Its not a dream...its a very bad dream that is reality

The first day of 2010 has such promise to be a wonderful start to the new year.   My family was rocked by the sudden-unexpected death of my Brother-in-Law Sam.  Sam and my sister have been married for 26 years.  It was obvious to anyone who knew or met them, that they loved each other very much.  We all loved Sam.  He was a good man who was always ready to gave a helping hand, was there to give good advice, or just there to listen.

The last time I saw Sam, was on Christmas Eve.  My sister was sick with a cold but told Sam to come and visit us at my sister's house for dinner.  It was good to see Sam and although our visit time was short, it was good to have Sam there.  That day, Sam and I reminisced about the 1984 Olympics.  I was 18 and just graduated from High School.  Sam and Linda were newlyweds by about a year or so at the time.  Since Sam was a UCLA alumni, he and my sister Linda took me and I believe my younger sister Valerie to Westwood to walk around the Olympic grounds.  He was a very good tour guide and was telling us the history of the campus and all of the interesting things to see.  He was also a very good guard as some of the athletes hovered around my younger sister and I, as we were getting their autographs.  It was a fun night and I had a great time with Sam and my sisters.  That is one of my many memories of Sam that I have and will treasure as I still have those autographs from that day.

Sam was a part of our family for a very short 28-29 years.  Both his and our families are very saddend by this sudden loss.

1958 - 2009

Rest In Peace Sam!

Day before January 1st.

As I catch up on my blog reading, yes i really do read the, I came across my friends blog about New Years Resolutions.  (You can read it here: mentallyinked blog)  She stated in her blog that she doesn't call them resolutions, instead she calls them her goals.  I agree with her, resolutions are made to be broken and no one ever finishes them that I know of.   I don't want to call them goals, however, they are my plans for 2010.

So here are my plans for 2010:

1)  I plan to be more financially responsible.  I was reading on about.com about personal finances and it states that you should do a net worth report yearly.  I never thought of that but it seemed a good idea to know where you stand and be able to compare it the next year to see if there was any improvement.  One should also prepare a debt to ratio report.  This shows you how much debt you have to the income you take in.  It is desired to have a low debt ratio to your income.  The other thing listed to do to be financially responsible is to prepare a budget and to stick to it.  I have done that.  So two out of three so far is not bad.

2)  I plan on looking as good as my mom in this old photo I found, on my wedding day.  I found an old photo of my parents when they were just newlyweds.  I thought my mom looks so beautiful in that photo that I wanted to look as good as she does in the photo, but on my wedding day next October.  Does this that I want to be the exact same size as she is in the picture?  No.  I am taller than my mom and if I was the same size as she is in the picture, I would look annorexic.  I don't want to be her size, I want to look as beautiful as she does.  There is a difference!




3)  I plan to be a better partner to Mr. Teddybear.  He has always been such a sweetheart and sometimes I forget to tell him how much I appreciate all that he does for me and my daughter.  He is the most giving and generous man I know.  I will be starting that today also!

4)  I plan on trying to not freak out as the wedding gets closer and closer.  It is my plan not to be a bridezilla!  Thankfully I have Mr. Teddybear to help but also my wedding coordinator as well.  I will be depending on her a lot.

So, don't tell me your resolutions.  I don't want to hear them.  Tell me your goals for 2010, please?

DIY Wedding Invitations

Ok, to try to same some money, I have decided to do a few DIY projects for the wedding.  One is all of my paper products.  This includes the invitation, programs, name cards, table numbers and menu cards.

The first thing I worked on and somewhat completed was my invitations.

The colors we choosed were chocolate brown and sage green with hints of pink.  It was hard, but I finally found the pocket invitations in the bronze color (chocolate brown with gold flecks) that I wanted for my invitations.  We also decided that our theme would be a nature theme and picked a tree as a logo for the paper items including the invitations, although it is hard to see in the pictures.  I designed the invitations and picked out the fonts used, and with Mr. Teddybear's approval, picked the wording for the invited.  I also created the RSVP card, Activity card, and the Directions card.  Here they are:

It is hard to see but I did put the tree as part of the monogram that is on the front of the invitation.  I also use a sage green paper band to enclose the invitation and topped it with a chocolate brown ribbon.  This monogram is also matted on sage green and will be changing as I had forgotten that my sister (my StampinUp! Rep) ordered me some brass to use with the monogram.  When that item comes in and I complete in invite, I will post the picture of that as well.

