So I thought I would post this here instead of my other blog or maybe
I’ll do both.  I’m back from CHA, I went for 3 days and boy am I
exhausted and I’m sick, but I had SO much fun. 

I had a drastically different CHA than I did last year.  Last year I
only had one day to go and people were not so nice to us.  This year I
had a press pass since I was with Scrapbook Dimensions Magazine so I
had access to the press room and a film pass which allowed us to video
a bunch of new stuff coming out.  All the videos are going to be up on
the magazine website by next week so I’ll let you know when they are up
and running so you can see them.  I hung out with my editor Cindy, managing editor Kristi, thedigitalscrapbookteacher Patty Debowski and the always talented Ms. Vicki Chrisman.

When we were in the Piggy Tales booth Stacy Julian and Ali Edwards
stopped by and got to meet them.  Very nice ladies!  We also went to
the 2p’s ice cream social on Monday night and I chatted with Tessa Ann
for a few minutes…love her and then up walks Emily Falconbridge,
she’s way cool and so nice.  While at the social a lady walked in and I
noticed her from the Scrapbook Memories TV show and I was telling my
editor who she was and we ended up getting her a spot on the show at
some point in the future…very cool! 

There was a lot of talk about hybrid going around at CHA, lots of
people interested in it and wanted to find out more.  There are also a
few paper companies out there that are soon coming out with digital
images for those hybriders out there to take advantage of as well. 

My first day there I was invited by my editor to attend and help with the class they
were teaching which was called Bridging the Gap between Digital and
Traditional Scrapbooking. Basically educating the retailer how they can
incorporate hybrid into their stores.  Most retailers have no idea how
to go about it, what items to carry, etc.  So it was very interesting
and informative and I was really excited to see so many attending the
class which really tells me that more and more retailers are embracing
hybrid scrapbooking.   Tinkering Ink , Ashley Smith from PolkaDotPotato, Doris Castle and a local LSS owner came by to talk to everyone. 

We spent the rest of the day going through the new exhibitors and there
were a few that caught our eye.  Some aren’t scrap related but we
thought were kinda cool. 

1. Clear Scraps
which as you can see from their website they have a HUGE selection of
clear albums, you can use your cuttlebug to emboss them and your
alcohol inks on them, I really liked the little house album the best. 

2.  MOO
erasers.  These things are really cool.  Instead of erasing something
and having little bits of eraser all over the place, these pull all
those little bits into one long string and they erase like butter!
They erase off of glossy paper without leaving a mark and you can erase
over and over again without ripping or tearing the paper at all.  I’m
sold on these!

3.  The Paper Cricket which are push pins or
magnets that have a clip on them so you don’t get holes in your papers
or whatever when you put them on your cork board.  Very cool.

4.  X-album.
They have these things called The Showbooks which are the cutest,
smallest albums that fit onto your key rings or cell phones.  Really
they are that small and they are adorable.   

5.  Sticky Ass Glue
(yes that’s the name and I love it) LOL  The guys who were running this booth were a hoot!  This
glue sticks to anything and bonds anything, you can even apply it to
styrofoam and it won’t melt it, it doesn’t smell.   Probably wouldn’t
be great for paper scrapping a LO but for other craft projects this
would work great. 

6. Sassy Signs
which are really cute yard signs and come in a variety of different
sayings or you can make your own and they bend with the wind instead of
blowing into your neighbors yard. 

7.  Gioielliitaly
which is photo jewelry that comes with a punch for your specific piece
of jewelry that you can use to punch out your photos exactly to fit
into the piece. 

8.  Braggables
which are purses with the photo windows in them but they have sizes
that would fit a 12×12 LO in them if you want and little cell phone and
camera bags with straps on them and the best part is when you purchase
them  10% of the proceeds are donated to Pediatric Cardiology
Research.

9.  Paper Trunk had some really cute clear stamps and papers out and those girls were so nice. 

10.  of course the awaited release of Jenni Bowlin’s stuff, the booth was packed when we went by but I caught a glimpse of it and liked it! 

