Farewell Sue...

I volunteered to make a farewell card for a co-worker who is leaving to be a full time grandma! Since I just started at my new job, I didn't know what she liked or didn't like, so I asked around and found out she really likes Halloween and K-drama. Unfortunately, I couldn't find some of my Halloween dies and nothing on K-drama, so I decided to be safe and stick with an asian theme. Here's the inside of the card- you can't see but I stamped some kanji on the right side and covered it with gold mica powder. Hope she likes it!

Ballet Birthday

Not only was this weekend the big performance, but it was also Akemi's 7th Birthday! Hard to believe its been 7 years already. I can't believe how grown up she is now! After the performance, we went to Grandma's house for some B&R ice cream cake. Akemi picked strawberry ice cream/white cake. Yum! I love this photo of her. Here's the card I made for her. Sorry- blurred out what was on the flags- it was her name, but you get the jist right? I had a vision of doing this awhile ago and finally bought the Lawn Fawn set with the tiny flags I love it! I was also able to get the Harold's ABC's set by Lawn Fawn, which fit perfectly in the flags. I'll try to make another sample un-blurred so you can see it. All stamps used on this card is by Lawn Fawn except the b-day stamp, which is by Dandelion Designs. Akemi still loves her Daba, which is why I used bunnies on the card. She loved it! I can't remember a time when she hugged me so long after getting something from me. I'm glad she liked it so much. Happy Birthday Akemi! You will always be Mommy and Daddy's Daba.

Babes In Toyland- IDA 2011

Every other year, Island Dance Academy puts on a huge production for all the dancers. This year, Akemi was one of the Old Lady who lived in the shoe kids (what a mouthful yah?) and was the first year she danced tap in the performance. Everyone did a great job! Here she is after opening night... On the 2nd night, we brought goodies for the other girls in her group. Made these flowers using the candy stick bags again and filling them with M&Ms. Someone behind me asked me about them. These bags are surely getting noticed in Hilo! As you can see, I forgot to take a photo before we got there, so this was taken while we were waiting for the show to start. Grandma Kat and Papa Steve came to watch Akemi too... And here's Akemi with Miss Suen, who runs IDA. And here's our happy family with our little shoe girl. Do you like her paper flower bouquet I made for her? Did it in about an hour before we left to drop her off. Why do I always wait till the last minute? Anyway, I'll try to get a better photo of them and re-post. Akemi really enjoyed this year's performance! I guess she'll be continuing on with dance for now... I think DH was getting a little worried when she spotted "hip hop" on the class schedule and asked to take that class too! Sticking with ballet and tap for now.

Happy Birthday Michele!

We had a night of fun at Michele's not so surprise party last weekend. You can read more about it here... Just wanted to share what I made for Michele. After I made this frame, I thought Michele would like it, so instead of selling it at one of the craft fairs I did last month, I decided to give it to her. This then triggered the butterfly theme used for the rest of the stuff I made, including this matching card. Now, whenever we all get together- which is pretty rare, we can't make a poor showing in the crafty department right? I mean, what do you make for someone who owns a craft store? Gotta do something new, or complex, right? Well, I ran out of time to do complex, so I settled for something new. Saw this triple easel card on youtube and thought it was pretty cool. Of course, measurements were in metric, so I altered it a bit and came up with this... There are several versions out there, so you can check them out all over blogland. Then comes the wrap, which is JUST as important as the gift to all of us crafters.. right? Well, I can't take credit for the bag itself, but I did decorate it. Hope that counts for something. Anyway, whipped this up pretty quickly and slapped on a butterfly so that it all matches. Yay! at least I wasn't shame to give Michele something in a used plastic shopping bag! Happy Birthday Michele! Had so much fun with everyone. Oh- and I'm still waiting to hear when the next party is and who's teaching??!! ha ha ha ha ha!

Have A Whale of A Time!

I promised you another class sample for my upcoming Copic class right? Well, I decided to keep the card really simple as you can see. The focus is on coloring and blending, so didn't want to much detail and complicated layouts. All stamps featured here are from the Lawn Fawn Critter's in the Sea set. Isn't this whale so cute? I just love how they have the coordinating sentiments in the set. The waves are also a stamp from the set that I stamped on patterned paper (My Mind's Eye). Here's a close up of the whale... Hope you have a great weekend!

If Friends Were Flowers...

I've been meaning to work on my class samples for my upcoming Copic class at Island Scrapbooking, but didn't get around to it until this week. I normally include a card with a person in it so they can practice coloring hair, clothes, etc. Greeting Farm images work really well since they are pretty large and easier to color and shade than smaller stamps. Decided to go out of my comfort zone and pair up yellow with brown. This Lawn Fawn sentiment is so cute and matched the background paper so nicely. Here's a close up of Flirty Anya... Well, today's another Furlough Friday for me! I am gonna miss these if we have to give them up. I have another class sample to share with you tomorrow- talk to you soon!

May CATS

So I haven't even started on my CATS swap for May, but I already received it from my partner, Berenice! Yikes- better get cracking! Anyway, wanted to share her card and goodies she sent with it. Thanks Berenice! Go check her and all her creations here.

April CATS

I guess you can tell how busy I've been since I got this card a few weeks ago and only took the photo last night! This card is from Elena (Bearasaurs) for the April Card and Tag Swap (CATS) hosted by Joy. Our theme this month was to make an Easter card and tag... here's what Elena sent me (along with the goodies). Such a cute card! And I love that cocoa packet holder! Thanks Elena!

