First Post in Six Years

Hello Blogspot!

It’s been a while, 6 years to be exact.  What can I say, life took a different turn, & I needed to focus my attention on other things.  I’m really glad to be back!  .

As usual, this will be a blog about my random musings.  It will be a mixture of things I love, places I want to see, tutorials, hobbies, etc.

Today, I’d like to share that I have some new hobbies that I acquired since January of this year, & that is my love of aquascaping & fish keeping.  I started in this hobby because my kids really wanted a pet.  We started off with a frail betta named, Gloop-Gloop, who was a mustard gas betta.  He has since passed, but here is our favourite photo of him (months after being in our tank):

Wasn’t he gorgeous?  He passed away due to stress.  We housed a golden algae eater with him who started to chase him around quite a bit, most likely sucking on his slime coat.  Due to my lack of experience, I didn’t realize how aggressive & territorial algae eaters can get.  We separated him from the algae eater, but Gloop-Gloop’s immune system was compromised, & eventually he stopped eating.  Although, I placed him in a hospital tank, he succumbed to his condition.  

This is a story of one fish & one tank, but can you believe that we have 6 fish tanks running at the moment?  We have a myriad of aquatic life, from the smallest pond, nerite, & ramshorn snails, emperor tetras, panda corydoras, cherry shrimp, crystal red shrimp, & bettas!  All our tanks are filled with aquatic plants too, like amazon sword, Madagascar lace, javafern, pellia moss, Christmas moss, filamentous algae, anubias nana petite, hygrophylia, cabomba, & water lettuce.  

I’ll introduce you to each tank on a separate post.  

It will be a long weekend for us, so no Monday blues tomorrow for me!

Have a wonderful Sunday,

Carla XO

Revisiting...

Hello everyone!

I'm sneaking sometime to post one of my recent works.  I don't know if you remember my sketchbook diary entries, but I finally took the time to rework one of the sketches I made back in 2010!  Wow!  Three years in the making, not really, but it did take me that long to finally ink this piece.  

I hope you like it!

Have a beautiful weekend & stay classy - ha ha ha!

Xoxo, 

Carla

DIY: Vintage Rose Key

Hello Everyone,

It's been a while.  If you are following me on Instagram or Twitter, you probably know that I love participating in Fat Mum Slim's Photo-a-day Challenge.  I wanted to share with you one of my recent posts.  It is for day 3, Key!  I own a lot of nail polish, so I always try to find new ways to use them.  If you own a lot of keys, this may be a good way to help you find certain ones from the bunch.  Especially, if you own a lot of copied keys that tend to be the same color and shape.

I've been color-coding my brushes, pens, keys, etc. with my old nail polish for a while now.  I would like to share this tutorial with you.  Plus, it's another reason to paint, and that's always a lot of fun!

Materials you are going to need are:

Old or new nail polish:  I used red, pink, green, white, & a pale turquoise
A clear sealer or a top coat
Brushes
A key
Fine grit or medium grit sand paper

Step 1:
Roughen the surface where paint will be applied.

Step 2:
Place two coats of polish, or until the surface is even.

Step 3:
Place a dot of pink and a dot of red beside each other and swirl the paint together.  Make sure you create a pattern by not completely blending the two colors.

Step 4:
Take some white and lightly swirl it on top.  Then, place some green leaves as an accent.

Step 5:
Let the polish dry for 15 minutes.  Then, apply a layer or two of a clear sealer or a top coat.

You may apply a coat of sealer every few months or so, to keep the polish from chipping.  I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!  Here are some of my keys:

Have a lovely day!

XOXO, Carla

2013

A lot has happened the past year, with that said, I just wanted to wish all of you a wonderful year ahead! Here is a compilation of some of my favorite photos from 2012. Lucky for you, they are all of my little family! LOL!

Here is a quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson, that I'd like to live by. I hope that it inspires you to do the same...

"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year."

Happy 2013!!!

Xoxo,
Carla

Been gone, for sooo long!

