Do What You Love

Growing up, I never quite know what I want to be. At first, I thought of becoming engineer because that's what everyone in my class put as their career goal. Realized I have no interest on it whatsoever. Then, I thought of becoming a journalist. But, I had major case of shyness issue and had hard time talking to new people, so scratch that.

Next, I was contemplating career as fashion designer as I always love fashion. However, I am really bad at sewing. And, I believe to be a good designer you need to be good at sewing as well. Another scratch. I finished high school not knowing what career I really want to go for. I went to finance major and hated it. Switch to management. Still didn't feel like it's the right thing. 

Well, fast forward to now. I now work for a home builder managing their purchasing department. After spending my 20's with no clear direction, I spent my 30's finding that direction. And as I am in the last few months of my 30's I am happy to say that I finally in a good place. Where I do what I love. 

Being purchasing coordinator for construction company was never in my list, but it turned out to be something that I enjoy and pretty good at. You just never know what God plan for you. All you could do, just trust that He'll guide you.I was my boss first hire almost 4 years ago and am pretty darn proud of where we are. Most important, I love what I do. 

My inspiration during my journey is my brothers. Both of  them are very passionate about their job. My older brother is a cardiologist and my younger brother is a photographer. They live life to the fullest and they love what they do. Doing what you love is good for the soul. I totally believe this!

And yes, that's including paper crafting. Paper crafting is one of the thing that always constant for me. I always love it. Whether it was scrapbooking or card making. 

This card below totally reflect this. 

Today, I am counting my blessings that I get to do what I love and I love what I do. Hm... I am thinking that maybe every Friday I should do a post that focus on what we're thankful for. It doesn't have to be big things as so often it's the little things that makes life amazing. What do you think? Would you enjoy a positive, encouraging post like that? 

To participate, all you need to do is leave comment about what you thankful for. I think being grateful is a good habit to have. Let's try it. I'd love to have you share what you're grateful for and why. :)

Hello Sunshine

Hi all. I am back with more MFT sweetness. This time, I am combining Copic coloring with water-coloring. Torico is definitely one of my favorite stamp designer. Her sets always so cute & adorable. Love her!

MFT Supplies: Sunflower Sweetheart

At first, I was just highlighting the flower (by coloring it with Copic marker) and keep the rest black & white, no coloring. But then, it just feel too simple. So, I decided to pull out my watercolor marker and went to town with it. The result is this pretty soft coloring. I though the orangey hair turned out pretty darn cool.

Oh yeah, the card above is a mini card. I looooveee making mini card. My SIL use them all the time, so I am building my stash for her.

BTW, with today being Wednesday, you do know that means time for new MFT sketch challenge, right? We have a fun sketch. Here's a peek of my card. Check out the full card & the sketch at MFT Challenge Blog. 

That's all from me today. Till next time. Cheers...

XOXO

Today marks the 13th anniversary since my dad passed away. That year back in 2002 was a blur to me. I still miss him. I think as children, you'll never stop missing your parents. Especially during happy moments. When  you wish they were here to celebrate, to enjoy the moment with you.

I wish hubby had the chance to meet him. To get to know him. Hubby loves my mom. He call her mama-san. So, I am sure he'd have love my dad. My dad had great sense of humor and when he laugh he'd have that loud laugh. I know I could always make him laugh with my Mr. Bean dance.

With my dad in my mind, I made this card. Not quite a Valentine card. Just a card to show someone you love them. Pretty much an all occasion kind of card.

MFT Supplies: All My Love, Pure Innocence Heart Banner,
Dienamics Stitched Traditional Tag STAX

Well peeps, short one today. Somehow, I just don't know what else to write once I started thinking about my dad. I don't want to pass the day without acknowledging him, yet it still bring some sadness. Well, sadness is not the right word, more like an ache like when you miss someone, you know. With that in mind, make sure that always tell your loved ones you love them.

Have a blessed day everyone.

A Gnome & A Duck

Dude, I don't know what is it about gnome, but they're so darn irresistible! I fell in love with this cute Gnome Sweet Gnome set from SugarPea Designs from the moment I saw it. 

A gnome & a duck?! For a girl who loves cute stuff, this is definitely an "aw...." inducing set. ;)

I made this card just for fun. My SIL, Kristen, loves gnome, so this card will probably go to her. 

Other than that, my mind kind of blank as what to write. So, short one for today, peeps. Thank you for stopping by here.

