Pictures from sunny California

Few observations first:
1. there is no snow in California
2. the trees (well, most of them, don't shed their leaves in winter)
3. you can still see flowers!

Now the pictures!

We started the day with the Golden Gate Bridge


From there we continued to Pier 39, had a yummy clam chowder and enjoyed the strolling through the crowds.
Adorable see lions at Pier 39
The girls had a blast choosing their own oyster with a pearl inside. They both got a beautiful blue peal that was set in a pendant. More pictures later.



Great day. the best part was doing all this with friends! Love you guys!

For the desert, few pictures from the ice skating exhibition in Kenosha last w/e where Lila skated! Enjoy!

The suitcases are packed

we are ready to leave for sunny California. The gifts are all wrapped.

Happy New Year to everybody!

Love , Maya

Latest work

We had a busy week, I still want to blog about the competition and our trip to Minneapolis but for now just few photos of my recent craftiness.

I made those cute bags using a template from Target. I made 5 of them and put inside a gift card for the teachers.

Those tiny gift card holders re made from the scraps of the precious project. This will go to our G-men :)
And finally a layout I wanted to make for a while. I used the December sketch from Fiskars, gorgeous KI lace cardstock mounted on vellum, Cloud9 paper and rain dots, Heidi Swapp chipboard letters and tulle ribbon. The bottom picture has a hidden journaling that tells the story. I think this is my new favorite layout!

Sparkle

Was doing this today - trying to decorate glass ornament bulbs with glitter. Pretty!


Tomorrow we are off to Minneapolis for the ice skating competition. Great weekend everybody and shabat shalom!

Our 4 legged friends

While in Israel the girls enjoyed spending time with all dogs and cats in the grandparents backyard. They fell in love with the animals and had such a great time. I made this cute mini-album to keep all the great memories. I still want to add more pages but it will do for now. Most of the pictures were taken by Miss E. The cat that is lying on the carpet is my sister's cat Nooma. It was tough to get a good picture of her because she is not from the human-loving kind, but eventually she gave up.

Baby ABC album, snow and Hanukkah

Wanted to share cute little project I finished yesterday for my friend. I used the sketch from Album Shortcuts to make this baby ABC album. She will have just to find 26 pictures and add them to the pages. I tried to keep it simple.









The weather is gorgeous lately - everything is covered with snow and so pretty. But cold - brrrrr..... I didn't have time to take good pictures yesterday - here is our kitchen window.

And finally Tuesday was last day of Hanukkah. Sadly I will be packing the menorahs till the next year. My boxes were a blast - Miss E was so excited to find a new note every day and go for a little treasure hunt. After few days Miss L also joined the fun and got her share of gifts. All is good now.

Old projects I

cI got a request to post the photos of my old projects, so I will be posting them from time to time.

The first one is an iris folding card I made for a co-worker who was changing jobs. I love this technique!










This was a card for a co-worker that had a new baby.












Mini-album I did for my mom. It is an album for her purse with pictures of her kids and grandkids. The picture is lousy but you can get and idea

And finally a lo I did about a year ago.

I finished today a cute project - an album for my friend who is leaving WI and moving close to her family. I will post some pictures tomorrow.

Latkes and other stuff

Yesterday I finally finished my Christmas cards. Just need to buy stamps and mail them out. My Hanukkah cards were mailed some time ago already. Hopefully everybody will get them during the Hanukkah, not after.

The round Christmas cards are done using Cloud 9 paper, fiskars circle border punch and some cute reindeers from Michaels. I did the tree cards using the Jo-Ann kit that I picked up last year. I added Cloud 9 raindots and fiskars star punch. Oh, and I also played with the glimmer mist trying to spice up the background. The Hanukkah cards are just made from the strips of patterned paper by Heidi Grace.

Now latkes - we made some few days ago using the recipe in the book. they were good but not as good as my dad's latkes. So I had to call him and ask for the recipe. Here it is - the super-duper secret recipe:

1. Grate about 10 potatoes - very thin. I did it by hand.

2. If the potatoes give a lot of liquid add 3-4 tablespoons of flour. I added 3

3. Add salt. I added about one tablespoon.

4. Heat a lot of oil in the heavy skillet. wait till oil is hot.

5. Fry latkes from both sides till golden.

6. Add sour cream and enjoy.

What can I say - it was delicious! Just the way I remember them!

Don't you like this menorah with tall white candles? It's from Crate and Barrel. I need to stock on those candles - just love them!

Check that...

The pictures are from Miss L's birthday party. Love to see her happy face.
KI lace cardstock, Jenni Bowlin felt flowers and journaling circles, suffle pens.

Love it!

Happy Hanukkah!

Happy Hanukkah to everybody who will read this post! That's if I will decide to send this link out LOL

Anyway, just wanted to post a picture of the project I did that makes me very happy. I adapted the idea of the advent calendar for Hanukkah. The original idea is from marthastewart.com. I saw it on Ali Edwards' blog. The photo is lousy and it really doesn't work well with the white wall but you can get the idea. There is a lot of silver, white and 2 shades of blue. Here it is:

Each box will be opened on one of the eight night of Hanukkah to reveal a gift or a note that says what the gift is. Yesterday we opened the first box and Miss E. got a note saying:

The winter is here, all covered with snow.

Today is the first day of Hanukkah glow.

7 more days to come, so without any delay,

Your first gift of Hanukkah is for outside play.

Go find it!

The gift was a form to make snow bricks and snow balls and was hidden in the living room. We did a small treasure hunt. She loved it! She loves to play in snow outside!

Miss L is not getting any Hanukkah gifts this year but that's a different story :-(

Here she is this morning, playing with her new toy before the school

Now I need to decide who will get the link LOL