If I tried to have the boys wear matching anything, there would be a riot of untold proportions. But today they decided to wear the same color shirt. And agreed to pose for a pic. Huh.
Category: turquoise
Five Shades of Teal
I am in such a turquoise and teal kick, I swear, every other color in my polish stash is being completely ignored. Last week I went to a local nail supply store with my college friend Carina, and I got a few pretties in summery teals and turquoises.
From left to right:
SpaRitual’s Off the Grid, this one I already had, purchased at Sephora to match my Shellac manicure.
Color Club’s Gossip Column, a very saturated creme formula.
China Glaze’s Deviantly Darling, one of their luster chrome shades that changes color as you move your hands around.
Essie’s Dive Bar, darker on the nail than in the bottle.
Jessica’s Fishnets and Fringe, the darkest of all five.
I am so in love with these shades – today I am wearing Fishnets and Fringe and at first look it looks black, only once you stop and look can you detect the dark teal tones.
Now I am off to bake some cakes and watch the Olympics opening ceremonies – I love the Olympics, will you be watching?
Unexpected
I don’t get salon manicures. I think the last one I got was for my wedding, or maybe soon after. With all the crafting, Lego blocks I have to separate, and the gardening, it’s really not worth it. Usually, I will just paint my own so when it’s chipped a day later, I don’t really mind.
On Saturday, our friend J came over to watch UFC fights with my husband. His darling wife, my friend M, came over later and suggested we escape the testosterone by getting our nails done nearby. I figured it had been long enough and that way I could chat with my friend.
Since I’ve been hearing all about the Shellac from various friends and online, I decided to give it a try. It’s still too early to decide if it was worth it but I sure love the color I got, Hotski to Tchotchke.
It is so sparkly and pretty! The perfect color for this turquoise addict ;D and lovely for summer.
M got a gorgeous deep pink on her toes.
She also brought us some cake pops and since they are my other-favorite color, yellowy green, I had to take some pics.
Yummy!
See how it sparkles?
LOVE banner
I saw this sweet banner at Simple as That and knew I had to make something like it for my Valentine’s Mantel. Of course my turquoise obsession is permeating even this most “red” of holidays, but I figure, I can throw red somewhere else in the house. For now, this is what I came up with, based on Rebecca’s idea:
I went with scrapbook paper in an argyle pattern, some of the lines have glitter, which catches the light very nicely.
I layered turquoise hearts matted with white glitter cardstock. The hearts are topped with scalloped circles from the same white glitter cardstock and letter stickers spelling LOVE. The banner is “hung” from my fleur-de-lis candlesticks.
This banner can obviously be made in endless color/pattern/theme combinations, so I have a feeling there are more pretty banners in my future. Thanks to Rebecca for this great idea!
Project Life
I’ve been scrapbooking for about 10 years. My first attempts very fussy and uncoordinated, as first attempts often are. I pared down the embellishments, but it was still a struggle to keep up with the thousands of pictures I took of my boys every year.
This is one of my favorite layouts ever, celebrating my oldest’s love of blueberries. However, all the printing, trimming, matting, etc. was taking a lot of time, something I did not have with two little boys running around.
A year ago I decided to go digital, which made my life a lot easier. And freed up a lot of space in my craft drawer 😀
I wanted something even simpler, though – something where I wouldn’t have to worry about the background or the alignment, something that would allow for quick notes and the endless bits of paper that come with the business of life. When I saw Becky Higgins’ Project Life, I decided it was what I’d been looking for.
I ordered the Core Kit in the Turquoise edition, of course 😀
The Core Kit includes 4×6 and 3×4 cards for your layout titles and journaling, stickers with days of the week, months of the year, dates, so you can apply them to the cards or your photos, etc.
The kit components are meant to be used with the coordinating photo pocket pages, which come in a variety of layouts. Due to the popularity of the product (and the timing as well, everyone getting ready to document the past year, or the new one) the photo pocket pages were not available, so I got a multi-pack from We R Memory Keepers, which work with the Project Life-sized cards.
I didn’t get the PL Cardstock Kit because I want the freedom to use whatever paper I choose, if I decide to use a paper background. Also, I have SO MUCH cardstock and solid paper in my stationery box that I can probably get by for a few months. Or years, if I’m honest with myself. Also, the page protectors I bought fit in a regular post-bound scrapbook album, so I didn’t get the Project Life binder because I already had an album for this year.
I am pretty excited to start my 2012 album. I made a baby album for each of my boys when they were born, but other than those, I do an album per year. Sometimes it’s more than one album, like when we went to Disneyland for the first time, so I just label the spine accordingly – 2010, or 2009 Jan – May, etc. – I don’t limit myself or try to fill up pages, I just scrapbook according to the pictures I have. And that was way too many sentences that started with “I”.
Okay, one more. I’ll update you on my Project Life progress in a few weeks, there are 5 pages left in 2011, and the photo machine at Target was broken so I couldn’t get my one-hour photos last week. Arg. Hate to say it, but in five times I have ordered pics from Target, only once has the process gone smoothly. Time to find someone else, I say!
