3D Box Card

I can't believe that Christmas is less a week away.  So I imagine many of you are scurrying around getting ready for the Holidays and some are greeting family and friends.  This is always a busy time of year.  Stampin' Up! has released more clearance items.  So grab a cup of coffee I and check out these items.  CLEARANCE

We do have some housekeeping to do before we close for the year.  You have only until December 30th to reserve your Stamparatus.  Remember you do not pay for it until it ships in March.     Here are the product details which should answer all your questions except one.

Product Details:

• Compatible with Stampin’ Up!’s red rubber and photopolymer stamp
• Foam mat to use with photopolymer stamps
• Rulers and gridlines for quick measuring
• 2 open sides so you can stamp on larger paper
• 2 reversible plates: a total of 4 surfaces to work with
• 2 magnets to hold the paper in place
• Magnet storage areas
• Retail Price–$49.00 USD/$65.00 CAD

    ' How do I get my hands on this Stamparatus?   Consider it a Christmas gift to yourself.  It will ship March 19th and will not be charged until it ships.

If you are one of my customers, you should have received your Occasions Catalog AND the Sale-a-Bration catalog.  If you have not, please email me.

I will be leaving town this weekend .... flying away to Hawaii!!  My posts will be probably very sporadic (what else is new???) but I will try and post a few pictures from the beach!  We will be going to the island of Molokai for New Year's.  Ashley has reserved us mules to travel on!  Check it out here and HERE!

I had Stamp Club this week and we made a 3D Box Card and a New Year's card.  Everyone made either a Garden Green or Real Red card with the polka dot paper (non SU).  I gave them several choices for decorating the inside.  

This is the New Year's card we made.  The numbers were die cut from Large Numbers Framelits in silver paper. The silver polka dot vellum is adhered on top of the Whisper White card.

Tasty Treats - so many options!

I had fun today playing with the Sale-a-Bration set, Tasty Trucks.  This set wasn't originally on my list but it grew on me.  It is a really cute stamp set!  Food trucks seem to be the "it" thing now-a-days. When Ashley was in Texas, there was a B-B-Q food truck not far from her and we enjoyed picking up some BBQ for lunch or dinner and taking it home to enjoy pool side.  Now that she is in Hawaii, there are shrimp trucks that are the "norm" there.

I still had the Love You Lots (hostess) set on my desk so decided to have a little fun with the trucks and the animals.  See, the frog is serving the elephant an ice cream cone!  I colored them with my Copic markers and did a little doodling on the sides.

This one is a taco truck - those are tacos waiting to be eaten in the window.  Again, I used copics to color the truck and found that they matched the Calypson Coral striped DSP.  I cut strips of Pacific Point for the sides of the DSP.  For this truck, I cut the window part on a scrap of white and used dimensionals to pop it up.  I also used the Owl Punch for the tires.  Love that sentiment - "Let's taco 'bout how awesome you are"

These next images are to show you different things you can do with this stamp set.  It doesn't have to have a food window!  I just masked the part where the window should be when I stamped it onto the white card stock.  I tried to duplicate the UPS symbol (not real well!) and the US Post Office logo.  These are just stamped on Whisper White card stock.  To use them, I will just fussy cut them and put them on a card.

This is one of the Shrimp Trucks in Oahu - the most famous one.  It is over on the North Shore.  Ashley and I had the shrimp plate when I was there this summer.  But, when we were there in December, the line was crazy long so we opted to eat at another shrimp truck and it was just as good!

If you are a fan of Hawaii 5-0, you might recognize this food truck.  It is the one they use on the TV show.  Now if I could just find it AND Steve McGarrett (heart throb) on my next trip to Hawaii!! Ashley has a neighbor who gets called occasionally to be an extra on the show.  I am hoping that will lead to something (for me!)

Hope you enjoyed my trucks today!!

Beautiful You - again!

