I made Dawn's Pop Up card!

I've always wanted to learn how to make this cool card. Thanks to Dawn over at Dawn's Stamping Thoughts, she did a tutorial! check out her blog for some really cool stuff! If you're interested in the tutorial, she has that posted on her side bar under tutorials. I was so amazed that I actually was able to make this card. I'm spilling the beans, but this card is my rak for someone from JT's monthly aloha rak club...hope she likes it! Looking forward to September's RAK...can you all believe that September starts tomorrow??? As I'm getting ready to go to work in a few minutes (it's 5:30 a.m.) I'm also trying to gather my tool kit to take to Wini's house tonight. We are getting together tonight to do tons of projects! This gathering is a belated celebration of my turning 21 :) Jen will also be doing a TAC demo for us and projects - yipee! I won't be able to concentrate at work today!! Happy weekend to everyone!

Darcie's Halloween RAK

Got this cute Halloween RAK from my friend, Darcie. I love Halloween! This cute set is called Batty for You and I can think of a bunch of things to do with it!! Thanks, Darcie!

It's a long weekend everyone! Enjoy!

My 50 Christmas Card Class

It was a beautiful, hot sunny day! A perfect day for a card class!! Here's the view from my driveway looking at the mountains. I can see the mountains and hear the ocean, isn't that cool? This past Saturday was my 50 Christmas card class for customers. I set up my garage classroom style so we were all facing one direction and we stayed in one seat for the whole class. Usually, we set up stations for each card, but making 50 cards, hmm, had to think of a better set up.
Here's Fay, Michelle & Sandy sitting up close to get the best view of the cards on display.
Rae-Lynn is at the stamping table. Yes, I had one table to do all of the stamping and cutting. This worked out well too. Everyone bought their own tool kit so they could move along without waiting for tools.

I got a new toy to display my samples. It's a shoe rack I picked up from City Mill. I'm so happy with it!!

A shout out to my "posse" Wini and Irene for coming to my rescue by helping me cut the scrapbook kits for everyone! THANK YOU LADIES! I truly appreciate it from the bottom of my heart!! Having the kits on back order from SU kind of threw me off. Originally, everyone was to cut their own papers, but we ended up cutting all the papers for everyone. If you attended my class, please let me know if you enjoyed it, if it was too much. Feedback is good for me so I can plan other classes. Next month, Christmas tags!! 50 sounds like a good number...

A Fabulous RAK from Liann!!

Wowee!! Look what I got from Liann of Japan! I got two wonderful birthday cards along with alot of other cool stuff! Two tins, ribbon and a cork board to decorate! Mahalo Liann!! Another cool thing, it came in a huge PINK mailer...how did you know that Pink is my favorite color!

Had to post something!

This is a photo album that I covered and decorated a while back, but I love it and had to post something since I've been absent another week from the blog world. I bought a whole bunch of cute mini photo albums from Price Busters and covered them with scraps of paper. Then added the frog, a QK die, button and ribbon, simple!
I'm hoping to finish some cards tonight so I can start posting again. Other happenings to be shown soon is the fun baby shower for Carri that we had on Sunday. Happy Tuesday!

Here we go again!

I live a crazy life. Not that any of you don't, but sometimes I get so overwhelmed I have to stop and take a step back to see where the heck I am. Then, I have to have a plan of action to see how in the world I'm gonna tackle all that I need to get done!! August went by super fast so I'm actually relieved that my 50 Christmas card classes are done, the Made In Hawaii show is done and the baby shower for Carri is done. Here's more to add to the crazy life ... after weeks of complaining by my son that his ankle and thigh is sore, I finally told Eric to take him to the doctor to get x-rayed. I decided this after I had this conversation with Crystal, my hair stylist who knew someone's child who kept complaining about pain in his thigh and leg. Well, this child ended up with being diagnosed with a hairline fracture in his thigh! Thank goodness this was not the same with Nolan, but when he came home with this leg boot, I was surprised to find out that he had some kind of sprain in his tendon. Anyway, here's a pic of him on his first day home with his new leg boot. He has to wear this for a couple of weeks and then go to ankle therapy. Soccer is on hold right now...just in the start of a new season. Oh well! **sigh**

Cute card from Nancy!

