Gearing Up For Craft Fairs...

I have a lot more work to do before my 2 craft fairs next Saturday. I have about 20 half done projects that need to be finished up. Had to take a break in order to get the IS newsletter and class samples done... Still have more to do but it'll have to wait until after the fair. Got this washi paper from Ben Franklin. It's one of my favorites! I love the color combo and design, but I did find it a bit busy for this frame. When I placed the girl directly on the washi, she blended into the background. So to make her pop out a bit, I mounted her on a circle and added a border behind her for more contrast. Here's a close up of the image. Back to work!

Felt Flowers

Hope you are having a great week so far! OK- so its another HK frame.... I know you keep seeing these on my blog, but this time I wanted to point out the felt flower accents I made. At first I thought Debi was crazy to buy that 100% wool felt by PTI, but now I know she is a genius! It cuts so nicely0 even with Spellbinders! Plus the colors they come in are so nice. Now I want it in every color! After I added the flowers, I stuck some buttons in the middle for a home made touch.

Bubbles and Smiles Treat Box Card

Decided to make another Treat Box Card using this cute Dandelion Designs set. I really like this set as it reminds me of Akemi and her cousin Baby Z cause they LOVE playing with bubbles. Off the subject... I don't recommend those new crayola bubbles. Its not that great in terms of bubble making and its messy. Definitely not going in Akemi's b-day party goodie bags. Plus they cost a small fortune. OK back to the card... I decided to decorate the inside as well as the outside this time... And don't forget the Hershey's Nuggets! Yum!

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter! Did the Easter Bunny bring you yummy treats? I remember one Easter I must've been bad cause I didn't get anything from the Easter Bunny! Anyway, came up with this simple treat to give to Akemi's class and my classes this weekend. Debi got the bags for me when she went to Honolulu (Thanks Debi!). Thank goodness cause it sure made these projects easy! To make my life even easier, I just printed up some Easter clipart by Nancy Kubo and Mindy Terasawa and added a sentiment below. Then I punched them out and mounted them on scalloped circles and taped them to the top of the bag. Yay! Easy Peasy! Here's a closer look...

Don't Forget- Easter Sale Today!

Hi Crafters! Just a reminder that Island Scrapbooking has an Easter Sale going on in-store today. The following are on sale:

• Buy 2 paper packs, get 1 free
• Buy 2 wood stamps, get 1 free
• Additional 50% off all red tagged items.

Sorry, no points on sale items. We close at 2:00pm today- see you soon! Happy Easter!

CATS: Easter Theme

Happy Easter Everyone! Just wanted to share what I created for the April Card and Tag Swap (CATS) that Joy hosts on her blog... You need to sign up for three consecutive months at a time and Joy will pair you up with three different participants. This month, my partner is the Bearsaurus herself, Elena. Need to make one tag and one card in whatever theme she comes up with... This month's theme was Easter, so I was happy to use my new Verve stamps that just came in. These little chickies are so cute! They come with chickie sentiments too- which I just love! First here's my tag.. now that I look at it, I probably should have used a different color base yah? Oh well. Here's the card I made for her using the same stamps... It's another pleated center pop up card. And here's what it looks like when its opened flat. Do like the butterfly? Here's you can see it fully opened with the sentiment. And here's the close up of the cute chickie! Hope she likes it!

Japanese Girl Frame

Thought I'd give you a break from HK and share another frame using my sister's designs. I just love this bunny washi paper and use it a lot in my projects. It reminds me of Akemi's Daba- though Daba is not so white these days. I again blew up the image to fill the space better. Since the background is a bit busy, I die cut the large scallop circle and mounted her on top of it. Then added on some flowers by All Natural Accents. You can get them from Photocraft. I'm thinking this one will come with me to the Japanese Cultural Center fair since the focus there is on Japanese stuff. Hope everyone has a Happy Easter!

Another Hello Kitty Frame

I must say, it's been fun playing with my HK dies again! I guess I haven't used them in quite awhile, so it was new and fun to put them together again. I just love this Doodlebug paper and thought it just screamed Hello Kitty, so I covered the frame with it and slapped on HK's face. The plain band behind her seemed a bit too plain, so I added on some flower shaped crystals. Yay! It's Thursday! Just need to get through today and then we have another long weekend! Gotta get ready to teach 3 classes this weekend (yikes!). Hope you have a good one!

Princess Hello Kitty Frame

Aaah, who doesn't love Hello Kitty? She's definitely my favorite! At the last craft fair I did, she was a hot seller, so I figured I should make more HK stuff this time around. Since I'm making a lot of frames, decided to make a few with her on them. Here's the one I refer to as "Princess Kitty" cause it looks like she's wearing a tiara instead of her signature bow. Its hard to tell from the photo but her tiara was cut with silver mirrored cardstock. I will share more HK projects soon.

Happy Belated B-day Papa Joe!