Well, today is my last day in paradise!  Our flight leaves tonight at 11 pm.  Guess we will face reality when we land in Charlotte.  They had 8" of snow at our house last week end.  I am hoping most of it is gone by the time we arrive on Wednesday.  I'm also hoping we might get bumped on our flight tonight!  What difference does it make if we leave tonight at 11 or in the morning???!  The flight is a full one flying from here to Seattle and I don't have a seat assignment plus Sonny is in a middle seat. When I checked this morning, all the seats that were available were premium seats.  Ashley says they will have to give us one of those.  She also thinks I should act like I have a twitch or something so they will seat Sonny and I together!

Saturday we hiked up to Diamond Head.  Wow!  What a gorgeous view.  It almost made me forget about the steep hike and the 70+ stairs to the top.  I was proud of myself though.  I had told Ashley early in the hike that I didn't think I would make it to the top.  Sonny and I both realized we were out of shape.

Sunday we went to an Irish pub in Kaluia and watched the Steelers beat Miami in the first play off game.  Now we need to beat Kansas City this weekend!!  After the game, we went to the Swap Meet in Honolulu.  Sonny was a sport since we were there almost 3 hours and it was pretty warm - in the 80s.  Monday Ashley went to work, dropping Sonny off to play golf and I called an Uber driver and went to the beach!

Here's another card I made with Beautiful You stamp set.  I stamped her dress on a piece of retired DSP (from last year's Sale-A-Bration) and fussy cut it out.  I really love this set and can't wait to go home and play around with it some more.

A the top of Diamond Head

 Almost there!  Ashley standing out on the look out.

I did it!!

Welcome 2017

Happy New Year!  Hope you ushered in the new year in style!  Most of you had new year several hours before I did!  We went to the movies last night about the time people on the east coast were singing Auld Lang Syne!  Afterwards, when we returned home, we opened a bottle of wine and sat on the lanai to wait on the new year.  There were a lot of fireworks being shot off all around us so that made for a nice view.  Today we had to wake up early in order to go to a local bar to watch the Steelers play!  The game came on at 8 a.m. here!  Luckily, the bar/restaurant served a pretty good breakfast and a never ending glass of OJ.  We weren't so sure the Steelers were going to get a win even if they were playing a team that has only won 1 game this season.  The Steelers coach announced earlier in the week that he would not play at least four of the offensive stars, including the quarterback, in today's game.  He wanted to rest them for the play off games starting next week plus today's game was a meaningless game for us since we already have made the play offs.  But, in Overtime, we got the win so we were happy!

We had a good week last week.  We had tickets to go to Pearl Harbor on Tuesday.  Ashley & I have been but Sonny has not and that was #1 on his list.  Well, we were watching the news Monday night when they announced that Obama and the Japanese prime minister would be making a visit to Pearl Harbor on Tuesday to pay homage to the victims of the 1941 bombing and Pearl Harbor would be closed to the public!!  Grrrr!  Ashley called the following day and was able to get tickets for Friday so at least that worked out.  Obama has been vacationing here and staying in a rented house not too far from where Ashley lives. It has been amusing to watch the news every night and he is big news - reporting what he did that day and where he ate for dinner!  He has played golf a lot since he has been here at the Marine base which is also where Sonny has been playing.  Sonny has not seen him there but one day he had to wait on one of the holes because Michelle Obama was a few holes in front.  They keep the public back a few holes on either side for them.  At least they don't close the course!  It has worked out well for Sonny.  The first time he played golf there, he got paired up with another man who had ties to Texas.  They have ended up playing golf 3-4 times.  Ashley drops him off on her way to work and picks him up when she returns.  One day last week, his friend was busy so Ashley dropped him off at a public golf course.  As it turned out, the golf pro there was selling a set of used golf clubs and made Sonny a deal.  Now he has his own clubs to play with here and won't have to pay to rent them each time.  He'll just leave the clubs here at Ashley's when we leave.  He's already gotten a call today to play golf tomorrow so maybe Ashley and I will have a little beach time!

This is Sonny's view on the golf course!  Not too bad, huh?

