Color Me Miki--Jan Valentine Kit--Cupid's Arrow

Hello all!! I can't believe it's already February! And that means almost Valentine's Day!! Here is a kit from Color Me Miki created just for this special day. Cupid's Arrow is a fabulous page kit that you can use to pre-designed layouts or create some of your own! Check out the blog to see the pre-designed layouts. You also have the option to order the kit PRE-CUT!! Recording those memories doesn't get any easier!!

Here is what I created with the kit. 2 cards and 3 layouts :)

No Valentine's Day is complete without the annual "Made with Love" layout..LOL! That reminds me, I still need to take a picture for this year! Here is Jasmin making her Valentines last year for Kinder.

And this layout is kinda like a 2page spread. Last year for Valentine's Day we were going to head over to Santana Row. But as we were driving down 880, we spotted all the snow on Mt. Hamilton. We ended up making a detour to drive over there. Man oh MAN!! The road that goes Mt. Hamilton is very very winding. We ALL got sick, except for Heintje who was driving. We finally made it home and we gave the kids their gifts. YIKES! That reminds me again...I need to get the kids some gifts!!!

And I still have lots of stuff left over from the kit!! I was so spoiled with all 3 of January's kits. All of them loaded with plenty of scrappy goodness to keep you going all month!! I have February's kits all ready to post. She put together 2 kits for February. A fun bright kit that makes me long for sunny days. And a gorgeous muted kit, perfect for documenting memories of the past.

Thanks so much for passing by!

A couple of things...

I can't believe I actually scrapped something other than DT kits! These were made a couple weeks ago with some of the scraps from the Color Me Miki and The Scrapping Spot Dec. kits.

I gave these cards away as part of a set for teacher's gifts this year.

And finally, the last layout for 2009....and it's all about eating! YUM! LOL...

I can't believe the year is coming to an end. Just a few more days of 2009. It's been quite a year. We didn't go anywhere except a couple of trips to LA to visit Heintje's family and 1 week in Orange County to see Mickey! Next year will be a crazy year...our long awaited 1 month trip to the Philippines! I haven't been there since 1994 (I think??) and Heintje since 1989!! We are all so excited and counting down the days!!

Also, this past week has brought about 2 deaths in our family. If you can please keep in your thoughts and prayers Lolo Berto and Uncle John. Both passed away after months of battling cancer. They have both touched the lives of so many people around them. Their legacy will continue in our hearts. They will be missed so much.

Eternal rest grant unto them oh Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of Lolo Berto and Uncle John rest in peace. Amen...

The Scrapping Spot--Dec kit!!!

Hello everyone!! WOW..can you believe on a few short days until Christmas! I am almost done with all the shopping, only a few more gifts to get then finish wrapping them. I still have not sent out our Christmas tags! I have been slacking on that big time. I really just need to sit down and sign them, stick them in an envie, and call it done. But....I need to get started, YIKES! LOL...

Check out this kit from The Scrapping Spot...this kit features the beautiful Fancy Pants Christmas Magic collection. I've always been a fan of Fancy Pants and this kit has me drooling over them even more! It's also full of embellies like an acrylic Christmas tree, Kaiser Craft wood ornament, and SHIMMERZ! Man, this stuff was fun. I've never used it, but I painted the ornament and it's gorgeous. I LOVE it!!

For some gifts this year, I packaged a few handmade cards, wrapped it up in tissue paper and tied a pretty bow. Here are some of the cards I gave.... I used the quotes on the Fancy Pants patterned paers. It's cut in scallop because I cut the scallop border from it..LOL. It's the "Merry Merry" layout below...

For this card, I cut up the quote into strips--inking the edges and staggered them. I also added bling...can't forget that..LOL! Cut circles from scraps and added the tiny buttons.

More bling and a quote from the sticker sheet. I LOVE easy!

The gem tree is so cute! Added that extra umph for this card.

Here is the "Merry Merry" layout that used the scalloped border from the card earlier. We celebrate with our immediate family on Christmas Eve. We have a yummy feast and open gifts. This year Jasmin saved up all her gifts and piled them up high. While her brothers were ripping them op as they got them! I think she still had a few unwrapped gifts for a few days even after Christmas..LOL!

These pictures are from Christmas day. For event scrapping, I like to keep them pretty simple since I ALWAYS have tons of photos and unless I want 20 layouts for each year...I load my pages with pictures! My parents with the kids....

I had Jasmin write the journaling on here. She has AMAZING writing skills at 6 years old. She writes better than me! LOL! Check out the wooden ornament. The paint from the SHIMMERZ is awesome. I added some of the bling to jazz it up...

Finally, the kiddos....day in, day out, happiness, stress, joy, laughter, and tears...no matter whay...they will always be our precious gifts.

