A Little Date

Benson and I had the opportunity to watch "The Color Purple" on Friday evening at the

beautiful Pantages Theater.

We enjoyed our little date together as we watched the awesome, but touching musical. We loved the singing and costumes. The best part was when Fantasia was was set free and saw herself as beautiful-what a touching song. We liked the musical so much that we had to purchase a program and a magnet as souvenoirs.

If you have not seen the musical yet and have the opportunity to, I encourage you to go see it. I hope that you will enjoy it as much as we did.
Sorry, I did not post anything crafting in this post. I will post some thing creative today, I promise so be sure to come back again.

Friendship ATCs and My GIfts as a Princess

I hope that this post is finding all of you having a good week so far. I am feeling a bit lazy this week and have not been in the mood to do much stamping and/or crafting. Hopefully I will feel inspired soon. In the meantime here are some ATCs cards that I received (As usual the first one is the one that I made.) from a swap that had the theme "Friendship." Aren't the ATCs just too cute?



I also received this lovely bag of goodies from Carri who lives all the way in British Columbia, Canada. Don't you just love the bag with the crown on it? It's purple too, my favoirate color. I can't wait use the items that she gave to me. I was crowned as the princess for this month from the "Princess Spoiler" swap on Stamp Shack so it my turn to be showered with goodies. I feel very honored to be chosen as the princess for this month and can't wait to received more goodies. :)


Along with the gift from Carri I received a generous gift certificate for the swap from Terry who lives only about an two or so from me. She knows how much I like Hawaiian things so she got me a gift certificate to the Rubber Stamp Plantaion located in Hawaii. I can't wait to go shopping. :) Terry was one of my partners for a swap I joined previously. It's been great to be able to KIT with her. I thank both of the ladies for their gifts. I espcially thank Terry for continuing to participate in the swap despite what she is going through in her life.
Thanks for stopping by. Please stop by again soon!

Some RAK and Cards From Friends

My family and I received some special goodies for Chinese New Year and Valentine's Day from our good friends from church- The Paryno Family. Along with the the popcorn, cuties, and fortune cookies, they also gave the kids red evelopes for Chinese New Year. The kids are having fun keeping track of how much money they have received- espeically Zach.

Another family (The Kenow Family) that we are good friends with from church gave us these yummy cookies and a Blondie-it's between a cookie and a brownie. They know how much I love Blondie's so they wrapped it up as a gift for me in polka dotted paper. They know how much I like polka dots too. They know me just too well. :)


Along with the goodies, they gave us the very cute "thank you" card with a cute cartoon picture of their family. What a cute card!
Here is a picture of a belated card that we received for Valentine's Day

and a card for Chinese New Year.

My family and I "thank you" both of the families from the bottom of our hearts for their thoughtful goodies and for their love for us. We are also grateful for the cards that we received. I thank you all for dropping by today to take a peak and what I have to share.

Some Belated Gifts and Fun Cards

With all the Valentine's treats that I put together I got a little behind on posting pictures of them as well as sending them out to some long distance friends. This is the card that I made for a my one card swap partner as well as a few other swaps.
I used my heart embossing folder from Cuttlebug for the bottom portion of the card, the heart border punch from Stampin Up, and the heart sizzlit from Stampin Up.

I made this Iris folding card for three of my good friends. The heart is made using many strips and paper. The heart looks very complicated and intricate to make, but it is actually not that hard. It was actually very relaxing for me to make the heart.

I made this card for another good friend and included it with her Valentine's Day gift. I used the swiss die embossing folder from Cuttlebug and a set called "Simply Said."

I surprised two of my co-workers with some Portugese Custards- one for a belated Valentine's gift and one for a Chinese New Year/thank you gift. I made made both them a card too.

As you can see the female one is a lot more fancy than the male one. On both cards I stamped a heart from the "I Heart Hearts" set and punched it out using my heart punch. The stamp set and the heart punch are both from Stamping Up. For the female version of the card I used my heart embossing folder from Cuttlebug again and used my heart border punch from Stampin Up. As you can see I love using my heart embossing folder.

Here are the packages that I sent to three of my long distance friends. Yikes I still have 2 more to send out. Yikes!

