My 5 Minute Commute



Love these guys! Sure will miss them!



I started working at the new warehouse in Huntington Beach this week....no kidding I can get to work in 5 minutes! Of course parking is going to be insane when the place opens but for the next two weeks I can enjoy a speedy commute and close up parking. So far I am really enjoying the new place. I am working with a lot of the same people from Fountain Valley and I am also working with a lot of new people. Everyone is so nice and if a warehouse could be considered beautiful this one certainly is. It's HUGE, and clean, and white, and bright. I love it. We still have lots to do to get ready for the Grand Opening and the VIP Party on May first...but I am sure it will all come together nicely.

While Linda was here I took her over and showed her the new Costco. As we were leaving we saw this in the parking lot....



I had to ask...Linda says about 500!
Think we will run out on a busy Saturday?



Linda being the numbers girl she is was trying to figure out just how many carts there were...being the "artsy" girl I am I just wanted to get a cool picture. It just shows how different we are and yet sometimes we aren't that different at all. If I could remember how many baskets she figured out were there I would tell you but I don't remember...which is also "so me"....lol I did get a pretty good "artsy" picture tho don't you agree? =D

Girls Weekend!!!

Linda and I did a pretty good job with the self timer on
her camera!



  I had a wonderful girls weekend with Linda last weekend. It was so much fun to hang out and do girl stuff. She has been working so hard at work that she decided she needed to actually go some place on her vacation instead of just staying at home. She really needed to get away. It was perfect timing as I had taken the weekend off before starting work at the new warehouse in Huntington Beach. So we did lots of girl stuff...we had pedicures, did some scrap shopping and of course played with paper! It was really nice to just hang out and relax. I did this layout while she was here. I used Teresa Collins Carolina Breeze. I love the yellow and grey with just the right amount of black and white thrown in. It worked perfectly for the photo that Linda and I took with the self timer on her camera.

A Weekend of Resting and General Conference

I have had an interesting weekend....I got sick on Thursday night at work....came home and stayed in bed for the next two days. No fun! Thankfully, I started feeling better and decided to scrap. I decided to scrap some random photos from 2011 and used some paper that I got from the girlz at Scrap Friendzy. Thanks Cheryl for the cute paper. The other layout is a fun picture of my sister's family from last year when they attended a wedding in a pumpkin patch! I used some Teresa Collins Fabrications line for that along with a design from Helen a talented dt member over on the Counterfeit Blog.

This was also General Conference weekend at Church.  It was nice to be able to listen to all the sessions. President Uchtdorf's talk this morning was great I loved this quote.

"Don't judge me just because I sin differently than you do" (Bumper sticker cited by Dieter F. Uchtdorf) It was a humbling talk about not judging others. It was something I needed to hear. Later President Monson spoke and I loved this quote by him:

"Ponder the truths you've heard, help them make you better than you already are." So that's what my plan is...to think about all the things I have heard today and help them to make me a better person.

More Lifting....



and I am not talking weights here either...lol I am still under the weather but took a photo of my layout the other day and wanted to post it. I found a cute layout on the Sudio Calico blog. It was using bakers twine and washi tape in a way I hadn't really thought of before so I decided I would try scrap lifting it. I had some fun photos from when Jeremy and Holly were here. She and I went and had pedicures. It was something I wanted to document. Honestly I get pedicures fairly regularily...working on my feet all day really "requires" me to get regular pedicures...but usually I am by myself. So it was fun to go with Holly and do girlie stuff. I used some of the new Fabrications line from Teresa Collins along with my cricut to make that cute nail polish bottle. The layout I lifted is from a talented designer Mandy Kay that won the layout of the week last week over on the Studio Calico blog Here's her fun layout.

Scrap Lifting and Stacey Michaud

I make no bones about the fact that I love to scraplift. It has always been a way for me to jump start my creativity. Whether it's using a new technique, or the basic design or a total "lift" it just helps me get going. So I am always on the look out for layouts that I like, that speak to me...well not literally but you know what I mean. I save them to my computer, when I scrap I will pull up a design that I like and run with it. A couple of years ago I discovered the wonderful scrapbook designer Stacey Michaud. I love her work. Her attention to details and her use of white space and small photos. Not to mention she has two adorable kids. Of course my kids aren't little any more but that's ok. I look past the photos and just work with the design. Of course I always throw my own spin on it...so it isn't totally the same as Stacey's. So today I am posting a couple of layouts that I finished recently. Both of them were "lifts" of Stacey's. If copying is the highest form of flattery Stacey should be very flattered...I simply love her stuff!

My awesome sister sent me these AMAZING
strawberries for St. Patrick's Day...they were SO GOOD!
I



The title is what really spoke to me on this lift of Stacey's
it totally sums up Jason. I used it with 3 photos from
different years showing his "sunny smile"

I loved how Stacey got me to think outside the box on
this one. The embellishments were just too "western"
for my layout, so I used vintage buttons instead.

It Doesn't Get Any Better...

Jeremy Surprising Cliff when he got home from work

Than This! Holly and Jeremy surprised us and came home to visit for Spring Break!  Simply the BEST!!!!

What I found in my studio when I got home
from shopping. =D

Bittersweet

A few weeks ago I put in for a transfer with my job. I was on pins and needles until I found out if it went through or not. I kept telling myself that I could be happy either way...after all I don't live that far away from my current warehouse. But I found out a little over a week ago that I am going to the new store in Huntington Beach. While I am very excited to be going, it is just a tad bittersweet. After all I have made many friends at Costco 411 and while I am looking forward to meeting new people and making new friends there are some I am just plain going to miss. So to help me work through the whole process in my head I have been scrapping photos of many of my current co-workers. Here are a couple of collage type layouts that I did of some of the crazy, fun and wonderful people I work with. I am continuing to take photos as there are still many co-workers photos I don't have so I am sure there will be more layouts to come.

I am not sure my fellow employees totally understand why I feel the need to take pictures, play with paper, and tell "Tales of the Wholesale" but hopefully they will humor me in the next few weeks until it is time for me to leave. So stay tuned. 

My friend Melissa, an awesome "Stocker" of Cereal