Tea Swaps For April and May

I've been a bit behind in posting my tea swap cards for the past three months. In April my friend Robyn and I were paired up.  The optional theme was to create a card with lace and ribbon.  Since Robyn likes Disney, I made her a card with Minnie Mouse on it and made paper lace using a punch.

Along with the two tea bags, I sent her a Small World magnet.

Robyn made this super cute card and tea holder.

She also sent me some cards that she made in for some of the classes she taught.  She sent them to me as an apology for mailing me the card and tea bags so late.  In May my friend Dori and I were paired up. It was optional to make a book marker.  I made a book marker with cherry blossoms on them because I know how much Dori likes them.

Along with two tea bags I sent her a package of cherry blossom stickers.

This the beautiful and clever book marker pocket and the book marker that Dori made for me.  I love the kimono.

Here is how the book marker looks outside of the pocket.

It's always extra fun getting paired up with friends for the swap.  Stay tune for the card that I made and received for June's swap.  Until then, have a great day!

A Bittersweet Month

I hope that everyone is having a wonderful July so far.  Mine was been a bittersweet one, but I thank the Lord for how He continues to work in my family and my life in the good and sad times in our lives.  Despite some sadness that my family and I have gone through, he has also provided us with lots of good times this month with having the opportunity to spend time with some good friends.  It has been such a blessing to be able to see some of our good friends. Last Wednesday we went out to dinner a friend that we have known for awhile.  We enjoyed a meal at a restaurant called Garden Café. 

All the food was very good, but my favorite was the oxtail stew with mushroom sauce.

On Friday we went out to dinner with a friend and her daughter at Islands.  Here we are with our endless basket of fries.

The highlight of that day was being able to learn how to make two kinds of rainbow loom bracelets through the help of my friend's daughter.  After watching youtube countless times I was not able to figure out how to make the bracelets.  Finally I do thanks to a second grader.  LOL!  Over the weekend I  went out to dinner with a good friend that I have not seen for 6 months.  It was nice to have a chance to catch up, fellowship, and enjoy a HI meal together.

We had poke, kalua pork, and the musubi trio which was our favorite- a fried one, a regular one, and one that has gravey and eggs on top of it.

We had macadamian cheesecake for dessert as you can see from the picture above.  At the end of our meal I gave her a little treat with a handmade bow on it.

To end my weekend on a happy note I put together a Hawaiian themed RAK for a friend- 3 packages of washi tape, pens, and a HI tag.

Here is a close up of the tape.  They have different Hawaiian patterns on each one.

The oil based pens are from Daiso a Japanese chain of stores that is supposed to write on washi tape and not smear.  Thanks for stopping by!  Have a blessed day!

Three Gifts and My Expo Goodies

As promised in my last post I will be sharing the goodies that I purchased during the expo a little more than a week ago.  Before I do that though I am going to share the goodies that I surprised my friend with.  Each day I surprised her with a gift. 

Here is a close up of the Hello Kitty card, bow, and topper.

My friend was very surprised by what I gave to her.  Below are pictures some of the fun crafty products that I purchased from the expo

and one of the stamps that I purchased from Paper Tales.  This is the stamp that the owner of the store designed and made. I couldn't resist and had to purchase it because it's an Asian stamp.  The girl is super cute isn't she?

Even though I was very selective of what I purchased I still made a huge dent in my bank account.  I am looking forward to make some fun items using what I purchased.

A Crafty and Ono Mini Getaway

I had hard time deciding if I should attend the Scrapbook Expo in San Diego with a good friend last weekend.  Part of me wanted to go but another part of me knew that I would miss my family if I did.  Thanks to the encouragement of two good friends and my hubby I went.  It was a nice time away for 3 days and 2 nights in beautiful San Diego with a good friend, fun shopping, and ono food.  My friend and I left for our 2 hour drive to SD on Friday.  We checked into our hotel and took a shuttle to the expo.

It was lots of fun looking at all the booths with their fun products and ideas.  I tried not to over do it and purchase everything I liked.  It was sure hard not to.  LOL!  Check out all the booths behind me.

We walked around and shopped for about 3 hours before we ate at Postcards- a restaurant at our hotel. Here we are enjoying our delicious meals.

I ordered quinoa and fish and my friend ordered chicken with rice and veggies.  On Saturday we woke up bright and early and went to the expo again on Saturday for another 3 hours.  After walking through the booths the day before helped us determine which ones we wanted to go back to to do a little more shopping.  Two booths that we stopped at were my of my two favorite stamp companies- Lawn Fawn and The Stamps of Life.  It was super cool getting to meet the ladies that owns and designs for the company. Here I am with the owner of Lawn Fawn

and my friend and I with the owner of The Stamps of Life.

Both of them are very nice.  Then we went to lunch at BBQ Phils.

I ordered a pulled pork sandwich and my friend ordered baby back ribs.  After lunch we went shopping at a super cute stamp store called Paper Tales.

I love how the store is decorated.

Here is one of the stamps that I purchased.

The store owner designed it.  Of course I had her autograph the stamp for me.  :)  Before going back to the expo one last time we stopped by a gourmet cookie store called "Cookies."  Check out all the ono cookies.

My friend and I had a great time tasting the different cookies.  (They have little pieces of each cookie for customers to try organized in different compartments drawers.)

After going back to the expo we went had dinner at Hunter's Steakhouse.  We ate like queens!  We ordered seared ahi and stuffed mushrooms for our appetizers and each had a salad.  We both ordered prime rib. The next morning we had breakfast at our hotel before we left to go home.  I ordered biscuits and gravy and hash browns.  My friend ordered smoke salmon with bagels.  Both of our meals were very good.  We shared half of our meals to give each other a taste.  Before we drove home we took a picture with the nice driver from our hotel that shuttled us back and forth from our hotel to the expo.  

Here I am with all my stuff to load into the car.

 I left with more stuff than I came with.  LOL!  I am thankful to the Lord for the opportunity to go on a mini getaway with one of my good friends and thank my hubby for taking good care of our kids while I was gone. Stay tune for pictures next week of some of the fun items that I purchased at the expo and stamp store along with a few other fun pictures.