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 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!!