Candy, Candy Everywhere!

A fellow stamper is posting a series entitled, "Wrapping 101" on her blog -- it's a series showing a lot of different ways to wrap candy! How fun is that! In the same vein, here are some past projects that I found hanging out in my computer. Enjoy! And go check out Martha's blog for a whole bunch of cool stuff!

This is a lollipop cover that I made a few years ago. Really simple, so I could mass produce them for our Trick-or-Treat kids! Inside is a caramel apple lollipop. Yum!


Above are little nugget holders. The top photo shows the ones I made for our Trick-or-Treaters, and the bottom photo shows a slight variation for the teens on a weekend retreat. Super simple to make!

Assorted candies in cellophane bags, with stamped tags.


These are boxes I made to fit different candy bars -- Kit Kats and Hershey Bars.

This last one is a simple wrap using decorative paper with stamps and embellishments.

Too much fun stuff! Don't forget to check out Martha's blog! We've got some fun candies on our STAMP YOUR LIFE blog, too, so hop on over there if you wanna see!

Happy Friday,
Pia

Sympathy

Our dear friends lost a dad and grandpa last week. He was 90 years old. This is the sympathy card I made for their family.




No matter the age, it's so hard to lose a loved one. May he rest in peace.

~ Pia

USMC

So my son took his tests for enlistment in the US Marine Corps this past week. He scored a 98 on the qualifying exam and placed in the top 3% on the ASVAB.

His high ASVAB scores give him free choice of pretty much any job he wants, quite a few with hefty sign-on bonuses, so he's quite excited. He passed his physical today, so he will be sworn in on Monday.

He's been talking about joining the Marines since he was pretty young (ha ha, not THAT young... I just really like this pic of us!). While I'm concerned for his safety because of the state of the world right now, I'm so very proud of him for desiring to serve his country (and for scoring so high on his exams!).

Kat's New Look

So my "littlest girl" doesn't look so little anymore... Kat awoke Sunday morning with the desire to cut off her long locks. We were already at the mall after Mass and work, looking for a costume for her (we're having a Cartoon Mania dance at the church and she's going as Pepe Le Pew!), so we stopped in to the salon there and got it done. Wow, what a change!! She's excited and I'm nostalgic. I guess that's how it's supposed to work, right?





My son turned 20 on Saturday. No longer a teenager... I was blessed to catch him right before he left for an evening of celebration with his girlfriend, so I got to hear his voice on the phone! And not just on voicemail, either! I asked him if he got to have his favorite German Chocolate cake, and he told me he hadn't but he got to have three other yummy cakes in its stead. Lucky guy!















I got to see my eldest daughter last month, when her ship was docked in San Diego. What was originally going to be a really brief visit became a full afternoon-to-evening of fun with her and Kat. We got to meet a few of her friends, took a tour of her carrier (the John C. Stennis), and then the girls played bowling. It was a good night.




Oh, and we got a new cat, too! Her name is Pineapple, and she's 6 years old. She's so sweet (and I'm not a cat person!). So far, she spends most of her day up on top of the kitchen cabinets -- way up by the ceiling. She comes down occasionally, when she thinks Bo is otherwise occupied... He wants to play with her but he's so big and she's so small! They're slowly becoming friends, so we have high hopes. :) This is a photo of Pineapple's first morning at our house. She's hiding from Bo!


Wanna see the new card I made this morning? Stop by my other blog: Stamp Your Life to check it out!

Peace,
Pia

RIP George W. Kayo

Sad news... Kat's Grandpa passed away Tuesday night, before she could get there to say her good-bye. She's heartbroken, but she has faith that he heard her in spirit and that he's with Our Lord now. Thank you so much for all your thoughts and prayers.

- Pia

Mother's Day!

I hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day and were spoiled, pampered, and ....... what else is synonymous with spoiled......? :)

Kat and I went to the San Diego Wild Animal Park in the afternoon and then out to dinner with friends. We had such a nice time! Here are some photos of our day.