Here is a close up picture of the tag that I attached to the gifts. As you can see I used the same heart stamp as I did on the cards that I made above. I adhered the heart that I punched out on top of the heart sizzlit die from Stampin Up so that it has a little border.

That's all I have time to share for right now. I hope that everyone is having a fun weekend with some time to do some crafting and/or stamping.

Meeting Somone Famous and Some Nice Cards

I met someone popular in the crafting world this weekend. I attended a Washi Paper card making class at a local scrapbook store on Saturday and Michael Strong was the teacher.

He has been on TV on the Carol DuVall show and other craft programs, has his own books and line of stamps, his own crafting website, have been at CHA with his own booth and has taught on several crafting crusies and many stores. I have attended several of his classes previously, but have not gone to any of them for about almost 2 years. It was very nice to see him again. As usual his class was awesome. All the cards were great, but this one was my favorite.

Besides seeing Michael Strong again, I had the opportunity to meet some very nice ladies at the table I was sitting at.
Along with being blessed by having the opportunity to make some very nice cards designed by Michael Strong, I received some very nice cards from friends that I swap cards with.
This cards is from my dear friend Susanna.

This card is friend my friend Cary.

These tags are from my friend Frances.

It is always so much fun receiving new ideas from friends and from taking classes. I hope that you have been inspired by what I have posted today. Until next time!

Belated Wishes

Time just kind of slipped out of my hands yesterday with hanging out with Benson and the kids and celebrating Valentine's Day together after church. Plus I fell asleep early to catch up on some "ZZZZ." I stayed up until 2:30 am three times this week finishing up Valentine's Day treats.
My sincerest apologies for not wishing all of you a "Happy Valentine's Day" and "Happy New Year"- for those of you who are Chinese. I hope that all of you had a memorable day with lots of love. Benson, the kids and I had lots of fun hanging out together yesterday. We surprised each other with gifts for Valentine's Day. I gave Benson this

and he picked out these two Brighton bracelets for me.


We gave these items to Zachy

and these items to Kylie.

They have been having a blast playing with their new toys. We went out to dinner to one of our favorite Japanese restaurants. After dinner we suprised the kids with a yummy ice cream cake.
Here are some goodies that the 4 of us were showered with for Valentine's Day


and for Chinese New Year. Thanks for all the extra love.

We gave our good friends a bag full of gooides- cookie cutters, candy, and a frame.
I sent this gift to a friend that combines Valentine's Day and New Years.

I hope that all of you are having a good day off for President's Day. If you had to work today, I hope that you had a good day too. :) My family and I will be running some errands and then going to the zoo. Please visit again soon!

Our Pre Valentine's Day Festivities

Even though it is Valentine's Day tomorrow, Zachy and I had the opportunity to celebrate a little earlier. This week I participated in a secret pal Valentine exchange at work. We were assigned someone from the staff to shower with gifts each day Monday through Thrusday- Friday was a holiday. The only requirement was that we could not spend more than $20 total for the 4 days. I was asked to shower the Community Liason, Terry with gifts. These are the goodies that I surprised her with.
On Monday, I gave her a box of chocolate.

On Tuesday, she was given a pot with that sunflower seeds in it. To make it a little more fancy I stuck a sunflower in the pot.


For Wednesday, I gave her a cute heart shaped bowl full of chocolate candy.

On the final day I surprised Terry with 5 cards that I handstamped and die cutted using my Big Shot. I used the set called Pocket Silhouettes from Stampin Up for four of the cards.

For the Valentine's Day card I used the sizzlit heart from Stampin Up. I made the Valentine's Day card into a giftcard holder and gave her a gift certificate to Macy's- one of Terry's favorite places to shop. :)

I put all the cards into a cellophane bag and tie it with raffia. It was lots of fun showering Terry with gifts. She has done so much for me and our school that it was a pleasure for me to shower her with some extra love this week.

My secret pal was my dear friend Diana. When I asked her on Tuesday if she signed up to for the exchange she initially asked "why" and told me that she did not. Later when I gave her something to give to Terry she told me that she did sign up for the exchange. She told me that she did not initially tell me "yes" because she misunderstood my questions. The entire time we were talking about it she kept a straight face not giving me a single clue that she is my secret pal. What a great spy Diana would make. :) We had a good laugh about the entire situation on Thursday when I found out that she is my secret pal. These are all the wonderful goodies that she showered me with.