Wow, I can't believe it's almost Christmas and it's almost the end of another year. This year surely flew by...I think I say that every year! I was really busy with life and creating took a back seat. I hope next year life will slow down even just a little bit. I miss crafting, scrapping, and just overall fondling of papers, buttons, flowers, and bling..LOL....

Thank you so much for visiting....until next time...hugs!

Color Me Miki Dec. kit---Festival of Trees

It's the most wonderful time of the year!! I love all the festivities, the get-togethers with family and friends...and yummy food!..and the shopping! Oh my, I've been livng at Walgreens the past few weeks. And searching for online deals, so fun! But all of these events requre time! I wish there were more hours in the day, and double that time during the holidays!

One thing is for sure, if you are a fan of scrapbooking, using kits help with the time. They are already mixed and matched with fun manufacturers, papers, and embellies! Oh how I love embellies..they add so much to personality and depth to layouts. Here is the December kit--Festival of Trees from Color Me Miki. The kit is so festive and perfect for you holiday scrapping. I love the vintage feel to this kit with the rustic greens and sparkling gold.

I created a different shaped card for this sample. I esp like how it fits in a regular envie!! LOL. I added the bling from my stash of Prima Crystals...LOVE them! I also used scrap strips of PP and the packaging from the Prima flowers.

This card is 6x6, but I cut off the top a bit to go with the polka dots. Also the snowflake sticks out a little at the top for added dimnension. I used the Cat's Eye ink for the foam letters, BUT make sure to seal it with something like dimensional glue otherwise it will get on everything!

Next is a super simple card. I used the Prima packaging again and some scrap papers. This time I used Stickles on the Foam letters, love the subtle glitter!

This project is supposed to go on the wall, just haven't figured out where! The photo was taken last Dec. 24. That is when my family opens gifts and eats a FEAST..YUM! I took the Websters' PP and cut the inside out. I added foam pop dots to lift it like a frame. I cut the tree out of another Websters PP, inked it up and added some cut out butterflies. I also used pop dots for the tree and tucked some edges under the frame. Finally I added the little gold trees along the bottom and I inked up the reindeer and added him in the corner. It's also hard to tell, but I added some red Stickles to his nose..LOL.

Family photos with my parents, brother and sister-in-law...

Finally, my parents with all the grandchildren..including RAKO :)

Thanks so much for stopping by! Hope you are all staying safe and SANE this holiday season. A couple more weeks and we start counting down the days until the new year!! Take care everyone!

Color Me Miki--October kits!!

Hello, Welcome FALL everyone!! It's time for cooler weather, pumpkin patches, and Halloween! I'd like to introduce you to Color Me Miki's October kit, Bewitching kit!! I was so excited to receive this kit. I finally started the Halloween album I've been wanting to make since Joey was born! I still have to get the album, I plan on getting a simple SEI landscape album. It's on sale right now at Joann.com for under $6. But I still want to check out good ol' Michael's first.

Without further chit chat, here is Bewitching! Please click on the image to see a larger view!

Sorry, I didn't get a chance to take detail shots. It's been busy with birthday celebrations every week. We've even been celebrating twice for each celebrant! LOL! Let's start off with a card.

Then we'll pretend we're looking at the album. I don't have a title page yet, but here will be the first layout. Joey's First Halloween! Okay, I'm totally ghetto, er, I mean resourceful! I didn't have another "R", so I used a "P" and cut off part of the "X" for the leg! Hey, it worked for me! Joey was only 3 days old when we went to the Halloween parade at school. I was wobbling around and man, I totally paid for that later! My parents, Heintje and I was up until super late putting together Jordan's costume. It was a great idea, but didn't turn out exactly how we hoped. By the end of the day he was left with 80% of his spots. Of course many of his classmates were picking them off! LOL. So later that night, he used his Batman costume from last year. Good thing it still fit.

Here is 2007. We have Zorro, Aurora from Sleeping Beauty, and a cute lil' Bumble Bee. I love that the Bumble Bee costume is the same one from when Jordan was a baby!!

Here comes 2008. This year we went to Great America since we had season passes. It changed a little and there was no parade...either that or we were super late! I didn't realize they closed at 4pm and we got there around 1pm! Sorry kids. It was still enough time for them...and us!

Finally, is a layout from the school parade. Sorry, I scribbled out the name. Can you believe we got that costume for Joey...FREE! We went to Old Navy right before we went to Great America (hence the reason we were so late). We got free t-shirts for the kids and a $5 coupon. There was a sale for costumes, $5! We didn't even have to pay tax...totally exciting! And he loved it! I still have to make another layout with the before/after. Only Jordan kept the same costume, you can see what the other 2 were before Old Navy....LOL. Hey, check out the dots at the bottom right corner of the layout. I used the mesh in the kit and used my trusty old Cat's Eye Chalk ink pad! I actually did a technique! haha!

