Lawnscaping challenge #4 ~ Paper Piecing

When I saw these lanterns on sneak preview, I knew I had to have them! This is my first stamp set I ordered on the RELEASE DAY! Yes, I LUV these lanterns, and seriously, these stamps & paper piercing are Addictive! LOL!! This is my first card. If time allows, I might make more, and if not for this challenge, i'll still be making more cards with these lanterns!! Lanterns remind me of my life in Guam, Hawaii, and another place (I won't reveal here yet!) a lot! Maybe Guam & Hawaii have lots of Asian influence. These were introduced this month because of the inspiration from Chinese New Year, according to the owner of Lawn Fawn. I chose "tropical island" themed papers for paper piecing. I used baker's twine for strings. Wave & sand stamps are Old CTMH. I watercolored the waves. I sponged the white CS with the light blue dye ink. One leave, lanterns and sentiment were attached with dimentional foams. I luv making Tropical feeling cards! Those always make me happy while I'm making them! :-) The challenge details are found at here.

Editor's note : This card was featured by the owner of Lawn Fawn as FIRST Fawny Flikr Friday Five on their blog on 3.4.2011! :-) You can see it here.

Penny Black Sat. challenge wk 139

This weeks' challenge at PB sat. is "Men's Card", so I made it rather simple, trying not make it shiney/pearly nor cute. It's hard, NOT to be cute with Penny black stamps but this is what I made. I recently received this Penny Black stamp from Kathy R (thank you Kathy!!) & wanted to use it! I did a bit of "cutting" for this image, dimentional foams on the owl's wings only. I used glossy accent on their eyes. I stamped vine on the background CS, and used the printed woodgrain paper. I'm sure I'm DECORATING more using the same image Next Time, for more girly card! lol! :-)

Deadly earthquake hit Christchurch, NZ...

I've been watching the news this morning, and my heart is aching... as you can see on my blog, on travel map, Christchurch is #9 of my fav. places to go list, among so may placces I've visited in my life, even I was there for only 5 days, on business. Christchurch is such a lovely, small city (although it's the second largest city in New Zealand), and I luv "kiwis"! They are one of the nicest people on the earth, in my opinion! I've once heard from somebody ELSE other than Kiwis that "kiwi husband" means "GREAT husband"! ..... I saw the cathedral being damaged...I'm pretty much familiar with earthquakes, living in Tokyo, Japan & Guam. I'm famliar with Pacific Plate... I even learned it in college when I took a Geology class... Earthquakes really make me scared. Living in east coast of US, I know most people have NEVER experienced the earthquakes in their entire life. Very lucky, in my opinion. Even when I was living in Sydney, Australia where earthquake isn't common, the earth SHOOK once!!... Earthquakes happen all the sudden, and in very short time (like 20 seconds!), the big shake DESTROYS many things, incld. people's lives... You can see the short video how devastating the earthquake was here....6.3 was the scale & so far, 65 was killed... they are afraid that many still have been trapped in the buildings... My prayer goes to the people in Christchurch & the city...

EASTER time!! ... already??!!

Well, when I saw this sketch, I immidiately thought of my old SU! set of Easter blessings, with CROSS. And here is my card for this week's sketch challenge at Clean & Simple (#128). I used this nesties which is the closest to the sketch, but make it more similar, I used those pearls, to look like "one shape" with the oval nesties. Do you see that, like I do??!! lol!

Color Throwdown #129 & WMC44

Every time I see these colors (with white or no white), it reminds me of my tropical paradise life... so this is my card for Color Throwdown (#129)! Also, I'm submitting this card to Wee Memories (#44), for this week's challenge; Source of Inspiration! I get inspired by the NATURE the most, on my cards creation, and living in 2 tropical paradise for 12 years makes me to come up with the ideas with summer/beach/ocean/rain forest... anything to do with tropical islands life, very easily! The picture of the beach is from Guam, USA. So, "the sorce of inspiration" for this card is from my vivid memory of the islands & color challenge at color throwdown blog. For those butterflies, I colored the paper, using brayer with blending blox (multi colored ink pad), stamped the butterfly on the gradated blue card stock with versa fine black ink, then trimmed them. I used my latest addition of sakura glaze pen on those butterflies, here & there after everything dried. I cut & attached the center of the artificial flowers, for the large butterflie's antenas. I used dimentional foam for 2 front Banana leaves. Bamboo frame is Posh Impressions, Butterflies are Hero Arts, Banana leaves are Guam's original stamp company, and the sentiment is a dollor clear stamp from Michaels :-). These colors are really relaxing for me...

Fancy Tilda in Black, Red & Pink!

