Fun Goodies From My Annual Stampin Up Catalog Party

Happy Wednesday!  I hope that all of you are having  a good week so far.  Mine has been a busy and very productive one.  Because I've been so busy I have not had any energy to craft.  Hopefully by the end of the week I will have some time to do some crafting.  Today I would like to share some pictures from my annual Stampin Up catalog party.  Each year I feel very blessed to get to earn lots and lots of free products and be able to purchase products for 50% off.  This year was no different.  I was able to receive a little more than $210 of free products of my choice and 4 items for 50% off.  I was super excited when all the orders arrived.  When the UPS guy brought the boxes to my door I happened to peak out the window.  He used a dolly to bring these boxes to my door. 

Here is all the fun products that I earned.

I can't wait to get to play with everything when I have some time off from work.  As a big mahalo to my friends that placed an order I made a little some thing for them.  For the three friends that ordered the most I gave them some Martha Steward twine.

All my other friends received a package of twine.

It was lots of fun making toppers for each of the gifts.  Along with their gifts each friend also received 2-3 cards  from the friend that are placed the order with.  Each year I ask her to send me some cards to give to my friends to give them some ideas.  Here is the stash of awesome cards that she sent to me this year.

It's always so hard for me to not end up keeping all the cards for myself.  LOL!    Before I end I want to share some pictures of ono food that my family and I enjoyed last weekend.  On Saturday we had dinner at Back Home in Lahaina. My hubby ordered HI fried chicken, teri chicken, and BBQ beef and I ordered the luau platter which includes a choice of rice (I ordered bacon fried rice.), kalua pork, roasted port,  rice noodle soup, and lomi lomi.

My order comes with an onolicious piece of haupia (coconut) cheese cake. (It's in a take out box because we were too full to eat another bite.)

Afterwards we dropped by of our favorite bakeries- 85 Degrees.  We picked up some green tea rolls and a taro smoothie with boba.

On Sunday we spent a total of  11 hours at Disneyland and California Adventure and ate dinner at Flo's Diner at California Adventure.  They have the best pulled pork sandwich

and roasted chicken.

For dessert we ordered a chocolate moose pie.  It looks rich, but it's very light.

(We don't usually order dessert when we go out to dinner unless we are enjoying a meal at an amusement park or at one of favorite restaurants.) With all the ono food that I ate last weekend I think it's time to go on a diet.  Thanks for stopping by to see what I have to share.  Have a blessed rest of the week!

A Hello Kitty Tea Party and Visiting a HK Exhibit

On Saturday my good friend Esther and I attended a Hello Kitty themed tea party in Honor of Girls' Day.  The tea party was at Chado Tea in Little Tokyo.  Prior to going to the tea party, I had the hardest time finding an outfit to wear.  I looked in several stores and could not find a Hello Kitty outfit to wear that would be appropriate for a tea party.  Finally I went to Walmart and found some HK material.  Prior to leaving work on Thursday I asked a friend if she would be willing to help me make scarf if I dropped off some material at her house that evening.  Here is my friend Sandy and I after she made the scarf.

Can you believe that she made the scarf within 30 minutes?  What a pro.  Thanks to her I was stylin for the tea party. :)  Esther and I had lots of fun at the tea party.

Check out all the cute food.

The sandwiches had special shape, but we could not figure out what it was.  The smoked salmon was shaped like HK's head.

The teas were pretty good too.  They served HK tea.  The best one was the cinnamon tea.

Best of all we got to take a picture with Hello Kitty

and got some fun party favors (We got a bag of mochi and a HK bag with a HK folder, note pad, band aids and kleenex.)

After our tea party we went to the HK exhibit at the National Japanese Museum next door.

Although it was third time visiting the exhibit I still had lots of fun.  I actually noticed some new things that I did not notice the first two times.  Here is a picture of some of my favorite displays.

