Sickness and Card, oh my....

Our house has been boggled down with sickness. Two weeks ago my son, Jonathan, came down with sore throat and fever and I kept him home from school for three days. Then just as he was getting better, I came down with the sore throat, fever, ache everywhere and had to spent practically a four day weekend in bed. Most frustrating thing about the sore throat was that eventhough it was painful and inflamed, the doctor said there was nothing wrong with my throat. I took a throat culture and when the results came in three days, it was negative, no strep which was a good thing. My throat was hurting for seven days and I was told that I was congested so therefore I was given some congestion medication. As the pain was easing up, the incessant cough started...I practically spent a whole week coughing non-stop. It was ok during the day, but when nighttime fell, it was torture. I think I only have a total of 48 hours of sleep in one week so I spent most of my days, walking around the house like a zombie...nothing, and I mean absolutely nothing got done around here. I was sleep deprived.

While I was still feeling sick, my little girl Kaitlin was sick also, her fever was constantly on a roller coaster ride. Along with that, she was vomitting all over the place and running in and out of our bathroom, she had diarrhea..poor thing. Just as we were getting better, both Joey and Daniel came down with the same thing. Three days after they got better, my hub came inherited everything else everyone has had for past week or so. Gosh, it felt like a never ending cycle. As I'm sitting here writing, my Kaitlin is coughing, she's moved on to coughing while my daughter Stephanie is in here room with the same thing we've had so far. She's been sick all weekend so she's been sleeping most of the time. Oh yeah, for some reason, the sore throat has affected the taste buds of anyone who has contracted it. I think I literally went on a four day fast during the time I had sore throat. I was literally shaking on the fourth day that I decided to make some chicken soup and slurp on the broth. It did the job.

There are still two members of our household who haven't gotten sick for far and I pray they don't get sick too. Seeing how misery seems to love company, they probably might come down with something over the weekend. My son Chris announced last night during FHE that this Friday he's taking a girl to the school dance so I cross my finger he doesn't get sick by then. It's so cute, it is going to be his first official date..awwww.

So yeah, that's what's been happening in our household right now. I'll be glad when everything gets back to normal again.

On a brighter note, being sick sometimes has its advantages. Being sick frees up a person from his/her usual chores or duties for the time being, yet said sick person can still enjoy or do something fun for a change. So that's what I did, I took advantages of my break and play with papers..our card group had our meet last week so I made some cards. I wasn't able to take picture of the card I made for our swap but I made a card for a challenge that I participate every week and had my daughter take picture of it. It's actually going to be my valentine's day card for my hub. So here it is:

I know, that's a lot of red. And it looks simple enough. I love this image..it's become my signature image when it comes to my hub and I. I like using this image when I make a card for my hub...when we were dating, we were poor poor students so most of our dates were either at the beach or ended at the beach.

The next image is the surprise part. Everyone who knows me, especially when it comes to card making, knows I love 3-D or pop up cards. I would say I am obsessed with pop-up card. The picture you see above, that was what the card looks like laid flat. If you look closely, you will see that there's a little indented area where you pull on it and once you pull it, viola!!

It pops up and stands on its own. And of course, there's a greeting that was revealed. I wish I can say that this is all my idea but no...some other very clever and creative person came up with the idea. Like I said, there's a challenge that I participate in each week...the coordinators come up with a technique, give us the instruction on it and then challenge us to create one. I don't usually do all of them. I usually like to tackle the 3-Ds or pop up ones and the complicated the technique the better...as far as I'm concerned.

So there you have it folks. Hope you all are having a good week and that you're all healthy.

God bless and ♥ always,

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.

My Little Creative Week

As the busiest time of the year approaches, life has gotten more hectic lately. Of course when things get hectic, life can be pretty much stressful for anyone. So you can pretty much guess that I am actually in a state of stress right now..LOL..but there's actually a good thing that comes from my stress, I tend to want to create. And what better thing to create than doing what I love doing which is making home-made greeting cards. And my favorite kind of seasonal card is Christmas card, there's just something about Christmas card that just hard to resist. So that is what I spent my week doing.

