Diana's 1 year blogaversary hop!

Welcome to DIANA's (of DL.ART)  1st blogaversary blog hop!  There are 12 stops in this hop, which means 12 awesome projects and lots of BLOG CANDY!  Along the way, you will find four people with a word; these words will give you the clues for the ingredients you will need to complete your project.  Each designer will have a project that will inspire you and also have some clues as to what the ingredients are. 

Diana will also have a link up on her blog!  You will have until 11:59 on Jan 6, 2012  to link your project. Once you have linked your project, you will have a chance to win the grand prize giveaway: a Sweet Tooth Boxes Cricut cartridge!  In order to win the cartridge, you need to leave a message on all posts along the way AND link up to Mr. Blue frogger on her site.  So hop, hop, hop and don't forget to check back in with Diana!


For our projects we had to use 3 colors of Diana's choosing (hmm... I wonder what they are?), and a specific number.  We also had to use a Cricut cut somewhere.  Here's my card that I sent through the mail for my awesome friend, Diana:

The digi is a Tiddlyinks image. :)  I used Tinkerbell and Friends for the butterfly and Sugar and Spice for the background tag for the digi.

Here's the inside!  Love this stamp set by Stampin' Up called Perfect Words!

How about some BLOG CANDY?  

My blog candy will get you prepared for Valentine's day!  It includes a Simply Sent card kit (makes 8 cards, just add a stamp!), some Valentine rub ons, 6 Robot girl sweet treat boxes, and 24 heart and butterfly punch outs.

To win, you must be or become a follower of my blog and leave a comment with a way to contact you.  That's it!

You'll have until January 6 to enter.  The winner will be chosen via random number generator.

Now that you've read through my post, became a follower, and left a comment, start HOPPING with these talented ladies!

http://dianamlarson.blogspot.com/

http://courtscrafts.blogspot.com/

http://amyscraftingspace.blogspot.com/

 http://hawaiipaperparty.blogspot.com/ <<<You are here!

http://littlescrappieces.blogspot.com/

http://www.scpapercrafts.com/

http://flowerdiscosscraphut.blogspot.com/

http://girliascards.blogspot.com/

http://doubleclickconnections.blogspot.com/

http://chick-n-scrap.blogspot.com/

http://creativediva98.blogspot.com/

http://www.believedreamcreatewithmaria.com/

http://dianamlarson.blogspot.com/ <<< Don't forget to stop back here after you've got your clues and link up to Mr. Blue frogger!

Handmade Christmas cards I received!

Here are some of the awesome handmade Christmas cards I received!

This one came all the way from Turkey!

My MIL's first Christmas cards!

And here's the rest of the cards.  I tape them on the door so I can post it to Facebook and tag everyone. :) Plus its really Christmassy when I close my door!

See you guys next time!

Baby Shower onesie cards

How was everyone's after Christmas sales?  I did a few returns today (shhh... don't tell!) and in the process tried to hit up some stores to see if I could score some stuff for next year.  I got 10 rolls of wrapping paper, 10 sets of boxes, and 35 gift bags at $1 a piece.  I was so proud of my thrifty-ness!

I'm throwing a shower for one of my (old!) co-workers so I made some invites.  I welded some onesie shapes I found on the B is for Boy cartridge on my Gypsy (welded at 5.5").  I was feeling uber lazy and time constricted, so I just slapped a sticker on the front of each one and called it a day.

Made them in all different colors and designs.

Love this stamp set!  I just got it and I already used it for 2 parties (this one and the Tinkerbell one I posted about a month ago).  It's called Inviting by Stampin Up!

More projects coming soon! It's late in Hawaii nei and I need to catch me some ZzZZZzzzz.  Tackling the tornado that is my craft room tomorrow! Eep!

Starbucks cup gift card holder

How was everyone's Christmas?  Hopefully Santa brought everything you wished for.  I know Santa was very generous to me this year.  I got a brand new HP color laser printer for printing out my digis, Copic markers, so much designer paper that I don't know where to put it all, and a new camera!  I'm having a hard time figuring out the bells and whistles of my camera, so I'm using my old one for now (until I can watch some pointers on YouTube!)

Anywho, there was a birthday in all this Christmas hoopla, and I totally forgot about a gift.  Eep!  I went to Starbucks to pick up a gift card and remembered someone posting on their blog that they simply put it in an empty Starbucks cup as a gift card holder.  So I asked for an empty one!  Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.  I wish I remembered where I saw the idea from... I feel really weird posting projects without giving credit.  So if this is your idea, please let me know and I'll edit my post.

Didn't have much time, so I just made a quickie tag and slapped a die cut from the Love you a Latte Cricut cart. 

Can't wait to read about all of your crafty Christmas presents that Santa left! 

Happy Holidays to my Blogger buddies!

