off to see my cousin/best friend/sister get married… can’t promise that i’ll have internet access but i’m taking my laptop and memory card reader to upload and iphoto-edit (versus photoshop-edit, which is only on DH’s computer) pictures so that i can post when i get the chance to!!  have a wonderful weekend!!

we’re staying at the turtle bay resort, right above the surfer dude on the top left side.

and this is what it looks like from the hotel… we’re staying at the villas and i promise to share pictures because it’s sure to be awesome!

i just hope it doesn’t rain… and that the vog clears up a bit.  fingers crossed for a wonderful afternoon/evening tomorrow for my cousin!!  and see you monday, if not sooner!

lovies, =o) kel

so i know i’ve been posting a lot of NON-crafty stuff recently so i just wanted to pop in and share a card i slapped together the other day.  again, apologies for the picture.  still haven’t figured out a good setup, especially at 10:30pm.  so you’re stuck with the built-in camera on my laptop.

i used a super fun card kit… don’t remember from who or from what swap but since i’ve managed to build up quite a collection of these suckers i just randomly grabbed one and forced myself to make something.  i am really not a card maker, and am soooo out of practice as a scrapper too, so i’m happy with how it turned out.   trying to get some posts lined up for the weekend since we’ll be gone… but i’ll definitely be back on monday!!  taking my laptop with me and though i don’t expect to have internet, i’m hoping i can get some pictures uploaded and edited so that when i do have a moment of internet access, i can post them!!

lovies, =o) kel

let me just preface this by saying that I LOVE TO SHOP FOR THINGS I AM EXCITED ABOUT. and when there is no one there to control my impulses (aka Jared), i buy not what i think i need, but what i think i might need. understand the difference?  haha.  plus, i forgot my list at home.  so i had to go by memory and i couldn’t really discern between our “must haves”, “wants”, and “if we have room/time”.  next time J really should come with me and remind me to bring the list.

we walked out of Koolau Farmers with a handful of seeds and a couple starter plants.  here’s the quick list of starters:

thai basil (J said he doesn’t know what he will do with it but he wanted to try it out!),

sweet basil (again, J wanted it and i refused to repeat the sweet basil fiasco so didn’t buy any seeds),

roma tomato (recommended by the worker dude because it’s thicker-skinned, less seeds, and good for slicing… but these are determinate tomatoes and will ripen all at once and then be done.  so NOT what i wanted.  if only i had remembered the damn list.),

spearmint (recommended by the school-teacher volunteer who heard me asking about raised beds and what kind of soil we have in kaneohe… she said it makes good tea so i’m kinda excited to try it out!),

sweet potato – hawaiian variety called “kaneohe maoli” (we were about to leave the nursery part when i saw these and didn’t really know what they were but thought it would be fun to try one!  and the leaves are so pretty and purple!)

and 2 purple flowers the boys picked out.  they actually picked out the purple sweet potato too so i guess that means the color of the day was purple!!!

we sowed our seeds as well, so i will check back in to update you on their growth.  hello my pink zucchini seeds!

we ended up with 8 different types – i brought home buttercrunch lettuce, sweet (maui) onion, zucchini, japanese cucumber and edamame (soybean), and we had koba green onion, kaala bell pepper and hawaiian chili pepper from the arboretum plant sale at the beginning of april.  split that into the tray of 72 jiffy seed starters and we’ll have a lot of nice plants to raise and a handful of extras for family and friends!!

and the boys had a TON of fun planting those seeds…

until Albert got both his hands all dirty…

which is bad because then mommy won’t let you touch the lollipop in your mouth.  and even worse when your solution is to wipe the dirt off on your pants.  but hey, at least you get to touch your lollipop again.

Amare is proving to be more of a rough and tumble boy with his fascination of dirt on his hands…

i absolutely LOVE it all.  a couple things have sprouted and moved outside into big boy pots, and i can’t wait to see what else grows and trying my best to be patient for J to green-light installation/prep of our raised beds.  we also picked up our worm factory + worms yesterday and set them up… and by the night they were settled in and eating.  awesome!

i know i’m short on crafty goodness but i promise i’ll have lots to share soon!!  gotta have something to do while i wait for these little ones to sprout!!

lovies, =o) kel

(okay, so the blog’s not exactly fixed.  but i couldn’t stay away from y’all too long!!)

