Bodacious Bodega Babies

Gene played hookie on Wednesday for the first time in two years! We took advantage of having him around & headed to the beach as a family! I hadn't been to Bodega Bay in almost 3 years & it had been even longer for Gene, so off we went...

Lucy, always the water baby, LOVED every moment of the trip! We actually set up our stuff at the mouth of Salmon Creek, so she could run into and out of the water at will as well as get sandy as she wished. It was a great spot since we didn't have any waves to speak of nor did we have the frigid water from the ocean. In fact, the water was so shallow where we were that the water was warm!

Lucy loved having her daddy to play with her all day long...they played hide and seek around the rocks!

Here's the Joey cabana that I set up to keep the poor little guy from being cooked by the noontime rays. It's amazing what you can do with beach chairs & towels!
...and it was big enough for Lucy to sneak in for a bit of a break, too!
King of the rock & his princess!

I loved watching the two of them in the water & on the beach all day...hopefully we'll be able to repeat this kind of trip a couple of times this summer! Even if we don't travel all the way to Bodega Bay, there are bunches of beaches to see!

Altered Tin Tutorial

Alright...I thought I'd try my hand at writing a tutorial to share with everyone. If this one gets a few positive comments, I may just post some more tutorials with Pearl Ex, etc. So let me know what you think!





This is the tin before I started.
It was actually a watch tin when I bought a watch long ago from Ross.













Here you can see that I cut a strip of cardstock from the hostess Simply Scrappin' kit...I love that stripy print!

Then I outlined all the edges of the backside with Sticky Strip. When I peel Sticky Strip from a bigger piece like this one, I peel a bit at a time so that the whole strip of cardstock doesn't stick to all the treasures that are sitting on my stamping desk's surface!

At this point, I added Sticky Strip around the top of the box & covered the lid with a square of Chocolate Chip cardstock (also Sticky Stripped). I overlapped two strips of Sticky Strip on the curved edge of the lid so that every bit of the pink box could be covered by...something...

Of course, my choice would be glitzy! So I dipped the edges into the earthtone bead assortment and then covered that with Dazzling Diamonds glitter so that the "bald" spots that the beads didn't stick to would be covered & not catch any dust bunnies instead. ;)

















To really finish the box, I needed to decorate the top, so I decided to do a modified Poppin' Pastels technique on the Chocolate Chip cardstock to match the colors in the stripes below it. I stamped with Whisper White craft ink using the flower image & then sponge daubered Tempting Turquoise pastel over it. The white allows the turquoise to be light even though it's on a very dark background. Tah dah! Now it just needs filling...!

Weekend fun for everyone!

Gene took Saturday night off of delivery (& switched to Sunday this weekend) to take all of us to the Oakland Zoo for the day. We had a BLAST! Lucy was in her element watching monkeys, chasing goats, and cawing at birds all day! Above you can see Gene & Lucy at the monkey exhibit.

Down below is Gene with Joey trying to catch up to Lucy (& me!) as she ran across the enclosure to get the goat who was trying to eat in peace.
...until Lucy got to him, that is! Doesn't it look like they're having a conversation about the whole thing?
In the children's section, there are these cute lilypads that are really just an excuse to fall into the water, I think. Lucy LOVED them, of course! She made Daddy go over them three times with her! ...and she only had one foot that found its way into the water!
Riding on Gene's shoulders was Lucy's favorite place if she wasn't running pel mel to the next exhibit to show us the cool animals!
The giraffes were her favorite exhibit, I think, by far because they had the strange African birds with them along with a few other animals. Lucy really didn't want to leave the fence to go on, so she was super happy when we had to double-back & stop by the giraffes again!

Here's the proof that I was there...this isn't a great shot, but it's the only one with me & the kids, so I'll be happy with what I get! :)
Not only did Gene take us through the zoo, but he also paid for us to go on the train ride! I haven't done that in years since we went to the Cleveland zoo while on our honeymoon! Lucy & Joey LOVED the choo-choo ride & the lion statue afterward!
Then, off we went to Jack London Square where Lucy proceeded to throw a fit in the middle of Barnes & Noble's because we wouldn't read every last book that they had in the children's department...geez! What were *we* thinking? Hee hee! So out to the fountain we went to lighten her mood. Lucy is a water baby, so this was great...until we needed to leave the water behind!
...and last, but not least, we stopped for dinner in Chinatown at our favorite restaurant! Below is a picture of Joey playing with his chopstick & having a ball! He almost looks like he's already eaten everything on the menu & he's ready for the next course...gotta love those chubby rolls!

New Stamping Stuff!

I was soooooo excited to get some NEW PAPER (!) on Tuesday that I wasted no time at all in using it! I did the sample above using the hostess set Basket Full of Fun along with the Palette o'Prints promotion paper...you can buy a pack for every $35 order & I foresee myself stocking up on a few of these little stacks of yummy colored papers during May!
Here's one with one of my old friends, Mini Mates. I was sad to see it on the retiring list that was released Tuesday; even though I expected it to go this year, I still will miss demo'ing with it! So I had to break it out & use it some more before it's relegated to a shelf for special occasion usage. I used the poppin' Pearl Ex technique on a piece of chipboard & on the Whisper White cardstock behind it. It's ever so shiny in person!!
Here's another Palette o'Prints goody package! I used my fun Designer Label punch for the tag & stamped with A Greeting for All Reasons, which is also soon to go bye-bye from the catalog...
Have you had your V8 today? This card obviously missed out on the rotate feature in my photo editing program, so crane a bit & admire it! More Palette o'Prints stuff used with my All About U set...I had gotten the set last spring, but it's been just sitting neglected for some unknown reason. Poor, poor stamps! I think I'm going to be using this one a lot VERY soon! It's so cute...I have no idea how it managed to offend me so badly to be forgotten this long, but we'll just have to make up for lost time. :)
...and last but not least...admire the pre-stamped Target $ Spot clock that I found last week. I WILL NOT HANG THIS THING ON MY WALL! ...yet... However, if you keep checking back, I'll show what kind of clock this monkey can turn into that I *will* hang on my wall! :)

The little Coopers paint the aquarium red!

Wednesday was a beautiful day, but Aileen & I decided to carpool to the aquarium for a change from the typical zoo day experience. I hadn't been to an aquarium in YEARS and was a little leery of what we might find since rooms full of gloomy fish tanks make me want to throw a tantrum right next to Lucy on the floor! BUT the misplaced Steinhart (sp?) Aquarium was a great little trip for all of us!
Here we are in front of the big tank nearest the entrance...Lucy was absolutely stunned when she sat and watched those fishies swimming around in front of her all the way up to the ceiling!




We wanted to make sure that Joey wasn't missing out on any of the sights, either!

...and last, but not least, the snakes were thrilling, too! There was one enclosure that had snakes that slithered up against the glass & captivated Miss Lucy!

I think we'll have to go back to the aquarium again sometime!