Hang Ten!!!

     Are you ready for vacation yet, lol? Well I had an unexpected trip to Hawaii to help my daughter after some surgery. So when I saw today was Theme Day Thursday @ Erica's Craft Room, and that the theme was vacation I figured it would be the only way I would scrap any part of this trip.
     Please keep in mind that I am a card maker and am WAY out of my comfort zone yet I am so happy with how this turned out. It rained 12 out of the 14 days I was there however we did have one evening where we went to downtown Honolulu and went to this fabulous park.

     Where do I begin? This beautiful park had statues of a Queen who was reading books to children. It was surrounded with palm trees that were all light with lights. There were even lanterns hanging from the trees. I wanted to remember these so I used the Luau cartridge to cut the lanterns@ 4" wide and 1.861 high out of black card stock.. I then cut 3 sets of the layer feature @ 3.208" x 1" high from different colors. I used my Xyron X to adhere the layers, added some stickles and some black bakers twine. If you need some stickles, bakers twine or other supplies, please be sure to visit Erica's Shop, she has some awesome products over there.

      No matter where we went people make this hand gesture called "hang ten". It's sort of like waving high or goodbye. Believe it or not the Life's A Beach cart has the hang ten symbol, lol. The image is on page74 and I cut the main image @ 3.5" x 4" with the layers @ 1.792" x 2.569" for the fingers. I inked them while they were still on the mat then added pop dots to the fingers. The back side has journaling on it. Since I had saved the coffee wrapper it seemed like a good spot to tuck the hand in.

     Naturally I had to use the "Paradise" from Life's A Beach. You can find this on page 33 under Title words. I cut it @ 6" x 3.111. I wanted a blackout but this image didn't have one so ....CCR to the rescue! I sized it @ 6" x 3.125 and, using the edit button, I blocked out the center of the letters. Again I cut 3 sets out of different colors, then cut them apart to have a multicolored sign. I popped the letters in my Xyron X again (love this little machine!) and after everything is adhered added so stickles.

     This is a picture of how I set up my mat. I love designing in the CCR. Once I have it designed I just place the colors on my mat and cut!!

     This is the right hand side of the page. Notice the second set of lanterns in the top right hand side. I made a tag in the CCR using the Luau cartridge and the Hibiscus image. I cut the image  @ 2.25.

     This has to be my favorite element I created for this lay out! You can find this image on the Luau cart. I cut it @ 4.5" and cut the layer of leaves 3 times out of velum. The layers are separated by pop dots, adorned with stickles. The center has a brown pearl from creative charms.
     I hope I have given you a few ideas and please pop back over to Erica's Craft Room to see what the rest of the team has to show you.

Hawaiian Lei

     With all the excitement of the parties going on I failed to mention my daughter Christine is home from Hawaii for a 3 week visit, yeah!!! One of the reasons for the visit was to attend the party, another is because she was in a wedding this past weekend and has a baby shower to attend in New Jersey this coming week end. As you can tell we are ALWAYS busy, lol.
     One of the things she brought home were 4 lei's.By the time she arrived home they were pretty wilted. It's amazing how they perked up after a few hours in the refrigerator.
     I have to tell you about the wonderful joy they brought to 4 special ladies. First, she gave one to the bride to- be as a birthday/bachelorette gift. Well, one of the brides grandmothers wound up in intensive care for several days.Once she was moved to a regular room, the bride brought her the lei. It caused quite a stir on the hospital floor!
     The second lei my daughter Chris gave to my best friends mom. Yes see, Chris has a VERY special connection with this lady. She is 89 years old, blind and profoundly deaf yet always has the most positive outlook despite overwhelming tragedies in her life. She lives in an assisted living complex. When my friend gave her the lei she was in the community room with about 50 other residents. Not only was she the hit with her friends, the other residents had never seen nor smelled anything so beautiful in all their lives. They could not believe this came all the way from Hawaii. It was passed around the room for everyone to see.
     The third went to the brides mother which, I'm sure she passed on to her 90 year mom, Nana. We all love her!
     The fourth and last one went to my mom. I wore it for a while to show off at the party, but, once my mom arrived, it was all hers. Mom loves anything fragrant, especially Gardenias, but I think this will replace them, lol. Mom is soon to be declared legally blind but she felt she didn't have to see this to know how beautiful it was.
     I have made lei's before, however, we usually only use dendrobium orchids which have no scent. This lei had dendrobs but a beautiful yellow flower which was so sweet smelling. My daughter finally email one of her Hawaiian friends and we were so excited: they are a primrose!
     It was so wonderful to hear how such a simple yet beautiful gift brought so much joy to these exceptional Senior Citizens.

Earthquake In Japan And Tsunami In Hawaii

     What a small world we live in. Fran and I woke up at 4:00 a.m. to a news report on the radio about an earthquake of enormous magnitude. Then the news shifted to a Tsunami warning in Hawaii. Since our daughter and her husband live near Waikiki Beach we naturally were very concerned. Around 7:30 A.m. our daughter Amy called to say she had heard from Christine and Andy. They were safely huddled into a shelter. Along the shore on the island of Oahu, there are Tsunami evacuation signs directing people to higher ground. They have lived there for 2 years and this is the second time they have been through this. The first time was after the earthquake to hit Chile and we called and woke them up to get to higher ground. At that time it was just  around 8 a.m.They grabbed some drinks and went to a high mountain where they overlooked the beach.
     This time was different because it happened at night. They had to evacuate around 10pm. the safest place was in the shelter. (Of course they stopped at McDonald's first to get something to drink. personally I would have gotten something stronger to drink! lol.)
     Once I learned they were ok my thoughts turned toward my co-worker Tomomi. This kind, gentle talented woman is from Japan and has all her family there. When the earthquake hit Kobe years ago, I remember asking her if this was the area she was from. I remembered her saying "Oh no, we're from the Northeastern part of Japan. We live about 200-250 miles North of Tokyo." Needless to say when I heard where the epicenter was my heart sank. I knew she would have tried to contact her family so I decided to give her a call.
     Sure enough she had just gotten off the phone with them. The communications are sporadic but she was able to find out that the quake was felt in their area. They have cracks in their walls however, the house in front of them had their roof partly collapse. Her mom had to get off the phone because they were having multiple strong after shocks. She also was able to contact her brother. He had just gotten out of work and was headed for the train! Once the quake hit train service ceased. It took him 2 hours to walk home. At least they are all safe which is somewhat comforting to Tomomi.
     As if this world wasn't small enough, my daughter-in-law has a stepmother who is Japanese and moved back to Japan after Muirgheal's dad died. She takes care of her elderly parents but I wasn't sure which part of Japan she is from. Finally Muirgheal's sister Rachel was able to get a hold of Kobito and learned they were not affected by the quake at all. What a relief.
     I will be spending Sunday with Tomomi so hopefully I can learn more about how her family is doing. In the meantime I will continue to pray for  the people affected by this natural disaster.