Thursday, January 30, 2014

Lfundoo & Kiki's Epic Crafty Adventure Day 7: Dim Sum, Family Time, and The Trip Home

So after I got home, I was soooo busy with Sister Stamps that I didn't have time to even download the rest of the photos from my trip!  Now that the release is almost here, I had some time to focus on my last post of our Epic Crafty Adventure.

Our last day started with last minute packing and checking out of the hotel.  We still had some leftover cookies from the goodie bags that I was NOT going to take home with me, so we decided to give it to the valet guys since we saw them every day.  But after we called for a bellman to help us with our stuff, we decided to give it to him instead cause he was so helpful and friendly.  He was soooooo happy that we gave him cookies from Hawaii and told us we were his favorite.  Amazing what some aloha and cookies will do yah?  I highly recommend that you milk being from Hawaii whenever you travel because people are sooooo much nicer to you when you say you are from Hawaii!
After we checked out, we headed to my brothers to spend some time with them.  Since we had some time before the girls had to go to their lessons, we decided to eat some dim sum!  Yummy.  It's pretty crazy there... as soon as you get seated all the carts surround you and start asking you if you want what they have.  We weren't even seated yet and our table was already full.  Heck I don't even know what we ended up eating!


After lunch, we separated because my sister in law had to take my niece to her lesson first.  So me, Linda, my bro and his other daughter went to Trader Joe's since I still had to pick up omiyage.  Yes, I did.  I even left some space in my suitcase for it.  My Sister in law gave my brother a shopping list.. This is what we saw... Are we supposed to buy cats?  Hee hee. I think my niece got to the list first!


After a Trader Joe's haul, we headed back to my brother's so I could finish packing and relax a bit before our flight.  I noticed his new chandelier!  Can you believe he got it from costco?  Was only thinking of how I could make it shabby.


Also on the dining room table were the boxes I bought for the girls at a craft fair in Hawaii.  They were so cute I couldn't resist.  They were a bit pricey, but I just love them. I was happy to see that my nieces loved them too!  Inside I gave them some shave ice necklaces.


After some family time, we departed early because we still had to return the car and catch the shuttle to the airport.  Everything went by so fast that we were at the airport lounge before you knew it!  Here's what I saw from the lounge window.  The Hobbit Airplane!


And my ticket home.  Happy but sad our trip was going to end soon.


Here's our end of trip photo!  Exhausted but still being silly.


We took the late flight out of LA, so we caught an LA sunset.


And here's another selfie..  wonder who took this photo of us? hee hee


Aftere we got back to Oahu, we said our goodbyes and met our family.  Mom picked me up and I got to spend one more day with her before flying home to Hilo.  I started showing mom some of the stuff I bought and gave her some omiyage.  When I showed her the cute Hello Kitty bracelet I bought for myself from Target, she snaked it!  See!  Once she put it on she wouldn't take it off!



We decided to go eat breakfast at our favorite Breakfast restaurant in Kailua- Cinnamon's!  Since it was a weekday, there was no line.  Yay!  I think I was craving rice.


And mom had the Guava chiffon pancakes.  Yummy!  She asked for everything on the side but it was still yummy.


Later Mom took me to the airport where I discovered that my Rilakkuma doll was missing.  Hope someone gives him a good home.  Sniff sniff.


And here's my view on my way home....


Yay!  Got to see my family!  Was very happy to see those faces.  Missed them so much!  First thing off the plane we headed to the new yogurt place in town.  Sophia's in downtown is pretty good!


And had to share what my boxes looked like when they arrived.  Good thing it wasn't my project boxes!!!  Linda had worse luck than me. Her box was wet!

And the real Kiki missed me too.  Plopped herself on my lap when I came home.


Here we are two weeks later and I am still going through withdrawals from my trip.  I guess I had such a good time I can't even begin to tell you how much!  It's not just the shopping or the classes, it was all the fun people we met like the Prima Educators, (Hi Steffogal!) Sherry (Reese), Rina (Scrapstress), Marisa (Creative Young Mama), Ohaijoy, Leanne Poe, and everyone else along the way!  But most of all I think I miss being with my bestie Lfundoo!  Miss ya girly!  Had so much fun on this adventure.  Wouldn't trade it for the world.  Now if only we could convince Cami to join us next time!  Until next time!

