Another Birthday Comes and Goes

It was a great day. I spent the morning with friends, the afternoon stitching and watching a movie, and ended with dinner at Char with my girlfriends (it was poker night).

Saturday my birthday continued as I spent the day exactly the way I wanted. I worked in my scrapbook room all morning and went from this:

A huge mess. I used to be really disciplined and cleaned up after each scrapbooking session. As I've been busier and we've been traveling more, I found myself with little time to scrapbook. I was barely able to keep up with my AYM and round robin layouts.

 After 4 and a half hours, I got everything sorted, re-organized and cleaned up.

 The assorted things you see here are some class materials for an upcoming kit.

I got my photos re-organized and back in the appropriate albums. These albums need to be cleaned out as do my embellishment containers. That's a good job to do in front of the tv. Soon (I hope).

This is what I have left to do---put all of these layouts in albums. I'm having a little contest with my friends to guess how many there are. I'm looking forward to finishing this today.

I finished working in my scrapbook room around 1 p.m. I spent the rest of the afternoon stitching and watching a movie. I really want to finish my 3D Santa project. That should happen today. The movie I watched was Mona Lisa Smiles with Julia Roberts---really good.

Stephanie, Nicky, Mindy and Justin came to celebrate my birthday. I didn't want to eat out because we've been eating out so much lately. I planned the meal and the girls brought the sides. We had Cornish game hens, wild rice, salad, roasted carrots and black Forest cupcakes for dessert.

I also made Sandy's crockpot hot chocolate recipe to have with Bailey's and Godiva Chocolate liquer. So good and sinfully rich. But since it was my birthday, I decided to splurge. I sent some home with Steph and Nicky and kept just one cup for myself. I'll have that tonight.

As always, my favorite thing to do is to set the table.

 I did the table first thing in the morning.

 I made "candle" napkin folds.

I didn't really have a centerpiece so I just pulled some things together. What better platform to build it on than a cake plate!

I bought a pair of crystal candle holders at a craft fair years ago. I liked how they used old things to decorate them.

I added the candy jar from the living room filled with "golden" kisses. The white snowball looking things are actually floating pool lights that Elizabeth gave me a few years ago. They no longer work but since they look like snowballs, I kept them. Butch is going to see if there are batteries that can be replaced. I also had silver "ice" scatters that I used.

And then there were the presents. I had already received a few things from friends: earrings, Regal gift card, Kindle book and lounging pants. Shown here are the gifts from the girls. The assorted fun plates and napkins are from Stephanie. Mindy gave me the L'Occitane lotion and body scrub. Sandy gave me the Victoria Secret "paint pen" perfume and the Kate Spade book. I received a few cards too. Oh, and Butch "gave" me a floor frame for my stitching projects. Sometimes, you need both hands! I actually bought it for myself, but he said it was from him. Okay by me!

We spent the evening playing poker. After Mindy and Justin left, Steph, Nicky, Butch and I played Racko.

It was a fun two days of birthday fun. I'm happy to be stretching it out for today too! All in all, it was a fun birthday. My next one is just around the corner. They are coming fast these days (years)!!