Happy 9th Birthday Kalino!

Yesterday was the Little Guy's 9th birthday. This is the card I made for him.

The card started with this Silhouette design. Instead of using a number in the middle, I used the same photo I used on his Evite.

This kid loves his birthday. For example, on New Years Day he said "8 more months until my birthday." And he's been counting down every 1st of the month ever since. He also loves to have his party on his actual birthday, and since it's summer time, we have been able to accommodate his request. He invited 8 friends from school to play laser tag at Laser Quest in Mountain View. He attended a birthday party there last month and was totally excited to have his party there. Since they didn't open until 2PM, we took all the kids out for burgers at In N Out before driving to the party location. He had a great time. Here's a collage I posted yesterday on Instagram.

I did very little crafting for his party. Kalino and I decorated small water bottles with By the Numbers Papertrey Ink patterned paper. My friend Judy added numbers to the bottles so the kids could keep track of their own bottle. I also wrapped the same Papertrey Ink paper on jars that I up-cycled to hold the spoons and forks (didn't include a picture).

Instead of giving a traditional party favor bag, I bought gift cards at Baskin Robbins and made these gift card holders (Kristina's pattern). I added a photo of Kalino with a speech bubble that says "Thanks for making my day sweet." I used the Phonto app on my iPhone to create the speech bubble on the photo; I love my iPhone!

I researched laser tag cake ideas on Pinterest. I found several that all had glow sticks. I found several packs of them at Big Lots for $.60 for a pack of 4. Just stick the glow sticks in and "break" them to start the glowing effect. I had Costco customize their All American chocolate cake. I asked them not to put chocolate shavings on the perimeter. I also asked for neon-colored frosting. Did you know that Costco customizes more than just their sheet cakes? You can even take swatches of color and they will color-match the frosting to your color(s).

Thanks for stopping by!

To One of My Favorite Peeps

Happy Easter! I made this card for Kalino. He looks forward to the Easter scavenger hunt I do each year for him. I haven't created the 12 clues yet and it's already after lunch time; behind schedule!

The weather is nice, so I was going to do the scavenger hunt outside, but late last night I heard some loud noise outside my studio window. Sure enough, I'm guessing it was raccoons that broke into the vent to get into the crawl space under the house. We're not going near that open vent; darn raccoons!

I bought these cute stamps at the A Muse store in Seattle last November. I couldn't resist them.

Well, I've got to run.

Card Ingredients

Stamps: Peep, Favorite Peeps (A Muse)

Paper: white textured, Crushed Curry (Stampin' Up)

Ink: Basic Black, Daffodil Delight (Stampin' Up), VersaMark (Tsukineko)

Tools: Corner Chomper (We R Memory Keepers), Silhouette digital cutter with label design

Other: baker's twine (House of 3 Pink Paislee), foam tape (3M)

Birthday Wishes, Kalino!

Today, my favorite Little Guy turns 7! Yikes, where has the time gone? He'll be in second grade at the end of the month.

Today, we're having his Star Wars themed birthday party at my parent's house.

I used my Silhouette to cut the Hero Arts birthday wishes design. I used this card by Kristina as my inspiration to fill the candle and letter with scraps of ribbon. The number 7 stamp is a Martha Stewart stamp. The stamped and embossed So Saffron half circle was a scrap on my desk. Oh, the continuing saga of cleaning off my desk! It will never end.

We'll I didn't get a chance to finish making invitations for Kalino's party, but here's my starting point. I downloaded several free Star Wars fonts and just used Picasa to write on top of the photo.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lego Birthday Party Invitation

Today is my son's 6th birthday. We are currently on vacation in Taos, New Mexico visiting my family.

I started designing these Lego birthday party invitations several weeks ago. The photo of K was taken last June at Legoland in Carlsbad, CA. His tongue is sticking out...that's a common sight. This kid is not a Disney kid. He has no desire to go to Disneyland, but if he had a say, we would be at Legoland a few times a year.