Our card group is meeting again in a couple of week and the theme is Christmas. I am the demo for this month so I set out on the great virtual world of the Internet to see what other creative people are making for the season to come. And I found just the cards that I love. For the demo in a couple of week, I will be making the card below. It's a Mosaic technique...found this on Dawn's site..she is one creative lady.

I used Real Red (a SU brand) for the main card. Then using sticky sheet, I cut out a 2" strip and then cut up some little strips of designer papers, also from Stampin'Up in different triangular sizes and randomly paste them all over the sticky paper...the little sticky exposed that are no covered by the designer paper, I cover it with gold embossing powder and then heat it with an embossing tool to give it that golden look, to give it that mosaic look. And then to keep up with the Christmas theme, I stamped a tree image with green ink and mount it on green paper and tied a gold cord through it. Very simple and still cute...something the ladies in my group will definitely enjoying making for sure.

This next card is what I will be making for the exchange. It's called a Slider card. There's a tag on the left side of the card that when pulled, the truck moves forward. As you can see, that man in the car is obviously been looking for a Christmas tree for his family (I assume he has a family, LOL) and has found just the perfect tree so he's now making his way back home. Looks like he happened upon the perfect forest to get the right tree. (I had to take four pictures of this card just to show how it works...isn't it just the cutest card?)



Next card is a diorama card/box. The way this card was made, it looks as though those polar bears can just jump out at ya. There are three layers on this card and each layer has a different bear...on the very last layer, at the very back, I stamped the image of the trees on glossy white paper and then sponged the top portion of the white paper with some blue ink and then attached the bear using dimensional. Because of the glossy paper, it looked like the bear was actually sliding on ice. You have to click it to make it big to see what I'm talking about. If interested in making this box, go here.This is the view you get when looking down into the box. See the baby bear trying to get a picky-back ride from momma-bear..LOL..so darling!!Here's the same kind of card, using a different Christmas stamp. This is the nativity scene. Look how each group of visitors are making their way to see baby Jesus.

Here's a wiper card. This is what it looks like flat. The polar bear image is an old SU set that I bought a while back. It is actually one of my favorite stamp and I used it for Christmas a lot. Click on the picture to see it enlarge and you'll notice that the bears actually has furs on them. Ok, so it wasn't actually fur but the stuff I used actually make the bears to have furs.This is what pop-up part. When you hold both ends on either sides of the card and pull, you will get that little image pop up at the top left hand corner. I also used designer papers on this card too and I went a bit further and added a rhinestone brad with two silver brads so it looks like the bears were looking up at the brads.


This last one, is my favorite. It's called a Step card. The fact that a picture can be attached to this card, I just love it. I am always looking for way to make Christmas card to send to family and friends where our family picture is attached to it and I finally found this. I totally ♥ this card so much, this is going to be my family's Christmas card this year. {Baby picture is of my daughter Stephanie, I was going to use Kaitlin's picture but all of her pictures are on disk or my computer and when I went to develop one yesterday at the grocery store here on this side of the island, the darn thing is broken so I have to settle with this old picture. It's still cute though, don't you think?}
So there you have it..my little creativity for the week. Stay tuned for more, I'll be posting the cards the lady in my group make for our swap. Hope you like this little bit of creation. Happy blogging and God bless!!

My Little Weekend Creation

So I've finally figure out what's been plaguing me lately. Yes, I have a visitor right now...you know the kind of visitor that visits WOMEN only and once a month? It seems before this visitor made an appearance, she would do all kinds of weird things to my physical and mental state that pretty much makes me the most impatient and the least kind person in the world. Well, now that she's actually here and I can physically see her (lol), I can deal with her...ahahah.

Well, now that I've at least come to terms with what's been plaguing me, I can put that to rest and move on to something more pleasant. I wasn't aware that this is a Memorial day weekend and therefore there will be kids underfoot another extra day so I will definitely use that to my advantage. My mother-in-law is visiting and will be here this Tuesday so I'm going to need all the extra hands I can get to help me put my house in something that resembles a bit of order before she gets here. I'm actually looking forward to seeing her..haven't seen in her in a long time and the kids are really excited to see Nanny.