Monday, January 13, 2014

Lfundoo & Kiki's Epic Crafty Adventure Day 6: Meet & Greet, Hobby Lobby, Michaels and Daiso

Forgot to post that after our Prima Warehouse adventure, Linda showed me what she bought.  Since she also went out with Scrapstress, she showed me what she got from Michaels too.  It's Boo!  I had no idea what the heck Boo was, so I had to google it.  I think he really is the cutest dog!
 
 
 
I think I mentioned in my last post that we had to go back to the post office again this morning to mail out a few more boxes after that major Prima Warehouse haul.  Siri was on Hawaiian time so we got a bit lost at first, but once she warmed up we found it quickly.  Mimi's cafĂ© was really close by (a different one from the one we went to last time).  We liked Mimi's so we decided to eat there again for breakfast.  Since I didn't have coffee the other day, I decided to have a cappuccino.  Do you like my foam mustache?

Here's what we had for breakfast. Nom nom nom!

 
 
After breakfast, we headed back to the hotel to pick up a few things, then we were on our way to Creative Young Mama's house. If you haven't checked out her You Tube Channel yet, you really should.  She won "Best Hauls" for the You Tube craft awards. Damn, she has some nice stuff!!!  She was so nice to welcome us into her home!  More on that later.
 
On the way over, we heard from Ohaijoy (Hi Joy!) and was sad to hear she couldn't make it.  Total bummer, but glad we were able to see her earlier in the week.
 
After we got to Creative Young Mama's house, we chatted a bit and then Scrapstress arrived!  OMG she is so funny.  You need to watch her YT channel.  She is just like how she is on YT.  We found out that TryHeart67 couldn't make it either.  I guess it was a junk day to meet up.
 
So we jumped into Creative Young Mama's car and she took us to Hobby Lobby, Michaels and Daiso.  Yay!  So happy to visit all these stores.  We tried taking a photo in front of Hobby Lobby, but you can't see the sign cause we are all short!  Cracks me up when I see this photo.
 
 
 
While we were shopping, Scrapstress was busy snapping pictures with all of us.  We took a photo together first. 



After me, she took a photo with Linda.. so funny!  Wish I thought of that!


This is my favorite pix!  Creative Young Mama is hilarious!


As we were checking out the trims, Scrapstress picks up this one and says "I want to just drape this all over my body!".  She's so awesome!


I guess we must've been distracted shopping cause I don't have any pictures!  I took this one after we got back to Creative Young Mama's and was checking out the loot.  Got tons of these pretty clothespins from Daiso!  Don't worry, not all for me.  Most are to share.


Creative Young Mama's dog is so cute!  He just loved all the attention!
 


We were even able to video chat w/Nadinetx!  Hi Nadine!  Wish you could've joined us! 


We ended the night with a group photo to commemorate our fun day!  I have never met Creative Young Mama or Scrapstress before but I felt so comfortable with them.  They were so nice to include me in their meet 'n greet.  Thanks to Creative Young Mama again for opening up her home to us so we could just hang out and relax and have fun together! 
 
After we got home, we had to pack (again) and get ready to go home.  So much fun memories made on this trip that I will NEVER forget! 

 

Saturday, January 11, 2014

Lfundoo & Kiki's Epic Crafty Adventure Day 5: Prima Warehouse and Family Time

So after the classes were finished, we started to assess the damage.  Time to decide if we needed to ship anything home.  We DEFINITELY needed to ship home, so good thing we had brought some flat rate boxes with us.  Here's mine all ready to go.  But that's not it.  I also sent two more with these.  I think that's a record!  And that's not all... ended up shipping one more box after that!  Yikes!  We had too many boxes and had to call a bellman to help us take them to the car.  LOL!
 

 

After the post office, we decided at the last minute to go to the Prima Warehouse.  After a super long drive due to a car fire, we finally made it to the Prima Warehouse in Chino.


See how happy I am to be there?


One of the first things that caught my eye in the warehouse was this HUGE bag of flowers in trash bags near the door! 


And here's a shot of my happy place!


I was surprised to see charms there!


They had lots of samples too.  Look how simple these tags are?  I need to make some of those!


I love the flowers on this one!


OK seriously... wanted steal this bag!


Hey, maybe I'll make a paper dress!  Lord knows I have enough supplies!