Yes.. late again.. My step-dad's b-day was last week but I didn't send out his gift till after the fact. Here's the card I made for him. When I first stamped this koi stamp in black, I didn't like the results. It looked like a bad photocopy. I decided to change it up and stamp it in versamark and then apply gold mica powder for a subtle effect. I like how it came out much better! Since the mica powder is more subdued, it kinda looks like the koi is underwater. Or maybe that's just the distress background? Anyway, I added on one of my favorite sentiment stamps by Paper Inspirations. I love their stamps and can't seem to find them anymore. Glad I got the ones I did when I did! Since I didn't want a lot of accents, I just ended up tearing the bottom instead of adding more stuff. I like the simplicity of this card. Guess I really liked it, cause I ended up making several versions using different colored distress inks. These will likely be sold at one of the craft fairs. Stay tuned for more craft fair projects...

Inspired

Have you been inspired by other crafters? I'm sure we all have... I'm inspired all the time by fellow bloggers too. Awhile ago, I saw a card posted on Donna's blog that made me want to buy this stamp. I love her creations and even bought the canvas stripes stamp as well. Finally got around to playing with it recently. I had made a bunch of distress watercolor backgrounds that were ready to go, so putting together this card was super easy. First, I stamped the musical notes background using more distress ink. Then stamped musical walk and the sentiment in black. Then added pearl accents randomly on the background. I love how it came out! Here's a close up... Wow, can't believe Easter is this Sunday! Have a great (short) week!

Getting Ready for Craft Fairs....

Awhile ago, one of my students from Island Scrapbooking asked me if I wanted to share a booth with her at an upcoming craft fair. I told her I would, but didn't realize that our annual FCE craft fair was on the same day! Well, I'm not one to really break commitments, so I'm doing double duty and making stuff for both. Luckily the FCE group has enough manpower, so I will just drop off my donation to the club. Here's one of the projects that I'm working on right now.. IS DT member Tracy taught me how to cover frames with paper. Thanks Trace! It takes awhile to get them covered, but I actually enjoyed it once I figured out the theory behind it. Used my sis' design and blew it up on the computer so that it would fill up the empty space. Added the cherry blossom petals from my punch bunch punches to form the flower and added some floating petals for accent. Here's a close up of the girl... In case you are in the Hilo area, please stop by at either craft fair. Both will be on Saturday, May 7th.

• FCE Fair- Aunty Sally's Luau Hale. Fair is from 8:00am-12:30pm.
• Japanese Cultural Center Craft Fair- Japanese Cultural Center on Kanoelehua. I think it starts at 10:00am.

Both fairs will have crafts, food and entertainment. Paul's Taiko group will be performing at the Japanese Cultural Center fair and they will be selling their butter mochi as well. Hope to see you there!

Recent RAKs

Happy Saturday! It's been a busy weekend so far and it just started! Actually my weekend started yesterday, so I got a head start and I'm already pooped! Anyway, just wanted to share some RAKs I received recently... This first card is from Karen I. She won my blog candy and decided to give Akemi and I a thank you for picking her name. Not sure why since it was random! Anyway, along with this cute card we also got Yogurtland GC (yay), Little trees (I didn't get to eat any), and a Lawn Fawn stamp set. I lifted these photos from KI's blog since we can't seem to find where the card went in our messy house! Thanks KI! This cute mini kleenx holder was given to me by Lianne from Cute Stuff. It may look like a good size in the photo, but it's actually mini- like the size of those travel packs you keep in your purse. I'm gonna take it to my new office. Thanks Lianne! This cute purse was given to me by my student and craft fair buddy- Susan. Thanks Susan! Now I know who bought up all this cute paper from IS! Inside were Hershey's Nuggets.. Yum! And finally... this card is from my CBFF Debi... We had a fun night out for her B-day last month and she gave me this cool thank you card. I'm a little embarassed cause you can tell that her thank you card showed a lot more time and effort than the b-day card I made for her! In fact, it was kinda embarassing so I didn't even post it! ha ha ha! Thanks Debi. You are making me want to buy that banner set from PTI, but what's new?

Seas the Day!

I feel really bad about this card because I had started working on it awhile ago and had every intent of finishing it before my class last week. Well, I guess I got distracted and didn't finish it till now. I wanted to show the class the versatility of making this pleated pop up card and how fun it can be. Oh well, hopefully they check my blog to see this sample. In a way, I'm glad that I didn't finish in time... since I waited so long, the new Surfer Anya had arrived at Island Scrapbooking and I was able to use her on the front of the card! I bet she could give Surfer Ian good rubs yah? Let me tell ya, her hair was a real challenge for me. Now I know why I like coloring straight hair better. Oh yah, also wanted to point out that I put diamond glaze on her surfboard to make it look shiny. Here's the inside of the card when its opened. I hand cut the "waves" using acetate and then used my handy dandy distress applicator and put the felt pads on top and used my alcohol inks. I used blue for the water color and then added the pearly white and silver colors for the foam. Do you likey? Ian looked lonely surfing by himself, so I found some friends to go surfing with him. Both critters are from the Lawn Fawn Critters in the Sea set. This set is really cute and the images are a good size to either be the focal point or the accessory to the card. Adhered the turtle behind the wave so it looks like he's swimming. Well, tomorrow is another furlough Friday for me... Sigh- I'm going to miss them! Gotta make sure I have everything for my class. Have a great weekend!