Well, that's all I've done with this kit. I feel bad I didn't touch the Amber Road part of the kit. I'm sure I'll use it later, but I was determined to start on the Halloween album.

In other scrapping news, I started Willow Traders' October THAW challenge! THAW--THree A Week. We create 3 layouts a week. Guess what, I actually scrapped! I think I got my mojo back and since they announce all 3 of the week's challenges on a Friday, I have the weekend to at least think about or even get scrapping on it. I'm so excited. I'll post along the way. Yay...get to dig into the scrap stash again!

Thanks so much for passing by. Have a great week, everyone!

Thank you...FISKARS!!!

Happy Friday everyone!! I sure am glad it's Friday, that means....scrap the night away! For Lent I am trying to sleep before midnight. It's really throwing me off since I'm used to sleeping 1-2am. When I go to be around 11pm, I end up waking up around 3am! Well, hopefully I'll get used to it and will be refreshed and ready to roll every morning!

In the last post I featured pictures and layouts from the crop at Picture Me Perfect. It was a fundraiser for the American Heart Association. There were a bunch of raffle prizes and I won an amazing box filled with Fiskars goodies!! I even took a photo because I was so excited! LOL. I finally had a chance to play with some of it and created some layouts. I also created a card that I will send to Fiskars....THANK YOU!

The box was filled with lots of lovey goodness! It was a great way to scrap LAST YEAR's Valentines..LOL. Look how tiny Joey looks. And Jasmin...she still looks like a little girl..sweet, not sassy!! wahhhh!

There were also pretty elegant papers from Heidi Grace. I used them for the 1st layout in our 2009 album.

I also have a few more in the works. I'm telling you...this box was PACKED! But I will leave you with this card. Since I'll be sending it, I wanted to scan it..LOL. It's a 6x6 card using patterned paper for the base. I also dusted off the Threading Water punch. Ohhh, so pretty! I think I'll be using it again for a while..LOL. THANK YOU sooo much Fiskars, not only for the amazing prize, but also for your support in such a good cause!

BTW, so sorry for the crazy scans lately. I really think I'll be needing a new scanner. My large format scanner is now 5 years old! I purchased it from ebay in 2004 when I started being on scrapping design teams. I can't believe at one point I was actually designing for about 7 different online places, designing for Canvas Concepts, and teaching at Bay Area Scrappers all at the same time! That was when I didn't work, Jasmin wasn't even 1 year old, Jordan was just in preschool, and Joey was still floating in the air. Time sure has changed where years feel like hours and days feel like seconds. Have a great weekend everyone. I challenge you to just and do nothing for an hour!! I don't know if I can pull that off...LOL!

Color Me Miki!!!

Hello everyone!! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving with family and friends. This year we had the celebration at my cousin's house, Kuya Rino. It was also his birthday and Ate Chay threw him a surprise party. Hopefully he was genuinely surprised even though he kept seeing some familiar faces around the neighborhood..haha!

After a designing hiatus for a few months, I am very excited that Terri asked me to be be a part of the Color Me Miki design team. I am so honored to be a part of the club and to work with her awesome kits. It's the perfect size and she mixes manufacturers that coordinates wonderfully. I love the bright happy kits and they were so fun to work with. Thank you, Terri, for this great opportunity!!

I was able to start with the Dec kit. I love the pink and green mix, great for the Holidays or not! Here is a picture of the kit..filled with Pink Paislee and KI Memories. My favorite part of the kit was the cool Prima Transparency that had a bunch of nested frames!

Here is a quick card I created with the scraps from the layout. I totally LOVE the tree PP from Pink Paislee. I cut them out individually and applied Stickles. You can get the Stickles from the add-ons.


Here are 2 layouts using the frames transparency..I love that thing!! I cut the big circle out from the Cousins layout below. I also cut a small piece of the circle and used it in Jasmin's overload layout.

Finally here is the Cousins layout. I used pictures from our trip to Lake Tahoe back in May..yes, I'm pretty behind! haha! I covered up the circle with a piece of cardstock.

And here is a sketch based on the Cousins layout. Thanks so much!!

Willow Traders Scrapvivor, Challenge 1

ETA: Here are the instructions for adding that Traffic Feed thing. I copied this exactly from her email, thanks so much, Laurie!! And here is the site for the Traffic Feed: http://feedjit.com/
"Is your blog on blogger? If it is, then you hit the add it button on the fedjit site. Then I believe that you copy the text in the box they give you onto your template. Use the customize button on blogger and use a side bar add and put the code in there."

