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Last weekend, I went on a mini East Coast road trip with my friend Joy. This would be the first time I was every away from Sienna overnight. I don’t know why this was the first time, I guess I just never had (or made) the opportunity to do this.

We left Saturday morning and I had done some research on good places to eat. I’m on a never ending quest to find awesome homemade corned beef hash (the best being what I ate in New Orleans at Quarter Moon restaurant, pre Katrina so don’t even know if it is still around!) We made it to O’Rourke’s diner around 11:30. I eagerly ordered a side of hash and since I already had eggs that morning, decided to go for something sweet and got Babka French Toast. Honestly, I would not order something so sweet for breakfast but this was technically lunch.

The Babka French Toast was super yummy! They make the babka on site as well as some bread they put on the table for us. Their spicy chocolate banana bread was delicious! I was disappointed in their hash. It tasted dry but I wonder if it was because it was late in the morning. Joy got the casino omelet (no photo) that had crab meat and bacon inside. Tasty!

I liked this bridge we encountered as we left the diner. One of the few non food photos I took.

We made our way up to Seabrook, NH and stayed at the Holiday Inn Express, which is actually the same one me and Sienna stayed on our way up to Maine last year! It was over 90 degrees so it was HOT! After checking in, we decided to head over to the Kittery Outlets 15 minutes away. I’m not an outlet person but figured hopping into air conditioning would be ok. I ended up buying a nice dress for a late July wedding!

For dinner, with Yelp’s help, we went to Robert’s Maine Grill. I had my first raw oysters and they are delicious!

We enjoyed everything! For entree, I got pan fried cod and little neck clams. Joy got grilled scallops and we shared a side of brussel sprouts with bacon. No room for dessert!

I took a quick dip in the pool after we got back to the hotel and then we just hung out in the room for the rest of the evening. The next morning we had the hotel breakfast before heading to Wal-mart (have to hit a Wal-mart when we are out of NY!) Yves will be proud to hear that there was a Joann’s fabric store in the same shopping complex that I DID NOT GO IN!!

So the main reason I chose Seabrook, NH was to hit either Markey’s Lobster Pound or Brown’s Lobster Pound. They are right across the street from one another and both have good reviews. I’m sure going to either one would be good so we chose Markey’s only because they were on the same side of the street we were driving down. MMMMMM!!!! This is what we shared; lobster roll, crab cake (ok, that was all me), fried oysters, fried calamari and steamers. Enjoyed it all but the steamers were my least favorite as the large ones were not as tasty as the smaller ones. The fries were a sorry state as they barely looked cooked and I love a good fry but really, you’re not going there for fries!

Since we had time to kill before being able to check into Mohegan Sun (Joy’s contribution to the weekend trip), I thought we could be more touristy and check out Portsmouth, NH. Got some yummy ice cream at Annabelle’s, caramel cashew cluster and mint summer night’s dream. It’s a cute little town but honestly, all those port towns look very similar to me (Bar Harbor, Port Jefferson, etc).

At Mohegan Sun we were able to book a massage for 8 pm. Joy went to gamble and I went to the hot tub beforehand. It was so nice and relaxing! The massage was heavenly and always hate it when it’s over as it seems to go so fast. There were quite a few dining options offered in the casino/mall. After the relaxing massage, we headed to Frank Pepe‘s Napoletana pizza, another place I had on my list. Their original location is in New Haven, CT. We ordered the White Clam pizza and original pizza with anchovy. I enjoyed both of them as I am a fan of thin crust. They were both a tad salty which I know is the nature of anchovies.

The view from our floor.

Inside the mall/casino

For breakfast, we went to Hash House a Go Go, a place Joy encountered in Vegas and marveled at the size of their portions. She did not lie! Joy ordered the chicken and waffles and I had to get their original hash with eggs. All was delicious! The hash was shredded and I’m not sure how I feel about that. Still thinking about it. LOL

The journey home on Monday morning included a stop at Bishop Orchards. A place Joy will never let us forget about since this was the place with the fabulous peaches. They have changed! From a small little orchard to a bigger market! Because of traffic, I did not make it in time to pick up Sienna after school. I had a little ordeal with the pick up but basically Jessica and my mother in law picked her up.

All in all, a very fun getaway! Just wanted to note for documentation that Sienna cried when we skyped. Saturday night she was sad and had wet eyes. Sunday was full fledged crying! Yves said she was basically fine the whole time except when we skyped. I guess seeing me was too much! I was feeling guilty about not making it in time to pick her up after school since I promised her I would be there. I wondered how mad she would be but turns out, she was ok and just wanted to play! You never know how upset she will be about things. Usually things that I think won’t affect her so much, she is over the top about and things I worry and guilt about are not a big deal! Sigh! Will I ever figure it out?

