Birthday Card!

Here is a birthday card I made for a co-worker. She asked for a somewhat girly card with the colors burgundy or dark blue, so this is what I came up with. Side step cards are actually pretty to easy to make. The only frustrating part is getting the fold and score lines to line up evenly. I actually messed up the 1st and 2nd time around. I guess 3rd times a charm!

Graduation Cards

It's graduation season! Here are some cards I made for a few graduates Class of 2010.

MPS Challenge: Brown, Yellow, Green

Here's a card I made for the MPS Challenge: Make a card using the colors brown, green, yellow. I would have never thought to use these colors matched or looked good together, but I it turned out cute!

MBM Challenge #3

Made by Momo Challenge #3: Make a card for a child or teen. Here's a card I made for lil' Ren Ren in LA. Miss ya lots!

BFF Card

My co-worker Cindy asked me to make a card for her BFF. They have been BFF's since high school back in the Philippines. In this card, her BFF is the nurse, and Cindy is the mom. I used purple which is her BFF's favorite color and incorporated Cindy's favorite color blue. This card is pretty big. It measures 5x8.
There is also a challenge over at Cricut Cardz Challenege: http://www.cricutcardzchallenge.blogspot.com/ This is my 1st time entering a card for one of their challenges.

Masculine Card

Masculine cards are pretty tough to make. My co-worker asked me to make a card for her brother. He is overseas right now and he misses Hawaii very much. I have this awesome vellum bamboo print paper that I decided to use. Who knew you could use brads on a masculine card! Here is her birthday card and matching envelope to give to her bro.

Criss-Cross Cards!

Here is my 1st attempt on a criss-cross card. A co-worker of mine asked if I could make several birthday cards. For the sister, something simple and not too girly. For her brother, something with dark hues and tones. For her friend something "Betsey Johnson" like. So, here is what I came up with! I like it!

Mother's Day Card

Brian was very last minute this year with his Mother's Day card. He needed one the morning of. So here is what I was able to put together in a few hours for his mom. It's a picture of him and his brother at a wedding we went to the day before Mother's Day.
This is also my first attempt at a joy fold card. (which I had to turn sideways because of the "portrait" size picture). The only problem with these cards is that they don't stand up by themselves. So in order to solve that problem, I made a cool stand in the back! I just figured it out on my own and it worked on the 1st try after the card was already complete. Whew!

Simon Turns 5!

Another birthday party! Last month my co-worker Cindy threw a birthday party for her son Simon. He turned 5 and he loves the color red (like me!) and Spongebob. He's also into golfing, karate, and soccer. Her boys are really adorable. I love listening to what they do and say when she tells us stories about them during our lunch break. Cindy ordered these cute custom made M&M's. Some of the candies had his face printed on them. Others had the words "Happy Birthday". She asked me to help make party favors for the candy. Originally we were going to put the candy in a clear plastic bag and I was going to make custom Thank You flaps to close the bags. I thought of cutting out little "Simons" and having the words "Thank you for coming to my party" printed on them. But she wanted something that the kids would keep and not destroy. I agreed 100%! (Especially considering the time it takes to make them)

Cindy suggested bookmarks which I thought was a great idea. Not only is it personalized but it's also educational. Perfect for 5 year olds.

So.....I started working at 10pm and I finished at about 3:00am. Took a little nap and put all of the goodies in a bag and brought them to work for Cindy. I totally forgot to take pictures but thank god Cindy took pics with her awesome fancy shmancy camera. (Thanks Cindy!) It took me a while to post these pictures because I had to transfer them from my thumb drive to my desktop computer.

I haven't exactly mastered the art of making bookmarks, but I thought they came out cute. Altogether, I made personalized favor gift bags, bookmarks, and thank you cards for 3 boys and 3 girls. Check out the spread below! (I was trying out different colored pieces of patterned paper as I was making them, so that explains why they are all a little different :)

Acey's 1st Birthday!

