Hello again!!!  Just thought I'd show you the baby shower invitations I just finished for my friend and update you on what's been going on with me.  This week has been crazy, but it's been a blessing too.  I took my mom to the hospital on Tuesday and Wednesday.  She had found a lump in her left breast and she had surgery done to remove it.  The doctor said that they found another timy lump in the right breast also.  Praise God the first surgery was successful and the lump they removed looks beneign so far.  They'll know for sure next week if it non-cancerous or not.  She will have to schedule another needle biopsy and ultrasound for the other lump in the next couple of weeks.  It has been a blessing for me to be able to work from home so that I can take her to all of these appointments.  I just pray I can keep doing this, so I can help my family out.  On Thursday, my husband had to go and get an ultrasound to find out why his side had been hurting so much.  It's been more than 6 months since his car accident, so he finally went to get it checked out.

Between all these visits to the hospital, I actually found time to work on some of the projects I needed to get done.  I forgot to take pictures of the Christmas cards I made for my mother-in-law.  However I did manage to take some pictures of the baby shower invitations.  I will try to remeber to take pictures of the cards that I made while I was in the waiting room of the hospital.  Normal people read books while they are in the waiting room.  Not me---I use the time to make cards.  So far I've designed some of my best cards in the airport, while I was serving jury duty, and now while I was waiting in the hospital. 

I am going to be at the Arcadia Retirement Center in Vista this Saturday from 7-3pm.  They are having their annual swapmeet on 1080 Arcadia Way.  So if you have a chance, please stop by and say hi.  I'm also going to be at the Downtown Live event this Saturday from 6:30-9:00pm.  There's free music, I'm not sure who is playing this week.  I'm scheduled to be at the Bonita Shepherd's Fair on July 17th and the Butterfly Festival on September 12th at Pala Casino.  I'm still trying to get information to get into the farmer's markets, but I have been unable to reach the coordinators of these events.  Today I'm planning to go to a couple of different gift shops and try to put my stuff on consignment there.  Letting people know about my products and services is a lot of work, but I'm hoping that it will pay off in the end.

I better get back to work.  I have plenty to do today.  I love not having to commute to work in the morning.  I just have to be disciplined to use my time wisely.  Have a great day.  Remeber if I can do this, so can you.  Happy crafting this week.

Hi there!  It is so good to be back.  We went out to Yuma for my brother in law's change of command ceremony.  It wasn't as elaborate as I imagined it would be.  They basically passed a flag from one guy to the other guy and then we had to listen to some long speeches.  There's a lot of tradition behind it and I'm so proud of my Brother-in-law, but it was a long drive for what it was and I was miserable being out in Arizona in the middle of summer.  The good thing was I got to see my nephew and my family again so that was good.

Last week I messed up.  I forgot to take pictures of the diaper cake that I made for my friends' baby shower and the shirt that I had made for my Brother-in-law.  So you will just have to trust me that they turned out great and both of them liked their gifts a lot.  I have to remember to take pictures of all this stuff so I can post it on here. 

Since I can't post those pictures, I'm going to show you the pictures of the girls' bathing suits that I made two weeks ago.  I tried to use the bleach method on these swimsuits, but the bleach doesn't work on polyester fibers.  Instead I painted the designs on using fabric paint.  You cut out the design with the cricut on contact paper and using the negative side, you put it on the swimsuit and paint it with the fabric paint and remove the contact paper stencil.  I think they turned out pretty good.

  I'm going to try to sell the swimsuits at the Vista Swapmeet this weekend.  They are hosting a swapmeet at the Arcadia Senior Center on Saturday June 26th at 1080 Arcadia Way in Vista from 9am-3pm.  If I can't sell it there, then I'll bring them to Downtown Live on Saturday June 26th from 6:30-9pm on Grand and Kalmia in Escondido.  If you are in the area, I'd love to meet you.  Stop by and check out my booth...I'll give you a 10% discount for mentioning that you found out about these events on my blog.  

Today is my first day of being full time at Christina's Creations.  It has been great being my own boss and not having anyone to tell me what to do.  I just hope I can make enough to keep this up.  If I can't, my husband is going to make me go back to work.  I got until August to figure it out.  I really don't want another job, so I'm going to do everything I can to make this work.  

With that being said, I better start making some more stuff so that I can sell it at the shows this weekend.  Wish me luck.  Have a great day and remember anythig is possible if you put your mind to it and trust God that all things are possible through Him.   

Hi!  Hope your week is going well.  It's crunch time for me.  My in-laws are coming, we're going to see my Brother-in-change of command ceremony, tommorrow is my last day of work, and I have some orders that I still need to do.  Life is good.  It's hard to believe that people can be bored these days with so much stuff to do and every gadget under the sun is available to you.

