Sunday, January 25, 2009

Close To My Heart Acrylic Stamps...create Super Cute Baby Shower Invite

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joy joy joy


My little brother Brad and his wife Michelle are expecting their first child Late February. He will be the first bundle of Joy for the Suzuki family. My mom and dad are super SUPER HaPpY as are we all. I volunteered to do the baby shower invites. Sorry, the pics are not the greatest. Just wanted to share the card creating process. I thought they came out pretty sweet and innocent looking. Not my normal style so I was pretty pleased.

I used my trusty acrylic stamps from Close To My Heart. Yes, I’m a CTMH Consultant and love their paper and stamp designs. I use my CTMH acrylic stamps and paper a lot to create my packaging for my jewelry. I LoVe creating tags and little Thank You cards which I send along with my jewelry to my customers.

Take care,

Stacy

UPDATE on June 19, 2009: BUY THESE STAMPS NOW---I have the Baby Impressions acrylic stamps for sale in my Lilikoi Cottage shop...I have one unused set Left.


Saturday, January 24, 2009

Remembering the Departed in this New Year 2009

Buddhist temple grounds

inside one portion of the temple


a bucket of matches to light the incense


the incense which we light
to honor the departed spirits


beautiful placards for the departed spirits


the beautiful red pillars in front of the temple

a lovely little pond with lotus plants


wishing you all peace, serenity, love, joy, and hope
in this new year


Each culture has its own special traditions and rituals that they honor and continue.

In Hawaii, the Chinese Americans who are Buddhist visit temples such as this one in Nuuanu to bring flowers, food offerings--usually the departed person's favorite fruits or sweets, and say prayers while lighting incense to their dearly departed. In the temple, there are hundreds of wooden placards with each loved ones name written in Chinese. Many of these placards have both the husband and wife's names on them.

Jimmy and his famiy visit their mom at this temple...instead of going to her gravesite. Here we light incense, bow our heads, and speak to her.

This is a similar tradition that people do when they visit their loved ones gravesite.

I've always found this temple to be so beautiful and peaceful. Such a lovely place to visit and honor Jimmy's mom. We'll be visiting her there soon to celebrate Chinese New Year with her.

Friday, January 2, 2009

Our Vaca in Waikiki...Local Tourists

Diamond Head at its Best


A view from our Hilton Hawaiian Village view





A typical New Year's Day in Waikiki
Oahu, Hawaii


Waikiki at Night


this is what happens when you try to take your own photo


Happy New Year!


Considering visiting Hawaii? Are you freezing your buns off? Are you wondering what the sun feels like? Tired of sneezing coughing hacking shivering? Come on over to Hawaii. This is the best time to visit us.

We decided to play the tourist this past week to celebrate the New Year. Staying at the Hilton Hawaiian Village, we got an excellent corner room with a view of Aloha Tower to view the fireworks at midnite and the rest of Waikiki which includes the view of Diamond Head. Wow! What a 180 degree view. I loved looking at the city lights at night. Fabulous!

On New Year's Eve, we popped some Italian bubbly, Prosecco, and watched the fireworks at Aloha Tower, Kaimuki, and off the shores of Waikiki. Talk about a celebration.

We ended the evening watching the Entourage marathon on HBO. Yayyyy!

Happy New Year....Hauoli Makahiki Hou...from Hawaii.

Hauoli Makahiki Hou---Happy New Year---from Hawaii!

January 1, 2009
Oahu, Hawaii
Waikiki











Wanted to share a view of the fireworks at Aloha Tower on January 1st 2009 midnite. This is a view from our awesome hotel room at the Hilton room 2926...the corner room! What a perfect way to spend the new year with my hubbie.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

My New Lindstrom Tools...finally!

My New Lindstrom Tools!


I just had to blog (or should I say "brag") about my new Lindstrom tools. One of my neighborhood bead shops always mails a 25% off coupon in December. This year I decided that I was going to upgrade my tools to the top-of-the-line Lindstrom tools. If you create jewelry fairly often, then you need to get yourself this brand. I picked up the round nose plier and the short nose plier. Both of these I use everytime I create my jewelry. I added this to my collection which consists of my trusty Lindstrom flush cutter and my handy dandy Lindstrom short nose pliers (now I have two!). I am in tool heaven!




"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"
My Lindstrom tools mingling with the other no name brand tools


Like most people, I started off using whatever tools were affordable, aka cheap. I never knew about "top of the line" jewelry tools. One day, my silver smithing jewelry instructor was asking about the brand of tools that we used. I never even thought about it before she asked. Then, I found out about the "good, the bad, and the ugly" as far as tools. I guess I was working with ugly and uglier tools. So, I decided to upgrade slowly because they do cost a pretty penny. But, I'm glad I did because you can't beat the quality, the precision, and the comfort.

Now I'm a happy camper. Sighhhhh....

Saturday, December 13, 2008

I'm Tired of Being a Blob

The hope of a new body...


