Cookbooking

I FINALLY got a copy of my friend Pattie's book - Cookbooking. It is so awesome!!! I was acknowledged 'for her marvelous ideas'. I contributed some recipes, some party ideas and there are several pictures of Pattie, me and our friend, Lauren Johnston. It's great to see the Aleene's gals together again, even if it's only on the pages of a book. Love it!!! Get your copy at www.amazon.com and type in Cookbooking.

Last Week's Activities

Potato Shooter, Brandon's Birthday, Academy Awards, Gourmet Dinner Group, Oscar Party, Lunch with Lauren, Newcomers Club, Hot Stone Massage

Last week was a wonderful mixture of family, friends, pampering and a potato shooter!!! Yes, I do lead an interesting life...

Last week was the newcomers club monthly meeting at a nearby golf course and our speaker was Sue McGinty, a mystery writer. I was asked to talk about the changes to the newsletter (they loved the changes I made! I can't do anything half way!!!) and the president and I even put out a 'teaser' about an upcoming contest we came up with. Me, being the organizer person that I am, recruited four ladies at my table to join my Tuesday / Thursday exercise class.

Thursday was a day of Me Time - Exercise class and a walk with my friend on the beach - she'd been gone for a week, so it was nice to catch up on her activities. The relaxation from a hot stone massage sent me to bed early that night.

Friday was the Gourmet Group dinner - yummy!!! My friend's beautiful home has a great view of the ocean and bay and was the perfect setting for what she called the family "Sunday Dinner" - tri-tip, beans, bread, salad. Gulp! Now, I'm up next month for hosting dinner. Being the creative type, dinner HAS to involve creativity, so I'm planning some fun activities for my guests while I prepare dinner - they don't know yet, but it's going to be Creativity Night - no experience necessary. The picture is of the 'beadable' spreaders, pickle forks and wine stoppers I got from Oriental Trading Company. The balls screw off, so they will thread on beads while I fix dinner. There was mention of us starting a cookbook with the recipes from our get togethers, so my mind was swirling thinking about having them transform a binder into a cookbook to hold our treasured recipes. Well, see how that unfolds.

Saturday morning, my sister, nephew and I went to my hometown of Lemoore for my nephew's birthday party - he's seven now and I can't imagine how that happened. I went over to their house early to help Nicki, my sister-in-law, with preparations. She's working as a full-time sub right now while a teacher is out on maternity leave, so life is hectic for the family. Great party!!! The highlight was when one of my brother's friends brought out The Potato Shooter - it was a science project for his son's seventh grade class. Oh my gosh!!! It's made from PVC pipe (not your little stuff!), has an ignitor inside the tube and then they found the best propellant was hair spray. So, the Potato Shooter was loaded with 10 seconds of hair spray and a full-on russet potato - that thing shot the potato out like it was a cannon! As the party progressed and it got dark, my brother, in his 10 year old wisdom (he's really 40) got egged on by his friend to put on his motorcycle helmet and be 'hunted'. Needless to say, my brother now has a welt on his beeeeee-hind from where the potato hit him...Might I say, I don't encourage this and it was done under safe conditions...it was hilarious!!!

Last night was Oscar Party Night! Loved it! The party was my suggestion to the head of our Chick Flicks group - it's fun to come up with the ideas and then have someone execute them. Shary was dressed to the hilt with a beautiful blouse and long skirt. The food was excellent and I took popcorn since it was all about movies! I got the popcorn boxes from Michaels - it made a quick, inexpensive, yet impactful snack. I loved the format of the show and found it interesting that there wasn't a lot of 'bling' so far as diamonds and necklaces and the colors of the dresses were very muted.

I had lunch with Lauren Johnston, from the old Aleene's days, at a restaurant I'd never heard of - evos - feel great fast food. We even had some airbaked fries and topped it off with some Karma Ketchup. It was great to get together with her - there's never enough time to get totally caught up!

This week is in full swing already with dinners out, a COPE meeting on Friday and I have two sets of friends that I get to see on Saturday - I can't wait! One I haven't seen in four years. I was asked last night to be a sub for a Bunco party on Wednesday - I HAVE TO GET WORK DONE somewhere in there too. Yikes!

