Memorial Day Weekend

Friday I got off work at 2pm and that's when Connie Govea Stuart showed up at my house. Perfect timing! We had planned an art play date together. Unfortunately, we didn't start the art work until 6ish cuz we had some essential things to do. One of them included lunch at Bake Sale Betty's. We ended up getting our sandwiches and desserts on the house - not sure why. Maybe cuz we had to wait an hour before it was ready or because they just felt nice. What ever the reason it was wonderful and well worth the wait. Bake Sale Betty's is right down the street from Craft Depot - so that was an easy hour to kill. You never walk out of there empty handed. Here are my finds...

Then we had a few other shopping spots to hit before heading back to my house for some artful play. Here's what I ended up making Friday - thanks to GGS for the suggestion. A mini house book - 14 embellished pages, about 2 inches tall.

Saturday morning I started my day with the morning run at the track - ran 3 miles. Glad to get that out of the way. Then did some quick shopping at Target. After that it was off to lunch with my best friend since Jr. High School, Denise. We tried this new restaurant in Walnut Creek, "The Door", Asian fusion cuisine. We both loved it - can't wait to go back. It was great catching up with her.

Saturday evening ended with a bday dinner to celebrate my mother-in-law's & my niece from Hawaii's bday. We had so much food and so much fun. Here's a picture of my mother-in-law with some of her grandchildren.

Mango mousse cake was the dessert of the night.

Sunday - I did my morning run at 7:30am - phew - got that out of the way again. Then I took my mother-in-law out shopping - along with Frances and Rachel. It was fun - we all found something to buy. After shopping, Rachel and I went swimming - it was so hot today, so we thought the pool would be crowded - but hardly anyone was there. It was so nice to have the pool to ourselves.

Saturday night after swimming - Rachel made one of my favorite desserts: Blueberry Crumb Cake - oh so yummy. Here's where I got the recipe...you've gotta try it. http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/blueberry-crumb-cake-recipe/index.html

Monday, I did the my morning run again. 3 days in a row! I did some "work-work" for a couple of hours. For lunch, we had a family outing to SF Japan town for some ramen noodles - yum!

The restaurant is called Suzu and we'll definitely be back. Here's our dishes - everything was really tasty. There was quite a crowd waiting to get in.

J-town is also one of Rachel's favorite places to go for the bookstore and gift shops.

I bought these adorable key chain rings at a gift shop in J-town. They're only 2" tall - they're quirky and sweet and I just couldn't resist.

We came home and I took the kids swimming again - it wasn't as warm as yesterday - but we still had fun. What a nice ending to a long weekend.

Birthday Cards & Rachel's Ipod Cases

This weekend I'll be celebrating 3 b-days (mother-in-law, niece and best friend). I started making the b-day cards during the week so I wouldn't have to wait until last minute to try and rush to put them together. Here's two of them. I love using the Catherine Moore stamps - thanks to CGS for introducing us to them - they're so much fun to use.

Then this week, Rachel started a new business - custom ipod cases. She currently has orders for 7 of them from her friends at school. She's selling them from $5-10 - depending on the complexity. She's saving up to buy an e-reader. Her friends even made up an order form for her, so they can customize the color, image, text, etc.

Here's the one she made for her friend Megan who wanted a chocolate chip cookie.

This is what our craft table looked like tonight...yikes!

Cracker Jill Class

Today Connie Govea Stuart taught a class at Lana's house called "Cracker Jill". We all got this adorable box packed with yummy goodies. It's been awhile since the sisters got together for some creative fun and today was so much fun.

Here's a picture of the girls working on their projects in Lana's craft room. At this class, we had a couple of guests, Ruby & Nily - everyone worked so well together - it was great.

Here's a picture of our finished projects - so adorable huh?

What a class! Thanks for hosting Lana, and thanks CGS for teaching!
Also, wanted to mention that the day started early with a wonderful ceremony for Owen's Baptism. Owen, is Fran's grandson...Brian and Kacia's son. It was our first baptism we've been too. Owen was great during the ceremony too. It was great to experience this ceremony with the family.

