Melbie's Creative space...Handmade Goodies and Recipes

Happy New Year!

2012-01-07T23:10:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year everyone! This holiday season just flew by too quickly for me, with blankets that I've been embroidering for my gifts to people and for other people's gifts, I've been a bit too busy to post. Thankfully the season is over and I can get back to doing other things.

Some of the things I've been making lately are earrings. I just love making jewelry, and it's been fun making earrings. I love long dangly earrings, so of course those are what I've been making.

I've bought a lot of fun low priced earrings that I know I can add beads to. Like the above pair of earrings I found at Target for $5.99. I added some glass beads I found at the flea market. The above is the before and after.

These two earrings (the other halves aren't in the photo) I got at Old Navy for $2.99 for both pair on sale. I really like the jewelry that Old Navy has been carrying lately.

But I thought I'd add a few more beads to the earrings to make them a bit longer. And I like the look.

These are a pair that I gave to one of my co-workers. I just love them and will definitely have to make a pair for myself.

I'll post a bit more as I make more. Sorry to have been away for so long!

Trip to Reno

2011-11-14T09:44:00.000-08:00

We spent this weekend up in Reno. The Big Reno Show was this weekend, so we wanted to go check it out with a few other outdoors stores. Phil's daughter Ashley and her boyfriend Alex met us up in Reno, and we had a great time all together.

While driving up, we saw a ton of snow. Luckily it wasn't snowing during the drive, but it was really pretty to see the snow on the mountains.

We stopped for breakfast at Jax at the Tracks. We saw them on Diners Drive-ins and Drives awhile ago, and went to visit them for the first time on our last trip to Tahoe. Their breakfasts are amazing! I had the Corned Beef Hash, which was the most delicious ever! And they also serve it with toast and homemade strawberry jam. Oh yum!! I am not a fan of most strawberry jams cause they just taste like feet. LOL But this one was the yummiest ever. I think they need to bottle it and sell it!

Phil had Eggs Benedict. I'm not into the eggs, but it looked really yummy!

If you have a chance, Jax is a MUST stop!

Raining Hope & Kanzashi flowers.

2011-11-14T09:34:00.001-08:00

My sister has a charity called Raining Hope that helps out families in need in Uganda. They had a charity event at Macy's last weekend, and I made some of the Kanzashi flowers for them to use as gifts to those who donated.
I was able to make some into hair pins and to pins. They came out pretty cool.

They're also having an Avon event through the internet at Tina Shadowen's Avon site. If that link doesn't work, you can also get to the event through Tina's Avon site link to the right.

Kanzashi Flowers

2011-10-17T20:59:00.000-07:00

I've seen the templates for the Kanzashi Flowers on different sewing websites, so when I saw them in Beverly's when we were in Modesto, I knew I needed to have them. They said they were easy to use, and they weren't kidding.
You pretty much place a piece of material on the template, then close it. Cut around the template, then with a needle and thread, you follow the numbers. Easy peasy. Once you get to the last spot, you'll undo the template, and pull on the thread. This gathers the material into a petal.
Mine are all the smaller templates. I should have bought them all, but I thought that of course I'd not use them. Boy, was I wrong. I can see using these with some machine embroidery to make different gifts.

We'll see what types of things we can create from these!!

Heart chain necklace

2011-10-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

My sister-in-law wanted me to update this heart chain that she found at the bead store. She loves the chain but thought it looked a little too plain. So she purchased some crystals and asked to see what I could do with it. And this is what I came up with.
Since the beads she purchased were the same size, I thought I'd add the larger pink glass beads to it because the crystal beads looked a bit too small.
And she had some beads left over, so of course we needed to make her matching earrings.

I hope she likes it.

Giants and A's Earrings

2011-10-16T11:19:00.001-07:00

A few years ago I made some Giants earrings for my cousin using Giants earrings she had from her store. They were just the Giants logo with the earring wires. They were pretty popular, so I decided I wanted to make another set. But I couldn't find the earrings I quite wanted to use.

So, while at the flea market this month, I found these:
I thought to myself, man, those just aren't cute, and what is up with the big gold bars and the hoops? But then I had a lightbulb moment. I didn't care what parts they were on, I just wanted the Giants/A's logo. So I bought them. And turned them into these:

Much better! I love the crystal beads way better than the gold bar and hoop. Now I have a couple of pair of great big hoops that I'll figure out how to incorporate into another project. These are gonna make great Christmas gifts! ;)

Oakland A's

2011-09-28T21:54:00.000-07:00

Now that Baseball season is over, I'm finally getting around to posting my A's pics. LOL We actually went to a game a couple of weeks ago, and Phil went with us! He hasn't been to a game in years, so it was great that Ashley took him for his birthday. (although we didn't get around to going till now).

Here's Phil with his dapper hat. ;)

This photo I took right when the player (who I can't remember who it was) hit the first home run of the game! It was really exciting. There were 4 home runs that night by the A's, and they actually won against the Tigers.

Yes, I'm both an A's and Giants fan. :) I loved the movie Moneyball. It was great seeing what happens behind the scenes.

Another couple of pair...

2011-09-18T21:34:00.000-07:00

And here are a couple of other pair I worked on. Guess I was in a green mood today. :) I had the Asian coin beads for awhile, and thought this would be a good use for them.

I just love these large green crystal beads. You can't see the sparkle from the photo, but they're really sparkly!

New Pliers and earrings

2011-09-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite places to find tools is at the Gun show. Yes, the gun show. There are dealers who sell different pliers, dental tools, drills, etc that I love to look through to find something that I can use for some of the various crafts that I make.

One of the best finds ever were these pair of pliers:

They are part round nosed and part curvy. I haven't seen these before and thought they would work well for wire wrapping jewelry.

And they are fast becoming my favorite pair of pliers. They make wire wrapping beads so fast and easy! Why didn't I think to invent these!! Now my loops are coming out evenly.

So I made some earrings, the above pair are purple and clear. It's hard to tell from the photograph.
I love these Celtic heart ones. I have to find more of the Celtic heart beads so that I can make these for other people.

I will have to post more of the ones I've made so you can see.

More Jewelry

2011-09-05T01:21:00.001-07:00

I made the green pair of earrings just because. They're a bit more sparkly in person. I just love the color, it's more of a teal than a green.

The necklace above was made for my sister-in-law. She had these beads that she purchased that she really liked, so I just put them together with some chain and made her a long necklace.

This one was made for my sister. She loved the teardrop shaped beads because they are the theme of her non-profit organization, Raining Hope. So I made her a necklace like one that I saw that I really liked. It's the first time I've worked with Brioche beads, and they were really fun to work with.

Kara's Cupcakes

2011-09-04T13:10:00.000-07:00

So we went to another food truck event last Monday in San Mateo, just to see who would be out there because we just need to know these things. We're getting really into the gourmet food trucks.

Anyway, we found Kara's Cupcakes. We thought we'd try them, eventhough we just love our normal Cupcake truck. They had some flavors that were the same, and some that were totally new, so we thought we'd try a few of theirs.

We had the s'mores just cause you just have to try marshmallow on a cupcake! We bought the meyer lemon one for my mom, Phil had the blackberry creme, and I had the chocolate velvet.

The Blackberry creme was good, the frosting tasted like blackberry, and it was on a chocolate cupcake. I LOVED the Chocolate velvet. I'm not usually into the frosting, but their frosting was to die for. And the chocolate sprinkles on the top were awesome!

Here's a close up of the s'mores cupcake. I just love that it had a graham cracker crust on the bottom.

This is what it looked like cut open. It was really very good. I'm not normally too into the marshmallow either, but loved this!

And I was even more excited to learn that they have stores in the south bay and in SF.

If you're in the area, or see their truck, you should definitely try them out!

It's beading time.

2011-09-03T22:42:00.000-07:00

So now I'm in jewelry mode. Unfortunately, I can't find my collection of beads. When we moved I had to store them in the basement for awhile. And I can't seem to remember where I stored them. So I've been slowly gathering supplies to start making jewelry again.

I've started with this piece. My sister-in-law bought this necklace for $2, and wanted it jazzed up a bit. She didn't like the seed beads between the larger beads. The photo below shows the necklace in its before stage, I forgot to take a photo of it before I started to take it apart.

We decided to put chain between the larger beaded sections. Since they used fishing line to string the necklace, I wire wrapped the beaded sections so that the chain had something to connect to.

Below is the finished necklace. I really liked how it turned out.

Since I started beading, I decided to make another bracelet. I found the pearls on sale at Michael's. But I thought I should wear it first to see how the pearls would wear, because they are glass pearl beads. And good thing, the paint started wearing off on the pearls, so I need to string those with non-glass/metal beads. They will wear a ton better I think.

But the pearls sure do look pretty on the bracelet. LOL

That's Sweet Desserts

2011-08-13T09:07:00.000-07:00

So, every Thursday in Union City, they have the Union City Street Eats where a bunch of gourmet food trucks get together to sell their wares. It's a great idea, you get to try the food from all these gourmet trucks that get together every week.

Our favorite is That's Sweet! Desserts. OMG, they have the best cupcakes that I've ever had. TONS better than Sprinkles. The cupcakes are so moist, with great flavor combinations.

These two are the Salted Caramel and the Maple Bacon. I tried the Salted Caramel last week and just LOVED it. And we just had to try out the Maple bacon just because.

Phil also needed to have the Red Velvet Whoopie Pie. We tried to get these last week, but they had sold out. It's a Red Velvet cake with a cream cheese filling. He said it was super rich, but it was super yummy!

This is a close up of the Salted Caramel Cupcake.

After cutting it open, I found that they kind of cut a hole in the center and pour caramel in it, then cover it up in the most delicious caramel frosting with a drizzle of caramel sauce on top. I love this one because despite all the caramel, the salt cuts the sweetness.

Guess where we'll be next week?? LOL

Go Flyers!

2011-08-08T19:39:00.000-07:00

Our 16U Flyers team made it to second place this weekend at the tournament in Davis, CA. We missed the games on Saturday because Phil had to work. It was great that we didn't lose the first game and have to go all that way for one game. LOL

The tournament organizer announced during the medal ceremony that our organization, the Fremont Flyers, had a team in each division in the finals. This is the first time that he's seen that in a tournament. And he runs a lot of tournaments.

I think that is pretty awesome, because when we started with the Flyers, we weren't the best team in the league. But as we've progressed and matured, the girls have become a much better team. Very proud of you girls!

Happy August

2011-08-03T20:27:00.000-07:00

It seems like I've been blogging once a month these days. I think I have to change that. Life is a bit busy because that thing called work has been getting in the way. LOL But if it wasn't for work I wouldn't be able to do the fun things in life like...

Going to see American Idols live! Now after going to the Glee show, and receiving extra special treatment, I thought that nothing could beat that show. Well, the Idols show came close. I really REALLY enjoyed the show this year.
It keeps getting better and better. They were amazing! Loved James and Haley. Lauren is super cute. And just love Scotty. LOL Paul was one of my favorites too. And Thia was way better live than on the show. And of course it was great seeing Pia. she was my favorite on the show. And I really enjoyed watching her on tour. She gave me goosebumps, and the last person to do that was Celine Dion. :)

We went to Tahoe a couple of weekends ago and saw friends that we haven't seen in quite some time. It was so great to catch up with them. I really miss them a lot! Wish we lived closer to them.

And last weekend our niece Sadie Brown sang with the Cheeseballs in Newark's Music in the Grove. I haven't seen them play in a couple of years, and they're still as awesome as ever! :)

I haven't been very creative lately, but I've been trying to get inspired to do some things. I'll post them as soon as I can figure that out.

It's July!

2011-07-11T22:08:00.000-07:00

OMG, it's already July, can it really be 1.5 months since I've posted last?? Yep, pretty much. Life's been a bit busy at home & at work. Not much time to play lately.

Went to Counter burgers with my friend Kristen a couple of weeks ago and had these yummy slider burgers. They made tiny burgers and put them on Hawaiian rolls. They were so good. When I told Phil about them he had to make Teriyaki sliders with pineapple on them. Those were even better!!

