Lia Stampz design team call

******Only a few days left to enter my 50 follower giveaway!  Click on THIS POST to enter!******

I was blog surfing the other day and I came across Lia Stampz.   She has so many QUIRKY digi stamps!  Perfect for a quirky gal like me! I'm entering her design team call with this card.  Check out her super cute stuff!

Here's my simple card featuring Lia Stampz' birdie named Kiki.

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I'm also entering this card in these challenges:

Creative Craft - blue, brown, cream

My Craft Spot - Cute Critters

Party Time Tuesday - Anything Goes

Outlawz POM challenge - Anything Goes

A post for Disney fans!

We spent all day yesterday at the beach to celebrate Memorial Day.  While driving there, we have to pass the marina.  In the corner of my eye, I saw what could be a pirate ship!  Now, I know that there have been sightings of The Black Pearl around the island as they shot the latest movie here on Oahu, but I thought the ship went back to wherever it came from as shooting is over.  Well, we walked about 15 minutes to the back of the marina to see if it was really Captain Jack Sparrow's ship...

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AND IT WAS!!! 

We spotted a few more families trying to get to the other side of the ship where it was docked.  It looked so super cool!  It's just there, docked at Ko'Olina marina right next to the new Disney resort... probably waiting to be sent back to where ever Pirates 5 is going to be filmed.

And just because of that ship, I was in a Disney mood!  So here is my latest card:

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Kept it super simple because Mickey took forever to cut out and assemble.  The cuts on this cart is so intricate but the results are so worth it!  Didn't make this for anyone... just felt like being a bit Disney!

I also have a more exact picture and description of my giveaway prize!  If you'd like to enter my giveaway, leave a comment on this post.    Last day to enter is Thursday, June 2.  This is to thank all my followers, so if you're not a follower, please sign up to be my follower to enter the giveaway!

You'll receive: 

Gold card making kit (makes 2 cards), Dreamworks brass stencil (says "Love" in Kanji), 12 3-D embellishments by Party Express for Hallmark, 1 package of primary color tags with eyelets, 2 packages of embossed vintage looking rose stickers, 3 sheets of Chatter Box photo corners, 3 sheets Chatterbox scrap booking stickers, 1 package Craft House vintage flower sequins, 2 sheets (1 package) Mrs. Grossmans scrap metal stickers, 5 pieces paisley chipboard, 1 package aluminum stickers, 1 package Sandylion stickers Playtime Girl, 1.5 yards each of Vintage green rose ribbon, vintage lace trim, vintage gold and turquoise flower ribbon, vintage gold and pink flower ribbon, vintage lace ribbon, and wire lace ribbon (not vintage), 2 yards each of turquoise braided cord and purple  braided cord (Staple Sewing Aids vintage 1977) and 10 3" Create a Critter giraffes made by moi!

'Till next time!

Fantabulous Cricut Top 5, 50 followers, and a GIVEAWAY!!!

Omigosh, I was picked by Fantabulous Cricut's design team as one of their Top 5 last week in their angle challenge! Woohoo!  I entered my graduation gown card.  You can see their blog post here.  So many beautiful entries!  I'm very honored that I was one of the lucky chosen ones.  I'm wearing my Top 5 badge with pride ----> over there in my right side bar. :)

I've also hit 50 followers this week! WOOHOO!  When I started this blog I just wanted a place to archive my cards, maybe direct a family member or two here if they were looking for a specific project.  But I've made so many new friends and I've learned A LOT.  These blogs are all linked and networked and sometimes I get crazy lost in post after post of gorgeous cards and paper projects.  I'm so very blessed and I thank every one of you that follows me.  I always comment back on your blog if you leave me one, so please share the love!

To celebrate, I'm hosting a giveaway!  All you have to do is:
1) Be a follower on my blog.  If you're not a follower, then click the "follow me" button in my right side bar.
2) Leave a comment on this post.
3) Leave a way I can reach you!

You will have 1 week to enter (giveaway closes Thursday, June 2 at midnight Hawaii time) and winner will be picked by random generator.

Here are some of the things I will include, but I will add more to the pot (as it is almost bedtime and I just grabbed a few random things so I could get you guys a picture!)