Mookie, my friend from elementary school through HS is throwing a 1st birthday party for her son Acey. The theme this year is "Acey's Circus Extravaganza". He's turning 1! Oh my gosh, time has flown by so fast. I was there at the hospital the night he was born and now he is already walking and talking! I'm really sad because I will not be in LA this weekend to attend the party. Now that I live in Northern California, I'm missing out on all of the fun stuff that goes on back at home. So, if I can't be there in person, I will definitely be there in spirit. How so? By making her some decorations of course! Last year I made invitations for the 1st time with my Cricut. It was for her baby shower. Now I get the chance to make something for her again. I'm glad that I get to share my papercrafts with her.

So here are the items I made "Tang" style!

Mookie's birthday was in early May. So here is a birthday card I made for her using a cute cupcake from the Sweet Treats cartridge.

Below is a banner I made for the outside to hang on the garage door. That way people will know where the party is at. This particular banner is extra special because it's the first banner I've ever made. It measures over 9 feet long!

Below is the second banner I made. This one will go in the backyard or inside the house (depends on where the festivities will be held). It measures about 4 feet long.

I also made a few cake/cupcake toppers. I've also never made cake/cupcake toppers before. I figured these would be cute to stick in the cake.

I really wanted to make a large banner/sign, but since I have to send all of these decorations in the mail, there was no way I could make a large sign. I was afraid that the signs would get bent in the mail. Plus, there is no way that I could fold the sign. So, instead I decided to make several birthday signs to post around the party. Take a look!

Lastly, I made special "Thank You" cards for Mookie and Shawn. That way they can send a little note of appreciation in honor of their son Acey. I think they turned out CUTE!

Wedding Cards Galore!

Today Brian and I are going to a wedding in Cupertino. I believe it is for his mom's cousin. She asked me to make a very simple wedding card, so here it is. I decided to double up on the pop dots so the image would stand out a bit more.

Boy oh boy is it wedding season. Here is another take on a wedding card I made for a wedding last month. This one is special because it's the 1st wedding card that I made ever.

I'm so excited because we are going to LA Memorial Day weekend! Yay, my 1st trip back to my old home town since I moved in January. The weekend will go by so fast, but I hope to get a chance to visit all of my friends. One of Brian's friends is getting married so here is a wedding card I made for the happy couple. These are the colors that Brian and I are wearing. I think he's going to wear his grey dress shirt, and I bought a yellow dress last week! Cute huh?!?

A few weeks ago I went to a wedding in San Francisco for a co-worker. It's such a sweet story. The couple recently moved to the bay area from Japan. They weren't able to get married before he started his new assignment in the Silicon Valley, so they planned here in SF. It was very intimate with everyone from the office. They even had a live broadcast to their parents in Japan! They had to wake up around 4-5am in the morning to watch. From what I heard the symbol for love is the same in Chinese and Japanese which is why I wanted to incorporate that somewhere in the card.

I forgot to take a picture at home before we left, so I took this picture pre-ceremony from my seat in the chapel! Haha!

Baby Shower Card

Tonight Brian and I are going to a baby shower. His cousin Shirley is expecting a girl! Here's a card I made for her. I originally was going to go w/ the ever so popular pink and brown, but I found this pink and green patterned paper in my scrap pile. Cute huh?

Paper Source & The Container Store

Last night I took my friend Rujjira out for dinner at Santana Row. It was her birthday last week. Attached is the card I made her. Her and her husband recently got a puppy named Milo, so I tried my best to replicate an image of Milo. I thought the birthday hat was a nice touch. I also made her a card set with various types of cards to use throughout the year. I also made a bookmark. It was my 1st time making a bookmark. Her favorite colors are blue and silver. I'll see if I can find the photos of her goodies. (I may have forgotten to take pictures.)

Dinner was so yummy! We ate at Maggiano's Little Italy. Rujjira had never been there before. I'm so bummed because I totally forgot to stop by the cupcake joint to buy her a birthday cupcake! ARGH! Oh well, we were so full anyway. The portions there are HUGE. Not like C & O's back in LA, but close.