Here's a picture of Velcro Hogging the remotes. Just because I can. LOL She's becoming a lot more chatty lately. She's finally coming out of her shell. She's been so quiet since we moved, and she's getting back to her normal self, which is good. Only took a year and a half.

And this is my favorite photo of the week:
My niece Alex acting all ninja at Bass Pro Shops. She's a character, let me tell you! LOL

This week I'll be going to the American Idols concert, so I'll have a new update for you then. Sorry for the long time between posts. Will have to get better at that!

Fremont Flyers Softball 16U

2011-05-30T20:47:00.000-07:00

We spent our 3-day weekend at a tournament in San Carlos at Carlmont High School. We played a total of 6 games over 3 days. The championship game was 11 innings and ran 3 hours! The girls did great. We were undefeated for all our games. We played teams from San Carlos, Scotts Valley, and Santa Cruz. And we played our fellow Fremont Flyers 16U team.

The girls with their championship trophies.

Our catcher Lindsay Carroll at bat.

My niece Alex pitching.

Safe!
Ari Monges at bat.

It was such a great time. The girls played so well for their first game, setting the bar very high! Every year our group of girls get better and better. There are a few new additions to our team this year, and they make the team that much better!

Go Flyers!!

Glee Tour- San Jose

2011-05-25T22:39:00.000-07:00

Anyone who really knows me, knows how big of a Glee fan I am. I just LOVE watching the shows, I have the CD's and DVD's. And I have to tune in every Tuesday, like my other Gleeks. So, when I heard that they were having a concert, of course I had to call my fellow Gleek, Debi and we just had to go to the show. LOL

My friend Debi knows a really good friend of Cory Monteith. And she invited us to go with her to the Glee concert as guests of Cory's! How cool is that!! Really??? A guest of Cory's???? OMG!!

We get to the concert a bit early, and after a bit of wandering, trying to find where we had to go, we met up with Cory! He was nice enough to look for Tammy and to bring us all backstage.

It was so cool to meet him. He's such a sweetheart! He chatted with us until he had to get ready for the show.

We also met Jenna who plays Tina on the show. She was so nice to stop to say hello to us all. I really loved meeting her!

The HP pavilion was packed!! I just had to take a picture from our 3rd row center seats!! Thanks to Cory! LOL I thought it was so funny when he asked us where our seats were, and then said, "Great Tix", thanks to him we had awesome seats!

Watching the cast perform was so awesome! They sounded like they did on the show! And it was really fun how they incorporated video on the big screen with live action. Heather Morris is one of my favorites. And they had her interacting to videos of Will and Sue.

At the end of the show we were able to go to the meet and greet. And there we met Darren who plays Blaine. He was so nice, he made it a point to stop and talk to everyone in the meet and greet area.

We had an awesome time thanks to Tammy and Cory!! I keep saying it would have been even better if I had been 16. But then I think I would have been too nervous to say Hi to them. :)

Thanks Tammy for inviting me to go along with you all, and a HUGE thank you to Cory for getting us the tickets and the backstage pass!! Totally awesome!

Italia Jacket

2011-05-11T20:39:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine at work really loves soccer. He asked me to do a logo for him for the Italian Soccer team. It was one of the easier ones I did for him, I love how it came out. : )

And below is what it looks like on the jacket.

It was really cool cause now other people want me to make that logo for them. ;)

Paquiao

2011-05-06T22:26:00.001-07:00

Tomorrow night is the big night. Ok, not a big boxing fan here, but I know that there is this fight with Paquiao tomorrow. One of my friends at work is a big fan, and asked me to do a special piece of embroidery for him. He drew the face of Pacquiao, and he had me digitize and embroider it on a couple of sweatshirts. One like the above, with Paquiao's signature.

And this one with Paquiao's signature larger on the hood. I wasn't sure how it would actually turn out, but I really liked it a lot. When you have the white background with darker thread, it doesn't look as good as having it on a dark background.

And here's a picture of Andre wearing the sweatshirt. It really does look very cool. If I were a Pacquiao fan, I might have to have one too. LOL

Lady Eagles Softball Embroidered logo

2011-04-26T22:41:00.000-07:00

I can't believe I haven't posted since February. I think you need to blame those darn Angry Birds. LOL Ok, Angry Birds, Words with friends, Boggle, oh, and of course Farmville and Cityville. Darn those Facebook/Ipod apps. Can you say Time Suckers?? LOL Well, that plus with working full-time, life's been pretty busy.

I was in a creative funk. I get so tired after work that I really haven't been very creative, choosing to play games instead. But thankfully my niece Alex has gotten me out of that funk. :)

She asked me to do the embroidery on the American High School Softball's Varsity team's warm-up jackets. Alex never asks for anything, so of course, if she asks, I'm doing to do whatever I can to do what she has requested. Cause she's my Alex! :)

So we started with a photo of the American High School logo (which coincidentally looks like the Philedelphia Eagles logo), and redrew it, then digitized it on the computer.

This is what the logo looks like digitized above. I always like taking a screenshot of the logo just to show everyone what it is going to look like. Then I'll stitch out a sample. Below is the actual logo stitched on a jacket.

I think it looks really good. I did find out that stabilizers really do matter. The stabilizer from JoAnn's worked out a lot better than the WalMart stabilizer. So guess who has to stock up on stabilizer while it's still on sale. LOL

This is one of the jackets. On this style of jacket, there is a net lining and a zipper that is on the inside. I still have a problem understanding why you'd need a zipper. There's no pocket there, and it doesn't unzip the lining from the jacket. So now when I do the names, I'll have to unzip the zipper, then baste the lining to the jacket so it won't move while stitching.

It's always a challenge to hoop different items. I hope that the girls will like them. :)

Happy 3 day weekend!

2011-02-20T22:05:00.000-08:00

I'm so glad it's a three day weekend, but kinda bummed that I caught the office cold. So I've spent all today sleeping and recouping. I'm thinking tomorrow will be the same. But at least I don't have to miss a day of work.

Life's been kinda busy lately. I haven't done a whole lot of anything. I did get my sister's blankets done for an event she had last weekend.
They came out pretty well. And after I had already done all of them an idea popped into my head. So I'll have to work on the idea. ;)

My cousin is now selling Avon, if you're interested check out her website lots of cool stuff. :)

Was going to sit down and get some embroidery done this weekend, but I think I'll try and do stuff next weekend.

Will keep you posted as to the new things I do. :)

New Car! New Embroidery!

2011-01-30T00:28:00.000-08:00

I have finally found my new car! Who would have thought that car shopping would take so much time and be so tiring!! It's so way different than it used to be. I love the fact that you can go on the internet and find who has what make and model.

A few times we were a bit too late, and the car had already been sold. We found that used Subaru Foresters are very hard to find. And when you do find them, and if they are in good condition, they get snapped up pretty quickly.

So when we found this one, we snapped it up as well. And I love my Forester!

It is red like my truck. And it drives really well. I am totally in love with it! And so is Phil. He even offered to take me to JoAnn's today when I needed to go. LOL

And now that my car shopping is over, it's back to work on embroidery. I have 33 blankets to do for my sister. Yep, you read right, 33. Here is what it looks like digitized. Pretty simple. I'll take a photo of the finished project once I'm done. :)

Happy New Year!

2011-01-16T14:36:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year! It's been a long time between posts. I hope you all are having a great new year. I've been keeping busy with work lately, and spent the last part of December making gifts for Christmas.

For our Company Christmas party we went to Golden Gate Fields. OMG, this was so much fun! Since I'm one of the new employees, I got to go down to the track and watch one race, then we had our photo taken with the winning jockey, Russell Baze. It's funny cause I had no idea that Russell Baze has the most career victories ever.

Here's the photo of all of us. I think it's so cool that we got to take a photo with him. :)

Here is a photo of my lunch buddies from work at Golden Gate Fields. Andre, Chetan, and German.

This is one of the projects I worked on for Christmas. Blankets. :) My friend Lois had me embroider a few for her for Christmas. So I spent the latter part of December making a few for some friends along with some shirts and jackets. It was an embroidered Christmas! LOL

And I'm so sad that my New Year started off with a bang, literally. I got into an accident, which pretty much totaled my truck. My truck has been everywhere with me. We went on a biking trip to Oregon, many trips to visit my sister in So Cal and trips to Tahoe. Just everywhere! I think it was the world's way of making me get a new vehicle, since my truck and I have traveled together everywhere since 1989. RIP old friend.

Growing Kitties

2011-01-16T14:29:00.001-08:00

It's been awhile since I've posted photos of the kittens outside. I didn't realize till I looked at old photos of the kittens, that they've grown so much. They've all been fixed by the Homeless Cat Network and they have their shots. I'm so glad, cause for years the kitten population was just crazy in my folk's backyard. I'm so glad that at least now, their yard is under control. We couldn't have possibly paid for getting all the feral cats fixed. So, a great big THANK YOU goes out to them!!

This is one of my favorites. We call him Runty cause he was the runt of the litter. Not anymore, he's growing up so much. I just love his personality. He's always following us around the yard. I swear it's like we have little dogs. LOL

Playing with my embroidery software

2010-12-14T22:25:00.000-08:00

So I was playing with my embroidery software. I'm finding out more things, oh like I can choose more colors of thread. LOL I had no idea that I could click on a pull-down menu and get all the different thread colors. Yep, should have figured that one out a year ago. LOL,

Had to do a Giants logo. I really want to do the scripty one, but this one will do for now. ;)
This one is for a soccer team, the Millionarios. Or Millionaros. I'm bad at spelling.
And the cowboys. Not a fan here, but I know someone who is...
And Pacquiao. A friend of mine drew this up, it looks really cool!

Anyway, plan on doing some more designs this week. none of this is for sale. Just practicing. :)

What I do for my sister...

2010-11-13T21:37:00.000-08:00

So, my sister, who is a really big Giants fan, wanted World Series shirts. She lives in Dodger-land, so of course, they're not going to carry any Giants World Series Gear. LOL
So, the day after the World Series, we were sent to Sports Authority to get her a shirt.

This is what we saw when we entered Sports Authority...

Yes, it was a line from the front of the store to the back of the store. But do you think this was the line to pay for your shirts???

WRONG!

It was the line to pick out your shirts. Yep, we all are waiting to see what they have so we can BUY them. LOL Reminds me of the old Day on the Greens, where you wait and wait for a shirt to say, "I was there" LOL.
I know people thought I was nuts to sit in the line for a shirt. But heck, how often do the Giants win the World Series?? Of course I got a shirt, my other sister got a shirt, my mom, my aunt, and even my sister's bf got a hat. LOL Good thing we sat in line too, cause there wasn't much left by the next day.

I don't remember the lines being this long for even the 49ers winning the Super Bowl.

Go Giants!

2010-11-01T21:55:00.000-07:00

Tonight the Giants won!! I'm so very excited. Although I'm more of an A's fan than a Giants fan, I totally jumped on that Giants bandwagon. LOL

Yesterday, my sister dragged me to AT&T Park so she could take photos of the park. It was kind of nice being there with not a ton of people around.

Here I am in front of McCovey Cove. I just think it's so pretty to have a ballpark on the water. Makes you want to rent a kayak and catch some home runs! LOL

Congratulations to the Giants!!

Getting back into it

2010-10-16T07:45:00.000-07:00

It's been awhile since I've had the time to do much creating. Mainly because I've been working. And we've had a few big jobs that we have been working overtime on, so much of my free time has been spent just trying to relax. And of course to farm, farmville is too darn addicting. Just gotta farm farm farm. LOL

A friend of mine at work wanted a couple of designs embroidered. He's in our art department, so he actually helped me out to draw out these designs. It was a big help for him to actually draw it first so that step was eliminated! :) Then all I had to do was to digitize it.

The top design is for the league and the bottom one here is for the team:

I just now have to stitch them out.

I have one more bicycle design that I'll post after I stitch it out tomorrow. It's been so long since I've actually done anything on the machine. I'm so glad that I have the time to get back into it now. :)

Wands

2010-10-16T07:29:00.000-07:00

I just learned that one of my friends makes these really cool wands. I had no idea he loved Harry Potter as much as I do (Ok, he might love it a little more than me if that is possible).

