Christmas, Christmas, and More About Christmas My Favorite Holiday

I hope that you and your family had a memorable time celebrating Christmas yesterday.  We spent most of the day at home hanging out, relaxing, and opening gifts.  Here is a picture of my hubby and in front of our tree.

In the evening we had a nice time at one of my cousin's house where there were 20+ family members gathered together there. It's always fun getting together with everyone and catching up on things.  Today my family and I went after Christmas shopping at two of our/my favorite stores- the Disney Store and Ann Taylor.  We all found some good deals.  If you went after Christmas shopping today I hope that you also found some good deals.  :)  Well today I wanted to share one of my favorite gifts that I received from my hubby and my kids (I can't wait to do some coloring with my new Zip Clean Color Real Brush Pens.)

 

and the handmade cards,

 

a calendar that I received,

along with gifts made from the card club that I belong to.  (Not only are the ladies talented card makers but also very talented in the kitchen.)

This is what I made for them.

I have one more week off before I go back to work.  I look forward to spending time with my family and just relaxing.  Thanks for stopping by!

Some More Tags and Time with Friends

I am officially off for 2 weeks from work.  I am so grateful for the time off to relax, have some quality time with family and friends, and hopefully get to do some crafting.  Today I am going to share the tags that I made for our Christmas gifts (I made the mangers with tooth picks.  I have had tooth picks flying away when I was cutting them.) and

some bows that I made using a punch to decoration some containers of chocolate.  I love my bow dies and punches.  I think they are always so much fun to use and adds the finishing touch to any project, box, etc.

Before I end I wanted to share some pictures with you of two get togethers that I had with good friends.  Last week I went out to dinner with my friend Carol.  We enjoyed some ono sushi.

Yesterday I went for high tea with my friend Esther.  We went to T-Neer.

It is always nice getting together with friends, having a sweet time of fellowship, and during this time of year celebrating Jesus's Birthday together.  Thanks for stopping by!

Christmas Tags and Decorations

Slowly tasks for Christmas are getting done.  Our Christmas cards with our newsletter in it are finally getting mailed today.  I am in the process of making gift tags for our gifts.  Since my family and I usually use gift bags to put our gifts in to make the gift a little more personalized I make gift tags for them.  Stay tune for a picture of them soon.  After my kids get out of school today we will be decorating our Christmas tree.  Today I will be sharing with you the tags that I made for the tea swap that I participated in last month.  I was fortunate enough to get to be paired up with my good friend Fran.  I purposely decided to make the tags pictured below because each of them have a special religious meaning. 

Here's a brief description of what each of them mean.

wreath: The evergreen in making wreaths symbolizes growth and everlasting life. The holly branches used to make the wreaths often have thorns which represent the thorn on Jesus' crown when he was crucified. The bright red holly berries symbolize Jesus' blood that was shed for us.

candy cane: The white part of the candy symbolizes the Virgin Birth and sinless nature of Jesus.  The hardness of the candy was used to symbolize the Solid Rock, the Foundation of the Church and firmness of the promises of God.  It is shaped like the letter "J" to represent the precious name of Jesus and also represents the staff of the "Good Shepherd" that Jesus is to each of use who saves the lost sheep in this world. The red stripes represent the blood shed by Jesus on the cross so that we could have the promise of eternal life.

Christmas tree: Jesus is the a Christian's tree of life. Through Him we have hope for everlasting life.  Even though our earthly season must come to an end, we will live through the grace of Jesus in Heaven.

I included a box of yummy macaroons with the tea bags that I sent to her.

This is the awesome creation that Fran made for me.  The tags are made out of acrylic.  She used rub ons to decorate each one.  What a great idea to put the tags in an accordion book.

These are the onolicious cookies and teas that she included.

Before I end I'd like to share a some of the decorations that I have up so far at my house.  This is my mini Disney themed tree.  It was my daughter's fabulous idea to put Tsum Tsums under the tree.

Here is our fireplace

and our front porch.

I started collecting nutcrackers a few years ago.  This is the most recent one that I purchased.  I couldn't resist getting it.

Thanks for taking time out of your schedule to look at what I have to share today. 

My First Christmas Card(s) For This Year

I can't believe that Christmas is going to be in three weeks.  Are you done with all your Christmas shopping?  Are all your Christmas cards done?  All my Christmas shopping is done and our Christmas cards have been ordered and have arrived.  I just finished our annual Christmas newsletter yesterday.  Now it's time to address envelopes, make tags, and get the presents ready.  Today I am going to share with you the first Christmas card that I made for this year.  For the Secret Sister swap we were asked to make 4 of the same Christmas cards to mail to the person that is charge of the swap.  In turn she will send 4 Christmas cards back to us.  I was having a hard time deciding what to make.  I knew for sure that I wanted to make a card that has a religious meaning to it.  This is what I decided to make.

I made the angel using the new poisenttia punch from Stampin Up.  These are the awesome cards that I received from the swap.

I am glad that I decided to participate in the swap.  Making the card helped get my MOJO into gear to make more things for Christmas.  I hope that you will each have a fun time preparing for the season.  I am going to try my best to not get stressed with all that needs to be done so that I am able to focus on the true reason of why I celebrate Christmas. 

Have a great weekend everyone and have a fun time prepping for CHRISTmas.

I am thankful for you, you, and YOU!

There's is much for my family and I to be grateful for. Above all we thank the Lord for being our Heavenly Father and for His unconditional love. We are also grafeful for family, friends, and for the wonderful memories that God has blessed us with each of them. To express our gratitude to them we surprised them with various gifts and handmade items.  This is what I came up with to make this year for my family and I to give.

