Jo at A Bit Of This And A Bit Of That is encouraging bloggers in Japan and around the world to hold raffles and auctions to raise money for the relief effort. For my part, I'm offering...

This photo is just to give you an idea of the lovely watch you might win (more pictures at the end of post). Original Sanrio. Never been used, still in its box with warranty paper and with protective film still attached. Heart measures 1.5"x1.5", wrist band is adjustable. Inside the heart is Hello Kitty iconic face. The heart and kitty's face are covered in little clear gem stones. Retail price is $65. So if you're particularly interested about anything Hello Kitty and want to help our fellow humans please keep reading.

How to enter:

Go to  GlobalGiving.org (United States) or  GlobalGiving.co.uk (United Kingdom)and make a donation.

• Every $5 donation or 3 pound donation entitles you to one raffle ticket.
• After you have made your donation, come back and leave a comment on this post, telling me how much you donated (ie how many tickets you have bought) and your receipt number.
• Don't forget to leave your e-mail address in the comment too - you can write it as name 'at' yahoo 'dot' com if you are worried about spam.
• If you make a mistake or need to change your comment, please go back and delete your first comment and rewrite it.
• Open to anyone, anywhere in the world!
• The raffle will close at mid-night Colorado,US (mountain) time 26th March and the winner will be drawn at random and contacted by email. However, there may be people doing cash donations directly to me and I will donate it in their behave.
  
   

For help with the donation you can refer to this post http://jojoebi.blogspot.com/2011/03/how-to-make-donation.html

The raffle being held on this blog, and others around the blogosphere, is held in conjunction with A Bit of This and A Bit of That. We are in no way affiliated with global giving, that's just our chosen method of getting funds safely to the affected area.

Later this week Jo will be putting up a list of all the blogs involved in this appeal, each of which will be hosting their own raffle or auction, each requiring separate donations. So if you're not interested in the watch, there will be lots of other things to tempt you. Do please check out the others and enter as many as you can afford. Let's do what we can to help those in need. And if you blog, or Facebook, or Tweet, or have friends in real life, please do spread the word!

 

I think here is where I got the sunburn!

( More pictures! )

I had sunblock on but I still burned and my arms ache for holding Chloe all the time, she can walk but I was too scared to let her do it in the street with so many people marching next to us. I friend of mine came with me, Ray had to work but he tried to come with us.
The plan was to go to Denver even if I don't like it there and we have to pay parking plus I had Chloe and Ashely in a wheelchair I was going to be extra slow but we would support and my brother and more friends would be there! Then I found out on thursday that in Longmont had a rally too (plus a 5 de mayo festival) so I went there with one friend and my brother and the rest to Denver. The day was sunny and a bit of a cold wind but that helped when we were walking.
Everything was good, until the mexicanism came in. The rallies are to help all immigrants not just mexicans, we should have spoke in english for the most part, ranting in spanish doesn't help when the people that we need support from doesn't speak spanish. The law in Arizona not only targets latinos (although it is the main target) but also other immigrant groups. The kept screaming "viva mexico" "viva la raza" but the point of the rallies to me is to become american shouldn't we scream "viva america" "viva usa"? They kept saying thing only in spanish so I translated what they were saying and I screamed it in english "Obama, hear us, we are fighting for our rights" "Yes we can, we are all in this together!" My friend, after the shyness left him a little, started yelling with me in english, Ashley would do it too sometimes (she was just having fun!) and Chloe like all the clapping and whooping, she was very nice all day (no crying!) The guy that got everyone together kept ranting about latino children needing education and that there is no help for them because they are always in fear and how everyone is targeting latinos. I do believe in that but I also believe that we should teach them that latinos are not the only immigrants in the usa and that the anti-immigrant talks and laws affect everyone. If we are fighting for our rights, we are fighting for all races rights. If we speak only spanish to reach for support we are just proving them right that we don't want to learn english. If we wave the mexican flag, we're just saying we don't want to be american's (plus mexico is not the only latino, I don't see other non-mexican waving the flag.)
It just makes me sad.
When we got to the park, the end of the march, a group of dancers doing an "mexican indian" dance started celebrating cinco de mayo, which has nothing to do with dancing and is actually more form peru than mexican (cinco de mayo is a mexican holiday about the battle in puebla against the french, which is just really a day off in mexico and not that celebrated, they do a reenactment that day, no dancing) To me it was fun...for a few minutes. then it was just plain boring with all the praying to the sun god.
Anyway, I just find the whole cinco the mayo pointless. If we are to celebrate something mexican we should celebrate their independece (100th this year) or make a new celebration "Mexican day" or better yet "Latino day"

