Surprise For a Another Birthday Girl

My daughter (no.3) celebrates her birthday on December 27 (she turns 12) but every time we hold a party at home, only a few comes over. Of course, it's the holidays and everyone is busy. I came up with the idea of celebrating it in her class on the last day of school before winter break. It was a secret between me and her teacher.
Oh boy, was she surprised! I never (I mean never!) see her smile in photos, except today!

She's on the right, another birthday girl on her left.

Our future leaders

These are the cupcakes I made. Looks like they were store bought but no, I worked all night long! I bought the cupcake boxes from our local grocery store. I didn't know I could do that. I paid $1.00 for five 12 slot cupcake boxes. Awesome!


I ran out of cupcake liners so I ended up using little cups which I cut using vintage zigzag metal scissors. They ended up using spoons to eat these little babies.

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I have two days left to turn this house into a Holiday getaway (meaning super clean and super pretty), my sister and her family (who I haven't seen in four years) are coming over for the Holidays. So excited and kind of scared of all the projects, cleaning and organizing I have to face! Wish me luck.

On a Serious Note...

Making these paper snowflakes were so therapeutic. It actually made me feel better about everything in life. Things were not so rosy lately. I'm going through some things that I wish I wasn't, specially on this Holiday season. Heartbreaking, really. I have no words for it.

Seeing the house so cheery like this, it makes me smile and it gives me hope, that somewhere down the road, things will be better for me.

There are things in life that we have no control of and this is one of them.

It is indeed a sad Christmas for me but it only makes me look forward to the next Christmas because I know it will be so much better than this one.

Eventually, I will have to accept things as they happen but I'm really glad for this blog, I can run away, even just for a minute...And breathe.

Pretty Gift Tutorial

I have been using this simple design for my gifts and packages for quite a few years now. I'm sure you'll find it very easy to make.

Materials you will need:
1. Bingo stampers/markers in whatever color you may like. I used green and pink(you'll find them in CVS, Michael's, Target, Walmart or even your neighborhood grocery chain)
2. Pretty trims and strings
3. Kraft paper for gift wrapper
or kraft box like what I used here

oh and don't forget the gift that would go inside!

1.Gather Materials

2. Stamp on your first color choice.

3. Stamp on your second color choice.

4. Until you achieve this look then let it dry.

5. Put your gift in the box with pretty tissue paper.

5. Close the box and tie a beautiful trim around it. That's it!

So simple right?
{If you want the trim used above and other pretty strings and trims. You can get them in my supply shop.}

Christmas Cottage

I am finally done decorating outside our home. It kind of reminds me of Hansel and Gretel's house. I wanted to put more but I stopped myself.


I used fake snow but I don't know if it turned out looking like snow. My kids came home from school and said "Mom, why did you spray paint our windows?"

Here's the garland I made. I think it turned out so pretty. What do you think?
I did red and green for our outside decors and pretty pinks and purples inside. I wanted red and green so it would look more like Christmas and not a girl's birthday party. Can you imagine if all these were in pink?

So festive right?
I also installed these little cute plastic white fence. I should buy more to surround the front of the house.

Total cost for all the decors you see:
approx. $13.00

Tinsel garland -$2 for 2 colored tinsels. The bead strings I used were from my own supplies.
Red bow-$.99 cents from the 99cents store.
Wooden candy canes-$4.00 for four from the 99cents store.
$2-white fencing, a dollar each for 5 panels.
$3.99- for a bottle of fake snow.
The Happiness it gave my kids... PRICELESS.

Paperchase Overload

Last night at my mr. and I's usual coffee date at Borders Bookstore (where they have Seattle's Coffee and a Paperchase inside the bookstore), we went crazy over the mini Christmas decors they had. He loved the black mini tree and I loved everything! We ended up skipping coffee because we spent so much buying these little pretty things! So worth it, I must say!

These tiny stars are just too cute!

Super cute Christmas Lights

Super tiny Christmas balls in an even cuter box

Perfect for little hands

This will be unforgettable!

Our dog, Story looks on, jealous maybe.

Priceless

Tada!

And that's what I call photo overload.
Such a happy day today!
Merry Christmas to you all!

Gifting mood

Last night, my kids and I baked some sugar cookies and blueberry muffins. We put them in little baggies I got from Target a few years ago. I made bow cards and put dice earrings on, I also included my blog's business card just in case they get bored during the Christmas break :)


We wrapped the cookies/muffins in parchment paper and tied silver tinsel string around it.






They enjoyed writing little notes for their friends.

Then I got so tired and forgot the second batch of sugar cookies in the oven.I remembered it after one hour, before we went to bed! That was scary! but I'm just thankful that I smelled it before completely forgetting about it.

Have a happy Christmas everyone!

Unique Los Angeles part 2

A lot of you may have been waiting for the photos I took of your booth from unique L.A. but unfortunately, my memory card stopped working while I was resizing the photos. These are the only ones that I was able to retrieve. It's so devasatating. The photos of my kids disappeared with all the other photos on that 8gb memory card and I hope that someday it would just start working again. Does anyone know if anyone repairs these things?

I apologize to all of you who may have been waiting for those photos. You would have loved them if you saw them. I have and that even makes it all worse. I would love to have those photos back from the grave.

But anyways, that's technology for us, it makes or breaks us.
Here are some photos of the event for you... And the last ones that I have of it.
Enjoy...












A happy Monday to you my lovely readers.