11.  G – C – D had some really cool papers out, really caught my eye. 

12.  I really liked Holly McCaig’s new line Pink Paislee, very shabby chic, cute.

Ok so those are the new exhibitors….now onto the all the new stuff from everyone else. 

First and foremost…Glitz I am
in love with Glitz.  Not only do they have traditional papers and bling
but they also have digital/printable for the hybriders…LOVE it!
Their stuff is so cute and fun and I can’t wait to play with this.

Creative Imaginations also has some digi stuff out there being sold on polkadotpotato.com

Then there was Kaiser Craft,
which I had never heard of before but they have a huge line of crafting
products, not just scrapbooking and this booth was super busy everytime
I walked by it.  But they have some cute mini albums and
embellishments. 

Doodlebug has this new stuff out called Crushed Velvet which you can use like you would use glitter but it’s fuzzy….so fun!

For those of you looking for easy digital scrapbooking software Arcsoft has come out with a new product called Scrapbook Creator Memories Edition.  I got to see a demo of this and for the beginner this would be a great way to go.  Really simple and user friendly. 

For those of you looking for a wide format printer, Epson has come out with the R1900
which has a few upgrades from their previous models.  They’ve added Red
and Orange inks which improve the quality of skin tones, roll paper
support to print panoramas or on canvas roll and an improved Hi gloss
pigment ink.  You can physically feel the difference in texture from
the Epson 1400 to the new and improved printer. 

Avery and Strathmore have both come out with new stretchable iron on
transfers that don’t crack or distort when stretched.  Currently they
only have it for light fabrics but these are really cool for tanks or
anything that stretches.

Met with the ladies from Scrapbook & Cards Today
from Canada, it was refreshing to actually speak to a magazine who
weren’t rude to us and didn’t look at us as competition with them.

Ok
so that’s it for now…I’m tired from writing all that and just
thinking about the amount of walking and talking  I did for 3 days.
Unfortunately I didn’t get any photos myself…since I was put in
charge of videotaping most of the stuff for the magazine.  I need to go
take a nap with Bella….she’s sick too.   Have a great day everyone. 

I’m adding as I remember things…

Inspired Crafts
has a couple of really cool products out.  One is a mist that you spray
in the air and waft your cardstock through it and it makes it not crack
when you fold it and easier to score.  They also have a product that
will make your punches not stick as well as a cleaner for your tools
and will clean Staz-On off your stamps.  Everything is water based,
solvent free.

Oh and I totally
forgot…Kristi and Cindy were using the X-shot a lot during the show.
If you don’t have one you need to get one.  Now YOU can be back in your
pictures and videos in your scrapbooks.   All you do is attach it to
your camera on the bottom and set your timer.  Check it out…..    It’s small enough to fit in most purses too.  GENIUS!   

My nephews Karting banquet was this weekend at the Knott’s Berry Farm Resort Hotel and since my parents are on the board they were in charge of a lot of stuff and asked us if we wanted to come along and then go to Knott’s the next day.  I haven’t been there in probably 14 years or so and I thought Bella would like it. 

So we show up to the hotel and I see this van of old guys with beards in it…about 10 of them.  Then we go inside to the lobby and I see even more of them.  One dressed up in full Santa garb with Mrs. Claus at his side.  Bella’s eyes were like saucers and I could just see the wheels turning as she is trying to figure out what the hell is going on.  More and more start showing up as we are sitting in the lobby waiting to check in.  Of course they are all just SO friendly and talking to Bella.  We finally had to tell her that they were having a Santa’s elves training convention and she was okay with that.

My dad was talking to one of them in the elevator and he said there was 300 of them at the hotel that weekend and it was the Annual Order of Santa’s with Real Beards!  That night my parents went to the banquet and Bella and I went downstairs to the restaurant.  Upon walking in there were 4 Santa’s at the bar drinking beer!  LOL  Now that’s something you don’t see!