Are you trying Project Life or some other way of documenting your life? I’d love to hear about it!
Oh, FYI – I purchased everything I mention in this post. If I’m ever given/gifted anything (ha), I’ll make sure I tell ya!
My glam office shelf
I was at Michaels the other day and saw a few ornaments I had to have, in my favorite colors of 2011 – turquoise and olive green. I added some items I had at home to complete the look.
From left to right: IKEA vase with Christmas greenery from Michaels clearance last year, Noel ornament and scroll ornament from current Michaels selection. I don’t remember where I got the snowman!!!
Target frame from 2009. Eiffel tower ornament from Pier One.
Cupcake pedestal, gift from my dear friend K, with garland we’ve had for years and glittery white candle. Little Christmas tree my husband put on my desk, it changes colors ;D Green lantern from IKEA.
Candlestick from Goodwill, spray-painted ORB with plan taper and the most fabulous peacock ornament, again, from Michaels. Their ornaments are 50% off so each of the three ornaments I got were $2.50 – $3.00 – score! LOVE print from Made by Girl.
So there you have my sparkly glam shelf – full of items that mean a lot to me (mini tree from my hubby, pic of my boys, gift from a dear friend) and items that make me smile, with the most beautiful sentiment of all, LOVE, as the background. Hope you enjoyed the peek into a corner of my world. Have a great weekend!
While the wife’s away . . .
After a recent trip to see my mom and sister in Chester, I came home to a couple of surprises – my husband had been hard at work while the boys and I partied. First, he got new curtains for the playroom/office in my new favorite shade!
The room is so bright and light with these, I just love it. He also installed cellular shades, the new look is awesome.
The second project he got done was a shed in the side yard, made from the wood from our old fence. My mother-in-law helped out and they got it done, with some help from my oldest once we got home:
We are very lucky in that we have lots of space in our yard – my poor husband ended up so tired after his busy weekend, but very proud of what he accomplished!
Where we were . . .
was Santa Cruz, California, a short drive from our home but about 25 degrees cooler. We had planned this trip a couple of months ago because Tuesday was our wedding anniversary. We have been married 8 years now and decided a quick getaway was just what we needed.
I’m sorry to say, I did not take a single photo. We brought the camera but decided to just enjoy every moment instead of scouting for photo opportunities, so all these pics belong to the talented people who took them – if you’re one of them and don’t want me to use your photo, let me know and I will take it down. All of them are linked to their original accounts.
On Monday, the first thing we did upon leaving our house and our kids, was buy some shirts for my oldest – isn’t that the sign of parenthood? You stop looking for stuff for yourself and it’s all for the kids. Anyway, my oldest loves collared shirts so we got a couple of really cute ones for $4.99 each at the mall, then popped in to see X-Men: First Class. It was ok, but the best thing about it was the eye candy.
After checking in, we had an early dinner at Kianti’s 
my original pasta dish had meat sauce that was way too spicy for me so the server graciously offered a garlicky cream sauce instead which was super yummy. Both my husband and I were happy with our meal. We decided to call it an early night and then he got me hooked on Master Chef.
The next day we had one of the best breakfasts EVER at a place nearby called Zachary’s. 
I loved that everything was locally produced, fair-trade, organic, etc. and the prices were totally reasonable. See, restaurant owners, it CAN be done! I am totally going to try to recreate their home fries with my homegrown potatoes. After breakfast we walked around downtown for a bit:
There are so many cute stores as well as some severely overpriced boutiques. I saw some cute sequined lace-trimmed tank tops for $5 at one shop and didn’t pick up any but then made my husband take me back on Wednesday. Yeah, I know, he’s really patient. Anyway, we saw Bridesmaids, it was so funny, I loved it. 
What happens in this scene at the bridal salon is just hilarious, I couldn’t catch my breath I was laughing so hard! Afterward, we headed over to the wharf and stopped by Marini’s for some chocolate fudge. YUM! I nearly emptied the sample dish, it was so good.
We had some awesome seafood dinner down by the wharf, then went back to the hotel for some more Master Chef and to gorge on the fudge.
On Wednesday morning, we had ourselves some Starbucks (we’re such capitalists!) and then went back to the little shop with the cute tank tops. I got two, one in a marigold shade and one in – of course – turquoise, some NYX gloss, cheapie eyeshadows and nail polish.
At a cooking store we found an entire collection of dinosaur cookie cutters and of course, got them all for our pancake- and cookie-loving boys.
Back home, we ran to Toys ‘R Us because our Spidey Sense was telling us we needed to get things for the boys and we found some serious loot – three huge Godzilla figures, I am telling you the boys were jumping up and down in glee when they saw them. My awesome mother-in-law then gave the three men some haircuts before she left.
That was our first half of the week: relaxing, laughing, sleeping in, strolling around, and just generally enjoying each other’s company. But we missed our squirrelly monkeys!!! Now I am home, and I am content.
Utterly and completely . . .
in love with turquoise:
I swear I am completely besotted by this shade.
Working on a project . . .
that is tall and currently not very colorful, but with the help of a little bit of this:
I hope to make it rock!
Stay tuned!
Casa de Berry 