See those wooden frogs? They're musical instruments! Yep, they're on our list to buy next time we go!






Please keep Kat's Grandpa in your prayers. He had a heart attack late last night and is now in the ICU. She loves him very much, and we're all hoping he gets better real soon.

- Pia

Get Well Card

Here's a card I made for Kat's friend who broke his collarbone. I think this little penguin is just so cute! I remembered to decorate the inside and the envelope, and there's even a little decorated package of gum to finish things off.

I'm baaaaaack! With News!!

Well, we finally got Kat's (really, really old) laptop Internet-capable so now we are live once again! Woohoo!!

It'll take a little while to upload the photos and things and to catch up on my posts, but I'm soooooo excited to be back!

And the news.... drumroll, please......... Kat and I have become Stampin' Up! demonstrators!! Yes, we took the plunge and are having a blast! We even got a new blog that's just for our Stampin' Up! stuff! Please do go check it out and subscribe. It's called Stamp Your Life -- Kat thought of the name; it's pretty cool, yes? We have one whole post on there already! :)

So I'm off to catch up some online stuff and go blog hopping. I'll be back later with a sample or two of what we've been up to!

Peace,
Pia

Sorry!

Hi, everyone!

I'm so sorry to be away so long... my home computer still hasn't recovered from its viral ailment... in fact, it's completely dead now. (heavy sigh)

So until I can get a new one at home I have to use the computer at work. That means, sadly, that my posts will be few and far between for a while.

I've been working on new projects that I can hardly wait to share with you! I'll post them just as soon as I can!

Happy stamping,
Pia

Blog Candy!!

Sally's doubly celebrating!! 39 years with her hubby and 1500 hits on the ol' hit counter... and she's got some fantastic blog candy to share! Hop on over to her blog for your chance to win. Good luck!

Hop over to Stamps, Paper, Scissors, and Donkey Smiles for a chance to win some Valentine blog candy. Quite a cool little prize, that!

And Dannie's got some great candy up for grabs, too! Check it out on her blog. See the Cuttlebug folders? Oh, yeah!!

Keeping Up with My Project-a-Day Plan... and Suffering from SpyWare

Here's my project from the other day, but I was only able to take a photo of it just a few minutes ago. Oops! Anyway, it's a stationery box. I needed something in which to keep my finished cards, and I wanted to see if I could make it pretty simply. Success on both counts! The base is cardstock and the lid is acetate. I decided to have the lid sit inside the base rather than fitting it on top.


The belly band is a 12" x 1" strip of cardstock. I added clear craft glitter to the flower petals, though I don't know if you can tell in this photo. Also added is a little circle punch for the center of the flower.










Next is yesterday's card. It's a sort of everyday card. I used a Stampin' Up! image and added a Michael's dollar stamp for the sentiment.







Lastly, we have today's project. It's a Thank You tag for people who remembered Kat and me on Christmas. It's attached to a little cellophane bag that contains a couple of small chocolates. Kat and I made about a dozen of these this afternoon.




Off the stamping subject... Kat's computer (which is our only computer) has been hit HARD with spyware and malware. HELP!!! I can't figure out how to get rid of it and, frankly, it scares me. It's shut off my Automatic Updates and new tabs keep popping open when I'm in the middle of stuff. And sometimes it shuts down the computer on us. Even Ad Aware crashes when we try to use it. Aargh..............

Happy Birthday, Chrisi!!!

It's my second daughter's 22nd birthday today! Yay!!! I made a card to send her the other day. Here are some shots of it along with the matching bookmark and envelope. Sorry I didn't get back to the computer to post them yesterday.... got caught up with other stuff!