The weather has not been great while we have been here.  Temps have been mostly in the 70s although Friday at Pearl Harbor it didn't get out of the 60s and there was a drizzly rain all day.  I think it has rained a little bit every day except today.

Here are a few pictures I have taken this week.

The 3 of us at one of my favorite restaurants here.

We stopped at a scenic view site and while looking at the view, this rainbow just appeared.  You couldn't really see it in the sky but it was gorgeous reflected in the water.  It was just amazing!

This is Tripler Hospital where Ashley works.  She took us there on Christmas so she could leave a few gifts for her residents who were having to work on Christmas.

Ashley with the Arizona Memorial in the background.

These are the 2 wreaths that Obama & Japanese prime minister left.

After touring the Pearl Harbor Memorial, we drove across a bridge to Ford Island which was at the center of the Pearl Harbor attack.  It is used now by the Navy.  This is a memorial to the USS Oklahoma for the 429 crew members who were killed in the Japanese attack.

This banyan tree is on Ford Island and is huge!!

North Shore Beach

USS Oklahoma names

We watched surfers at the Bonzai Pipeline on the North Shore of the island.  Oh how I wish I could surf!

Trying to capture the sunset on the North Shore Bonzai Pipeline

These are just some of the poinsettas at the Hale Koa Hotel which is the military hotel in Waikiki.  We have been here a few times - sitting on the beach and Friday night we went to a show.

Happy Birthday Beautiful Girl plus Hawaii pics

Hope your Christmas was a good one and you were able to spend some quality time with your friends and family!  Ours was nice and quiet this year.  It was a little different to have Christmas in my shorts and flip flops (or slippers as they call them here!)

We arrived in Hawaii Monday night around 10:30 pm (or 3:30 am EST).  Ashley met us at the airport with leis.  Believe me, the bed felt good to me when we finally got to Ashley's around midnight!

Thursday was Ashley's birthday.  This is the card I made for her using the new Beautiful You stamp set from the Occasions Catalog.

Our first stop on her birthday was to have breakfast.  We went to a restaurant for macadamia nut pancakes!  Soooo good!  Then we drove over to the Polynesian Cultural Center where we were able to learn about six Pacific cultures and visit the villages (Hawaii, Maori, Fiji, Samoa, Tahiti & Tonga). There was a canoe parade with the different cultures aboard the canoes and different Polynesian activities going on.  The Cultural Center did not open until noon and there was really too much to see and do in the few hours we had.  We had reservations at 5:00 for their luau and at 7:30 for the evening show.  We really needed more time to explore.

Our pig for the luau - it was delicious!

Ashley and I with our luau leis

Finally - a picture of all 3 of us.  Those leaves were huge!!

Sonny & Ashley - waiting for our table to be called to get our food!

Our Maori tattoos!  They used a rubber stamp and black ink!

Canoe Parade

Hawaii float from the parade

Clearance!

 

I just wanted to take a moment to let you know that the Stampin' UP! Clearance Rack and Special Offers have been updated.  You are sure to find something you need on sale.  Check it out HERE.  And please make sure you are shopping with me and that you add in the Hostess Code AGVSDKCG.


I got some great news yesterday!  When I was in Hawaii, I went to a Weight Watchers meeting every week.  I wanted to make sure I was accountable while I was on vacation.  It was ok if I didn't lose weight (which I didn't figure I would!) but I didn't want to gain too much either.  As it turned out, I gained a little the first week; lost a little the second and third week and ended up coming home the same weight as I left which was great.  Last night was my first Weight Watchers meeting since I got home and I had lost a couple of pounds, getting me to my GOAL weight!!  I am so happy.  Now I just have to maintain.  I think I have learned a new way of eating in these past few months.  The only problem is going to be on Football Sundays when we go to a bar and have fried stuff and beer.  

These are Banyan Trees

The path to the beach

This is the Kailua Bird Man.  The birds just flocked to him as he walked down the beach.  He has names for all the birds and just walks out into the ocean with about a dozen birds on his shoulders, arms, head, etc.  It was fascinating!   You can read more about him HERE.

