Home Staging

What is it???  In my own words, I'd say it's putting your home's best foot forward whilst in the 'spotlight' of the real estate market.  It's what every homeowner should do when preparing to lease or sell their home.  It's also for all of us 'others' who need to de-clutter and reorganize our work and personal spaces.  If you're anything like me, a clean, warm, inviting space will help you relax even after a stressful day.

Cleaning anything up is not a chore that I enjoy doing.  However, once I start, I can't stop!  I find my spirits lift as each task is completed, and my surroundings become more comfortable.  An overwhelming feeling may temporarily halt your process...BUT, if you start with one room at a time and don't move on until you are 100% satisfied with its entirety, you will hopefully find some pride in your accomplishments at the end of the process.

Decorating and organizing may not be traits you're confident with or feel you possess.  That's why you should talk to ME!  My preference is to work with what my clients already have ~ furniture, art, linen, accessories, etc.  If I feel it's necessary, I will bring in some items to accentuate a room or rooms. 

Please take a look at my recent work. Comments are appreciated and highly valued.

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Art From the Heart

I haven't been very good at sharing all that I've been crafting these past couple months...not that I've created anything earth shattering, but I have been doing much better at following through with my goal to gift more Art From the Heart.  There is still quite a bit of room for improvement on timing, but I'm proud of what I've accomplished thus far.

July is a birthday-packed month in my family.  It's a good time for me to share a sample of what I've been doing in my spare time.  All of the cards below were made for children...I added a big sprinkle of love for each.

The first two were made for my twin nieces with a play on colors and some intention to coordinate with their party theme.

This one is for my brother's youngest son who specifically requested for tools on his 3rd birthday. :)

My sister's eldest wants to go to the Bug Safari for his birthday, so I'm hoping he'll like his special card.

And this one is for my Love Bug who chose pirates over dinosaurs and Toy Story 3.  There's a treasure chest inside that is not shown here.

I'd like to give a shout out to my girlfriend SFT - Thank you for inspiring me with your kind words this past weekend to finish off these cards!  I only have a few more to do. ;)

Craft Marathon

We had the pleasure of hosting some of my hubby's cousins yesterday...it had been quite some time since our last 'hang out' visit as opposed to getting together for a birthday, baby shower, or other celebratory gathering. Knowing how much the ladies enjoy crafting, I thought it would be good for us to GET OUR CRAFT ON!

Our men graciously took all of the kids with them to the Pacific Science Center and the Star Wars Exhibit so the ladies could bang out as many cards as they could before our loved ones returned. To keep it fairly simple and not give our guests sensory overload, I thought focusing on a Mother's Day and Easter theme would be beneficial to us all.

I'm sharing with you the cards I was able to make. The ladies were able to make a few more than I, as the hostess was busy pulling inventory from the craft vault. ;) I really wanted to take a photo of all of our crafts put together, but our families returned before we finished. Soon, we were pre-occupied with cleaning up and saying our goodbyes after a fabulous 12-hour visit. My cards were fairly simple, but you should see what these ladies made...the recipients of their works of art must be some pretty special people...every single one of their cards were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G!

Note to self: must have another craft marathon soon...they are too much fun and inventory in the craft vault needs some relief...their seams have been stretched to the max.

Thank you to the ladies for making the not-so-easy trek to mi casa and for your fabulous company and inspiration! Thank you to our men who took our precious little ones on a long outing and not uttering a word of complaint! We shall do this again soon!

Craftabulous!

I think the craft bug has found me again and made it's way into my life...This is one bug (the only bug) I'm happy to be bitten by. Some of you know this about me - I used to be a Stampin' Up Senior Demonstrator...feels like a lifetime ago. I never got into the scapbooking part of it...I was horrible each time I tried. But, I really enjoyed creating greeting cards, invitations, and party favors. I was into rubber stamping so much that I once flew to Minneapolis, MN from Guam, U.S.A. (not cheap) to attend a Stampin' Up convention. It was worth it. Although, had two of my girlfriends not been there, I may have wasted my money...that adventure is best saved for another conversation. ;)

Business surprised me...I only became a demonstrator to save money on the many investments I was making buying stamp sets, ink, paper, more stamp sets, more ink, and more paper. In less than one year, I was hosting workshops of 60 paying attendees at a 4-star hotel. I enlisted my talented cousin (who was also a demonstrator for the same reason) to lead half of the crafters in our Make-n-Takes. A lot of work to prep for workshops that large, but I enjoyed it so much that it didn't feel like work.

So here I am, somewhere between 10-15 years later, dusting off the many stamp sets and supplies that brought me much joy. It is so much more enjoyable to craft with others. So I'd like to say THANK YOU to my family and friends who inspire me to do what I love because they think I'm good at it!!! =D And I have to apologize to my hubby, because we will be investing more on all things craftabulous! I love you Honey!