Ok so my weekend is going ok. I joined my friend to go do the "Relay for Life" at midnite on Friday and I found out that was a really neat and fun thing to do. We did an hour walk, I didn't count how many laps we did and it was great. I mean I killed two birds with one stone, I did a good thing for a good cause and I burned some calories...who said good causes supposed to benefit only the receiver? LOL

On a more creative note....our card group had our swap on Friday night and I was the demonstrator. I had a blast again, as always. The ladies love my card I made for swapping and my demo was easy, fun yet cute. My friend called me later to rave about how much she loved my card...I admit, of all the cards I made, the one I made this month is my favorite. And not just because it's cute and I had to combine at least two different ideas to create it but because of my daughter's graduation coming up in a few days, she was my inspiration behind the card. So do you guys want to see my card I made to swap with the ladies? Do you? Ok...here we go!


Isn't it cute? The owl is graduating...lol. Red, white and black is my daughter's school's color. The owl was made with different hole punches.

But wait, there's more...look closely, see what the owl is hiding behind him. Yep, when you lift the flap behind the owl, there's a little envelope where a dollar bill or even a gift card lay safely awaiting to be discovered...isn't that cute?

And then when you open the card itself, the sentiments are written in there, like this. (Click on the images to see it enlarge so you can read what it says.)

And for the demo, I did this card. Our theme was either Graduation card or Wedding card. I had to go with graduation because of my daughter. So here's another graduation card that I demo for the group...it was very easy and the ladies loved it. This is a money card...

You pull out the band in the front and then the card is then able to open. There's a little pouch inside where the money goes. Isn't it cute? I got this idea from Dawn at her stamping studio and if anyone is interested to see how to make it, go here. She has step by step video of how to make it. I love the versatility of this card, you can also use it for birthday, and of course wedding and any other occasion that calls for money giving.
Don't you just love it?

Anyways, doing something creative like this is such a big stress-reliever for me. My next project or at least for this week is making leis. I've mentioned before how leis are big here in Hawaii. People use leis for every occasion and with graduation in a few days, my daughter have a ton of friends she wants to give leis to so I can't wait to get started on them. I have three different leis that I will be working on...candy lei, the ever popular among kids, ribbon lei and money lei. A lot of work but a lot of fun too. That's why I'm so glad my MIL will be coming in a couple of days, she can help Steph and I make the leis and she gets to learn how to make a lei. Who knows she just might start trend when she goes back to Arizona...woohoo...lol. For this kind of creation I would gladly ignore my kids for a few days and I wouldn't mind that at all...lol....kidding. So, aside from this little creation of mine, this weekend is proving to be a peaceful one.

By the way...thank you all for the support and understanding as I was trying to ramble my thoughts out of my head..it's such a relief to be able to ramble on knowing there are people who care what one's experiencing at the moment. Hope you all are having a nice peaceful Memorial weekend. God bless!!

A Little Creativity

This past Saturday our Monthly card group had another get together to swap card, create beautiful cards and just enjoy each other's company. Our theme for this month was on Celebration. Since last month and this month is Sell-a-Bration months for StampinUp, we chose the month of March to the month where each person can create any card they want using either recent Sell-a-Bration stamps or accessories or past Sell-a-Bration products.

I was the demo for this month so I chose to demo water color technique using SU's watercolor crayons. I think of all the inks in the catalogue, watercolor crayons are the only inks we haven't tried yet so I thought it would be a really fun technique to try.

This is the card I demo that night. I use one of the stamps from our Sell-a-Bration catalogue to stamp the outline of the flowers in Stazon Black ink pad and then using watercolor crayon, I color directly on the stamp and then spray a little water on it and then stamp it inside the outline. The ladies loved this technique especially when using the Aqua pen to distribute the ink evenly inside the outline of the flower and leaves. And of course, a card would never be complete without the use of ribbon and brads, as far as I'm concerned. Very simple, yet elegant and cute at the same time, what ya think?