Kitty cat not included. ;)

 {EDIT:}  Here is a more accurate description of what is included in the giveaway:

You'll receive: 

Gold card making kit (makes 2 cards), Dreamworks brass stencil (says "Love" in Kanji), 12 3-D embellishments by Party Express for Hallmark, 1 package of primary color tags with eyelets, 2 packages of embossed vintage looking rose stickers, 3 sheets of Chatter Box photo corners, 3 sheets Chatterbox scrap booking stickers, 1 package Craft House vintage flower sequins, 2 sheets (1 package) Mrs. Grossmans scrap metal stickers, 5 pieces paisley chipboard, 1 package aluminum stickers, 1 package Sandylion stickers Playtime Girl, 1.5 yards each of Vintage green rose ribbon, vintage lace trim, vintage gold and turquoise flower ribbon, vintage gold and pink flower ribbon, vintage lace ribbon, and wire lace ribbon (not vintage), 2 yards each of turquoise braided cord and purple  braided cord (Staple Sewing Aids vintage 1977) and 10 3" Create a Critter giraffes made by moi!

'Till next time!

Simple Dino Card

A week and a half at the new job has come and gone and now that I reflect on it... it wasn't so bad!  The good news is that there is only a few more days in this week and it's SUMMER!  I think that's the best part about working in education. :) An actual vacation!

My Godson's birthday is today and I made him this cute and simple card:

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I used Create a Critter (of course), which is my go to cartridge when I need something quick.  The paper was some cheap sheets I got from the dollar store and all card stock and sentiment is by SU! Can you tell I'm digging the banner sentiments?  So super cute!

I'm entering this in these challenges:

Scrappy Frogs birthday challenge

Party Time Tuesday animal challenge

Creative Card Crew anything goes

'Till next time!

Graduation Card

My SIL is graduating high school.  I don't have many graduation cuts on my Cricut... just a hat, a diploma, and a dressed up Hello Kitty.  Well,  she has been over Hello Kitty for years (how can someone be over my bestest kitty cat friend?!) so I decided I'd try something different.  I know I've seen some simple single layer cards that look like graduation gowns so I just did a lot of trial and error to get it to look right.  Here's what I came up with:

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I started off with the single layer card without the hat and diploma, but I wanted to enter it into a few more challenges so I created the hat with tassel and the diploma with the ribbon.  Love it when one card can enter numerous challenges!

I'm entering these in:

Scrapalicious graduation theme challenge

Fantabulous Cricut try this angle challenge (needs to have a triangle and a rectangle [shirt is made from 2 triangles and the card is a rectangle, also the hat is a rectangle with ends folded in so it "pops" off the card])

Kaboodle Doodles tic tac toe (ribbon, punch or die, brad)

I Did It Creations anything goes challenge

And of course, The Outlawz CAS Sunday challenge which is make a 1 layer card

Till next time!

Candy Lei

It's that time of year... lei season!  Graduations are happening all over the island and the perfect gift for grads is a lei on their ceremony day.  No graduations this week, but here are a couple of candy lei I made for some friends that are visiting us from Germany.

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Filled with their favorite Hawaii snacks!  Crack seed, melon hard candy, and mango gummies.

Just a quicky post today.  This week at my new job is kicking my butt.  Its getting easier day by day so I'm hoping I'll get into a good grove.  I have no experience, but I'm eager to learn and I'm very passionate about everything I do.  Let's hope this is going to get better!

Cassette Tape Card

Today started my first day at my new job.  It wasn't what I expected and I feel a bit overwhelmed.  Tomorrow is a new day, however, and all I can do is hope and pray that I can handle the stress.  My body doesn't handle stress very nicely and I can already feel that I'm going to need a massage therapy session at the end of this week!

Anywho, here's a simple card that I made for an Uncle's birthday:

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The cassette tape was cut from Indie Art cartridge.  The paper is from a weird but cool paper pack called Daydreams by K&Company.  It's got mermaids, ukuleles, bicycles, umbrellas, submarines, rainbows, and unicorns.  Really eclectic paper... I love it!

The first contest I'm entering this in is a movie theme challenge at The Paper Variety.  The cassette tape reminds me of mix tapes (that I was the MASTER at!).  There was one scene in No Strings Attached where Ashton Kutcher makes Natalie Portman a "period mix."  Hilarious!  Of course, the movie is newer so he made her a CD, but those are still called mix tapes, right?  Lol, I still call them that!  You can watch the clip of the movie here on YouTube.  

The second contest I'm entering this in is a Father's Day or Retro theme at Getting Cricky.  The cassette tape is pretty "retro" considering we went from records to the tape to CDs and then to mp3s on the ipod! Technology is passing me by...

