Grad card in a rush

Happy Aloha Friday everyone! It's graduation season. I want to send out congrats to the class of 2008!
My niece, Ally, will be graduating tomorrow from Kailua High School. Yay Blue & White! I am working on making her name sign for after the graduation, which seems to be a tradition. It's so your family and friends can find you in the mass of people after the ceremony. I will post a pic of it when I'm all done. Still putting the finishing touches on it
Here is a card I made for my mom and dad to give to her. I yet have to make one from my family :)
This card is a very simple card, partly because I did it in a rush when mom said, "did you make my card for Ally yet?" "Uh, no, not yet." "Should I go out and buy one then?" - "no, I'll make it right now." Anyone else go through this? I love my mom very much, but sometimes I wish they could kind of go with my flow, know what I mean?? Their generation likes to have everything all set in advance. Not that I don't agree, but with the way my life is (scream!) it's so hard to do everything that I'm supposed to do all in advance. Did you all just advise me to start saying NO to all the stuff that I commit myself to doing??? I'm trying, really!
Sorry to ramble about this. On to the card! Simple, that's all I can say. it's not bad, but if I do another card like this, I would run the front of the card in a CB emboss folder to add some texture. I've been liking my embellishments to "pop" out and use either a double layer of dimensionals or a higher foam tape (that I got from Cute Stuff).
This is the inside of the card. I adhered a glassine envelope to the left side of the card for the moolah. I guess it would also be a good place to hold a giftcard too. It looked so plain, so had to jazz it up. I used the large and small star and adhered it to the tip of the flap. Kind of adds a little fun to the envelope.

Supplies: Brilliant blue, whisper white cardstock, white organdy ribbon, Stamp set: Great Grads. Brilliant Blue ink. Marvy mega scallop circle punch, mega circle punch, dimensionals, large and small SU star punches, glassine envelope.

It was a short week with the Memorial Day holiday on Monday, but for some reason, the week felt longer than usual...I guess trying to jam 5 days into 4...how's that for running on a high stress level! haha! Looking forward to crafting with Darcie and Jean at lunch today. We're making flip albums!! yay!! Also, getting my hands on the new CTMH catty from Jean.

Thanks for visiting today. TGIF is all I can say. It's gonna be a long and busy weekend. I will be doing classes this weekend at CUTE STUFF. We will be making a peek-a-boo card featuring the dude and hula girl penguins and also a larger waterfall card featuring the Stampendous Changito monkeys!! There's still room if you'd like to join us.

**sigh** Nolan is running a fever again and it seems like his cough got worse. Talk about keeping me on my toes! Can we say Calgon???

For Baby

Is it just me or did everyone get caught up in the die cutting purchasing?? OMG, these companies are pumping out these dies like there's no tomorrow or endless money!! Check out this new XL Sizzix box die - too cute! My GF Cheryl made this box for me at one of her make 'n takes at Ben Franklin stores. I love the color combo too, this is just too sweet. I did, however, buy the cute elephant die but did not use it yet!! Cheryl cut the ele's ear out in white felt - great touch to the cutout don't ya think?? The next three pics show you the other sides of the box. This was made to be a decorative cube. Love the branches too!

Since I was not able to attend the MITI, Cheryl made this for me. Aww, thanks Cheryl!!

NOTE: for anyone who is interested in getting the pdf files to make the flip album, please email me and I will email them to you as an attachment. I am currently looking for someone to host pdf files so I can put it on my blog. I am not the computer expert as some of you out there, so any suggestions would be appreciated!

Have a great day everyone!

Another beautiful day in paradise...

Happy Tuesday everyone!! A little behind in sharing these pics with you. This beautiful shot was taken at 6:00 AM when we were at Hawaiian Memorial setting flowers at the cemetary. I love how the mountains look so fresh! It was wonderful because the roads were empty and the air was still cool! Yesterday, I took Nolan and a friend to Sandy Beach to fly kites. Here's Nolan flying his kite. The weather was just so perfect! Look how blue the sky was and can you see the ocean too? As perfect as the weather was - guess who forgot to put on sunscreen???? Yup! moi! OMG, you guys should see my sunburn! Thank goodness after putting lots of after sun, it doesn't look half bad today! Notice that I'm not going to embarrass myself by posting a pic of me here.

