I NEED CAKE!

Ok so yesterday a good friends husband got us both into the CHA show( for those of you who do not know what that is, this is the Craft and Hobby Associations winter show where many craft companys-ie: scrapbooking , card making etc. release and show off their new products).

SO there was a ton of cute stuff there and we got a few free samples and made some great make and take projects but ..........

THIS WAS THE STAR OF THE SHOW AND I NEED ONE!The Cricut CAKE Machine

This machine will make you an amazing cake/cupcake designer
It will cut gum paste and frosting sheets using any of the cricut cartridges! Amazing.
It was completely redesigned to be a food safe machine and heres the coolest thing for those of us who LOVE red they wnet to Kitchenaid and asked for their most popular color and try to match the kitchen aid red as close as possible.
I don't think they will actually be available for a couple months but when they are they will retail for around $399. I guess I would really have to make a LOT of cakes and cupcakes to convince myself to get one, but I can still dream of all the wonderful things I COULD do with it.

Cricut did a great job with the marketing of it at the show they gave away cute Bakers hats and you could make a cute cupcake right there and then make a cute cupcake holder and package it all up so cute right there to take home.

Fun Finds

My daughter Sarah and I were at out local Michaels the other day and came across a great new section the have. It contains a ton of packaged paper shapes (they are called paper but are really kind of thick like chip board). They had all kinds and my mind was going wild with ideas. We decided to purchase the Boomarks(only .99 for 12) for a fun starter project as well as the package of alphabet letters ( the best deal $1.99 for 130 letters).
On the way home we decided that these would be a fun Valentine gift for her to make for her class ( no candy allowed at her school :( ). We will make a book mark for each student in the class with there initial on it....so fun right! Here are a couple quick starter samples I made. We will post the class ones closer to Valentines.

Have a Great day!

Cards Again!

So my new craft room is just about done...hooray! I will post pictures after I finish "card swaping it up"( that is what my friend Button would call it when you need to make something look really cute).
Anyway I was just so excited to make a card in my new space so I found a card challenge over at Cards Blog and decided to make this cute Valentine card. I think this put me in the mood for Valentines Day. Sean and I came up with a new tradition a few years back when Valentines Day was in the middle of the week and it was just to hard for us to go out having 3 kids and all so now we make a Fancy dinner ( like Fillet Mignon) for the kids we decorate the table really nice and we each get a little gift for the kids. Last year we wrote why we loved each other on balloons and let them go outside to tell the world how much we are loved. SO now that I am in the Valentine mood my brain is turning for what to do this year??? Any ideas out there??

Holiday Creations

So here is a rundown of some great Holiday stuff I made this year...maybe next year I will get them done and on the blog BEFORE the holiday's are over :)

These were gifts for my Cardswap girls, I also gave one to Sarah's teacher for his family.
Cookies for santa plates (see at A wishful Thought) Take out box with fresh cookie dough inside
Plate- Tai Pan $2.97 Take out- Container- Michaels $1.00 Initial striped tag- $1.00 Homemade Cookie dough

Ribbon- Costco $6.98 for 50 yds.

Gifts do not have to be expensive to show someone you care it's all in the packaging!

This Christmas for Cardswap we each made two ornaments to swap..we made 10 of each style and swapped them so we each got a whole set of new ornaments for our trees. We used the extras for another tree we decorated and gave to a family in need. Here are my two I designed this year. I did a wood block and a Metal star. Click the Cardswap link above if you would like to see all the ornaments we created.
I made of few of these Christmas gifts for friends I visit at church. I absolutely love how they turned out..too bad i gave them away I still need to make one for myself. They will be on my website next holiday season.

Road Trip Thanksgiving 2008

Whew I am soo behind...Here is the first of a few posts to catch you up. The week prior to Thanksgiving...or rather 5 day prior to Thanksgiving we took the kids on an amazing road trip. About a week prior to this road trip my husband let each of the kids make a list of places in California they would like to see or visit. They could search the internet, ask family and friends etc. They complied a long list and some suggestions even overlapped.He finally narrowed it down to 2 choices for each kid between our home in San Diego and San Francisco. Here is how it unfolded

Stop #1 Sarah Choice Pismo Beach
Rolling down the sand dunes at Pismo Beach, yes she did mean that literally. We had to find some really fun dunes and wait for all the motorcyclist to pass ( us being the family without those 4 wheeling toys) and jump off an roll down the hill....This made Sarah very Happy! We also got to drive on the Beach which the kids thought was cool, but Emily was even happier when we let HER drive on the Beach...
Here are som more pics from Pismo
We made sure we booked hotels where they had free breakfast...here is where we ate breakfast the first morning outside our hotel room...Gorgeous View!

Stop #2 Emily's Choice Winchester Mystery House

Okay so we only got one picture outside the Winchester House. No pictures were allowed inside. All I have to say is that was the weirdest house I have ever seen. Tha winchester lady was a little bit of crazy. We had the most annoying tour guide who had memorized the whole script for the tour and did not or could not deviate from it..litteraly, she coughed twice in a row and kept having to rewind herself. It was one of those events that made us all laugh and will make it memorable.

Stop #3 Sarah's Choice Golden Gate BridgeWe did it all...we drove across it one way, got out took pictures walked half way back across it (until some little children got scared..we won't name names) and then went back and drove back across it the other way. WOW that is alot of the Golden Gate Bridge. This was one of my favorite parts of the trip. When I was younger we did not go on vacations, I always imagined families vacationing during the summer to the Golden gate bridge so this was a great day for me to take my own kids there.

Stop #4 Adam's Pick Alcatraz

Alcatraz was fascinating if you are ever in S.F you should most certainly take the tour. It is a self guided audio tour which Adam LOVED he is a sponge for information like that. He loved every minute of it!

After Alcatraz we spent the evening at the Famous Fisherman's Warf



Stop #5 Emily's Pick Jelly Belly factory

Once again no pictures allowed so here is a picture of the kids outside the factory posing with the Jelly Car.

This was so cool to see all the Jelly Belly's being made every time you turned a corner you could smell the kind of Jelly Bean they were making....and the colors of all the bins of Beans was amazing. If you hare ever near by this is a great stop.

Stop #6 Adam's Pick

Well adam wanted to pan for gold but unfortunately the pass we need to go through for that was closed due to snow so we took another route which led us up through south Lake Tahoe and then back down through Mammoth. We spent the night in Mammoth and the hiked a little and I emphasize little way in to an old Gold Mine.


So ther you have it our Road Trip November 2008 It was a whirlwind trip all of that in 5 days. We saw lots of amazing things, laughed alot, even fought a little (what would a trip with kids be without a little arguing :) but we made some Great Memories! Thanks for a great trip I love you Guys.

Here are some of my other favorite pics from the trip
That is looking down at an earthquake fault in mammoth.