that look big on webpages aren't really that big when you import it into the computer. Only cause when you load them onto webpages, you normally have to make it smaller to have it load faster, so not as many pixels.

So, I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I hope they'll be happy too.

Dream Book 2009

I was so excited to find the Hallmark Dream Book at my local Hallmark store. Every year I get so excited to see the new ornaments. I've been collecting ornaments since my cousin and aunt opened their stores, so many years ago. I know I can see the book online, but it's not the same as holding the paper book in your hands.

I look at it for hours and hours wondering which ones I'll buy for the year. The ornaments have changed so much since they were first created. When my cousin closed her Hallmark store a couple of years ago, she had so many ornaments for sale from so many years back. It really was like looking at a Hallmark museum. They are made so much better now, with so much detail. And so many fun motion or sound ones.

My favorites are the Star Wars series of ornaments. I have almost all of them, I only missed a couple from last year. I am so excited that they have a Han Solo one! He was my favorite on the series. I mean who didn't just love him?
And the landspeeder is too cool. I would have loved it a bit more if Obi-wan was there as well as C3PO and R2 strapped to the back. LOL I guess that would have been too much detail.
For Kay, here are two that I know she'll love. The Nightmare Before Christmas, it is awfully cute!
And the Corpse Bride. I've never seen the Corpse Bride, but I know she loves it.
I can't wait till all the ornaments are released. I also love going into the store to see them all in person, because sometimes the photos do not do them justice at all.

TJ & Laura's Wedding

Yesterday we went to TJ and Laura's Wedding. We've known TJ and the Gibsons for over 20 years now. I met them through Phil's family, and he actually met them through TJ playing baseball with Phil's nephew. Then they all started playing softball together. I just can't believe how much everyone has grown. I mean I still picture the kids as well, Kids!

They were married in San Ramon, and it was a beautiful day for them. Not too hot, not a cloud in the sky. It was a beautiful day!
Here's TJ and Debi. How cute is that! :)

Don't you just love this cake topper! I love that they used such a fun photo of themselves. What a great idea!
TJ and Alex being all gangsta. LOL They just crack me up!

Doesn't Alex look so grown-up and beautiful! I just love her! She's turning into such a lovely young lady. Yes Rusty, she's turning into a girl! LOL

USB Geek

On one the tweets I received from Pikko, there was a bento box USB flash drive. Now, I don't know why but I am so facinated by all things that will plug into a USB port. Or should I say, I'm so amazed at what they will create to plug into a USB port. Above is one of the cooler ones that I found. The USB connector actually will retract into the unit. I just love that you can wear it as jewelry and no one will know that it's a thumb drive. it's called a red cube USB drive.

I love the little sushi thumb drives. how fun is that to plug sushi into your computer. A bit bulky to carry around with you, but what a conversation starter. :)

the USB Circus Cannon is just FUN. I don't know why I love USB cannons, they are just too fun! I think it's all those years in the engineering office where we wished we could have had something like that to throw stuff over cubicle walls. This is cool, controlled by your computer, it rotates 360°, and will tilt 45°. It even has sound effects. Too darn cool.

And this cracks me up. I want a little bitty fridge to put next to my computer. And that is what I would have in it, one can of coke. LOL It says it takes 5 minutes to bring the fridge down to 47° F. How fun is that? If the kitchen wasn't next to my computer, I would SO have this on my desk.

So if you have the soda cooler, you really need this Beverage cooler and warmer. Keep your soda cool in a glass, or your coffee/tea hot in a mug. I have always wanted a beverage warmer, cause sometimes I forget that I have tea, and it gets cold. This is a great idea!!

Check out the USB Geek website for other cool items. I could spend hours there!! LOL

Heart spot

Well, we've renamed the kitten. His name is now Cujo. Why Cujo? Well, everytime I go out there, and he's in a playful mood, he just ATTACKS me. It doesn't hurt, more annoying then anything. He's growing up so fast though, I think he'll be taller than the other two. I figure he'll be moving into the house as soon as we can get him his shots.

Anyway, I noticed something really cute on him while he was sleeping. His spot on his side looks like a heart.

Here's a close up of his "heart". It's really neat cause it was a circle shape before, and it's now changing a bit. I don't know if you can see it, maybe if you squint your eyes and tilt your head to the left... LOL

Anyway, thought I'd give you the Cujo update. He's so cuddly and cute! I'm glad he decided to stick around. Phil even gets a bit worried when he can't find him in the yard for too long of a time. I think that is cute. LOL

stitched logos

These are what the logos look like stitched out. I didn't have the correct blue, but we'll fix that when we do them on whatever we're gonna do them on. I really liked how the bears logo turned out. I get really excited when it turns out well. I know, it's the little things. LOL But it kind of goes with my techie background. I love seeing the things I drew out on paper actually made into something tangible. It's always so awesome seeing things in real life. So, when an embroidered logo turns out well, I'm happy.