Waikiki Beach

Home Sweet Home!

Well, I made it back home safe and sound.  I hated to leave but it sure was good to sleep in my own bed last night!  I almost slept around the clock last night!  I only slept about an 1 1/2 hours total on the plane coming home.  Sonny picked me up at the airport and we went to breakfast.  After a quick stop at the grocery store, I unpacked and took a nap for a couple of hours.  That helped me to stay awake until about 10 pm when I couldn't hold my eyes open any longer!  I showered and went to bed about 10:30 and woke up at 9:30 this morning.  Surprisingly, it didn't take me long for my body to adjust to the time difference when I was in Hawaii.  Let's see if the same is true for being back home.  I'll be getting ready for the Quarterly that Debbie, Marianne and I are hosting next week.  I did all my swaps before I left so just need to concentrate on getting everything ready.

I downloaded my photos to my computer this morning so I have a few more to share.  Ashley and I went snorkeling and kayaking last week.  I didn't do so good with the snorkeling.  I have done it before and really enjoyed it but the water and currents were too rough due to the tropical storms.  I ended up losing my snorkel tube when the waves knocked me down.  Ashley was able to get out further and had a good time looking at the turtles and fish.  The kayaking turned out much better.  We rented the kayak for two hours because we thought it would take us an hour to figure it out but it didn't.  We ended up kayaking for about an hour until my back was killing me from sitting in the seat with no support.  We thought our arms would be sore from paddling but they weren't.  This time, I didn't lose any of the equipment but Ashley broke one of the oars!  We were bringing the kayak in and trying to ride the waves in until a big one knocked the kayak over and dumped both of us in the water snapping her oar in half!  It was a lot of fun!  We are going to try and get Sonny to join us in December.

I'm going to miss seeing these beauties everywhere!

I didn't do it this time!

Ashley on our kayak

This is where the kiss scene of From Here to Eternity was filmed.

This is a blow hole - water comes up through a hole in the rock in the middle

Our snorkeling day - when I gave up!

What will $6 Million get you?

I just have to share this house with you!  For the two Sundays that I have been here, Ashley and I have gone to Open Houses for places that are on the market.  We are just being "looky-loos" but we also thought we could get some decorating tips from some of them.  The first Sunday we went to a lot of the properties that she had looked at so she could show me what she was seeing and how you don't get much for your money here!  Last Sunday, we decided to limit ourselves to million dollar homes!  A gal can dream can't she!  Well, some of them, believe me, you wouldn't pay half that for!  This house below is one of them.  It is for sale for $6.9 MILLION!!  It is on the beach although you can't see the beach unless you are standing on the roof because the sand dune is in front.  It was built in 1934 and I don't think anything has been done to it since then!  The selling point is that it is right next to Kailua Beach.  I would think you would just tear it down and build something in it's place but the realtor said because of permits, the smart thing to do would be to build on top of the house and let the house be the garage.  Remember - you have already spent almost $7 million - how much more are you willing to spend?

The "front door" is just to the right.

View of the back yard - the ocean is back there over the dirt.

This is your front entrance!

Master Bedroom!

The bedroom closet!

Great Kitchen, don't you think?  HA!

Lovely shower!

Can you just imagine living there????  Beach or no beach - not me!  If you want to go online and look at the pictures or put an offer in, go to www.cliffshafer.hawaiimoves.com, MLS #201620001.  They definitely had a good camera and did some powerful staging to make it look as good as they did.  Except for that old bed in the picture above, there was no furniture in it on Sunday.

Ashley's condo is much better!!  Not even close to $6 million but much better!

Ashley on the lanai - both her bedroom and the den have sliding glass doors to the lanai.

backyard tropical plants

backyard - not much grass to mow - think she is going to put concrete steppers down.

Her bedroom - it is upstairs with a bath and there are 2 more bedrooms, bath and laundry room downstairs.