It’s time for the fair!

I wanted to let all my local friends know that it’s opening day at the Evergreen State Fair today! I decided to venture out with everyone for a little fair-action. Here’s some pictures from our day.

It was a gorgeous day today. Perfect for going to the fair.

Nika and I started off having some raspberry filled scones and elephant ears!

Nika’s favorite barn was the cows this year. Baby cows are always cute!

And we made 2 trips to the bunny barn.

Lot’s of adorable photos and drawings from the 4-H kids.

There was a fun collection on display with some cool vintage Smoky the Bear trinkets and memorabilia.

I always enjoy the grange displays.

Here’s a photo for you quilting fans. I want to learn how to quilt one day.

I thought this quilt was very unique.

This was an incredible entry in the wood (art) category. Lots of detail, my photo doesn’t do it justice.

These cute ladies hosted a free kids make and take table (painted ceramics and design your own frame).

Nika painted a purple cow.

A photo from inside the Western Heritage Museum. Always lots of interesting and fun finds in here.

Today was kids day at the fair, all kids under age 15 receive free admission! Be sure to check out all the specials and discounts here. The Evergreen State Fair is going on until September 7th in Monroe Washington.

Hip kid-friendly tunes & a give-away!

I’m always on the lookout for creative and unique music for little Nika to listen to. She loves to dance and sing. We’ve been rockin out to our latest discovery from the Brian Waite Band “20,000 Volts Under the Sea“. I just love it! I never knew kids music could be so hip. Even my honey was surprised to know it was a kids CD. Really fun songs and definitely not your typical kid tunes. 

There’s a a great rock base with a wonderful blend of funk, blues, and even reggae. It’s not often a band can accomplish several styles of music well and these guys go even further by combining these styles into a playful and fun collection of songs.

This dad trio writes, plays and performs all their own stuff. You can download free samples of their music here.

** Give-away **
I have one extra CD to give one of you! Just leave a comment on this post. For fun tell me about the special little someone you’re going to share these rockin tunes with. I’ll leave comments open until Thursday 5/28 and pick a random winner. Please only one comment per person, open to US mailing addresses.

Check out how fun these guys are in concert! I’m totally going to take Nika to see them this summer

For those of you in the NW here’s where you can find them…

Friday, July 17th @ 12-1pm and 1:30-2:30pm
King County Fair
Enumclaw Expo Center – Main Stage, Enumclaw, WA

Wednesday, July 22nd @ 10-11am
Kirkland Family Concert
Marina Park, Kirkland, WA

Thursday, July 30th @ 10-11am
Everett Family Concert
Thornton A. Sullivan Park, Everett, WA

Sunday, November 8th @ 11am – 12pm
The Buddy Club Children’s Show
Randall Museum, San Francisco, CA
Tickets call 510-236-SHOW

Hope you are having a fabulous day. Check back tomorrow for Friday’s Freebie, it’s a good one! XOXO

Friday Freebie – Journaling & Title Fonts

Check out this cool font I just downloaded from Creating Keepsakes. They are going to be having a free font download every Friday! Shown in the image is today’s free font, ckJacque. Perfect for titles and journaling!

Just in case you haven’t stopped by Ali’s blog yet. She also has a free download for the document your weekend challenge. I used Ali’s “Saturday” word image on the photo below. I took this today while we were at the Issaquah Farmers Market. Nika and I love going to the local Farmers Markets!

Get the Friday Freebies

• CK Jacque Font
• Ali Edwards Weekend Freebie

The Tulip Festival

We went to the Tulip Festival in Mount Vernon Washington a couple weeks ago and had the best time. I’ve always wanted to go and so glad we did. I had no idea how amazing all the flowers would be. Over 1,500 acres of tulips and daffodils everywhere. Spring goodness at it’s best! Here’s some pics from our trip.