Wow! Look what I received in the mail from Nancy Grant. Her blog is Inkcicles, such a fitting name as she lives in Alaska! Nancy won my last blog candy and she was so sweet to make me a card with some of the winnings. Thank you Nancy! Love the way you colored this cute birdie!!

Made in Hawaii

Welcome back! Haha! I'm welcoming myself back into the blog world. It's been a week since I last posted. I was helping my girlfriend, Carri and her hubby Eric who own BERRY SWEET BATH & BODY at the Made in Hawaii show that took place at the Blaisdell Center. I worked the show Friday, Saturday and Sunday! The time flew by as thousands of people shopped, sampled products and foods of Hawaii. It was so nice to see some of you there! Thanks for stopping by to say hello to me. For you island girls, if you're looking for some cute gifts, you gotta stop by Berry Sweet to check them out. You can find this cute boutique at 3478 Waialae Avenue, right across from Harry's Music Store. They had a whole bunch of new products! You guys know my favorite - the Body Souffle! Here are pics of the booth! Will be posting cards soon, I miss you guys!

A card from my favorite cousin!

I love this card! My favorite cousin, Jilly T made this card for me. I love the way she used the Hero Arts ribbon stamps, almost fooled me as well as some of the ladies I showed this card to. Thank you for my card!!



P.S. The cat stamp is a Whipper Snapper stamp I bought from Jen's store, Little C's!

All Kine Ways challenge and a simple card

I didn't think that I'd have time to do Jen's challenge this week, but I did! Here's what I came up with:

I love this Moose You stamp set. For the first card, I used my swirl CB folder for the background and then used my papers from the prints sampler. I used the ticket punch for the corners and added gold brads. The flower is from the same stamp set.

This second card I liked better. I used some ds paper (I forgot the name of the paper!! Giga circle punch and mega scallop circle. Vintage violet stitched ribbon and my white gel pen (I just love that pen!). The lavendar background is also paper from the sampler pack. I like the second card better.

I've been struggling the past few days trying to work on my thank you cards to those who blessed me with birthday gifts...sometimes I get this mental block because I want to do something really cute, but since I have too many things to do, I'm trying to keep it simple and because I have many to make. Here's one that I finally liked...TFL! Last thing...just had to say that I'm so glad that Hurricane Flossie turned into a tropical storm instead...we are all safe, thank goodness!

Lunch time project

Lunch time, a time for a short break from the computer, telephone and paperwork!! Not all the time it happens that way! Once a month, Darcie, Jean and I try to get together for lunch and then to brainstorm on ideas. Last week, Jean brought the new CTMH winter catty for us to drool over - I have my eyes on a couple of sets!! I brought this simple project for the three of us to do. I bought these cute little journals from Price Busters. They came three books in a little sleeve and actually decorated with a cute design. Of course, we wanted to alter these babies, so this is what I came up with! I used the DS paper Dashing (love this paper!) and used the cute porcupine from the Moose You stamp set. Also used the Giga scalloped circle punch and the mega circle punch, detailing it with a white uniball signo pen. Finished it off with the 5/8" old olive grosgrain ribbon. I like it! Thanks for looking!

Nice Matters Award

Another award? Wow! I know that this came in a week or so ago, but I'm only getting to this now!! I got this cool nice matters award from Corie (Creations by Corie). Corie is such a sweet gal, I feel like I personally know her. It's so cool that we meet and get to know each other through our love for stamping, scrapping and blogging. Corie has sent me such beautiful cards (thank you!) and it's a joy to reciprocate sharing with her too!! Here are the five gals that I'm awarding the nice matter awards to:

1) Jean - Stamping spot studio. Jean is my friend and a CTMH consultant. She is part of our lunch trio that shares great projects and supplies tons of CTMH catties to all of us to drool over, thanks Jean! You are so nice!