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Now that May is upon us, time to post March crafts! Ha! I was going to combine it with April crafts but I did not do much in April. I’ve been slowing down the swapping so I can better concentrate on other things. My mailbox will surely be lonely! I haven’t stopped swapping completely, just being more selective.

I’m kinda being lazy to write descriptions but they are all for swaps except for the 6 shirt, which I made for Sienna’s birthday. The wire bracelet with red seed beads and hemp and leather bead bracelet was for a Covert Robin swap.

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It’s very rare for me to schedule 2 personal events in one weekend. I signed up for a resin jewelry class at Little Bird Creations months ago and was really looking forward to that. Then when I found out Dyan Reaveley was teaching at a LSS on Long Island, I had to go to one of her classes! I decided on the collage workshop since I find that to be my biggest weakness and that was on a Friday afternoon. My hubby reluctantly agreed to take the day off work so he can pick Sienna up from school. Well, poor Sienna picked up a stomach virus from school and threw up Thursday night after she had gone to bed (at 7:30! should have known something was up!) She proceeded to wake up numerous times throughout the night to throw up or almost throw up. Needless to say, sleep was not on my side. I considered canceling on the class but it’s not cheap and thankfully, Yves was going to be home. Really no point in canceling, he can handle it. Off I went in the morning trying not to worry about my family!

Well, Dyan is a hoot!! We got a brand new Dylusions journal as part of the class. Knowing that most people are afraid of messing up their brand new journal, she had us rip out a page at the seam. EEK! Then rip out another page at the seam! YIKES! Then rip out half of a page! Then pick a spray ink and spritz it on a random page! Then spritz a random page on our neighbor’s journal! Well, now the journal wasn’t brand new anymore! We started doing some backgrounds, techniques I’ve done at Little Bird but still neat to do with it’s creator!

We started looking for some images in a magazine and once we picked something out, we had to give it to the person across from us! Aack! LOL! Basically, she was reiterating that it wasn’t about the end result but the process of doing the journaling. Here’s what I came up with:

This page isn’t complete and I added a few more details to it since then but Dyan didn’t want us to finish the page as she wanted to teach us other techniques. We did some doodling on images from magazines and also some more collage work using color copies of cut up collages she had done. Did not take any photos of these pages but perhaps I will show some in a future post.

On Sunday, I head up to the Upper West Side for an all day resin jewelry class with Isolina Perez at Little Bird Creations. I was really excited for this! I’ve done some resin before but not much. I was also excited to try Crystal Clay and Resin Klay.
We did the resin first since it would take the longest to cure (3 days!) Picking out images to use was the longest process! Next was Crystal Clay, I think that takes 24 hours to cure and we stamped into it embedded swarovski crystals into it. The last thing was transfering an image into Resin Klay and we had to work fast for that one, since it only took 7 minutes to cure! We got to do some metal stamping and banging texture into copper to add to the resin klay. That was a lot of fun!
Here are how my pieces looked after class:

Here’s what I did with some afterwards (thanks to fellow classmate, Eileen, for posting her finished pieces and motivating me to finish mine! I tend to procrastinate!)

These images are postage stamps from Belgium! I’m not sure who the guy is but I liked the pink! The hearts were earrings from Isolina’s stash. I added some crystal dangles and made ear wires with crystal to match. This could probably use another layer of resin. Maybe I’ll add some one day!

I tried to do a bit of layering with these. I think the star was also an earring. For the owl, I tried to keep the glitter contained to the edges but it spread. I’m ok with it, tho!

The last of my resin pieces. The purple piece is a bead and maybe one day I will turn it into a charm and make a matching necklace for the earrings. This definitely needs more resin! The square piece was just some glass glitter and red glitter and I popped a crystal in the middle. Not sure what I will do with this!

This is using the Crystal Clay. I have to be honest, when I first saw Crystal Clay on the market, I wasn’t really impressed. It’s not my thing and after working with it, I did not change my mind. Maybe the problem is, it needs more crystals! Here are 2 more. The one on the right is stamped. Again, I think it needs more crystals!

And finally, here is the piece with the Resin Klay. This was my favorite after the resin. I hadn’t done image transfers in awhile and this reminded me of how much I enjoy it. I also had a lot of fun adding texture to the copper! At home, I had to file the edges of the clay and I added some vintage photo distress ink on the edges. I wish I added more. You can hardly tell! Anyway, I then glued it to the copper and added a bead dangle. I plan on doing more of these!!

All in all, a very fun and creative weekend even if my mind wasn’t always fully there in the classes. I felt bad that Yves picked up what Sienna had and stayed home from work on Monday and Tuesday! Sienna went back to school on Tuesday. I’m happy to report that everyone is back to their happy selves again! Yay!