Here are a couple of the wands that he makes. I just think they are too cool. I really do think I need to have one. :)

His shop on etsy is lighthill01. I just love all the hand carving and detail that goes into his wands. And the finishes. :) Awesome job Matt!!

Romalo's Cannoli & Spumoni Factory

2010-09-12T22:11:00.000-07:00

Labor Day weekend, I went to Monterey with my friend Debi and her daughter Alex, and my Ashley. While we were there, we stopped into this little sandwich shop and had some lunch and dessert. Debi had a cannoli. It was this rolled pastry stuffed with something that looked like whipped cream. I've never had a cannoli before, so when she offered a bite, I tried it. And man, I'm hooked! :)
So when we got home, I thought I'd google Cannolis to see what would pop up. And Romolo's Cannoli and Spumoni factory popped up. Hmm, a cannoli factory?? Phil, of course, has had cannoli's. And when I showed him their website, he starts to describe cannolis to me in detail. So of course we had to go to Romolo's to check it out.

It's a Sunday, late afternoon, and there wasn't a line at all. Since we were Romolo cannolis virgins, the owner greets us and begins to show us what all our options are with the cannolis. Do we want plain shells, which is good if we're going to eat in right away. Or we could have chocolate lined ones, which will keep the shells crispy. And once filled, we had more options. Did we want chocolate chips, pistachios, or a cherry?

We ended up with half a dozen. 4 with chocolate, 2 without. Don't they look so yummy??

And he hand makes the ice cream there. OMG, it was the yummiest ice cream ever!! So very creamy. I know I have to go back to try the other flavors!!

After we were there for like a minute, the place started to fill up with customers, we lucked out getting there first! :) Will have to go back again to try other things, the tiramisu looks so yummy!!

It's already September!

2010-09-06T21:29:00.001-07:00

I can't believe how fast the summer has passed. Didn't the kids just get out of school just a little while ago?? I guess when you are back to work, the days fly by that much more faster.

I've been going to movies more this summer, although I didn't see all the ones I wanted to go see before they left the theatre. It is way convenient having a movie theatre just blocks away from home. I keep telling my folks, "Why didn't they build a theater there when we were kids? Would have been way more convenient to walk there then to have to get rides all the time." LOL

I haven't been as creative as I used to, mainly because when you work all week, when you come home you just want to crash or to spend time with everyone. But with Christmas coming up, I'd better get cracking!

The outside kittens have grown up a lot:

The runt kitty (pictured at the bottom) has grown a lot. We thought he would stay kitten sized. He's much smaller than the others, but he's grown a ton!

This is my kitten, bitey. I call him Bitey or Cujo cause he always bites me before he gets comfortable. I've become a cat chew toy/kitty bed. He loves to sit with me after dinner. I swear he's one of those kitties you could pose for sleeping pictures, and he doesn't care. :)

This is a new kitten that showed up the other day. He was crying and crying all day. His mom was just so tired of feeding kittens that she pretty much abandoned him. But the other kittens have adopted him, let him stay around and sleep with them. So he's not so needy anymore. Which is so great! I don't like crying kittens cause you can't tell them everything will be ok. Ok, you could tell them, but heck, they don't understand you. LOL

Other than that, I've started reading the five hundred kingdoms series by Mercedes Lackey. I really love them! I thought it was funny that they're labeled as romance novels. I still think of them in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. I have always loved reading fairy tales and mythology. At first I wasn't sure if I'd like them, but OMG, they are so addicting to read! I just love it how they incorporate all the different fairy tales in the books, and especially explaining how a fairy godmother becomes a fairy godmother. I'll let you all read them to decide if you like them or not. I know they are going to be a re-read for me too!!

Monterey Bay

2010-09-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we spent the day in Monterey. I've been wanting to go to the Monterey Bay Aquarium for awhile now, so I decided to take Ashley, Debi, and Alex with me. It's was my kind of day in Monterey, not too warm, nice and foggy. It was awesome! Here are some photos from the aquarium:
They have a Seahorse exhibit going on right now, and i just love that seahorse. It looks so neat.

Debi was cracking up at me after I took these photos, cause they came out so cool. My comment was, "It is almost like swimming there in the ocean". She thought that was too funny. :)

Had to take my photo of Dory. I just love Dory!! :)

Here's Ashley.

And this seal was sitting on a rock outside the restaurant we had dinner at that night. It was so cool to see him swimming in the bay. It was really fun walking around the wharf, especially cause every restaurant there wants you to sample their clam chowder cause they want to reel you into their restaurant for dinner. We had some really good chowder, one that the owner called "The best Chowder on the Wharf" really wasn't. LOL You can't make that claim if you don't back it up, buddy.

All in all, it was such a nice day. We got to see the aquarium, did some shopping, and had some eats. Two thumbs up!

I can't believe it's July!

2010-07-02T22:37:00.000-07:00

Can you believe that it's July already? Where did this month go? I'm just amazed that life is whizzing by so quickly.

So many things happening in life, it's just been crazy. And catching a cold hasn't made life slow down any. My dad had a cold, so of course we all caught it. LOL In his words, "I like to share". Just wish he wouldn't have shared his cold. ;)

The kittens are growing bigger and bigger. and they're a ton of fun. they like to follow us everywhere. I have to take updated pictures of them soon. One hasn't grown much though, we call him Runt, Hobbit, Frodo, and Speedy Gonzalez. Speedy cause he can run up the stairs so quickly cause he wants to come inside the house.

We have Cujo 2. I always have one kitten that just loves to attack me, and he lives up to his Cujo name. The only thing is that he likes to attack everyone else too. LOL But then, when he sleeps, he sleeps really hard. I always wondered how they got the kitties in sleeping photos to do such cute things. Now I know. He can sleep so hard that you could dress him up and he wouldn't care. ;)

I haven't been very creative lately. I think that having my stuff still in boxes, and having not much free time has curbed my desire to create things. I think I'll have to go to a class soon to remedy that, just what class to take is the question.

How is your week going?

2010-05-05T22:05:00.000-07:00

Well, yesterday I left work and found that someone was nice enough to leave a big dent in the side of my truck. Guess they thought that it didn't look right, so they would leave their mark on my truck. Wish they would have signed it too, so I would know who to charge the deductable to. LOL

Can you say SQUISH? I could be mad, but why? Man, they did a doosy on it. Glad that the door and the window weren't damaged. Cause then I couldn't drive it. I was joking around yesterday that the force wasn't with me. Cause May the 4th is my favorite holiday...International Star Wars day! But really it was. Cause one of my coworkers was involved in a hit and run. He was going through the intersection legally, and someone ran the red light right into his car. Of course the person who hit him tried to run away, but luckily they caught him. Thank goodness. So I really was lucky not to have been in my truck.

Well, so to brighten my day, I'll post a couple of kitten pics. This is a pic of mom and the kittens in the small box. they're a little squished, but cute.

Here are the kittens a few days later. They're eyes are starting to open. They're too darn cute. But sad to say, one of the kittens died last night. We think a predator got to it cause their cardboard box fell over one day, so we moved them to a new box, but it was a bit too accessible to other critters.

So, my dad moved the box and attached it to a shelf so it wouldn't fall down. He also put a lid on the box so that nothing could get to them. LOL So hopefully they'll be safe.

New Thread...

2010-05-04T21:41:00.000-07:00

So I tried this new thread yesterday for embroidering. I've been using Rayon thread since I started. And I just found out that Polyester thread is supposed to be better for embroidering. It doesn't fade as quickly as Rayon will.

So, I thought I'd try some Poly thread. I had to do new jackets for FGSA, so I thought I'd try it on that. OMG, they're not kidding when they say it's better thread. Now I have to replace all my thread. I just LOVE it! it stitches out so nicely.

So now, I'll be spending a lot of ime at Eddie's Quilting Bee replacing all my thread. LOL

Day Three

2010-04-22T21:35:00.000-07:00

Day three...kitten watch.

Today was day three for the kittens. When I peeked in the box earlier, they were climbing all over their mom. After she left the box to eat, I snuck a peek at how they are growing. OMG, they are too darn cute!!

I'll try to keep you posted on their growth every couple of days. :)

Flowers and kitties

2010-04-21T21:16:00.000-07:00

So outside of the house my mom planted these beautiful iris'. Of course I love them cause they're purple. I just think they're so pretty!

And the lilacs are blooming too. I love the flowers, just can't be near the smell for too long.

And surprise surprise! The mama cat that is our "friendly" cat had 5 kittens yesterday. When my mom saw her earlier in the day, she was still chubby, and when I got home from work, she was skinny. So I went searching for her kittens.

She had them in this small cardboard box. LOL right now she just fits, but with 5 kittens, they'll outgrow the box pretty quickly. So I know that Phil will build them some kind of shelter cause he always does. And we'll go out and get her fixed as soon as she's done weaning. I'm just lucky that she likes us and lets us get close enough to her kittens.

Embroidery tips and tricks

2010-04-06T20:45:00.001-07:00

So, two weekends ago I took a class with my friend Debi that was called Embroidery T-N-T, tips and tricks. And it was a fun class. It really was a big sales pitch for this uber awesome machine that we got to use from Bernina. We all thought it would be more geared towards tips and tricks, not lessons on how to use this new machine, and by the way, would you like to take one home?

Sure, if it wasn't for the $10,000+ price tag on it. LOL

Three of us shared one machine. So each of us got to do one project. Mine was this one, it was one of those cut out types. It was cool, I loved the font that was in the project. The next project was a reverse applique, and the last project was one on monograming.

I learned a bit about stabilizers, and would like to take another class on those. It made me want to do some more embroidering though. So I think I'll spend some time figuring out some designs to do.

Japanese Kit Kats

2010-04-02T23:41:00.000-07:00

So, Phil and I were in the Japanese market the other day, and we saw that they carried Japanese Kit Kats. I've seen them on the internet for awhile now. They make a ton of different weird flavors. Like this bag was a bag of Sweet Potato Kit Kats. I thought, that's kinda weird. But Phil was all into trying them. So we bought them.

These are what the bars looked like. They were a white chocolate, with sweet potato powders in them. And what was great about these kit kats are that they have no fat. You read right, no fat! LOL

Phil says they were really good, so I think he wants to try the maple ones that we saw. They also make a bunch of different flavors, they have shoyu flavors, miso, and a ton of others too. Not sure I want to try the shoyu ones though.

Softball Logo

2010-04-02T23:35:00.000-07:00

So, one of our local softball teams wanted a logo done for their coaches shirts. They gave me this picture to create the logo. So I redrew it in AutoCAD, and digitized it.

This is the final product. I liked how it turned out. Their school colors are purple and gold, so we did the girl in gold, the swoosh in white, and on a lovely purple shirt. We also put each of the coaches names on the shirts.

I have to figure out some more softball logos so I can do more things with it.

Oreo in a box

2010-03-25T21:33:00.000-07:00

So during our move, our cats were wigging out. Mainly cause parts of the house kept disappearing. We've been in our house longer then they've been alive, so that was the only home they've ever known. Oreo just didn't know what to do.

Every day I'd tell him that I was going to move him in a box too. Well, in his cat carrier. LOL I would let him know that he wasn't going to get left behind. And that we were taking him with us.

So I guess he decided to box himself up. LOL Love it when he sits in boxes.

He's very happy here at home now. My mom totally spoils him. I think she really likes having a cat around. She's buying him treats, feeding him in his own special bowl in the kitchen. It's cracking me up. :)

Lady Titans

2010-03-22T20:32:00.000-07:00

This weekend we finally got the computer desk put together. Well, after trying to figure out where we put all the parts. You know how hard it is to remember where you put screws and desk legs 3 weeks after moving your whole life?? Well, we would have found them sooner if we had remembered that the parts were in one of the dressers. LOL

So this is the first embroidered logo I've worked on since we've moved. It's for the Lady Titans in Fremont. They gave me the artwork, I redrew and digitized it. I think it doesn't look too bad. I just have to stitch it out tomorrow to see how good it looks.

