NEW52-Week42/43, Waimanalo Farms and treats

NEW for Week 42, we went to Waimanalo Country Farms to visit their pumpkin patch.  We heard rave reviews about this farms, less dusty and less crowds than the other large pumpkin patch on Oahu.  All was true, nice people, beautiful scenery, but no locally grown pumpkins.  I guess they had some nasty bugs that destroyed their crop so they had pumpkins flown in from California.  I did love their country fresh squeezed lemonade.  Hmmm, I wonder if their lemons were locally grown (doubt it).

NEW for week 43, Halloween treats for Bostyn's class.  They also had a Halloween costume parade.  Here is a picture of the treats I made for Bostyn's teachers and classmates.  I found these cute plastic sleeves from Ben Franklin and filled them with some m&m candy.  I used the tie from the glow stick to wrap a nice bow.  The tag is made from Kate's Life in October kit and felt elements from Gimmie Candy collab kit from 9th & Bloom (no longer available since their store closed).

 

I hope you all had an enjoyable Halloween.  I'll post pics soon.  I also have my NEW for this week, look for it soon.

Bostyn's 3rd Birthday

On October 9th Bostyn celebrated her 3rd birthday.  She got to celebrate it 4 different ways.

In Disneyland, we celebrated it (a few days early) at the Plaza Inn.  Bostyn got to sing and parade around with Mickey and Minnie.

After our trip, we were supposed to be home in time to have a small family dinner party on Bostyn's actual birthday but our flight out of John Wayne airport was delayed.  This caused us to miss our connecting flight out of San Francisco by 30 minutes.  We ended up having to spend the night (and most of Sunday) in San Francisco.  To celebrate Bostyn's birthday, we just got a small dessert of her choice to enjoy after eating our pizza dinner at the SF airport.

Then on Wednesday, we had a small class party for her friends at preschool.  I got them all little cake pops, ice cream cups, and a little goodie treat bag (which I totally forgot to photograph).  Here is a photo of Bostyn with her birthday crown at school.

On Saturday, we were finally able to have our family over for a small party.  Here she is with her cousins, Josh and Luke, with these humungous coloring books from Uncle Tyson and Aunty Nadine.

And here is Bostyn with her new Ariel nightgown from Uncle Bert, Aunty Jill, and cousin Nicholas.

Thank you to everyone for all the birthday wishes!!

NEW52-Week40/41, California Adventure & Postagrams

The big NEW for week 40 was a trip to California Adventure.  I've been to Disneyland a handful of times but this was my first visit since they've opened California Adventure.  It was a bit rainy our first day there but we managed to fight it and get a few things in.  We did delay our evening visit for a better night to watch the World of Color show.  It was spectacular (my photos were not).

Here we are riding Toy Story Mania for the first time.  This was Bostyn's favorite ride. 

I won't flood my post with photos but just watch for some layouts to pop in during the next few weeks, like these two.  They were both made using No Tricks, Just Treats by Gennifer Bursett.  The colors in this kit really matched the colors in my photos, just what I needed when I returned from my trip.

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Week 41, I was really busy catching up with sleep and planning for Bostyn's 3rd birthday.  I was kinda bummed because there was really nothing to share with you by Saturday night.  Then I went out to check the mail at 8pm and in my box was my NEW postagram that I had sent to myself from Disneyland.  That was my first time using the postagram app so I considered this my NEW for week 41. That really made my day!  As for the app, wonderful little way to send a thank you or a postcard from a trip.  I would definitely use it again in the future.  Here is a photo of it with my little guy who sings and dances to the "monster mash."

NEW52-Week39, Mists

About a month ago, I ordered some Amy Tangerine stuff and different spray mists from 2 Peas in a Bucket.  They finally arrived last week and I got a chance to finally play with them.  I already shared my love of Amy's stuff so this week I'll focus on the mists.  So I ordered 2 Mister Huey's Spray from Studio Calico and the Art Box Sprinklers Spray Ink Set from October Afternoon.