I didn’t have my camera all weekend and my niece has the other picture of one of the Santa’s on her phone but I did manage to catch this photo of a car in the parking lot…it had reindeer antlers on the front windows, a "got toys" sticker, an "NP" North Pole sticker, a "Naughty & Nice Checker on Board" sticker and the license plate frame said…"I’m not lost, I’m just checking my List".  It was the cutest thing!

Yesterday we went to Knott’s, my niece and nephew took off with their friends leaving my mom, sister, Bella and I to ourselves.  Bella wasn’t very interested in riding any rides except the Merry-go-Round and the Stagecoach and every train in the park.    ME…I had my eye on the Silver Bullet.  I’m a HUGE roller coaster fanatic and this is the one your feet dangle in the air and you go upside down and every which way.  But my mom and sister would have no part of going on it with me.  Luckily we caught up to my nephew and I talked him into going on it with me…yes I had to talk a 13 year old into going on it with ME! 

So 45 minutes of waiting in line was well worth it…I just LOVE the feeling of all my blood rushing to my feet, dizzy beyond belief and not being able to walk straight after getting off a roller coaster…anyone else? LOL 

I really thought when I bought this digital kit from Tia Bennett at 2p’s that before I go putting bunny ears, party hats and mustaches on other people in my scrapbooks…I should really put them on myself first! LOL  So as I’m sitting there playing around on my computer with all this fun stuff, Bella comes up and starts laughing and says, "Mommy, just WHAT kind of scrapbook are you making?".

I was sitting in bed the other night and I started thinking about all the weird stuff that makes up ME!  So I thought I better get them down somewhere.  Here’s what I came up with…

Some people were wondering why???? about some of these so I thought I would post my WHY’s here…

I don’t have a trash can in my kitchen  **I used to but it was really skinny/tall and too
small to fit anything in and the trash would get stuck when I would pull it out and our dog loves to dig through the trash when we’re not home so I just got
rid of it, right now I’m using all of those plastic grocery trash bags stuffed in my cupboard that I reference in my previous post and throw them out daily but I’m not sure what I will do when those are all gone : )  I know this isn’t a very "green" way of doing things but I’m trying to fix this!  Plus my kitchen is HUGE but it’s a strange layout and there really isn’t a great place for a trashcan.  Strange I know!**

I like to sit on the left side of the couch **I can’t sit anywhere else and this works out nicely when Jacki comes over cuz she only likes sitting on the right side of the couch**

(these next 2 are self explanitory)
I can only fall asleep on my right side

I cannot wear socks to bed

I own 27 pairs of jeans & 18 black shirts **let me just say that not all of those 27 pairs of jeans fit me BUT I’m still keeping them 🙂 and I can never have enough black shirts**

I curl my toes on my left foot when I’m stressed
**and also when I’m concentrating…can I say that Jacki does this exact thing too…it’s was the weirdest thing when we both figured out that we do this.** 

I don’t like to talk on the phone **If the conversation is more than 5 minutes long I’m pretty much uncomfortable and if I’m not sitting down, I’m pacing around the room while I talk**

Ok there you have it, just a few of my quirks. 

Wow, that’s a really long post title!  Bear with me…

Everytime I go to Trader Joes I see the canvas bags hanging there by the door, but I’m always standing in the checkout line furthest from the door and never think to purchase them until I’m on my way out the door and then I don’t want to have to go back inside just to buy the bags.  On Friday I went in to TJ’s and just happened to be in the checkout line closest to the bags and decided once and for all I was going to get some.  I am so tired of grocery store plastic bags…they aren’t on the approved list of recycleable items.   Yes you can take them back to the grocery store but I never remember to gather them all up to take them.  So they end up just getting stuff into a cupboard and used for trash bags most of the time. 

So there it is…my contribution to the environment and the things that are responsible for new found much needed cupboard space and my first achievement for 2008 that has been on my mind for a while now.