This weekend was filled with a lot of stuff. We had the plumber over cause I noticed there was a leak in the basement. One of the pipes was breaking, so we had a little leak. Well, when the plumber was putting the new pipe in, another old pipe broke. Thank goodness he was the one who broke it, cause can you imagine? We'd have to have him back. LOL So we're all better now that it's fixed. I felt bad for him cause he was here for about 9 hours! He probably wanted to start his weekend many hours ago. LOL

Yesterday was filled with organizing, and spending time with family. It's good to be back home, Phil and my dad enjoy talking every night. And I get to spend more time with my mom. He's doing really good after his shoulder surgery. I'm so amazed at how quickly he's healing. He'll have a bad day here and there, but overall he's healing quickly!

Creativity...

2010-03-17T21:09:00.000-07:00

What is it about working that makes you want to get back to being creative? For awhile I've been doing pretty much nothing in the creating department. I was spending way too much time on Farmville or farmtown or just on facebook in general. And I was getting totally nothing done.

I saw Debi's gratitude journal this weekend, and I totally want to create a book out of fabric, or make some fabric inchies! I think after I get some stuff all organized, and I figure out where the heck I put everything, i'll get back to creating.

I also want to see some old friends, something I didn't do a whole lot of before. Facebook has reconnected me with some old friends that I want to see again.

So, now that I don't have a lot of time anymore, there's so much I want to go and do. LOL Isn't that always the way things happen??

Day in San Francisco

2010-02-22T01:22:00.000-08:00

My niece and my sister were here visiting from Ventura this week. They were helping us out with going through some stuff at my parents' house. So we decided to take a break and go to the City on Wednesday.

Our first stop was Free Wednesday at the Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. It was great because we saved $25 each on admission, but there was so many people in there that we all decided that the next time we'll pay the admission fee! LOL

Since Kiana was taking time off from school, we called it her Field Trip. I liked the new set-up of the Aquarium. I wished we could have gone into the rainforest part, but the line was so long we skipped it. We decided to do that another time.
The aquarium is now downstairs. It's neat because there is so much to see, the above photo is from the Philippine Coral Reef. I loved it cause of all the colorful fish. And we could see the guy cleaning the tank, which was pretty cool. Reminded me of Finding Nemo. LOL
This photo is of the California Coast Tank. Love to see all of the fish that we have close to us in the ocean. They pipe in the water for the tanks directly from the ocean. I learned that from watching a show on the building of the new aquarium on Discovery channel.

The one drawback of being downstairs was that there were so many people downstairs, and it made it very warm. If you're claustrophobic, free Wednesday might not be a great idea. Too many people crammed into such a little space. Other than that, it was a great experience.

After going to the aquarium, we decided to walk through the Japanese Tea Garden across the way. I haven't been there in years, I think the last time was with my friend Christine. It was really neat to go back and take a bunch of photos.
Here is Eydie and Kiana on the bridge. The bridge is really cool, really steep though. LOL They had fun trying to climb down.

And here is a picture of the Buddha statue in the garden. It was so cool, there was a finch that kept landing on his hand. I didn't take the picture in time to get it, that would have been a cool pic.
So, of course after going to the tea garden, we had to go to Japantown to go get noodles at Mifune. And of course we had to walk around and shop. My favorite store is of course the Sanrio Store. It's a pretty big one, and they had some really fun San Francisco Kitty items. I just love getting the different city's kittys.
Here's the front of the store:
It was a really great day to play, and I'm glad we got to spend time together.

Super Bowl Fry Day

2010-02-09T01:23:00.000-08:00

This past Sunday was Super Bowl Sunday. For those of you who aren't from the US, the Super Bowl is the biggest game of the year. It's where the NFC and AFC has their final game of the season to see which is the best team. Either you're watching the game cause you love football, or you're like me, watching the game to see what was the best commercial this year. LOL

This year Phil's family decided that we'd have a Fry Day. Meaning that everything was deep fried, and pretty much finger foods. Yes, warnings went off in my head at the thought of having mainly fried foods. But of course the novelty of it won out, even though I knew I was going to have a stomach ache afterward.

One of our favorite fried foods is Garlic Steaks. Think of a chicken fried steak with a ton of garlic in it, and you have Garlic Steaks. Phil gets Italian bread crumbs and mixes in chopped onions and minced garlic. Then he dips a thin piece of steak in an egg wash, presses that in the bread crumbs, and fries it. OMG, it is so good.

We thought that mini corn dogs would taste really good. So we bought the mini smokies at Costco, dipped them in corndog batter made from Krusteaz and cornmeal. I did a half recipe and it still was way too much. They turned out pretty good.

We also had fried Raviolis. Phil takes frozen raviolis, and he breads them with the same stuff he uses on the garlic steaks. They turned out really yummy.

We also had regular cheese sticks. Those were really easy to make. Since we weren't at home, we had to make due with what was in the house. Al bought string cheese sticks, and we dipped that in the egg wash. We used the Italian bread crumbs to coat, then dipped it back in the egg wash and back into the bread crumbs. Then deep fry. Those really didn't take long at all to fry. And they tasted like any cheese sticks you'd get at a restaurant. I wish I had thought to take a picture of them.

For dessert I made Apple Zeppolis. They're from the recipe that Giada made on her show. I think I didn't squeeze out the juice from the apples enough, cause it made the dough more like a batter. So we pretty much had apple funnel cakes. They were quite good, I must say. LOL

And not pictured are the fried twinkies. We were going to use the traditional fried twinkies recipe, but there was no vinegar in the house. That's one thing about going to someone else's house to cook. I know what I have in my house, and I have pretty much everything I need. And I get a bit frustrated when I'm told to make something, but I don't have what I need. You get used to your tools, you know. Anyway, since we didn't have any vinegar in the house, and since no one was going to go to the store to get any, we used the Zeppoli batter. And you know, it turned out pretty good. Or so I was told. I'm not a big twinkie fan, so when I took a bite, it was too darn sweet for me. But everyone else liked it.

I also made some not fried things. Phil's mom had a few mini bundt cake pans that I inherited. Mainly cause I bake, and no one else does. LOL So I've been making mini bundt cakes lately. These are mocha cakes with mocha glaze and homemade whipped cream. They were really yummy.

I think that was my last fry day party! I hope next year we incorporate some veggies cause man, that was too much fried foods in one day!

Winter Banners...

2010-01-28T23:23:00.000-08:00

So before we decided on moving, oh so many months ago, I signed up for a Winter Banner Swap hosted by my friend Debi. What you were to do was to make a 5x7 triangle banner flag out of cloth for each participant so that we all can have a piece of each other's artwork. Turns out the final number was 20 flags.

It's the first time I've ever made a banner flag, and it was a lot of fun. I tried doing it out of this heavy brocade material, but it unraveled too much for me to have unfinished edges. And so I decided on making it out of a cotton material with a heavy stabilizer backing.

I saw the circle felt snowflakes in an issue of CK. So I scraplifted the idea. I just love doing hand embroidery, so I was able to incorporate a teeny bit into the banner.

Then I found this really great mesh material that had glittery snowflakes on it, you can't see it very well cause, it's kind of washed out. But I took a bit of that material, and sewed it to the top half of the banner for a bit of texture.

Then after all was said and done, I sewed on sequins with beads to each banner. I love a bit of sparkly!

I'll take a better picture of it when I get it back. Everyone is doing such beautiful work! I can't wait to see what all the banners will look like. :)

New Shows...

2010-01-19T01:36:00.000-08:00

I am loving the new winter season of TV. Mainly because two of my favorites are back, Chuck and Big Love. I love the new Chuck 2.0! You all know that he had the new intersect downloaded into him at the end of last season. And this year it makes him actually do cool things. It's so much more fun to watch him kick butt! And how can you not love that Captain Awesome knows about his being a spy, and now he's sucked into being a spy. And my favorite character is Casey. (KC?) I love Adam Baldwin, and he's just so super awesome in Chuck. Loved him as Jayne in Firefly, but he's so much better here.

Now on Big Love, so many things are happening. I swear I wasn't going to watch that show when it first came out. I mean who wants to watch a show on polygamists? But man, after the second show it just hooked you in. And It's fun seeing what is going to happen next with the Hendricksons. And having Adam Beach on the show this season is super awesome!

This week Burn Notice starts up too. You know, I just love the USA networks shows. I don't know what it is about them, but they are so much better than the TNT shows. Well, except for that Jada Pinkett show, I really like that one too.

Um, do you think I watch too much TV?

And of course, it's so fun that Idol is back! I miss Paula, cause she was always so crazy! I wonder how the show will be without Simon next year. I know people don't like Simon, but I just love how he tells it like it is. He's truthful, and he just wants to make them into better singers.

Anyway, hope you all are having a great week!

Tagged by starrbatt

2010-01-15T02:49:00.000-08:00

So my friend Kay has tagged me to list the 10 things I enjoy to do that doesn't cost money. And I think our lists are going to overlap a bit. :) I know that most things are relatively free. I mean you still have to pay to get to most places out of your neighborhood. Cause you had to ultimately buy your car or bike, or even your shoes to get there. Ok, I'm being a bit technical there. LOL So here we go...

1) One of my favorite things to do is to read. And since you can go to the library and borrow books for free, this can be considered free!! I've always loved to read. When I was a kid, I had a book or comic book with me everywhere we went. I could read in the car, I would read at the kitchen table while eating breakfast. I just loved getting lost in books. I would always read folktales. One of my favorite books was the stories by the Brothers Grimm. My friend Diana turned me onto sci fi when we were in jr. high school, Dune being the first sci fi novel I ever read, and I was totally HOOKED.

2) Listening to music. I love music. When we were in college, my best friend Christine and I would go to all kinds of shows, and I collected a ton of record albums and CD's. Remember making cassette tapes from the radio? OMG, I remember making our own tapes off of songs from the radio. You'd wait and wait for your song to come on, then try to start the tape right after the DJ started talking, and then trying to end it before the next song. LOL We were total music geeks. Some songs just bring up a ton of really great memories.

3) Playing with the kitties. I have two kitties that are inside, and we are feeding 6 kittens outside. One of my favorite things is to try to befriend the ferel kittens that always show up around this time of year. I try to get them so we can at least pet them, or so they're not scared of us. And this last litter of kittens are the friendliest we've ever had. We're going to catch them all so that they can be barn cats at Phil's nephew's ranch. I'm so glad cause being one of Diane's barn cats is way better than being some people's indoor cats!! LOL

4) Thinking of things to make. So, the actual making part requires cash, but the actual thinking of what you want to create costs nothing!! I like sitting down with some paper or cardstock and start drawing up whatever it is I am going to make. One of my favorite things to do is make felt ornaments or embellishments. So I spend time trying to figure out what I want to make, colors, and if I can actually sew different pieces together. Every year I want to try something different, last year was a kitty. Can't wait to make something for this year!

5) Being with family and friends. I love spending time with my family and friends. We can just sit and talk to each other for hours! I really love spending time with my aunts and uncles and hearing the old family stories. Most of my family lives in Hawaii, so we didn't grow up knowing our family very well. So anytime I can hear stories of how they grew up is such a treat for me. I remember when we would go to Kauai, and my grandpa would "talk story" with us, and he'd tell us all of the legends and folk tales of the island.

6) Surfing the net. So, technically if you're using the internet at home, you pay for the access and the computer. BUT if you really had to, you can go to the library and use the internet for free!! So I'm going with that. LOL I love the internet. Surfing the web, blogging, facebooking. I just love logging on to see what everyone has been doing during the day or playing games. And don't get me started on Farmtown or Farmville!! I love the internet cause it has brought me together with some really great friends, and it helps me to keep in touch with friends and family. You can do tons of research on different crafting techniques, get recipes. It's just way too much fun.

7) Going to the beach. I love the beach. My parents would take us to the beach all the time when we were little. This was WAY before they would charge you to park in the beach parking lots. You would just get everyone in the car, and spend the day at the beach. Our parents would go fishing and all of us kids would just explore. Around here you really can't go into the water because of the various riptides and such. So we would just play in the sand. We'd dig big pits, and carve chairs on the side so we could sit in the pit. Then we'd find some driftwood and start a little fire in the center to keep us all warm. The beaches up here are a bit cooler then they are down south. When we got older, we'd just go walking up and down the beach. It was just too much fun.