I wanted to have one last final post to wish all my buddies on Blogger MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!  :)  I hope everyone has a great day today.  Here's my very last Christmas project using "Big Christmas" by Lia Stampz.  You can get it at Whimsy Stamps.  There are 63 awesome images to choose from!

This huge Christmas tree took a couple of days to color! :) It was "snow" much fun!

It's about 8am in Hawaii nei and I woke up early to make a quiche for Christmas brunch.  I heard some rustling by the stockings and spotted Santa himself!

Ho, ho, ho, Meowmy Christmas!  

Merry Christmas, my dear blogger friends!

One more project before all the hoopla

So got my last bit of Christmas crafting done before all the hoopla tonight and tomorrow morning.  Every year I do Christmas eve with my husband, Christmas morning with my God kids, and Christmas dinner with my parents.  :)  I'm so blessed I have all of them in my life.  

Here are more gift card holders!  I wanted to make something different than the other ornament ones I made a week ago so I found Rubber Redneck's 2010 video to make these FABBY santa suit gift card holders.  You can watch her YouTube video to make it here. 

So stinkin' cute! Love her design! Everything is SU except the buttons.

Hope everyone has fun this weekend!  I'll check in tomorrow with my final Christmas post!  Mele Kalikimaka to you all!

Mini candy cane snowmen

  I had a big box of mini candy canes that I bought about a month ago and I totally forgot about.  I hate it when that happens!  I decided to search the web to see what I could do with them.  I came across Chris Kolly of Rubber Room Ramblings.  She made these cute (and EASY!) snowman toppers for them using Stampin Up's curly label punch, word window punch, and baby blossoms punch.  A hand-drawn face and I was ready to go!

I'm passing them out to everyone... the gate guards on base, the store clerks, bank tellers, everyone I run into!

In other news, I went to the salon yesterday to get my hair permed.  My hair cannot hold a curl at all and I figured that I would just get it over with and get a perm!  Well whaddya know, I spent 5 hours there and I still walked out with straight hair!  LOL!  My hair can't hold a perm either!  I thought it was the funniest thing.  :)

Hope everyone's Christmas week is going well!

Simple snowman cards and an upcoming hop!

 I had this really cute snowman paper that I cut up to be the highlight in these CAS projects:

A couple of cards.

Here's what one of them looks like.  Aren't the snowmen adorable?

A simple gift card holder.

Held it together simply with two mini brads.

And coming on January 1st...

Diana's 1 year Blogaversary HOP!!!  :) Can't wait!

My Good News!!!

So, many of you have seen that I've been struggling a lot lately, mostly due to my injuries from work.  On top of that, my work environment was toxic, my boss retaliative,  and my health was deteriorating slowly due to stress.  I'm too young to be going through all of these health problems!  Anyway, with the advice from 3 doctors, I finally found the courage to QUIT today!  I put in my 2 weeks notice.  I have a NEW job starting next month, where I'll be a lot happier,  be making more money, will use my degree, and will give me time to do what I love to do -- my art.  Thank the Lord!  I've been praying for something to happen for the longest time.  The extra good news?  I've been out of work for about a week and a half now due to Christmas break and I've been healing rapidly.  It's amazing how much my body heals without the added stress.

With all of that said, here's a new Christmas project!

Here's a gift certificate holder I made for my in-laws.  They live in another state, so the hubs and I like to find a cool new restaurant close to them via Yelp.com and purchase a gift certificate over the phone for them.  We found a nice Italian place this time and I packaged it up so I could mail it to them. :)  Everything is SU!

I love love love LOVE my blogging friends! Thank you so much for supporting me and giving me so many loving comments while I've been healing.  You guys definitely gave me the strength I so desperately needed! More good news coming in January! :D

A couple of Lia Stampz cards

I've been a holiday craft making machine!  I'm so glad that I've got the next two weeks off from work to get caught up and unwind.  Here are a couple of cards I made with Lia Stampz images.  You can get them at Whimsy Stamps.

Snow buddies!

I really love this one with the triple ornament cats and ornament background paper. :)

'Till next Christmas project!  I think I can tell you my good news tomorrow!  :D 

Christmas Cards in bulk

I made a few Christmas cards with the same color scheme and background paper so that I could make a lot at once.  The layers were kept to a minimum, and I let my Copic colored Sliekje digi stamps shine through.  

Don't you just love her images?  :) Since everything was CAS, I added SU dazzling diamonds, white embossing, and banner embellies to make them more special. 

'Till the next Christmas project! Only 5 more days to go!

Creations by Shirl card swap - A Jack and Sally Christmas

About a month ago, Shirl from Creations by Shirl started to host a Christmas card swap with anyone willing to participate.  I decided to sign up.  The theme was white, red, and green.  Here's what I sent my swap buddy:

The digi is from Simply Betty stamps.  Colored them with Copics.  Paper is by Stampin up and ribbon is from my stash.  

