Christmas Centerpiece

This project was inspired by Teleflora.

I was over at my mother in law's yesterday and I saw the most beautiful flowers arrangement ever! She has been receiving these flowers for years from her mother. Teleflora has unique gift collection each year to go with their flowers arrangements. She decided to give me the last year's collection. I was stoked!



This house light up and everything! It's so beautiful even by itself. If you would like to make one, you will need the following;
- Christmas village
- Fresh flowers
- Floral foam
- Sticks/pole or something sturdy
- Shallow dish

To begin, you will need to cut the floral foam to fit the dish. Make sure the foam has been soaked in the water. Put something in the center of a foam that can hold the weight of the Christmas village. Make sure there's a gap so that the Christmas village won't get wet. Now you can decorate with flowers. Have fun!

This would make a great Christmas gift!

Good Tidings Of Great Joy

I love the Christmas season. But more importantly I love the opportunity that I get each year to ponder and reflect upon the true meaning of Christmas. I often wondered what Mary would have felt. Can you imagine giving life to God's Son? Or holding this precious Child in your arms? To be honest, I hadn't really put that much thoughts into it until I became a mother. I remember when I was pregnant with Mister Z... The rush of emotions that came over me every time I heard "Silent Night" or "What Child is This" and a few other songs.

(picture by Joseph Brickey)

Christmas this year is going to be a very special Christmas for me. I am blessed to be able to carry another child and to experience one of the most sacred and miraculous thing ever!


Z's baby blessing booties
made with love by Great-Grandma L.

I'm grateful for a loving God for giving me another opportunity to carry and give life to one of his children. My heart is full as I'm sharing with you our story. I can't tell you how excited we were when we found out that I was pregnant! It was hard to keep it to ourselves. We didn't want to share the news until I was a little bit farther along. (some of you know the reason.) Thank you for all of your prayers on our behalf. We truly can feel it. Back in July was one of the most painful experience I've ever felt but I am still hanging on to "hope", and look!!!!! It's going to happen again. Yes yes indeed!!! We are so very grateful to have babe No. 2 joining our family in June 2011.

As I'm sharing our exciting news to you I can't help but to think of our friends who aren't yet blessed with children. You know who you are and we are praying for you!

And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you ^agood tidings of great ^bjoy, which shall be to all people.
(Luke 2:10)

I love this verse because I was holding on to "hope" so desperately yet I let some of the fears sneak in every now and then. What a comforting verse to remind myself. "Fear not." And the most awesome promise at the end of the verse is "I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to ALL people." Not just certain group of people but ALL! That makes me s m i l e every time I read that. =)

41 days till Christmas

As I'm typing this post it's almost 40 days left till Christmas!
(for some reason it feels a lot more than 40 days)

I still haven't make anything Christmas except cards.
I promise as soon as I get going with my Christmas projects I will post them on my blog!!!


Just a little experience I had earlier today that gave me an "A-ha moment"and I thought I should share it with my readers.

But lets back up to Friday...

This is how the conversation goes with my sugar daddy.

Me: Hey hun you know we need to get our family pictures done?
SD: Oh yeah!
Me: When can you do it? (he is crazy busy with school and work)
SD: Umm let me check my calendar (I can hear him clicking away on his iCal.)
I can't do it next Saturday, or Saturday after that, or the Saturday after that one either. The ONLY Saturday I can do it is this Saturday (meaning today!)
Me: OK!

Off I went ... I knew just the right person I had in mind! My cousin! She loves taking pictures and I know she would do anything to get her hands on my DSLR camera that sugar daddy bought me. After leaving her a voicemail she finally called me back and informed me that she was in California. Greaaaaaaaaaaat! Now what?!

I'm determined we are going to make this work. I'm not about to go pay someone to take our pictures for a gazillion dollars for 5 pictures. A-Ha! I do have the remote.

"Let's just do it honey!"

(This picture makes me feel so happy... family who plays together stays together)

For those of you who do not have "fancy" camera or remote. You have a lil' cool feature on your camera called "self-timer." Go for it and have fun! It's boring to have everyone looking at the camera and say "cheese" anyway. Candid shots are the best!