Finally Made Another Necklace

Yesterday I got a chance to go to the Addison Paper sale. I picked up the round rhinestone piece on the left side and the watch face on the right side. I've been picking up jewelry parts for awhile now, with the intent of making more necklaces. Finally, this weekend I brought out all my goodies and started to put this necklace together. Some of the items on the necklace are pins, earrings, stamped material, beads and chains. Fun piece to wear.

Rachel also made a couple things this weekend. A pencil bag and a donut - so cute. She's getting good at putting in zippers.

Altered Calendar

The other night my sister Lana stopped by after dinner. I sometimes encourage her to make something when she's over. This week, we altered an old calendar I got from papayaart.com. We used some small boxes and painted them to make little windows. The art work on the calendar makes for a great background and you can hardly tell this was even a calendar. Lana did the pink/green one and mine was the yellow/aqua color one. Lana didn't finish hers, but I still think it turned out great just as is. CGS likes to use these types of boxes in her work - which is where we got our inspiration.

Chris's Bday & Mother's Day

Christopher's 15th Bday was Monday. It's so hard to believe how my little boy is growing up so fast. His favorite cake is a coffee cake from Panera Bread - it's really yummy.

For dinner we went to Christopher's favorite place, Kirala's in Berkeley. Lana and Steve joined us too. Ernie and I have been going to this place for probably 20 years - it's the best Japanese restaurant we know.

Mother's day started with a delicious breakfast at Mama's Royal Cafe. This cute sock monkey is framed on the wall above the kitchen door.

What's a breakfast celebration without Mimosas.

After breakfast, I got to shop at JCrew. You can always find something cute to pick up there.

After shopping the kids made desserts, Banana Bread & Apricot Nut Squares (my favorite).

The desserts turned out great...they were a big hit at dinner.

Dinner was with Ernie's family at Shan Dong. It's like Northern Mandarin cuisine. This is one our favorite lunch spots during the week when I'm working from home.

Sunday night TV - couple of our favorite shows: Amazing Race (finale) and Celebrity Apprentice. Great ending to a perfect day!

Sample Sale Weekend

About 4 times a years, my company, Williams Sonoma Inc, puts on a sample sale. Williams Sonoma Inc. is the parent company for Pottery Barn, Pottery Barn Kids & Teen and West Elm. I love to volunteer to work the sample sale so that I have the advantage of pre-shopping before everyone else.
So this is what it looked like at 9am Saturday - before we opened the door. 400+ people waiting to get into the warehouse. Pretty busy huh? Rows and rows of merchandise - priced super low. All types of merchandise: cookware, furniture, accessories, linens, books, etc. This sample sale was for employees only. Sometimes we do open it to guests and host it at the cow palace, but I don't think they're going to do that anymore. It's too crazy and costs too much.



One of the items I went to look for this time was a new bed for Christopher. He's been sleeping in a partial bunk bed for awhile and I wanted to replace it for a grown up style bed. This was supposed to be part of his bday gift. His bday is Monday and he's turning 15 - OMG - where did the time fly?

This is Chris's old bed, as we were taking it apart on Saturday. Brian and Kacia will be taking it and using it for their kids now. We actually moved it to their house today and helped them assemble it.


Ta-da! This is his new bed that I bought at the sample sale. But...it was not an easy assembly. We spent many hours (with Fran's help too) trying to assemble the bed. We were up past 1am on Saturday trying to put it together. We were going to give up and throw the bed away, when we finally decided to take some drastic measures and cut some of the prongs that hook the bed together. It worked!

Here it is:

So, here's some of the items I scored from the sample sale for myself. I got me an oversize pair of scissors - just like Lisa and CGS. I loved the frame with horizontal wires - great for displaying some artful play.

I got this "vintage" type shelf too.

Tomorrow, Chris turns 15 - can't believe it. We didn't get to celebrate his bday today as we hoped to - since we were so busy with furniture tasks...so I'll have to make it up to him.