Time for Tea

On our last trip home, I told Akemi we could do whatever she wanted since we didn't spend much time together at the time. We had just come back from Japan and had to go to Honolulu for a wedding job, so I promised her we could spend some time together on Sunday. She chose to go to tea over Chuck E. Cheese. I guess my little girl is growing up. We decided to invite Aunty Jan since I had her omiyage from Japan to give her and haven't seen her in a long time. Thought it would be a fun girly thing to do. Papa Joe decided to come to, but I'm pretty sure he was disappointed to find out we were just having tea and not lunch. Here's Akemi and me with our pretty tea cups.. Akemi had her first taste of tea that day. She said she liked the one I chose best- chocolate mint and asked if she could have tea the next time instead of juice. Here's Grandma Helen with Akemi with the tea cart. We were able to smell all of the different teas before selecting which ones we wanted to try. They had a good selection. Here's the tray of goodies we indulged in. I think our favorites was the green tea scones! Finally, Grandma gave Akemi a Hello Kitty watch for making Citizen of the Quarter! Woo Hoo- 2 years in a row! Also- can you see she lost her front tooth? She was trying all day not to smile too much so that her missing front tooth wouldn't show. A couple of days later she lost the other front tooth, so now she is really toothless! We had a nice time and need to thank Aunty Jan for treating all of us to a fun afternoon of tea!

Last Class Samples

Woah! Didn't realize I scheduled so many classes this month! I have a break this weekend but then I teach one or two classes each week for the next 3 weeks. Yikes! Hope I can remember which class I'm teaching and don't show up with the wrong kits. Anyway, here's the last of the card samples for my classes. Decided to teach Copic Blending again since its been awhile since I've done that class. The great thing about that class is that the cards are very simple since the focus is on coloring technique. We always make 2 cards in this class along with "practice" coloring. I get bored, so I normally change the cards every month. I love this new Hero Arts set called Life of the Party, so I included the cute cotton candy image in this card. I thought the loopy border punch gave this card the exact feel I wanted when it was combined with the flag paper- so festive! The first card uses the CC's girl that's lying down. It just seemed perfect to use the cloud paper and grass punch for that card. Hope I don't get my classes mixed up! Have a great weekend!

More Class Sneak Peeks

I recently received a request to teach the treat box card and I guess I got too ambitious and came up with two different cards designs- one for Boy's day and one for Easter. Forgot to take a photo of the inside of this card, but I remembered to stamp the inside this time and used the Dandelion koi stamp. Here's the Easter version of the same card. OK- just noticed that these photos were taken before I actually finished the project! I finished it off by wrapping some nuggets with coordinating paper and inserted them into the box portion of the card. I guess you'll just have to use your imagination. So glad Dandelion is making these cute cling stamps where are actually larger in size than their wood stamps. I've always wished for their designs to be bigger and now my wish has come true! Thanks Jean! These cards are pretty easy to whip up and are great for giving friends a little something for any occasion.

Hooray!

Hooray! Don't you just love this monkey stamp by CC's Designs? He's so cute- I can look at him all day and not get tired of him. Anyway, wanted to incorporate him into this sliding pop up card for an upcoming class. Also got the Hero Arts Life of the Party set recently and used the ticket and sentiment stamps to accent the card. Since the red paper would make the black ink hard to see, I decided to emboss it in white embossing powder instead. I'm glad I did cause the words really pop out now instead of getting lost in the dark red color. Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday Kris!

Just wanted to share this card I made for Kris of K-Lusive Kreations for her b-day and as a thank you. Decided to practice making the pleated center pop up card again and really wanted to make the balloons seem like they were floating. Here's a shot of the card when its opened... And here's a close up of it so you can see that its standing up. I guess you can't really see the acetate in the photo, so it does look like the balloons are floating. Yay! All images and balloon dies are by All that Scraps. Happy Birthday sentiment on the front of the card is by Island Scrapbooking. Hope Kris liked her card!

Blogaversary Candy Winner

Happy Sunday Everyone! Just wanted to thank all of you who entered my blogaversary candy giveaway this week. Had Akemi pick the winner this morning and the prize goes to... Karen Inouye! Karen- email me soon. If I hear from you by Wednesday, 4/6, I'll pick another name. Sayoonara!

There's Still Time!

Just a reminder that there's still time to enter my blog candy! Please comment on the original post here if you would like to enter. Good Luck!