Here they are:

I love the basic colors in the Art Box set and the bright cherry colors of Mister Huey's.  To try it out I grabbed a recently completed page that had a lot of white space and gave a few sprays of the Brown Bag sprinklers.  I also opened up the bottle and made a few drops here and there.  I think I like the drops of ink better than actually spraying.  You have so much more control that way.  On this layout, I actually got too much spray on the left side so I covered it with a cut out flower and brad.

Next week, we are flying off to Disneyland.  That is not NEW to me, but there are many NEW attractions that I've never seen before since my last trip there was way over 10 years ago.  I'm excited to see California Adventure, World of Color, but most excited to see Bostyn's face when she walks down Main Street for the first time.

NEW52-Week38, inspired by Amy Tangerine

What do you get when you put all these things together?

Plus

Equals

t-shirts + Amy Tangerine = NEW hand embroidered t-shirts.

This week, I have been inspired by Amy Tan.  I just started taking her on-line workshop, The Good Life at Big Picture Classes.  Week 1 lesson was on making her famous hand embroidered t-shirts.  The old Banana Republic has been in my drawers for years, the printed tank was a gift from my sister, Lynn, and the embroidery floss was in my other sister, Jill's, stash of floss.  So basically, this was made for free, even better.  Do you want to see how happy I am now?

This was probably the silliest picture I've taken in a long time. 

(also inspired by Amy since I've seen photos of her jumping for joy)

Another NEW thing I really wanted to share with you this week, was a cool app to make your images into icons, using Img2icns (for mac users).  It is a free download from their website.  It really is a nice, fast, and easy way to do this.  Basically, instead of seeing a plain folder, I use the kit preview image and use the app to quickly turn that into an icon which replaces the folder.  I can then easily see the kit preview and open up that file.  This helps when I'm looking for a particular color or theme.  Katie from the Daily Digi had a great tutorial on why digital scrapbookers would need this and tips for windows users.  So instead of me writing about it, see the Daily Digi, Katie did an awesome review.  I hope to slowly convert my folders.

NEW52-Week37, Aulani and more eats

This week started and ended with a bang.  To start the week, we went to Aulani's character breakfast.  This is the NEW Disney resort in Hawaii and our first visit there.  Long story short, it is not about the buffet and what you get or don't get, how long you waited (45 minutes even with reservations), but about the joy on the kids' face when they see Mickey for the first time.  Here is a photo of their amazing pool play area with the hotel in the back and a group shot with our friends Shari, Quan, Kammy and Kam-Kam.

I made a layout of some Aulani photos using a photoshop (elements friendly as well) action by Gennifer Bursett called "InstaAwesome."  This is the perfect action set for those who have the iPhone Instagram app envy (like I do).  To use this action, first crop your photo to 3x3, next run the action and make adjustments, then pick which frame you would like to use.  So simple and looks like the real thing.  Here is the action preview, my sample photo, and then my aulani love layout.  Now we can all fake having the real thing.  Sorry for the late post, but InstaAwesome was free over the weekend, hurry over there to see if it is still free.

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To end this week, we went to one of those street truck fairs.  In Hawaii they are called Eat the Streets.  It was so crowded so we only tried a few NEW things.  I was not willing to stand in line one hour for this. Here are a few photos from the shogunai taco truck, Tate enjoying his shoyu pork taco (which was really good).  Christine always includes eating photos of her husband and I think that always make the food look even better.

After this event we got ready to attend the University of Hawaii volleyball game.  We usually make it to at least one volleyball game a season and this one was not to be missed.  They announced earlier last week that they were going to do a special taping of Hawaii Five-O after the game.  They wanted to see a sea of green in the crowds so over 10,000 UH and Hawaii Five-O fans raced to the occasion and filled the arena.  Here are a few photos from the night.

