Shower of Blessings

Dear little baby G's shower was held on the most beautiful day. On Saturday, January 15, 2011 the sun was shinning, friends were smiling and excitement was radiating underneath the tule shaded canopy. What can I say besides, I was blessed to have a perfect baby shower. Honestly, I was terrified that the recent rainy days were going to strike again and we would all end up in our winter boots covered with mud. Surprisingly, the day was gorgeous and actually a bit hot. I believe it was a gift from my sweet little Nana looking down on us and letting her love shine through for her great-grand son. The great grand son she knew and already loved at only three and half months but would never get to hold. So, thank you Nana, for your warmth that surrounded our family, friends and our baby boy that will be named after you.

Since my Nana was such a special woman and had an enormous part in raising me, this baby shower was truly dedicated to her. From the 1900's antique transportation theme to the photos of her holding me when I was a baby. Our colors were after my recent discovery that I love to love turquoise-all shades. Now, I'm a pink girl all the way but for some reason, maybe it's because I'm gonna have a boy, I just can't get enough of this jeweled color. It's a color that makes me want to reach out and touch it...then buy it…whatever it may be. From a luxurious throw, to a crisp new notepad for work, turquoise literally fills up three-fourths of my home's decor. And so for the baby shower we worked in the turquoise with black and white accents to create a boyish yet bit of 1940's glam. Here are the results…

B is for Boy! Yes, you are knockin' at the right house. Below are the silhouettes of myself, our first baby girls and Mr. G (another antique touch).

Antique transportation vehicles filled the rooms. My sister found this garden bike which we painted black, giving it just the right feel for our vintage theme. The packages were the gifts for the games.

I was also inspired by Disney's Lady and the Tramp movie. So, like the movie, the men were separated from the women and given cigars-chocolate cigars that is…they were placed in these vintage cigar boxes. The silhouettes below were our name badges and the "B-A-B-Y" sign was hung outside where guests signed a little note of love or advice for the parents to be:)

Our favors were lots and gobs of turquoise colored sweets for everyone to enjoy. 

Outside the guests were surrounded by hues of blue, white and simple winter centerpieces. One of my favorite details were the flying vintage airplanes. Mr. G and I were just speechless and filled with love because we have such sweet as sugar friends and family. 

The old fashion appies, made with love from my mommy, included scones, cucumber sandwiches and donuts. The picture perfect cake was created by my talented friend Nancy. 

 The grand finale was of course my "fauxto" booth. This time I wanted to mimic an antique silhouette frame. So- ta da! 

Teachers are craft machines

Teachers are the most creative people I know. And I'm not just saying that because I'm a teacher, but because it's totally true. Each holiday, especially during Christmas, my colleagues amaze me. They come up with some crafty homemade gifts and treats to share. Let's see I've received delicious and colorful white chocolate bark, homemade personalized note cards, personalized magnets (which all teachers love for their white boards) and many more I can't remember. Last year I sewed together some felt gingerbread ornaments all dazzled up in Martha Stewart glitter. This year, I have tons to do so I just made some Snow Man Stew, curtsy of my sister Gens. So now it's my mission to share all of their fabulously crafty gifts with you so maybe you can replicate them. The first teachers to make it to my craft wall of fame are my friends;

La Monica= made the lovely hot pink scarf
Yadira, =made the decadent chocolate spoons
Stephanie=gave me a bag of Snowman poop
Inger  (picture not included, because I scarfed down her present)= made Pumpkin Cream Cake.

Pink & Green

This year I decided to wrap my Christmas gifts in two colors I love together, pink and green. Last year me, my husband and his family went to Utah for some snow boarding adventures. I'm not a big snow boarding fan so while they were hitting the slopes I decided to take advantage of the day after Christmas sales. I love me some Target so that's where I headed first. As I was searching through the isles my heart pounded with joy as I came across this adorable pink and green Hello Kitty, yes Hello Kitty, wrapping paper. I grabbed that sucker, along with many other treats, and called it a day! So, viola! My pink and green color scheme came to life with a few extra added details. My friend Svea, also gave me some wrapping pointers; she said tulle would be inexpensive and look great as a ribbon. It sure does! Now my new addiction-tulle!:)

Lucky number 7

Yay, 7 months down! How many more to go? Well, I am officially in my third trimester and feeling not too shabby. Today, I had my monthly doctor's appointment and one of the nurses said, "You sure are all baby." I guess those extra seventeen pounds that I have gained are all going to baby G's muscles! Now it's crunch time. No more messin' around! I need to get down to business!! We have finally finished the baby shower invites. Next, on the agenda is to finish painting, crafting and ordering all the the details for the baby shower decorations. Oh ya, and we need to finish painting the trim, order the interior shutters, pick out a rug and install a closet organization system for the nursery. Jeez Louise, I…I mean Mr. G (hehehe) has a ton of things on his plate. Well, here is how I look before all the madness begins.
(p.s. don't mind all the blurriness; I'm practicing and trying to figure out how to use my new wide angle lens)

Eggplant= 25 to 28 months

Me at 7 months!