This one caught my eye.  Normally try to use small embellies on a small project, but I liked that they used large ones on a small mini.


More warehouse samples...






After we got back from Chino, got ready to head to my brother's house.    Tried to leave early to avoid the traffic, so I got there before they got home.  Took the time to check out Hobby Lobby and Michaels where they live.  Soon enough, they called me to come over and I got to hang out with my adorable nieces!



My older niece is now as tall, if not taller than me!  I guess I'll end up being the shortest in the family.


She shared with me some of her rainbow loom projects.   Pretty cool huh?


Thought these were pretty cool- a bee and a ladybug!!


After I came home, I decided to take a photo of my Prima Warehouse haul before I packed it away.  Now where am I gonna pack everything!?


While I was eating dinner with my brother, Linda had met up with her YT sis the Scrapstress! She was so sweet to bring a RAK for me.  Love it!  She made me a musubi wash cloth!  I think the bear bag wants to eat it!

 

Oki doki.  I'm tired.  Gonna try to post about Day 6 soon, but in case I don't get to it,  you might have to wait until I get home.  Catch ya later!

Friday, January 10, 2014

Lfundoo and Kiki's Epic Crafty Advenure Day 4: Prima ArtVenture Day 2

Holy Moly!  Can't believe that we just finished up 6 Prima ArtVenture classes!  Woo Hoo!  That was sooooooooooooooo worth it!  Had so much fun learning new techniques and getting so much fun stuff to play with!  I highly recommend it.
 
 
Day 2 of Prima ArtVenture began in Stephanie Miller's class.  She informed us that all of her kits didn't make it in time, so we got some stuff that wasn't in her original sample.  No harm done... we still got cool stuff!  Here's the work in progress...
 
 

Initial layout using a Julie Nutting doll and Princess paper!  Love that new paper!


Here's the sample by Stephanie Miller..


And here's the sweet lady herself! Nicest lady at ArtVenture!

 
Here's all the toys we got in our box along with my project.
 
 
 
 
One of the things they were doing at ArtVenture was a silent auction for Charity Wings.  This was a canvas donated by one of the instructors.  I believe it was made by Steph.


Pretty awesome design huh?  Check out the back!


And can't wait to get my hands on this TV frame!!!!!  They didn't have any at the Prima store.  This was made by Frank.


Our second class of the day was with Nathalie Kalbach.  She was so awesome!  Poor thing wasn't feeling well after lunch, but managed to get through our class and teach us some awesome techniques.  She walked around class with the sample around her neck.  That's just how cool she is!

 
Here's what was in our box.
 
 

 
 
And here's a better look at my project completed.  Used a photo from Cami's birthday at A Cup of Tea!
 

And we made a new friend!  Meet "Ninja", aka Reese Whitherspoon.  No, not the real Reese, but doesn't she totally look like her?  She acts like her too.  She came all the way from Canada and is super quick at making her projects!  Plus she seems to always be a step ahead of us... quick like Ninja!  Found it funny that she told her boyfriend that she latched onto us!  Little does he know that we were stalking her because she seemed to always know when the new product was delivered to the Prima Store!!  She would disappear and then later seem to have all the new stuff!!  Ninja skills.


Our last class was with Jamie Doughtery!  Jamie is the artist that has a new line called Bloom Girls!  Congrats Jamie!!  I just have to say that Jamie was sooooooo nice!  Her class was totally challenging.  Didn't realize how difficult a time I would have painting, but somehow I finished my project.  Thanks for the challenge Jamie!


Uh oh!  Who made Linda mad?  Bwahahahahahaha!


Here's what we got in Jamie's class.  A Bloom Girl stamp and mini album!  Check out all the yummy embellies!


And here's a better look at the finished product.  Oh!  And we used the new Prima sprays on the project.  Overall I have to say that I like them!  I would totally buy them if I can find them somewhere!


After we said goodbye to Jamie and our Ninja friend Sherry, we stopped by to see if Nathalie was feeling better.  She managed to take a photo with me and Linda.
 



After we got back we started packing!  OMG.. Linda is still packing now and I'm falling asleep.  Gonna head to the Post Office tomorrow to mail some stuff back home. Before I sign off, I leave you with one last photo of Prima goodness.  My last Prima ArtVenture Haul!

 

Nighty Night!