I changed the feed store logo a little bit. I put CLOSE on top in larger letters with Feed & Supply smaller on the bottom. It looks a lot better to me. And I have to tighten up the animals a little bit, the stitches weren't close enough together for me. Plus you can't see the pig's face, so I'll have to adjust it a bit. I think it's cool that I can tell that's a goat, duck, horse, rooster, bunny, lamb, and I think that last one is either a goose or a turkey. the pig is just a blobby to me.

More on the SF Gift Show

My cousin posted a few pictures and things that she's seen on her blog, Tina the Trend Guru. Check out the Ollipop rings and the button Jewelry. She also has pics of the green products that we saw there too.

Check it out!

Embroidered Logos...

These are a few of the logos I've been working on lately. The one above is for a local feed store. I scanned their business card cause they wanted the animals on the bottom. But of course the logo is really small once you scan it in the computer. So I enlarged it and redrew it. I'm finding that is the easier way for me to get logos created.

Because unless you have a really good copy, when you take a photo of the logos, or even scan them, they get really grainy and take a lot of work to clean up. I was frustrated at first when I had to clean up logos for different people cause it really took a long time. But once I realized, duh, I can redraw them, life has been so much easier.
And these are two versions of logos for a local football league. The team I'm working with is the Bears. So they use the Chicago Bears logo. So, I redrew the logo from something I found on the internet. The version below was the first submission. And the one above is a redesign. They wanted the lettering to go around the "C".
It's really fun learning how to create all these logos. And I am getting a little bit faster each time, and learning more about the software. Tomorrow will be my day to try these out on the machine to see how they will embroider. So more updates tomorrow!

SF Gift show

Today I went to the San Francisco Gift show with my two cousins, Tina and Leah. It was so interesting to see what is new and interesting at the show. This year it was set up differently than previous years. It was set up like different areas of San Francisco...ok. LOL

It was interesting to me to see so many vintage items. We had a favorite store in Los Gatos that just closed, and in it were so many different vintage items. And part of the gift show this year reminded me of that store. Lots of vintage button jewelry, items made from vintage books and clothing. Many Eiffel towers and fleur de lis too.

A lot of booths had the scrabble tile pendants. I've been looking at those on etsy for awhile, and it was interesting to see so many booths with them.

Also lots of green products like the Stainless steel water bottles. Which are interesting to me because we went from having metal canteens, to plastic water bottles, to stainless steel water bottles. Things kind of go in a circle sometimes. Lots of reusable shopping bags. All shapes and sizes. Many different patterns and materials. And a really neat pencil made from recycled newspaper. Very cool.

And it was interesting to see a lot of embroidered items. Embroidered towels, aprons, hats in so many different themes. It was inspiring to me to see what can be done with embroidery. I'll have to get my creative gears churning to make stuff for Christmas. I mainly was interested in how they could do their embroidery with little or no stabilizer showing in the back. Did they use tear away? Cause I know they didn't use the cutaway I've been using. And I loved all the different patterns and sayings.

Well, I'll write more tomorrow, I think I'm gonna get some shut eye!

Hope you all had an interesting Sunday!

Flyers in Stockton

Today the Fremont Flyers were in Stockton. It was a bit warm for me, so I didn't take a whole lot of photos. I got this one of Lexi which was cool. LOL

I thought Alex and Melissa looked really cute with their matching orange sunglasses.

And I just loved this photo of Alex.

Debi's niece Shania is visiting from Colorado. She's just so cute and fun.

We had a great time today, the team didn't win any of their games today, but there's always tomorrow!

Family Pagoda

We finally put up the Ehara Pagoda today. My grandfather used to make these in his home in Kauai. He had wooden molds that he would put mixed concrete into. They would dry into these beautiful pagodas. I can remember, as a kid, driving around Kauai and seeing these in the front yards of homes. And I would always think to myself, "My grandpa made that."

Before he passed on, he spent a few months with us here in California to teach my dad how to make them. I remember them discussing how much sand, cement, and rock to use. And how to stamp it down into the molds. It is a very long process to make just one, and I can remember going into the garage with them to watch how they would make the pagodas.

This pagoda was actually made by my dad and grandpa. It was in my aunt's house in San Francisco, but she decided that one of us girls should have it, so it's at our home right now. The bottom part looks a little newer, cause it is. LOL We couldn't get the base off of the rocks in her yard, cause they cemented it down. So we just took one of the bases he had in the garage.

Tina the Trend Guru

My cousin started a blog called Tinathetrendguru today's entry has some wonderful jewelry! I just love it. Check it out if you can!