The invitations!:)

Gotta show the envelope:)

'Tis the Season to CRAFT...

Fa la la, la la, la la la la! I already feel overwhelmed just thinking about all the crafty decor and presents I want to make this Christmas. Here is my craft Christmas list:

changing the wall frame's scrap booking paper to match our new living room color- check

baby shower invites

glittering up our Christmas cards

cutting and sewing 25 felts stockings for my little rug rats

making an ornament or sweet treat for my co-workers

dazzling up my indoor holiday decor 

sewing some stocking stuffers for the family

...and I need to start and finish all of these projects before Mr. G and I go on Christmas break. HELP! Well as long as I continue to find inspiration by DVRing the Martha Stewart show, browsing through my old MS mags and always keeping up to date with my favorite blogs and a few new ones, I'll be alright. Here are some new crazy crafty blogs that I stubbled upon. Check out their creations! Fantabulous:)

These gorgeous glitter trees are from the eighteen25 blog. 

Here are similar glitter trees in a more traditional color by, I heart nap time.

Thank you to my bf Lisett, for introducing me to scrap booking our first year in college. Ever since then I can't find enough uses for this darn cute paper. I had these frames up in our kitchen nook for the past couple of years. Then we needed a change in our living room. So Mr. G painted and I recycled these frames to fit our new gray/blue & black/white living area. This is the before picture and below is the after.

Here is the "after." I love it! So for all my fam and friends, yes this is our new living room color with black and white accents.

Here is the next project that I must complete by this weekend-baby shower invites. Of course I am using scrap booking paper, card stock, Paper Source envelopes, a rubber stamp from Etsy and some embossing materials. 

Halloween parts and pieces

Since 2003, Mr. G and I have dressed up for Halloween as famous couples...i.e. Willma and Fred Flintstone, a mermaid and Poseidon, a USC cheerleader and The Heisman Trophy,  male and female circus ringleaders...and the list can go on. I know, I know. They are ALL not famous couples but at least they match. As you can tell, I love dressing up for Halloween. I lu, lu, lu, love it! Not only do I love the oncoming of fall and the holiday season, but I love making my own costumes. Yes, I am very proud to say I really try to hand make our costumes every year. Sooo sad that this year is a different story. I have my very good friends' wedding this weekend, in Vegas! We are super excited for this momentous occasion in their lives! So, I won't have much time to sew up a storm. BUT! I am still not resorting to buying a costume. Plus my grandmother, an extremely talented seamstress, would just die knowing that I could have tried a little harder to put something more original together. That's exactly what I'm gonna try to do...put (not sew) something together. So, here are a few clues from our couple's costume...(psss...here's a hint: think of me being pregnant in the costume).

My yellow leotard is from American Apparel and the tights are from Forever 21. Mr. G's costume parts come from Forever 21 and I'm making the net. Guess what we are going to be yet? I didn't think so:) But I've excluded a lot of detail that I still need to piece together!



Pillow Tutorial

 I decided that I really needed to start documenting my favorite sewing projects. This is probably going to sound really silly but here it is...my sewing confession. Every time I want to make a new removable pillow case cover I have to go back to Sparkle Power's tutorial . I figure I don't have to write it down because I have this page bookmarked. But then I thought, what if she deletes her blog? Then what would I do? So here I am, creating my own tutorial. These are a few pictures of my newest pillow case covers for my outdoor patio furniture.


Step 1: Find a pillow or pillow form. I used a 14X14 pillow form from Michael's. It was on sale for $4.99...but if you really want to go cheap you can find pillows at thrift stores for as low as $2. I know using someone else's pillow sounds yucky but not if you are gonna use it for outside patio pillow decor-like I did! 


