Carolina has always loved drawing with crayons or markers and writing her "letters", but today she officially stepped into the title of "crafter". I went to Joann Fabrics today to get her and Susanna some large beads and lanyards to string them on. Carolina and Susy had a great time making their necklace (granted, Susanna was in charge of handing over the beads while Carolina was the one who actually strung them up).

When they were getting ready for their naps, I asked Carolina to get in bed and wait for me to tuck her in while I put Susy down and when I came into the room, I could tell something was up. I asked her what she had under the covers and she pulled out one of my spice jars filled with buttons that she wanted to play with. I put them on the shelf and told her that she could play with them when she woke up from her nap. The minute she was up, she decided that she wanted to make a necklace out of the buttons. She strung the buttons through the lanyard ALL BY HERSELF! All I did was tie on the first button so it wouldn't unravel. After that, she sat quietly on her bed for over 45 minutes (!!!!!!) stringing her buttons to make a necklace for Abuela Mary. (I was told more than once that the necklace was NOT for me. Eventually, she said she would make me one later. Apparently, her grandmother is more important! )

When we left to go visit Abuela, she took more lanyards and MORE buttons from my stash so she could make another necklace. Helena was there with the kids, so Carolina was so excited to "share with Nicole." (She loves to say that she's sharing with Nicole. She always says, "Nicole is my friend and we share.") When I left to come to work, the two of them were having a blast making their necklaces.

Needless to say, I took tons of pictures of my little crafter and some close-ups of her works of art.

Looks like I'm going to need to buy some more buttons!

I've neglected the blog this past week, but hope to make it up in the following weeks.

I have been having such a wonderful time working on my altered journal. Writing about my life has really made me remember so many wonderful memories. It's so nice to just look back at my life and remember all the good times I've shared with my family. It also helps that I've been going through my parents' photo albums (secretly, of course) so that I can scan photos for the scrapbook I'm making them for their 35th wedding anniversary. It's so amazing to think of 35 years. It's not easy, I know, but they have definitely made it look easy. I am so grateful to them for their example of a loving marriage and for their example of parenthood. If Juan and I can be half the parents that they were, I'll consider myself blessed.

I read this on the Donna Downey blog. How wonderful an idea!

"we went to Kroma, a fabulous little hidden treasure. used his paints today and they are FAB-U-LOUS!! dare i say i am a Canadian paint buyer from now on! kevin the owner kept the store open late for us and i am so glad he did! the experience and meeting him inspired me beyond compare...let me tell you why.

so his store was super cute and how could a store of paint NOT be inspiring, but he had a huge roll of canvas suspended from the ceiling, silly me says, "what do you do with that? do you pull it down and paint?" he said no he just pulls it down and cuts it for his customers. then he told us this story!

he had a teacher in college that every night before he left his studio he would gesso a piece of canvas. the next day he would not leave his studio until he completed a painting on it...no specific style or design, just painting for paintings sake and place it on the pile of paintings. gesso a new canvas and start again the next day.

he never assessed grades to his classes, but instead gave them the opportunity to grade themselves citing that if he was not to be judged by his art, they were not to be either.

I LOVE THAT!!

when the teacher retired his stacks of paintings were bought and shown as a collection by an art gallery.

why am i so inspired? i am going to paint a painting everyday, just to paint, just to creatively play, just for me.
what do you think?
lets start a new movement!
a painted page a day!
are you in??"

I love the idea of creating, just to create. What an inspiring way to view art!

I’ve just started my first altered book. Actually, I’m heading an altered book project at scrapthemoment.com. I’m so excited to be heading a project that I conceived of and have set up, and I can’t wait to get into it in full force. The whole idea is to turn an old book into a journal where I can answer questions about my life, hopes, dreams, memories, and goals. Basically, a way to record all the stories and thoughts that I want my children to know. I’m hoping to create several books—enough to answer all the questions I love that Angel has in the Journaling Junkies section. I realized that there was so much that I want my girls to know and that I’ll never get to answering those questions if I leave them until I can make them scrapbook pages. This way, I still get to be creative while writing about my lie. I also plan to make a book (or several) to ask my daughters questions about their favorite memories. Actually, it occurred to me that it would be a nice idea to give an idea jar with different questions as well as an altered composition book to my siblings so they could record their memories as well. Of course, the big question is, will they? I hope so.

I had the most wonderful weekend! Juan and I went to see Wicked at the new Carnival Center for the Performing Arts. That had been my Christmas present this past year and I had been looking forward to seeing it for 3 months. We were so excited to have a night out without the girls, just the two of us. God knows, they’re few and far between! We got all dressed up and left the girls with Papi. The only problem was that there was a Heat game the same night and we got stuck in the most horrific traffic jam, 15 blocks away from the theater. It took us an hour and a half to go those 15 blocks, so we got to the theater 45 minutes late. We were so upset. We missed half of the first half and had to stand in the back until intermission. The show was so wonderful, though, that it made up for our being so late. Absolutely loved it! Both leads had the most amazing voices, and the songs were wonderful. I’ve been singing (God help everyone!) the songs from the show all weekend. I got the soundtrack today and have been listening to it non-stop!