Bye Bye DPW!

As you can tell from lack of posts, I've been extremely busy over the past few weeks.. Not only did I have 2 craft fairs, Easter, Mother's Day and a bunch of classes, I also started a new job! Which means leaving my old one at Public Works. It was sad to say goodbye (even though I'm still in the same building), but I'm ready to move on to new things. At DPW, there were a few of us crafters that would often share our projects with each other for ideas and inspiration. Diane made this farewell card for me and did a fabulous job! She said she was so stressed out making a card for me- funny yah? Not sure why she was stressed out about it- I love it! Check out the waterfall mechanism she included.... And here's the creator of that awesome card! Thanks Diane! And here's me with my team.. Thanks Michelle and Naomi! Miss you guys! OK- don't laugh when you see the cake... some people know that I like Hello Kitty, so they ordered me a Hello Kitty cake! Looks more like a birthday cake yah? Ha ha ha. I'll be back with more to share. Gotta go get ready to watch Akemi's May Day!

More Hello Kitty Frames

Well, I think I might be finally recovered from this weekend's activities. Had to wake up bright and early on Saturday to finish up some craft fair stuff and drop some of it off at the FCE fair before heading to the Children's Fair at the Japanese Cultural Center. Here's one of the frames I left with the Hoaloha Club... I really wasn't sure how these frames would sell, but they sold really well at the Japanese Cultural Center fair. Happy Wednesday to you!

More Embossed Thank Yous

Since I had my embossing gun out, decided to get a few more embossed cards done for the fair. I wasn't sure if I could stamp and emboss over already embossed images, but I guess it worked on my first card. I like how the white embossing powder shows up on the kraft cardstock. Kraft is my new favorite card base. This next card was inspired by the Hero Arts blog. I wanted to replicate a similar card but couldn't figure out how they colored in the flowers in red and white. I thought using my trusty white uniball gel pen would work, but I didn't really like the results. I guess I may never know how they did that. I'm guessing some kind of red and white enamel ink? Fabric ink? Anyway, hopefully I figure it out one day. If anyone knows, let me know- here's the link to the card I'm referring to... Don't forget to come and visit me at the Japanese Cultural Center Craft Fair! See you then!

Thanks So Much

Finally sat my butt down to make some cards for this weekend's craft fairs. Decided to do simple cards so I don't stress myself out... Its all about production, not necessarily details. So I busted out my new Hero Arts cling set and new shadow inks to try them out. I must say I like the subtleness of the shadow inks. It came out nicer than I expected. To give it a more worn vintage look, I added distress Vintage Photo to the ends along with some other distress colors. Since I get bored easily, decided to do them in different colors... Here's the close ups.. Yay! This week is another furlough Friday for us. Teaching a class tomorrow and then 2 craft fairs on Saturday. Please come and visit me if you are in Hilo at the Japanese Cultural Center craft fair. Puna Taiko will also be selling butter mochi for $6 a pan. My other craft fair items will be available at the FCE fair at Aunty Sally's. Hope you can stop by!

Embossed Thank Yous

While making cards for the craft fair, I decided to make either Birthday or Thank you cards. That way, if they don't sell, I'll have a stash for myself for later. Either way I win... right? Anyway, keeping it simple by embossing in my favorite Queen's Gold embossing powder on this brown metallic cardstock. It has a gold undertone, so the gold embossing really adds to it. All stamps except for the Thank You stamp on the first card are by Hero Arts. The Thank You Stamp at the top is by Paper Inspirations. I have a feeling this company doesn't exist anymore, which makes me sad since they had really nice stamps. I'm glad I picked them up when I did since you can't seem to find them anymore. Hopefully they will start manufacturing again because I know a whole mess of people who want their stamps!

It's Time To Celebrate!

A few months back, I saw this post on Donna's blog. Since then, I've been totally inspired by her work and have bought many of the stamps she features on her blog. This card is definitely CASEing her work. There's not much deviation from her original design. I guess I couldn't improve on it! I think the main difference is the ribbon and lace punch that I used for the border. Other than that, its pretty much the same. Here's a close up of the image. All stamps are by Hero Arts and lace punch is by EK success. Thanks Donna for such great inspiration!

Happy Belated Birthday Sara!

I'm really late this year! My niece's b-day was 4/14 and I didn't get this in the mail till this past Monday! Sorry Sara! Hope she gets this card before she sees it here on my blog... I think this will be my last pleated pop up card for awhile. I've been making so many for classes and other stuff that I need a break from it. Since my sister designed these images, I thought it would be nice to use them in the card to my niece. She loves her Auntie Denise and I'm sure she'll recognize her designs. Above is the front cover- kept the design relatively simple since the background is a little busy. Below is what the card looks like when its opened. Its hard to see the butterflies she is chasing, so I took another photo below this one. Aaah- here's a better view... Since my niece is now a tween (or acts like one anyway), I decided to just give her $$. Its getting harder and harder to buy kids presents nowdays, so I thought it would be nice to let her choose her own gift or save it for her trip to Hawaii that's coming up. Thanks for visiting! Its gonna be a busy week- still trying to finish up projects for my 2 craft fairs this weekend!