We also made a stop in La Conner to one of the cutest stores ever, Bunnies by the Bay. Nika’s cherished little Nay-Nay bunnies are made here. This store is filled with delightful baby things. Lots of softies, baby clothes and just the most adorable things imaginable. Check out all of this scrappy loveliness they had too. Some really gorgeous altered books, wall hangings, and tags.

The Tulip Festival takes place during the month of April every year. It’s about an hour drive north of Seattle. The neighboring towns of La Conner and Anacortes have lots to see and do too. We’re already planning another trip as there was so many places to explore. A really great place to visit. Thanks for stopping by today!

Where have I been?!?!

Hello May and where have I been?!?! I took a bit of a hiatus during April. It wasn’t planned. Now that I’m in my 2nd trimester my energy level seems back to normal and it just turned out to be a busy month. Many of you were so sweet to reach out and see if I was alright (thank you). Yes, I’m perfectly fine and baby’s doing fine too. Here’s a short list of what my April was like and a few pics.

• Celebrated little Nika’s 2nd birthday (over 3 weekends) and hosted a 40+ person party at our house.
  

• Finally finished my taxes!
• Had 2 Easter celebrations.
• Finished up the last of the remodel projects on our old house. Getting ready to put it on the market next week. Woo hoo!!
• Been doing a lot of work in our dirt yard (aka the front yard). Trying to get it weeded so we can put down some grass and landscape.
• Put in a new Rainbow play structure for Nika in the backyard.

• Getting ready for these two cuties to come visit and mapping out our summer plans.
• Took a trip up north and went to the Tulip Festival. This was such a fun little get-a-way. I’ll share more of these pics and details with you next week.

• And a baby update…had the 20 week ultrasound and it’s confirmed we are having a boy! He is doing great and looks super healthy. Feeling lots of little baby kicks now too, so exciting!

That’s just the short list from last month. I’m sure now that the weather is getting nicer a lot of you are spending more time outside, spring cleaning and planning summer fun! I have missed my online friends and hope to get back to blogging more regularly. Thank you again for the emails and comments. I always appreciate hearing from you. I’ll post a great freebie find for ya tomorrow. Big hugs and kisses XOXO ~ Cathy

Seattle Wedding Show pics

Last weekend I went to the Seattle Wedding show with my girlfriend who’s getting married this year. We had a super fun day and saw lots of inspiring things. Here’s some pics from our day.

I like the colors and designs on these invites. Both of these invitations were done with letterpress printing. This process is very popular for stationary right now.

I like the black trim on this dress.

I thought these dresses looked cool next to the grand architecture of the building.

Check out all this yumminess!! There were a lot of cake vendors at the show. We saw some amazing designs and did a lot of cake tasting too!! Here’s some of the ones we liked.

After the show we ventured downtown for lunch. We ate at this charming little European bakery, Le Pichet. Super good food!!

If you’d like to check out what I did for my wedding a couple of years ago. You can see lots of pics and all the details here.

Show & Tell – Clear (acetate) Santa card…and where to go for great Santa pics!

Here’s this years Santa photo. I’ve been wanting to make a clear (acetate) card and thought I would try it out with this photo.

For the card base I actually used an overhead transparency. I had a pack laying around that I had purchased from the office supply store. I cut and scored the card, then folded using a bone folder. Next I distressed the edges of the patterned paper. After matting the photo onto the paper I embellished with a rub-on, sticker and flower. I also stamped the date. To finish off I used a foam brush and painted gold metallic paint around the edges. I really like the effect the paint gave to the card.