I die-cutted 40+ pumpkins, added stems on them, and stamped "Give Thanks" using my Rainbow pad. I put a piece of chocolate inside to help them stand.

I purchased this basket from Michaels and adding some ribbon to it.

The next few gifts I used one of my new favorite stamp sets from Stampin Up to make "tags" for the gift.

I die-cutted these tags and attached them to some gifts.

Before I end this post I would like to let all of you in blogland know that I am thankful for each of you too.  Although I don't know all of you personally, I am still grateful to each of you for taking time out of your busy schedules to come and visit my blog.  Seeing the chart on my end of the people that visit my blog is a great encouragement and blessing to me.  Big hugs to all of you!  Have a blessed Thanksgiving with family and friends!

My Bow Creations and a Fun Party

I am officially off from work for a little more than a week for Thanksgiving.  Before we only had 2 days off, but now we thankfully have a whole week off.  I am so grateful for the time off to relax and to have time to really enjoy God's goodness.  Today I would like to share with some things that I have created using my bow die from Stampin Up.  When I start creating bows I am hooked for at least a few projects.  I can't stop just at making one bow.  LOL!  :)  The first creation is for a friend that another friend and I got a card and a gift card for.  When I was putting it together at 5:30am I had a hard time thinking of a cute gift card holder to make so I decided to make her a gift using an envelope and adding a few strips of paper, a bow, and a tag.  

My second creation is a bow that I made and put on top of one of my favorite snacks from Disneyland- Peanut Brittle. 

After I made the bow I realized that I should have made the bow to match the sticker on the packaging. I made the bow pretty late at night so I did not have energy to make another one. Before I end this post I wanted to share some pictures with you of the Annual Pass Holder party that my hubby and I went to this week on Tuesday from 10pm to 2am.  Yes you read the time right.  :)  We got to take pictures with some of our favorite characters wearing outfits that we usually would not see them in. 

We met up with some of our friends

and took some pictures together with a beautiful background.  We had a great time, but was exhausted by the time 2am came around.

Thanks for stopping by today to see what I have to share.  I hope that you will have a good weekend and will have a fun time prepping for Thanksgiving.  I hope that you will have a chance to start reflecting on what you are thankful for too. 

Blogging Peanuts Style

I hope that this post is finding you doing well.  I am feeling really tired this week.  I think having too much fun last weekend with going to the Tokidoki 10th Anniversary party two days in a row and to Disneyland on Sunday wore me out.  I have been taking it slow this week. Well todays post is going to be dedicated to some of my favorite characters- the Peanuts characters.  The Peanuts characters rank up there with Hello Kitty, the Tokidoki characters, and the Disney characters.  On Veteran's Day my family and I went to watch the Peanuts movie.

The movie was a little slow at times, but it's really cute and has a heart felt message in it.  It had some funny parts too.  To promote the movie McDonalds has been having Peanuts happy meal toys.  Of course I have been collecting them.  I am so excited to only need one more toys to complete my collection.  BTW, I have only been purchasing the toys.  I have not been eating all the happy meals.

Besides collecting the Peanuts happy meal toys I also have a Peanuts box that All detergent comes in.  My hubby surprised me with the box.  Ralphs was nice enough to let him have the box.

Of course this post would not be complete without some thing crafty with one of the Peanuts characters in it.  I made this birthday card for a friend that is a big fan of Snoopy.  I think she is even a bigger fan of him than I am.  :) 

Along with the card with Snoopy on it I gave her two Snoopy figures for her gift. 

She loved the card and the figures.  Thanks for stopping by today!  Have a blessed weekend! 

Happy Veteran's Day!

I don't have anything crafty to share today.  I have some thing even better- a picture of a plaque in honor of my grandpa. 

We have freedom today because of great heroes like Grandpa/Great Grandpa Fong. Thank you Grandpa/Great Grandpa Fong for your service and to all those that have served and continue to serve our county. God bless them and their families.

Hard Work and Fun Weekends

It was another busy week work and I continue to thank the Lord each day for strength to get through the day.  Although it has been super busy at work and a bit stressful at times, God has reminded me through the different kids that I work with on my caseload why I stay doing the job that I do.  I thank the Lord for each of the kids that God has provided me to work with and for the difference they have made in my life and for helping me make a difference in there's too.  Besides being busy at work I have been busy having some fun too.  Last weekend before going to Hello Kitty's 41st b-day party at a local Sanrio store I made a Hello Kitty thank you card for the owner of the store for always being so nice to my daughter and I. 

It was lots of fun playing games at the event,

winning fun prizes (My son played games for me to help me earn some cool Sanrio prizes and my daughter had fun earning her own prizes.),

and of course meeting Hello Kitty.

This week on Friday a good friend and I went to Tokidoki's 10th Anniversary party.  The party was amazing and so much fun.  We got to play games, go shopping, and meet some of our favorite characters.

We had so much fun yesterday that we went back again today.  To make a long story short we spoke to the person in charge of the event and asked about how to volunteer for the event.  She asked if we wanted to come back tomorrow to help and we said "yes."  My good friend, myself and my daughter got to volunteer for 10.5 hours at the event.  It was tiring but so much fun.  My friend and I are now pros at putting on temporary tattoos.

Beside volunteering we got a free lunch, got free tickets to play games to win prizes, meet the characters, and most importantly meet the designer of Tokidoki.  (I feel so blest to have gotten to meet him twice this year.)  He drew 3 sketches for my daughter and I and signed the coloring book that I purchased.

The past two weeks at work have been super busy, but my weekends have been one of the most memorable and fun ones.  I find it funny that it's always lots of fun going to different events but I have a much harder time bouncing back after each one.  I guess that's a sign that I am getting old.  LOL!  Thanks for stopping by!