PS: Would you like to win SugarPea gift certificate? There's new SugarPea sketch challenge started today HERE and also, our birthday bash party still going on. Join the party with your birthday creations HERE. 

I Woof You

Whenever I see stamp set with cute doggies, I act like when a dog sees squirrel. I got all excited. That's what happened when I saw the adorable Reverse Confetti Puppy Love set. I was like, "Puppppyyyy!!" Chase. Hah! Okay, maybe not chase, but I did get it right away. :)

And, today I am using them with Reverse Confetti sketch #20.

Here's my puppy love card.

On purpose, I didn't glue the ears, so they can be flop forward. It just more fun that way, don't you think?

That's it for me today. Hope your Friday is a good one. 

MFT Color Challenge 14

Hi peeps. It's time for new color challenge at MFT Challenge & Inspiration Blog! Here's a peek of my card.

To see the full card please go to MFT Challenge Blog. You have 2 weeks to play along. Join us will you. :)

MFT Sketch Challenge 212

This is my 2nd post for today. For SugarPea birthday blog hop please scroll down or click HERE.

Happy Wednesday, my friends! It's time for a new challenge over at MFT Challenge & Inspiration Blog! Here is this week's sketch.

Here's a little peek of my card. You'll have to go to MFT Challenge & Inspiration Blog to see it in full!

Hope you'll join us this week. Cheers. :)

Sugar Pea 1st Birthday Blog Hop

It's P.A.R.T.Y time! SugarPea Designs is so excited to be celebrating our 1st Birthday – and what an amazing year it has been!! We are celebrating this momentous occasion with a Blog Hop featuring our AMAZING SugarPea design team and some very talented Special Guests!

For my 1st card, I used the Let's Fiesta set. I love this cute & fun set. And, that donkey!! Too cute! What can I say, I can't resist any set that has cute critter in it. Even hubby thought this is a cute set. I guess, because it's pretty rare to have cute fiesta set. :)

For my next card, it's all over sweetness. I was inspired by Wendy Ramlakhan's  card HERE. Her card is all teal and I go with pink tone. 

My favorite part of this card? The cupcake. This little cupcake is also on the Fairy Sweet set. And, I used watercolor technique on it and I feel like it compliment the bright fairy perfectly with it's softer look.

Now you can’t have a Birthday Bash without prizes and there are lots of prizes to be won along the way! A few of our blog hop participants will be giving away a SugarPea Designs stamp set so please leave some love on your travels. In addition to this, one lucky winner will be randomly chosen from all the comments left and that winner will receive a:

Wait... we're not done. We also want you to be part of the party. Once you have completed the hop, we’d love for you to help keep the celebration going, by creating a Birthday card or project and linking it up here for a chance to WIN a $25 Gift Certificate!

Hop & link up ends midnight, January 28th with winners being announced and poste don February 1st. Finally, enter coupon code BDAY01 at checkout to receive 10% of all orders - valid till January 24th, 2015.

Take a look at this list of insanely talented designers, how lucky are we?!?!

SugarPea Designers    SugarPea Designs Blog  Lesley Croghan  Anita Madden  Jenny Peterson  Kim O'Connell   Mary Johnson Wendy Bond  Tracy Valure  Simonne Clay  Stacey Schafer   Wendy McGaffey  Vera Yates  Kerri Michaud Lisa Lara   Cathy Preissing  Shanna Shands  Cibele Glazer    Our Special Guests  Tracy MacDonald  Danielle Lounds  Tara Godfrey  Veronica Zalis  Angel Rivera  Jen Shults  Isha Gupta  Amy Tsuruta  Dina Kowal  Chaitali Narla   Brianna Loeffelbein  Lisa Henke  Piali Biswas

Make A Wish Fox

Right now, I am loving the banner look and I totally love the way my banner card turned out.

Supplies: Avery Elle To The Point set, Bunting set,
Storybook set, More Storybook set

To create the soft coloring on  the fox, I used my colored pencil and a stub dipped in turpentine to even the color. It always make me happy when my card turned out cute & sweet. 

Also, by now, I am sure you already heard that i {heart} papers is closing. Everything in the store is now 40% off. I mean EVERYTHING. I stocked up on 6x6 paper pad. Check out the store now to get better selection. Thank you for stopping by here and may your week starts off wonderfully.

