Fourth of July

We celebrated the Fourth of July with Suzzi, Larry, Dawn, and all of our kids... none of whom are kids anymore! We had a delicious meal with festive drinks that were tasty if hard to drink and hung out by the pool. We saw a beautiful sunset and many (illegal) fireworks. We had a wonderful time. 

Fourth of July 2026 (affiliate link)

The pictures I took around the table inspired this page. Because there was so much empty space above and below the smiling faces, I cropped all that off before printing my photos. The six photos you see were printed as two 4x6" photos, which I then cut into thirds and separated with a journaling block.  

Puzzle Party!

To celebrate my 54th birthday back in March, I threw myself a jigsaw puzzle party. It was awesome. I printed the photos right away, but I'd been waiting to scrap them until I could get my hands on puzzle patterned paper. As soon as it showed up, I made this page. 

Puzzle Party (affiliate link)

I've been doing modern scrapbooking for 25+ years and this is the first time EVER that I used up all of the letter Zs on a sticker sheet before running out of any other letter! Using one Z is really rare for me and running out of them - ever, let alone first! - is unheard of. Like most people, I tend to run out of the vowels and letters like S, T, and R. Anyway, that was a fun first for me. 

New Year's Eve 2025

We usually host a small get-together for New Year's Eve, but Trevor and I were flying home from Boise that evening. So instead of having friends over to our house, we asked them to meet us at Dos Coyotes near the airport for a non-traditional New Year's Eve dinner. The food was excellent and it was great fun to end the year with some of our very favorite people. 

Celebrate NYE (affiliate link)

I'm frustrated with how the metallic stickers scanned. In real life, the gold is shiny and you can barely see the clear part of the sticker. On the scan, it's the opposite. Oh well. The layout is complete. It's in the album and up on the blog. Mission complete!

SIX: The Musical

Have you seen SIX: The Musical? It tells the story of Henry VIII's six wives (divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived) with a decidedly modern Girl Power vibe. The music and the costumes are fantastic and it's such a fun show! Missouri Street Theatre did the Teen Edition of SIX in December and it was spectacular. 

SIX: The Musical (affiliate link)

MST had a neat idea for a fundraiser - donate any amount and take a picture with the cast. I wish the teens were in the front and we were in the back so that you could see their incredible costumes, but it's still a really fun picture. The layout came together really quickly. I used the playbill for my title, then added journaling, a strip of glittery washi tape, and the crown to finish it off.

Jigsaw Puzzle Party

I threw myself a birthday party on Saturday. The theme was one of my favorite things: jigsaw puzzles!

To make my party hat, I started by coloring old puzzle pieces with Apple Barrel paint pens (affiliate links here and below). When they were dry, I coiled Twisteezwire in corresponding colors around each piece, then threaded the wire into a blue party hat. I secured the ends with masking tape. I used a Sharpie to write 54 on another puzzle piece and glued it to the front of the hat. 

Here's what the party invitation looked like. I had so much fun designing it! (I used PicMonkey, of course.)

I wore my puzzle piece necklace. It's from Springbok. I got mine for free awhile back for joining their loyalty club. I don't know that they do that anymore; probably not, since they're selling it now. 

So what do you do at a puzzle party? Puzzles, of course! We solved a neon 80's themed puzzle and a chocolate mystery puzzle. 

We made crafts using puzzle pieces. 

We played Puzzle Trivia (I'll share that tomorrow). And we played multiple rounds of Puzzle Chess. 

If you're not familiar with Puzzle Chess, I highly recommend it! We used a 48-piece puzzle; you can play with a puzzle up to about 100 pieces. Someone who is not competing completes the border and turns all the pieces face up. The contestants sit across from each other with a chess clock beside the puzzle. Start the clock, then the first player puts in a piece and hits the clock. The second player does the same. When the last piece goes in, the person with the least amount of time on their clock is the winner. It's really fun!

In between it all, we grazed. I love charcuterie boards for parties. They're so much fun to put together and everyone can grab what they like. Check out the puzzle piece candies!

