Sunday What's New & What's Old

What's old...I purchased these old vintage wooden spindels from Pottery Barn - don't know what I'll do with them - but thought they were pretty cool.

What's new...Rachel sewed her first piece of clothing today - some flannel PJ bottoms. They're so adorable - with snowmen, polar bears and penguins. She can't wait to sew more PJ pants now.

I haven't shared this about Rachel before - but she's also into drawing Manga characters - she has an entire sketchbook dedicated to her Manga drawings - here's the one she did today...

Sunday What's New & What's Old

What's new...while out doing some xmas shopping for others, I passed by this sweater at Nordstrom's that was just calling me. As I vowed not to buy anything for myself - I just couldn't let this one go - love the print - and then had to buy some matching tanks to go under and of course a scraf to pull it all together.

Then I also recently bought this necklace from a store in Alameda - love the delicate look.

What's old...I bought this old album from ebay - I don't have many of these cabinet cards and this one was filled with over 50 pictures.

How formal the portaits are then.

And then had to mention...Rachel performed in the Nutcracker this weekend - here's a pic with her girl friends after it was over (no pics allowed during performance).

Sunday What's New & What's Old

What's New...

Rachel made this adorable book cover for her craft notebook - her own design too...love it!

This weekend's fine from East Bay Creative Resue and Addison's Paper Sale - some lovely wall paper, ribbon, asian pin cusion, milenary flower & hat decorative tooth picks, lace, floral flannel and paint tubes.

Sunday What's New

New: I made the plunge and bought a new portable sewing machine this weekend - but this one has all the perks of the big boys - nice, tiny & quiet (Janome 760)...so far I LOVE it. The best feature is that I can use it without a foot pedal and just use this on/off button...how cool is that. Also, have to show off my bday gift from the family - an IPOD nano - so cool...thanks guys.

And finally, all xmas decorations are up - 4 trees inside....garlands, snowflakes, wall decor, etc...phew! We decorated 3 of the tress with Rachels stuffies that she made this fall...enough to decorate three small trees!

Happy Holidays! Now to get my xmas cards out!

Sunday What's New & What's Old

New: I've been sick for the past week and wasn't able to hit any of the stores for the big sales...but did make a purchase on-line. I've been wanting something from Rebecca Sower for awhile and I was finally able to purchase one of her hand made journals. I love the it - and all the items she makes into pages.









Old: My trip to East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse yielded me: 2 boxes of nice heavy weight linen style envelopes; Shirley Temple paper dolls and an old book from the 50's - all that for a mier $8.









I was able to make more progess on my quilt...made another 6 more dolls...

Starting a Quilt...

Well, discovering the fatquarters.com web site has inspired me to start a quilt. I just love how they package the pre-cut fabric into "Jelly Rolls", "Layer Cakes", "Honey Buns", etc. I've actually made a quilt about 14 years ago, when my son was born. I found this great quilt book recently, "Material Obession" and found a quilt pattern that I fell in love with. I started with my first block

...only 11 more to go and 12 houses too.

Family Retreat To Tahoe

Gone for a few days to North Lake Tahoe with family and some friends. I'll be relaxing, reading quilt books, doing some sudoku and cutting out images (for future projects). Today was beautiful weather - sunny but cold...and a nice covering of snow everywhere. I brought the camera - but not my cord - sorry no pics.

JCrew Round Robin Book

How fun this has been...I got a round robin book from CGS this week and the theme is JCrew. We both love shopping there - so she started a little notebook to share our favorite items - in a creative way of course. Here's some of my pages...

Sunday's - What's New & What's Not

I thought on Sunday's I would share my favorite finds for the week - a favorite new item(s) and a favorite old (maybe vintage) item(s)....needless to say, I am a shopoholic. This weekend was Family & Friends at BR, Gap and Old Navy. I found some great black books, ruffle purse and comfty slippers - great deals and increadible prices.

For old items, I always hit the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse in Oakland - this week I picked up a lots of laces - should be able to find something to emblish.

Botanical Whimsy

I just finished the Botanical Whimsy kit from Julie Haymaker Thompson. It was a fun kit - with lots of goodies...I added some of my own touchies as well. My own little flower bouquet.

Rachel's New Creations

My daughter is crafting up a storm. She has created her own original stuffed creations: Mr. Acorn, Mr. Cell-phone, Mr. Glue and Mrs. Envelope. In the works, is a polar bear from the felties book mentioned before and a banana split - inspired from the Local Army Clothing in Walnut Creek.

I think for our xmas tree, we're going to hang all the softies she's made so far as ornaments...wouldn't that be cool?

Another Sister #6 Bday Celebration

What a fun Saturday we had together - all of my 5 sisters together to celebrate my sister's Lana's bday. We started with lunch at Banyan Tree and then shopping at Daiso - great dollar store in Union City. Then we had a class from Connie Govea Stuart at Maryl's house. It was a great project with a china doll head - so cute - and everyone's project look great.

So much fun - love these bday celebrations!

Rachel's Felties

Rachel, my 11 yr old daughter, was busy tonight making 2 more felties - one was a panda bear and the other a mouse with sunglasses and an ice cream cone. Her free time is always spent making some type of stuffed animal.

Here's a collection of adorable items she's made in the past few weeks.

Tonights creations came from the book "Felties" by Nelly Pailloux.

My favorites: potsticker, doll in polka dot dress and sock animals. It's so much fun to see her creations.

Halloween is Here

Last night, my daughter Rachel and I made this Halloween gingerbread house. My niece gave this kit to the kids and we had so much fun decorating it...we were good and didn't eat any of the candy either.

Here's a few more decorations in our house...Lana bought me this house kit - we put together.

I also wanted to post how the felted scarf turned out - it was an amazing process of laying out the felt pieces - rolling it over a rolling pin, in soapy water and rolling back and forth for one hour.

Thanks Diana for this great project.

My First Post

I had a great day celebrating my sister, Diana's birthday with my other sisters, our niece - Natalie and even my daughter, Rachel, joined us this time. Unfortunately, one sister was out sick. We did shopping in the morning, lunch at my house and then of course some crafting. Lunch was from a great take out Mexican restaurant. It's always fun catching up with the sisters - full of good stories and laughter. Sorry, no pics of Lana - she was nice enough to take Chris shopping for a shirt to wear to the home coming dance tonight. Ended the evening having another bday event with my dear friend at Marzanos.

Here's a couple pics from craft session...

Also, have to share a pic of a fabulos Phillip Lim dress I bought today.

Thanks Lisa S. for encouraging me to start a blog...and to Rachel for showing me how.