Momma's week, card challenge & stuff

My goodness...can't believe how time flies.

I have been stalking some big time fun craft blogs and have been enjoying all the many creative ideas people have which I've been implementing in some of my card creations. One of those such blogs is The Paper Player. Every week they post up a different challenge with a different theme for anyone to try out and link up to their site. I've been wanting to try my hands at their challenge but it seemed like something always got in the way. Well, it just so happen that this week, I happen to have a card that I created for my card group swap last month and what do you know, it fits into this week's theme, which is Birds, Bees, Flowers, & Trees, so I've decided to enter my card in that challenge.

Here's my card for this week's challenge. This is a Black Magic technique card...a technique I learned on Splitcoaststampers. If any one's interested in how to try this technique out, go here. Totally appropriate card for this occasion, don't you think?

Speaking of which, I made a really cute gift for my mother-in-law. Well, it's kind of a belated Christmas, belated birthday and Mother's Day gift all roll into one. I think I've mentioned before how my MIL loves getting pictures from our family, all she ever asked since we live so far away from her. But instead of just mailing pictures off to her, I always try to find ways to make the pictures a little more creative and so I've been wracking my brains out for how to present our latest family pictures when I saw this tutorial done on Dawn's blog.

This is an Envelope album..all made from card stock, background papers, simply scrapping kits from SU and then some. Cute uh? The next images are what the album looks like once it's opened. I know my MIL will totally flip over this gift of hers.








I used vellum envelopes(five total for five tag pages)for this album. I had so much fun making this album and totally loved it, I almost don't want to give it away.

~~sighs~~

I'll probably make another one for keeps with just the pictures of the kids. Cool thing about this gift is I will actually be able to hand this gift to my MIL in person so I get to see the look on her face when she receives it..she'll be here in a couple of week for my daughter's graduation.

Anyways, in light of Mother's Day coming up, I've been kinda treating myself a bit over the week. Yep, I've actually gone online shopping crazy and ordered a bunch of little fun treats for myself..well, most of the stuff I got are for the family, but still...One of the things I got for myself is this book below...it was written by one of the bloggers I stalk(eheh) and boy is this a wonderful treat. I've already finished reading it and will be writing up a review for it later on.

And I also got myself a new hair cut/do. It was actually a highlight of my day after getting my hair cut to see my kids come home from school, the looks on each of their faces. Unfortunately, I didn't do a before pic..so here's what me in my new do.

(Picture is a little blurry..oh well.)
I think this is the shortest I've had my hair. I just love it so much I couldn't stop feeling it. It's like I've had a ton of weight lifted off my head, it's so light now. And I love that I don't ever have to worry about running a brush or comb through it...no tangles to worry about.

To that end, I wish all you moms, moms to be, grandmas, aunties a wonderful Mother's Day. If anyone deserve to be pampered more is you all you absolutely wonderful moms!! Love and God bless!!

Weeks of Creativity

I did again...I've neglected my blog again. I've noticed that I haven't posted in a month. I can't seem to shake what ails me(LOL)...I guess I'm just not a diligent blogger. Oh well...

Anyways, I've been trying to be productive around my house to make it look like there is really an excuse for my looking busy when I'm actually not doing anything..LOL. Our card group is meeting again tonight and on top of that, we have Cub Scout pack meeting tonight also...I'm supposed to help my den come up with some talent for tonight. Let me tell you something, I am not that in the spotlight kinda talent person. I suck at dancing, singing, and just about anything that would have me up on the stage. Yes, we're talking stress here people. So, to get my mind off this stress that would've eventually put me in a psych ward, I decided to focus on the card night because let's face it, that is my best cure for stress.

Our Card exchange theme for this month is either Graduation or Wedding. So I camped out online looking for some very elegant, creative and beautiful technique and came upon a technique I just had to try. And what makes it even better was that I have all the supplies in my craft supplies. The next image is my card that I will be exchanging tonight...it's a wedding card, called a Double Pocket Card. (Click on that bold phrase if you want a tutorial of this card.)

There are two pockets on the front of the card where I put a tag for whatever sentiments anyone wants to put on it and a gift card in the other pocket. Creative uh?


I actually had so much fun with the above card, I decided to make a matching Cable Box as seen in the picture below. Now, I just need to find something in the theme of wedding to put in there. Totally fun and very elegant box, don't u think?


But it doesn't stop there...I was still having so much fun, I made another box. This is a 3" x 3" Note Card Tote. I used a cute stamp set called Forest Friends..a set I got for free from StampinUp. Yeah, I haven't made the note cards yet, but I will do that when I figure out who to give this to.


