Halloween

It's Halloween again in our part of the world. Here in Gurnee, trick and treat day is the Sunday before the actual date of Hallow Evening. It is today, from 2 to 6 pm. It is the law: for the the safety of the kids. This year was my turn to answer the door. Not a lot of cute ghouls came by today...perhaps most of them went to Gurnee Mills instead. So... I have a lot of candies all to my self -hahaha! It's good I bought the good kind.

Christina had all the fun though. Last night she went to a Halloween party hosted by her friends in the Tennis Club. The party took place in one of the girls' barn.

Here she is dressed as an Egyptian goddess...haha! I think she enjoyed putting on that eyeliner more than anything else.

Christina and friends: Kelly on the left, Nicole in the middle.

That's not Egypt burning. It was a cold night so the party-goers made a bonfire.

Christina and friends went to a "haunted" house the other weekend. I asked her to take pictures...but she didn't...so I don't have anything to showcase. Last weekend, she went to a corn maze, again with friends. She took some pictures before they all went into the maze. It took them some time to get out of the cornfield.

Is there any fear in this kid? What about snakes? or field rats? or someone jumping out of the corn stalks to scare them... how about a stalker? Hey! did that word come from the corn stalks? haha!

Time for me to be the boss

I came home from work and right away, joined my husband on the couch. He was watching a show - where each week a unique architectural house is showcased. There was a man and a woman showing the camera man around, describing each nook and cranny and why it was made that way. I noticed that it was the woman who did all the talking. Usually it was the man, especially when it came to the architectural design. In this show, the guy looked too young to be the husband, or to put it another way, the woman looked older than the man but not too old to be the mother of the guy.

I commented that it's the woman who does all the talking, why not his son? or husband?... to which my husband said I think that is the husband because he is just too quiet and just follows the wife around.

I said, really??! So when are you going to be quiet, follow me around, and let me run the show?

Scrapbooking On a Budget - 3D Effect

Kaya! Challenge #6 [http://pinoyscrapbookers.blogspot.com/] is all about scrapbooking using basic supplies. I know that there are a lot of people who would like to try scrapbooking with the use of supplies being marketed out there. However, they just couldn't start probably because they don't have the supplies and equipment they need. This is specially true for some people in my country who cannot afford to buy expensive supplies. It is more important to buy everyday's necessities than to buy scrapbooking materials.



Scrapbooking isn't all about using expensive materials just to make your pages beautiful. You can make beautiful layouts with just the basic materials - acid-free everything: plain papers, patterned papers, cardstocks, glue, pens, pencils, watercolor, colored pencils.



If you happen to have a flower-patterned paper, cut out the flowers and use those as embellishments. You may layer different sized flowers to or the same sized flowers for a 3D effect. If the cut-out flowers are limited and you'd want to use each one, maybe for other layouts, then trace the cut-out flower. Find a space big enough on that same patterned paper your flowers came from. Use that tracing as the shadow.



Now, how would you make a 3D effect when you buying the dots or foam sheets are too expensive and out of your budget? Use the scraps you have.



Here's how: roll the scraps into tight tiny tubes. glue the edge so it won't unroll. Then cut this tiny tube into pieces big enough to fit behind the flower [an alpha, a tag, etc.]. If this tiny tube is pliable enough to be bent into a circle, then do it. It will cover enough space behind your embellishment that even if you press onto the embellishment, it won't cave in.



And while you're at it, if you make enough in different colors, you can bend this tube to form petals, stems, or an alpha.


Go ahead and have fun. I'm sure you'll come up with ideas better than mine!

Take Me Home Cuisine

This is the logo that got me my Cricut Expression. My friend Emy and Vangie liked it so much that they adopted it and used it on their business cards.

They wanted to have a neon light built but unfortunately it would cost a lot of money to do it exactly the way it is above [sans the contact information]. So the simple version is what you see below:

The neon-light-maker said it will be brighter to use blue and white instead of red and white [ I don't think there's a black neon light, haha!]





This is where the store is going to be. It just happened that they got the unit right below this "tower" like structure that looks like the "house" on the logo. They were looking at another a space in another strip mall but didn't get it because someone made a higher bid.

The store is under construction right now [well, inside, that is...]. The partitions, shelves, and electrical outlets for ovens, freezers, stoves, heaters, cutters, etc. have yet to be put in and approved by the landlord, the village, the fire department, the health department...my... I didn't know it is a lot of work. We can hardly wait for the grand opening!

