2011 June

Happy Father’s Day!

June 19, 2011 Leave a Comment

Happy Father’s Day to everyone!

And Happy Father’s Day to my dear Otosan:

Boy, with these old photos, I don’t even need to put an overlay on them to get the vintage effect – showing my age 🙂

And Happy Father’s Day to my DH:

Yes, I have the right holiday. DH is a great dad. Every year, I would take the children to have a photo taken by Santa. As they got older, it became much harder to do since everyone was going in all different directions. Well, DH came to the rescue – now he dons a Santa suit so we can still have our annual Santa photos :-).

Filed Under: Family and Friends, Holidays

Coolscrapdigital Quick Page Contest June 2011 & Freebie

June 18, 2011 4 Comments

I participated in another CSD QP Contest. This time, the kit provided was “Devout Memories” by Kaklei Designs:

This is a beautiful kit, just perfect for making old vintage style layouts. I used a photo of my maternal grandmother:

And here is a QP freebie for you to download:

Note: The layout download on my blog is 12″ x 12″. The one at CSD is 8″ x 8″ per contest rules.

Filed Under: Scrapbook Freebies, Scrapbooking

Bird A Week Challenge: Week 24/52

June 17, 2011 Leave a Comment

I love vintage/retro drawings. So, for this weeks challenge, I decided to try my hand at drawing a vintage style bird:

I started with a pencil sketch, outlined it in ink, scanned it into my computer, and colored it in photoshop. It reminds me of drawings in childrens books and greeting cards from when I was a child.

Filed Under: Bird A Week 2011

Drawing Lab 2011: Student’s Choice #3

June 17, 2011 Leave a Comment

This week was another student’s choice. I did assignment #2 that I missed – drawing a bird:

I chose a common house sparrow (hmm… looking at it now, it looks more like a zebra finch). When I was in college, I took a trip to the old country. Since I was in travel mode, I wore the same clothes a lot. My relatives started calling me a “kitakiri suzume” which translates to “a sparrow wearing the same clothes every day”. I don’t mind, I like sparrows, they are cute :-).

Filed Under: Drawing Lab 2011

Summer Earrings

June 16, 2011 1 Comment

Here are some cute summer earrings. I love making encased beads with rosette decorations:

And some refreshingly turquoise blue:

They can be found in my Etsy Shop :-).

Filed Under: My Handmade Beads And Jewelry

Mr. Alpha Chi – Not

June 15, 2011 1 Comment

My younger son just came home from college for the summer. He was sporting a tank top – I thought it was funny, and wanted to share:

The Alpha Chi Sorority had a “beauty pageant”. My son was a contestant representing his ice hockey team – the dubious honor was bestowed on him since he missed a party at which they unanimously voted him in as their representative. Unfortunately, he came up short in the “talent” part and did not make Mr. Alpha Chi :-).

Filed Under: Family and Friends

Zentangle Challenge #26 “String Theory v.III – Spiral Out, Keep Going”

June 14, 2011 8 Comments

I drew a double spiral to start this week’s zentangle:

Filed Under: Zentangle Challenge

Digital Whisper 100 Themes Challenge #65 Time

June 13, 2011 Leave a Comment

Here is my interpretation of the theme time:

Clocks: Everyday Mom Ideas, Friendly Scrap, Fall3angel,

Elements: Mala Montero, Rian Design, Friendly Scrap

Light Ray: Auntie M Designs

Background: Wee Fairy Ring

Filed Under: Digital Whisper 100 Themes Challenge

Train Ride To The Beach

June 12, 2011 1 Comment

I took my very first train ride in the States yesterday. My daughter’s Assisteens group had a field trip down to San Clemente Beach:

Fifteen girls and five moms went. The train ride took about 1 1/2 hours with frequent stops. It turned out to be a beautiful day. We had lunch at a wonderful Mexican restaurant and managed to do some shopping. I even came across this cute frilly store overflowing in pink – a girl can never have enough pink :-):

Since we drive around here so much, and rarely use public transportation, I felt a bit insecure without my car at first, but the train ride ended up being a lot of fun and we didn’t have to worry about parking once we got to the beach :-).

Filed Under: Outings And Adventures

Show And Tell: Chain Maille Bracelets

June 11, 2011 2 Comments

I took a couple of chain maille classes at the YVGMS this past year. It is always nice to try different methods of jewelry making:

We started off with sterling wire, made jump rings, and went from there. I can’t recall what the first one was called, but the second one is the Zyzzx box chain. You can achieve different looks depending on what kind of clasps you choose.

Filed Under: My Handmade Beads And Jewelry

Bird A Week Challenge: Week 23/52

June 10, 2011 Leave a Comment

I came across this nice metal plate and decided to make a magnet for this weeks challenge:

I used a very nice vintage bird print and rhinestones, glued them on and voila! A very nice kitchen magnet. My daughter thinks I should have made it into a necklace. Maybe next week…

Filed Under: Bird A Week 2011