Sunday, December 26, 2010

The Day After

Well, I hope you enjoyed Christmas day 2010! We spent the day and evening at my sister's playing with Skylar's new toys (remote helicopter, paper jams guitars and drums, nerf guns, etc.) The kid got a lot of stuff probably too much, but he is an only child and grandchild and nephew and we just can't help it! Christopher and I had the idea of shooting the helicopter down with the nerf guns which was all good and fun until Skylar's dad started yelling at him that he might damage the helicopter. His defense was Auntie and Christopher shot at it too! Oops!

Donnie made a most fabulous dinner of ham, potatoes, sweet potatoes, salad, corn on the cob, asparagus, and rolls. Stuffed myself pretty good too! We rolled ourselves over to the front room and began the circle of opening gifts. My dad has a tradition of bringing over Christmas stockings for everyone and fills it with useful and cool gadgets. I scored on hand and toe warmers! (totally needed for when i go camping)

My sister, donnie, dad and jannelle got me.....drum roll please.........................................................
the Teresa Collins Stampmaker machine....oh yeah baby!
so excited to make my own stamps! And last but not least, my baby bought me the creme de la creme of sleeping bags...a Big Agnes 15 degree Roxy Petite sleeping bag. Totally needed since I have been borrowing one of his bags. Now I have my own and it's a pretty green!
I am very thankful this year that I was able to bless my family and loved ones with gifts from my heart and they in return have blessed me.
Hope you felt the love too in your homes.
We ended the night watching The Chronicles of Narnia # 2 Prince Caspian.
xoxo,
sandy

Friday, December 24, 2010

12.24.10

I am so stinking happy today is Friday the 24th. I had an exhausting work week covering people in my dept. who were sick or on vacation. Last night when the clock struck 6 p.m., the Hallelujah chorus rose up and I was all smiles.

Today the plan is to finish 2 birthday cards for my mom and sister who have birthdays on the 1st and 3rd of January. My sister is turning the big 4-0h!

Super excited to head down to my sister's tomorrow for our Christmas gathering. I have all the gifts wrapped and can't wait for the exchange. I love opening gifts :)

Here's 2 cards I sent out for Christmas. Very simple and easy to make and stress free. I chose 2 pics from our Whistler vacation and stamped on one Merry Christmas.

Wishing you a delightful Christmas day!
Sandy

Thursday, December 16, 2010

steampunk christmas card

so this year i did a real simple photo card of myself and christopher that was easy peasy. i decided for my nephew he might not want a photo card since his mother and grandmother were getting said card, so he got a handcrafted steampunk christmas card from moi.

christmas is right around the corner...are you done shopping yet? i have all the gifts wrapped and am enjoying the countdown!

Monday, December 6, 2010

hey there! thought i forgot about my blog, eh! had a busy last weekend in november. After thanksgiving, christopher and i headed down to portland to celebrate his brother's birthday. Had a good visit minus christopher forgetting his inhaler and the 2 cats at the house nearly killed him. ok, not really but he was weezing so bad. felt bad for him, but not bad enough that we couldn't do a little shopping! I am so in love with Cargo! it is the coolest store ever. Also visited Collage on Alberta St. that was a happening little place.

We drove home Saturday back to my sister's so we could have thanksgiving dinner again with my dad. Talk about being stuffed!
As if we didn't get enough of portland, oregon, we went back on Tuesday for the John Butler Trio concert. Such an awesome show! The crowd had a really good vibe and i could tell the band was feeding off of us and having a good time.

Last weekend I had a productive crafty time finishing my Christmas cards. Yep, they are all done. Just need to mail :) Joy Joy!!!
Have a great day!
S

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Snow Day

ah, snow snow i love you snow! started to snow here in seattle on monday, got to leave work early monday afternoon, tuesday we were closed and here we are wednesday back at work. there is still snow, but the roads have gotten better.
so excited for thanksgiving tomorrow! headed out to my sister's where there will be lots of family and food.
hope you are having a warm cozy day!
s

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

happy hands

i wanted to share some of the hats christopher has knitted within the past couple of weeks. he's been pumping them out for the holiday season. tomorrow, 2 get shipped to china where his son and his girlfriend are teaching english.
i love his busy productive hands!

Monday, November 15, 2010

More Steampunk and Ribbon Rosettes

i had a fantastic craft day last saturday at adora's home. we ate chicken rice soup, salad, salmon, strawberry bread and grapefruit soda. after the food, we got to business and i whipped out two cards with a steampunk theme and then followed that with 4 paper/ribbon rosettes.
just what i needed to get the mojo going! thanks girls for a wonderfully productive day :)

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Roam

last year, christopher and i went to portland to celebrate his birthday and we stumbled upon a most fantastic store called cargo while strolling thru the pearl district. christopher snapped this shot of me as i was taking photos of their old door / frame fence they made. it captures how freaking happy i was to find a store that was my heart's desire.