That's the the challenge at Manolia-licious challenge blog, and this is my card. Black & Red is MY colors (lol!), not Tilda's in my mind, and it was hard to choose the image for this colors challenge from a very limited numbers of Maggie's images I own... Well, Tilda is invited to Edwin's Piano concert, and she dressed up & waiting for him to play at the concert hall :-) I stamped music notes randomly in light pink & grey around the white piano. I used my new addition tool; Sakura's clear glaze pen for her pretty black shoes, her rose corsage, her black ribbon & belt, on the black keyboards and the wheel. I found this pen very useful. I would've used Glossy accent for those places but since this pen doesn't give too much dimention, other than GLAZE, I chose this pen for this card. Besides, it's a pen and easy to "glaze" in smaller places too. It's a bit hard to see them on the picture, though. I adhered glitters on her earrings & frills of her dress. I placed red gems on black corner punch which is a bit hard to see on the picture also. I put white stitch lines around the background paper, with Souffle white pen, to match with the white stitched black ribbon. The background paper is Bo Bunny's which Sue Kment sent to me. (luv it, Sue! :-))

HM card for...

I made this card for HM & friends Monday Challenge 89, HM & friends (February), Mojo Monday 178. HM & friends Monday Challenge is "Favorite HM stamp". I love All of my HM stamps! LOL! but I always think House Mouse & tea/coffee theme designs are "well-matched" :-) HM & friends monthly challenge is "LOVE". I'm tired of using red and pink for "love" cards this month, so I made this card in light purple :-) The picture doesn't show much but I used perfect pearl for coloring "water". I used Glaze pen for those tiny rose buds to give a bit of shiny look. I used cuttlebug's tiny hearts folder to emboss the circle and glitter it around the edge. Right now, I'm tired of color "white", after looking at snow for so long, and red & pink just because of Valentine's day cards! lol!

5 Sweets for Valentine's Day

For this year's Valentine's day, I baked 5 different sweets over one week time, 4 before Valentine's day & 1 a day after Valentine's day. First, I baked Muffins (chocolate) with pink icing & sprinkles which had white and red hearts. Before I had a chance to take a picture, they were gone. Then, I baked Peanut Butter Blossoms with Bliss chocolates (heart shaped), in 4 different version; 1 is without any sugar on the cookies, one with regular white sugar, one with RED colored sugar & one with PINK colored sugar. I wish I had a better PLATE to place them for Photo shooting... 3rd one was the heart shaped cinnamon crescent rolls. I saw this recipe on somebody's blog, and made them, using 2 cinnamon crescent rolls from Pilsbury's refrigerated dough, to make a heart shape. I didn't have a chance to take this picture either, before we ate them! lol! 4th one was Chocolate covered Strawberries. I sometimes make these just because I luv chocolate & strawberries! LOL! But this time, I dressed the strawberries a bit more, with white chocolate & "Valentine's day" Sprinkles :-) A day after Valentine's day, I baked this heart shaped brownies. It was more like cake. I luved decorating these hearts with chocolate frosting, white chocolate (made it in pink) & sprinkles. By then, I bought a Better Plate to display! :-)Over all, I baked a lot for this Valentine's day! :-)

WMC43

What a nice Challenge this week at Wee Memories; "live, laugh, love"! I can make cards for this theme all year around!! :-) But well, this is my latest creation :-) I've been wanting to use this image & red heart doily! I placed tiny pearls in each small hearts on the border. White background paper (with "love" writings) & circle layering red heart paper is Bo Bunny which my HM online friend Sue K. sent me (Thank You, Sue!:-)) I used red glitter pen to draw "stitches" around the cats image & sentiment. I'm sending this to my godmother for Belated Valentine's day! lol... I did send e-valentine's day card but she is always looking forward to my Handmade card, so I'm sending this tomorrow :-)

Mojo Monday #177

This is my card for Mojo Monday Challenge. Both stamps are old Hero Arts. I adhered the circle image with pop up glue dots. There is no places for those butterflies but I recently bought this punch (MS), and I WANTED to use it! LOL!!

HM Valentine's day card for my HM online friend

"She" sent me a very pretty HM Valentine's day card last year, and "she" told me that "she" is expecting my HM Valentine's day card this year! lol ;-) So, here is the card I made for you, Mary Anne! :-) I made this card, having HM & friends' Monday Challenge ("hearts") & Simon Says Stamp Challenge ("love is in the air") in mind. Yes, you can see lots & lots of hearts on this card! I used Glossy accent on the glass bowl & the mice's eyes. I stamped lot of hearts, using old SU!'s set, then heat embossed. I dry embossed the tiny hearts (cuttlebug), and added glitter here & there. I was kind of getting tired of looking at RED hearts on the Valentine's day cards I previously made, and wanted to choose the colors other than red. :-)