NEW52-Week49, NEW boken and tea

So week 49, I challenged myself to learn how to photograph Christmas lights, especially boken style.  I found this really simple tutorial here that explains it in simple woman's terms.  I still need to practice on getting a subject in focus yet boken in the background.  Maybe next week?  So Bostyn's preschool had a family evening outing to see the Honolulu Lights.  Here I practiced with some lights hanging on the trees.

Another one of the lights on the Christmas tree at Kahala Hotel

Another NEW for the week was Tea with Santa at the Kahala Hotel.  It was such a wonderful delight that we plan on doing it again next year.  Bostyn knew she was going to do something special with me so she didn't mind getting all dressed up (new J. Crew dress, pearls, and sandals) and taking some photos with me before we left the house.

Here is the yummy display of desserts.  The main dishes for adults and kids were yummy too but those photos were not as yummy looking as desserts.  One of my favorite sandwiches was the nutella and banana.

Of course it said tea with Santa so Santa was on hand to take photos with the kids (and adults).  I just had to give him a kiss since I would never do that with everyone looking on at the mall.  I love how Bostyn is watching and wondering what I was doing.

Here is a great shot of our lovely companions for the day, Shari, Kammi, and Kamryn.  I love this shot of the three of them.

Scrapping for the week.  I didn't realize that Elisa, over at Oscraps, selected on of my layouts as the base of the December Copycat Challenge.  So head on over there to pick up a free template and participate.

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Gennifer Bursett, at Design House Digital, FINALLY came out with a Naughty Christmas kit.  Love the colors and patterns to this paper collection.  I just had to show it off her with her December Blueprint Challenge (free template so head on over).

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NEW52-Week48, NEW blog love

Okay, so this one is a little bit of a cheating.  November quickly came to an end and December has been non-stop.  So NEW for week 48 is a blog written by Lauren Reid (shameless advertising here), One Story Down.  I accidentally came across this blog in November during Lauren's big Holiday Kick-Off Bash where she had tons of challenges and prizes.  After this I was hooked.  Why am I sharing this with all of you now, because she continues to inspire me with her articles on photography, gallery pretties, and scrapper spotlight.  My favorite are the scrapper spotlights because they are usually accompanied with a free template.  I actually got a lot of inspiration from paper scrapper, Kelly Noel.  Love this sketch here

and created this page using Lauren's kit, Call Me, available at The Daily Digi (December).

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Another feature on One Story Down is "Girl vs. Scrap."  Here is the December challenge, please play along.  You have until Dec. 31st.

Here is my page:

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Here is another page that I created using papers from Merriment and Page Rims 3 (again shameless advertising).

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Here are some other layouts completed for Design House Digital.  I loved the chevron inspired look so I did this using Robyn's Vintage Holiday and Gennifer's Toolbox Mists Vol. 7 and Toolbox Action vol. 2, InstaAwesome frames.

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I also had 2 hours to devote to a speed scrap last night and did this page using mostly Robyn's Fun and Festive papers.  I loved the & mist, I had to use it although my layout would be better titled "kissing cousins."

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Although I am no longer a decorator for Design House Digital, I still enjoy using their products and promoting their designers.  They are a small store with a huge heart.  Sorry no time for Oscraps this week, maybe next week.  I still have some kits from Paislee Press that are still unused.  I already have my NEW for 49 already photographed so be on the look out for that in the next few days.  I also have tons of photos to share from a girl's tea with Santa.

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!!