You have got to check these cool kits out! Tilano Fresco

They have Canvas transfer kits (you can transfer your own photo or design directly onto a canvas),marble coaster sets, glass tile kits, and more! This stuff is amazing! Brent and I got to go meet with the Production Manager, Nicole, today and she took us back to their warehouse to give us a tour. I have heard of these products before (I actually saw them at my LSS the other day) but to see where they are made, and how they are made and to meet the people behind them - was awesome!! Nicole was so cool - she is the scrapbooker in the company so they are trying to target more of the scrapbooking industry now.

Lucky for us this company is located here in Vancouver Seriously though, they have fabulous products! I cannot wait to get started playing around with the canvas kits - and Brent has already printed out a photo he is going to use on one of the Fresco Tiles.

Oh and good news for our Design Team - Tilano Fresco is going to send each one of them 2 kits so they can play around and design some cool projects too! Woohoo!!! I cannot wait to see what our talented DT comes up with. I will try to get a canvas done in the next couple days and post a picture up.

I created a new layout a couple days ago about my 4 year old niece. It’s hard cause my sister and her family live across the country from us so I don’t get to see them very often - and every time I do see them the changes in her kids are so huge! Madeleine will be 5 in June and Hannah just turned 2. They are the only nieces I have in the world and I feel like I miss so much of them growing up.

This is the layout I did about Madeleine. I did ALOT of doodling on it!!

I had a dream about this kiddo last night - in it I remember sitting with her and we were going through a whole bunch of really old photos! It seemed so real and when I woke up, I was missing her a lot.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

We got out of the house today for a bit to get a break from the computers - and we ended up (besides at a couple photography stores) at this cool little boutique type bakery called Cupcakes. They specialize in what else? Cupcakes!!! We’ve been here a couple times before but since it’s located right across the street from Brent’s favorite photography store, we usually go grab a treat after we gaze longingly at the Canon 5D.

Today Cupcakes was booming with people snatching up their special Valentine’s decorated sweets. We each choose a cupcake then hurried back out into the lovely Vancouver rainy weather - running to the car. These cupcakes are so good. Almost too good. They are so incredibly sweet that it is sometimes hard even for me (who has the biggest sweet tooth) to make it through the entire thing.

Brent made me dinner tonight! He is a very good cook - I only wish he made it more often : )

I don’t really get excited for Valentine’s Day. First of all, it is way too commercialized, in my opinion anyway. Besides that, I think if you love someone you should let them know everyday - why designate a special day out of the year for that? Tell them everyday, or go out of your way to do something extra special more often, like once a month maybe. Be spontaneous. Where has all the fun and spontaneity gone?

For me Valentine’s Day holds another memory. It is the day my Grandpa died, 1999. Strange as it feels like it was just yesterday although it’s been 8 years already. I think about him often and I miss him.

The last 4 days or so have been very blah days - I had some sort of stomach bug since we returned home Monday and it got significantly worse by Wednesday. I spent the better part of the week lying on the couch with my laptop. The only good thing about that was I was able to catch up on both the SG forums and the latest 3 episodes of Desperate Housewives that I had on the PVR! Multi-tasking - working on the computer and watching tv while still resting - lol!

Last night I finally dragged myself upstairs to my scrap room to get some actual scrapping done - I really wanted to participate in the online crop that is going on at Scrap Galaxy this weekend. Deanne and Carla have put a ton of work into it and so far it’s a huge hit! Way to go girls!! If you haven’t already checked it out - have a look: Online Crop

I did manage to get one layout done for Challenge #6 of the crop. It is the first layout that I have done just about myself.

Then of course, I got sidetracked and wound up making an entire coaster mini album (which has nothing to do with the crop). It’s more of a Valentine’s gift album for Brent. I made it using the coasters we got last weekend at Outback Steakhouse - hehe. (I knew they would come in handy!)

I also scanned the individual pages before I punched holes in them. They can be seen in my Gallery at SG: My Gallery

One more thing: Lisa and I are having our own competition this weekend to see who can get more scrapping done. So far I think she is in the lead but I intend to stay up late tonight to get some more done. (and yes, this time I will try to stick to the challenges in the crop and not veer off on my own thing….)