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A quick update of the creative things I’ve been doing. There’s more than what I am posting but these are ones I want to remember (for good or for bad!) I hope to update with a March one!

Journal page swap. My word for 2013. Not doing so well with it so far! HA! Done with gesso, stencils and ink sprays. Word handwritten but style copied from graffiti creator

Rainbow journal page swap. Do not like but posting in the hopes that I will look back at this and marvel at how far I’ve come!

For a handcarved stamp swap.

Made this for Sienna’s bestie using spray inks and stencils

For a friend’s son’s birthday. He’s a Monty Python and dragon fan!

These 2 were for a stamped masterboard swap. Tutorial here.

These cards are pretty self explanatory! The first card was used with a stamped masterboard I received. The Valentine’s card is used with Shimmer Sheetz and Sizzix embossing folder and sanded (maybe alcohol ink too? Can’t remember!)

Made this for Yves for Valentine’s day. File from the Silhouette store.

For a doodle me some notecards swap. I really am happy with how they came out!

For a Keepsake Book swap. Front and 1 spread shown. Too lazy to post all the spreads. Tutorial here.

Envelope book swap. Front and 1 spread. This uses business size envelopes and scrapbook paper. Tutorial here.

Gift tags using hand carved stamps

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Well, she turned 6 on March 12. We didn’t throw a big party for her, like we did last year, because we bought her a loft bed instead. We went to the showroom at the end of January at Bedroom Source. It came the Saturday before her birthday! She loves it!

We had a birthday celebration at school and that was her party. It was a half day due to Parent/Teacher meetings so we came during her lunch (which is at 10:30!) and brought pizza (reheated from last night since no pizzeria is open at 10:30) and ice cream cones. Yves took off from work and came too.
Here’s a quick video of the class singing to her. Of course, I wasn’t ready so I missed the beginning! Password is bday.

Posing with her teacher.

She was a very good helper the night before with the goody bags for her class. She had filled them herself and here she is applying tape to the back of the tags for me. I made the tags with my Silhouette Cameo. I also made her shirt with the Cameo!

And since her birthday was on a half day of school, we took her buddies to see the movie Escape From Planet Earth. We also went to the movies last year (and saw The Lorax.)

Since I knew she was having a school celebration, we did the family celebration on Sunday. My dad asked her what kind of cake she wanted and she requested cheesecake! I wasn’t expecting that! Of course, they got it at the Chinese Bakery and they had it decorated all fancy. Never saw a cheesecake like that!

My parents bought her an EZyroller. Sienna had seen it last week when we went to visit Tammy and her clan. Zack has one in blue and Sienna kept riding it so we thought it would be a great thing to ask for for her birthday from Grandpa and Grandma!

Don’t let the look on her face fool you! It’s really easy to ride, I was just taking a gazillion photos of her and she was getting annoyed. Paparazzi!

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On February 1st, Sienna was in a school “play!” Her class and another class combined to sing songs with sky themes and the play was called “The Sky’s the Limit.” Yves took off so he could attend. Sienna had 2 lines before the Planet Rap song. The password for this video is planets.

I didn’t have a proper video camera so used a combination of my point and shoot (with a small storage card in it so it filled up fast!), my smaller point and shoot and my iphone. Of course the quality on the bigger point and shoot is better but that one filled up fast. I managed to get video of Here Comes the Sun (when I heard they were doing this, I got all excited because it’s a real song as opposed to a kids song even tho it wasn’t the actual Beatles version played.) Password for this video is thesun.

We gave flowers to Miss Cregg, their teacher. That’s Emma on the left and Isabella on the right.

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Sienna was out sick from school all week. Turns out she had the flu even tho she got a shot. She woke up with a fever 4:30 in the morning on MLK day. I gave her some ibuprofen, her fever went away and she was back to her normal self. Goofy and silly! I was ready for her to proceed to a normal school week, her body was not! She woke up with a fever 3:30 in the morning on Tuesday. Yves wanted me to call the doctor, I kinda poo poo’d it at first but then just ended up bringing her in anyway. Good thing I did as she tested positive for flu! Well, long story short, she had been taking Tamiflu (hates it) and is a lot better. I hated that I needed to give her separate meds for her fever and then when she started getting stuffy and coughing, separate meds for that! I guess if all weeks, she picked a good week to be sick, it’s been in the teens all week (and it snowed a bit today!)
Anyway, the main reason for this post us that I’m happy I was able to have 2 date nights last weekend! Friday with Yves for Indian food at Panna II. (Photos from my Iphone and posted via my Iphone!)

Saturday with Joy! First we went to get massages on Mott St. and dinner at Shanghai Cafe Deluxe.