Thursday, November 4, 2010

happy birthday c!

i'm a tad early, but that's ok because he's already seen his card. so have you heard of steam punk? it took me awhile to catch on, but once i tried it, i loved the strong masculine look.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

One More Resist

more distress inks

Resist Papers

this one above i sprayed with glimmer mist and the rest below i used distress inks





I can't help myself...I just love adding colors to these papers! Now i just need to figure out how I will use them.

Monday, November 1, 2010

Live the Life You've Imagined

i just love the umbrella man stamp by tim holtz. i have used it on several projects and love how it fits here on my inspirational wall hanging. the white damask images are resist images that pop when you add color to them. i love that i have the ability to make it any color i desire. the ruffled ribbon is also from the parisian anthology line. i used the white one and sprayed it with glimmer mist to match my project. customization rocks!

Sunday, October 31, 2010

wall hanging

here's a snippet from a wall hanging i made from the parisian anthology line. the papers are so pretty after you apply color to them. i love watching the resist image magically appear.


more to come....having myself a craft day today :)

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Inspire


Tuesday, October 26, 2010

10.26.10

i received my order of parisian anthology and it is love at first sight. the papers are so pretty. i made a little inspiration hanging and a scrapbook layout that needs to get photographed. also been playing with the stamp set. love the cake stand and butterflies. makes me all smiley thinking about them :)
can't wait to share! check back later....

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

List of Washington Scrapbook Craft Stores

I have finally updated my list of washington scrapbook craft stores.

You can view it here www.listofwashingtoncraftstores.blogspot.com or click the link on the sidebar.

Hope you find it useful!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

10.15.10

happy friday all! my dept. at work remembered the day before that friday is bosses day. i offered to make a card and pulled this together before i hit the sack.used the martha stewart corner and border punch... so much fun!
have a great weekend!
s

Monday, October 11, 2010

i.LOVE.crafty.weekends!

i was so productive this week in the craft dept. and even got some shopping in too. took advantage of the michael's coupon for martha stewart products and bought the packaged punches that have a border and corner punch. martha is a genius for patenting that corner punch.

picked up 2 really cool designs and then bought some aluminum sheets to emboss. turned out so cool thanks to mr. holtz for the idea!

so last week i had my craft day and i was so inspired that when i got home i started on my Artful Curio, which is a class Tim Holtz teaches. his sample is crazy cool and i wanted one exactly like his. unfortunately i didn't have all the cool trinkets he has, but i couldn't believe some of the things i found lying around my craft corner. felt good to use up product that i bought 10 years ago, lol!


Saturday, October 9, 2010

Label Mask

snippet of a layout that is in process. love the label mask with distress ink!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Birdie Embellished

here's my birdie card jeweled up...

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Tidbits

here are little tidbits that i have been working on....

someone found their crafty mojo! woot! woot! i just finished my 7gypsies printer tray and can't wait to photograph.
tfl!
sandy w.



Saturday, October 2, 2010

Halloween Overload

today was my monthly craft day with the girlfriends. we hadn't met all summer due to hectic schedules so we were definitely overdue for a meet. we had such a good day! great conversation, great food (nice & light which is a surprise for us!) and great crafting. i got the girlfriends hooked on houseof3.com and we made lots of halloween cards. i printed on white cardstock then added color using distress inks. also for the 1st time i tried heidi's tissue paper ruffled look. adds a nice amount of texture to the card :)
the bats, large spider and cats are chipboard pieces from reminisce. i don't even remember where i picked those up at, but i knew they would come in handy for halloween cards.


Friday, September 24, 2010

No. 6 on my Bucket List

ZipTrek Tour - 10 Line Mammoth Tour
Upside Down... Boy you turn me inside out and round and round!


Christopher Upside Down!

Super fun zipline..hard to see but it is super long!

Back from Whistler, B.C.




Thursday, September 16, 2010

Officially On Vacation

Ok, i am jumping the gun...but one more work day then i am officially on vacation! Looking forward to adventures, relaxation, good food, beautiful scenery, and awesome company. Can you guess where i am headed? oh yeah, and i will get to cross off #6 on my bucket list! woot woot!