Ollie's Pages

So, I decided to change my Ollie page a bit and after 2 days, I managed to finish the 2nd page. Lots of crying, of course. I always know that scrapbooking her pictures would means re-living the memories all over again, but at the same time I know it's good for me to do it. Part of the healing process. It's been over a year since Ollie went across the rainbow bridge, but it still kind of hard to journal about her.

Here's the 1st page updated.

And, here's the 2nd page. My letter to my baby girl. I'll keep this post short. The journaling speaks for itself and I don't want to cry all over again. It still hard to see her being so skinny and fragile on these pics.

Supplies for both pages: MFT All My Love, MFT I Love You More, MFT Planner Basics,
MFT All My Love dies, MFT Bubblegum premiumdye ink pad. 

Am definitely  much slower when it comes to scrapbooking compare to card making. But, there's certain joy that comes with it that totally makes it worth it.

That's it from me. Going to try to scrapbook more this weekend. :)

Always & Forever

Before Eli, there's Ollie. My 1st pug. My very 1st dog that's all mine. I grew up always having dogs, but Ollie was my 1st dog I have as an adult. I did my research, learned about the breed, learned about being good dog mommy before I got her. I wanted to do it right, because for me, having a dog is for life. 

I got Ollie back in 1998 and she is every little bit a pug. Spunky, bossy, loving, stubborn, loyal. She's my loyal companion that always by my side through the up and down of life. When I went through a hard time, to the point of debating whether I should just go back to Indonesia or stay in the US, she's the reason I kept moving forward. I just couldn't leave her.

She taught me to never give up. How? Easy. After every meal time, she always check my other dogs's bowl to see if they eat all their food. Never fail. I was like, Ollie you know they always eat their food. But, she'd look at me as if saying, so?? Nothing wrong with keep trying. You never know when you could get lucky, like hey he missed a kibble there. :)

She was with me for over 15 years. I cried for days when I found out that I had to let her go back in October 2013. Last night, I finally took the step to document how special she's for me.

Supplies: MFT All My Love, MFT I Love You More,
MFT All My Love dies, MFT Bubblegum premiumdye ink pad.

I am still struggling to do the journaling. There's still more pics of us that I want to scrapbook, so I'll probably write my journaling on that page. Right now, this is a start of what I know going to be difficult pictures to document because I do miss my girl.  So, yes, the page is super simple. I simply add the heart & stamped the sentiment.

I might add more to this page, but right now, this is it. That sentiment says it all. 

It feels pretty darn good going back to scrapbooking. As you can see, my scrapbooking style is the same as my card making style. Clean & simple. :)

Just The Way You Are

Hi everyone! Are you ready for more MFT fun sketch challenge? Jump right in.

And, here's a peek of my card. To see the full card, please click over to MFT Challenge Blog.

Can't wait to check out  your take on this sketch. Now, before you leave, I have another MFT card to share. I can't resist it. I have to make another card using the other cutie that come from the same set as the squirrel.

Supplies: Cute Critters, I Love You More, Die-namics Stitched Traditional Tag STAX,
Tropical Teal hybrid ink pad

CAS critter card = happy me. Hope you enjoy your visit here. Have a happy hump day! :)

MFT I Love You Card

This is my 2nd post for today. For my i {heart} papers post please scroll down.

I finally get to spend time playing with this beautiful MFT All My Love set with its matching dies set. And, I just want to share my card right away. :)

All the products I used on this card are from My Favorite Things. I stamped the hearts using Bubblegum dye ink  pad (I love the way their dye ink pads stamp, so I am definitely will be slowly changing all my dye ink pads collection to MFT ones). 

To create the background, I first masked the edges of the card with washi tape to create the rectangle opening, then lay the MFT Herringbone Bricks stencil over it and add color to it using Grout Gray ink pad.

Simple but to the point. Pretty quick to complete, too. I finished this card like in 15 minutes. Hope you enjoy it and come back tomorrow for new MFT sketch challenge. See you then...

Lantern Beauty

When I was 3-5 years old, one of my fond memories was the festival of lantern. My parents would get my brothers and me lantern in animal shape and in the evening we get to walk around the neighborhood carrying the lantern. I remember that I love watching the candle flicker through the lantern and simply enjoying the walk while proudly carrying my beautiful lantern. So often, it's the simple things that I remember & treasure.

When I saw this pretty set from Avery Elle, it totally brings back those memories.

