a mad hatter's tea party

a very merry un-birthday to you! this morning i hosted a mad hatter's tea party with some of the ladies from church. we dressed up, drank tea, ate sandwiches, and had great coversation. we even had our own white rabbit. i can't wait to do it again!

the menu

savory

chicken salad sandwiches
with cashews and shredded carrots

turkey sandwiches
with sundried tomato pesto, alfalfa sprouts, and sliced cucumbers

egg salad sandwiches
with chives, shallots, and shredded carrots


sweets

homemade almond biscotti, tim-tams, and milano cookies


drinks

yorkshire black tea, coffee, pink lemonade, and pomegranate juice

a housewarming gift

my friends, the peshke family, are moving in to their first new home very soon. i was thinking of a special housewarming gift for them. it's hard to buy housewares sometimes because it becomes a question of what color, do they have it already, and will they like it? too stressful.

i thought i'd make a scrapbook layout using their family portrait (which i just happen to have) and put the page in a white shadow box for a personalized and handmade gift. i think it came out pretty well. i used products from work, of course. all the embellishments are from our new nest family embellishments collection.

i really like this enclosure piece. it's a mini foiled envelope with a little card inside that comes out! too cute...we do a good job here at mambi (me and my big ideas). i'm going to give it to them tonight...hope they like it!

bitter+sweet

wish i was with you, dear.

happy birthday, charles

last saturday was charles' birthday. we surprised him with a homemade potluck dinner made by a group of his friends. i made homemade meatballs. meatballs are essentially miniature meatloaves so i used my meatloaf recipe and formed them using a mini ice-cream scoop. (i took a page from nadia's playbook with the first photo hee hee)

we decorated sam and grace's house for the occasion. of course mambi paper was utilized for the event. i was going for purple and gold but to some it looked like purple and orange. hahaha, oh well.

dinner was awesome! everyone did a wonderful job with their dishes and steve even had the meal paired with different wines. yumm! chuck had a great time as well, job well done guys!

happy birthday charles! many more to come, friend.

that's right, i scrapbook.

check out a blog posting i did for our mambi blog about building a scrapbook layout. i've said it before but i really think that scrapbook applies basic design principles. it's actually a really fun way to practice things that i learned in school and in the end come out with something that is memorable for me and can be a keepsake. sometimes i get to do fun stuff at work. hahaha, sometimes.

i've been really blessed to be asked to contribute to the mambi blog regularly. i've been asked to find a good picture of myself so the blog can profile all the contributors. not having a suitable specimen to submit i've asked nadia for a portrait session. hopefully we'll be able to work some magic and have a great shot to share on the mambi blog. we'll see!