 Do you see Daniel Dae Kim speaking to the crowd before the game?

 sea of green, never did I see the arena that crowded

Taping the "wahine's win over Rancho" scene

We stood in line for 90 minutes and missed the first 2 sets to receive a free (with $15 purchase) UH/Hawaii Five-O t-shirt.  Here I am proudly wearing mine.  So when the episode airs on October 17th (tentatively), look for me in the stands among the 10,000 extras that were there that night.  Aloha!!

NEW52-Week35 & 36, Memory Keeper and EKG

To start off week 35, we had a fun luncheon with my cousins.  It was at the beautiful Waialae Country Club.  Here we are as one big group.

Bostyn really enjoyed playing with Josh and Luke but also another little girl who is a month younger than her.  I think that would make them 3rd cousins or 2nd cousins once removed?  I can't remember.  Once they warmed up to each other, they enjoyed running in the grass, on the chairs, and with the ipad.  Here is a layout of the two of them together.

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After this lovely day, it all went downhill.  So the day after the party, Bostyn wakes up with a fever.  She ends up having the stomach flu.  She spent all Monday morning throwing up.  It got better as the week went one but a low grade fever remained with kept her home from school all week.

As for the NEW52, Week 35, I received Bostyn's Memory Keeper box in the mail from Paper Coterie.  It wasn't the best printing as there was a green glow where her skin meets her pink backpack.  There was also a little sticky residue on the front.  However, it was free because I used a coupon and only paid for shipping.  So I didn't complain and remained just grateful that I only paid $15 instead of $55.  Thanks to Ali Edwards' blog for showing me this great Memory Keeper box for all of Bostyn's preschool art and treasures.  I really owe Ali a lot of credit as I based my entire box on her box (go to her blog to see photos of her beautiful boxes).  I loved the large first day of school photo on the front with her name and school year on a solid spine for easy identification when on the bookshelf.  I think Paper Coterie has a great product on their hands but I do think they can make the process a little easier with cropping of photos, etc.  I love the size of the box and will continue to order them for year.

So now we are onto Week 36.  The stomach flu has passed but now she caught another cold.  Not sure how as she stayed home all week.  This kept her home again for a few days.  Luckily her doctor gave her antibiotics and she is getting much better.  That leads me to my next NEW experience.  At her doctor's appointment, he heard a premature heartbeat and something about possible sinus arrhythmia??!!!  Just for good measure, her pediatrician recommended I take her to Kapiolani Children's Hospital for an EKG.  He did reassure me that this was nothing to lose sleep over.  We didn't need to go right away, later in the week or next week was fine.  However, you cannot just get this information and sit on it for a few days.  So the next day, I took Bostyn in for her first EKG since she was home from school anyways.  This is how she looked all wired up.  She held still and remained brave for the few minutes that the procedure took.  Nurse Nana was really good with her.

The very next day, her doctor called me and said everything looked fine.  He will just continue to monitor it.  We love our pediatrician.  He is very pro-active and is quick to refer his patients to specialists, when need.

After all of this, it was finally time for me to see my own doctor.  I had caught Bostyn's cold and needed time to take care of myself.  I got some drugs and recovering quite nicely.

Here are some NEW layouts for the week.  Again, challenge pages to help jumpstart my creativity.

This was for Design House Digital's 4Play.  You take 4 kits of their choice and make a layout with it.  They usually mark down the kits really good either FREE or for $1 to help entice you.  Luckily, for this one, I already owned 2 of those kits.

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This next layout was based off of a McDonald's magazine ad for DHD's inspiration challenge.  I really loved this one from the start.  There were so many things to be inspired by.  It was a great way to show off my hens and their first egg.

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My cousin gave me her daughter's old Tinkerbell costume so I finally took it out for Bostyn to play with.  Bostyn loved it and put it on immediately and went outside to search for fairies in the garden.  It inspired the following 2 layouts.  This is for Oscraps Copycat template challenge.  

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And this is for DHD's Swatch challenge.  Don't forget to get your free Breezy papers by Karla that goes perfectly with this swatch.

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This is for Oscraps' Creative Techniques challenge.  It was very difficult for me as it was to be an art journal style, but that is not my thing so this is what I came up with instead.

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