I want a hippopotamus for Christmas

No, not really, but I just can't get this song out of my head, so I added it to my blog playlist so you can all sing it in your heads with me. You're welcome!

Bella Birthday Bash Blog Hop

Welcome to the Bella Birthday Bash Blog Hop sponsored by Stamping Bella! If you didn't start from the beginning, please go to Emily's blog. If you came from Lori's blog, then you're right on track. If there is a link missing and you get lost, here is a list of all the blogs.

I'm so excited to join in on Stamping Bella's 3rd Birthday celebration! I've never participated in a blog hop before, so this will be fun. There are 86 of us participating today and I'm #72, so I thank you for making it this far!

For my entry I decided to use Tinkerbella and the sentiment "have a fairy happy birthday". (You can click on the photo to make it larger.)




















I have a hard time showing "shimmery" in photos, so here's a little closer up.













Isn't she just darling?? I love her pretty little outfit! Since I'm a mom of two boys I never get to do girly stuff, so I thought this would be a great way to get the pink and glitter out of my system. I colored Bella with Copic Sketch and Spica Glitter markers and for the paper and accessories I used all Close To My Heart supplies ("Daydream" paper pack, ribbon and Pretty Pins). I hope you enjoyed Tinkerbella as much as I do, now on to the exciting news...

Three gift certificates for $100 in Bella Bucks will be hidden along the hop, but we’re not telling you where so be sure to leave some love as you hop!!! Make sure you leave comments on every post so you have a chance to win!! The winners will be announced on Monday, December 7 at the Stamping Bella Blog. MWAH!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Now it's time to hop on over to {Karen's blog}.

Ahhhh...

Well, the Crafty Ladies sale is over and it was another success for everyone involved. I enjoy doing the sale each time, but have to say it is a relief when it's over. This is a quick post this morning because I need to get the boys off to the bus stop and myself off to work, but I wanted to post a couple photos of these cute baby gift sets I made for the sale. These are little car seat or stroller size blankets made out of fabulously soft minky fabric and a little stuffed elephant to match.





Aren't they cute? I wish you could see them in person, they're even cuter and oh so soft to touch. I sold two sets of the brown and blue polka-dot ones, but I still have the pink one left. I'm going to do another little 3 hour vendor show in the next couple weeks, so I'll try to sell some more there. I have lots more fabric to choose from too.

Oh, and here's a photo of the four Crafty Ladies. We've never had a photo of all of us together at one of the shows.



Alright, off to start the day. Everyone have a great one!

A quick sneak peek

The Crafty Ladies and I were busy staging the show on Tuesday and Wednesday this week and tonight was the night to drive around town and put up all the signs. It was so nice out tonight with no wind or rain. I'm not sure how long that will last, but it was definately a blessing for us tonight.

Just before we left the fabulous Macrum House Wednesday night I took a few more sneak peek photos for the Crafty Ladies Blog. Since they're so cute I thought I'd post them here too.

Here's one of the displays inside the Macrum House. Most of the antiques we display our items on are for sale. Lots of beautiful pieces.


Crafty Linda made these super cute embroidered towels and coffee cup sleeves. Love that fabric!!




Crafty Alicia made these super cute hand embroidered snowman pillows. I didn't take a photo of the back of them, but they have cute button closures on the back. Maybe I need these for my sofa? lol


This is just a sampling of some beautiful jewelry made by a new vendor named Shandra. There's lots more available. Love it!


Aren't these knitted and crocheted hats cute? They were made by a friend of Crafty Beverly's.


These baby blanket and onesie gift sets were made by me. They have fun fabric on one side and super soft minky fabric on the other. Crafty Linda suggested I include a onesie with my blankets, so I followed her advice and appliqued them to match the blankets. So cute!




Alright, I've spent too much time blogging tonight when I need to be crafting. Come by the Crafty Ladies sale if you're in the Forest Grove area. We'll be there from 10am - 6pm both Friday and Saturday.

Crafty Ladies Holiday Sale is just days away!!

Well, last you heard there were "exciting things going on in my craft room". I wish I could say there were LOTS of exciting things, but so far only a couple. And I know I've been so bad about posting lately. I've honestly tried getting a few different posts done, but just couldn't quite finish each one for one reason or another. So if I could just get a couple hours to sit and do nothing but blog posts, I could change them from drafts to published posts. I just don't think it will happen until the Crafty Ladies sale is over.

Being my normal procrastinating self, I've been working on all of my crafts at the last minute. I've only known this sale was coming for months now (lol). I had big plans to do tons of sewing over this last weekend, but my back decided otherwise. Thursday night it decided that it was going to try to go out on me - very annoying. So, 2 chiropractor visits later, it's doing better, but I'm still under orders to not lift anything and not to bend at the waist. It's hard to cut fabric on my table and not bend at my waist, so needless to say my weekend was not so productive.

I'm still going to try to get a few more things done this week, but most of the evenings this week will be taken up with staging the show, so as usual it will mean very little sleep for me until Saturday night. For those that haven't gotten an email from me about the Crafty Ladies show or seen my facebook posts, the Crafty Ladies Holiday Sale is an annual tradition for 4 years (with the exception of last fall). This year I've created a blog that gives all the details and shows photos of our past events. Click HERE to take a look if you haven't had a chance. We've had a lot of fun over the last few years.

Here's a post from the Crafty Ladies blog:

"It's that time of year again, Crafty Ladies sale time! November 2009 marks the Fourth Annual Crafty Ladies Holiday Sale. Once again the Warren family of Forest Grove has offered up their home (the Historic Macrum Mansion) to us for our sale. This was the location of our 2007 Holiday Sale. We can't thank the Warrens enough for this fabulous venue for our event! It's so fun to display our goods in this setting and the customers just love to get a peek into this beautiful home.

Below is the official invitation to our sale. Please join us on November 20th and 21st for an event where you'll be sure to find great gifts for friends and loved ones or a treat for yourself.





















Here's a map to help you find us... Click the map to make it larger.


We hope to see you this year!"

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!!