Two Cards From a Friend and Time in SD

Happy Wednesday everyone!  I hope that this post is finding everyone having a good summer so far.  Mine has been a very memorable, fun, and busy one so far.  My family and I just got back from a mini vacation in beautiful San Diego.  We all had a fun and relaxing time there.  We were especially happy to escape from the hot weather for a bit.  Since I did not do any crafting  in the past 4 days, today I would like to post two cards that I received from my friend Cary.  The first one is a fun masculine card.  I am always in need of ideas for masculine cards.  Do you find it a challenge like I do to make masculine cards?

The second card she made for me is one using a beautiful embossing folder and cute little cherry blossom punch.

I love the card!  I purchased the exact same embossing folder at the stamp convention a few weeks ago and can't wait to use it.  Receiving the card from her got my mojo flowing about what cards I can make using the folder.  :)  Hopefully I will have a chance to do some crafting soon.  Before ending this post I wanted to share a couple of fun pictures of my time in SD.  This is a picture of our time visiting the USS Midway.  My hubby and I had fun sitting in model helicopter.

Here is one of the beautiful flowers that we saw at the SD Botanical Garden.

This is a picture of one of the amazing shows that we got to see at the SD zoo.  A six foot man was able to fit himself into a box.

Thanks for coming by to see what I have to share today.

A Fun Time and Goodies for a Good Friend

Happy Monday!  I hope that all of you had a nice and relaxing weekend with family and friends and of course got to do some crafting.  I had a nice weekend, but did not have a chance to do any crafting.  The last time I did some crafting was last week before I took a good friend out to dinner to celebrate her b-day. Since I was taking her out to dinner as part of her b-day present, I asked her to choose a restaurant she'd like to go to.  She chose to go to Burger Continental.  It was the perfect evening to eat dinner out on their patio.

We decided to share a salad and a sandwich.

Before ending our time together she opened the gift that I gave to her which included a card

and a quilled cupcake that I made for her. It was lots of fun and very relaxing to make the two items for her.

Thanks for coming by.  Have a great week and try to stay cool.

A Tea Party With Friends

Last weekend  I not only was able to go to the stamp convention, but I also went out for tea with two good friends that were visiting.  It was awesome for the 3 of us to have tea party together.  Until Sunday only two of us at a time got to hang out together since we don't live in the same state.  We went to Vintage Tea Leaf in Long Beach for our tea party.

We started off our time together by picking what tea cup and saucer to use.  I of course picked one with purple in it.  :)  It was really hard to choose one because all of them are so beautiful.

Then we were off to our table to enjoy our tea party.

 It took us awhile to decide what to order.  It was the hardest choosing the type of tea we each wanted.  It was fun reading the different descriptions of what each kind of tea contained.  The names of the tea were very unique.  Gail ordered Peach White Tea. Fran ordered Ebony Lace. I ordered the Tropical Kimono tea.  I thought it was interesting to see them bring our pots of tea in beautiful tea warmers.

For the food for our tea party we ordered "Tea for Three" from the menu.  It is actually called "Tea for Two" on the menu but we asked our waiter if we could customize it for three.  It was the best choice to order this because it gave us the opportunity to taste 9 out of 10 types of tea sandwiches they have on the menu along with having fresh fruit, dessert,

and 2 blue berry scones.

Midway through our tea party we took a little break and gave each other the gifts that we made.  We thought it would be fun to take a picture with what we made.

I also made a blue polka dot version.

After admiring the gifts that we received we continued our tea party with having some more food and trying out each others teas. We all thought that the sandwiches were very unique and loved all the teas. Before leaving we walked around the boutique that is part of the tea room.  It was just as beautiful as the tea room.  It was lots of fun to see the different types of tea sets, tea warmers, decorations, etc.

This was my favorite because of the cute handmade paper flowers.

Before leaving to go our separate ways we took one last fun picture together.  Out of all the pictures that I took that day this one was my favorite.  :)

After having our tea party Fran and I took a stroll at the Queen Mary after we changed our clothes.

 We enjoyed our stroll together chatting, looking at the Princess Diana exhibit,

and exploring different areas of the ship.  Then we went out to dinner with my family and her son.  We took them to one of our favorite HI restaurants Back Home to Lahaina.

It is one of the most beautiful restaurants I have ever been to because it has awesome murals of Maui.  Being at the restaurant always makes me feel like I'm in Maui having dinner.