Extra fun! Studio22 (I have the website but I'll post it later) had a fashion show at the festival, I didn't stay to see it but this awesome guy let me take his picture. I love how all the stylist had their hair, and the manager is the nicest lovelies girl ever, I'm going to do an appointment wiht them, I think I need to change my black hair and ponytail!

6 months.

I'm going to do a sew-a-long hosted by Sew Spoiled . It looks fun, the only thing that is making me hesitate is how big the bag is (which I love) because I've only done small items... I wonder if I have to buy a cutting mat.

Crazy!!! So many things to do. I should be sleeping right now but I'm so happy I'm almost done with Chloe's party decorations. I hope the weather is nice this weekend (at least no snow!) but it is mainly indoors. Some people have rsvp'ed but maybe like 4 out of 20... Ray is sure they're going to show up (the other 16 are his family) but mainly our friends are going to be there, which is the people that Chloe knows most.

I've taken so many pictures of my work on the decor!! I may post everything in one go....

I still need to buy plates, tablecloth, trash bags, soda, juice...

Btw, it is all ladybug with a daisy here and there...

I also joined The Toy Society, as if I need more things to do! But I would like to do it, I make so many plushies and Chloe doesn't need more but I can't stop.... so I'm going to give them away every time I make one that I know I can say good bye to and hope it'll get a good home... I think I'll drop it around Lafayette after Chloe's birthday.

G'night!

After having french toast for breakfast (Ray used is chef skills) we got ready and went garage sale shopping. Only 3 this time, now that summer is done and getting colder maybe this will be the last weekend for them. But by mid day it got hot and we came back home. I bought some earrings and a necklace but I forgot to take a picture.




The decanter was $2 and the cake plate $1, the buddha watch is big like I use them and I had to have it $1.



Lovely gold wood frame for $1 and a white/gold mirror that in this picture looks like another frame $1.50. Now the picture tray is one of the items I love most! For $1.50 and dark chocolate color and the blue is what I'm decorating now adays. Perfect for the coffee table and to serve drinks with!!


Ray followed Chloe who followed me to the bedroom where I was taking pictures, then they were just playing there. The glass containers shown here are from a set of 14. I just took pairs to show the different sizes the came in $3. The white fish plate was so cute that is the only reason I bought it $0.25. The asian plate has a daisy (which is my name) $0.50. The white plate was adorable I wish they had more than just the one and I loved it more because of the silver medallion you see under the fish. Check the next picture!



Can you see how lovely they look together? It's going to be used like this after I glue it and hang on the wall (of our new place!)



This is new! Still has the tags and plastic. Picnic cheese set for two $0.50! Such a steal! Great for next year's summer outings, I'll get Chloe a Hello Kitty set later.

Talking about Chloe, while I was taking pictures she just wanted to grab and we with me. Ray got in his boxers and started playing with his gameboy (he bought a new game)  and Chloe just kept jumping him to get to me.



( More Chloe pictures... )

Now that we may have a house (we do the inspection next friday) I'm going to do Chloe's birthday there. I thought maybe we would have to do it at her grandma's, but we'll see (the new place needs new floors, I don't want carpet and then the moving part....)

I'm stuck on theme:
Ladybugs or Monkeys?

Her second name means ladybug but she is our chunky monkey. It depends what I like more too, and how she is going to dress.

Halloween is coming up too and I already choose to dress her as a monkey.

Maybe I'll do ladybugs for her b-day and that way she doesn't have two events that are almost the same (she was born on oct. 28th.)

Soooooo.......

The past couple of hours instead of looking at ideas for our new place I looked for b-day stuff and I found Lauren Meader. Her blog is full of inspiration, and she sells this cool templates but I can't decide yet which one I'm going to use. I still have time until her day comes but this year has been so fast (a year, a year!!) I can't believe it!