8) Watching softball. My boyfriend Phil is the pitching and catching coach for our friend's daughter's softball team, so summers are spent at the ballfield. It's so much fun watching the girls play, we've been watching Alex play since she was 5. They've all grown so much since the t-ball days. I really enjoy going to the games and cheering for them. We've gotten to know so many wonderful parents. It's like one big family getting together!

9) Spending time with Phil. We don't really have to do anything special. Many times all we do is just stay home, watch tv. But we always get into these really great discussions. He loves history and politics, and it's just so interesting to listen to him and to learn about current events. I swear I've learned more history from him than I've learned in all my years of school. He knows so much about so many different things, and he's done so much in his life. So it's great hearing about life from his perspective.

10) Writing. I love to write. I have a journal that i write things down in, when I can remember, but ever since I've started blogging, most of my thoughts are written here in my blog. I love writing about life, about things I've created, and about my furry little friends outside. When I was younger I used to make up all these different stories and write them in books. man, I should hunt those books down. I know they're in my parent's basement. It's so much fun to make things up. I had to write a story for Art History class in college about how life would be in the medieval era. OMG, that was one of my most favorite assignments. It was fun to research what life was like during that time, and to make up a story about that time period. And I just love making up stories about random people you see on the street. Phil always cracks up at the things I come up with. I think he thinks I'm goofy. Well, I am goofy, but I'm having fun!! ;)

So now I'm supposed to tag people to do this too. Now I don't know many people who would do this, but I'm just gonna tag my followers that aren't Kay and Kristen. LOL

Keiki Gift and Ideas

Happie Stamps

Tina the Trend Guru

Elizabeth B.

the Kuusinen family blog

Junior Kekuewa Jr Live in Waikiki

2010-01-15T02:31:00.001-08:00

Tonight my cousin Junior is going to be opening his show, "Junior Live in Waikiki" at the Sheraton Princess Kailulani Hotel in Waikiki at 9 pm!!

I'm so excited for him because he's worked so very hard to get here. And we're all so proud of him!! I can remember him singing and playing guitar for us all when he'd come to visit us. And I was always so impressed by his singing. I remember him singing "This Masquerade" for us, and I was so totally blown away.

So, if you're in Oahu, go see his show. He has a lot of talented people with him too, and it's gonna be awesome!! I just wish we were all there too.

Love ya cuz!!

Blanket making with Ashley

2010-01-04T17:52:00.000-08:00

Every once in awhile, Ashley decides she needs to make a blanket. So while we were in Walmart she saw some fleece material and decided that she needed to make a blanket. The clerk at Walmart told us that she sews the blanket first, then cuts it and ties the edges. She does it for stability. So, we brought the material home, I laid it out on the floor and cut all the edges so they would match. Then I sewed a straight line about 3.5" from the edge all around the edges. And Ashley and Alex cut and tied all the edges of the blanket.

Alex didn't want us taking pictures of him making the blanket, so of course, I had to take one of him, this was right before he pulled the blanket up to hide. I cracked up cause it looks like he's waving HI and he's enjoying himself. LOL A little bit after I took the picture, I guess Alex cut into the back of the blanket by accident. So he was taken off blanket duty. (I think he didn't mind that at all). LOL

Here's Ashley with her finished blanket. The thing is HUGE!! I think it turned out really well, good job!! Now she wants to take the scraps and make some cat toys. Will let you know what they look like when they're done. LOL

Family Crest Embroidery

2009-12-27T02:05:00.000-08:00

For my sister I decided to make her an Ehara Family Mon sweatshirt. With hers, I thought to put our name underneath the crest, just for something different. And she liked it! I am never sure whether to make her something, cause I never know if she will like it or not. So I'm glad that she did. Now I have to make them for the rest of the family! :)

Dallas Cowboys Shadow box.

2009-12-27T01:56:00.000-08:00

This year I made many of my Christmas gifts. I just wanted to do something different this year. And it was really great cause I didn't have to go shopping at the malls, just at places like JoAnn's and Michael's.

Since my sister's boyfriend is a big Cowboys fan, and he was in their fan magazine, I made him a Dallas Cowboys Shadow frame. I had a lot of fun doing it. My family kept giving him a hard time cause he's not a Niner's fan. LOL But I think it turned out neat.

I matted the cover and the profile on blue paper and it was neat, all you did was use the hook part of some velcro to attach it to the frame. I found a really cool silver helmet that he really loved at the local Shirtique store, and I found a neat Dallas pin too.

I went to my local scrapbook store to get those NFL stickers from Jolees, only to find that they had discontinued making them. Not sure if they lost the license or what. But it really bummed me out. SO, I went online and found their logo letters, and cut out "Cowboys" and matted that. I then found a Star Punch from Fiskars and used that. Luckily I had a 50% off coupon from JoAnn's so it didn't cost that much.

I did leave a little bit of space for him to put his own pin or something next to the star. He really really liked it, which was really cool! I'm glad that he did. :)

Skunk Fight!

2009-12-23T00:22:00.000-08:00

So, last night I was awakened at around 1 in the morning by this high pitched animal scream. My first thought was that it was one of the wild animals attacking one of the kittens. So I jump out of bed, run to the window, and I see two skunks fighting. Well, my exact words to Phil were, "There are two skunks killing each other!!!"

There was a larger skunk on top of a smaller skunk trying to bite him while the smaller skunk was squealing. So, here I am knocking on the window hoping that they'd stop fighting. But of course, they don't care that I'm knocking on the window. They're just claiming territory.

I'm scared for the skunks, I know, it's a natural thing. But still, I don't want a dead skunk in our yard. And then I'm scared that they're gonna attack the cats. But I look up, and all 7 are sitting on top of the wood pile. Phil said that it looked like they were highschool kids watching a fight in the school yard. LOL

By the time we got to the kitchen door, they were gone. But then, the smell. OMG, it was awful! You couldn't smell it at first, but then man, it just started spreading through the air, getting stronger and stronger. And of course, it had to be near the bedroom window. So that room got the worst of it.

Velcro was looking at me like, "Come on mom, make it stop!"

I didn't realize skunks would fight like that, and that they sound like little piggies when they squeal. I hope that they will behave tonight!

Latest Embroidery projects

2009-12-21T16:36:00.000-08:00

Here are my latest embroidery projects. The one above is a take off from the Wedding infinity embroidery I did for a couple of friends. Since these will be done on towels, the lettering needed to be bigger, so we did a full infinity symbol with the lettering underneath. I think it will come out quite nicely.

And since my friend Sandra gave her tennis towels to her team, I can now post how they came out. I really liked how they turned out, and I think I need to do this on some towels just because.

Post office rant...

2009-12-21T01:33:00.000-08:00

I have been spending this Christmas season at the Post office mailing out ebay auctions. And it's funny how impatient people are during this time of year. I mean come on, you have GOT to know that December is the busiest time of year for all shipping companies. I hear that from Philip every time I see him. LOL

So, when you go into the Post Office on the Saturday before Christmas, don't expect the lines to be short. And don't get upset with the postal workers. They want to get through the line as quickly as possible too. Do you think they want all these people angry with them?

It amuses me when people in the lines think that their time is much more important then the person in front of them. So they try to jump ahead of the people in front of them. I guess this is true with any line this time of year. What makes anyone think that their time is much more important then anyone else's time?

My guess is that you should have considered this before going to the post office and adjusting your time accordingly. The person in front of you has just as many things to do in their day as you do. Maybe even more. So disrespecting that person by trying to jump in line, is not cool.

And don't you really think you should get all your forms and even your boxes packed and taped up before you get to the post office. Why should everyone behind you have to wait until you get your boxes taped up while you're at the counter? I think that is one of the reasons why the line is so long. People come unprepared, and try to fill all that stuff out while they are up at the counter instead of before they get there.

And, I know that the post office supplies tape for people who send things priority mail. But do you really have to use almost the whole roll of tape to close your box by wrapping the box around and around and around with tape? Do you realize that we're all actually paying for that tape with higher postage fees? it's kind of like any government service. you actually think that the tape is free, but it's getting paid for by taxes or postage fees. So we're actually paying for it with our tax money or fees.

Can you tell I spend a lot of time lately at the Post office?? LOL

Embroidered Aprons...

2009-12-19T01:55:00.000-08:00

My sister requested an embroidered apron for a gift for her boss. I'm thinking that he's not reading my blog, so I thought I could post this now, cause I really like it! I know it's not as complex as the urban threads lady, but I get so happy when a design works, even as simple as they are.

She wanted the saying, "I am going to start my diet tomorrow." Cause that is what he always says to them when there are sweets around. I couldn't find any masculine food material at our local JoAnn's cause, everything they had was too girlie. So I found a premade apron and I figured I can embroider candy on the apron to go along with the saying.

Well, the computer took a dump right before I was going to work on this, so I had to figure something else out cause my AutoCAD program isn't compatible with Windows 7. Took me a few days to realize I could use paint and make chocolate chip cookies. how hard can that be?

So this is the final product.I like how it turned out. I had to make a couple of cookies that were chomped on just cause. LOL I hope they'll be happy with it. :)

Embroidered Towels

2009-12-17T16:04:00.001-08:00

Ngoc asked me to embroider towels for her for gifts for Christmas. So here is how they turned out. It's amazing how much more elegant towels look when they're embroidered. She chose the tan color thread, and I just love the color combinations. I keep telling her she needs to be my color guru. Now I want to make these for gifts for everyone! :)

Tsunami Warning Signs

2009-12-17T15:56:00.000-08:00

I am just fascinated by these tsunami warning signs. I think mainly because I never even considered that we could actually have tsunamis. I thought that was only for islands in the Pacific, or Japan. LOL Can you say, "Dur dur dur."

So, when taking my dad to the VA hospital in San Francisco, we always drive down the Great Highway. For those of you who aren't from the bay area, the Great highway runs along Ocean Beach on the coast. And one day I saw these tsunami signs. Now I love taking photos, but won't do it when I'm driving with my dad. Cause I know he'd think I'm crazy. LOL

So yesterday I had an opportunity because I had to drop my aunt off to get blood work, and then my dad off to get my eyes checked. So I thought I'd go and get a picture of the signs.

So, if you're in SF, and there is an earthquake, run for high grounds (like the figure in the picture).

Hello!

2009-12-15T23:15:00.000-08:00

Happy Tuesday...
Today was our boutique, and it was a lot of fun. I'll post pics tomorrow. But it was so nice to see customers that I hadn't seen in awhile. I really do miss them!! I sold a few pair of earrings, and got a new embroidery job. So it was fun.

I have a few ideas running through my brain for Valentine's day. I'll get them down on paper tomorrow while I'm taking my dad to the eye doc in SF. I'll post some photos tomorrow too on a few projects I was working on, I didn't want to post them until they were given away as gifts. And I have to figure out if I got them downloaded to my external drive before my computer took a tank.

Hope you all have a great Wednesday! i think I'm going to go take a long nap. :)

Shadzz Holiday Shopping

2009-12-14T03:55:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday my cousin Tina and I will be at the Homestead Studio suites in San Carlos for a holiday boutique. If you're around stop on by! We'd love to see ya.

It's cold in the Bay Area!

2009-12-08T17:29:00.000-08:00

It's been very cold in the bay area the last few days. So we woke up yesterday to snow in the hills! Ok, buy the time I got up and out, most of it had melted. But it looks so pretty! we haven't had snow that far down the hill in such a very long time.

So of course I had to make sure the bed for the outside kitties were nice and warm today. These are two of the kitties that were born in our backyard. Hopefully soon they'll be barn cats at Al's house.

Oh, and these are the purple cupcakes I made for Al. For helping us fix our waterpipes, he wanted Purple Iced cupcakes with cream filling inside. I don't know WHY purple, but you know, everyone in our family is going to now have purple iced something or other cause I have so much of the darn food coloring now. LOL

Found a great recipe online for the icing in the center. And after the cupcakes bake and cool, you're supposed to fill it with some type of injector. Of course I didn't have one, so I took an apple corer, and cored out a hole in the cupcake. I dug out some of the cake, filled it, then put the nub of cupcake top back in the hole and iced it. they turned out pretty well I think.

RIP my computer friend...

