NEW52-Week47, Happy Mail

This week has been full of NEW happy mail.  First of all, I received my Tis the Season Christmas Project Kit (now sold out) from Elle's Studio.  It was my first order from them, shipping to Hawaii cost about $10 so I don't think I'll order too often.

Second, my early Christmas present from my dad arrived.  It was a Fuji MP-300 Instant Printer with 5 film packs (100 prints total).  You can't get this baby locally or even in the States.  I had to order it off of eBay from a seller in Korea.  The shipping was super fast.  I think it took about 1 week.  This little printer is what Amy Tan uses on many of her layouts and even takes them with her on trips.  You can read her most recent blog entry about it here.

So what should I do with my NEW Elle's Studio Christmas kit and new instant printer?  Make a December Daily mini album?  Maybe, we'll see how far I make it . . .

So remember in my last post (just a day ago), I fell in love with Liz's (Paislee Press) new kit, This Much, and told you I already had a layout in mind.  Well, this is what was in my mind at the time and I think I executed my plan well.  I knew I wanted a large photo of Bostyn on the top and add the ruler below with the word art, beyond measure.  You can never go wrong with a kit from Liz.  I love her designs immensely.

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I think I am finally all caught up with my NEW52, only 5 more weeks to go.  Not sure what I'm going to do next year.  Anyone doing anything fun?

NEW52-Week46, Whoopi Pie and NEW CT gig

This week, I finally used my Whoopi Pie pan and Baked Red Velvet Whoopi pie mix from Williams Sonoma.

and made this

and it was delicious

Why did I have a sudden urge to bake?  Tate had his co-workers over to see all the hard work he has been doing on the mountain.  They enjoyed an early evening grilling veggies, kabobs, fruits, smores, even grilled pb&j sandwiches.  Here I am taking the photo from a tier above the deck looking down on the party.  Sorry, quick photo, no tripod or fancy setting, just a blurry photo, sorry about that.  I really need to learn how to use the manual settings on my camera.

The second part of my post is about a NEW creative team that I joined.  Yes, that is right.  I haven't been on a creative team for a year now.  It was a nice break but now is the right time.  For the last few weeks, I've been really digging Lauren Reid Designs.  She has a nice balance of cute, trendy, modern, and amazing templates.  When the invitation to join her creative team came, I could not refuse it.  Tate said this was the only one I could join.

Here are some layout that I've done with her kits.  I just have to tell myself that I don't have to make something with every kit that she releases or should I attempt to participate in every challenge out there.  However, it is so hard to resist.  I love being part of her team.

This layout features a super cute kit, Cuppycakes, I did this layout before I even got on her team.  I loved this kit as much as Bostyn loves to eat cupcakes so I bought this kit when it was first releases.

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This one uses Pumpkin Butter papers and spots.  Already did 2 layouts with this kit, first layout was shown on previous post.

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Really cute Christmas kit, Kwismis

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For all of you doing a December daily album, this Lauren's contribution to the Document Your December at The Lilypad.  December Dawn papers, Big Ol' Tags 3, and Dateables.

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See how fun they are.  Now onto other layouts from more digi goddess from DHD and Oscraps.  The one thing that I have to remember is to continue to make layouts using kits that I love and here are some of them.

This is a digi morph page that I did with DHD.  It always amazes me to see the end result.  The main kit was Right Now by Karla Dudley and supported by Gennifer Bursett's Sweet Child of Mine wood grain paper and Kitschy Dymo labels.

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This layout is using a new kit from Paislee Press.  I'm so glad that I made time to play with her rocking new kit, This Much, because I love this one so much.  I already have my next layout in mind.

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I just bought some other new kits today since I couldn't go out for black Friday (had to stay home with sick Bostyn).  I can't wait to get started.  Photoshop has been running better.  I still can't place my photo until everything is set otherwise it takes a long time to do anything.  Haven't figured that one out yet.  See you all next week.

NEW52-Week44/45, Nov. Photo Challenge, iPhone, bed

For week 44, I joined a photo a day challenge on Facebook.  I've never done a challenge like this before but so far I haven't missed a day.  It's so much easier taking the photos with an iPhone.  This brings me to my NEW for week 45, my NEW iPhone.  Here is a photo I took "looking down" on Tate and Bostyn using my NEW iPhone.  By the way, love my iPhone and wonder how I ever survived without it.

Another NEW for week 45, is a big girl bed for Bostyn.  She loves it and I love the great big toy box storage bins it has under her bed.  I'll have to take some photos of it later.

Another NEW is upgrading to Lion and iPhoto '11.  After getting Lion, my internet seemed to be a lot faster.  So far so good.  However, not sure if I'm loving the upgrade to my iPhoto because now it keeps crashing and it is so slow to load.  Sometimes, it even causes my Photoshop to crash.  I've been super annoyed and managing to get only a few layouts done.  Hopefully I'll have more to share next time.

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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.