I was able to borrow Kat's scrapbooking markers (thanks, Kat!), so now we've got some fun, vibrant colors goin' on. Woohoo!! Anyway, this stamp set is soooooo Chrisi!! I had bought it originally because it seemed to match my girls so well... and I was right!Chrisi changes her hairstyle quite often, so both the long hair and the short worked for this card. I used the slit punch on the bottom right corner of the yellow layer and added a button for some interest.




I took scraps of the yellow cardstock to paper piece onto the two purses so they would have some fun texture. I also grabbed some textured red cardstock for the gift she's holding.








I popped the cell phone onto a dimensional to give that some "oomph" as well.











The circles containing the purse and cake are on dimensionals. Since I don't have a bigger circle punch (long story) to layer the 1" circles, I just used a dauber to sponge some color on them instead.







Here's a side view so you can see how the bookmark is "attached" to the inside of the card. It's one of those over-the-page magnetic bookmarks. The image I used for the front of it is the same long-haired girl with the cell phone; just no dimensionals so it won't get wrecked in the book. You can see the front of the bookmark up in the next photo. I also made one with black hair for Kat. That photo will be up later...







Oh yes, and I did remember to stamp a little flower inside the card to carry the theme through.











Gotta head out now. Kat's got an internship task today! I really hope Chrisi likes her card. :)

~ Pia

Non-Christmas Cards

I'm trying to do one stamp project a day in 2009. Doesn't matter how big or small, or whether it's a card or a 3-D project. I just want to keep those creative juices flowing! So far, I've missed a couple of days but I think I made up for that yesterday with three or projects in one day! I find that I tend toward the more simple layouts, but I'm going to stretch myself this year... eventually...! Anyway, here's what I've been working on over the past few days. Mind you, I haven't bought any new stamping supplies in many, many (too many!) months -- with the exception of that Curly Punch bundle I keep talking about! So these are all made using things I have in my stash.


The first card is a Thinking of You card. I just wanted to try something with a wider ribbon than I normally use. I'm trying to remember to carry the theme of the cardfront into the inside as often as possible.









Next is a Thank You card. Wow, this one was a toughy for me! I wanted to use the scraps from the Christmas gifts and cards we made, so here's the result. I started with the striped paper and then tried to match everything from there. Not "perfectly" matched in all cases, but I think it works.





Third is a Friendship card. I started out with the intent to try Sketch Challenge 201 over on Splitcoast Stampers, but I had to improvise because one of my stamp images was too short! Ha! It's my first time trying my hand at a Sketch Challenge, though, so I'm being lenient on myself. Every layer on the front is on dimensionals with the exception of the big green base. And I remembered to carry the theme through to the inside on this one!





Hmmm... well, I've got to get to my "regular" work tasks right now. I'm putting together two retreats that are coming up at the end of January and mid February, and having a BLAST! I love my job! So I'll post yesterday's card and projects up when I take my next break.

~ Pia

A Few More Projects to Share

Just a few more Christmas things that we've been working on.


The first is a set of Pirouette cookie gifts. Wanted to show off the cute little snowmen (I especially like the baby in the middle!). Each one contains four cookies... two vanilla and two hazelnut. Yum!






Next is a bag cover for one of Kat's friends' gifts. We used a set that I had purchased long ago but never mounted until now. The image of the girls on the cell phones really fits! Of course, they're colored to mimic the two young ladies. I gotta get some more vibrant colored pencils... the ones I used are just some from the stationery aisle at one of the department stores.




The third one is a Christmas/Thank You card for a young friend of ours who did A LOT of work on our fundraisers for our latest trip to World Youth Day (he's very much into computers). Again, we used a set that had been purchased long ago but not mounted until now. I originally bought that set to use for my son, who's a computer wiz. The computer actually is colored grey, though I don't think you can tell from the photo. Really gotta invest in some new pencils! :)



Lastly, Kat made a bag cover for another friend. She thought the little Eskimo girl resembled her friend, so she snatched it right up! She added some way cute eyelashes to our miss Eskimo and gave her some wonderfully rosy cheeks. Too cute!