My Kids

My eldest, a son, was born and raised in the Philippines. A good kid. Typical good, respectful Filipino kid who does not talk back to his elders even if it's just explaining or defending himself. He does what he's asked right away and without questions. My husband chose his name - Lennart - a Swedish derivative of Leonard. Lennart Nilsson, a microphotographer was a favorite of his. That's where he got the name. Somehow we dropped the middle name Nilsson. Looking back now, I wished I had chosen "Edward" as his middle name. Lennart Edward. It has a nice ring to it. Because Lennart does not have a middle name, my Dad's family name sort of became his middle name. His initials, therefore, are LIV, as in "live".

Before Christina I miscarried twice. One would have been 20 years old now. I named the baby Ollie. I do not know if Ollie was a girl or a boy. If she was a girl she would have been named Olivia; if a boy, he would have been named Oliver. Ollie would have been born in the month of February, the year when Oliver North made front page news.

The second baby would have been 19 years old now. I named the baby Jules. Again, I do not know it's sex. It Jules was a boy, his name would have been Julian, if a girl, Julie-Ann. Jules would have been born on the same day I was born - July 5. We would have celebrated our birthdays .

My daughter was born 12 years after Lennart. If I had my way, I would have named her Veronica or Genevieve. Probably, Genevieve so she would have the initials GIV, as in "give". My husband chose her name, Christina. He said it is common enough as a Filipino, American, Greek, French, and whatever-other-nationality name. She was given the middle name Maryse [kinda like my name in short - Mariss]. But Maryse has a different pronounciation. It is more "Mary's" than Mariss. So you see why I would have liked my son to have his father's first name.

Christina turned 18 yesterday. I was "old" when she was born. I often wondered if I would live long enough to celebrate her 10th birthday, and her 20th, and her 30th. Right now, I am so thankful for my kids, for my husband, and for my life.

Cricut Expression

When I designed the "Opening Soon" flyers for my BFsF Emy and Vangie, I designed the clipart that went with it. Wow! Did they love it! They loved it so much they wanted to know if they can own it. They will adopt it as their logo. They asked it they can buy it from me. Well, I was ready to sell it for a life time of "take-me-home" dishes. Hahaha!

Vangie said they planned to have a logo designed anyway and they will probably spend hundreds of dollars for it. It was a very simple design...I was ready to give it away for free [well, not completely free...maybe a discount here and there when we need some food catering from them. What are friends for?

What are friends for, anyway? They knew I wouldn't accept cash for it so they insisted on buying me the Cricut. They asked me to choose...Cricut or Wishblade. I really have my eye on a Wishblade. However most of the reviews I read were not so great. I did some research and found out Wishblade's program is like using photoshop for the first time. I can deal with that. But then when a few customers mentioned that it would cut and stop for a few minutes and continue cutting and would stop again...I CANNOT deal with that! I have so much on my computer I'm sure another program added to it will slow it down. I have no patience for that!

For three days I couldn't make up my mind. So I went back to review both again. It's good I waited for out came Cricut Expression with a 12x12 mat and 2 free cartridges! OK now, I can do the dance of joy.... [Can-can music, please.]

I have to wait a few days, however as it is already out of stock. But Emy said the place they ordered it from has shipped it yesterday. I will probably receive it on Monday. Can't wait to start cutting away. Whooo-hoooo!

Wow!

August 4! Wow! that was my last entry??? Time really flies.

I haven't been much into blogging lately. I spent the time flopped on the floor, cutting out embellishments for my layouts while watching CSI [LasVegas] one after the other from 6pm-9pm.

Today is a very exciting day for me. I hope to receive my new Cricut Expression! I hope my BFF Emy will receive it today and deliver it tonight.

It's sad that BFF Emy lost her work of more than 16 years. So now she and her sister, BFF Vangie, who resigned from the corporate world are going into business together. They are going to establish an Oriental Mart. More of a Filipino food take-out place. A mixture of Chinese, Italian, American, Filipino dishes. They will also have a bakery of Filipino bread and delicacies, a mini-mart, and catering service. Wow! That's a handful for the two of them to undertake.

They asked if I could prepare the flyers for them - something like "Coming Soon", "Grand-Opening", "Now-Open" flyers. They volunteered to pay me. What's typing up these flyers and going to Kinko's for photocopying? I said they can pay me with food! Ha-ha. Just letting you know, the kitchen is not my favorite place to be. And they are such great cooks! very delicious, not greasy, not too salty dishes! OK. So maybe they can provide food for me and DH that will be enough. Ano na lang ba yung tira-tira sa mga luto nila?

Can't wait till they open their karinderia!