Last week, I made these CD cases...I mean DVD cases.  My cousin told me that I should market them as DVD cases, because every kid owns an ipod these days and hardly anyone uses cd's anymore.  So to get with the times, I changed the name to a DVD case.  Aparently, these little cases come in handy for carrying all the movies that kids watch in the car.  I don't know what happened to the good old days when we used to drive our parents crazy  on a long road trip.  I remember taking plenty of these trips as a kid and fighting all the times with my brothers in the backseat.  My mom would always make a point of buying a lot of travel games, snacks, and activity books for us when we went on these trips.  I think she was trying to avoid our inevitable fights on the road.  It must of been horrible for them to trave cross country from San Diego to Chicago with three little kids.  I  don't know how many times my dad threatened to pull over to the side of the road and drive off if we didn't stop fighting.  I also still don't know he managed to get his arm to swing backwards to hit us when we were sitting directly behind him.   I guess one of these DVD players could have saved them a lot of headaches.  The downside we wouldn't have the memories of playing slug bug and punching each other every time we saw a VW Bug, we wouldn't have sang all those songs in the car, and we wouldn't have scared my dad so many times by trying to get the semi truck drivers to honk their horns.  Sometimes modern technology seems to be taking away some of the joys of just being a kid.

But I digress.  So I have to stop reminiscing and just get with the times.  I don't think my family could have afford a DVD player anyways.  So here are the DVD cases.  I sold the skull and the one with the bomb last week.  Scary to think that bombs and skulls are such hot sellers. 

Have a great week and happy crafting to you!!!

Hi.  I finally have some time to write in this blog.  Things have been hectic as the school year comes to an end. 

A lot has changed since the last time I worte here.  Last week my mom found another lump in her breast.  She's been cancer free for 4 years now and so this was hard news to take, especially since she just recovered from the open heart surgery 2 months ago.  It's so hard to see her go through these things.  Sometimes I wish I could trade spots with her because I hate seeing her suffer like this.  I also found out my assignment for next school year last Friday.  It is a set up for failure.  I'm not going go through this mess again, so yesterday I turned in my letter of resignation.  I'm going to try to do this craft business full time.  This will free up my schedule to take my mom to her doctor's appointments and I am stepping out in faith that I'll be able to make enough to pay my bills from the profits off all these crafts at weekly farmer's markets and at the weekly show in Downtown Escondido.  It won't be easy, but I have to get it done.

This Saturday I will be at the Vista Elk's Lodge in the morning and at Downtown Live in Escondido in the evening.  I did the show in Vista back in February.  It was the first show where I made the booth rental fees.  It was a huge boost to my confidence.  I think with all the new t-shirts, purses and products I just made this past week it should be a really good show.  Next weekend I'm not doing any shows at all.  My Brother in law is becoming the new commander of the Yuma Proving Grounds and we are going out to see the change of command ceremony.  My in-laws are supposed to come out and visit after the ceremony.  Next Wednesday will be my last day of work at the school and June 21st is my first official day trying to sell my crafts full time.  If it doesn't work out, I may take a part time job until I can make ends meet.  It's scary and exciting at the same time.  I'm so glad I will be able to be my own boss, but at the same time I hope and pray that I can actually make this work.

Here are the latest creations I've made.  These t-shirts are so easy to make.  Find some vinyl (I used vinyl contact paper), and cut it out with your cricut.  Take the cut image (stencil) and place it on a t-shirt.  Make sure that all the air bubbles and bumps are out and the image lays completely flat.  Place a foam sheet on the inside of the shirt, so the liquid doesn't seep through to the other side of the shirt.  Then take a spray bottle filled with bleach and water and spray the bleach water directly on the shirt.  Remove the excess water with a paper towel.  Next, remove the stencil and rinse shirt under cold water and let it dry.  If it worked out right, the image will appear on the shirt.  It takes some practice.  I've found that darker shirts work best.  The lighter colored shirts don't always leave the images.  If there are any bubbles, the bleach seeps under the material and the image is distorted. 

I made some last week, as an experiment.  I made the Downtown Live shirts as a promotional item for the coordinator.  I was going to give it to him free, but it was the wrong size, so he gave me his blessings to sell it at the show.   I sold one and had another order for 3 more.  It's a fun, quick, and easy project to do.  There were a quite a few guys that actually came in and looked at the shirts.  I need to make more Extra Large shirts.  I would have made more sales if I did.

Happy crafting.  I'll post the pictures of the diaper cake I made for my friend's shower next time.  I also have some CD/DVD cases I need to post.  I'm getting backed up on things to do which is a good thing.  I can't wait to be done with school so I can catch up on everything.  One more week---hooray!!!  Hope you have a great week!!!