And a stop at Sugar Sweet Sunshine! I was too full to eat a cupcake so I bought some home.

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I may have not posted much, especially my crafts, but I’m still making stuff! For Christmas I decided to sew some pencil cases for the kids and wanted to try a new pouch pattern. I probably have only pulled out my sewing machine twice before my sew-a-thon the week before Christmas so I guess I made up the time!

I had wanted to make Sienna a pencil case since the start of school and I’ve used Noodlehead’s pattern before so I knew it was a good one. I made Sienna’s and Emma’s using Princess fabric and Sylvie’s using Hello Kitty, both fabrics from Japan.

I used my Silhouette to cut out the names. I actually made a mistake with Emma’s and Sylvie’s (the names aren’t on the same side) but when I did it first on Emma’s, I liked it so repeated it with Sylvie’s. I made Nico’s using Superman fabric.

I liked how I positioned his name on each side. I also made a Snoopy one for a swap. It was also my first time making a key fob from this tutorial.

The new pattern I wanted to try is called a mini clutch from Sew4Home. Since this was the first time making one, I made one for myself first to work out any kinks.

I think I actually did better on the first one than I did with Jessica’s (Emma’s mom). The sizing on hers is a little smaller but her phone is smaller than mine so it worked out!

I also made Jessica this bracelet, since she admired the one I made for myself:

I was struggling to figure out what to give for Sienna’s teacher, since she lost her house due to Hurricane Sandy (she lived in Breezy Point. The surfer that died in Puerto Rico was who saved her and her husband!). What do you give someone that lost everything? Your standard smelly soaps seemed kind of silly. And Sienna’s suggestion of buying her a house was noble but not realistic! LOL. So, remembering that the teacher has an art background, I decided to make her one of my coptic stitch journals. Only the 3rd one I ever made! I covered it with mulberry paper and used watercolor paper inside. I think it came out rather nice! I also sewed her a bookmark/pen holder (I’ve made before) and key fob. Sienna picked out the fabric for the key fob. You might not be able to tell but it’s owls. The teacher told Sienna how she was just saying the other day how she needed a journal!

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We spent the first day of the New Year at our dear friend’s house, Starr and Brian. Brian made a traditional Southern New Year’s meal. Black eyed peas for luck, cornbread for lots of gold and collard greens for lots of green money! Starr managed to get Sienna to try each item because you want luck in the new year, right? We bought over donuts from Leske’s Bakery because anything round is also lucky to eat, supposedly!

I forgot my camera so I didn’t take many photos as I was using the iphone. Sienna plays very well with Sylvie and Nico but Sylvie’s best buddy from her class was over and according to Starr, she is quite possessive of Sylvie. I know all about that scenario! So being how Sienna is, she doesn’t assert herself into that situation and I don’t push. I’m trying to let her be true to her nature. I’m grateful when Maya comes over, she is in Nico’s class and whenever the 3 girls get together, they play amazingly well. And that is exactly what happened, the 3 of them all played together and no one was left out (Sylvie’s best buddy had left.) I have no ill will toward Sylvie’s best buddy but isn’t it amazing how just 1 person can change a dynamic?

DJ Nico!

Who needs fancy toys when you have a blanket, a pulley device and someone to pull?

Pillow fight! (So, why did we spend all this money on fancy toys for Christmas?!)

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Christmas Eve with my parents. We usually go out to eat with my parents but Sienna had a slight fever so they brought dinner over instead. We gave Sienna some medicine and she regained her energy just in time to open presents! LOL

 
My parents got her the MLP train set

It was a My Little Pony Christmas! This car is from my brother. Now she has 2 cars!

Christmas morning! Sienna made out like a bandit, as usual! I didn’t get pics of her opening everything and frankly, that would probably get boring!
An easel

I made Yves a Spider-Man pillowcase

Sienna got more MLP from Grandma and Grandpa in Jamaica.

1 of 3 sweaters for Yves

Sequence Letters from Grandma and Grandpa in Jamaica

Scrabble Jr. from us (She got lots of board games this year! Not shown, What’s Gnu?, Doodle Dice, Story Cubes and from her best friend, Operation!)

password is Santa. The most precious video and so glad I caught it.

And the biggest present from us, her own Nexus 7 tablet with pink case!

The Balds and Reeves came over for dinner, as they did last year. I made pernil, crock pot mac n cheese, meatballs in gravy, rice and peas and brussel sprouts. A very blurry photo!

Kids enjoying their juice boxes!

“Playing” Candyland.

Ricotta cheesecake homemade by Brian! Yum!

A couple of days before Christmas, I showed Sienna this personalized video from Santa. I made it for her on a website and it was free! Very cool! He said her name, where she lived and a couple of other personalized things I got to pick from a list.

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