2009-12-06T23:13:00.000-08:00

Sorry that the last couple of posts are pictureless. I'm in the process of moving stuff over to my boyfriend's computer because mine has died a slow death. The motherboard was overheating, so it would only stay on for maybe 5 minutes before it would shut itself off and then back on. I asked Christoph to take a look at it, and after some exploring that is what we figure is going on. It's a good thing I had backed up most of my files onto my external hardrive. There are a few files still on the hard drive that I have to get off, but I'm going to wait till I get my next computer to do that.

So, the next couple of days will be filled with uploading the computer programs that were my most favorite to use, and to get my life back in gear. It's a pain to have to share the computer, but it will give me time to get some other things done I think.

It's so funny how you get used to having a computer set up the way you like it, with the programs you like, and it working oh just so, and then all of a sudden it crashes, and you have to figure out what to do next. Luckily my sister has a computer for me to use, or I just don't know what we'd do at the moment. I still have to wait a couple of weeks till I get it, but heck, it's better then not having one at all.

What in the world did we do before we had a computer??

Beatles Rock Band

2009-12-06T01:00:00.001-08:00

So, tonight was the first time I've seen the Beatles Rock Band for the Wii. OMG, it was the coolest thing, mainly cause it's the Beatles. Cause I just love the Beatles. I think the different graphics are kinda fun. The big guy dressed up as a giant rabbit was a little weird on I am the Walrus.

To me, the funniest thing was watching the group of 15 year old girls play the game. The first song they chose was "Come Together". And if you haven't seen a bunch of teen girls trying to sing this song for the first time, it's a must see. Mainly because when Alex got to the part when they started singing about "Joo joo eyeballs," the look on her face was classic. And as the song progressed, she just stopped and said, "What the heck?" What kind of lyrics are those? LOL I couldn't stop laughing.

Cause really, did we even know what the heck we were singing when that song came out?

So, they got Debi G and Christina to sing because none of the girls knew any of the lyrics...um hello?? I was thinking, didn't your parents listen to this music for you to know the lyrics? Then you come to realize, half of the parents are in their 30's, and many of them didn't listen to the Beatles...WHAT?? LOL ok yes, half of them didn't even know that there is a Yellow Submarine movie with the Beatles in it. And then I said, you never saw them go to the land with all the holes, and Ringo pick up one and put it in his pocket? (ok they started looking at me really funny). Then you tell them, yes, and then at the end of the movie, he pulls out this big black hole from his pocket and says, "I got a 'ole in me pocket" in his british accent.

Boy, did I get funny looks then.

I didn't feel to bad, cause the other half of the parents were my age or a bit older, so they knew all the words to the Beatles songs like we all did. And we were the only ones singing to the game. It was pretty sad too. Thinking that there is this whole generation of kids that only know these songs because of this video game.

What an eye opening evening it has been tonight! ;)

Old Photos and Facebook

2009-12-03T19:11:00.000-08:00

I think Facebook is such a wonderful thing! Since joining facebook, I've reconnected with so many people, a lot of old school friends, and a lot of my family too. Most of my family is in Hawaii, so we didn't get to see them very often if at all because we were born on the mainland. So it's really nice to be in contact with some of my cousins.

And a great thing to find out is that my cousin Gary is into photography, so he appreciates all the old photos just as much as I do, if not more! We've been exchanging photos over the internet, and it's fun to see photos of my dad when he was young, and even my grandparents and my great grandparents. I've never seen photos of my dad's Grandma, and I've finally saw one. I thought that was so neat.

I can't wait to see what other photos he'll post.

My New Tattoos

2009-11-28T23:11:00.000-08:00

Today we did the second Thanksgiving of the weekend with Phil's family. It was a quiet one, cause part of the family were out at the races, and the rest of us were at home. So, Phi's grandniece Bella was at the house, which is always fun. And she decided that she needed a tattoo.

Of course we gather whatever pens we could find that weren't permanent, and I started drawing on Bella and Jordana. Well, Bella decided that she needed to give us all tattoos. So the picture above is what my arm looks like. She drew some flowers, a basket, a purse, and a cheerleader monkey. LOL But what you can't see is the big green hot dog that she drew on the other side of my arm.

Well, we used crayola markers that we think will wash off...NOT. LOL the lighter colors wash off very easy, but you see the dark green and blue colors she chose? Well, those aren't coming off so well. Kind of like having your arm stamped at a night club. LOL

So, I figure the stuff will come off in a day or two. Not so bad for me, since I am at home all week. But maybe not so good for Jackie who has to go to work on Monday. LOL Or Jordana and Bella who both go to school on Monday. Live and learn I guess. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving...gobble gobble!

2009-11-28T00:28:00.000-08:00

Hope that you all had a Happy Thanksgiving, and a Happy Black Friday! Did you all get stuffed with Turkey then get up really early to go shopping?

This year we cooked the Thanksgiving dinner because my mom's oven broke on Wednesday night. I think we did pretty well for having less then 24 hours to prepare a whole meal. Luckily my mom had already thawed the turkey and had gotten a lot of other things we'd need. Cause to look for stuff the night before is always impossible.

But we did pretty well. Phil of course made a delicious turkey and rib roast. I tried my hand at Cranberry Apple Sauce, and man, did that taste good. (if I must say so myself). We got the recipe for that on The Food Channel after watching the 10 things that people ask about thanksgiving show. We used fresh cranberries instead of dried, and it seemed to work better.

We also tried to make stuffing, that did not turn out so well. And I need to practice more at making gravy, but all in all, it was a really good meal. I also decided to make turkey soup. And man, 4 bowls later, I'm stuffed! LOL

Hope you all have a great Saturday and Sunday! Do we call those black Saturday and Sunday? LOL

Pork Nuggets

2009-11-24T00:52:00.000-08:00

For the last three nights we've had beef stew for dinner. Mainly cause you always make such a big pot of it when you make it, and well, since it was just us and Kristen, it really lasts a long long time.

So tonight we decided to make an old staple in our house, the Pork Nuggets. What are pork nuggets you might ask? Well, Phil cuts up chunks of pork, seasons them, and bakes them in the oven. Right before they're done, he'll pour BBQ sauce all over them, then puts them back in the oven to finish cooking. It's all the goodness of BBQ pork, but without having to BBQ out in the cold.

We also served them with these huge ol' potatoes that we got from Costco. Phil wanted me to take a pic of my plate with the ruler so you could see how big the darn potato was on my plate. LOL Yes, that is a normal size Fiesta Plate, and yes, it took about half of it! LOL

Normally we eat this with rice and green veggies, but I made Phil buy a very large bag of carrots because I love carrots. So we're eating this very large bag of carrots in about everything. :)

It's a great, very easy dinner to make. You gotta try it!

Starwarshop.com

2009-11-21T09:55:00.000-08:00

So yes, you all know I'm a big Star Wars fan. And being a fan, I get the Star Wars emails from the Star Wars website. (yes, I'm a geek). So, when they had the link for the StarWarsShop.com, of course I had to check it out. And I saw these cool chopsticks and R2D2 glasses. Now R2 is my favorite in the movie. Well, ok, I have lots of favorites in the movie, but R2 is my favorite favorite. So these cups were too cool, and especially when they come with Lightsaber Chopsticks. How cool is that!!
Then I scroll down and see this toaster. OMG, a Star Wars toaster! And better yet, it toasts Darth Vader's helmet on your toast! That's just too cool!! Yeah yeah. I know if I ever got one, it would totally not ever be used and stay in the box, and Phil wouldn't want to have Darth Toast. LOL But it's just too cool that they're even making that stuff. Heck, it could go with our Mickey Mouse waffles. ;)
But to top it all off, is this Tauntaun Sleeping bag. Now, how wrong is that?? OMG, it's so wrong it's funny! Ok, I know all of you must have seen The Empire Strikes Back, and you know that scene where Han is trying to save Luke's life by cutting open the Tauntaun and sticking Luke in there to keep him warm while he builds a shelter for them. So you know that this is just a bit twisted. But what's funny is that inside the pattern is Tauntaun guts. And the zipper pull is a little lightsaber. ROFL!

Check out the other stuff on the site, very cool!!

Friday I'll be Over You

2009-11-19T10:00:00.000-08:00

On American Idol this season, Allison Iraheta became one of my favorite performers on the show. I just love her energy and her music style. :) You've been hearing her song on and off on my blog for the past month or so.

So here is her video. I just love it cause it reminds me of the videos I watched in the 80's when we were all saying, "I want my MTV!" Remember those days? I remember sitting in front of the TV watching all those videos by Duran Duran, aha, Bon Jovi, Journey, and the like. My bff Christine and I would go to a ton of concerts to see all these bands too. Man, those were the days. Who else remembers $15 concerts?? LOL We could go to 3 or 4 shows a month.

Anyway, enjoy the video!

Holiday Boutique in Redwood City

2009-11-14T22:25:00.000-08:00

Today we had a Holiday boutique at the home in Redwood City. She has a really pretty home near downtown. And graciously opened up her home to us to have a boutique.

Tina is selling some jewelry items, really beautiful pieces from a line called Sweet Romance. I have always loved their jewelry. A lot of it is so antique looking. It was a very popular line at the store. And she is also selling jewelry that she found on her many trips to New York. Tina is always up on the trends, and she finds jewelry in New York that are like 3 seasons ahead of what is happening here in California. I even remember seeing earrings that were similar to what we had one year on Dancing With the Stars!

Jaquie has a lot of Christmas ornaments and other items that her mother had purchased but never used, so she has all of them out for sale. Lots of really cool Santas, snowmen, and other fun pieces.
Tina also has some Joan Baker pieces that she had from the stores. I just love Joan Baker!

And one of the best parts of today, I was able to reconnect with some old friends from grade school. Michelle, Laura, and Sandy. Michelle (in the blue sweatshirt) and Sandy (in the white coat) used to live a few houses away from my Great Uncle and Aunt in San Mateo. We used to play together a lot when we were little kids (I think before kindergarten). They moved to Foster City when we were in kindergarten. And we went to grade school in Foster City together. Laura, Michelle and I were all in the same grade.

I haven't seen Laura since Grade School, and I saw Michelle once or twice since then. So it was really great that Sandy found me on Facebook, and that we all reconnected. Thank goodness for Facebook!!

I hope we'll all keep in touch and keep getting together. It's fun to reconnect with old friends.

Felt Ornaments

2009-11-13T18:05:00.001-08:00

I love working with felt. It's just so much fun to sew and make different things. I made these ornaments for a boutique. I've made the gingerbread ones before, but used paint on them this time and beads.
The snowmen are really fun to do, and really easy.

My new one for this year is the cat. I just love kitties. And at some point I'll make different colors, but just doing the white ones for the boutique.

Getting stuff ready...

2009-11-10T16:05:00.000-08:00

I've been getting stuff ready to take to the boutique, but I don't think it will be a ton of stuff. Only cause I couldn't get motivated last week. And it's now just a few days away! YIKES!! But I think things have been working out the way they should. I'm not going to stress over it. I'll just do what I can.

Of course that means I'm gonna work like a mad dog the next few days, but no stress! LOL

Will update you with pictures as soon as I can!

Holiday Boutique

2009-11-07T19:52:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to post a flyer for a little holiday boutique that we're doing next weekend. It's at a residence in Redwood City. I hear there is going to be some really great stuff! I'll update you with things that we'll have there next weekend, but just wanted you all to know to hopefully put it in your calendar!!

Gruffies

2009-11-06T23:15:00.000-08:00

I have just come to realize that I've been away from the world of rubber stamping for way too long. Phil's sister and I have been selling our rubber stamps on ebay, etsy, and shophandmade.com for a couple of months now. And so I've been researching the stamps for their names and such, and I came across these lovely stamps from House Mouse called Gruffies.
I just love the House Mouse stamps. Those are ones that I cannot release, cause they are just too cute!! And I am so glad they've started drawing bears. I love bears! I love beanie bears, grizzly bears, polar bears, panda bears. There are bears all over the place. Ok, the only thing that they could draw that I'd love even more would be dragons, oh yea, and cats. LOL

Their designs are so beautiful. I love the line work, how she makes them look so fluffy. And they are doing such neat things. Like the bike riding and reading. Check out their site, it's very cool!!