The other tips I have for you is that when you are dealing with your lil' Santa's helpers you'll need to keep them occupied. As you can see in the picture there's nothing but trees and dirt. We brought props to keep Mister Z happy. We know he likes his bike and balloons. You know your kids best, it doesn't have to be anything fancy.

One last tip I have for you is to add digital brushes using Photoshop. If you don't have Photoshop do not panic. You can use stamps! Make sure to use Staz-on ink!


Now go for it and give it a try. Don't forget to put the camera on a tri-pod or something sturdy; i.e. table. Have fun and please send me some shots!

'Tis the Season

It's that time of the year again!
Christmas is coming...
(I hope you are ready)

I just wanted to show you some of the paper I got for my upcoming Christmas projects.
Aren't they pretty?!

Here are the paper in this video.

Father Christmas by Pink Paislee
Jovial by Basic Grey
Noel by Making Memories
Yuletide Specialty Paper by K & Co.
Old Fashioned Christmas by Recollection

Don't forget to watch in 480p for better quality!

Happy Halloween From our family

I just wanted to share some pictures that we took earlier tonight.
I hope your family has a Happy Halloween!

This is me trying hard to look all tough. LOL Not working!!!!!

Be safe and have lots of FUN!

Halloween layout (2 yr ago)

I was looking through some of the old pictures and this is what I've found! Pretty plain layout... not a lot of embellishment (none actually.) It's good to see that I've improved in my scrapbooking skills. =) Or maybe it was the sleep deprive with the newborn. Hmmm that could very well be! LOL

It seems like yesterday when we took our lil' cow trick or treating.

This will be his 3rd year trick or treating! WOW! Time flies. This year he will definitely be all over the candy!

Sparkly Cards

Dear Stampendous,

I want to thank you for making the most amazing SPAAAAAAAAAAARKLY embossing powder ever! I loove looove that the minute I heat set it the glitter isn't coming off! I must admit I love sparkly stuff but most if not all of the glitter stuff comes off easily. (Teresa and Julie knows what I'm talking about - *wink*)


Too bad there are only a handful of colors available. Please make more dang it!!!!

Sincerely,

Bea

I dare you to rub my cards! hehe
My glitter isn't going anywhere!!!!

If you don't believe me try it.
I double dare you to try using this embossing powder.

I got them at Michaels and you can use your coupons!
You will thank me later!

Falling for you.... for the 100000000th time

Fall is in the air!
(thank goodness, and it doesn't hurt to have the cutest biker by my side)

Can you feel it?

We have been having great weather here for the past few days. We rode our bikes around the Zoo today and everything about it was beautiful! We got to see pretty much the whole entire zoo in a short amount of time. No more walking at the zoo for us! Thanks to my MIL for a great idea!!!

Every other person that we passed by said "Why didn't we do that?" or "Wow that is so smart." So enough about my day...



I want to share some tips with you as regard to pictures for scrapbook layouts. (for those that have Photoshop.)
I don't know about you but for me I have to be inspired by the photographs in order to complete my pages. If I'm not feeling them I just put them back in the pile and come back to them later. I usually pick out 1 element (or more) in the pictures that I really like and go from there.

The following are great ways to jazz up your pictures before sending them to print

* Add text to your pictures
* "Stamp" directly onto your pictures (use Photoshop brushes)
* Add frame around your pictures
* Change the color; sepia, black & white, vintage, and etc. (this will change the feel of your layout dramatically)

Last but not least ( in my opinion this step is VERY important ...)
**** Make sure that machine color auto correct isn't on, if it's on that means they will tweak the colors for you ****
Note to photo tech at Costco. Please do not mess with the colors of my photographs. Leave them alone or else!

Have a Happy Fall!

Now go out there and capture some Fall memories!

Cutest Halloween Suckers On The Block

Ladies & gents,

Let me introduce you to Mister Greenie!
Isn't he the cutest sucker you've ever seen?!

Please note that if you are a sensitive person this project isn't for you.

