Last Month's Tea Swap and an Awesome Concert

Wowzers!  It's the end of March already.  Time has sure been zipping by.  I hope that everyone is doing well.  Lately I've been doing more paper work than crafting.  LOL!  I am hoping that it's the other around soon.  The last project that I worked on was a craft for Sunday School.  I was asked to come up with a craft for the kindergartners to make as a "thank you" gift for the Sunday School teachers in our department. Stay tune for a picture of what I came up with soon.  Today I would like to share pictures of the swap for last month's tea swap.  The optional theme was to make a banner card and the optional theme was pastels.  I was a bit stumped with the theme.  I kept searching for banner cards online to get ideas, but could not find any that I liked.  Finally I found I that I liked.  I revised it a bit.  This is what I came up with.

My tea swap partner Sandy chose not to make a card in the optional theme or color.  Here is the super cute card that she made for me.  I love all the detail in it- especially the stitching.

Before I end my post for today I wanted to share some pictures from the my "date." First my hubby went to dinner at the "Olive Garden."  My hubby ordered a Diana Salad and I ordered a sear ahi burger.  Both of our meals were super ono.

Afterwards we attended a concert at the Disney Concert Hall to watch one of favorite Hawaiian artists, Keali'i Reichel in concert.  The concert hall inside and out is beautiful.

His singing as usual was amazing!  We weren't supposed to take any pictures during the concert, but my hubby snapped a quick one at the end of the concert

and we took one together before we left.

Have a great rest of the week everyone!  Happy crafting!

Celebrating Chinese New Year Late

My side of the family finally had our Chinese New Year's celebration last weekend at a Chinese restaurant. For the past few years it has been a bit more difficult to settle on one date to have the dinner since their are so many schedules to coordinate. Their are 30 people in my family including my parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  Even with such a big family I am thankful that all of us were able to make to the dinner.  It's always nice to see everyone.  As a tradition besides passing out red envelopes, we also give each other treats.  This is what my family and I gave- Hawaiian cookies with a handmade tag.

The stamp of the Year of the Horse character is from Dandelion Designs.  Along with using the stamp for my tags I also used it on a bag topper.   I filled the bag with good luck candy.

I just recently passed them out since I ordered the stamp a little late.  Thanks for stopping by!

Meeting Lisa Yee

A week ago the author Lisa Yee came to visit the school that I work at.  When the librarian initially told me that the author is coming I thought that was pretty cool to get to meet her. After listening to her presentation I was even more excited to meet her.  She is such a super neat lady and is such an inspiration. After her presentation we all lined up in front of the library to purchase some books, meet her, and get our books signed.  I purchased two of the American Girl books that she wrote about two girls that live in Hawaii- one for me and one for my daughter.  I also purchased a book for my son.  Both of my kids thought that it was lots of fun getting to meet an author and to get her autograph.  Each of them surprised her with a package of Peeps since they are her favorite.  When it was my turn to meet her I presented her with a gift from my school family to say "thanks" for coming to visit our school.

On the bag I attached a tag that I made for her in the shape of a rocket.  (During lunch time two weeks ago the librarian and I looked at Lisa's blog to see what she likes.  She likes space, Winnie the Pooh, Sock Monkeys, and most of all Peeps.)  Inside the rocket I put three of her favorite characters.  Here is a close up of the tag.

After meeting Lisa and hearing her presentation about the books that she wrote I became more interested in purchasing her books.  I purchased 5 more of her books this week that the librarian had extras of.  I can't wait to have some time to read them.  

A Gift Bag and Card

I didn't do any crafting for almost two weeks due a family circumstance.  I finally had some time to do some crafting last week.  It felt very nice and relaxing to do some crafting.  I have a co-worker that is leaving so I made her a "farewell" and "best wishes" gift and a card.  The bag was stamped awhile back, but I made the card last week.

Unfortunately, I could not find the same color stamp pad that was used on the bag for the card.  I still thinks it looks pretty good  though.  :)  Making the card for my co-worker reminded me that no matter how hectic things may get, it is important to still have some crafting time to help me to relax.  I thank the Lord for my hobby of crafting to give me some "Me" time.  Thanks for stopping by!