2) Corinne - Stamping with Roxy. Now this gal has some cool ideas going. I just love her! From the first comment I made on her blog, she personally emailed me and I feel like I've know her forever! You gotta check out her blog - cool projects! Thanks Corinne!

3) Cheryl - Life is Sweet. Cheryl and I have have regular lunch dates to blab about what else? stamping and scrapping! Cheryl shares with me the latest scoops with all of these cool products. We also share the same passion for clothes, shoes and bags. I gotta say though that Cheryl is the queen of shoes and bags!

4) Wini. My main gal. Although she's not a blogger, I know she reads our blogs. This gal deserves this nice matters award because she is THE BEST!! Get this ladies, for every class that I do, she is THE ONE that stands right next to me. She is always there to help me cut my cardstock and make the kits! It goes beyond that and I truly couldn't do it without her and I'm hearing her say, "yes you can." But the truth is, yeah, I can, but I will struggle! Thank you SO MUCH Wini!!! Love you!

5) Last but not least, Joy. Joy doesn't have a blog either (don't you want one now girlfriend??). Joy is my personal bank teller (haha!) and we've become such great friends. Joy is such a talented cardmaker although she would beg to differ. You really are!! Joy is also a faithful participant in my monthly classes and every time I see her, she is always so cheerful and happy. She and her daughter Taelyn are like family to me. hugs & kisses to you!

There are so many other gals that deserve this nice matters award, but I was trying to award it to some of the gals that didn't get awarded this yet. Thank you to all of you who come back and check out my blog!

A RAK from Cassandra

I am so wowed that I'm receiving these beautiful SCS RAK cards. I need to get busy to return the favors to these kind ladies! This birthday card I received over the weekend from Cassandra (cassandranet) . Thank you!

My gals make 50 Christmas cards!

We did it! Today was our demonstrator DL class to make the 50 Christmas cards using the Winter Bright Simply Scrappin scrapbook kit. There were 8 ladies who came to make their cards and were successful! Yay! Good job, ladies!!

Here's a few pics of the gals hard at work! Most finished under 4 hours. We had a late start because while we were waiting for the whole group to come, we sat down to look at all of the wonderful RAK cards I've been receving! Of course we had to stop for a bite to eat too. It was another scorcher of a day (really hot and muggy weather) and although we were outside in the garage where supposidly those tradewinds were supposed to be blowing, they seemed to have been a little lost because boy, were we roasting!! To make things worse, we have a hurricane coming our way, oh my! Sorry guys, I don't have A/C!! But that's okay...we enjoyed pizza, salad, brownies, donuts, iced tea/water...in the heat and all had a good time. Thanks for coming ladies!!

For this class, I had the tables set up as classroom style and it worked out great! I put all the cards on a poster board and hung it up so everyone could see. Here's Wini and I posing by the sample board. Thanks for stopping by!

It doesn't get any better than this!

I can't believe how blessed I am to have just the best friends ever! This includes you blog friends too.

I got another gift from Joy & Taelyn. These are some great products from TLC...rub ons, ribbon, chipboard, bling - all my favorites!! Also got a cute Sizzix frame diecut and a cute chipboard tag. Her card is so simple and elegant. I know you can't see the glitter, but there's glitter on the card and tag and it even got on my face! I love it, so shiny! Thank you Joy & Taelyn! Okay, now I know all of you are thinking that I'm such a spoiled brat huh! I am. And, just when you thought I would stop posting more gifts, I received another wonderful surprise. Jen popped by my office this morning and dropped off this package. Wowee!!! These gifts are from Wini & Jen. In addition to these goodies, I also received the latest issue of Cards - love this magazine!!

I love you guys! Thank you all so much!!

Invitation for a Baby Shower

My favorite cousin, Jilly T and I are coordinating a baby shower for a really sweet friend. She and her hubby own **Berry Sweet Bath & Body** over in Kaimuki. If you've never visited her shop, you just must! It's the cutest bath boutique with the greatest products!! My favorite - Body Souffle! Anyway, I promised Jill that I would make the invitations and you all know last minute me...finally got my act together and here's what I came up with.