Let me explain...
(please allow me to explain before you get mad at me for calling you "sensitive")

I'm assuming that you are making a bunch of mister Greenie and his friends to pass them around to the neighborhood kids, grandkids, your own lil' monsters, or kiddies at church. These lil' precious people are going to be sooooo excited and Mister Greenie's head is going to come off like a prom dress.

By that time you might be crying because so many hours went into this project (very cute project indeed.)

If you are not the sensitive type ... keep reading
(those that want to do this project)

My suggestion would be to use up your stash. Mister Greenie doesn't have to be perfect or "green." Make some Mister Orangie or Miss Purpley. If a little bit of glue shows who cares. The kids don't care. As long as you don't tape the wrapper shut. HAHA now that would be funny! All I'm saying is keep it moving. Make an assembly line and crank em out.



I used Mini Monsters cricut cartridge. Mister Greenie is on page 75.
I got 3 boxes out of 8.5" x 11"
Not bad huh?!

Now punch some holes on the bottom of the box, put a sucker in there, and tie tulle around it!

Happy Trick or Treatin' Kids!

Halloween Mini Album

I made this mini album for our lil' monster. This mini isn't too spooky... I would describe it as more cutesy spooky! =)

The paper is by K & Co; Spooktacular!

Watch in 480p for better quality.

This project was inspired by Kathy. Check out her backpack mini.

Is it Halloween yet?

"Mom, is it Halloween yet?"

No.
"Mom, is it Halloween yet?"
No.
"Mom, is it Halloween yet?"
No.

*********

Here's a fun little project for your kids! I made a Halloween Countdown using 99 cents frame from Ikea to help us getting ready for Halloween. What's so cool about this frame is that there are 2 sides. Woo hoo! Now talking about cheap and classy lookin'. Great job Ikea!

Our lil' moster is so excited to help me flip the countdown thingy. Now if you would only flip one per day mister Z mommy would really appreciate it! =)

The part that took the longest?!?!? Would be......

Drumroll please?!

Yup you guessed it! The countdown thing-a-ma-jic!

This is a great way to get your kids involved. Make them punch 31 scallops, squares, circles, or whatever shape you want! Oh wait scratch that out. Make that 41 cuz mommy may need extra in case she can't stamp right! I'm not saying this from experience. Now bust out your No. stamps! Start stamping and embossing, stamping and embossing, and repeat the process. After awhile you may be saying some choice words but that's the beauty of us not living in the same house! LOL

No seriously it wasn't that bad. But I think I maxed out on stamping & embossing for today!

So is it Halloween yet?!

{Cello}brate Halloween

I saw the cutest Halloween cello bags at Michaels and had to get them. I had no idea what I was going to use them for. All I knew was I didn't want to put food in them.

This is what I came up with. The Halloween organizer for my inspiration board.







I had to throw up the fall colors on the board because where I live there's no fall or autumn. Sad I know! =(
Whenever I run out of creative juice that's one of many places I look to for inspiration.

This would be great to put on the fridge or locker too!

I'm so ready to {cello}brate Halloween with lots of sweets!

Acrylic Paper + Glimmer mist + Cute Stamps =

I want to share my new favorite paper to glimmer mist on... The Canson Acrylic or Canva-Paper. This paper looks just like canvas. The glimmer mist just loves to dance around on them. Amazing textures!!! These note cards transformed into miniature expensive paintings. Well sorta! =)

Happy Birthday Wende

Happy birthday to you

Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Wende
Happy birthday to you...

Make a wish!

I hope all of your wishes come true!

Remember "No wise man ever wished to be younger." -Jonathan Swift

Don't forget to stop by Wende's blog to wish her a happy birthday!

Happy Birthday Wende!

xoxo,

Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

Turkey anyone? How about Free turkey?! Halloween is next month and Thanksgiving will be here before you know it. So I thought I should share the cut with you so my hard work doesn't go to waste. I found the original image here and converted into .scut2 file for you to use with SCAL.

If you have any questions please let me know.


Download the turkey .scut2 file here.