Last weekend was indeed one of the most memorable weekends I have had so far this summer and it will forever be treasured.  Thanks Fran and Gail for everything!  Love you both lots!  Thanks everyone for dropping by today and for being patient with reading such a long post.








  

Time at the Rubber Stamp Convention

All my weekends this summer have been pretty nice, but this past weekend was one of the most fun and memorable ones.  I am exhausted from everything, but thank the Lord for the time that I was able to spend with friends.  On Saturday a friend and I carpooled to the Carson Rubber Stamp Convention and picked up my friend that was visiting from HI to join us.  It was super cool to be able to visit so many booths.  There were 18  rubber stamp companies at the convention.  I was especially happy that Yumi and Fumi were there as well as JudiKin, Hanko Designs, K Creations, Taj of Honolulu, and Local King Stamp Company.   The 3 of us had a great time together chatting, making make and takes,

taking pictures of awesome samples of cards and 3D items (These are some fun items that you can make using dies and punches from K Creations.)

,
watching demos (Tim Holtz was there and  Elizabeth Crafts were doing demos as well as many other vendors.), and shopping, shopping, and more shopping.  Even more fun than shopping (Yes, you read what I wrote correctly.) was bumping into friends,

meeting new people  (It was so awesome to be able to meet one of the owners of one of my favorite stamp companies, Yumi and Fumi. 

After being at the convention from 10:30 am to 2:00 pm we had lunch before going home.  Several of my friends and I decided to have lunch at the same time.

I am surprised that my tummy lasted as long as it did.  I guess with having so much fun my tummy I was distracted from being hungry.  Before I end I wanted to share with you a few of the items I purchased (Besides these items I also purchased some more rubber stamps, stencils, and embossing folders.)

and two purses that I made for two of my friends as a RAK.  ( I made one of the purses for my friend that I carpooled with to the convention and the other one for the friend that I was meeting at the convention that I swap each month with.)

Thanks for spending some time with me today.  Be sure to check back again this week as I share about my Sunday afternoon and evening as well as some more crafty creations.  Until then take care, God bless, and Happy Crafting!

Ono Food and a Patriotic Card

It looks like it's going to be another super hot week in SoCal.  I sure hope that it cools down next weekend.  I have some friends that will be visiting from out of town and where they live is not this hot.  Since this weekend was pretty hot, my family and I stayed home for the most part.  We did go out for dinner to celebrate my hubby's b-day.  We went to Claim Jumpers.  I ordered a seared ahi salad and my hubby ordered a huge burger called a widow burger.  My son ordered mini burgers and my daughter ordered mini corn dogs.  For the appetizer we ordered onion rings.  Claim Jumper's onion rings are the best!

Check out the huge burger that my hubby ordered.  I took a bite of it and had a hard time biting it because it's so thick.

On Saturday we had some friends over for a pot luck to celebrate his b-day.  We had a fruit salad, a fuji apple green salad, mashed potatoes made from scratch, rolls, fried chicken, and mango cake for dessert.  It was very relaxing having our friends over.  Now that I have all of you hungry with me sharing all the good food that my family and I enjoyed this weekend I am going to change the subject before all of you get any more hungry.  LOL!  In a previous post I shared the card that I made for the tea swap for this month for Jayne.  This super cute package arrived from her on Saturday.

Inside the package were two tea bags, this nice patriotic card,

and a super cute and generous RAK.

Thanks for dropping by today.  Have a great week!

A Post Dedicated to America

Happy 4th of July! Happy B-day to America and may God bless you and His people! I hope that all of you are having a nice day off celebrating with family and friends.  Since it's America's b-day today I would like to dedicate this post to her by posting some patriotic cards that I made

and one that I received.

I started off with making the first card for as my tea swap card for this month where the optional colors were red, white, and blue.  Then my mojo got the best of me and took off.  I ended up making all three cards in one evening.  That is sure a record for me.   LOL!  Also in honor of America's b-day here a picture of one of my hubby and at Disneyland with Mickey in his partriotic.  My family and I went there Tues. to be sure to get to take a picture with him in that outfit.

That evening they had 4th of July they had special fireworks. (Even though it's was not the 4th of July yet, they are having this special for about a week.)  I always get a bit emotional when I hear different patriotic songs especially the "Star Bangle Banner." The songs remind me of how fortunate my family and I are to be able to live in such a great nation and to be able to have the freedom that we do.  I'd like to end this post with some cute patriotic goodies that we saw at Disneyland.