Christina's Collection

Sunny California

Without any doubt, I live in the sunny state, and even if sometimes I complain about 
the heat or cold, the truth is that I love to be able to open my window in the mornings without being worry about the snow, the wind or coldness of the morning.

It is great to see flowers blooming right when the spring starts, it is amazing how without knowing the date you can tell that Spring started.

I grew up in Mexico City and the weather over there is nice, but almost all year long it is around 75 degrees. It rains on July and a little colder during the Winter, but nothing that a sweater can't fix.

California is a blast, and if you live here you will agree with me, you can go in the Ocean, Hike and do other fun things even during Winter time.

I feel sorry for my friends in Colorado for example with those big snow storms, having to clean their way out from home to be able to go to work, or the people in Kansas with those big tornadoes, he don't have those here in California. 

But Yes! We do have earthquakes, we are used to them though, and I guess you guys are used to the snow and the tornadoes too. I just love where we live, and I wanted to share a little bit of a sunny day in Southern California.

Have a safe and creative day. See you soon.

Mixing two faiths in one week

It's amazing how easy my husband and I learned how to mix our faiths to live in harmony.

David is Jewish and even when he is not so close to his religion, he does follow his holidays. I'm Catholic and we are raising our two boys Catholic too.

This week we celebrated Passover, went to Dave's parents for dinner and the traditional celebration and this weekend we are also celebrating Easter.

We participated in his faith and he is participating in ours, and we love how we can mix both of them together, like during December, we also celebrate Hanukkah (the kids love it by the way) and Christmas.

Who said that Jews and Christians can't be as one? We are.

Happy Easter Everyone and Happy Passover too.

 

A First Communion Favour

My youngest son is having his First Communion next month and we are preparing a big party for him to celebrate with friends and family. 

Among other things that have been keeping me very busy, I got the traditional favours for the party.

I'm doing a couple of things; for example candle center pieces.

I'm using a beautiful stamp that I found on-line, the process is very easy, but it is a lot of work, because you have to stamp the image on tissue paper with permanent ink, and then color it with any markers or water color pencils, for me it was easier to use my stampin' up markers.   
 
After you finish coloring, you will need to cut the image and post it on top of your candle, then wrap it with wax paper, you can get this in any market where the tin foil paper is.

After wrapping the candle with the wax paper with the image in place, I close tight the wax paper with a scotch tape so it doesn't move and to avoid bubbles, and I melted the image on the candle using my heating tool.

You will have to be very careful, don't let the wax paper to get less tight or you will have bubbles on your image.

 
While you are applying the heat, you will be able to see how the shininess of the image changes, and it will appear clearer than before. After you are done with the heating gun, just carefully remove the wax paper and voila, the candle is ready.

Try not to put your image too close to the bottom or to the top of the candle, otherwise you will have a rim of wax caused by the wax paper, and it doesn't look good.

You can even apply some glitter to the image using glitter pens, just be careful not to get the tissue paper too wet or it will rip and you will have to start all the coloring again.
The candles will be on top of a greek column and decorated with some traditional embellishments to be used as center pieces. Our guests will be able to take the hole center piece, and use the vanilla scented candle which is personalized in the future.

I also ordered some frames that are decorated with communion motifs and will have my son's picture wearing his Communion outfit, they will be wrapped on cellophane with a personalized ribbon with his name and the communion date.

I got this one in a Market on East L.A. The lady that made them is a real artist, she has all types of Communion, Wedding and Christening items that are very beautiful.

I really hope that our friends and family will enjoy the celebration because I've been working really hard.

A song of Spring

One of my favorite stamp sets is "Spring Song" and unfortunately it is retired, but I couldn't resist the temptation of combining it with the new "Elegant Lines Textured impressions embossing folder" I used Pretty in Pink card stock and the base card is on Whisper White, The image is colored using the Marvelous Markers and the ribbon is also Pretty in Pink of the 1/4 Grosgrain Ribbon.

I hope you like it, I made it for my best friend and I hope she'll like it.

I'll be back soon...

Time really passes by fast, almost on July, and the weather is still not sure what season it is, specially here in South California, one day we are really hot and the next day it is raining, can you believe it? I had a hard time figuring out how the weather was going to be on my son's pool birthday party, and of course it was overcast, he had fun anyway, and his guests did too.