Here’s a cool new product to check out: www.babytoothalbum.com

I came across this new company at CHA - as soon as I saw it, I was thinking”what a great idea!” so I talked with the owner/creator who happens to be a dentist.

Well guess what? I got a call from him today and he is sending me enough Baby Tooth Albums for each of our DT members! I can’t wait to see what they do with them! Stay tuned to see how each of our creative DT members use this new product! : )

Gracie is a very happy cat tonight - her whole family is finally home. I went to Victoria today to pick up the dogs and we just got home a couple hours ago. Thanks again Mum & Dad for looking after them!

16 days away

3 nights sleeping in the car

2 nights in a hotel in San Francisco

8 nights in a hotel in Anaheim

2 nights at Jen & Peter’s in San Fran

4 days at CHA

4 days at Disneyland

4 sets of new brake pads for the car

more than 60+ hours of driving and being stuck in the car (and we didn’t kill each other!!)

2 very tired and exhausted people!

Home at last! Woohoo! Although we did have an awesome trip, it is really nice to get home again. Gracie (our cat) was thrilled when we walked in the door tonight and she hasn’t left us alone since. I think she was hoping we’d bring the dogs with us, as I did see her looking around the corner down the stairs as if she was wondering when they were going to run up the stairs to greet her. (She loves the dogs more than anything). No dogs yet though. They are still in Victoria at my parents house, so I will go pick them up tomorrow.

We had a fun day yesterday in San Francisco with Jen & Peter. They took us all over the place again! We started off by visiting the Jelly Belly Factory. I am SO addicted to Jelly Bellies!!! I buy them all the time at the grocery store (but they are so expensive! I try to buy them only when they are on sale) - so it was especially exciting for me to see the factory. It was a free tour as well, then we got to taste whichever kind we wanted to at the end at the “tasting bar”. Funny thing though, to buy the Jelly Bellies in bulk from their gift shop turned out to be MORE expensive them buying them here in Canada. Make sense? Not really. However, since we were there we just had to buy some to munch on. My bag contained my favorites: buttered popcorn (which makes no sense, cause I don’t even like popcorn), strawberry cheesecake, buttered toast (this is a new flavor), caramel corn, sour raspberry, and sour strawberry. Brent’s bag had his favorites: orange juice, rootbeer and sour lemon. What a combo there Brent. hehe.

They had a bunch of new flavors, including the buttered toast which was very tasty. Others though, I could do without, such as “toasted garlic”. Yes, it was as lovely as it sounds. Garlic, um, not in a jelly bean thanks. There was also a new line made especially from the Harry Potter books and weird flavors such as “soap” and “earwax”. Yes, EARWAX. In a jelly bean!! WHAT on earth are they thinking??? Nope, none of us even wanted to try those ones.

Another set of flavors made from a movie (The Ant Bully) included one called Lawn Clippings. Brent tricked me and had me taste it, as I thought it was green apple. I tried it and was like “this tastes like grass!!” and he burst out laughing. Why anyone would spend money on candy that tastes like grass is beyond me. Which brings me to the most repulsive thing I tried - another bean from this line called Ant Hill. This tasted like DIRT. So disgusting, it didn’t even make it past 2 bites before it got promptly put into the garbage, where it belonged. I still cannot believe they created a jelly bean to taste like dirt, seriously, what were they THINKING?

Besides that, we had fun! hehe, then all 4 of us ate candy all the way to the outlet centers which was our next stop. Oh - I tried something new today (besides all the jelly bellies) - I tried a Krispy Kreme donut. We were there right as they were pulling fresh ones off the conveyor belt so I got to try a nice and hot one. Not bad, but not the best donut I’ve ever had. Honestly I can’t see what all the hype was about these donuts. Also, I wasn’t thrilled about seeing them being made right there behind the wall of glass - something about seeing these things floating in a bath of pure fat - didn’t really entice me to want to digest them only minutes later.

We got back to Jen & Pete’s after dinner so we packed up and left San Francisco. We intended to drive all night and be home first thing in the morning but…that didn’t happen. Of course it didn’t. We were so tired, we had to pull over several times to get some sleep in small doses throughout the night. Another night sleeping sitting up in the car, just lovely. I am so looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight.