Supplies: Avery Elle Bunting set, Avery Elle Lemon Grass,
Aquamarine ink pads

With this post, I also want to let you know that after over 6 years in the business, i {heart} papers is closing its door. I am sad about this, as ihp is one of my favorite store. I have to say that Kate provide one of the fastest shipping in the industry. She's a been a pleasure to work for as well.

With this new, everything in the store is on sale for 30% off. For best selection, you want to shop early. Check out the store for all the available goodies. Thanks so much for stopping by here and may your week starts off wonderfully.

Maki A Wish

Hi everyone. Are you ready for more cuteness? Today, I am joining the SugarPea Designs for their sketch challenge # 18. Here's the fun sketch:

And, here's my cutie patootie penguin. Maki a wish!! Get it?? ;)

I sure hope they come out with more penguin cuteness!! I just love SPD penguins!  This one was a lot of fun to color.

Fun sketch, right? Check out SugarPea Design blog to checkout all the challenge detail and to enter your project. Looking forward to seeing your creations!

Fairy Sweet & SugarPea Incentive Program

We arrived to our last day of SugarPea Designs new release week.  This cute fairy is from Fairy Sweet set.

For the wings, I sprinkled micro fine glitters. Kind of hard to capture the glitter. If you click on the close-up picture below, you could probably see the soft sparkle of the glitter,

What I love from this set is the sentiment I used on this card as well as the various size of the sparkle stamps. I think I will use those sparkles quite a bit! 

We would love to hear your thoughts on the products introduced today!!  Please leave a comment on this post and on each of the talented SugarPea Designers shown below and you could WIN!  We will chose one lucky person to WIN Fairy Sweet stamp set from the comments left here and on the DT Blogs!  All winners during our January Product Release will be announced on Sunday, January 11th.

Our entire Holiday Release will be available in the SugarPea Designs Store at 6:00 PM EST TODAY!! 

Please click here to shop – and if you are lucky enough to win a set you've already purchased, you may choose another stamp set of the same value!

And, just a reminder. You can try out our new magnetic card by simply placing an order during this release. No minimum purchase required. You get one with every order. I especially love using it with the itty bitty dies as I don't have to worry about them falling out. The cardboard backing make this magnetic card sturdy.

Wait, I'm not done! We have another exciting announcement to share! As we head on into our 2nd year in business, we are delighted to be able to offer an incentive program to all of our loyal customers.

Place an order of $60 or more (shipping not included) and you will receive a FREE stamp set that will not be available for sale in the store until the next bi-monthly release!  That's right!  You will receive a FREE stamp 2 months in advance of its release in the SugarPea Designs online shoppe!  

This month you can earn our Build-A-Background - Basics stamp set by placing an order of $60 or more (before shipping).  Ink up whatever colors you'd like and create your own backgrounds and borders!  This versatile set will not be available for purchase until it is officially released in March.  So, as you prepare for our release tonight at 6:00 PM EST and put your shopping list together, keep in mind that the new Build-A-Background - Basics stamp set can be yours NOW and will be FREE with a qualifying order! 

Now, hop around and see the amazing creations of the SugarPea team.

InLinkz.com

MFT Color Challenge #13

This is my 2nd post for today. For SugarPea Designs new release post please scroll down.

Our fun with My Favorite Things challenge continues. If yesterday we have sketch challenge, today we have color challenge! And, it's pretty! Here's a peek of my card.

To see the full view of the card please check out MFT Challenge Blog. Can't wait to see your creations with these fantastic colors. 

SugarPea Designs: Foxy Friend

Hi all, we continue with more cuteness from SugarPea Designs. Today, we're introducing an adorable fox from Foxy Friend set.

Here's a close up of the card. I love the white love cut out on the white background. It makes a subtle but fun background.

Remember our entire January Product Release will be available for purchase in the SugarPea DesignsStore on Friday, January 9th at 6:00 PM EST! And, with every order you'll receive one free magnetic card so you could try it! You'll love the magnetic card. I know I do (and no, I didn't say it because I design for them. I really, really love them)!

We would love to hear your thoughts on the products introduced today!!  Please leave a comment on this post and on each of the talented SugarPea Designers shown below and you could WIN!  We will chose one lucky person to WIN Foxy Friend stamp set from the comments left here and on the DTBlogs!  All winners during our January Product Release will be announced on Sunday, January 11th.

Want to see more cuteness? Then check out what the girls has created.

InLinkz.com