I used the Celebrate It! Puzzle Piece silicone mold, sold by Michaels. I'm so frustrated that they don't sell it anymore, because it is AWESOME. As you can see, the finished candies actually interlock properly like puzzle pieces should. To make the candies, I prepared Wilton Candy Melts and added a drop of different LorAnn flavorings to each of the different colors before molding them. I didn't match the colors with the flavors logically (for example, purple was green apple), which left my guests a bit -ahem- puzzled.  

I had such a good time at the party! Thanks to my friends for helping make it so fun. If you're a jigsaw puzzle fanatic, I highly recommend throwing a puzzle-themed party of your own. 

New Year's Eve 2024

This is the second layout I made for the final game of Bash Bowl VII. I only earned two points for my team this time: a point for ephemera and a point for the Project Life cards. We put up a valiant effort, but congrats to the Scrappin' Banshees for taking Game 3 and the series. 

New Year's Eve 2024 (affiliate link)

This page will be next to the Christmas 2024 layout in the album, which also features a single horizontal photo matted in black, with Project Life cards holding the title and journaling. So I wanted to make sure the two pages didn't resemble each other too much. I think the use of gold and green here, along with the different layout of elements, helps make this layout distinct. 

In the journaling, I mentioned one of the activities we did on New Year's Eve: solving a Hindenburg-themed mystery puzzle. You can see it in the photo on the table in front of us. It was challenging, but the story and the mystery were engaging and the puzzle was fun to solve. And we learned a lot about the Hindenburg itself. I had no idea it was so roomy, with such elegant spaces for the passengers. And I certainly didn't know there was a smoking lounge. That seems like a colossally bad idea, but apparently it was strictly monitored. Anyway, if you're the type of person who likes puzzles and mysteries and learning and history, I think you'd enjoy the puzzle too. 

Celebrating 52 in Chinatown

This layout, about celebrating my 52nd birthday with a food tour in San Francisco's Chinatown, is a great example of why I love challenges so much. I chose practically every element because of the Mixed Manufacturer Layout Challenge from the National Scrapbook Day event at A Cherry on Top. In this challenge, we had to make a page with items from at least ten different manufacturers. And there's a twist - you also have to use one item you can't buy at a craft store. Can you spot that item?  

Celebrating 52 in Chinatown (affiliate link)

If you guessed the dark orange flower, you're right! I made it to coordinate with the two flower stickers. The rest of the items are: 

1. Bazzill - gold cardstock
2. Scenic Route - red patterned papers
3. Echo Park - birthday lion sticker
4. Jillibean Soup - present and 'One Year Older' die cuts
5. BasicGrey - large orange flower sticker
6. PhotoPlay - small yellow flower sticker
7. We R Memory Keepers - gold washi tape
8. Bella Blvd - 'adventure' sticker
9. Me and My Big Ideas - tiny 'love' sticker, 'birthday' sticker, cake sticker, 'Now' sticker
10. American Crafts - numbers

Technically, I also used four more manufacturers. I cut the papers and homemade flower with my Fiskars trimmer and scissors. I colored the homemade flower with Ohuhu markers and I adhered everything with a Tombow tape runner. For the journaling, I used a Zig pen. 

I'm really happy with how this page came out. It has a lot of elements on it, but ultimately it is still my clean and simple style. What a fun challenge!

San Francisco Chinatown: Taste of the City

Today is my 52nd birthday. Happy birthday to me! Because today is a Tuesday (and thus a workday and school day), we celebrated on Sunday with a culinary walking tour of San Francisco's Chinatown. It was awesome. 

Jonna and Suzzi joined us, which made it extra special. Our tour started at 10:30 am under the Dragon Gate. 

Our guide, Isabella, greeted us with warm green onion buns from New Hollywood Bakery. Oh my gosh - soooo delicious. This is actually half of a bun. It's a good thing she split them for us, since there was a LOT more food to come!   

As we strolled through Chinatown, Isabella taught us all about the history of this fascinating place. Established in 1848 during the Gold Rush, San Francisco was home to the first Chinatown in North America and is one of the largest outside of Asia. 

The neighborhood's 24 square blocks are home to over 15,000 Chinese, most of whom are elderly and live in 100 sq. foot single room occupancy hotels. There are hundreds of shops, restaurants, and small businesses. 

We walked to St. Mary's Square, where we saw the Comfort Women Memorial and a sculpture of Sun Yat-Sen. 