A friend and I just took a walk on the beach - the weather has been so gray and rainy, we took advantage of some sunshine and I'm thankful to get some oxygen to my brain, so I can get some writing done.

Make it a tremendous week!

Joan

Beth is wearing the 'bow' I made from pom poms and chenille stems.

Old Aleene's Friends Christmas Celebration

Tonight was a night for catching up with friends from the old Aleene's days!!! Lauren Johnston and I used to appear on the Creative Living television show, Beth was the Producer and Linda Lou was the set stylist. We go way, way back. Seems like we haven't changed, but kids and grandkids have gotten older.


Before dinner I went shopping for Betty's party - it was great fun to put a girlie party together complete with boas, tulle, glittery netting, flowers and mirrored balls (we went to school in the 70's so when I saw 5" mirrored / disco balls on sale for 1/2 price, I just had to pick up several for the tables). I also had a duh moment - remember me talking about making cupcakes ? I was at the stoplight near The Madonna Inn heading somewhere completely not there when it hit me - order a Pink Champagne cake for Betty's party - it totally went with the pink girlie theme I was thinking of. Perfect!!! I need to take a few minutes tomorrow and make sure everything is covered - it all came together while I was in Michaels tonight.

It's almost time to leave for CHA...

Things keep piling up in front of my desk - unfortuantely, we're one of the last to leave for the trade show and we have a van, so that means we get stuck taking all the stuff people can't get in their cars or were forgotten. Check out all the fun we'll be having at the show http://duncancrafts.com/cha/

I'm in the process of writing a couple ads this afternoon, a friend is picking me up lunch at one of my favorite places - Japanese Kitchen, I'll load up the van and get outta here to pack up my bags, indulge in a 1-1/2 massage tonight and then get on the road early tomorrow morning for some awesome adventures.

I've lined up a couple of get togethers with old Aleene's friends - Lauren Johnston, Sharon Williamson, Julianna Hudgins and hopefully PattieWack will be able to squeeze me in for at least a hug.

Until next week - keep craftin' but, I have to share with you an email I received from a friend this morning...she knows me pretty well - I shared it with friends at work and thought you might like her insight.

Remember life is too short...take a minute and look around you wherever you are, THEN YOU WILL SEE 'your life is wonderful!' but YOU aren't letting YOURSELF SEE IT! Make it a HAPPY LIFE!!! - Love you Miss FS

Halloween, Lauren the Fashion Policeta, Iron-On Crystals and Brain Cookies

My friend, Lauren, thinks about her Halloween costume for months! I remember a Marilyn Merlot costume a few years ago and it's always fun to hear about them and see her finished creations. She loves the Tulip® Glam-It-Up!™ Iron-On Crystals™ so much she used them in mass this year! Lauren ironed the Crystals to the dress and glued them on the brim of her hat and martini glass using the Aleene's® Platinum Bond Glass & Bead adhesive.

I hear The Fashion Policeta wrote citations for some pretty outrageous fashion no-no's. Love it Lauren! Thanks for sharing!

She also shared a photo of the brain cookies she made - yummy!

PattieWack, Lauren, Me and Mupu!!!

What a great weekend!!! I got to spend time with three of my best friends!!!

I had a long breakfast on Saturday with my friend, Frances. We don't get to see each other often enough now that we don't work together so it was awesome to spend 2 hours of uninterrupted time chatting and catching up. Remember, she got married last October and I was in the wedding.

Then, it was on to Santa Paula to spend an entire afternoon and night with PattieWack!!! Loved it! It was just Pattie and me for the afternoon - it was girl chat catch up BIG time! We can email and talk on the phone, but we gotta have one of those hugs and talk face to face to really feel connected. Lauren arrived in the evening (more on that later).

Pattie sure knows how to make people feel special! Not only were we greeted with a sign on 'It' (what I call the decoupaged mannequin in their entryway), there was a sign along with a rose in the bathroom AND not only a sign in the guest bedroom but pictures of Lauren and me too!

So, it's a Saturday and three crafty ladies are together. What to do? CRAFT OF COURSE!!! But first, we went to Mupu's Grill and saw the sights and murals of Santa Paula. After dinner we got out tissue, yarn and paper and went to town (or Pattie's Studio in this case!)