To all you who have been reading my blog and keeping up with our adventures, I hope I haven’t bored you all to tears! Give yourself a pat on the back if you’ve managed to make it through my lengthy posts. lol

Jelly Belly Factory

San Francisco Zoo

I am losing track now of the days… I don’t think I have updated for days 12, 13 and 14 yet. It feels like we have been away for ages, not just 2 weeks.

Quickly a recap of the past couple days: Thursday we spent our last day in Anaheim at the Disney parks - going between California Adventure Park and Disneyland. I could tell we were both just exhausted and (I can’t believe I am admitting this) Disney’d-out. Never thought I’d say that! We didn’t go on many rides but we did a couple things we hadn’t yet like watch the Aladdin show at DCAP, it was a live show in a theatre and it was very well done! I totally recommend it!! We also went to the Animation Academy that was hosted by a Disney Animator and we learned how to draw Mickey Mouse. We kept our drawings and will take them home for souvenirs. That was actually a lot of fun and we wished we had done it sooner, as they rotate between which characters they teach you. We didn’t have time to do any others though.

At DL, we treated ourselves to dinner at the Blue Bayou restaurant which is actually located inside the Pirates of the Caribbean ride building. The atmosphere is so cool as it feels like you are outside but you’re really not of course, and you can watch the boats full of people sailing by on their way to the first waterfall. We made reservations earlier in the day and we were able to get a seat right beside the water - it was awesome! The food on the other hand was not worth the $$. We stayed to watch the parade then we left and walked back to the hotel to pack. Oh, oops, I forgot to mention something - it was our 2nd Anniversary! We had both forgotten what date it was until the day before so we thought it was very cool that we got to spend our 2nd anniversary at the Disney resort! Too bad we were so tired and worn out, lol. Happy Anniversary sweetie!!

Friday we got up and headed north towards San Francisco. We made a quick stop in Santa Cruz and were really disappointed. It was like a ghost town, completely deserted. I guess it must be very different in the summer when it is busy, but nothing was open, the entire boardwalk was closed down. It was almost eerie. The rides looked very old and in need of some updating. Perhaps we saw it this way as we had just come from Disney, and I believe that Disney modeled their rollercoaster area of the “Pier” at DCAP after the Santa Cruz boardwalk. Well, um, we couldn’t help thinking that Disney did a WAY better job of it!

We arrived in San Francisco at our friends Jen & Peter’s house at 7pm. We stayed overnight and this morning we headed over to the San Francisco Zoo - it was great! Brent took a ton of pictures so I’ll post them later. I put too much in my purse (heavy stuff, I always do this), like my camera, a bottle of water, my big wallet, etc. So we’re standing there viewing the giraffes and my purse strap breaks! I had 2 long thin straps and one broke, I guess because of the weight. Damn. So all day long (we were out until 10:30pm) I had to walk around with this dumb looking purse with only one strap. I did mention to Brent that now I can get a new purse- what a perfect excuse! He says “You don’t need a new purse - you can just sew the strap back on”. Gee, lovely…. I’d rather have a new purse of course! He just doesn’t get it….

We had a really fun day though, Jen and Peter spoiled us! After the Zoo, we went to Fisherman’s wharf, then across the Bay bridge to some neat little shops (and the Crate and Barrel outlet store), then back to downtown and to this huge mall (where we hit up the regular Crate and Barrel store as well as lots of other cool stores). Jen and I ditched the guys for an hour so we could go shop without them, hehe. We finished the day off with a fabulous dinner at Outback Steakhouse. Lisa - I thought about you - the whole thing was done in an Australian theme!

Tomorrow we leave for the rest of the drive home, I think we will take the I-5 the entire way so it will take us about 11-12 hours probably. I am really looking forward to sleeping in my own bed again (even if it does mean that I will have to share my pillow with 2 dogs, hehe).

It’s our last day in Anaheim and we’re heading off to Disney in a bit, but first I wanted to add some more pics of CHA. (Click on the pics below to make them bigger). There are also new ones added to the CHA page on SG http://www.scrapgalaxy.com/chapreview.html

Elsie Flannigan

7 Gypsies

Prima