Next up is a 3" x 3" Notecard Box. Go here if you want to make this box too.


Next up is a little treat box that hold little Chirardelli square chocolate called Chirardelli Box. I need to add a little sentiment to it and maybe a little more embellishment in the front, maybe a little decorated latch to keep the box close.



A couple months ago we had a legal problem with our neighbors and there were a couple of guys who helped us out with our battle so my hub asked me to make them a couple of thank-you cards and maybe make something for their wives too. I finally got around to making them some assorted cards to give as gift and I made these two boxes below to put those cards in, to make it look more like a gift. These two boxes are called Card Purses...see how perfectly the cards and envelopes fit in the boxes? Cool, uh? And the neat thing is when they peruse all the cards, they can keep purses and use it for some other stuff...I love things that has multiple uses. (Thanks Laura for helping me with the cards.)




There is a running joke that I always tell people about myself. And that is, when I get overly stressed out about something, I tend to want to do something creative and I found that niche in my card making. I find that the more stressed out I am (I tend to want to make complex cards) the better and more creative my cards look. I kinda went crazy all of last week and this week making all these boxes and cards. Yesterday I thought I was done being creative, but instead I ended making the card in the next image. It is called a Magic Card. I have to take a several pictures of the card so you can see by what I mean when I say this card is a magic card.

Here's the card at first glance...completely boring looking, right? But look, there's a tap to pull it up...let's see what happens.


Here's a little pull....


and another pull...see any changes?


..more pull on the tap...


..and here the tap is pulled out completely. Whoa, how did that image end up in full color? Cool, uh? I had loads of fun making this and even more fun showing it off to my family. Everytime I show one of the kids the card, they just look at it with no interest and then when I started pulling on the tap, the expressions on their faces was worth all the hard work put into this card.


So there you have it folks...my little bits of creativity for the time being. If any of you are interested in making some these cards and boxes, you check out the gallery and tutorials on Splitcoaststampers website. They have a weekly challenge that host every week, I've joined it but I am not as diligent in posting the stuff I made in their gallery. Mainly because most of the time when I make the items in the challenge, I often forget to take pictures until after I've given the stuff away. Something I need to work on.

Hope you enjoy what you see...have a great Memorial weekend and God bless!!

P.S. It's She said/He said over at the Venus & Mars blog today and I'm going the She Said perspective...check it out and let us know your feelings of flirting while in a relationship.

Card Challenge & Mother's Day Tribute to my Followers!!

Ok folks...Ter's card challenge is back and I am really excited to participate in it again. I made two cards so I decided to submit them both to the challenge. Our group card exchange was held last week and this is the card I made for the swap. The theme was Mother's Day or Father's Day card. I chose to make a Mother's day for the swap and since this weekend is Mother's day, I decided to enter this card in Ter's Card Challenge. Very appropriate, don't you think?

I have so much fun making this card...had a little bit of a challenge trying to coordinate the colors the way I want them. The emboss look of the background paper was done using cuttle bug and then I used a scallop circle tie cut in pink to make that cute pocket. The flower was done using water color crayon. I tried to make this card using different technique and it was really fun.

This is what the outside looks like.
I stamped the Happy Mother's day inside.

This is the card I made at the swap. My friend wanted to show the ladies how to do resist technique and that is done by first stamping the images on glossy paper using Versa Mark then using a brayer, you roll the ink over the Versa Mark image a few times til the paper is covered with the green color. Wipe off any excess ink and it'll bring out the image in white.
Another idea for this card she wanted to show the ladies was how to make a pop-up card using our Word Window punch. This is what it looks like on the inside. Very simple yet has a bit of an elegance to it. When the card is opened, the flower popped out, isn't it cute? Another fun card to make.
So there you go folks...those are the cards I'm submitting at Ter's card challenge for this week. If you want to see cards other people submit to her challenge, go here and check it out.



Now.....if you are one of my followers and you can see it on my right sidebar if you are and of course I know who you are, the rest of this post is for you. If you are curious and would like to see what the rest of the post is about but you are not on my follower list, then take a short step to my right side bar and put your name on my follower list and then proceed on to the rest of the post....I am not trying to bribe anyone but I just thought I'd like to do something special for my peeps.