Pattie got us started by fan folding two colors of tissue paper and showed us how to make incredible flowers. (here's how to make them) We then moved on to create beautiful tassels and circle books. Thanks, Pattie - you're the BEST!!! BTW, we saw Scott (PATTIE'S BRAND NEW HUSBAND) only for a quick hug that night and early the next morning.

Lauren and I kind of invited ourselves to Pattie and Scott's and we're so thankful for their hospitality - our mission was to get rid of a bunch of craft supplies we'd accumulated over the years! We decided we wanted them to go to good homes so we blew them out at $1 each. We got up super early Sunday morning and headed to Ventura to sell our wares. I was in charge of making our sign so I used Aleene's® Crystal Clear Tacky Spray™ to adhere cut out letters on foam core - it worked perfect! Notice that we used the tissue flowers we made the night before to decorate the pole.

This was truly a different experience - in the afternoon
the dreaded Santa Ana Winds came flying in and pop-up awnings and merchandise

was flying. A fire was raging in Malibu not too far away and the smoke flooded the sky along with ash as the afternoon progressed.

On my way home, the 2 o'clock in the afternoon sky was as dark as if it was midnight. Ash was everywhere. Just down the road from where Pattie and Scott live, I came within 10 feet of flames as a different fire had just started. Along the major freeway I took home, two additional fires were being worked on, the strong winds carrying the flames on to new territory. Keep the firefighters in your thoughts as all these fires continue to burn out of control.

Thanks Pattie, Lauren, Scott and Frances for being my friends and taking time from your hectic schedules to play and thank you to all the firefighters who are putting their lives on the line to protect us everyday!

Joan

Crafty Weekend at the Fair

I can't wait for some crafty fun tomorrow! The big county fair is in progress and I get to go up on stage in the Home Arts building and do a Craft Challenge. It's a friendly competition with a fellow employee and two volunteers from the audience - I hear we get a box of goodies and have 15 minutes to create something - anything!!! This is going to be soooo much fun! Hopefully I can get someone to take pictures during the madness. I see glitter and glue in my near future.

Saturday also holds a catch up phone call with a very dear friend. You know how you always say you'll stay in touch when someone moves away and how life gets in the way of doing that...my friend and I have set up the first weekend of EVERY month to catch up - it's a relaxing time with no interruptions and we just gab and gab about everything. It's so nice to have a friend that you can let your hair down with and they still like you.

The rest of the weekend is catching up and getting ready for next weekend! Lauren and I have talked many times about all the 'stuff' we have that we need to get rid of and we've both tried ebay and found it to be time consuming, so we decided in Vegas that we'd go to a local Flea Market and get rid of a bunch of stuff. We're making it easy on ourselves by sticking to a couple prices and just blowing all the stuff out. We have an added bonus - the flea market we're going to is very near Pattie Donham (aka Pattie Wack) so we're spending the night before at Pattie and Scott's house - AWESOME!!! The three of us haven't been together for years, so I'm sure we'll stay up late, giggle and have a great time.

Oh, we decided on the theme for our Halloween party - I can't let it out yet - but, we'll be working on our costumes over the next couple weeks...

BTW, I'm working on a Breast Cancer Awareness project that I'll post over the weekend.

Have a safe and creative weekend,

Joan

Four Days in Las Vegas and creativity was never far from my mind...

My friend Lauren (from our days working at Aleene's on the tv show and magazine) and I met in Las Vegas to celebrate her birthday.

It was a whirlwind four days - we NEVER lack for something to do and Lauren's rule is you NEVER come back the way you went, so we're always seeing new sights and interesting things - there is never a dull moment on our trips.

In Vegas you expect glitz, but it was EVERYWHERE and on EVERYTHING! Ideas to use Tulip Fashion Art products kept running around through my brain - Fashion Glitter, Iron-On Crystals...you'll be seeing some of the ideas I came up with right here very soon...The things I saw were hugely expensive and I'll show you how to make them inexpensively.