Thank you so much Diana from the bottom of my heart for your thoughtfulness and for your friendship. Work is even more fun with you part of our school family.
Zachy passed out his Valentine's Day cards during the week by matching the name on his cards with the ones on each of his classmates mail bags. He said that he has lots of fun doing that activity. Then on Thursday he had a Valentine's Day party. He came home with a huge heart that he painted and wrote a little message on the back to us. We continue to be very impressed with his penmanship.

Zachy also brought home a bag full of Valentine's Day cards. Check out how many cards that he received. He was so excited to show us all his cards.

Thanks for stopping by today to read about how Zachy and I celebrated Valentine's Day a little early. Be sure to visit again tomorrow for find out how we celebrate Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year.

Homemade Valentine Treats and Some Snail Mail

I am sorry that I have been MIA for this week with blogging. I have been very busy working on my Valentine's treats for my co-workers and friends. I stayed up until 2:30 am on Wed. and Thurs. working on them. I still need to work on the ones for my friends that live in Hawaii and on the East Coast. If you are one of the ones that live in those two places your Valentine's Day treat will be late. I am so sorry about that. I still need make Valentine's Day gifts for our family. Here are two picture of the treats that I made using the Big Shot die from Stamping Up called "Two Tags." I made in two different colors.


I had a very hard time finding candy to fit in it. Even the sour patch straws had to be forced to fit. I had to use a little tape to seal the little pouch. It kept popping open.
With this week being so busy with making Valentine's Day treats receiving the two cards below gave me a little boost of energy to keep plugging away. Oh by the way, I forgot to meantion that I made 38 of the treat holders.
This card is from my friend Nancy. The heart embossing folder that she used from Cuttlebug is one of my favorite ones. As you can see, I used it on the treat holder that I made. I love the colors tht she used and the very cute bear. Thanks Nancy for making me such a cute card. The card that I made for you will be arriving soon

The card is from One Card Swap Partner, Sharon. I really like the layout of her cards and the color combination. The punches that she used are very cool too. I love punches. Thanks Sharon for making time to make me such a wonderful card. The card that I made for you should be arriving soon.

Thanks for visiting today. Have a great day!

A Fun Day Together

I had the honor of spending some time with 2 of my good friends from church today- Anna and Susanna. Each of us now have a Big Shot die cutting machine and decided to have a "playdate" together today to work on some fun projects. We felt like little girls again getting together to "play."
Before we played we each suprised each other with some things. Susanna surprised me with a loaf of bread and scones from Paneras and Anna gave me a Snoopy t-shirt for Kylie. Ladies, thank you so much for your thoughtful gifts. This is what I surprised them with.

I folded a little pocket for each of them and added a circle that says friendship. Then I punched the circle out and added and punched out a scalloped circle for each one. Lastly I stamped 2 little girls to put in the middle of the circles. I finsihed it off by adding a Hello Kitty shaped tin with candy inside to put in each pocket.
Here are the cool things that we die cutted. While Susanna and I waited for Anna to arrive we made a hula girl. It was lots of work to make but I think mine turned out pretty good.

When Anna arrive each of us made a Build a Bear using the Stampin Up Build a Bear die. I have had the die for awhile and have been itching to use it. I am glad that we were able to use it today to make some cute bears.

Making the bears made us extra hungry so we decided to takea a break to have lunch. We each ate plate lunch from B-Mans. Zachy at that time came home from school so he joined us for lunch. After lunch we made Hello Kitty in a beach outfit. We were very proud of how she turned out with the exception of Anna loosing of Miss Kitty's legs. Poor Miss Kitty.

While we were working on putting Miss Kitty together our kids had a blast playing together. Even though Zachy and Kylie are older than Brooke they had lots of fun playing with her. Zachy has many questions to ask Anna about why Brooke is not able to talk, walk, etc yet. They took very good care of Brooke. The time together went by very fast because we had so much fun together. Thanks Anna and Susanna for such a wonderful, fun, and creative day together. I thank the Lord for the both of you and for the friendship that we share. I look forward to having another "playdate" with both of you again one day soon.