Then we went to the Paper Source and the Container Store. It was my first time at both of these stores. OMG, I think I spent almost 3 hours just walking around and touching everything. The paper store was soooo cute! Lots of printed paper and everything is organized by color and size! I was in paper heaven :) I don't know what happened but I walked out w/ a huge bag of random stuff.....

Same with the Container Store. I walked out with a huge bag of goodies. I've been wanting to organize my closet for a while now. I have too many shoes and clothes. Since I share a closet w/ Brian, I have to give up half of the space. Well actually only a 1/3 of the space :) haha So I've been trying to figure out how to maximize all of the space I have available. I found some great drawers and an over the door shoe organizer. The Container Store is pretty expensive, but the stuff I bought was on sale :) Although I was bummed at checkout to find out that my "Welcome to the Bay Area" 20% coupon didn't apply to sale items! ARGH x's 2. Oh well, at least now I can say "I bought that from the Container Store" :)

NSD Challenge #4

Challenge #4: Least favorite or least used cartridge.

Surprisingly so, this is the 1st time I've used the My Community cartridge. Perfect for this challenge!

NSD Challenge #11

Challenge #11: Use colors of the rainbow (red, orange, yellow, green, blue) Immediately I thought of this patterned paper which has all of the colors needed.

NSD Challenge #9

Challenge #9: Make a shaped card. I used a sparkly color pink paper for her bow instead of your traditional red. I LOVE Hello Kitty!!! Actually anything Sanrio is cute. Too bad Cricut doesn't make Sanrio cartridges....

Home Sweet Home

I think we are finally done with the home improvements on our house! Well the major ones for now. There's still a few items left on our To-Do list and I don't think we'll ever be complete. There will always be something around the house that we want to fix or change.
- 33 gallons of paint later, the entire interior including the garage is painted. I don't ever want to see another can of paint again. We painted our house 3 times because of a paint color mistake at OSH....not a very fun experience AT ALL!
- Stained all of the kitchen cupboards and bathroom cabinets. Cut liner for each drawer/shelf.
- A couple of new light fixtures
- 9 new doorknobs and door stoppers. All very shiny and matching.
- So many new outlet covers and switch covers that I can't count how any we replaced.
- And many more lil' miscellaneous knick knacks that we bought from Home Depot/Lowe's

Now I can finally start unpacking boxes that we have stacked up in the living room. Once that's complete, I'll take pictures of the house to share w/ everyone. Then it's time to start planning for a Housewarming Party! Yay!

NSD Challenge #10

Challenge #10: Make something using flowers or something "springy". I found some old flower sequins I used to use when I made foamy frames...I found old jewels I used to use too! Yay, now I have more goodies to use on my cards. Who knew they would come in handy so many years later.

NSD Challenge #12

Challenge #12 is to make something with an animal or a "critter". Lucky for me, my newest cartridge is the "Create a Critter" cartridge! So I had many options to choose from.

NSD Challenge #8

Challenge #8: Make something with one color and add a flower. Its actually harder than it sounds. I wanted to make a cute card w/o it looking too boring. I found the largest size ribbon that I have and was able to use a lot of the white space in the middle. Here's my attempt at Challenge #8!

NSD Challenge #6

Challenge #6 is to make something w/ a child or for a child. Well, since I don't know of any kids nearby, I decided to make one with someone in mind.

There's an awesome lil' 1 year old named Renata that I decided to make this card for. Her parents call her their lil' peanut (even while in the womb). So when I saw this image I immediately thought of Ren Ren. I hope I don't spoil the surprise by posting this before they receive it!

NSD Challenge #2

Challenge #2 is to make something using scraps. I always try to use my scraps because I hate having to deal with tons of cut up pieces of paper everywhere. Always trying to make use of your scraps is great, but sometimes I just sit there staring at them trying to figure out how they "match" or if the pieces are big/small enough to fit right where I need them to.

I found this piece of pattern paper lying around and deicided it to layer it w/ coordinating colors. I think it turned out kinda cute.