Kiddo Cuteness

Kids say the cutest things. Today the Peanut asked me a typical five year old question, she asked, "Mom, how do you make water? What's the ingredients?" (Mind you, she is an avid watcher of Rachel Ray and very interested in the whole cooking concept. I told her it was hydrogen and oxygen. She said, "Oh, I thought you made water with salt and vinegar." She laughed. She asked, "How many hydrogens and how many oxygens." I said, "Two hydrogens and one oxygen." " Oh, o.k.," she says, "you take two hydrogens and one oxygen and stir until they turn clear and that's how you make water!" Too cute, or maybe its just because I gave birth to her that I think its so cute.

The Stamp Art Shoppe, Roseville, CA

As you all know I love to craft. I love all the crafts but have always been particularly drawn to papercrafts and stamps. I actually worked in a stamp store in Folsom during college. I sure loved that discount! Today I went to one of my favorite places to shop called The Stamp Art Shoppe in Roseville. The Stamp Art Shoppe offers a wide variety of wonderful rubber stamps, inks, papers and accesories for all of your crafty needs. They also have a huge selection of hard to find Asian themed rubber stamps. Today I just went in for two pieces of cardstock to finish my topiary project and of course ended up with some darling Christmas stamps that were 25% off today as well as Tim Holtz acid free Distress Ink. I have always wanted to try out these inks and it looks perfect for antiquing just about any project. The ladies at The Stamp Art Shoppe told me some great things about the Distress Inks and directed me to http://www.timholtz.com/ which has a really great blog that I will now subscribe to as well as some fun ideas for the holidays. When I come in to shop, they always have fantastic customer service and great ideas. The Stamp Art Shoppe also feature regular classes. I have been lucky enough to take a class there where I learned how to make hot glue into beautiful art necklaces. The class was loads of fun and I can't wait to take another. They display examples of the classes that they offer and they have one that I oggled over called Collage Masterpiece. So cool! So if you are in Roseville and want to take a gander, The Stamp Art Shoppe is located at 1000 Sunrise Avenue, Suite 3B, Roseville, CA 95661. Their website with a list of classes and events is: http://www.thestampartshoppe.com/.

Holiday Crafts

I havent' had a chance to do many crafties this year. I am making a few Christmas tree topiarys and some round topiarys for a few family members. I will follow-up with a tutorial in a few days when I get one finished. I did finish all of my shopping and wrapping. YaY!!! A few months back I ordered a cd that had old vintage Christmas cards by the hundreds. Strange you say? Yes, but I have been using to make cute Christmas tags and cards. My Mom had picked me up a few hundred tags at Office Depot in the dollar bin. You know the type with the hole at the top. So I have been inking them up and adding the old vintage Christmas scenes to the front. Last but not least, a twine tie and stamped letters for whoever the gift is going to. Very easy and super cute. Here is a pic for you. The other thing that I have been busy making are coffee cozies. I love having my cardboard cozy when I go to Starbucks to protect from the intense heat of my yummy latte, but always feel bad getting a new one every time I go. So I made up some cute felt cozies to adorn your frothy goodness.

O' Christmas Tree....

So I haven't blogged in a few days and I have had so much to blog about that I will probably have to backdate some of these. We finally got our tree last weekend. I am extremely late this year. I usually like to have it up the day after Thanksgiving, but it just didn't happen. My Mom got the crazy idea that I should put the Christmas tree on the smallest wall in the smallest corner of our living room. We have a small living room so I usually have to make some major furniture arrangements in order to accomodate the tree. I also really wanted to get a taller tree this year. We have vaulted ceilings on one side of our living room and this would be the perfect location if we can find one that is skinny enough to walk around and still be able to make it into the kitchen. So off to Snowy Peaks in Forresthill, CA to pick out our tree. The husband loves to go and chop one down rather than buying one off a lot. Personally, I would love to have the ever popular faux tree that are so hot right now. That way I wouldn't have to mess around with watering and the major drooping due to my love for hundreds of heavy ornaments. Alas, we must sacrafice a real tree for the love of tradition. It is fun, going out there with the girls and hunting around for the "right" one. This year I found one about two seconds after I stepped on the soil. It was perfect with one whole side missing, just right to fit into the corner. The husband rolled his eyes. "We drove all the way up here, we have to look around a while." I looked around making sure I had a marker of where the "perfect" tree was, and luckily, there was a great big mammoth tree there to mark the spot. I kept looking back as we walked on wishing that I had brought bread crumbs or at least the girls graham cracker snacks to mark the trail. In the end, we went back to that same tree because it was "perfect" for our house. I also got the idea to put the tree in a wine barrel. I just thought it would look cool. Two days after I got the idea they had an article in Better Homes and Gardens with a tree in a barrel of sorts. It looked so fantastic. The husband went to Lowe's where we had previously seen a barrel in the garden department, but no such luck. Then he traveled to Home Depot and no such luck. I told him to hop on Craigslist and see if anyone was selling them. We found a winery up in Camino who had whole barrels for $20.00 a piece. Yay!!! The husband and the Scout jumped in the truck the following Monday and headed up there. He came home with six, yes I said six, full wine barrels. He said that he got some strange looks driving down the freeway with them. He cut one in half and we ended up turning it over and setting the tree on top of it. It looks so great. We are using some of the other barrels as planters and some we are giving to family. The back porch smells like a wine cellar. On to the decorating.. I had much help from Scout and Peanut with the tree. Most of the ornaments ended up right along the bottom, but they were a huge help and the tree looks great. My parents had been to IKEA Christmas shopping and brought me back the most beautiful box of red glass ornaments. They really added that extra shine to the tree and only $4.99. Gotta love the bargains! I added a pic of the tree without the flash. Trying to capture the ambiance of the lights. I really need to take a basic photography class or read the instructions to my camera because everything I take always comes out blurry.

Method Tub & Tile Cleaner

I read quite a few blogs, mostly crafty ones, some mommy ones and some of just general fun. A lot of the blogs I read have very interesting topics. I love to learn about things that other people are into, so I thought I would try a couple of new things with my blog. It is the first of December and so a perfect day to start with some new stuff. I thought I would include a "products that I love" posting,

"books that I love" both adult and children's posting,

"places that I love" posting,

and "small business shout-outs."

Hopefully I can give everyone a heads up on some cool things to try out and maybe a little bit of free advertisement for these super cool businesses out there. So first things first....the product that I heart this month is Method tub and tile cleaner. This stuff is sooo cool. It not only removes all that yucky soap scum from your bathtub or shower, it also has a super yummy eucalyptus & mint scent. It makes the bathroom smell fantastic. I just found out about the Method line from watching Oprah where they were featuring small business that grew into multi-million dollar companies. The mommy that invented Method had a son that had really horrific asthma. They soon found out that his asthma was being triggered by everyday household cleaning products. She decided to try natural, chemical free ingredients to clean with and Method was the result. The product is non-toxic & biodegradable, naturally derived and never tested on animals. Our little Scout has really horrible asthma brought on by several different culprits and one of them is strong scents so I am always looking out for products that either are scent-free or have light scent that she can tolerate. The scent-free products are really hard to find, but Method makes several scent-free cleaning products including wipes and sprays. How cool is that! The best part is that they are sold at Target, our mainstay as far as shopping goes. The products are priced very low. The picture that I am displaying is a 28 fl oz bottle and it cost me approximately $3.00. You can check out their other awesome products at http://www.methodhome.com/