What a PICKLEICIOUS Weekend!!!

This was the weekend that 5 Rusty Pickle Chefs and Mr. Pickle himself (owner, Lance Anderson) took over Ever After Scrapbook for a weekend of classes, Make and Takes, the Saturday night crop and a TON of fun!!! I was one of the Chefs in attendance at the SOLD OUT crop on Saturday night and I created and taught my VERY FIRST MAKE AND TAKE!!! You can see a picture of it here... using cardboard boxes from Costco, I made these table decor items for your annual Santa Picture. I also taught the scrappers how to easily turn my make and take into a mini album to house ALL of their annual pictures! Great way to watch the kids (and Santa) grow up!!! :-)

I had a great time chating with the Chefs (Ann, Candice, Kristan, and Casey), telling stories, sharing secrets and getting to know them all better! Links to each of the talented ladies' blogs are listed on the panel to the right. I also had the opportunity to crash Lance's class on Sunday and watch the pro teach. As a new teacher, it was great to pick up some tips from Lance and learn how to handle different situations as they come up in a class!! (Thanks, Lance!)

Thanks to Candice for organizing such a great weekend and to Camille (owner of Ever After) for the wonderful goodie bags that she gave to each Chef for participating in the event!! What a GREAT way to start December and the holiday season!!!

OH MY GOSH... I'm the ScrapStreet Designer of the Month!!!

I just have to start with the link... http://www.scrapstreet.com/magy2/holiday07/fixtures/drive.htmy2/holiday07/fixtures/drive.htm

For those of you that don't know what an ezine is (my family)... it is a full sized magazine that is published online... you purchase a subscription (some are free) and read the magazine online... as you would a print magazine, only you download the magazine to your computer and read it over a cup of coffee... :-) I am THRILLED to be the December up and coming Featured Designer of the Month for ScrapStreet Magazine!!! I have been holding this secret for several weeks (sorry!) and am SO EXCITED THAT I CAN FINALLY SHOUT IT FROM THE ROOF TOPS! HOLY COW... THAT IS ME!!! And, I can finally say... I CAN CREATE!!! :-)

Here are a few samples...

Elf Yourself...

This is one of the funniest things I have seen so far this year... I just had to share this "Elf Yourself" link that my friend Pam sent to me. Here is the Locher family doing, "THE ELF..." :-) http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=9634936042

Big Rusty Pickle weekend in So Cal!

Just a reminder that this weekend is the Rusty Pickle Grinchmas Event at Ever After Scrapbooks in Carlsbad, CA!!! Friday, Saturday and Sunday... classes, Make and Takes, crop with 5 Chefs and a special appearance by Mr. Pickle himself, Lance Anderson! Lance will be teaching a class with the new acrylic flower album... as a Valentine swag!!!

Here are links to Ever After Scrapbook http://everafter1.typepad.com/ and the Rusty Pickle Blog http://www.rustypickle.typepad.com/ for more information! Looking forward to seeing you this weekend!!! :-)

"It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas..."

It's that time again... time to get the 50+ boxes of Christmas decorations out of the attic. YES, I said 50+ boxes!!! Decorating for Christmas is a BIG EVENT here at the Locher house and we always start decorating the day after Thanksgiving. Decorating (including the inside, outside and the tree) usually takes about 2 weeks to complete, but we have some special friends coming for a visit in just 5 days, so we are in speed mode this year!!

Here are a few sneak peeks...

My 3-year-old... A SCRAPPER! Woo Hoo!!!

I just HAD to brag about this one!! :-) Anna is a scrapper. As you can imagine, I spend quite a bit of time in my garage studio doing my work, so I have a table set up for Anna... sitting right next to mine... where she can do her "homework" as she calls it. She draws. She colors. She LOVES to cut paper into a million little pieces with her "Baby Anna scissors," pick up the pieces and INK the edges with my Tim Holtz ink pads. :-) She loves to play with my Herma tape runner. AND she has finally put all of these things together.

I created a mini album for my Uncle Paul's birthday. Anna decided that she needed to create something for him, too, so she started cutting, inking, taping... she found scraps of trim and she spent a LONG time searching through my 10 pounds of buttons to find the PERFECT ones... she even pulled out my mini glue dots and started applying them to the back of my buttons (as she as seen me do a million times!) Anna has 2 funny habbits when she scraps... when she is concentrating very hard, she doesn't realize it, but she sticks out her tongue. She also becomes deaf... (as many of us do when we scrap... we get so involved with creating that the outside world ceases to exsist sometimes). Yep, Anna has that trait COVERED! :-)

Pictured here is the final effort... this is actually her 3rd "layout." The first one she made for Santa because, "I want to make him happy with me so he will bring lots of presents." The 2nd was for her BFF, Catalina. Anna is sharing her layout with Papa (Jeff's Dad in the cream) and with Uncle Paul in the sweatshirt.