Ok, now onto the addiction…


I justify this addiction by telling myself that YES these are quite pricey BUT they are cheaper and healthier than a Starbucks Latte and you get a cool glass after you are done drinking them.  Let me tell you that  I have quite a collection of these glasses going on right now. 

SO I was having issues with the storage of all my pens, pencils, paint brushes, markers, etc. because they have to be stored horizontally of course.  In an attempt to actually do something with these glasses instead of throwing them in the recycle bin I decided to put my POM glasses to good use.  Some glue dots and some ribbon and this is what I came up with…

FINALLY…I’m happy with where my pens and stuff are living.  Still trying to find a home for that printer though…

Oh and one more thing I had to share…my best friend in the whole wide world came over last night for dinner.  I hadn’t seen her since New Years Eve and she gives me this card…just because…she’s so sweet and it made me laugh and just about made me cry.  And BTW if you know me…you know that you can usually find me wearing black 🙂 

Thanks Jacki…love you too!

Oh YAY!  That’s what the dentist told us today after cleaning and x-raying Bella’s teeth.  She has such a small mouth for all those big teeth that are coming in.  She actually has 4 loose teeth on the bottom, of course those were the first baby teeth to come in.  It just kills me cuz her baby teeth are so perfect and cute, I guess that’s part of growing up.  She told me today that she wants to keep the first tooth that falls out and doesn’t want to give it to the tooth fairy for money.  I thought that was too cute! 

In other events…Carey is feverishly getting guitars, pickups, brochures, displays, etc. ready, working late nights for the NAMM show which starts next week.  I’ve gone the past couple of years but I’m gonna sit this year out.  It’s fun to walk around and look at all the instruments and every once in a while you get to see some famous rock star walking around…(one year I was almost pummeled by Dave Navarro and his posse, that was almost fun :)…but the sound in the Anaheim Convention Center is deafening and this year he’s up with the big boys.  So I will be at home playing with my new other love…

Can I just say that I’m having a blast playing around with this thing!  Only thing is it’s HUGE. I have this 4′ table that I use for extra room in my scrap room and it takes up more than half of the table.  I have no idea where its permanent home is gonna be.  Still getting used to the idea of being able to print up to 13×19.  I’m using it right now to complete the project challenge for the DezineGirlz this month…we are jumping on the Ali E "one little word" bandwagon and creating projects incorporating our own words for 2008.  I can’t wait to see what all those talented girls come up with!

I had a hard time coming up with my word, I really had to think about this coming year and what my goals were and what I needed to accomplish, change, try, do and finally came up with: ACHIEVE

I have many things I want to achieve this year, physically, mentally, emotionally, socially.  Having this word up on my wall for me to see every day when I come downstairs will hopefully remind me of these things i wish to achieve this year.

Oh my, just realized there’s a new Grey’s Anatomy on…gotta go McDreamy is calling!

since my last post!  Life has been busy lately.  Bella started Kindergarten and is playing tennis 3 days a week and it’s keeping us on our toes.  Been trying to fit in some scrap time here and there and time with my friends.  Speaking of friends I have to give a HUGE shout out to my best friend Jacki who just landed a teaching job, she’s excited and I’m excited for her!  She’s gonna make a great teacher.

Bella is liking school more since she’s made friends, she had kind of a hard time at first with everything and everyone being new.  Her tennis is getting better and better each time she plays…I think she’s taking after her mommy 😉 

Here’s some recent photos…

And here’s me…I’m holding my first check for being published from CK Media…thought I should take a picture before I deposited it! LOL  Sorry about Chicken Little’s butt in the background (Carey built a bass for the producer of that movie and he sent us that poster signed so it’s been on the wall ever since…as soon as I start redoing my scrap room that thing is OUTTA here!)  and me desperately needing my haircut and roots done!

Ok that’s all for now!  I promise to start updating more frequently!  XO

I forgot to mention the fact that Jacki and I had gone to the grocery store on the first day.  We walk up and she says "we should both get shopping carts".  And I’m thinking to myself "we’re not gonna get that much stuff are we?".  Sure enough, both of us FILL up our carts and they’re overflowing with groceries.  We both check out separately only to find out that we had spent within cents of each others totals!  We spent almost $400 on groceries!