The third contest I'm entering this in is a music themed challenge by Pollycraft. Such super cute entries this week... you need to check this one out!

'Till next time folks!

Vintage Flowers

Trying my hand at a couple of challenges and feeling a little vintage today!  Vintage isn't something I do very often because frankly, I like clean and simple and a card taking 20 minutes or less!  With vintage, there is a lot of distressing and sponging and inking.  I was up for it, today, though!

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Two different patterned papers from Paper Pizzaz' vintage collection.  I also cut out a tag from the same paper pack.  Stamp is a random one in my stash and made into an embellishment and hemp twine is from SU.

I'm entering this card in these challenges:

Scrapalicious

Creative Card Crew

Sparkles Forum

Creative Craft Challenges

Kaboodle Doodles Challenge

Scrappy Frogs

'Till next time!

Sympathy cards

Glad blogger is back up and running!  I have a few comments deleted so I'm sorry if I never got back to you if you left me a comment.  I usually comment on everyone's blog if they've left a comment but I have no archives of the comments I received in my previous post.  :(  So sorry about that, but if you leave me a comment on this one I will definitely leave you some love on yours. :)

There was some sad news this week.  My husband's dear great grandmother passed away.  I made a bunch of sympathy cards for the family.

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My bestie's grandmother gave me some old vintage lace trim and I decided that it would be nice to put on a card.  I used a SU stamp and punches.  I embossed the background with a Cuttlebug embossing folder.  The sentiment is from my all time favorite sentiment stamp set from Impression Obsession.  It has 92 word stamps and you can mix and match words for any occasion.  If I didn't have the right sentiment to go on a card, this stamp set saved me!

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This one is for Grandpa so I made it blue.  Still a bit feminine, but at least it's not pink!  I  water colored (tried!) an old SU stamp and used Accent Essentials to create a stretched scallop to fit it in.  Some black satin ribbon and the same sentiment completes it.

The first card was entered into the Clear It Out Challenge

The second card was entered into the My Mum's Craft Shop Challenge

'Till next time!

Stampin Up! Out with the old swap

Recently, I participated in a SU swap to get rid of our old, retired colors and use up our old stamp sets and ink.  I got my big package in the mail today of over 30+ swap cards!  I love participating in swaps because you receive so many ideas and also cards to send to friends and family or to use as a hostess gift.  Here are some of my favorites (I wish I could post them all, but 30+ seems like a lot!):

Artist: Janet Danis

Artist: Wanda Smith

Artist: Teresa Giordano

Artist: Amy Petterson

Artist: Teresa Giordano

Artist: M. Markey Dwyer

Artist: Sasha Wilson

Artist: Sasha Wilson

Artist: Tiffany Simone (to thank me for swapping!)

I have a similar swap running right now that has the same concept, but with a punny theme.  It is all stampin up products, old or new.  If you'd like to participate, let me know in a comment and I'll send you the info! Till next time, folks!

MPS National Scrapbook Day challenges # 8 - 12

Finally finished all of the MPS challenges, HOORAY!  My craft corner looks really messy, but that's OK, right!? :)  Here they are:

Challenge 8: Summer theme

This cut is from the Sugar & Spice cartridge and it's supposed to be a bib, but it looks like a jar to me!  Fruit always reminds me of summer.  Paper is from Martha Stewart's school stack.

Challenge 9: Glitz, glam, and glitter

What could be more glammy and glitzy than a huge diamond?  Cut from Indie Art and I glittered the "sparkle."

Challenge 10: Pet

This one was doing double duty and was given for Meowmy's Day to one of my friends who has an orange fur baby named Alley Cat.  Alley is the king of everything, including drawers!  Cut from Meow cartridge and "kitty kitty" chipboard piece is from my stash.

Challenge 11: Pink, green, black

This one is also doing double duty and will be given to my bestie's younger sister for her birthday this month.  She loves Hello Kitty (as do I!)  The cut is from Hello Kitty cartridge and the face is from Peachy Keen's Hello Kitty faces stamp set.  LOVE that I don't have to deal with gluing those little noses!

Challenge 12: Kids

This was my first attempt at a word book.  My God son's birthday is this month so I though I'd create him a word book.  It's supposed to say "Tanner" but now I'm noticing that a word book with more than 4 pages should be created on a 12x24 mat.  His name is just too long for 12 inches!  It was created using my Gypsy and welding the letters to the square shapes.  Here are some pages from the book:

Animal cuts from Create a Critter cartridge and bugs are 3D stickers by K&Co.