A couple months ago, my cousin-in-law/lifelong friend gifted us with all the supplies to make a frame she wanted us to have. Thank you "She" for helping the craft bug find me...I had a blast making this frame for my son's room. Your cousin thanks you too for showing me more ways to spend money! hehehe

I have to tell you a secret...I messed up on the frame below. I haven't had a chance to tell my girlfriend that I made it for, but I know she'll laugh and not think it was a big deal. I was so excited to make this on my own after doing the one above under supervision. ;) I didn't pay attention to the fact that the 'easel' part of the frame limits the direction in which the frame is properly displayed. You can't tell in this picture, but I made it upside down! :( The darn foot part of the frame sticks out quite a bit on the left side, and I tried to hide that here. NC, I'm sorry that this wasn't perfect for M!!! I shall make better ones in the future!

This wasn't my first diaper cake, but it is the first one I'm proud of. I found these instructions that I tweaked a bit and will be using from here out. I am happy to share!!! For the base, I just wrapped a round styrofoam board I bought at Michael's and wrapped it in foil. I know! I wanted to use a nice fabric or patterned paper, but they didn't adhere to the styrofoam, and I was out of time, so I improvised. I thought "cakes are displayed on foil sometimes, so why not?" It worked. Next time, I'm going to use a large cardboard base (that they were out of), and wrap that with paper or fabric...whatever inspires me for the project. Since this cake was made for a girl, I used hair bands to secure the rolled diapers! They can use the hair ties when their hair gets longer. Here's what I used:

Large base

Base cover (your choice)

100 newborn diapers

1 ball of hair ties (they actually sell them in a multi-color ball)

2-4 skinny elastic hair bands

1 tall bottle of baby wash

1 short baby wash (you can use a small baby bottle)

Cake topper (your choice, I used Mary Jane booties)

Decorative Ribbon

Flower Petals

Craft Gems

Glue Gun

Roll 1 package of diapers and secure each roll with one hair tie. Place the diapers in a ring formation around the large bottle of baby wash on the finished base. Secure them all together with a large, skinny elastic head band. Repeat to make the 2 or 3 rings of diapers for the base...depends on how large you're making your diaper cake. Add rings of diapers to the top portion of the baby wash bottle the same way. If you have it, place a 6" or 8" cardboard on top to help level out the last uppermost tier. Secure a single ring of diapers around the short bottle with a large hair band. If you have extra hair ties, tuck them in nicely in the core gaps.

I measured the ribbon around each tier tightly but with a tad bit of give. Hot glue the ribbon to the diaper and the embellishment to the ribbon. Be sure to cover the seams. I layered 2-3 flower petals and a sparkly gem for this project. I added the same embellishments in a couple places on the cake base for a little sometin' sometin'. Voila! A beautiful and very useful diaper cake. You like???

My Very First Cake Pops!

I don't recall the first moment I came across cake pops, but they certainly had me at 'hello'. I made a mental note to make them for my son's birthday this Summer...it didn't matter if he wanted dinosaurs, pirates, or Toy Story as his theme...he was going to get cake pops!

Since I've never made them before, I decided it would be a good idea and in everyone's best interest if I made them a few times before failing miserably and having a meltdown because of pure disappointment in myself for not being able to deliver acceptable goods when expected...been there, done that. *takes a huge breath* I'm getting all excited telling you about my first cake pop adventure and it's wearing me out! ;)

The picture I'm sharing with you includes a handful of my very first pops. These delicious things were made with love. We recently celebrated my sister's and niece's birthdays at daddio's with the family. Now, some of you may think that my beloved sister and niece were guinea pigs. The truth is that I love them both with all that I am and wanted to make them fabulous cake pops for their special day. I'm just that much more happy that they turned out okay. :)

The flavor combination wasn't my favorite. I used yellow cake with strawberry frosting, but it will be different every time, and I expect them to only get better. I can't take all the credit for these...hubby did an amazing job coating a few of them. It was funny and beneficial to have a few casualties (shh, we ate those). Everyone who loves to bake should try making these...it was super easy! Okay, coating the pops was somewhat challenging. It's a little tricky working with melted candy. If I could share a helpful tip with you, it would be to melt enough candy chips to cover 5 pops at a time (bowl about the size of a creme brulee dish but deeper). If your house is as cold as mine, the candy hardens quickly and makes it almost impossible to coat without losing the cake pop into the dipping dish if you melt too much candy at a time. A fabulous website for inspiration is bakerella.com.

One of my creative niece's gave me a great idea for flavor - vanilla cake with rootbeer! Thank you KN! I will be trying and sharing those with you sometime soon. ;) I'd love to hear what flavors you know compliment each other well, so please do share!