Day 2 began waking up to screaming kids…not ours but our neighbors in the next camp site!  Seemed like the crack of dawn when they started up, fighting with each other at the top of their lungs…."Get off me!…No you get off me…Your underwear are on my pillow…You’re bugging me get away from me!" and with only a tent and about 25′ to separate us from them…you can just imagine!   So all of us were pretty much AWAKE at that point.

Andy had bought this handy coffee maker thing that you put directly over the camp stove so we got that started, only to find out that we had only brought 2 coffee cups.  Luckily I had brought this huge ladle looking thing so I drank my coffee out of that! LOL 

We decided to make a BIG breakfast consisting of bacon, hashbrowns and scrambled eggs.  Well, the bacon took a LONG time to cook because it had to be done in batches so it ended up taking like 45 minutes to cook the bacon.  Then came the hashbrowns which were taking forever and we didn’t figure out that we should have done those in batches for like another half hour.  So finally one batch of hashbrowns were done I go to hold a plate out for Andy to put the browns on and the plate folds in half and I dropped it on the ground!  Instead of getting a spatula and scooping it back up and stupid me used my hand and burned it in the process!   Nobody ate those browns BTW.   Another half hour and the next batch of hashbrowns were done!  Then onto the eggs…luckily those only took a few minutes. 

By the time breakfast was done cooking…I think it was like 2 1/2 hours after we started, we were all STARVING!  We scarfed it all up and then made sandwiches to take to the beach.

As I said it was a long trek to the beach so we packed up everything and set out for an entire day at the beach. 

The girls were in the water as soon as we got there and it was windy as could be so they got really cold, really fast!  Bella ended up falling asleep all wrapped up in her towel and hunkered down under the umbrella.  Carey and Andy were taking turns flying Carey’s stunt kite that he had gotten.

We got back to camp and felt a little overexposed I think!  It was a long day at the beach.  We cooked steaks over the campfire that night and they were yummy!  Although everything tastes good when you’re camping.

Here’s some more pics from the trip.

Jacki and Andy….aren’t they cute?

Here’s the girls trying to wipe their feet off with baby wipes…those things were lifesavers!

This is one I’ll probably be scapping, she’s not smiling in it but the clarity and the lighting of the picture I just love!

Here’s Bella flying her kite and actually smiling at me…FINALLY!

Hey look….it’s one of those species of scrapbookers!

Smoke makes really great sunsets!

To be continued….

Let me just start off by saying ****there will be lots of pictures here and I’ll be blogging day by day****

Last week we set out to go camping with the Burris’ for a week at McGrath State Beach which is located between Ventura and Oxnard.  We had to take 3 cars to fit everything and we were taking all our bikes so that was a challenge!  Jacki and I left with Bella and Maddi and we made great time getting there, early enough to scope out the perfect campsite for us. 

We wanted to be close to the beach because (come to find out later) the beach was quite a trek to get to since there is an estuary that runs the entire length of the beach and you have to walk pretty much to the end of it to cross it and then get to the beach.  The sites that were close to the beach didn’t have enough trees to put our hammocks up in so we kept looking.  Driving around it seemed in circles, thinking we hadn’t seen some sites when in fact we had passed them like 3 or 4 times already! LOL

We found one that seemed nice, large area around the fire pit, big grassy area behind, trees to hang the hammocks…but it was a little far from the beach.  So we kept driving around, picking out sites and had to keep driving up to the guard shack to ask if they were taken yet.  They went ahead and reserved site 151 for us while we were still looking for another site.

Meanwhile, Carey and Andy still hadn’t arrived yet so it was up to Jacki and I to pick out the campsite.  We drive back to the sites that were close to the beach and this lady tells us that she’s leaving out of 3 of them.  So back to the guard shack we go to reserve one of them.  Only to find out that we can’t reserve them until the lady checks out of them.  So we waited, and waited, and waited…no lady!  Carey and Andy finally arrive and Andy drives to the site where the lady was and come to find out there was a major red ant problem at that site…so no go! 