Hi All! In the recent weeiks, I've been getting used to a change in my work schedule. I used to work nights, weekends and holidays. Now, I'm back to working day shift. It took some getting used to but I think I'm getting there. I'm not a morning person so getting to work by 8am is a real test which I think I'm failing. I know, I really can hear all of you going "Boo hoo to you Stacy". Okay, okay. Please keep the sympathetic clucking down. :)

One thing that I realized working day shift is that I have no clothes that fit me. When I worked my night shift, I just wore "borro borro" (a local term meaning "junky wunky"--my term...sorry if I messed up the spelling) clothes---jeans, t-shirts, etc. Now, I have to look half way decent at work. So, I've been foraging in my closet...back, bottom, top, back of drawers, storage boxes with inch thick of dust on it...

Now, when I say "no clothes that fit me", I mean it. I'm getting to my Fitness Kick story soon. When I sit down on my office chair, no joke...a little or large inner tube pops up over my waist band and rolls up my body. I know I can hear the gasps and the eeeeeekkkkkkk! or is that just me? reliving the horror?!

I never had this before. So when I first saw this wave of flab rolling up to my face when I sat down, I got so disgusted. Day after day of this happening. No matter how much I sucked it in, I could never suck it in long enough before passing out. When I realized that I had to move up from a size 8 to a size 10 (and I used to be a good size 6), I decided to take this Craziness into my own hands. I started working out.

One morning while trying to find something decent to slip on so the waves wouldn't take over me again, I eyed my work out backpack slumped over in the corner. I grabbed it and started jamming my work out clothes and shoes in it. I was so sick of my plumpness that I was going to drag myself to the gym during lunch. That was day ONE. And Day One started this week.

Now getting to the YMCA gym from work takes some time. I have to walk to my parking lot (not too far), then drive to the gym (also not too far), get into the gym and change my clothes. If I'm lucky, this takes about 20 minutes...can you believe it? That's crazy time...meaning way too long. Anyhoo, if I'm Lucky, I can work out for 30 to 40 minutes.

First, I stretch out. Then, I normally try to do 10 to 15 minutes of cardio--so on the bike or on the treadmill. I confess, I'm not an Elliptical lover. Something about that rolling movement doesn't appeal to me. I spend the last Golden minutes that I have working out on the machines or free weights. I always do some back and waist strengthening moves.

FYI---I've been working out and involved in some form of athletics since I was a child. I'm not a stranger to working out at the gym. Since college, I've worked out at the gym. I'm just not unfortunately the type of person that can work out consistently every week of my life. I think I'm like a lot of people where things happen in my life and I stop working out...and the blobness slowly begins rolling in.

Now, this isnt' the first time that I've battled the Blob in me. About 9 years ago, I was a Blob (yes, I'm a on again off again blob). I was a Blob back then for several years in fact. Finally, my BFF Amy said that she had a crazy plan to do the Tinman Triathalon on Oahu. Wanting somethig to do besides work, I became her partner. I came up with a schedule where we worked out almost 6 days a week non-stop. We even stuck to that work out plan when we both took a trip to California and Reno Nevada together. Everyday before we started the day, we would go to a local Y or college gym in the area and work out according to our schedule. That was actually FUN. We were so fit by that time. We could eat anything we wanted during the day b/c we were working out like mad dogs. I recall scarfing down thee most delicious huge bowl of lobster bisque in a Reno casino restaurant. From that day on, I'm a fan of bisque. Ok, I digress. Anyhoo, We completed our Triathalon. And then we did 2 more after that.

I'm not looking to doing any Triathalons. I'm just looking to fit into my clothes and to feeling more energetic. I am making a promise to myself to get into shape. I'm not looking to be a certain weight. I'm just going to go by the "fitting into a size 6" method...and comfortably too.

I must say that I've been able to go to the gym 3 times this week. I felt good afterwards. I felt more energetic. And the best thing is that I looked forward to making the trek to the gym each day. I even went to the gym when it was raining!

This is baby steps. I have to keep on putting one foot in front of the other...and getting myself to the gym. I'm not obsessive compulsive. I wish I was. It would make this so much more easier. I'm someone who can easily talk myself out of something unless I have a goal. My goal is to get rid of this tire around my middle and the wings that I have developed under my arms (I can almost fly with these babies! Flap flap flap.).

I'll keep you posted. Hey, who wants to join in?

Next thing I have to do is cut back on eating SUGAR!

Eeeek! :)

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Vintage Finds at a Old Fashioned Garage Sale

Vintage hand made Christmas ornaments


Just wanted to share some super cool finds. Last week, I went to a “house” sale–like a garage sale but it’s in the house. The owner of the home passed away and her children were having a sale of her treasures.



When I walked thru the front door, I saw a box full of handmade Xmas ornaments which she made. She was a crafter. These lovely ornaments were all handmade of felt and tons of sequins were hand sewn on. The angels had pretty feathers for wings. I knew that I had to have them. They are so cute, so precious, and made with love.



Vintage ribbons...yummy colors!


This lovely lady was a super crafter. She had a room just for crafting. She was really into to making teddy bears, knitting, and sewing. One of my other super finds was a box full of vintage rick rack, ribbons, mini Xmas ornaments, and flowers. I was in Heaven!


Lovely vintage flowers, rick rack, embroidered hand towels



Merry Christmas from Hawaii!

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