Where to go for great Santa photos
For this years Santa photo we went to Cougar Mountain Zoo in Issaquah Washington. It’s our favorite local zoo and also the best place we’ve found for Santa photos. They have an annual reindeer festival during the month of December that includes admission to the zoo, a visit to Santa’s house, hourly stories read by elves, a place to do some holiday coloring and write Santa a letter, lots of festive holiday decorations and a cool giant sled for taking fun pics. One of my favorite things about getting the Santa photos done here is that you have the option of using your own camera! They ask for a $5 donation if you use your own camera. The Santa house is really nicely done too. Santa has a gorgeous hand carved wood chair, wonderful Christmas trees (the kind you would see in your own house), lots of toys and stuffed animals everywhere, and a bucket of candy canes and chocolate!! Santa also has a whole herd of REAL reindeer. The staff will help you take photos with the reindeer from inside the Santa house. You can also feed Santa’s reindeer while there. We went on a rainy day during the week and there was only 1 other family ahead of us in line. The weekends are much busier. If you are not a fan of the mall for Santa photos I would highly recommend a visit to Cougar Mountain Zoo.

Christmas tree eye candy

One of my favorite places to go for holiday inspiration is Molbak’s in Woodinville Washington. They have the most incredible seasonal displays. They are known for having amazing holiday trees and a huge selection of really fabulous decorations. Nika and I went there a few weeks ago and here’s a sampling of the awesomeness they currently have on display. Click on any image for more detail.

Lots of wonderful color and handmade ornaments. I really liked all the beautiful fairies they had. One of the Christmas tress even has a water feature in the middle of it! Such cool stuff. I highly recommend a visit if you are in the area.

CKC Seattle make & takes

This was my 2nd year attending CKC Seattle. This year I did some of the make and takes and so glad I did! Now that the show is over I also realize the booths that I did make and takes in were also the same ones I spent the most amounts of money!! Some of them also gave a coupon for purchases as a thank you for doing the project too. Here’s what I got to make at the show.

This is the project from the Tattered Angels booth. They are the makers of the fun Glimmer Mist sprays. I really enjoyed this one as each project was unique to however you designed it. They had all of their stencils/masks (Glimmer Screens) to try and all the different Glimmer Mist colors. They also had Glimmer Glass you could add to your creations. I used a dragon fly and was also shown how to take a heat gun to heat-up the embellishment and bend the wings to give dimension. I also added a little Stickles to the embellishment.

This was a nice and quick card to make. Boxer Scrapbook had all papers, ribbon and diecut ready for you to put this together. The instructor showed how to do simple doodling on the diecut to make it more cute. I used a white Gelly Roll pen to decorate the gingerbread man. They also gave a discount coupon for shopping in their booth. You can also purchase a kit to make these cards on their website.

This project was from Timeless Touches. I thought these paper piercing templates were pretty cool and haven’t seen them before. This was a 2-part technique, stamp and stitch. The image is stamped on the paper and then you use a template to pierce holes over the image. Then you do a simple backstitch to fill in. They did a demo on how to use the Home Pro tool, which was used for the silver corner embellishments. They also gave out a discount coupon to purchase the stamp and stitch set in their booth.

Another of my favorites was this tag made at the Crafty Secrets booth. I love all their products. You could create a tag or card, pick out a vintage image from one of their booklets and also pick out a one of their papers. On the tag I stamped my snowflake image using a clear resist pad and then chalked over the image with pealescent chalk. I also inked around the edges of the tag.

For free make and takes I thought these were really great! I particularly liked the ones offered by Tattered Angels and Crafty Secrets as they allowed me to try the products that I was interested in. I also noticed there was a lot of booths offering makes and takes for a fee ranging from $2 – $8. I didn’t purchase any of those.

Check back later I still have more CKC stuff to share. I want to tell you about a new stamp designer that I think you will like. She debuted her stamp line to the scrapbooking industry at CKC Seattle. Really awesome stuff!! Chat you later. XOOXO

CKC Seattle

The Creating Keepsakes Convention (aka CKC Seattle) is here!! I’ll be there tomorrow and Saturday. I’m looking forward to hanging out with my friends, meeting some new ones, and taking a bunch of classes. Let me know if you are going so we can meet-up.

We’re home…and packing up to move!

