My cousin got married in Hawaii last month and is having her reception today in San Jose. My family will be there, but I’m staying home as I’m still recuperating from my surgery last week. I am really bummed about missing the reception, but walking and standing around are not things I can do for long periods of time. I did make a card to give to the newlyweds (the gift is arriving separately in the mail). However, I didn’ t realize the scan I made didn’t save to computer and since the card is sealed up in an envelope (that was decorated to match) I can’t open it up to scan it again. However, it was a really very pretty card using Kiwi Kiss cardstock, Aztec Gold Pearl-Ex, Wonderful Words stamp set, and the It’s Beautiful wheel. 

I also made the Valentine’s cards for my son. There are 20 children in his kindergarten class, so I made 20 cards (one extra for the teacher or he can bring it home for my card book). I used Happy Heart Day and my watercolor crayons on Confetti White cardstock and used some Bazzill Basics red cardstock that I had left over from my pre-Stampin’ Up! demonstrator days to make the envelope using SU!’s scallop envelope Bigz die.

It’s been a while since I posted, but the holidays are just such a busy time. I made gifts for my family this year. One of the gifts I made was a framed scrapbook page for my Mom.  It has pictures of Timothy on it. These were pictures that were taken on picture day at his daycare. I completely forgot about it, so we didn’t put him in a special outfit. He still looks cute though.

I’m nearing the end of my first trimester, so I figure it is safe to tell the world that Phi-Long and I are expecting our second bundle of joy. The baby is due June 30, 2009, but we’ll see if I actually get close to that date.  Timothy is very excited about having a sibling and can hardly wait for the baby to come. Here’s a picture from the first sonogram.

I finally got around to designing my Christmas cards. I decided to use the Deer Friends Stampin’ Up! hostess stamp set and it took me a while to come up the design. I think the card looks pretty good. I used the Frosty Day Designer Series Paper from the Winter Mini, Chocolate Chip cardstock, Kiwi Kiss cardstock, and Bashful Blue cardstock. The image (Deer Friends) and sentiment (from the Sincere Salutations Stampin’ Up! stamp set) are stamped on Whisper White cardstock using Basic Black and Only Orange. The punches used are the keystone and 1″ punches from Stampin’ Up!

Well, I did not mean to stay away from my blog for so long, but there it is. I think it’s going to take a while before I get good at this. I’ve stamped a few times in the last month, but have not had a chance to upload the photos. In the meantime, here’s an older card I stamped. My younger sister asked me to make it for a birthday gift she was giving. It was a cute baby girl’s blue dress with a nautical theme. I made this card to match that dress. Hope you enjoy.

We took a family vacation to Maui at the beginning of the month to attend a family wedding. It was beautiful.

Yesterday, we took our son, Timothy, and his cousin, Graham, to Great America to see Nick Treat-or-Treat, but we never got around to trick-or-treating. We went on a bunch of kiddie rides. The children had a blast.

I still haven’t gotten around to making any cards or doing any scrapbooking, but I’ll probably start on some Halloween projects later this weekend. We have a Halloween party next week, so I need to get cracking.

I had a stamp camp on how to make cards from a Simply Scrappin’ Kit on Friday. That stamp camp went really well. I don’t have any pictures from that, but the cards that were made were very cute. I had not time for stamping on Saturday as we had all kinds of plans for the day. Sunday I had to wrap up some work so by the time I was able to stamp, I just stared at my desk. I played with my color wheel, searched through my idea binders, but nothing. I ended up just loading more scrapbook pictures into my gallery.

These are very old photos of my son. I made this scrapbook page for a Stampin’ Up! contest. I didn’t win, but it made it onto the display boards at the 2008 convention.

Last night my family and I went out with some friends and their children to The Jungle Island for some playtime. We got there around 6 PM and the children were starving, so we took them to Round Table for some pizza. The kids ran wild in the restaurant while the parents finished up their pizza and drinks. Around 8 PM, we headed over to The Jungle Island so the children could continue to work off their excess energy. They had a blast playing in the ball pit, climbing in the play structure, playing skee ball, and riding the bumper cars.

After we closed out The Jungle Island, we hung out at our house with one of the couples after they dropped their children off with their uncle for babysitting. My DH got to show off his tv-blu-ray set-up and we had a blast just watching tv and chatting. Before we knew it was time for them to go home.

Now if that wasn’t enough, today we went to a birthday party for the oldest son of one of my husband’s cousins. It was a Sponge Bob Square Pants themed party, so I made this card to go with the gift.

Isn’t it great? I CASE’d the idea from the card Leigh O’Brien made. If you’re interested in recreating this card, do a search on Splitcoaststampers.com in the Techniques forum.

I think tomorrow will be a more relaxing day, but I wouldn’t mind it if my husband invited his cousin Jeff over so he can bring his Rock Band 2. I’ve been dying to play it.

After seeing the latest creative challenge on Shelli Gardner’s blog, www.soshelli.com, I had to break out my new Halloween stamps. I read on Splitcoaststampers about the moonlighting technique and I thought to myself, the Halloween Frights set would be perfect for it.

I used Pacific Point, Bashful Blue, Creamy Caramel, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, Basic Black Ink. The cardstock - Whisper White and Pacific Point. I traced the spider web with a white gel pen. Isn’t the card so cute?

I always thought I was pretty tech savvy, but getting this blog fully set up is a little harder than I thought. I finally figured out how to upload themes and images. My gallery page has been created, but I’m not sure I linked it all up correctly. Oh well, at least it works. It’s getting late, so I’m off to bed.