After flying kites for 2 hours, we had to get cooled off so we went to get Shaved Ice! Yummy!! This was from a little hole in the wall place called B&S store on School Street...in my opinion, they make "da bes" ... my flavor was strawberry, banana and melon with condensed milk on top!!

What a fantastic holiday!!

I wanted to Thank Jodi Ann for these really cool push pins. They are shrinked art! Can you recognize some of the stamps she used??? I see the SU owl and the cute little gal with the haku lei on by TAC...she also used stamps by Whipper snapper...Jodi is finally creating a blog to show off her work...I'll post her link when she's good to go.

Here's a close up of my favorite pin...love this doggie with the TP...Thanks Jodi for these gifts...LOVE them!!

Thanks for coming by today...more soon!!

A fun day at Faye's

Saturday, Wini and I joined Pam, Linda and Karen and went to Faye's house. We went over to teach the girls how to make the flip album. Here's the cover of Pam's album...so cute! She used the DS papers from Summer Time. I'm ordering this pack!! So fresh and summery!! Love this, Pam!

Here's Pam and Linda busy making their albums!

Yummy lunch! Thanks ladies, it was delicious!!

Desserts!

Pam and I swapped taking the pics...Thanks ladies for a fun day!!

I'm trying to figure out how to attach my PDF file so I can share my tutorial for the flip album with you! I know you're waiting for this, but be patient cuz I'm new at this!! Thanks!!!

Birthday Wishes for my BFF!

My post is late and so is my card to my BFF Wini! Sorry GF. The draw backs of having way too many stamps is that I have a hard time deciding which stamp to use! haha! laugh with me everyone because I'm sure we all go through the same dilemma!! Here's what I came up with for my birthday wishes to Wini.

Here's the view to see the glitter - have to have some sparkle!

Here's the inside sentiment - cute yeah? I got this stamp from my other BFF Cheryl - thanks girl!

Card info: Cutie Pie DSP, Very Vanilla, Old Olive, Purely Pomegranate, Bashful Blue and Barely Banana CS, Bee stamps from Stampendous, Special Friend and Best Girlfriend stamps from Hero Arts, Scallop circle punch, 1 3/8" and 1 1/4" circle punch, dimensionals, white gel pen, jumbo eyelets and dazzling diamonds!
Is it officially summer?? It's really hot, hot, hot!!! Mochiko is finding a way to cool off! "Hey!, this is "cooler" than my basket!" LOL!! Such dry humor huh. Well, hope your Memorial Day weekend is going good so far! Tomorrow, we're off to put flowers on the graves in remembrance. Dad said since it's bright early, let's leave the house at 5:45 a.m. Eesh! It's 10:30 PM here right now, so I guess I better get my butt into bed before I can't get up!! I'll be posting pics from our girlfriends day today at Faye's house soon! Thanks ladies, I had a fun, fun, fun day today!!!

The Queen of Pressure

That would be me :) I totally work better under pressure, but why????? Anyone knows? I'm sure I'm not alone. Well, here is a good example of working under pressure. One of my very good girlfriends celebrated a birthday and I knew that I wanted to make something special for her. So...here's what I made in one evening, desperate to finish to take to work the next day. I decided to make her a flip album using the SU simply scrappin' kit called Creative License. This kit was a level 1 hostess selection in which I earned 2 sets. I first saw this awesome album on a blog by Chiaki Haverstick. Check out her projects at http://www.stampinpro.com/ Here is my version of Chiaki's flip album.

Here's what the final project looks like. Pretty cool huh?

I ended up re-writing this tutorial to my own personal liking. I must say that although my version is very thorough, OMG, it is quite long. I'll work on getting that link on here so you all can take a stab at creating your very own :)
Here's the birthday card I made to go with the gift. Ever have one of those projects that the more you do to it, the worse it gets?? I did not love this creation but it turned out "okay".

Hey!, it's Aloha Friday!! Long weekend - Memorial Day weekend! Hope you all have some grand plans up your sleeve!! Thanks for checking in!

Vog, vog, go away!

