All Aboard for our Train Case Swap & FUN at Joy's House!

Missing in action????? I bet that's what you think!

Well almost...

We bought our house back in February 2013 & ever since it's been a crazy re-model & move merry go round.  In between trying to heard the goat rodeo of contractors & take care of "life" & work I've had my hands FULL!!!!!!  In June (this year) I got a pass!  "Daddy Darling" (that's one of hubby's nick names) said go play with your girls for your birthday!  He didn't have to tell me twice!  

One of the things we did while there was to do our Train Case Swap.  This started A LONG TIME AGO!  Back in January 2013 Joy Campbell came up with the idea & we all agreed.  Little did we know that of the 6 that started (Cindy Craine dropped out due to having the shingles) 3 of us would sell our houses & move.  Not only did we move we did HUGE re-models.  Needless to say the Train Case became a derailment!  18 months latter we got together to exchange the cases that traveled from California to Texas to Washington state.  Below is four of us with our finished cases.  Vickie Orlando was also in the swap but, she was out of town at The Country Living Antique Show back east when we got together.  She & Sandy had a pre-party for her to open hers.

Left to right is ME,  Sandy Navarro , Joy Campbell & Laurie Garcia.

The OUTSIDE of the cases!  We bought our own cases & decorated a little bit to develop the "theme".

 The case was then sent to the next person who put at least one personal touch to the outside & then we added 5 to 6 things that the receiver would possibly use to "CREATE" with.  Or something special you thought that she might like.

Since Cindy had not done a case we each gave her a few goodies & the adorable Doll Head Fur Muff was given to her by Laurie.  As anyone who knows Cindy knows... she is CRAZY about dolls/doll heads.  Laurie said she remembered having one of these as a little girl.  When she went to church (she lived up north) it was one of her favorite things to have as it kept her hands warm & was a toy to play with while sitting still.  IT WAS PERFECT for Cindy!

 The weekend was held at Joy's new home near Temecula.    BEAUTIFUL doesn't even begin to describe her home & the grounds around it.

 Dinner in her back yard.  Good dinner with AMAZING FRIENDS!

Above you see some of the fun....  Diana Salvucci Smith also joined us & you can see in the photo to the left we were doing chocolate cake shooters.  And Cindy/Joy messing around being silly.  With Joy doing a photo bomb on my case.  We had sooooooooooooo much fun!  THANK YOU JOY FOR OPENING YOUR HOME FOR US & FOR BEING AN AMAZING HOSTESS!

 On Friday we all took off to go to Vintage Market Place in Rainbow, CA.  Our sweet friend Cynthia  met us to shop & party.  We also ran into Jan & her husband Steve while we were there.

This was so cute but, I bought the Mermaid &  "Cocktail" sign all done in lights.  I don't know why I didn't take a picture of what I bought but, I guess I took this thinking I would add this cutie to the other things later & would need a gentle nudge to remember him.  I'll share my purchase when I get them hung.  Not much was purchased by me but, I can say I did my share of the HUGE shipping bill in size of the items.  Oh well...

I'll try real hard to be back soon to share our class that we did at Andrea's house.  The teacher was Robin Dudley Howe & we had a wonderful time.  Andrea's house is AMAZING & I took tons of photos of her studio.  Glad to be back in BLOGland.  I've missed you!