I wanted to enter this invitation in the Hero Arts Photo Challenge, but I couldn't complete this invitation on time. Cutting out his name was also the first project I attempted with my QuicKutz Silhouette (not smart of my part...there was a bit of a learning curve). These letters are tiny (less and .5 inches high). I downloaded a free Lego font from here. The Silhouette can cut any font on your computer, so it worked out great.

I also used the Lego font on the photo and for the text of the invitation.

The hard part was assembling the 4 layers for each of the small letters.

Card Ingredients
Paper: unknown brand of red, white, black, and yellow paper from my stash
Tools: computer, printer, QuicKutz Silhouette
Other: Legothick font, Tombo glue, Canon Photo Paper Pro, Creative Memories photo splits, foam tape

My Son's Photo is Kristina's Inspiration Challenge

I almost fell off my chair this morning when I saw Kristina's Tweet about her latest color inspiration challenge. I clicked on her link and boom...I see my own little robot-loving Cutie Pie! What a treat. That makes my weekend! Hope you all have a chance to create something for the challenge by Wednesday, May 27 at 7 PM MT.

On April 11th, 2008, we took a Friday day trip up to San Francisco to take Kalino to the Exploratorium and to celebrate our wedding anniversary a day early. We laughed because Kalino kept calling San Francisco "Francis Cisco". Kalino loved the museum! He was 4 years old at the time. This kid has been in love with robots since he was 2 years old. Daily, he draws robots and creates robots with Legos and Kid K'Nex. He loved this robot pencil sharpener from the gift shop. We had to buy it.

After leaving the Exploratorium, we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to take photos. The day was warm and there was no fog....amazing! I love the Golden Gate Bridge and all the vista points near the bridge. Kalino had his new robot friend with him the entire time. I sent Kristina the photo last month since it had colors we are familiar with using. Thanks for using my photo, Kristina!

Have a great day everyone.

Feliz Cumpleanos, Abuelo!

I was awakened this morning by an earthquake! A small 3.5 magnitude one, but the epicenter is where I live, so it felt like a larger quake. After 20 years of living in California, I'm still amazed how our buildings can withstand this type of movement. My two Sweeties slept through it all.

March is the busiest birthday month in our families. You would think I could be better prepared...nope! My father-in-law's birthday was yesterday (my in-laws drove up from Southern California on Friday). I don't know about you, but I like to design a card with a particular person in mind. I can't reach into my stack and give them something I created last year. My husband gave me the idea for this hybrid Happy Birthday Grandpa card. My father-in-law loves fútbol (soccer) and I got this great picture of him at my son's soccer game last Fall. You may have noticed the bird on his head. That's Minnie. She goes everywhere my in-laws go.

I created this card super quick. I use Google's Picasa to manage my photos. I added the text to the photo using my favorite font, CK Becky before printing out the photo on Kodak paper. I love Kraft cardstock, so it was easy to put it all together. Have a good one!

Card Ingredients
Stamps: none
Paper (all SU!): Kraft, Candy Lane DSP
Ink: none
Tools: Scallop Border Punch (SU!), Crop-A-Dile, corner rounder
Other: large metal soccer brad (Making Memories), linen thread (Blackbird Studios), foam tape

Our Annual Photo Christmas Card

Finally on Monday I finished all 70 Christmas cards and mailed them out! I could've finished them sooner, but there were games to play (Chutes and Ladders is Kalino's latest favorite), stories to read, and new robot creations to look at. I'm trying to enjoy the season without stressing out about what I haven't done. It's Christmas Eve and we haven't assembled our gingerbread house from Trader Joe's, but that's OK.

Since we don't live near 90% of our families, we send out a Christmas card with Kalino on the card each year. This year, I knew I wanted to use Kraft cardstock as the base. I love Heather Nichol's (Pine is Here) work and her use of Kraft cardstock. I usually make at least 2 versions of the Christmas card. This time, I have 5 slight variations. I needed a few cards in Spanish, so some have Feliz Navidad on them. I had a 6"x6" sheet of Baja Breeze designer paper, so I made a few using that color. I also had some variations on the Martha Stewart snowflake punch.