Project Runway

2009-11-06T01:13:00.000-08:00

So, has everyone been watching Project Runway? I just LOVE it. I love watching the designers create. It would be so hard to have to create such wonderful pieces when you have only one or two days to do it. Especially under such pressure!!

I am happy the final three are in the final three. I love love love Irina's designs. I think out of the three, she should be the winner. I loved her Aspen challenge outfit!! And her paper coat was amazing!! I think she is the most talented out of the three.

Carol Hannah is so cute! Love her personality. And she's done really well the last few challenges. Especially the bob mackie challenge. She might be a little limited in what she makes, but what she makes is totally awesome!

And Althea is not one of my favorite designers personality wise, but I did like a few of her designs. I still think she was inspired by Irina on the challenge before last. I was a bit bummed that Irina didn't win that challenge, but heck, it's tv! LOL

And out of the models, Kalyn is my favorite. I hope that Irina wins so that she wins!! I wish Kojii would have made it to the end, cause I just loved her too. But I'm SO SO SOOOOO glad that Katie didn't make it to Bryant park. Her attitude at the end was just awful!!

Can't wait till the final episode. But then I'll be sad too cause it will be done for the season. :(

Law Abiding Citizen Spoilers

2009-11-05T00:34:00.000-08:00

I know the movie has been out for awhile, but today Debi and I went to see Law Abiding Citizen. It was totally not what I expected it to be. I guess I should have paid closer attention to the ratings. It was gory. Normally I can handle movies as this one, but some of the scenes really bothered me. I think they really didn't have to go into such depth on some of them and leave a little to the imagination. I can relate it to watching Seven, the Ghost and the Darkness, or Silence of the Lambs. Mainly because it could really happen. And you just didn't know how to stop what was going on.

It was really on the edge of your seat. You kind of knew that something was going to happen, but you really didn't know what. And the scariest part was that you think that there is an accomplice out there, so even if they sentenced Gerard Butler's character to death, they made you believe that there was another person out there who would continue what he started.

All the time you're thinking, "you know, someone could go this bonkers and actually do some of this stuff."

Anyway, aside from the blood and guts, I really did enjoy going to see this film. Mainly because it made you think. And I really didn't expect the ending. Although there were many things pointing to what the outcome would be during the movie, I really didn't expect it to end the way it did.

I love watching Gerard Butler in his movies, he is a terrific actor, and is very believable. He can be really fun loving and nice, but man, don't make him mad! LOL

Denami Christmas Giveaway!

2009-11-02T17:18:00.000-08:00

Just so you all know, Denami Designs is having a great Christmas giveaway! Here is a link to their blog: http://denami.blogspot.com/2009/11/christmas-giveaways.html

Their new Christmas Chickies are too cute!!

Scentsy Candles

2009-11-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

My friend Charmaine is selling these really wonderful wickless candles called Scentsy Candles. You plug the warmer in, put a Scentsy fragrance bar on the top, and the bottom part warms the bar and releases the wonderful fragrance. There are a bunch of different scents and designs to please everyone!

One of the things I thought was really neat was that you could design your own warmer. They have these blank warmers that you can use their rub on packs to match your decor. How cool is that!!

Check her site out at: www.girlsgonewickless.com

More embroidered logos

2009-10-29T01:17:00.000-07:00

I spent today working on a couple of embroidered logos, two down one more to go. :) This is what they will look like before I've stitched them out, so I'll have some tweaking to do more or less. And I'm not sure how the "Outdoor sports" will stitch out since it's not with the programmed in letters. Hopefully it will work!!

The logo above is for a friend of ours who has opened up his own shop in the central valley. We used his logo from his business card. I'm getting better at scanning in the logos and drawing them out I think. On his logo the words "Outdoor Sports" is located between the "P" and the deer, but since it's hard to embroider letters that little, I hope that having the words under the logo will be ok.
And the tennis logo is for a friend of mine. I'm thinking that I'll have to take out the outline of the black on the racquet. It might not stitch up as well as the computer drawing. Plus the ball needs to be a teeny bit bigger. So we'll see how it will turn out on version two. Plus we're putting names underneath the racquet which looks really cool.

And this week I've been thinking up things to sell at a boutique. I know I'll be in jewelry making mode this weekend, and I want to sew up some stuff. It's just getting motivated. And I'm finding that it takes a lot of time to put stuff up on ebay. So, we'll see how things work out for the boutique. I'll update you all when I get stuff made. And I'll let you know where the boutique will be if you're interested as well, it should be a ton of fun!!

Gumbo

2009-10-26T19:51:00.000-07:00

Tonight Phil made Gumbo. Last night he made it at his sister's house. His Brother-in-law is learning how to cook, and he and his friend made Gumbo one night. Phil was over there watching football, and they decided to cook gumbo for dinner. OMG, it was SO good that I had to ask Phil to make it again tonight.

My only experience with anything Gumbo before was listening to a band called Mumbo Gumbo. Yes, last night was the first time I've ever had Gumbo. And I thought that it would be really spicy and have things in it that I didn't eat. Boy, was I wrong.

In Phil's Gumbo, he cut up a Polska Kielbasa and some Hot Links and browned them, then put them in a pot. Then he cut up about 5 stalks of Celery and 4 carrots and sauteed them for a bit, then put that in the pot. He cut up 5 chicken breast pieces and browned them with some garlic, and put that in the pot. He also put in a can of niblets corn, just cause we thought that would go well in it.

He then put in some chicken stock, one of the cartons of chicken stock. And he added some Zatarans Gumbo Seasoning. After a bit he added some corn starch to thicken up the broth. Then let that all simmer for awhile.

Can you say, "Yum-o!" All together now....YUM-O!!

When it was done we served it over some white rice. not sure if you're supposed to put it on something else, but I've gotta put it on white rice. LOL

So easy to make, and so yummy!!

New ebay listings...

2009-10-25T12:52:00.001-07:00

I just put up some new listings on ebay, and these are some of the stamps I've had forever that I've either haven't used at all or I really lightly used. I figure I can't possibly use all the stamps I have in my collection, and since my stamping style has changed I'll destash some items. The link to our ebay site is to the right. And I'm also selling stamps on etsy as well.
I just think the little girl who is cutting hearts is so cute!

And I bought that one with the moose to make cards, but never did. And I didn't realize that it was an enesco product, so there's probably a figurine that matches it somewhere.

My cousin is also selling some really cool figurines on her ebay account. Plus some really fun martini glasses. I just LOVE martini glasses, I just don't drink alcohol! lol They are too fun to look at and use though. Her ebay name is: Shaddzz

Do some early Christmas Shopping. :) Very fun stuff!!

October Birthdays

2009-10-23T02:19:00.000-07:00

During the month of October, Joanne and I celebrate our birthday together with a trip to Ohana Hawaiian BBQ to get their Volcano Chicken. Volcano Chicken is pretty much Chicken Katsu with a spicy Katsu sauce. It's Joanne's most favorite thing to eat whenever she comes to Fremont. :)

It was so very yummy. It is my favorite dish to eat at this chain of Hawaiian BBQ restaurants. Just love it!

We also had a fun time going to Michael's and to JoAnn's Crafts. They don't have either store on their side of the hill, so it was a treat for Debi and Joanne. I hope Joanne wasn't tired of us asking her about how to make things creative every time we heard that darn commercial on the loudspeaker in the store. LOL

I SO enjoy our get togethers, I do wish I lived closer to them so I could see them more often. :) And Happy Birthday Joanne!

A birthday gift...

2009-10-21T22:27:00.000-07:00

I spent tonight making a birthday gift for a very dear friend of mine. I don't know if she'll like it, but I really love how the colors go with the gold color of the bracelet. All the charms are just too much fun. The beads are either swarovski crystals or czech glass. I'll let you know tomorrow if she likes it. :)

Funny Kitten Picture

2009-10-20T01:06:00.000-07:00

I was cracking up at this picture of two of the kittens in our yard. It looks like fluff ball is talking back to me while I was taking his picture. Kinda like, "Whatcha doin' lady? Feed me already."

Phil named the orange one Julius (get it, Orange Julius), and I just call the fluffy one, Fluff ball for lack of anything else to call it. They are the friendlier ones out of the bunch so far. The mom is just starting to wean them, so we figure they'll be more friendly in a week or so. It's fun seeing the little furballs outside the kitchen door.

We have Hot Water!

2009-10-18T01:56:00.000-07:00

OMG, we have hot water! I can't believe it! After a week of warming water on the stove and sticking it in the tub, we have running hot water!! I'm so excited. I had to go use the shower tonight just so I could stand in the warm water, and not have it turn cold after 5 minutes. LOL

I still can't believe how terrible a job they did on installing the pipes. And they did a really funky layout job on the main hot water line. Good thing we could bypass it!! I couldn't go another week without hot water. It's been just crazy!

Things are looking up!

Crows on a Wire

2009-10-16T15:51:00.000-07:00

I have been working on the Crows on a Wire embroidery for the past couple of weeks, and wouldn't you know I forgot to take a picture of the shirt before it left my home. But my friend Sandra took a photo for me of their luncheon for their boss on Boss' Day. Here's a picture of the ladies with their "Crows on a Wire" t-shirts! They all look so darn cute! Here's a little background to why they are "Crows on a Wire"...

"While on a break from doing a Longs to CVS conversion of the Hallmark section, we were all sitting along the curb of the shopping cart cement parking spot in our purple Hallmark shirts. The FedEX guy drives up, and while passing us said, "You all look like Crows on a Wire!" One of us shot back, "We are NOT CROWS!" Inside the store later, while we were working, he came through our aisle and he said, "Bluebirds on a Wire." And that's how we got our name."

They wanted to have the shirts done for Boss' Day which is today. And for their boss Alison, who is the woman in the middle of the picture. And it was a double celebration because they had just finished their last Conversion in all of the Longs/CVS' in their area.

Thank you for the photo, ladies!

Hot water pipes

2009-10-15T01:04:00.001-07:00

We've been having hot water issues for awhile. So last Friday Phil decided to break open a hole in the floor to see if he could start to repair the pipes. So he spent Friday chipping and drilling the concrete where he thought the leak was in the pipes, and this is what he found, pipes wrapped in plastic bags. And he also found that instead of using curved pipe when it went from the wall to the floor, they bent the straight pipe with pliers. We're guessing they did that to save money?

This is how they bent the pipe. Parts were SO bent and squished that we were surprised that we got any hot water at all. The plastic bag obviously didn't prevent the pipes from being crushed. And where they bent the pipes with pliers, we figure that's where we're going to find all the leaks. They didn't even use a pipe bender.

So, Phil's been working on it for a few days. Yes, that means we've been without hot water since Friday. I can't wait till it's finally fixed and we can take a real hot shower!

Eydie & Kiana's visit

2009-10-09T09:04:00.000-07:00

My sister Eydie and niece Kiana came for a short visit Monday -Thursday. They live in Southern California, and we don't get to see them very often. So it's nice when they can come up to visit us.

Let me tell you, the two of them are Power Shoppers. I mean I like to go shopping, but I'm pretty much a "let's browse around the store for a while, and move on" kinda gal. These two can stay in a store for an hour trying on clothes, maybe finding a top or two. LOL They do find the bargains though, Kiana found a purse for $4!!

It was fun cause I got to go to Japantown, I don't go there very often. And we found some really great ramen at Kumako Ramen on Jackson Street in San Jose. The noodles were awesome!! I was in Ramen heaven! LOL

Before they left, we had an eventful morning. One of the grey kittens had gotten his back foot stuck between the trunks of two trees in our backyard. The trunks were pretty thin, so I could see how he got his foot stuck. So Eydie woke me up cause she spotted the kitten. Good thing they were here cause he would have been there for awhile cause I was really sleeping. LOL

The mom cat wouldn't let Eydie near it, cause she doesn't know her. And she said while she was trying to figure out what to do, all the kittens were comforting the kitten, going up to it and licking it while it was stuck in the tree.