What we did...
Bellagio...whenever I go to Vegas I have to go to Bellagio and see the conservatory. They change the setting and decorations for the seasons and it is never disappointing. This time there were huge colorful blown glass leaves hanging throughout the casino.

I have been to Bellagio many, many times and never knew that just around the corner from the conservatory is the World's Tallest and Largest Volume Chocolate Fountain - it is quite impressive.

The desserts looked very yummy including my favorite - crepes (we didn't indulge, but I did promise Lauren I'd make crepes for her the next time we're together).







We chatted with a limo driver at the airport and he told us we had to go to Slots o Fun and have a ginormous hot dog for only 99 cents that would feed a family of 5 - with that kind of recommendation we just had to do it and then walked on the strip taking in all the changes and happenings.

When Lauren and I get together we don't need to spend lots of money to have the best time!!! At one point of our weekend, I was looking at some of the photos I'd taken and in one I had the goofiest face and decided to enlarge it to see it up close - it was so out there that we started laughing and couldn't stop - it was one of those awesome mascara running down the face times. I feel sorry for the nearby tour guide who was trying to get people registered for a tour while we were laughing uncontrollably. Thinking about it still brings a smile to my face.

Talk about creativity! This motorcycle was at one of the casinos. The accents were completely made of metal.
On our last night in Vegas, we went to the Wynn to celebrate Lauren's birthday. The Wynn is a fabulous hotel/casino/entertainment center. The settings are incredible - the bars unbelievable - The Parasol with of course, parasols all over, Bliss...very beautiful!

This incredible ceiling decoration was at the entrance to a restaurant in the Wynn - it's made of plates, silverware and a serving tray - it was awesome!

We went to see a performance of La Reve (which in French means The Dream). It was a phenomenal show - done in water. It's hard to explain, but it was part Ester Williams and part circus act...we had VIP passes - huge seats, champagne, chocolate covered strawberries and monitors that showed what was going on behind the scenes before the show and what was going on under the water during the performance.

Our fun always has to come to an end...after staying up way too late last night, we were up at dawn to make our way back to the airport and fly to our respective homes. But, we're already planning our next adventure!

Thanks Lauren! You're a great traveling buddy!

Happenings...

Sorry that I haven't been posting a lot lately. You'll see why...I've been traveling, CRAFTING!!!, and having lots of fun.

I'll give you a little snippet of what's been going on the last few weeks and then more detail with pictures hopefully tonight.

Clear out the cobwebs...

Labor Day Weekend - My friend Frances and her husband Rudy (remember them from the wedding last October?) had a 'no special reason' party that Friday night. It was great to just kick back, chat with friends and enjoy!

The rest of the weekend was crafty! My bedroom was in a major need of a 'dress up' - I had boxes in the corners and it wasn't very nice. I cleared out the boxes, straightened things up and got to it. It was one of those projects that just evolved. I had purchased one of those bed in a bag things a few months ago and that's where my motivation started. You'll have to see the pictures to truly see what I did. It sure was nice at the end of the weekend to stand back and see my handy work and finally have a bedroom that was a sanctuary.

Doobie Brothers and Peter Frampton Concert - being a girl of the mid-70's Peter Frampton was IT! Well, almost 30 years later, he's on the road and it was fabulous to see him. My old cubicle mate from work and I headed to my hometown for an evening of music. Strangely, Gloria and I went to the neighboring town to have dinner since my hometown doesn't have much in the way of eating establishments. The town we went to is the county seat, so it's not a small town, yet, not huge. As we walked into the restaurant, I had a feeling that I was going to see someone I knew - just as I was thinking that I noticed out of the corner of my eye, my parents best friends and then looked at the couple they were with and it was my parents - yes, a small world. The concert was absolutely awesome - we decided to leave just before the concert was over to beat the traffic, but we found ourselves dancing, skipping and having a good ol' time in the parking lot! Thanks Gloria - I needed that!

Last weekend was again spent with my Aleene's friend, Lauren Johnston - Friday night we went out dancing (great exercise, by the way!), Saturday we went for a walk, indulged in a massage and after the massages we were so mellow we hung out watching TV the rest of the evening. Sunday was busy doing girl things and all of a sudden it was time to head home.