I also sent my swap buddy some small gifts... hope she likes 'em!  After I put the package in the mail, I already missed Jack and Sally. :(  So I made this tag to go with a friend's Christmas present:

I love how you can scale down digis!

'Till the next Christmas project!

Andrea Walford's gift card holder ornaments

Hey guys!  Since my back is still really sore, I haven't done much shopping.  I can't walk for long periods of time and browsing a store isn't fun after 15 minutes!  So a lot of my gifts to friends and family will be gift cards.  I wanted to jazz them up, so I made these gift card holders.  The idea and specs came from Andrea Walford.  I love them because they can be hung on a tree, like an ornament!

Everything is by Stampin Up!  I really got a good use out of this stamp set : Warmest of Wishes.  And finally I've used my (hoarded) waffle paper!  It just makes the whole thing POP!

'Till next Christmas project!

Lia Stampz Monochrome challenge!

It's that time again!  Time for another challenge at Lia Stampz!  This time, make your card MONOCHROME!  I figured Santa is always red, so why not make him a different color?  I went back to his traditional roots and made him green.  You NEED to check out the Lia Stampz blog and see the other design team member's projects.  When we went monochrome, we got really creative!

Both the digi and sentiment is Lia Stampz.  You can purchase your own at Whimsy Stamps OR participate in the challenge and win some free digis!

*Edit* Hey guys, I totally jumped the gun here.  I forgot that there is no challenge this month! Lol, the DT created cards to say Merry Christmas and the next challenge will be in January. :) 

Get in the stamp jar HERE!

Sympathy card for Grandma

My GIL's brother recently passed and I had to make a sympathy card in the midst of all of these Christmas projects.  I remembered seeing a card somewhere in blog land using this Because I Care stamp set and some newsprint paper.  Figured I'd put them together today.

Everything is by SU! except for the Cuttlebug swiss dots embossing folder and copper colored emboss powder.  I added purple in there so it didn't look so drab.

'Till next time!  Tomorrow is the start of another Lia Stampz challenge so stay tuned for that!

Starbucks hot cocoa sliders

I wanted a quick and easy gift for co-workers so I decided to go with a hot cocoa slider which can be found anywhere on the web.  I wanted to up the glam factor a little and go with Starbucks Salted Caramel Hot Cocoa.  Unfortunately, there are no tutorials for the dimensions of this cocoa pouch, so I had to make em up.  Here they are:

Cute right?  If you want to give away Starbucks cocoa this holiday season, the measurements for my holder is 8.25"x 8.25" scored at 1" and 4.75."  Just add sticky strip to the 1" side and close it up with your cocoa packet in the middle.  Easy peasy!

When I made my gum sliders for teachers a few months ago, they had a hard time figuring out the sliding mechanism and just untied the bow.  So hopefully this little "pull" sign will make it a little easier to understand! Everything is SU except for the stamps, which are from garage sales.

Till next Christmas project!

Tinkerbell invite for a baby's first luau

A friend and I have been working on invitations for her baby's first luau (birthday) for about 3 weeks now. The theme is Tinkerbell.  They turned out pretty cute!

You can see why they took 3 weeks to make!  They're HUGE, have embossing, glitter, and some of Tink's parts had to be glued on with tweezers.  We made about 80 of them!  But they came out super adorable! Everything is Stampin Up!

I haven't started on any Christmas stuff... I'm so behind!  Even our Christmas tree is still in it's box!  I've just been too busy with work and these invitations.  I'm going to start on them today so please cross your fingers for me that I'll be done quickly! :)

'Till next time!

A great couple of weeks!

It has been a great (busy) couple of weeks!  Hopefully things will pan out and slow down soon so I can share my awesome news with you guys!!!  I can't hardly contain myself!

My Mom's birthday was last week and I got her a massive mangrove plant in a really pretty pot.  I wish I would've taken a picture of it.  Maybe next week!  I made this card to accompany it:

The image is Asha with Present from Lia Stampz.  She is so stinkin' cute!  Colored her with Copics, the present with Sharpies. The sentiment is from Stampin Up. 

I stamped the sentiment and then realized... I don't own the large oval punch!!  What the hey?!  How did I let that happen???  That is for sure to go onto my next Stampin Up order.  The decorative label punch did wonders punching it out though, and gave it a lot more pizazz. 

Very very busy!  I'll get to commenting later on tonight.  But until then, Aloha oe!

Minnie shaped card

I was invited to a baby's first luau last week and the theme was Minnie Mouse.  I had to make a card to go with my gift, so I dusted off the Mickey and Friends cartridge and welded a card in my Gypsy:

I used Stampin Up's new Dazzling details glitter... but I don't think I like it much.  It makes her bow look sugary.  I'll save it for snow, sand, or cupcake images.  

Things have been kinda hectic lately and I'm starting to feel a little under the weather.  Hopefully I don't get a full-blown cold!

'Till next time!