Chloe is crawling, travel walking, hitting, whining, she sleeps all night, her first tooth hasn't made an appearance.... so many things.

Well, here is another before and after.
I had already posted about this mirror before and now I'm just showing the details that are very note worthy. I glued the parts that had fallen off and when I took the backing off I discovered something that made me pause. There is a stamp/carving that says the company and date 1934! I felt bad to paint it and took me an extra day to finally do it.



I used Ralph Lauren Aegan blue semi gloss. Funny story, I went to home depot and they couldn't find the mix to make it and then they couldn't find 1/4 base so they made me a gallon for the price of a 1/4! Don't be surprised if you see many before and afters in this color.



At first it was just blue, but Ray nor my mother liked it that simple, they said it was missing something, too plastic. I liked it, but peer pressure and all.  So I used the same antique gold rub paint that I used for the chest legs and now they are happy wiht the result... and me too.



I know this aren't great pictures but I tried so many angles and this were the best I could do.

Now is Chloe's Toy crib. I bought it 3 months ago for $2 at a thrift store, Ray didn't want me to get it but I did anyway and now is the girlyest thing she has in her room. I bought her some daisy kingdom dolls, I love their faces and also because their eyes are painted and not those plastic eyeball eyes the open and close (they freak me out! Those kind of eyes remind me of Chucky!). Sorry I don't have a before picture, I started painting it and I forgot, but it took me 6 coats of paint to cover all the curves and make it this deep chocolate color. I re-padded the mattress with left over filling and fabric.





When we move to our new place I'm changing Chloe's room decor and when that happens the toy crib will have the same coordination as Chloe's bed.

Jack (black scotty) and Guero (orange cat) had to be in the pic with the dolls. I'm super allergic now to cats and dogs and this are the kind I had and wish I could have again.

Chloe has a horrible cough since tuesday, and today she is at the peek of her sickness. Well that is what I hope.
Ray is leaving work early so he can stay with her while I go to work. I don't want to but I already asked and they can't cover my clients, plus the state is doing test today.
The only good thing about today is that I get paid (yay!) and last night our realtor told us our offer got accepted. FINALLY! This is the seventh house we had put an offer on. Buyer's market my ass,  the banks are so picky on what you buy and houses are bought like hot cake by flippers that is very hard to get anything in the area that we want...any area. Plus our realtor and broker suck, big time!

I have a new before and after that I'll post later.

Amazon, I can find anything in Amazon, and yes I would share it with family and friends, what with the holidays coming up and all.

I bought this Lane Cedar Chest that is 50 years old. The veneer was peeling of at the top and back from water damage, I think someone spilled soda on it, and the lock was not child safe and I went to Lane's website to get a free replacement (very fast shipping).



I wanted a chest since before I got married and I was looking for a big one for the bottom of our bed. When I saw this chest I had to have it. I paid for it and had to come back a later time to pick it up because it wouldn't fit with Chloe's car seat in the car. Heavy too!! Now that I had it I wanted to match with the headboard as close as I could and Joann's had a 50% sale (Got 2 and half yards and same for padding). After 15 different fabric samples, ones of different texture and color, I choose this faux dark brown leather that was very similar to our headboard's fabric (even though in the picture the headboard looks black). Then last week I got very sick and I went to urgent care on sunday, where they gave me oxygen and medicine to fight an allergy attack that had made my lungs fill with sputum. I'm still getting rid of it.
Finally yesterday I got in action and finished the chest. In total I spent $50 in material and counting the chest I spent less that $100 to have the chest of a lifetime, because YES!! this is staying until I die.
BTW the legs are from an ottoman I bought for $5, and bought only because I liked the legs which I had the idea at first to install on a small bookcase I have but I'm loving them like this!!!




( More after pictures and open chest! )

Chloe had to be in the picture!! She wanted to grab the chest but the angle came out weird so I got her in the bed, real quick! She wanted to go to the edge.




( Step by step and leg details. )
Sorry for the lack of decoration in our room, we are buying a house and we have almost everything in boxes ready to move. Also, do you see the lamps? They're the ones I got at the garage sale for $5 the pair!