We went to Pebble Beach near Carmel on a Friday afternoon in November to get the photos of Kalino. He had an early day at school and got out by noon, so we headed out on our day trip. The sun was shining, but it was cold. I took Kalino's jacket off while my husband got these pictures.

Thanks for looking!

Christmas Card Ingredients
Stamps: Holiday Collection, Felicidades Siempre
Paper: Kraft, Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze, Riding Hood Red DSP, Baja Breeze DSP, silver foil
Ink: Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze
Other: 4mm rhinestones and larger rhinestone (Michael's), Martha Stewart snowflake punch, Felt Flurries (SU), foam tape

Making a Halloween Card

Kalino's teacher asked all the parents to practice at home with using glues and scissors. He needs to be able to use Elmer's glue and glue sticks. He's never used liquid glue.

He's always loved using my paper punches, so he punched a bunch of bats and some white scalloped squares. While I was getting more supplies in my studio, he opened the Elmer's glue without me knowing. I came back to his desk to find bats drowned in glue. You could barely see any black cardstock! This is why we are practicing. He repunched more bats and more white squares. I showed him how to use Elmer's glue to glue the bats to the white squares. We let that dry and then he used a glue stick to glue the white squares to the card.
He didn't want the Happy Halloween stamp. He decided he wanted a stamp that says Boo! I don't have a stamp that says that. I'm seriously lacking in Halloween stamps. I never buy any because I usually don't have time to make any cards. I have individual letters that I mounted on an acrylic block. Here's his final card.

Have a good week everyone!

Card Ingredients
Stamps: Martha Stewart
Paper: Basic Black, white, glossy paper (brayer with orange ink)
Ink: Basic Black, Memories orange
Other: Elmer's glue & glue stick, Martha stewart bat punch, SU scalloped square punch

Ouch! (SOA Challenge #7 - Scrapbook Sketch)

This is my 2-page layout for Stampin' Out Alzheimer's 2008 Challenge #7. The requirements for this challenge: use the 2-page layout sketch, use at least 4 photos, and 1 stamped image or sentiment.

(Edited to add: the journaling text)
This page should be called Maui Ouwie! You were having such a good time running on the beach and kicking water all over, when you tripped and fell on some black rock (the first picture was taken right before the accident).
Ouch! You got a huge scrape. We had trouble finding a large enough Band-Aid. A lot of our pictures should be called "Kalino and the Band-Aid" or "Band-Aid on Vacation". You didn't let this injury ruin your first trip to Maui.
April 2007
Kalino 3.5 years old

Scrapbook Ingredients
Stamps: Aloha! (Stampin' Up)
Paper: flowered designer paper (STARfish & Dreams), banana & guava-colored paper (My Mind's Eye), don't know where I got the light banana paper
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Groovy Guava, Cameo Coral, Mint Melody, Brilliance Pearlescent Coral
Other: Making Memories green brads, SU felt flowers, Provo Craft chipboard letters

Pure Happiness (SOA Challenge #2 - Scrapbook Sketch)

This scrapbook page is for Stampin' Out Alzheimer's 2008 Challenge #2. When I saw Jen's layout for this challenge, I knew I had to use this photo of Kalino from our vacation in Maui last April.

The text on the metal tag says "This is one of my favorite photos. Kalino looks so happy!"

Scrapbook Page Ingredients
Stamps: Happiness, Friendship Blooms
Paper: Textured cardstock (Colorbok), tan paper (dollar store), striped paper (Provo Craft), Very Vanilla (Stampin' Up)
Ink: River Rock, Groovy Guava, ColorBox Frost White
Other: PSX White embossing powder, chipboard letters (Provo Craft), metal tag (Stampin' Up), rub-on used on the metal tag (Hambly Screen Prints), foam tape, starfish (dollar store), green ribbon (Michael's), white gel pen