We had 4 fun-filled, yet relaxing days at the beach. It was so great!! Nika loved being there too. Here’s some pics from our trip. We discovered this really cool 1,000 acre u-pick farm near the house. Lots of wonderful berries, lavender and all kinds of other goodness. You can read about the farm and see more pics here. Here’s little Nika playing in the berry fields. She loves going to the u-pick farms.

Here’s the view from the front of the house at Sunset.

I really liked how purply {is that a word?} the sky and clouds looked at Sunset.

There were a lot of birds flying-in and flying-by too. I suppose migration is already starting. It was really neat to see so many birds every where. Oh, there were the cutest family of quails that would come by every evening and peck around out back in the yard. I wanted to get a photo but they would scramble away as soon as I opened the door. Pictured below is a small flock of the many geese that stopped over for a rest.

The move is finally happening!! I may not be posting much this week since we are packing up the house to move this Friday. We still have a lot to do and too many things to pack. Hope you have a great week. XOOXO

I got to meet one of my blogging friends!!

I had a fun last-minute outing yesterday afternoon. I got to meet one of my online friends, the super sweet Scrappy Catz Lisa!! She was here in Seattle all the way from Memphis, TN. How cool is that? I’ve been friends with Lisa since the beginning of this year. We have a lot of craftiness in common and hangout in many of the same places online. It was so fun to meet her in person. When I went to pick her up she was just as I had imagined too. She’s one of those people that you just enjoy being around. We had a fun afternoon together. We went to Snoqualmie Falls and did a little touristy shopping. We also stopped by my new house and Lisa met my honey, Vlad. Little Nika couldn’t get enough of her. Nika wanted Lisa to carry her and hold hands. It was really cute!

I’ve met a few of my online friends and all of them have been fabulous people. Very cool how the Internet can bring people together from all over the world. I love that about blogging!

Thank you Lisa for spending your afternoon with Nika and me. It was so great to get to know you better! You’re just as fabulous in-person as you are online. XOOXO

My blueberry girl

Yesterday I took Nika to one of the local u-pick blueberry farms. She loves blueberries, picking them and eating them. Here’s some pics of my little blueberry girl having fun at the farm. These are all digital layouts made with Memory Mixer software and the Lasting Impressions digi kit. Click on the images for a close-up view. XOOXO

For those of you local, the Larson Lake Blueberry Farm is a nice little get-away that is right off of 148th in Bellevue. Great spot for a picnic lunch, nice trails to walk around the farm, wide aisles in the blueberry patch, and it’s ok to bring dogs. There is also a produce stand with fruits and vegetables at great prices. The u-pick blueberries are only $1 per pound!! The only downside is the limited parking. We went on a Tueday after lunch and the lot was full with cars waiting to park.

Fun purchase from the farmers market

I took Nika to the local farmers market yesterday and it was kids day!! There was a bunch of crafty kids selling their wonderful creations. I wanted to buy something from each of them, it was just the cutest thing. The kids were so proud to show off their wares. I picked up this fun little Halloween tote from a little girl who looked about 6 years old.

Fun at the park

Nika and I went to check out the Bellevue Botanical Gardens today. Oh wow, it was so awesome and free!! Who knew Bellevue had this gem of a park? There are 53 acres of gardens, woodlands, meadows and wetlands to explore. The trails are great mostly gravel, and some paved {Nika’s stroller worked just fine on the gravel trails}. We had a lot of fun checking everything out.

They also have a really cool winter lights show called Garden d’Lights in December. I’ve heard great things about it and will definately be checking it out this year.

If you do visit the Bellevue Botanical Gardens with kids, be sure to make a stop next door at the Wilburton Hill Park. There is a really nice playground with a cool spiderweb and also a zipline swing. Yes, the zipline is strong enough for the adults too…yahoo!! When leaving the main entrance of the Botanical Garden turn right onto the main road and you’ll see the sign/entrance for Wilburton Park.