thanks teacher

 this past week has been teacher appreciation week at our school. i made several simple sets to give to the teachers. the card below was a free printable from here. i just added my own punched out apple. fast & easy. i have a teacher who has made a permanent impression on me....her name is mrs. fujiwara. she was my 3rd-4th grade teacher. what i learned in her class are still the best memories i have of elementary school. do you all have a teacher that has made an impact in your life? please share---i'd love to hear!

 here is an idea for using up leftover paper: cut them in to strips in varying lengths, fish-tail the ends and stamp a fun sentiment and you have a quick card. i made a couple of these to send to moms i think that are fabulous, for mother's day.

 here is bryan dancing to "elvis" at the farmer's market last weekend.

 i dragged the boys to the antique market before the farmer's market. these were the "me wants" but were too much moolah. one day....

 the boys didn't leave empty handed. i'll show you their treasures & mine on another post. nothing too exciting that i bought but fun finds. thanks for stopping by! have a great weekend and to all the moms out there---happy mother's day!

card class samples

 hello! sorry for the repeat picture on the 1st card above here but just wanted to share my 3 cards for my card class coming up on 5/12 @ 10am at stamp fever. this class will focus on making embellishments for your cards and projects. more details can be found here.

 made another gift card tin. similar to this one except i changed out the butterfly. got some new dies and wanted to use them.

 made some 'just for fun' cards using lawn fawn.

thanks for stopping by today!

be unique

hello! sharing a few cards today. this first one up uses lawn fawn. hard to see in the photo but i glossy accented the eyeglasses. made it for the spectacular spectacles challenge in the moxie fab world.  i can never get my act together but happy to have had time to get this challenge in.

this card below also uses lawn fawn. just a fun sping card.

i have fond memories of farrell's....anyone else? i remember going there was a huge treat as a kid. i never did have my birthday party there but glad to have given bryan his 4th birthday celebration there. we just go there for our ice cream fix.

this is called the pig's trough.

BEFORE:

AFTER:

anyone who finishes this gets a ribbon. i cannot tell you how many of these we have! the waiter handed us a sharpie & told us since we finished this, we could also write our names on the trough.

this past sunday, we went to the LA times festival of books.

highlight was seeing scooby and max (from max & ruby)

ah.......the mystery machine! super cool!

bryan is absolutely crazy about watching scooby doo right now & reading the books. the boys ended up with a bunch of comic books and stickers & tatoos. me...i ended up with a bunch of reusable tote bag freebies :) 



this is a card using hero arts. inked up with markers and finished off with some washi tape. a fast a quick card in under 5 minutes.

thanks for stopping by!

aloha

hello. finally getting caught up on things after spring break. can you guess where we went? ;) i vowed that on this trip, we would eat-a-shave-ice-everyday-while-in-hawaii. that was our challenge!
Day 1:

Day 2:bryan....future iron man?!

i was eating so much good food the 1st 2 days we were there that i loaded up on fruits. had lots of papya. i had beef stew, beef curry, ox tail soup, portugese sausage, and rice almost every meal of the day.

Day 3:

i had the fantastic idea to take the boys out on a whale watching excursion. exciting, right?

it was a breakfast whale watching cruise. 2 hours long. as the boat took off and we were eating. bryan started "not feeling good". then it was eddie. then brandon had to sit out. and then it hit me too. there was sighting of a whale or 2 but by that time, the whole family was sitting inside trying to keep our breakfast down. they had a guarantee that if you didn't see a whale, they'll give you a voucher good for a year to come back on the cruise. don't worry, we won't take them up on that offer! i coudn't believe how sea sick we were!

back on land but you can see bry bry still looking a little green!

we weren't too sick to have our shave ice though!!

the valet at our hotel was such a good resource! one of the guys told us to take our boys to this little lagoon that not too many people know about. there are often seals & sea turtles. after our long day, we stopped over there to see if it was worth it to go back. and there it was, a monk seal basking in the sand. the boys have no respect for endangered species and were clowning around as usual. we met a man named robert over on the beach there who voluteeers to keep the seal & turtles safe when they come to shore to rest. he told us to come back early in the morning and the sea turtles would be around. he even helped the boys dig for some sea shells. you can see brandon with his hand in his pocket, full of shells. and bryan has a handful too.

Day 4:

back to the small lagoon early in the morning and sure enough---sea turtles!! what a chance of a lifetime to swim with sea turtles!

the monk seal was back on shore to rest. i'll have to find the picture of the boys feeding the sea turtles. what a treat! and one point, there were 4 sea turtles!

Day 5:

made leis with brandon in the morning at the hotel. i was sad to leave it there and didn't bring it home.

shave ice. yum yum!

Day 6:

Easter!

the egg hunt was great! bryan found more eggs than he knew what to do with! next, year, he'll be with brandon's age group & it'll be more challenging!

they loved the beach!

our last day of shave ice

dinner at roy's. bryan and his fine dining talent! LOL

we had a fabulous time! thanks donna for meeting us again and for putting up with the boys! i'll post pictures of that next time!

embroidery hoop flower

i had embroidery hoops sitting around for a while and i finally got around to making something with them. i stamped a flower image from hero arts on the fabric and started stitching away.
took less than an hour and that was with interruptions catering to a 5 year old ("can i have a snack, can you change my batteries on this toy, can i have a drink, can you sew up the ripped leg on my stuffed animal?")

all finished! i'll be making more!

question...... how do you hang these things??!! :)

i'm due to have a bloggie give away/RAK so when i reach 100 followers, i'll do one! thanks to all who has followed me without my asking. it means a lot to have supportive feedback & your comments! i know i blog sporactically & i appreciate you checking in now & then on me! :)