Exciting things are happening in my craft room!!

Well OK, they're not happening just quite yet, but hopefully soon! I'm gearing up for two craft shows my friends and I have coming up in November, so I dug out a bunch of yummy fabrics that will hopefully turn into some fun items very soon.

Look at these fabulous colors!! The plan for these is to make some funky, chic baby rag quilts. I've never made one, so hopefully they go fast.





I think babies need to get into the holiday spirit too...



And these will become some more baby blankets with super soft Minky fabric on the opposite side. Love, love, love Minky!! I didn't pull that out yet, but believe me, I've got a ton of it. It's a disease.



I must admit most of the fabric I purchase is kind of girly, but I haven't forgotten the boys. Space ships, robots and bugs, oh my!! So cute, I can't stand it!



And look at these!



I'm also going to make some super cute pin cushions and I can't sell them without including some super cute Quilt Pins. I just got these in the mail yesterday from the UK - love them!!



I have to include one more thing. This isn't something I'm going to make, it was made for me for my birthday by my crafty lady friend Linda. Isn't it awesome? It sits on the shelf in my craft room! Thank you again Linda - I love it!!





OK, I'm off to spend the rest of my day off doing some crafting!

Come to my October Close to My Heart Card Workshop

Happy October Everybody~

It seems like I just had my September workshop. Maybe that's because I just did... last weekend. Well, it’s that time again. My October card workshop is this coming weekend and I hope you can make it!

As promised, this month I’m adding a Saturday workshop for those who cannot make it at my usual Sunday time. The workshops this month are both this coming weekend, Saturday, October 10th and Sunday, October 11th, from 1pm – 3pm both days. The workshop will be the same both days, so if you come to one you won’t miss anything by not attending the other.

The October workshop is all Halloween themed! This time around, rather than making 5 greeting cards we will be making 2 greeting cards and 4 or 5 other little fun projects. A couple of these projects are treat holders and would be fun to give away for Halloween. I wanted to hold the workshop earlier in October in case you’re inspired to duplicate these projects for friends, classmates or co-workers. This will give you enough time to gather supplies and get them put them together before Halloween.

For those that didn't have the chance to come last weekend and try out my new craft room, I thought it worked out very well! I have enough room for 12 attendees at a time in there. Love it!!

See the previous post for photos if you haven't had a chance to see the space.

So, for those of you that can make it this coming weekend, please RSVP and let me know which day you will be coming. I’d appreciate an RSVP by Thursday evening (10/8) so I can make sure to pre-cut enough supplies for everyone.



All right, for those that haven’t been before (or haven’t been in a while), here are my workshop details…

Workshop: Make 5 greeting cards (or a mix of cards and projects) using Close To My Heart papers and Accessories. We’ll try a variety of fun techniques, some that are new to me too. I pre-cut most everything and I supply all the tools and adhesives, so you don’t need to bring anything with you.

Location: At my house in Forest Grove, OR (please contact me for the address)

Cost: $15.00 OR place a Close to My Heart order of at least $20.00 and the workshop is free. I don’t charge shipping to my workshop attendees, so take advantage of that.

My contact info:

Kandi Gallegos-Garcia
Email: kandi@myctmh.com
Website: www.kandi.myctmh.com

I hope to see you this coming weekend. Again, please RSVP by Thursday evening, 10/8/09 so I can get to cutting.

Thanks and have a great week!

Kandi

Oh, and of course if you have any interest in doing a Gathering and earning Free Product or having a customized workshop, please contact me and we can chat. I’m always willing to host events at my house if it’s more convenient for you.

Finally... photos of my craft room!

OK, I've been promising photos for a while now and I finally took a few today. I had my first greeting card workshop downstairs in my "new" craft room and it worked out great!! I can seat 12 people comfortably and this afternoon I tested it with 10 fabulous ladies. I think it worked out very well and it was so nice to have all my "stuff" right there and not have to lug it upstairs to the dining room table.

So, without further ado....

Looking down the hallway into the room. (Lack of wall art at the moment - noted.)

The view once you get into the room.


Pretty cute huh? You can click on any of the photos to see a little better. I love how the light yellow color turned out. I already owned a lot of red items and some of the light colored wood furniture pieces, so I went with that color scheme. I got some great deals off of craigslist for some of my furniture pieces. Love Craigslist!!

If I had been able to design a room from scratch I would have had all white furniture and lots of pink in the room, but I like how this turned out too. Here are a few more photos. These were taken right before my workshop this afternoon, so that's why the tables are all set the way they are. I wanted to get a couple photos with my attendees in them, but I got too busy and forgot. :(





I had a little embossing station over there in the corner on top of my metal top table and Chico added the portable fridge too, so that came in handy for my guests today.


This wall houses all of my Close to My Heart Stamp sets. The wire baskets are hanging off of picture hooks, so I can just pull them down and dig through them as needed.




Well, that's it in a nutshell. I'll have to post more photos once I do a little more detail work (labeling, etc..). Do you want to come over and craft with me? Thanks for looking!

Chico's Birthday - Part Deux

OK, so it's been over a week since Chico's birthday, but I never posted these photos, so I guess better late than never.

On Chico's birthday we went out to eat with Rose, my parents and the boys, of course. Here we were eating at the Outback.








Dinner was pretty tasty, but Chico and I were still a little full from our lunch at The Cheesecake Factory. Two BIG meals in one day isn't the best idea.

Rose was itchin' for a little Birthday ice cream, so she told the server that it was Chico's birthday. Well, Rose was disappointed to see that they didn't bring any ice cream, they brought cheesecake instead. Chico thought it was pretty funny that his mom's little plan didn't work.





The cheesecake wasn't bad. :)

Here's a photo of Rose and the boys in the back of the "bus" after we dropped Nona & Papa off.