So to those special and wonderful people who are following this very humble blog, I want to return your kindness and love by giving you something for this upcoming special occasion. In honor of Mother's Day, I want to send each of you a beautiful home-made card made by yours truly and the ladies in my card swap as a token of my appreciation and love for your time and thoughtfulness in signing on to follow my blog and leaving me comment love. It may be something insignificant to some of you but it means a great deal to me so that's why I am doing this for you.

I will post a slide show of the cards I will be sending you wonderful ladies on my sidebar so you can see what you will be getting. No two people are getting the same card...each one of you will be getting your own. So, go to my profile and email me your mailing address so I can mail each of you your card before Mother's Day. I know, I procrastinate a lot that's why I am just posting about this now...but I am hoping that y'all will respond quickly so you can get your card before Sunday.

Oh yeah, those local followers, you know who you are, I can easily find you so you don't need to email me your address..lol.

Ok...I'll be waiting on your email folks...mahalo!!

God bless!!

Look what I was doing on Saturday....

This past Saturday I attended a regional seminar for StampinUp at the Honolulu Convention Center. My friend Joce, who was also my upline, drove us down there. We had loads of fun meeting the other StampinUp demonstrators from Hawaii and doing what we love.

Here we were showing off our name badges. The co-founder of StampinUp signed our name tags so we thought it would be great to show it off, of course you can't really see the signatures on there, but it's ok.



Here are some pictures I took at the seminar:

One of the demonstrators made these and put them on display. These are neclaces, earrings and bracelets. Can you look closely and tell what those jewelries are made out of?

Yep, they are made out of sprite and coke can and soda tops. Isn't that creative? This demonstrator is actually a guy so can you picture his wife's jewelry box? I mean this is really creative and I never thought to do something like this but it's not something I will be wearing. Of course, everyone has their own taste, right?

Below are some poster board that are on display of all the different cards you can make from certain stamps. They had these boards cover the back of the room and they are all beautiful but I thought I'd just pick out a few to show off.

It was really fun to see all these different ideas that different people can come with using the same stamp.

Now, for this card, I'm entering in Ter's card challenge for this week. The front of the card says "Celebrate" and when you open it up, those three bears pop out. They are actually surfing. I thought this would be a really good masculine card and very fitting for where I live, don't you think?

I didn't make this card but I just love it. I am big fan of pop-up cards so when one of the demonstrators demo this at the regional I just had to see it and take picture of it. Now I just want to buy the stamp set and play with it. I really love the pop-out idea so I will be making some pop up cards soon.

We had some make & takes and this is one of the cards I made to take home. This one is a mini card folder.

On the left is what it looks when it's closed and on the right is what it looks when opened. There are three mini envelopes and three mini note cards inside the folder.


The is a picture of the other three cards I made to take home. They were very simple but really cute. I used a sizzlix with StampinUp's newest addition, Big Shot, which is a dye cut machine to make the flower on the blue card. The other two cards, I used water color technique using water color crayon. A very fun technique and it is just perfect since I will be demonstrating this very technique on our next card swap.


We also did swap at the seminar, not full cards but face cards which is ideal for future card making ideas. This is my bundle I took home with me. I just love getting different ideas from other people who share the same interest as me. These come in very handy for when I run out of ideas and time, I can just grap these and add folded backing to them I got me some very creative and beautiful cards.

And of course, there was no way I was going to leave the seminar without taking picture of me with the Co-Founder and full owner of StampinUp.

I had a really great time. The seminar started from 8 in the morning and ended at 4 p.m. and I was sitting at our table the whole time stamping, chatting and watching all the different demonstrations yet when the time came for us to leave, I felt like I was there for just a few minutes. It is definitely true when people say time flies when one's having fun and that's how I feel when I'm either making cards or hanging out with my card swap group.

StampinUp's Statement of the Heart that I live by {best as I can}: To love what we do and share what we love, as we help others enjoy creativity and worthwhile accomplishments......in this we make a difference.

This is so true. I had a really good experience, I learned a great deal more and I came home feeling refreshed and excited to create more.

This Week's Card Challenge

This is my "love" card for this week's challenge. The card topic for this week is perfect since this week is my wedding anniversary. I will be posting about that later on this week.

This card like all the other cards I've made is loads of fun to make. This time I use water color to do the sunset scene and tearing edges to give it a little dimensional and reality look. I use rubber stamp to stamp the couple and then use water color markers to color the picture...this is actually one of my favorite stamp. I was trying to make it look like the couple is sitting at the beach enjoying a nice serene sunset. That was one of the things my hubby and I used to do when we were dating and we still try to do that now whenever time and schedule permits. Isn't it romantic? I think so.

So, enjoy!!