This weekend my high school class is celebrating our 50th birthdays with a football game and dinner the next day. We decided not to do the centerpieces - I'm disappointed, yet I'm relieved that I didn't have to paint all the ceramic cake pieces.

I'm sure I've forgotten all kinds of things.

Oh!!! My friend Pattie Donham filmed her web segments for Life Time last week. Check out her blog for great behind the scene photos - she even mentioned me! http://www.pattiewack.blogspot.com/

Make it a great week!

Joan

An Awesome Weekend with my Aleene's Friend, Lauren

This beautiful spread looks fresh out of a magazine, but no, it was the fabulous food my friend Lauren prepared this weekend. I'm used to cereal and a stop by Starbuck's for a Venti Black Iced Tea on weekdays on my rush to work. So, to sit down to this scrumptious fratatta, Caramelized Bacon (glazed with Canadian Maple Syrup she'd brought back from a recent trip - very yummy, by the way!), fresh fruit and a Bloody Mary was a great gift.

We had a delightful, but short weekend. We crafted, crafted some more and experimented with some products. We caught up on everything since our last trip to San Francisco in May.

Sunday, we lounged around and took the short drive from Lauren's to the ocean where we did a lot of people watching at a concert right on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. It was delightful to relax without a care in the world!

We're already planning our next get together where crafting will reign, I'm sure!

Make it a great week!

Joan

MAYhem continues!!!

As my birthday month continues, so does the outrageous fun! My friend Lauren and I met in San Francisco for a long weekend and did all the tourist activities and then some!

Friday we rode a historic cable car to a wonderful Italian restaurant in Little Italy where we enjoyed a gourmet fun shaped pizza! Lauren treated me to the play Beach Blanket Babylon - it was such a hoot! Just when I thought it couldn't get any more outrageous, it did! The costumes were fantastic - at the end, one of the characters wore a "hat" that took up a good part of the stage with a San Francisco cityscape and then the cable car on the hat turned on its light and moved up the hill...the premise of the story was Snow White trying to find Prince Charming - she searched far and wide and finally found him - it was Elvis!!! So, you can see, it was a very different play!

Saturday we shopped, shopped and shopped some more! Both of us live in cities where we feel shopping challenged, so to have large department stores at our door step was awesome! The evening included another play called Shopping - it was so appropriate for the day's activities. We enjoyed the Farmer's Market down on the Embarcadero in the morning partaking in samples of everything from cheese, to fresh fruit to candies... yummmmy! I did pick up a little something while I was there - a new puppy - actually, Bab's (named after our theater experience) is an ivy topiary!

Sunday was the Bay to Breakers Race - well, we found out that the true "racers" did their thing early in the morning and then it was crazy time! Thousands upon thousands of people had on outrageous costumes, carried crazy banners - just about anything anyone could image was on the streets of San Francisco. The picture is of a 'float' that was in the parade - they stopped in front of us and hit fake golf balls into the crowd! We walked and walked the streets - we managed to use four types of city transportation while we were there - we were quite proud of navigating around the city.

Some more highlights - cupcakes were everywhere - we had to have a little itty bitty one at a wonderful gourmet grocery store - it was topped with coconut frosting and we admired beautiful cupcakes at Ghiradelli Square - $3 for a cupcake!...Chocolate when in SF you have to have chocolate...and I had to bring back sourdough bread for my coworkers.

I'm sure I've left out many, many fun things we did! What a terrific weekend!

OK, so there are more pictures...















Lauren sent these pictures from CHA. The old Aleene's Gang together once again! AND, finally a picture of Pattie's fiance, Scott. He's usually behind the camera so we don't get many photos of him. BTW, Scott is part of the old Aleene's Gang - he was a camera person. We had a wonderfully relaxing evening talking about the future, the past and all kinds of girls things!!! Don't you wish you were a fly on that wall????

The pictures keep coming in...

Lauren's my olive buddy - seems like EVERYWHERE we go, olives are involved - So it was no surprise to see an olive assortment on the restaurant menu - of course we had to order it!!!






Here's Pattie's new box making tool - it is so awesome and so easy to use.

















I think that's all the photos...

CHA...
It's all about old friends, new products and havin' fun!