Lately I have been a little slow on my stamping because I just had a surgery and the tests and the surgery itself took a long time, right now I'm at home recovering and not being able to go out yet, I think it'll still take a couple of weeks to go back to my old self, but in the mean time I thought I could type a note on my blog to remind you that Tomorrow is the last day of Trixie's promotion of giving you the extra 20% down on any order, remember that the Stampin' Up catalog is coming out on July and there are a lot of retiring items that you would still be able to ge today and tomorrow, so if you want to take advantage of our promotion, give me a call and I'll place your order, but it will have to be before tomorrow's midnight on Pacific time.

Also the Summer Mini Catalog is available until August 31, and that will be also included in the Trixie's promotion, any Stampin' Up! item, from any of their catalogs will have the 20% down until June 30, two more days only.

And the new Catalog will be here soon, I can't wait to have it in my hands, call me if you need one and can't wait like me to see it.

I'll be back with my cards soon, I just need to have a week of rest and then I'll be ready.

Take care and...

And the Winner is...

It's time to announce the winner of the Class to Go contest, I put all the names in a hat and my 7 year old Ryan picked a name.

Thanks to all of you for participating and keep following my blog I will have some more contests soon again, like the one I have now...

And the winner is....

Renee!!!!

Congratulations dear Renee, I will be e-mailing you the Class to Go soon, and if you have any questions let me know.

An Easter Treat Box

Easter is almost here and I'm starting to get ready specially with the treats I will send to my 7 year old son. Usually I buy something at Target, but this year I decided that instead of a regular bag or box, I should get creative and make this cute box to carry the candy I will send.

Soon I will tell you how can you win a free "Class to Go" to make 4 cards, a carrying box and this small treat holder box, so make sure you check my blog next week to read all the details about this upcoming promotion.

A card for my Best Friend

Happy Monday Everyone, my weekend was pretty good relaxed and enjoying my family with good movies on t.v.

I love the new Embosslits Die "Beautiful Wings" the Butterflies are so cute and come in different sizes so you can use them in a few different ways.

This is the card I made for my best friend Cinthia because she loves butterflies and I hope you like it.

Supplies:

Basic Grey CS 4 1/4" x 11" (card base) 108692

Pretty in Pink CS 4 3/4" x  3 3/4" 100459

Whisper White CS 3 5/8" x 3 1/2" 100730

Scraps of Whisper White 100730, Lavender Lace 101614 , Regal Rose 105130 , Pretty in Pink 100459 and Almost Amethyst 102158 for the butterflies.

Wide Oval Punch  112082

Embosslits Die "Beautiful Wings"  (118138 Occasions Mini catalog)

Scallop Trim Border Punch (118402 FREE with $50.00 purchase on the Sale-a-Bration catalog)

5/8" grosgrain Ribbon on Bravo Burgundy  (109053)

Spring Song Stamp Set (115074)

Click here to get your supplies

Trixie has a free Class to Go for you!

Yes! Trixie has another contest for you, and this time is so easy that you shouldn't wait to get into it.

 
You will get a Class to Go of the "Fifth Avenue Floral Card Set", the class to go includes  a "pdf" file with 99 picture of step by step instructions, supplies list, measurements and cutting directions,box templates, stamping Instructions.

It will be like having the teacher right next to you, and the only thing that you have to do is leave a comment on this post and your name will be automatically participating.

Good luck and go ahead and leave your comment.

Item from the Holiday Mini still for sale...

Stampin' Up! carried over from the Holiday Mini Catalog a few items and they are still available for purchase.

Just place your order as you  usually do, or just give me a call or e-mail me and I'll help you with the process.

Item #	Description	Price
116794	Ornament punch	$15.95
116806	Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint	$5.95
116854	Frost White Shimmer Paint	$5.95
116807	Platinum Shimmer Paint	$5.95
116829	Décor Elements Blocks	$9.95
116824	Stampin' Up! Textured Impressions Folder Petals-A-Plenty	$7.95
116821	Stampin' Up! Holiday Windows Magnetic Movers & Shapers	$29.95
116819	Stampin' Up! Table Setting Bigz XL die	$42.95
116820	Stampin' Up! Embosslits Merry die	$11.95
116823	Stampin' Up! Sizzlits Merry Details die	$5.50
116822	Stampin' Up! O Christmas Tree Pop-Up Bigz XL die	$42.95
118140	Stampin' Up! Tree Decorations Sizzlits die	$5.50
118108	My Digital Studio	$79.95
116519	Charming stamp set	$19.95

CLICK HERE TO PLACE YOUR ORDER 24/7