Let me know what you think! Carri is having a baby girl and her name will be Kira. She even selected butterflies and her color theme - pink & brown. Those colors are pretty hot (they're MY fave).

Ingredients for this invitation: Pretty in Pink, Creamy Caramel and Very Vanilla cardstock, Creamy Caramel and Pretty in Pink ink pads, Bold Butterfly stamp set (retired), pink taffeta ribbon. For the favors, I'm thinking of using an acetate box with one butterfly on it and the pink ribbon. Probably some dinner mints inside? Will post when I get the final product! Thanks for stopping by!

Oh, by the way, if you are interested in checking out the Berry Sweet products, I will be helping Carri & Eric out at the Made In Hawaii Fair over at the Blaisdell Center next weekend - August 17, 18 and 19. Otherwise, if you miss us there, you can visit the shop at 3478 Waialae Avenue (across from Harry's Music). Phone 732-5100...

More cards to share!

Wow! look what I received in the mail! I got a beautiful birthday card from Corie. Love the bees! Thank you Corie!! That was so sweet of you to send me this card!

Also received these beauties from my DL gals...here's a card I received from Joyce. I love the Groovy Guava color and the hodge podge! Thanks Joyce!

And here is a card I received from Monique. The card was made by Jodie, Mo's blog partner in crime. Thanks Mo & Jo!! Love the card.

Thanks ladies for the fabulous cards and for the wishes for my 39th birthday!! (wink, wink!)

A card for Mike-O

Saying goodbye is hard, don't you agree?? Michael, a very cool guy at the Hawaii State FCU took a new position and so we had to say *goodbye*. Here's a card I whipped up right before leaving for work on Friday. It turned out not so bad! I used a white pocket folder, trimmed the top a bit and folded it accordian style. It gave me 4 pockets. I've posted similar projects using this folder before including my Cruise Wow! swap. Anyway, here's what I came up with

Here's what went inside of the pockets. In the last pocket, I included a Jamba Juice gift card. Fun card/gift! I used paper from 3 bugs, chipboard monogram "M" from CTMH that I sponged on with old olive ink, the new 5/8" old olive grosgrain ribbon from SU, a cute teddy bear sizzix sizzlet die and the font called airplane by 2 peas. Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday Celebration CANDY WINNER!

It's been a busy weekend for me! Finally had a chance to enter all of the names into random.org and the winner is **NANCY GRANT** !! Congrats, Nancy! You can check out Nancy's fabulous blog called Inkcicles, can you tell where Nancy lives?? Alaska! Whoa! That's quite a distance from our little island! Stop by Nancy's blog and say aloha!

Here's Nancy guess of my age...

"I am guessing that you are around my age? Dare I say it! Uhm.... 37. :-) So do you want to be sweet 16 again? So there you have my two guesses.Again, birthday blessings to you! Big SMILES, NG."

Hey Nancy, please email me your address so I can send off these goodies to you!

After I posted this contest, I realized that I had to disclose my real age in blogland when I chose a winner...OMG! Well, here goes - my real age is 47 and I'd really like to be 39. So, in order to get to that age, I told my son that for every birthday that I celebrate, I'm counting backwards!! What do you think?? Haha! He thought I was nuts.

Thanks to all who played. More fun giveaways soon! Big hugs to you guys!

Special RAKs from SCS!

I've alway wanted to join the SCS RAK group, so I finally did! They are so on it! I received these two beautiful cards. This one from Cathy Hostetler from Walnut Creek, CA...thanks Cathy!! She's CathyH over on SCS...

This second card is from Krista Hubbard. She's Kristastamps on SCS. Krista is from Chicago, IL. Thanks Krista! Thank you both for welcoming me to this RAK group! I hope to make some cards soon to share!

a cute card from carol

Love this monkey card. Got this card from my friend Carol. Don't know if you can see it in the photo, but the monkey is fuzzy! How'd you do it Carol?? Nolan thinks it's the coolest thing! Thank you!