Can I have a "Wooooo Hooooo!" :-)

We are blessed...

I just had to post quickly tonight because I just saw this post on the blog for Ever After Scrapbooks. I am on the Design Team for this store in Carlsbad and Camille, the owner of the store, just posted the most touching comments about my newspaper article and my work that I just had to post a link here... I am still in tears (happy tears) after reading Camille's comments. http://everafter1.typepad.com/yourstory/2007/11/im-so-proud.html?cid=90348392#comment-90348392 You will need to scroll up to my layout and the title, "I'm so proud..." to read the post.

Kiss your family tonight... that is one of the things that makes me say, "Wooooo Hooooo!" :-)

I'm in the news!

A quick post with the link to the newspaper article about the Cruise Out Cancer layout contest I won last year. http://www.todayslocalnews.com/?sect=lifestyles&p=4146 Jeff and I had so much fun with the journalist interview and the photo shoot! The actual paper also had an 8 x 8 copy of my layout and a teaser picture of me on the front page! TOO MUCH FUN! This is one of those things that makes me say, "Wooooo Hooooo!" :-)

Tea, VARSITY NEWS, Spirit...

I have heard the complaints that I haven't updated my blog in almost 2 weeks (sorry, Dad!) :-) We have been INCREDIBLY busy... football season wrapping up, basketball season starting, I have taken the Chair position on the Grad Nite Committee and am already in full swing as the high school's Australian Exchange Program coordinator (on a volunteer basis, of course!)... but there are always opportunities for pictures, so here are a few...

We celebrated Catalina's 3rd birthday last week. Cat is my Goddaughter and Anna's BFF. Cat had a "Princess Tea Party" and her Mommy, Penny, did an AMAZING job setting up for this event... real bone china cups and saucers, finger foods, "lumps" of sugar, fresh flowers... it was BEAUTIFUL! Even Baby Robbie dressed up for the occasion and looked very handsome! Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!

And now, for the sports lovers out there... we have some BIG news here in the Locher household... CHRISTIAN MADE FIRST STRING VARSITY BASKETBALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He is the only Freshman on the team, not to mention on the starting team!!! We are sooooo proud and excited for Chris. The weight training he was doing for football seems to have paid off as he is hitting "3's" like nobody's business and he is doing GREAT! We can't wait to see what this new team will do when the season starts! CONGRATS, CHRIS!!!

"We've got spirit... yes, we do... we've got spirit... how about YOU!?" That was one of my favorite cheers when I was a Varsity Songleader back in high school. Jessica and Theresa are part of the school's "Rowdy Crowd" and are pictured here showing off their "girly" face paint. They were on their way to the final football game of their senior year... oh... where is the time going!?

Happy Halloween!

HAPPY (day after) HALLOWEEN!!! We had a wonderful "fright night" here in Escondido! All day Anna and I ran last minute errands and set up the final decorations. I cooked a huge pot of my special homemade chili and cornbread with honey butter, lit the candles and got our little Princess dressed. Anna was NOT happy about the curlers in her hair, but she LOVED getting a little bit of makeup... "like the REAL Princess Belle!"

We always overdo the decorations (can you imagine!). Yes, we have Halloween lights along the eaves of the house, Jeff builds the HUGE spider web right in front of the kitchen window so I can see the 4' big spider everyday while cooking. We even had a few real spiders take up residence in Jeff's web this year... YUCK! Jeff has built a few tombstones for our haunted graveyard... complete with a vacant grave and a "Space Available" sign on the tombstone, and skeletons popping out of the other graves... one even lights up... scary!!! Jeff's new toy, his fog machine, was GREAT last night and kept a nice layer of ground fog hovering around the graveyard!!! Since Jeff will be finishing up the yard construction soon, this will be the last year of the graveyard with dug up graves!

Anna's favorite decoration is the huge (8 feet tall) blow up ghost that lights up... she calls him, "Ghosty" and hugs him everyday when he turns on.

I am guessing we had about 130 people trick or treat here last night. For the first time, both Jess and Chris had plans, so I stayed home to pass out candy and Jeff took Princess Anna to trick or treat. Anna had a great time and stopped to "oh and ah" over every baby that passed by!

Now, although I didn't dress in a full costume last night, I got in the spirit... the Rusty Pickle spirit. Hey Chefs, recognize my bandana? :-) Hope you all had a fun night... now, time to get the lists started and get the credit cards limbered up... less than 8 weeks until Christmas...