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Yippee..I just learned to add the Traffic Feed thing. My friend Laurie gave me totally clear and SIMPLE instructions how to do it. THANKS, girl!! Now I can see who comes here and from where. I'm totally excited!!

I am totally loving the Scrapvivor challenge at Willow Traders. I keep talking about it to my family and they think I'm nuts. Heintje can't wait for me to get kicked off, the cute kids are cheering me on, and my parents think I should just sleep! LOL! Annette, a total Survivor fan, is hosting the challenge. She has been coming up with really great challenges and I love the way she presents everything. I know NOTHING about Survivor, but they way she says everything, makes me feel like I'm on a secluded island far, far away....Cropalopagos Islands!

The first challenge for Willow Trader's Scrapvivor Challenge was Monochromatic. I'm really not a fan of monochromatic, but I guess it's supposed to be a challenge, right? LOL! Some of the pages are sooo NOT great..LOL. But the object of Scrapvivor is QUANTITY...not quality..LOL So bare with me here! Here goes.....

Let's start off with a spring layout. Yes, this was taken from the same day as the Spring layout from the previous post. With summer coming in a few days, I wanted to showcase another Spring layout. And I just loved that day. It was simple and sweet. PP-AC (blue background), old school Chatterbox! (blue floral), MM (black); alpha-Doodlebug; chipboard accents--SR (hand); AC (flourish); journaling thing--Luxe??

Now let's move on to Baker Beach. These pictures were taken right before we left for the beach. Notice the gloomy skies. We were worried it might start raining while we were there. PP-MM Chelsea (blue background), 7G (text), Cherry Arte (grid); alpha--Doodlebug; label sticker--MM; flowers--Prima; brads--MM
I just love these pictures of the kids. Heintje was trying to get the kite to work, but it was really windy. It was cute to watch the kids try and run around..LOL! Check out Marga with Rako's leash tied around her waist. She loves hanging out with Rako, too. PP--MM Chelsea (green die cut background), MM 5th Ave (black circles), CI (black scallop), some other black PP??; flower--Prima; brads--MM; alpha--AC; rubon bracket--Kaiser Craft
Here is Joey being soo crazy with Rako! At first he was pretty nervous around him. He would be so entranced with him, yet needs the comfort of someone close by. By the end of the day, Joey was all over Rako, poking him with sticks, feeding him rocks and dirt, and even sweetly petting him...then pounding him. Poor Rako!! PP-Green background--Prima?, black-KI?..sorry, I forget these things...LOL. journaling sheet--MM; photo turn-7G; stars--HS; alpha--AC

Here are pictures from our trip to LA...yes, the same one from last March! LOL! I think there is 1 more layout from that trip, and it's DONE! I am totally in a GREEN phase right now, I just love the color ...it's so pretty, so happy. PP-Prima; alpha--HS and AC; flowers--Prima; border and label sticker--MM; "superstar" bling--MMBI; brads--MM
Let's move on to non-travel pages. Well, sorta (they did the traveling)....Remember in my prior posts about a couple Filipina scrapbookers--Marian and Sunshine. Well, I finally scrapped a layout about it. I had to combine the two visits even though they were a couple months apart. There were not very many pictures of the events and you know...totally multi-photo scrapper! LOL! It's a simple page, but the memory of the event is what is important. PP-AC (pink), Cherry Arte (black); alpha--Doodlebug; flower-Prima; chipboard journaling thing--Autumn Leaves
Next up is...ME! Bwahahwahha!! Jassy Belle took these awesome pictures of me..haha! I need to get some goofy headshots for a DT one day and she was around to help me out...Thanks, Babe! She did a pretty good job, considering her crazy subject! PP-everything MM even the solids; lace trim--EK Success; vinyl "this is Me"--Scrapworks; alpha--EK and HS; floral trim and brads--MM; journaling spot--ME! I have to give credit to my friend Alicia for the title, she created a LO with the same title with pictures her DD took of her. Very cool title! THANKS, girl!
And finally....a layout from Egypt. This was taken during our first day in Egypt. We went to this place, the Pharaonic Village. It was really cool. You get to ride a boat on the Nile and it takes you through life during "Ancient Egypt". It starts out with statues of their gods and kings, then daily life--how they planted, how they grew crops, how they used papayrus, etc. It was really cool...and being an Egypt fanatic, I was totally lovin' it!! PP-MM (red dots and black), red floral??; alpha--AC and HS. I also used cut outs from the pamphlets we got at the place.
Sooo....this is Challenge 1. We are currently on Challenge 6, so I still have LOADS of layouts to share with you! LOL! Hope I don't scare you guys away!! THANKS so much for reading!