Monday, September 6, 2010

Enchanted Valley Hike

Our weekend started off at 5:30 a.m. for a trip headed west to Quinault where we would hike 27 miles roundtrip to Enchanted Valley on our 3-day weekend. By 11:20, we made it to the trailhead and started our hike.Christopher kept telling me this would be a flat hike along the river, so I thought 13.5 miles in one day would be very doable. He didn't mention to tell me that the uphill parts and the downhill parts equal flat to him. That dirty rotten sneak! I looked at him and kept saying this is not Flat!
I will agree that the Quinault Forest is beautifully covered in rich green moss, ferns, huge cedars and firs. We took a handful of photos that I have posted on my Flickr account http://www.flickr.com/photos/39360284@N06/sets/72157624772380977/
We hiked 10 miles on the first day to Pyrite Creek and set up camp on the beach. I had bought Christopher this mini frying pan and he cooked up eggs and bacon on english muffins for breakfast. (photo on flickr) We decided to daytrip it 3.5 miles to Enchanted Valley and thankfully I didn't have to carry my pack for that portion. (the heavens part in chorus of Hallelujah!)

On our way, we encountered a family of grouse that looked like a good dinner if we were out in survival school! We also saw an injured bird on the trail with a broken wing that must have fallen out of a tree. Once we got to Enchanted Valley, we met up with the Ranger at the Ranger Station, chatted him up for a bit then headed to a grassy area for lunch (turkey wraps) and a nap. Yawn!

By 3:30pm, we were back at Pyrite Creek and decided to hike 3 miles to O'neil Creek which would get us out closer on the third day. Well, by the time we got to O'neil I pushed Christopher to go farther even though dark was approaching. We arrived at a reasonable camp site on the beach 3.3 miles further, hurriedly set up camp, made a dinner of ravioli in tomato/roasted red pepper soup, scarfed it down and called it a night.

We were fortunate not to get rained on until Monday morning. I was very happy to break in my new hat that I recently bought -the seattle sombrero! It is an awesome rainproof hat.

We are now home, showered, clothes washed, tent hanging up and drying, and relaxed for the evening!

Hope you had a good labor day weekend!
sandy

Friday, September 3, 2010

Labor Day Weekend

Yay! Made it through the work week and am looking forward to a 3-day weekend in the backcountry. Will post pics when we get back.
sandy

Saturday, August 28, 2010

i.love.thai.cooking

have you heard of Groupon? that daily internet deal you can get if enough people buy...well, my coworker introduced it to me and every day as i get into work i check my email and see what's the latest deal.
so far i have bought two (got a haircut at organic mode salon downtown seattle which included eyebrow wax, hand massage, head massage and haircut and a culinary class at cook's world. i took "thai oodles of noodles." both very good experiences.

i was kinda nervous for the thai cooking class because i am not the best cook and actually prefer not to be in the kitchen to actually cook, but for more like using the space to spray walnut ink on my tags and such, lol!

our chef was Pranee Khruasanit Halvorsen and she was fantastic. honestly, it felt it a little chaotic, but i am the good note taker and paid attention writing side notes that weren't included in the handout recipes. the strange thing for me is we had our 4 recipes we were going to make, but each time we made the dish it wasn't exactly the same steps as the recipes.


we made the following:

Tom Yum Haeng Sen Lek ( a sweet and sour soup - rice vermicelli with shrimp in roasted red chili and lime dressing)

Kao Soy (egg noodles in Chiang Mai chicken curry sauce)

Yam Woon Sen (cellophane noodle salad with minced pork and fresh thai herbs)

Phad Thai (a classic thai dish- chantaboon rice noodles stir fried in phad thai sauce with chicken)


there was 15 people in my class and groups of 4 would go up and assist Pranee with each recipe and after each dish we would eat. ok, that part was so much fun! each dish was amazingly good and i had a night full of smiles.


i left thinking i could attempt the first 3, but the phad thai might be too intensive for me. i told my coworker about it and she was really pushing me to cook all four so i wouldn't forget what i learned in class. feeling pumped up, christopher and i headed to Viet Wah thursday night and bought most of the ingredients for the four dishes and i came home and went into cooking mode.

just like in class, i made my garlic oil--check, fried my shallots golden and crispy--check, and prepared the phad thai sauce --check! omgosh i was so happy!


friday, i asked christopher for a low budget friday night in-house (we tend to go out every friday) so we stayed home and made phad thai and when we were done and sampled our handywork, we were like "omg this phad thai rocks!"
christopher said it was even tastier than our favorite thai spot--Thai Siam in ballard! the secret is in the phad thai sauce recipe Pranee gave us.
thank you so much Pranee for making me a happy little cooking camper!

i believe you can also go to http://www.ilovethaicooking.com/ too
my tummy is full!
sandy


Monday, August 16, 2010

It's Getting Hot.....






Drove out to Mt. Rainier on a beautifully hot day. We wanted to camp, but it was a fee free weekend and all the campsites were full. We ended up driving to Reflection Lakes then off to hike up to Comet Falls.