Here are some of the cards that some of our ladies made. I am trying not to make a really long post by posting all the cards, there were five ladies who couldn't make it to our card swap so I haven't gotten their cards yet, so I've decided to feature some of my favorites on this post. I will be posting the rest of the cards on my card slide show on the left side bar if any of you are interested to see them all.

This card on the left was made by our thirteen year old member. She used one of our dye cuts to create this card and a five petal flower punch. Very simple too yet cute. She was really excited to try out the newest addition to the SU collection, the Big Shot. Good job Jasmine!!The card on the right was made by Jocelyn, Jasmine's mom. See how she recycle...she uses the negative cut-out from her daughter's cards (Saffron card stock) to add a little illusion to her card. Isn't that clever? I love this card, very brilliant Joce.


Brandi made this card. She used Elegant Eggplant ink pads to stamp the chandelier and the sayings on So Saffron card stock. Those are colors that are rarely combined but she used them and they look absolutely wonderful together. Who'd have thought uh? And look how elegant that makes. I just love that chandelier stamp. She even used a rhynestone brad on the chandelier. Loooove it!!

This is Sister Dixon's card. If you look closely, you can see all the stitched marks she made. She used a gel pen to make all those stitches to make it look like a quilt. Who said that stitched quilt squares are only meant for fabric. This card even though may look simple, took a lot great deal of time and love to make. All the little squares are punched out using square punch and then glued on individually and then she used the gel pen to draw all those stitches on. A lot of work on just one card so imagine making that same card fourteen times...that was how many cards she made for the swap. LY Sis. Dixon...love this card.
The next card...the one we always wait til last to pass around, was made by our very creative and talented Kathy...I mentioned before that all her cards she made, there are a story attached to each one of them.This one she said, it was inspired by one of her scrap book pages she made for one of her grand daughter. Look how she used a ribbon to make the stem and leaves of the flower, very creative. Now I gotta tell you a little about Kathy. A few years ago, she was called as our RS homemaking Counselor and I was the RS secretary. At time, card making was big thing for me, still is, so I was always looking for people to either host card parties for me or join my group. We had a Presidency meeting one weekend and I have a SU party that I was hosting and demonstrating so I just casually invited all three ladies to come if they have time. So, she came along with the RS President, I gotta admit, she was the one I least expect would even show up. It turned out she was looking for something her mom could do to pass the time in her old age. But then when Kathy came to my SU party, it turned out to be something she really loved doing. It was always nice seeing how she incorporate all the technique and products not just in making cards but everything else she touches. And it's soo cute that her hubby is her biggest fan, the most supportive husband, whenever he travels for business, he always stop at a craft store and buy her something to add to her neat collection.

Of course, I can't just end it here without showing you my card I made. I am always into making fun cards, maybe because of the fact that my kids are my main critique and users of my creativity, I have to make cards that they love. Seriously, whenever I am creating a project, as soon as I am done with it, I would take it to each of the kids to ask for their input. It's actually a great way for me to find out what colors are more interesting to each kid. So here's my card...I borrowed this idea from Dawn.


I used the same stamp set that I used for the demo to make my flower but in this card I didn't use the watercolor technique. Looks very simple and kinda bland, isn't it? The fun part of the card is that you slide the yellow half of the card like it showed on the left. It's kinda like a "surprise!!" card. Very cute, very simple yet something a kid would spend time playing with...sliding the top back and forth, like sliding a door open and close, no?

My kids love this card, so do I. It's a bday card, can't wait to see which one of the kids is going to claim this one for his/her friend.

Our hostess was so cute, her whole theme for the night was St.Patrick's Day. The food were all green, we had green veggies, green salad, green chicken enchiladas, and lime-ade for drink. She even made green hats made out of papers and filled them with any green covering candy she could get her hands on and stacked those hats on a pyramid on top of her table. And then she printed up some Irish proverbs, curses, prayers and even lullaby for us to pass the time while waiting for the late-comers. It was absolutely wonderful. I regret that I forgot to take my camera with me that night....again.

Hope y'all like this little creativity. Enjoy!!

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.