More K & Co. 3D stickers and journaling stamps are just some I got from a garage sale.

More Create a Critter and K & Co.

Wow!  Those were a lot of projects!  I did take all weekend to finish them all but I'm glad I did!  I'm caught up on birthdays and projects for the rest of the month!  Lol, but I'm sure more projects will pop up... isn't that how it always works?  Till next time, folks!

A Happy Mother's Day and MPS National Scrapbook Day Challenges 1, 2, 3, 5, 7

Happy Mother's Day to everyone!  Including ones with fur babies!

I glued and inked until my knuckle bones were exposed and I still have a lot to do!  Here are my submissions for mypinkstamper.com's National Scrapbook Day challenges.

(((And HOORAY I found my digi camera! It's been lost since Girl Scout camp! Lol!)))

Challenge 1: Something with a cupcake 

All stamps, paper, and ribbon by SU!

Challenge 2: Use Kraft card stock

The digi stamp was taken from the Outlawz.  It's the digi stamp that I messed up a few days ago and turned out muddy!  Also, my Smooch Spritz nozzle was broken!  It ended up splashing the entire card!  I figured that it hides my bad coloring well! LOL!  I had to transfer my Smooch Spritz liquid to a mister.  Ugh.  

Challenge 3: Breast Cancer

Used pink and brown for a breast cancer theme.  Everything is SU! except for the background paper which is from the Martha Stewart school stack.

Challenge 5: 3-D item

Chocolate bar holder/slider.  Everything is by SU!

Challenge 7: Scrapbook Page

I don't make scrapbook pages.  You can see why!  12 inches is just too much for one sitting for me.  I kept this uber short and simple with just some Cricut cuts from Sugar & Spice and some pink rectangles for photos.  Since I don't do scrapbook pages, I'm going to donate this page to a gal who is collecting scrapbook pages on Stampin Connection to donate to a family who just gave birth to a baby girl that is hydrocephalic. 

Need to get back to work! I will post the other projects once I'm through!

MPS Scrapbook Day Challenges #4 and #6

 I'm a lotta behind with the challenges right now and I just completed a couple that I thought I could do before we head to the movies!  These were for mypinkstamper.com challenges 4 and 6.

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Challenge 4: Something for Mother's Day

I had the pieces for the tulips lying around because I cut them out for the Girl Scouts to use last week (post here).  I just put together 2 of them and stuck them on a card.  I added ribbon and a wavy banner sentiment.  Simple and easy!

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Challenge 6: Incorporate a tag

I needed to make a wedding anniversary card for my Aunt and her husband.  I took inspiration from this card and changed the colors and the layout a little bit.  I made the tag out of SU punches and SU stamp sentiment.  I added 2 rhinestones for that extra something!  An anniversary card and a challenge submission in one go... now that's killing 2 birds with 1 stone!

I'm setting aside time to complete the rest of these challenges late tonight and tomorrow morning before I take my Ma out for dinner.  See you then!

Girl Scouts End of Year projects

Sorry for the lack of posts yesterday.  It's coming close to the end of the school year and my 5 Girl Scout troops are finishing their end of year community service projects.  Yesterday I spent almost the entire day buying school supplies and finishing up a donation drive and then packaging those school supplies to donate to a local school.  I'm so proud that these girls wanted to do something nice for local teachers!

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Girl Scouts and school supplies

Another Girl Scout troop wanted to paint over the graffiti at their neighborhood park.  I must tell you, there was TONS of graffiti at this popular kid hangout, especially their jungle gym/slide.  There were words that little kids shouldn't be seeing.  We didn't raise enough money to buy a new jungle gym/slide, but we made enough to buy several cans of good old fashioned paint:

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Before

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After!

The girls transformed this playground into one that looks brand new, just this morning!  We also painted the graffiti off the bathroom walls, the trash cans, and the basketball courts.  So we didn't make thousands of dollars selling cookies... but I was so proud that the little that we did make, the girls decided to do something extraordinary for their local community instead of themselves!

So, I was a busy busy bee for a day and a half.  Now I'm off to create projects for National Scrapbooking day and mypinkstamper.com for a few hours before the husband and I head out to watch Thor (I'm taking him to thank him for painting all the spots us girls couldn't reach!) Till next time, folks!  Happy creating today!