So I went over to it, and it was hissing and meowing. And the mom was on the fence kinda growling at me. But she let me walk up to the kitten. I tried touching his foot to get it out, but it was freaking out too much. So then I thought to pull on the trunk of one of the trees so that it could loosen it's foot a bit. That worked well, instead of having his foot stuck, he got his head stuck too. GREAT. LOL

But then it finally got its head out and took off into the ivy. Thank goodness! I could just see us trying to cut down part of the tree to get the cat out.

How was your week? :)

Rubber Stamps

2009-10-05T00:42:00.000-07:00

I've been going through my rubber stamps the past couple of weeks. Man, I knew I had a lot of stamps, but until you go through them all, you never really know how many you have. Ok, yes, I could be on one of those shows... "She who has way too much stuff...the obsessed crafter."

And until you go through all of your stamps, you don't really know how much your style of stamping has changed, or how the world of stamping actually has changed. When I started out rubber stamping, I bought cute. Lots of cute. You like cute? I got cute. Cute country, cute cats, cute cute cute.

When I joined my rubber stamping group way back in 1997 (?), my world of rubber stamps had opened up. No longer was I stamping cute cats or Mickey Mouse. The world of collage opened it's doors to me, and I was hooked. We taught each other stamping techniques, everyone took their turn during a live chat, and we learned to stamp on candles, to use shaving cream to make fun designs, to emboss, to use stippling, you name it, we learned it.

And the change in what types of stamps I bought was evident. Lots of little flowers, antique watches, leaves, words, and very ecclectic designs were what interested me. It's so fun to see how the stamp companies grew with our ever changing needs.

I don't stamp as much any more, so I'm downsizing my collection. But there's still the stamp or two that I can't seem to part with yet. Ok, more like 10 or 20...200 or 300?? LOL

How has your stamping world changed for you?

Yay for ebay!

2009-10-04T00:59:00.000-07:00

This week was the first week of our auctions on ebay. I'm putting up some rubber stamps on ebay that I know I won't use anymore. And I realized that some of the stamps are selling for a pretty penny. I had no idea that Precious Moments and PSX stamps were going for so much!

It's really fun watching the bids go up. One stamp we were watching actually sold for $117! I was in shock. It's a PSX stamp, and it's just amazing to me that someone would pay that much for a stamp. Where have I been??

So, that's how I've been spending the past couple of Saturdays, figuring out how much things cost, what they're worth, and if anyone would really want a certain stamp. It is a lot of work. I'm just glad that I can get it to someone who really wants it.

And if you haven't already heard, Domo has invaded 7-11. Yep, he's here!! He has a slurpee named after him. It's a red apple slurpee, why? Because Domo doesn't like apples, so you'll get to drink it without him wanting to steal it from you...yep really. LOL

I've already gotten all of the straws, and a domo slurpee cup. Cause I just have to. Not sure that I want to get the figurines. But we'll see how I feel about them if I actually see one. I thought it was funny that the whole store is Domo-tized, and the workers have no idea who Domo is. I got asked who he was, and he still looked at me funny after explaining it to him.

This week I am working on finishing up the crows shirts, and I need to work on a couple of logos. My sister and niece are coming in Monday to stay at my house for the first time. So I'm going to be in major cleaning mode tomorrow (or later today). They'll only be here a couple of days, so I'll be back working on stuff on Thursday. I have a lot of ideas for things running through my head.

Have a Great Sunday!

Ramen Girl

2009-10-02T09:11:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I watched Ramen Girl. I have been watching the trailers for awhile now, and really wanted to see it. And while in Target, I saw that they had the DVD. So I bought it. And I really enjoyed watching it.

It reminds me of all those Japanese dramas you watch on the international channels. It really reminded me of the Manga/Anime Nana. Where she leaves her home to travel to live with her boyfriend, and he leaves her. So she has to figure out what she wants to do with her life, cause she doesn't want to go home. But she doesn't know what to do.

I won't ruin it for anyone who wants to see it, although the trailer pretty much sums up the plot of the movie. I think Brittany Murphy really looks like an anime character. LOL I really enjoyed her acting in the movie. And loved her Sensei, Toshiyuki Nishida. He played his character very well. You get as frustrated with him as she does.

It did really make me hungry for a great big bowl of ramen! LOL

I love these types of movies, if you like them, you'll really enjoy it.

Diving into ebay...

2009-09-26T04:29:00.000-07:00

Today I put my first ever item on ebay. I am still amazed how much people are paying for old rubberstamps. And now am bummed that I didn't put some of them on ebay much sooner. I also have put some on etsy as well. Just to see which store does well.

I have so many rubber stamps, and so many that I don't stamp anymore. I figured that it would be better for someone to have it who actually will use it. Unlike myself the hoarder. It's that releasing items back into the world thing again. Can you imagine? I still am having a hard time releasing some items into the world. But eventually they will find other homes.

I've finished most of the feed store shirts, I just have to find 5 more tshirts, then deliver them all. I have a few more art designs to do as well, so I'll post those as I finish them. I want to get some things up and running, and try to figure out how to make a little ebay widget if I can.

Happy Saturday everyone!

Crows on a wire Embroidery

2009-09-24T02:10:00.000-07:00

So a friend of mine wanted me to do an embroidered design for her with crows on a wire. I guess the group that she works with is nicknamed "Crows on a Wire" so she wanted something to do with that. So I thought of a crow telling a story, cause they like to talk story, and then the rest of the crows listening to her.

I couldn't find a good clip art of crows on a wire, so I made mine up. I was first going to do a country crow kind of drawing, but they looked too plain. This way they look a little more animated.

I think it looks kinda cute! :) I am going to embroider the wings and tails in black, but I used grey to show her the lines.

I hope she likes it.

New batch of kittens

2009-09-24T00:48:00.001-07:00

So the mom cat had 7 more kittens. Count 'em, 7! Well, you can only see the bum of one of the kittens. LOL But OMG, I can't believe she had so many. I think she's pregnant yet again, so we can't take her in to get fixed yet. But when she's done she's SO going in to get fixed.

I like the darker grey striped one, but I think that one is more of a calico. It's got a lot of different colors in her coat.

They're getting a bit more friendly, it's really funny watching them play in the yard during the day. I love watching kittens.

Pizza Dough

2009-09-24T00:26:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I made Pizza Dough in the bread machine. It was my second try. The first try I made a 2 lb batch of pizza dough, and used it all on one jelly roll pan. Big mistake! It was really thick. And I like thinner crust pizza.

So this time I split the dough ball in half and made 2 pizzas! I think that I should bake the dough a bit before putting the toppings on, so it will be more crispy.

This is what the second pizza looked like. We used the spagetti sauce from the night before. It had chunks of hamburger in it. So all I had to do was put the cheese and the pepperoni on top.

Here's the recipe from the Oster manual:

Combine the following ingredients into the bread maker (I put the liquids in first, then the other ingredients with the yeast last)

All ingredients must be at room temperature (70 degrees F - 80 degrees F)

1-1/4 c to 1-3/8 c Water
3 Tbsp Olive Oil
4 Cups All-Purpose Flour
3/4 tsp salt
2 tsp. Active Dry Yeast

-Combine all ingredients into the bread pan
-Select Dough Setting
-Press Start/Stop button. When the unit signals and the display reads "0:00" press the start/stop button and remove dough.
-Pat dough into 12" x 15" jelly roll pan or greased 14" Round Pizza Pan
-Preheat oven to 400 degrees F
-Spread pizza sauce over dough and sprinkle toppings over sauce.
-Bake 15 to 20 minutes or until crust is golden brown.

I made mine in an Oster Bread maker, yours might differ. Consult your manual.

enjoy!!

Dr. Horrible on the Emmys

2009-09-21T13:50:00.001-07:00

I just love Dr. Horrible!!

Fremont Falcons Logo

2009-09-18T09:08:00.000-07:00

This is the Falcons logo I was working on this week. I think it turned out pretty well. I'm going to stitch it out later and then put it on 2 sweatshirts.

I'm also working on a Crows on a Wire design plus a tennis design. So I'll let you know how those turn out later today.

What I've been up to for the past few days...

2009-09-14T01:03:00.000-07:00

Sorry I haven't been blogging in a few days. I've been kinda sad cause our kitten Cujo is missing. Phil let him out on Friday morning, and he hasn't been around since. We're hoping that someone gave him a good home. I miss him a lot cause he was so much fun to have around. I think the other two kitties are not sad that he's gone. :( I'm still hoping that he'll find his way home, but that's pretty rare around here. But who knows, some of the other cats in the neighborhood go missing from our yard for a few weeks then come back.

I've also been working on getting the shirts out for the feed store. I am trying to figure out colors for the embroidery, because the guy says he didn't care what colors we used. GREAAAAAAAT. I know what colors I would use for me, but I don't think everyone wants purple. LOL

Also working on a logo for the Falcons football team too. Will post it when it's finally done.

Enjoyed the Lord of the Rings weekend on TNT. Although I do have it all on DVD, it's always fun having it play in the background. And I loved that they played all 3 movies in a row.

Phil went to the tournament this weekend in Davis, the girls came in second. I spent this weekend catching up on the feed store shirts and getting some rest. And hoping the kitten would make it home.

Hope everyone had a great weekend. :)

Julie & Julia and other things...

2009-09-10T15:01:00.000-07:00

Today we went to see Julie & Julia. I LOVED the movie. Loved it cause of course it had to do with Blogging. LOL

It was so neat seeing how Julia Child began to learn how to cook. And even more interesting, how long it took to create a cookbook. OMG, just thinking of typing all those pages, and multiple times. Cause you couldn't just turn on the computer and print. It makes me remember all those years of typing high school and college papers, and thinking back then that I wouldn't have to learn how to type cause I'm going to be a drafter. How wrong I was! LOL

Loved all the food that was in the movie, made me want to eat beef bourginon. It looked so darn yummy in the movie!!

It was so interesting to see how much Julie learned not just cooking, but life lessons as well. I wish I could have read her blog from the beginning. I'll have to go and find her book.

It made me come home today and shred all of that zucchini for future bread recipes. And I remembered today that I have a food processor. DUH! Made shredding that zucchini so fast! I got a total of 16 cups of zucchini in the freezer, and 3.5 cups on the counter waiting to be baked.

If you haven't seen the movie, go out and see it! I loved it!

Melbie's Creative space...Handmade Goodies and Recipes

Happy New Year!

Trip to Reno

Raining Hope & Kanzashi flowers.

Kanzashi Flowers

Heart chain necklace

Giants and A's Earrings

Oakland A's

Another couple of pair...

New Pliers and earrings

More Jewelry

Kara's Cupcakes

It's beading time.

That's Sweet Desserts

Go Flyers!

Happy August

It's July!

Fremont Flyers Softball 16U

Glee Tour- San Jose

Italia Jacket

Paquiao

Lady Eagles Softball Embroidered logo

Happy 3 day weekend!

New Car! New Embroidery!

Happy New Year!

Growing Kitties

Playing with my embroidery software

What I do for my sister...

Go Giants!

Getting back into it

Wands

Romalo's Cannoli & Spumoni Factory

It's already September!

Monterey Bay

I can't believe it's July!

How is your week going?

New Thread...

Day Three

Flowers and kitties

Embroidery tips and tricks

Japanese Kit Kats

Softball Logo

Oreo in a box

Lady Titans

Creativity...

Day in San Francisco

Super Bowl Fry Day

Winter Banners...

New Shows...

Tagged by starrbatt

Junior Kekuewa Jr Live in Waikiki

Blanket making with Ashley

Family Crest Embroidery

Dallas Cowboys Shadow box.

Skunk Fight!

Latest Embroidery projects

Post office rant...

Embroidered Aprons...

Embroidered Towels

Tsunami Warning Signs

Hello!

Shadzz Holiday Shopping

It's cold in the Bay Area!

RIP my computer friend...

Beatles Rock Band

Old Photos and Facebook

My New Tattoos

Happy Thanksgiving...gobble gobble!

Pork Nuggets

Starwarshop.com

Friday I'll be Over You

Holiday Boutique in Redwood City

Felt Ornaments

Getting stuff ready...

Holiday Boutique

Gruffies

Project Runway

Law Abiding Citizen ***Spoilers***

Denami Christmas Giveaway!

Scentsy Candles

Law Abiding Citizen Spoilers