At the museum bookstore I previous purchased the HK products that they have there the first two times that I visited.  This time around I purchased a cute book bag

and a cosmetic bag.  Aren't they cute!

Before I end this post I wanted to share with you the RAK that Esther and I gave to each other.  I gave a some green tea with a HK chain for her phone.

This is what she surprised me with.   (Please excuse the pencil in the picture.  I put it underneath the cup to keep it from rolling.)

Thanks for stopping by and for sticking around for such a long post!

In Honor of Chinese New Year

In honor of Chinese New Year I try to make some thing crafty for family and friends each year.  This year I decide to make a magnet/decoration

to attach on packages of rice crackers (For the package of rice crackers I decided to add an extra
 

stripe of paper so that it's a little more stable.  I put a message on the back of it from my family as well as the magnets.)

take out boxes with fortune cookies inside,

and toppers of key chains.

I purchased the Year of the Ram stamp from a Japanese bookstore.  As soon as I saw the stamp I had to purchase it even though it was more pricey than what I would usually pay for a stamp.  It was more on the pricey side since it's imported from Japan.   I just love all the detail on the stamp. I also made gave these notepads on to my Sunday School students (I put each of them in a red envelope.)

and made two of these Mickey toppers for friends.

Before I end this post I wanted to share a picture of my hubby and I in our Chinese outfits.

We wear them annual to church for our porridge brunch.  Check out these two big pots of porridge that an "uncle" made.

Each of us bring condiments to share. It's always lots of fun enjoying porridge together as a church family. I hope that you enjoyed what I shared today.  Don't you think holidays are always a lot more fun when you can put a crafty touch to them?  Thanks for dropping by!

Time For Tea

My tea swap partner for January was Josie from Canada.  The optional theme of the swap was "Time For Tea" in the optional colors of green, yellow, and blue. I had a hard time deciding what stamps I wanted to use for her card since I have many tea themed stamp sets.  I finally chose one of the sets from Stampin Up and made this card for her.

This is the card that Josie sent to me.  I love the little pockets that she made for the tea bags.

She also sent me a book marker and a border.

Thanks again Josie for being such a fun tea swap partner. Thanks to all of you for taking time to see what I have to share today.

Secret Pal Gift Exchange and Our Mini Vacation

For those of you that had a 3 day weekend last weekend I hope that you had a fun and relaxing one.  My was very nice. My family and I had great time in San Diego going shopping, eating ono food, and going to Legoland. Today I am going to share about an annual tradition that we have at work each year for Valentine's Day.  We have a Secret Pal gift exchange.  I thinks it's always fun to surprise the person you are paired up with with some fun gifts for a few days and to get to receive some fun gifts in return.  I usually try to find out what the person's favorite candy, place to shop, etc. so that I can surprise them with gifts that they would enjoy.  This time around I was paired up with my co-worker Kathy.  I talked to her daughter to find out what she likes.  I tried not to reveal who I am by making some thing crafty.  Of course I tried to add a crafty touch to each of her gifts.  On the first day I surprised Kathy with one of her favorite candies.

On the second day I gave her candy with nuts in it. I made it more fun by putting it in a heart box.

On the final day I put my crafty touches to work as I revealed to Kathy who I am in the card that I made for along with a hamburger box that I die-cutted and decorated.  For her final gift I gave her a gift card to one of her favorite stores to shop.  Here a picture of the front of the box.

This the top of the box

and the inside of it with the card and gift card.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my post my family and I went to San Diego over the weekend.  It was lots fun and very relaxing.  Here are a few highlights... eating at Phil's BBQ (We got there at 4:15 pm and it was already a 45 minute wait.  It's always a long wait to get to eat there but it is always worth it.),

making a Valentine's Day make and take at a stamp store with my daughter,

eating gourmet cookies (You get to sample as many pieces of cookie as you would like.),

and meeting up with a good friend and her family at LEGOLAND. 

Thanks for stopping by.