 

Girl Scout Awards

Didn't make any cards today.  I worked all morning on awards for my scouts.  This week is the last week I'll see them of the school year and then on Monday I start my new job as a teacher's aide for Autistic children.  *Sniffle* I'm going to miss these kids!  I wasn't planning on leaving, but when a job called (a year went by since I applied!) I had to take it... the economy was getting to us and a full time job just sounded ideal. With that aside, I did create them some cute looking awards:

I bleed green award

Close up of flower "ribbon"

I wanted it to be a little bit more special so I designed the certificates in Microsoft Word and created cute names for the awards as well.  I wanted to put something crafty on it so I created the "ribbon" with SU! punches (scallop, circles, and boho flowers punch).  I held it all together with a brad and dimensionals.  Also added some gold glittered ribbon.  They were a huge hit!

Till next time!

Mother's Day projects (and a little help from my blogging friends!)

Alright guys, here are (some) of my Mother's Day cards! Of course, I had to make some quick ones with Create a Critter.  These have the cute ladybugs on them.  Just used leftover scrap paper to makes these guys. 

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The inside of these ladybug cards have a poem in it.  I don't remember the exact words (already sent them out!) but something about how I heard ladybugs are useful but not as useful as you.  Corny and cute!

The next card I made with a tutorial from Dawn Griffith's page (dawnsstampinthoughts.net).  She's my direct SU! upline!  I do not have the SU flower punch, so I used some cute retired SU felt flowers and brads.

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The top pulls out to reveal a message:

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I thought it was so clever! :)

AND a question to all my crafty blogging Queens:  I colored my first digi stamp this morning.  It came out terrible.  The ink from the printed imaged blended with my colors to give my picture an all-over muddied grey hue.  If I'm coloring a stamped image, I used STAZ-on to make sure that doesn't happen...but what should I do to keep the printer ink from blending? I use ink and blender pen as I'm not really great with just straight markers.  I know you gals have an answer to this question with all the awesome digi images I see colored!  Thanks guys!

More Teacher's Appreciation Projects

Whew!  What a week of projects!  More teacher's appreciation projects the past couple of days and in the next few, I'll show you my Mother's Day projects. :)

To thank the teachers that let us Girl Scouts use their rooms, I made some of these Orbit gum holders.  The school made each day this week (for teacher's appreciation week) a special theme and I gave it to them yesterday for "fruit day," which is when you give your teacher fruit.  I figured they would have TONS of fruit, so I opted for fruity flavored gum!

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Orbit gum holders for Teacher's Appreciation Day

These were so simple to make, I just took the concept from those cocoa or chocolate bar sliders.  I just wrapped the card stock around the gum (Mine was cut at 3 3/4"x 5.5" scored at 1/2", 2.5", 3", and 5": but these measurements can be altered for different brands of gum).  I punched holes with my Crop a Dile at the tops and fed the ribbon through with the gum in the middle of everything.  I secured the sides with Sticky Strip then decorated with Stampin Up's Tart & Tangy stamp set to match the orange flavor.  The sentiments were just printed from my computer and punched out.

I had younger Girl Scouts earlier in the week and wanted to do a crafty project with them too.  Instead of having tiny paper parts, I decided to keep it simple.  The apple is for Teacher's Appreciation week and the flower is for Mother's Day.

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5 year olds made these!

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Just attach a magnet to the back for instant gifts

I just cut out the apple pieces from Create a Critter.  I left out the leaves because they were a bit small.  For the Mother's Day magnet, I just stamped a flower image on a piece of white card stock and stamped a sentiment as well.  I let them decorate it and mount it on another piece of pink card stock.  Magnetic strips ($1 at Wal-Mart!) went onto the backs so they can give them as gifts to their teacher and Mom.  

Till tomorrow folks! Can't wait to see what you guys have been making this week at your blogs!  Leave me a comment below and I'll come and visit! :)

Penguin Birthday

Create a Critter is by far my favorite Cricut cartridge (can you tell?!).  Everything layers so well and all the cuts are cute.  Plus there is an enormous variety of animals on here that you can match up with punny sayings for any occasion!

Penguin card made for my FIL

This one was made for my FIL who is a penguin lover!  All I did was print the sentiment from my computer and punched it out with SU!'s word window punch.  Super easy and super cute!