Albert came home last week and told me “mommy, we need to SAVE the WORLD!”  i thought it was his way of telling me to play Superhero Squad with him, but it turns out that they were learning about the earth and conservation and the “good” stuff at school.  so i told him that one way we could do that is to start an edible garden, but that he would need to help me maintain it.  i know i’m late and all but this is really the first time i’m following through with this “edible garden” idea… last time we tried to container garden we ended up planting the entire packet of sweet basil seeds that ended up with us having 40-odd beautiful sweet basil plants.  safe to say, we killed about 20 of those beautiful sweet basil plants that year because we just didn’t know what to do with them and ran out of people to give them away to.

anywhoo, in honor of Mama Earth, we will be starting a few seeds (note i said a FEW… not making the same mistake as last time!) when Albert gets home from school.  on our list:

green onion (source)

bell peppers (source)

hawaiian chili pepper (source)

and after i get Albert from school we’ll head out to pick up a few more seeds at Koolau Farmers  (down the street).  hopefully i’ll be able to ask a few questions too!!  and then when jared gets home from work we’ll all be out in the yard starting our new seeds and pruning these:

strawberries (source)

cilantro (source)

what are you doing for earth day?

lovies, =o) kel

sooooo…. J finally started updating my blog (when nagging fails, silent treatment does WONDERS!) and until he gets everything figured out i will leave this apology and cute picture of my princess…

hope you’re having a great week!!

lovies =o) kel

i had fun playing with Rileys in this sketch card swap hosted by my friend Melanie on SCS… but the only real problem i had (and still have!) is that my coloring is HORRIBLE.  aside from small investments in crayola color  & watercolor pencils, i have NOTHING.  i know a lot of people use Bic permanent markers to color and i did that for a while but stopped for 2 reasons:

1) to everyone else in this house, they’re just colorful permanent pens and people tend to walk away with them, and

2) i was never happy with the colors i *had* to use because i didn’t have any other options.

so i made the decision that i will be investing in copics within the next month or less… it all depends on when i take the plunge!  and i’m leaning towards the ciao for starters because they’re cheaper… and also because i read somewhere that you can change the tips and i figure that even though there are less colors in the ciao line, you can just pick up whatever individual colors you need as you go.  there’s just so many to choose from i don’t know where to start!!  i definitely want some skin/hair/people tones but other than that i’m drawing a blank!!  i will probably go with a set (72a or b) and see how that works for now.

and without further ado, here are my cards.  SOOOOOO not happy with the coloring.  and again, we had to use a sketch, SC144 to see how i interpreted it.  this is actually the LAST card swap and one of the last swaps i’ll be participating in for a while.  of course there are always exceptions but i’ll make them as i need to.  and you know i’ll need to.  ha!!

sorry the scans cut off at the bottoms… and also, the teal has some monochromatic mod block patterns on it that got messed up with the scan.  one day i’ll take proper pictures and replace these scans.  but not tonight!!

have a great week!  i’m looking forward to being PRODUCTIVE and reclaiming a schedule.  what are you up to??

lovies, =o) kel

one day, in my future dreamily renovated home, i will finally have my music studio:

and i would love to dedicate a wall to one simple, GINORMOUS sticker of this:

and in this room, i hope to find this:

and if these worked as well as techniques i would definitely pick up a pair:

i only dream of having shelves of vinyls to play with:

and i would buy tons and tons of them if they looked like this:
but if i did have a ton of vinyls then Makamae would definitely end up like this:

and one day, when we renew our vows and i get my fairy-tale wedding…  i still wish for my {dream} diamond ring… if only J could be this creative:

all images found via {weheartit.com}

lovies, =o) kel

but in the mean time, thanks for the beautiful lighting and for giving me 10-minute periods of no rain to run the kiddos outside and take some shots.  and most importantly, thanks for letting me play with my dream of going pro. =o)

lovies, =o) kel

full post to come later as we have YET to do the traditional egg-coloring and our new tradition of flashlight egg hunting in our yard.  so in the meantime, i share this little ditty my dear, dear husband left for me on my desktop.  apparently it’s how easter eggs are made.

lovies, =o) kel

so… i’ve said before that i wanted to update a blog regularly and yadda-yadda-yadda… and look where it’s gotten me so far!!  ha!!  so no more promises this time.  just me being here and blogging when i can.

be back soon with some fun stuff.  almost done making my pictures pretty with some photoshop.

lovies, =o) kel