We ALL start driving around looking for a site now, running back and forth up to the guard shack to see if they’re reserved, I think this happened like 5 times.  We still had site 151 reserved for us but we thought we could get a much better one.  So the boys decided that we should all go check out 151 and see what it’s like.  Come to find out the boys were happy with it and we pretty much drove around and did all that nonsense for nothing!  LOL 

It turned out to be a good site, a little too much dirt, lots of spiders in the trees (which you will most likely see a spider LO or two from me), a little trek to the beach but all in all a good site!

Here’s the campsite….

Here’s the fire that’s been burning in-between Santa Barbara and Santa Maria for like 3 weeks now.  Everyday we would wake up thinking it was out only to look later in the day and see these HUGE plumes of smoke come outta nowhere!  For a couple of days the wind shifed direction and blew the smoke our way and it was really hazy from it.


Another view of our digs for the week….

First glimpse of how dirty my feet were getting and I was not happy about it! 

******WARNING*******  this photo may make you want to get up and go wash your feet…even if they aren’t dirty!  This was pretty much the norm for the entire week if you were wearing flips, gross huh?  These are Andy’s feet BTW 🙂

This was our first trek out to the beach the day we got there. 

When we got to the estuary Carey took his shoes off and put his feet in the mossy muck!  He looked down only to find two beer bottles so he picked them up and threw them away…doing his part for the environment!

Not sure what Jacki was saying to me but this picture is funny!  Carey always seems to capture the weirdest pictures of Jacki and I.

And for all you arachnophobes out there…here’s just one of the hundreds of spidey friends we encountered in the tree at out site!  At dusk you would look up from sitting at the picnic table and you could see them all moving around, kinda cool but really kinda creepy!

And to round things off for this post Bella in her new Roxy Pink Polka Dot Bikini! 

Carey had promised Bella a while back that he would set up the tent in our backyard and we would have a trial run before we went camping at the beach in a couple weeks with the Burris family.  And can I say YAY I can’t wait!  So this weekend was it.  We had purchased a new mattress and it wasn’t gonna be delivered until Saturday so we thought Friday night would be perfect for setting up the tent. 

Here’s Bella having a great time letting Roly Poly’s crawl on her, which is always great entertainment! 

And here she’s picked up a piece of moss and she turned around to me and said, "Mommy look it’s SMOSS!"  LOL

And finally…the tent was UP!

Time for a spectacular night sleep listening to cars driving by, sirens, crickets and then at 5:30 AM a bird that sounded like one of those annoying car alarms.   Oh the joys of camping out in the backyard!

And for those who don’t know…Hootchie is a term of endearment for the girls in the IESG!  I can’t remember who exactly started it…if it was Jenny or Wendy.  But anyhoo, Wendy is leaving us and moving to Oregon and probably on her way there right now.  But the fact is, she won’t be at any of our monthly crops anymore unless we can hook up a webcam, which might actually become necessary.  We will miss her dearly and just last weekend had a crop at my house which was her last with the IESG…for a while anyway.  We wanted her last crop to be special so Jenny made her a "Drama Queen" crown, that was quite spectacular I must say…

and we all chipped in and got her some going away scrap supplies and a cake, we all had a great time of course, we always do when the hootchies get together! 

There were some tears shed when it was time to say goodbye but there were also laughs when we decided to take a group picture.  But there wasn’t anyone else home to take it.  So I decided to set the camera on the TV with everyone sitting on and in front of the couch.  Trouble was, Carey had set the auto timer on the camera to only 3 seconds and I didn’t know how to change it.  It was pretty hilarious trying to press the button and then litterally FALL into the picture.  Some of the expressions on my face and others are hysterical! 

Sorry Jenny, I cut off half of your face in this one!

Needless to say I think we captured a moment that we will all remember!