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!

Tea For Two

Today I would like to share the card that I made for last month's tea swap.  The optional theme was "tea for two" and the optional color was purple and silver.  This is what I came up with

and what my tea swap partner sent to me.

Here's the inside of the card.

This was another fun tea swap. I especially had lots of fun coloring the images with my Copics and a silver shimmer marker.  It's too bad that the silver doesn't show up as being shimmery in the picture.  Now I need to get working on the one that is due this month.  I better get moving on it since I need to send it out tomorrow.  Wish me luck!  :)

Last Weekend and A Secret Pal Exchange

I can't believe that it was already a week ago that I had a long weekend.  Wish it was another long one. LOL!  Last weekend, my family and I went on a mini vacation to San Diego.  We all had a great time together shopping, walking along the wharf,

eating good food, and going to Legoland.  Everything made with legos always amazes me, but the foxes were my favorite this time.  (It's one of the newest additions to all the awesome creations they have.)

The only crafting that I've done lately was last week.  I put together goodies for my Secret Pal for Valentine's Day at work.   Each year we sign up for the activity and are assigned to someone to surprise goodies with all week.   Here I gave to mine.

Mine loves sushi so I got some sushi erasers and put a magnet on each one.

She is very organized so I thought that the flower pen and this giant clip would be useful for her.

She loves french fries from McDonalds.

This is what I received from mine.

Inside the heart box is one of my favorite candies, almond rochas.  I am not sure how my Secret Pal knew, but I love monkeys and my favorite two color combos are pink and purple.

What a cute bag and wand.  The card from my Secret Pal was super sweet.

It is always so much fun participating in this activity.  Besides prepping of this activity last week, two co-workers and I were in charge of bring snacks.  I thought it would be fun to have Valentine's Day themed centerpieces on the tables.  This is what I came up with.

Thanks for stopping by to see what I have to share.  Have a fun, relaxing, and crafty weekend!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope that everyone is doing well.  Lately, I've been getting more and more behind on my craft projects because of all the other tasks on my "to do" list.  I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything. I'm trying to not get too stressed.  LOL!!!!  Okay, enough about me.  Let's go onto a much happier topic- the crafty stuff that I've been making.  Even though it's been a bit hectic I am very happy that Valentine's Day is today. It's one of my favorite holidays next to Christmas because I always enjoy surprising family and friends with gifts to show them some extra love.  Last weekend and this week I've been working on these Valentine's Day tags for my gifts.

Here's a picture of the tags on the gifts.

These are the cards that I gave to my Sunday School students

and the treats for the kids on my caseload.

To take a little breather from everything my hubby and I went out to dinner on Tuesday to celebrate Valentine's Day before the whole world did.  We enjoyed a lovely dinner at Ruth Chris.

I hope that all of you will have a wonderful Valentine's Day.  Happy Valentine's Day from my heart to yours!

Happy Year of the Horse!

It has been lots of fun celebrating Chinese New Year so far.  It started off with having dinner at my house with my hubby, kids, and my parents.  Then on Sunday we had our annual Chinese New Year brunch.  Each year one person makes a huge pot of porridge and the rest of the people in my Sunday School Department brings the condiments.  Here is a picture of my bowl of ono porridge full of condiments.

My favorite condiments are 1000 year old egg, greasy Chinese bread, nori, and green onion.  To make the festivities more fun a lot of us wear our Chinese outfits.  Here is a picture of my hubby and I with our outfits on.

As a gift to the students in my Sunday School class, I made these tags and attached them to the back of the tablets that I purchased from a party store.  (I printed the horse out because my Year of the Horse stamp has still not arrived.)

Here a close up picture of the tags that I made.

I put the tablets in a red envelope.  After church we went to California Adventure to continue our celebrating.

One area was beautifully decorated in Chinese decorations.  This is one of my favorites.

We saw Mulan and Mushu, Chip and Dale, and Mickey in their Chinese outfits.  (My kids wore their Chinese clothes to take a picture with the characters.)  My favorite is of course Mulan and Mushu.

There were also several activities- an area where they wrote our name in Chinese, face painting, a spot to write our wishes and hang it on a clothes line, and an area to learn to do the ribbon dance. Here is picture of my hubby with two of ladies that showed us how to do the ribbon dance.

There was also a processional with Mulan, performances by different Asian dance companies, a dragon dance, and a food stand with char sieu baus, fortune cookies in a take out box, and beautifully carved sour doe bread.

All the activities were awesome and made celebrating Chinese New Year so much fun.  As my Chinese New Year gift my hubby got a super cute Small World purse.  I especially love the characters on it.

Thanks for stopping by to see what I have to share.  Stay tune for more pictures of my Chinese NY celebrations and some crafty stuff.