It's back! The awful vog is back!! I can't imagine having such poor air quality in paradise. For those of you who don't live here probably can't imagine that either!! Since this vog has been lingering here, my son, who is asthmatic and also is recovering from a sinus infection has been having a real hard time feeling better. So, last night we spent many hours at Kapiolani Medical Center's ER because Nolan told me he was having a hard time breathing. He is no stranger to this ER but it's always scary when your child tells you that they cannot breathe! Since Eric was working, I had to make the drive in to town and if you know me, I don't like to drive at night and don't like driving in the rain. It was pouring buckets! Where I live is about 15+ miles from town and we drive over the mountain through tunnels - of course, this is for the gals who don't know that I live in the "country"... I love it though, I live one block from the beautiful white sand beaches, so I can see mountain and ocean from my home. Anyway, by the time he was feeling better, it was after midnight and I've been up for about 21 hours and was so tired!! I had to keep talking to myself that I'll make it home, and it was only a short way away...I kind of felt like a zombie! Thank goodness we made it home okay. Today, we did a follow up with the PCP to get the meds adjusted. Tonight, it rained quite hard, so hopefully, some of that vog will disappear...cross your fingers!
Thought I'd cheat a little and post a scrapbook LO that I made before blogs were around. I created this page called Four things about Me and it was a challenge that Jen had on her then site called For the Love of Stamping and Scrapping too...it seems like so long ago! Anyway, this was my entry in her challenge.Thank you to the peeps who visit my blog and comment to make me feel like keeping up with this. There are some days that it's so challenging to make the time to post. So I appreciate all of YOU!

Aloha Tea Tin

I've been wanting to alter these tea tins for the longest time!! I got these from Gina K. Designs the same time I ordered my owl stamps. Gina K. has got to be one of the most generous people out there, always having giveaways on her blog. Check out her website here.

This tin was made for somebody special who just celebrated her birthday. I feel so bad that I'm so behind on my creating and worse in being late in sending out birthday wishes! I won't "spill the beans" by telling you who this is for because she reads my blog - hehe! But I really wanted to post this because I was really excited when I finished it. I added red stickles to the hula girl and also on the aloha tag, so shiny! It looked a little on the plain side but I can see myself over doing it and then ruining the whole project!! Anyway, this tin will be filled with a bunch of yummy hawaiian goodies!

I cut 2 flowers and layered them on top of each other, I like the look of it this way. Finished it by adding some gold stickles to it to make it sparkle!

Supplies used: Do the Hula stamp set (retired), tea tin by Gina K. Designs, Red gingham ribbon, red and gold stickles, jumbo eyelet.

My funny cat story for today - every morning when I get up, I let Mochiko out of her kennel and she is so super happy! Purring loud like a car's engine and following me everywhere! She "thinks" she's the Queen of the house, but of course, she's wrong! haha! As the days go by, she is getting more daring. She's not allowed on the furniture especially the couches that my mom just spent a pretty penny re-upholstering...well the other morning, look where I found her? Doesn't she look comfy?? I took the pic and had to chase her off before grandma sees her and has a cow - eeks!

Thanks for letting me share these stories with you and of course, thanks for stopping by for the visit!

the family is growing...

So its almost summer which means it's co-op student time... Last year Niki was my co-op, and we got along pretty well, so she's still working for me... This summer Bryce Huffman will be helping us in the studio, he's actually a bud of Niki's from school... He's been in a couple of times so far, he's a good dude and definitely has skills...



His first job was to dig through the garbage so Niki and I could take photos and laugh at him...




His work is good, I'll post a link once I figure out where he posts stuff...

My old bud Adam is helping me out in the studio for a bit too, he just moved back from Italy and has no cash, so he's building some stuff for me around the studio for the next couple of weeks... He used to assist me way back, around 5 years ago as a volunteer... I met him around the same time I met Andrew... I feel a bit weird about him helping me out around here, just cause he's way smarter and way more talented than me...



The family is growing in another way too... My cousin Sogna got married on Sunday... She and I are the two artists in the family, shes an amazing painter and photographer, so I feel especially close to her, and her new man is a great guy... Anyway, Congratulations Sogna and Jason...!