The next night (yes, Chico's birthday is like a marathon event) Rose made Enchiladas for Chico at her house. Uncle Philip, Uncle Lee & Aunt Lena were there to celebrate with him and he even shared some of his favorite Almond Roca cake from Beaverton Bakery.






















I hope you had a great birthday Chico. We all enjoyed celebrating with you!!

Happy Birthday Chico!

It's my old man's birthday today, lol (I don't think I've ever used that term before). Chico turns the big 3-8 today - woo hoo! We're going out shopping for his birthday present, a motorcycle jacket, so he feels better about riding on the streets on his new bike. Then out to dinner with his mom and my parents tonight. It's going to be a great day!

Happy Birthday Piggy!!

Back to School Time Again

Yesterday was back to school for Mateo & Jaxon. Mateo's a big 4th grader this year and Jaxon's a 1st grader (his first year of full day school). Of course I had to make them stand and pose for me several times. I'm sure they just love this each year, but I'm determined to do it even when they're in high school. I just love seeing them all cute in their new school clothes and newer haircuts!

We do photos in the house first.





And then outside...
























I asked the boys to look over at me before they got on the school bus, but Jaxon must have forgotten in all the excitement, but surprisingly Mateo actually looked AND SMILED!!



Sadly this is the last year the boys will be at the same school until Mateo's a Senior in High School and Jaxon's a Freshman. The schools are set up a little strange in this town. Elementary schools are K-4th, Upper Elementary is 5th-6th, Middle School is 7th-8th, then High School 9th-12th. Since the boys are 3 years apart, they won't overlap again for many years.

We'll they boys had a great first day. Let's hope the rest of the school year goes just as well!

Fall / Winter 2009 Idea Book Swap

It's that time again, another swap. As in the past, with the release of our new Idea Book I decided (last minute) to participate in another swap. I wasn't going to do it this time around, but when the swap organizer still had some spots open pretty late in the game, I felt like I should step in. Who am I kidding? I love getting all those goodies back, but it is a lot of work.

As I've mentioned before, we are assigned a certain size card or layout, a certain new paper pack to use and a featured new accessory. Every item has to be from our new Idea Book being released at that time. This time around, of course is the Fall/Winter issue. So my assigned project was: 3 1/2 x 8" Vertical Greeting Card using Jingle Paper (our new Holiday paper this year) and I had to use "Juniper" Waxy Flax. So this is what I came up with for my 44 items.




















This isn't all 44, but you get the jist. Isn't that paper cute? I love it!! I'm definately going to be using "Jingle" a lot!

OK, back on track, here's a close up of one of the cards. They're pretty simple looking, but they did take some time with stamping the backgrounds, cutting out pieces and poking all those holes. That was a lot of holes!!







Well, there you have it. My cards were shipped to the swap organizer up in Seattle area last Friday and now I should be getting my box of goodies any day now. Can't wait, it's always like Christmas opening up the box!

All items are CTMH:
Stamps - Holiday Commentary, Ornate Ornaments, Spot On Backgrounds
Paper - Jingle Level 2 Paper Pack
Ink - Juniper, Tulip & Baby Pink
Accessories - Juniper & Blush Waxy Flax

The new Fall/Winter Idea Book is here!!

The new Fall/Winter Close to My Heart Idea book is live today! You can click on this photo or the one on my side bar to view the Idea Book on line or let me know if you'd like a hard copy. I've got lots to share!! Contact me at kandi@myctmh.com.



If you just can't wait, you can always hop over to my website and order away. There's some pretty cute stuff in there that I can't wait to get my hands on! Let me know if you have any questions. Enjoy!

It's that time of year again

Well, another year has passed. We're celebrating 12 years of wedded bliss today. I posted photos from our wedding last year and I haven't scanned any different ones in since, so I won't re post the same ones again (with the exception of the one above - gotta have one photo). If you want to see last year's post you can go here. I should try to figure out how get part of our wedding video on here. That would be fun. I still haven't got any takers on watching my wedding video with me, so maybe I'll do that solo tomorrow. I like to reminisce.

We didn't do to much to celebrate again this year (we need to change that tradition). I was busy at a Vendor Fair in Hillsboro today, so Chico took the boys to a near by town and went to a car show. After that Granny took the kids overnight so we could go out. We ended up going to Outback. We had a coupon for a free Bloomin' Onion - Yum! After that we stopped by New Seasons and picked up some desert to go. I picked out a Chocolate Rum Mousse and Chico got a piece of Tiramisu. Chico also bought me a silly little piggy key chain while we were there because we have that silly pet name for each other "piggy" that's been with us for almost the entire 20 years we've been together.

Well, I'm off to try my Mousse. I'm sure that's a very good choice for an 11pm snack. :)

Portland Bridge Pedal - Part 1

Chico and the boys did the Providence Portland Bridge Pedal on Sunday. They've been planning it for several months now. I didn't go along so Chico took the camera and took several photos, which I haven't downloaded yet.

There were 3 different photo stations on the route and Chico convinced the boys to stop for one of them. This was taken from the Fremont Bridge, which I believe is the tallest bridge in Portland. They handed them a ticket, took their photo and you could log onto the Providence website and get your free digital photo.

Here it is...


Isn't that cool?

Chico and the boys did the 14 mile, 6 Bridge Family Ride. This was the shortest ride. Chico said they would have done the 24 mile 8 bridge ride, but at that point you have to pay for the kids and since this was their first time, he thought he'd see how it went first.

Here are the bridges they rode over (in order):

Hawthorne
Ross Island
Marquam
Burnside
Broadway
Fremont

I was trying to get a copy of the route map, but I'm not having much luck. I'll try for post #2. Alright, that's all for now. I'll show you Chico's photos (taken while riding) in the next post. Toodles!