So special

More? you say more?? These wonderful birthday wishes came from my two co-workers, Alice & Kristen. Thanks Alice for the cute card and Starbucks GC - what a treat!! Love this card from Kristen. Almost looks hand stamped! I'm stil trying to get these ladies to stamp cards with me during our lunch hour...maybe someday huh? My gift from Kristen was the sweetest silver heart bracelet, we have the same taste in jewelry! Can't wait to wear it!! Thank you ladies! Your birthday wishes mean alot to me!

and the birthday party continues...

Hey ladies! Thanks to those of you who have submitted comments to my birthday giveaway contest! Gotta say that if you are submitting your comments to **play** to remember to include 1) my real age, 2) the age I'd like to be and why. okay??

Yesterday, I got an email from Joy who told me to stop by the CU to see them - I usually stop by on my way home cuz that's the way to the bus stop! But Joy and Raelene surprised me when they came to visit me at my office! Look at all the goodies they brought over for me! **Thank you**!! You guys spoil me! This adorable, sweet floral pot from my friends at the Hawaii State FCU Alii Branch. The gang there **Rocks!** You won't find a more friendly, helpful staff at any bank! Hi guys! Thanks for reading my blog!

Look at the card Joy made for the bank staff to sign, isn't it totally cute? And of course, it's Pink too! Love all of the glitter!

Here's a gift from Joy and her princess Taelyn...they spoil me! Thank you, thank you!! Joy, the cards are so awesome! Love them both!

Hey! It's my birthday! let's celebrate!

Yay! today is my birthday! I swear it feels like I just celebrated my birthday. Well, the day is almost ending and I'm exhausted. Not that I partied all day. Actually, I went to work today! Does going on a 2-hour lunch considered a party? My buddy Cheryl took me out to lunch at Yanagi sushi...I ate so much (for my tiny tummy!). Thank you Cheryl! Here's a couple of pics from our lunch. Thank you Cheryl for the onolicious lunch and for the great gifts! Love the Autumn Leaves idea book called "The Look Book" and the AL clear stamps with those famous birdies! Love the special card too! Cute birdie stamp by Hero Arts. Can you see the pink bling for it's eye?

Thank you all for the many special birthday wishes! I want to share ALL of the wonderful cards and gifts I received. I'll have to post these over the next few days otherwise the posting will be too long! Here's a special card I received from Wini. Love the embossed background and the strawberries are embossed too! So sweet! Thanks Wini!

I also got this wonderful gift from Sherry. Making Memories Cheeky Jigsaw Shapes, a tank top from TAJ and a cute birthday card too! Thanks Sherry!

So you all want to help me celebrate?? Okay! To celebrate my birthday, I'm going to be giving away a small gift since I received so many gifts, it's now my turn to give! I'd like to give away 12 of these Autumn Leaves birdie images that I stamped with the stamps I received today. I punched them out with my circle punch. I also included 12 scallop giga circles punched from different color cardstock including some designer paper ones and a bunch of ribbons. All you have to do is to guess my real age and what age I'd really like to be all over again and why. Not too hard. I'll pick a winner on Sunday, August 5th. Good luck! For those of you who know my real age, what a head start huh! Guessing what age I'd love to be and why will be fun for me to read! More birthday celebration tomorrow!!

My July RAK for Cheryl Simms

Here's a pic of the card I made for the July JT's monthly aloha RAK club. This RAK was sent to Cheryl Simms. Hope you liked the card! I used the rhino from the Zoofari stamp set and colored using the watercolor pencils and blender pen. I got the idea of making the teeth and horn shiny from Dawn over at Dawn's Stamping Thoughts. Other supplies I used: real red and ballet blue CS, designer series paper and square rhinestone brads. Also used the the sentiment from Hugs & Wishes stamped with white ink. I can't wait to do August's RAK! Thanks for looking!