  

Next stop: Old St. Mary's Cathedral. Because it was a Sunday, there was a service going on. It's conducted in both English and Mandarin. We spent a few minutes there, but didn't take pictures inside. 

 

There was exactly ONE person on the passing cable car. Apparently, a Sunday morning in March is a great time to be a tourist in San Francisco if you don't like crowds!

This instrument is called an erhu. This man has been playing at this site for decades. We enjoyed a unique rendition of 'Happy Birthday', among other songs. 

Next, we went to Jade Chocolates, where we sampled the Gold Mountain Salted Caramel. YUM. I didn't try it, but their Peanut Buddha and Mango Jam looked amazing. Everything in the display case did. 

I asked Isabella about this "Two Years Estranged from Andre" street sign. She'd never seen it before and had no idea. Google didn't help. If anyone knows about it, let me know in the comments please!

  

At Eastern Bakery, we tried warm pork buns and salted egg yolk mooncakes. 

  

The pork bun was split in half and the mooncake in fourths for those who didn't want to eat the whole thing. I'm glad I got such a small portion, because there was still so much more food ahead!

  

While we ate, we learned about Bruce Lee, depicted on this mural. 

Can you guess where we went next?

If you guessed Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory, you're right!

Fortune cookies are a California invention (read about 15 other foods and drinks that, like me, were born in California) and these were some of the best I've ever had. It was fun watching them being made. I made fortune cookies at home (once) and they're not easy to do. 

You might have guessed the fortune cookies, but can you guess what these are? To give you a sense of scale, these shirts are true to size, but they're made of paper, not fabric. 

They're a form of joss paper, used as burnt offerings to venerate deceased family members on special occasions. This whole shop was filled with a huge variety of joss papers. If your relative liked a particular sport, or did a lot of gambling, or was linked to a certain animal, or favored a specific kind of clothing, you can find joss paper that reminds you of them. 

  

You never know what you'll find for sale in Chinatown. I didn't need a $4 tiny dim sum keychain, but they're SO cute!

It's weird being completely immersed in Chinese culture and then spotting the Transamerica Pyramid peeking over the rooftops. 

This was painted in 2020, in response to anti-Chinese racism at the start of the pandemic.

At this point, we had eaten an onion roll, chocolate truffle, pork bun, mooncake, and fortune cookie. So naturally, it was time for lunch! We ate at Grant Place Restaurant. 

That's our new Australian friend, Kim, talking with Jonna. Hi, Kim!

We dined on Peking duck...

... garlic eggplant...

... spicy (not really) green beans...

... and veggie spring rolls or shrimp dumplings. Everything was fantastic. 

I ate very conservatively; we still had multiple stops to make! 

After lunch, we visited Portsmouth Square. It's known as "Chinatown's living room." Remember all the residents who live in SRO hotels? This is where many of them hang out all day. Some were playing instruments, others were reading, a few were people-watching, and some were chatting. The vast majority were playing card games, using cardboard boxes as tables.  

In addition to serving as a de-facto living room, Portsmouth Square has an important claim to fame. It is

where the first public school in California opened. That was in 1848, two years before statehood. 

Next stop, Vital Tea Shop. Here, we learned the proper way to make tea: steep the tea leaves in hot (but not boiling) water for five seconds, then throw that away. Now use the leaves to brew the cup you will actually drink.   

We sampled eight teas, each completely different. We learned about white, green, red, black, and oolong teas and some of the medicinal values of them. I'm not a tea drinker, but trying them was very interesting. Steve and Jonna each found a flavor they liked enough to buy.

With bellies full of tea (and everything else we'd eaten over the past four hours), we went to our final destination: Hunan House. 

We dined on chicken potstickers and chow mein. Mine had beef, chicken, and pork; others had shrimp in their chow mein. I love that Isabella accommodated not only allergies and food restrictions, but preferences as well. Everyone was happy with their food. 

 

We thoroughly enjoyed our tour and highly recommend it, whether you are visiting San Francisco from far away or are local like we are. The price was very reasonable for the amount of food we received and the number of places we went. 

Locals Tastes of the City offers a variety of other culinary tours in San Francisco. I could definitely see doing their North Beach tour someday. Thanks to Steve, Trevor, Jonna, and Suzzi for helping me celebrate my birthday in such a fun way!