Step 2: You will need 3 pieces of cut material. Cut your first piece of fabric, the front of the pillow, to the exact width and length of the pillow. Here I cut 14X14. Then for your next 2 pieces, the back, you are going to want to cut a length of 14 (same as the first length) but 4 inches shorter for the width. So for this project you would cut 10 for the width. These 2 pieces should be cut as 14X10. This goes for any pillow width, on the back two pieces, always 4 inches shorter!

Step 3: Make about a 1/4 inch fold (lengthwise) on back two pieces. Iron it and then fold it over again and iron it so it becomes a pleat. These pieces will be where you insert the pillow form. 

Step 4: Repeat step 3 for the second back piece of material. Then sew the pleats down.

Step 5: Pin and sew the back two pieces over the front. Make sure you place the fabric right side up onto each other so you are viewing the wrong sides on the front and back. 

Step 6: Sew around the entire pillow. I used a regular sewing machine to sew the pleats but an overlock sewing machine to for the entire pillow. The overlock machine gives the pillow case extra durability but if you don't have one a regular sewing machine will work just as well. 

Step 7: You are all finished. Just turn the cover inside out and stuff the pillow through the case! Happy Sewing:)

Here are some of my 4th of July patio furniture pillows!

                               

Forever is MAD for Fashion!

OMG...Thanks to my friend Nancy for texting me as soon as she saw this...

Forever my Love for 21

Seriously I haven't been shopping, in what feels like decades, for weeks. Actually, I am thinking maybe its been even months since I haven't spent a dime on FASHION. Boo to me. What could be a logical, insane, understandable reason for not opening my pretty pocket? Well, Mr. G and I are trying to save our nickels an dimes for some home upgrades. So here I am pretending to be thrifty. Yesterday I cheated. Ha ha ha...not really though because I used a gift card. So there! I am still on my budget Mr. G. I headed straight for my fav store, Forever 21 of course. Yes, I love it. I know, I am an adult and should be shopping at these brand-name and high-designer boutiques. But I don't. I simply don't care for them. People say your only young once, right? Well I say your young as long as you feel young. Ya, I'm not 21 anymore but I feel, hopefully look and act like I'm in my early twenties. So forever is the place for me to shop. Their trends are bold. Fabric is cheap but hey so are the prices and that's what reels me in for the kill. Plus trends come and go and I am not about to drop a bill on a cardi- I'm no balla'. I just love dressing up in girly frills and downtown heels. Spring is my shopping season. Look what's in store...

Now that its raining more than ever...

...you can stand under my umbrella (Rihanna)

Whoa! This weekend I attended back-to-back baby showers while it was raining cats and dogs.  Crazy, hugh?! Ever since I found out about the first baby shower I started to feel all crafty. Not just paper crafty. No, I was thinking Martha Stewart meets Pottery Barn designers. I wanted to make a few items that could be personal to each mommy-to-be but at the same time unique to each individual. Then it hit me. My first project would be a pillow case cover that matched one of my friend's baby shower invite. It was perfect. After all, her baby's nursery is modern with a splash of mod accents, just like the invite. It turns out that her invite inspiration came from Tiny Prints Studio . So I used her elephant theme plus the brown, gray and green colors. Then, voila a personalized pillow for baby Jonah. The pillow case cover tutorial came from the nifty Sparkle Power . The second gift, for both mtb's are posh blue, brown and cream baby bibs. They were super easy to make thanks to a pattern from ChickPea Studio and fabric from Joanne's.

The City I live(d) in...

...the city of Angeles (Red Hot Chili Pepper)

     Fourth and LaVerne is where I used to reside. Yes, yesterday I drove back to my childhood neighborhood. Not to visit my Nana, because she still lives in East Los, but to hopefully help a friend relive his childhood memories. What a small world. Who would have thought that my co-worker turned fabulous girlfriend and her boyfriend would have grown up practically down the street from me. We attended different high schools but seriously walked around the same corners. This fab friend of mine thought of a unique and sentimental birthday gift for her boyfriend. So I helped with the snapshots that she will use to create a collection of framed photos, from his childhood stomping grounds, to hang around his new home. Oh, and while on our little adventure around LA and ELA we managed to stop traffic, literally. No, not because we were dressed cutesie :)  I actually was trying to be all dare-devilish and get a shot of D.T.L.A from the middle of the former Brooklyn Bridge. So, Nancy slammed her brakes, put on the hazards and I held my breath as I ran against traffic. Okay, I'm no dare-devil. There weren't any cars driving down the bridge while I was taking the shot. Weren't you scared for a sec?

 So cheers to you JJ. Happy Birthday and hope you enjoy your walk down memory lane.