Just saw this in Ali Edwards' blog. Beautiful.

"There is an article today in The Oregonian by columnist Margie Boule talking about the 20 years of journals at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, Oregon (a wonderful coastal town)....The article today all about the words people have left in the journals that are placed in each room over the last 20 years. All kinds of things. Life things. Good and bad things. Private things and silly things.

At the end of the article was the following quote left in one of the journals by a visitor:

'It's been so long since I picked up a pen and wrote more than everyday necessities: a grocery list or a phone number. But something about this place, authors alive and breathing within its walls, reminds me that I am writing because I must, because it is how I am supposed to experience the world. And if my words never glimmer longer than a moment, it doesn't matter. Because in that moment I am living and my words are lighting my jouney.'"

What a beautiful idea!

Just saw this in Ali Edwards' blog. Beautiful.

"There is an article today in The Oregonian by columnist Margie Boule talking about the 20 years of journals at the Sylvia Beach Hotel in Newport, Oregon (a wonderful coastal town)....The article today all about the words people have left in the journals that are placed in each room over the last 20 years. All kinds of things. Life things. Good and bad things. Private things and silly things.

At the end of the article was the following quote left in one of the journals by a visitor:

'It's been so long since I picked up a pen and wrote more than everyday necessities: a grocery list or a phone number. But something about this place, authors alive and breathing within its walls, reminds me that I am writing because I must, because it is how I am supposed to experience the world. And if my words never glimmer longer than a moment, it doesn't matter. Because in that moment I am living and my words are lighting my jouney.'"

What a beautiful idea!

It was a pretty calm, quiet day today. Susy is better, thank God. Went to Michaels--ostensibly to get a wood box to make a memory box for Ofelia, but also to check out the clearanced patterned paper and hopefully find some of the acrylic stamps that are supposedly in the dollar bins (yeah, Chatterbox for the former, but no dice on the stamps). In my defense, I wasn't really shopping for myself. I thought I'd introduce Mami to Chatterbox papers. She loved them! She's been scrapbooking so much lately, but I've been trying to get her to try some new things--mixing patterned papers, inking, stamping, painting, using flowers and brads...I've been giving her some of my older magazines so that she can look through them for ideas and inspiration, but shse hadn't been using them yet.

Yesterday, she told me that she wanted to start experimenting a little, so I got all excited. I happened to have the April issue of CK and we started going through it, pointing out different ideas that she could use. She mentioned that she wasn't using ribbon on her layouts because she needed to buy some. I told her not to worry, that I'd give her some ribbon.

This is where the confession comes in.

After I got home from work, I sat in front of the TV (watching Poker, hee, hee) and started going through my spools of ribbon. Depending on how much of each ribbon I had, I cut out anywhere between 1/2 a yard to 2 yards. I knew I had 4 photo boxes full of ribbon spools (once they're small lengths, I put them in embroidery floss boxes), but I don't think I really understood just how much ribbon I own.

Oh...my...God.

I separated almost 100 different ribbon lengths on clothespins for my mother. I never even opened the floss boxes, but I know there have to be at least 100 more different ribbons in them. I gave Mami a tin bucket filled with the ribbon clothespins, a stack of Chatterbox, some chipboard that I diecut for her, and some flowers for her pages. She was very excited, and I love to share.

But I'm still stunned by the ribbon.

So what did I do when I went to Michaels? I bought 2 more spools!

Obsessed? Not at all. :)

It's amazing how much time I've spent trying to set all this up. There are so many other links I want to add, but I thought I'd update.

Today I had planned to go to the park with the girls, meeting Mami and Richie, and most likely Helena, Veronica and Nicole, but I woke up in the middle of the night to the sound of major raining. Finally, we got some rain! We've been so dry here that water restrictions were supposed to begin today. Instead, I took the girls to Richie's house where they all had fun playing together.

Poor Susy is sick, though. She had major stomach issues this morning--both ends. Had to give her an immediate bath and remove the seat from the exersaucer (God only knows how I'm going to get that thing back on!). She's had nothing but applesauce, bananas, gatorade, water, juice and bread today, poor baby. I hope she starts to feel better tomorrow, otherwise, I see a doctor's visit in the afternoon.

I thought I'd step into the world of blogging. I spend so much of my time online--mainly at scrapbooking sites and other blogs, that I thought I'd join in the fun. I'm hoping to use this as a journal of sorts, reminding myself to take stock of my life and record it. Of course, scrapbooking is a perfect medium for that and I hope to share my love of scrapbooking with all of you as well. So here's to recording this life I love.