Here is the invitation that is on the inside.  Again, it is hard to see but the tree is bigger on the invitation and lays just behind the text.  The invitation is matted on sage green paper from Stampin Up!  This is the same sage green paper that is used for the band.

Here is the pocket that is next to the invitation.  As you can see the cards are in the same pocket and have the same font.  I knew from the beginning that I wanted a pocket invitation but I am thankful that I found the pocket invitation that I wanted in the color I wanted.  Although the beige paper that I printed the invitations and the accessory cards on came from Cards and Pockets.com, I will be using the vanilla paper from Stampin Up!












I found the pocket invitation at Cards and Pockets.com  I was very happy with the quality of the cardstock and finding the color I wanted was a big plus.  I'm sorry that I don't have better pictures of the invitaitons, but I don't have a digital camera and my cell phone currently takes crappy pictures.

So there you have it.  Let me know what you think.  Also, if you want me to discuss any craft ideas you have or if you need help on a project, let me know and I will see what I can do to help.

DIY 5th Birthday Party Invitations - UPDATED WITH MORE PICS

Well it is after Christmas and it has been awhile since I blogged.  I appologize for the absence, but there has been health issues that are currently being looking into.

I have finally found the invitation to my daughter's 5th Birthday party invitations.  She wanted a princess birthday sleepover.  We obliged as we usually do for our only daughter.  So, here is the picture of the princess.

This was a stamp image from StampinUp!  I hand colored the images for approximately 16 invites.  Then I stamped the castle image on the actual invitation and tore the edges of the princess to make a feathery look.  I then glued fiber to the edge of the torn edges of the princess image and glued it onto the invitation.  This is how it came out:

The pertinent information was filled in on the inside.  Now, although we didn't do that many invites, it took me a long time as I hand-colored all of the princesses while I took the train into Downtown L.A. to work.

There were also other items that I did for the party.

*  I purchased plain paperbags with handles and as each guest came in to the party, they had a small table with crayons, markers, and other things to decorate their bags with.  They then put their names on it and it became their goodie bags.  All treats and giveaways were put in their bags.

*I went all out and purchased Disney Princess decorations and decorated the eating area.  The menu included veggies with dip, finger sandwhiches, and tea (punch).

*After we played games such as pin the tiara on Cinderella, after eating, we had a princess movie marathon.  All of the movies had Princess in the title and that was all of the movies they had to watch.

*I couldn't find the pictures of the cake, but it really did look like a castle.  I went all out for this party and was a Martha Stewart clone!  The cake was a 9x9x2 cake pan and I baked 2 cakes.  I place one on top of the other with strawberry flavor frosting in the middle.  I also frosted the outside of the cake with the same frosting.  I then took a regular (flat-bottom) icecream cone and frosted 4 of them and placed them in each corner of the cake.  I then took 4 sugar cone (pointy-bottom) icecream cone and frosted that as well and place them on top of the regular cones.  These became the turrets for the castle.  I then took half of a graham craker to make the door.  I also had a bunch of hersheys kisses and made sure that the paper was sticking up straight and place them around as part of the wall of the castle.  It was a fun cake to make and the girls enjoyed it!  As soon as I find the pictures, I will edit this post and include them.

As I believe I stated before, my daughter has requested another princess sleepover for her 12th birthday and requested that I make the cake again.  It will be fun and I am just glad that she enjoyes and appreciates what I do for her and to make her party special.


**********UPDATE***********

So I found some, not all, pictures from her 5th birthday party.   Were they on my home computer?  No, they were on my computer at work.  Go figure.

So here they are. 

The infamous cake.  One mistake I will note, I thought I used graham crakers for the doors, but it was wafer cookies, pink ones, for the drawbridge.

The dining table and the partygoers enjoying the cake.

The birthday girl enjoying one of the turrets.

The birthday girl AFTER finishing the turret.  The two things I forgot to mention and they were pivital items to making this birthday party a success were:

1) having a helper for the party.  My neice Nicole was a tremendous help at the party.

2)For birthday parties, I follow this rule:  For the number of years the child is turning, that is the number of invitees for the party.  I told my daughter that since she was turning five, she could invite 5 girls.  I also told her that if someone wasn't able to come, we could keep inviting girls, one by one until we get 5 confirmed rsvp's.  It really helped in keeping my insanity.