Hello everyone!

I missed you all! I hope you are doing well. I haven't posted anything in a while, for that I apologize. A lot of things happened since. Dom is in kindergarten, & Solana is running! I got myself an iPhone and joined the millions of Instagrammers & tadaa enthusiasts - if you have an Instagram or tadaa account, please let me know. So feel free to follow me there too, @carlasdeleon!

I'll be posting from where I left off (April 2012), so I'll be busy updating my blog & catching up on my google reader. Have a wonderful week, my friends!!!

Xo,
Carla

And then, she's one!

I can hardly believe that a year has gone by... Solana is one today! She is far from being that tiny, helpless baby... She is starting to walk, she's getting more confident each day...

She loves to dance, some of her favorites are Beyonce, Gotye, Carly Rae Jepsen, & Foster the People!

She loves being around her big bro, Dom, & constantly looks for him. They're growing up to be the best of friends!

She loves to smile, and people around her can't help but fall in love. I love seeing myself in her mannerisms. I love seeing how similar she is to Dom, & Bry too!



To our dear daughter, & sister,

Thank you for making our lives richer! We love you so much!!! Happy 1st birthday, bebe!

Always,
Mom, Dad, & Kuya Dom

embroidered handwriting

hello everyone!  i would like to share a recent project i made for my little man, dominic.  he learned to write his name recently, and i wanted to immortalize it somehow. 

so, since i`ve been doing a bit of stuff to prepare for solana`s first birthday (she`s having a rainbow party), i wanted to make something special for dom - the rainbow, embroidered, handwritten name tag came to fruition!

since, he was practicing his letters, i got dom to write his name on a piece of scrap paper.  btw, you can also use a tear-away stabilizer.  to come to think of it, i should`ve used one.  but that`s the beauty of doing things impromptu, you learn to make it better the next time around.

then, i tore (you can cut with scissors - lol) the paper to separate each letter.  placed it on a piece of felt.  a color for each letter.

i decided to use white thread as a guideline (but, if you are using the tear-away stabilizer, you can skip this step entirely).  then, tear away the paper. 

he was painting & used a lot of paper - we recycled ;)

after, i used embroidery thread (6 threads) to go over the initial guideline.  it doesn`t need to be perfect, because you are going over this with the satin stitch.  i did theback stitch to give the satin stitch some volume.  when using felt, the embroidery tends to sink into the felt a little bit.  if you use the tear-away stabilizer, you don`t need the stabilizer i used below...

follow the shape of the hand-written letters with satin stitches, until you are done! 

stitch the rainbow pieces by using blanket stitches (i used the same color of thread as the felt - red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet) to secure each piece of felt to the next.

i also used some pins to secure each piece to the next (sorry, no photos for the next steps).  do the same to the back piece. 

i finished securing the embroidered piece first.  after, i used the embroidered side as a guide to stitch the back piece together. 

align the finished pieces together, cut to the shape you desire (i rounded the ends on mine), then blanket stitch them using the same color of thread to the felt.

btw, you can also use this as a bookmark.  you can also stitch the handwriting to cardstock, printed paper, or a piece of beautiful vintage fabric and frame it!  here is the finished name tag:

one happy customer!

i used embroidery thread to create a string for the name tag.  you can braid different colored embroidery floss to create a fancier string.

hope you enjoyed my tutorial!  have fun stitching!!!
xo, carla

tickle me tuesdays - part 4

it`s been a while since i`ve done one of these...  don`t forget to check out more tickle me tuesday entries at yes teacher.

today, i will be focusing on cake decorating tutorials or DIYs.

here are some of my favorites:

this one is by chef ben-israel as featured on NYC cake girl:

(source:  NYC Cake Girl)

i love the way he manipulated the fondant into some of my favorite stitches, like the french knot, satin stitch, & split stitch!

this one is the link to a video tutorial of how to create brush embroidery flowers by sweet ambs cookies:

i just love it!

another favorite of mine is from sweetopia.  this post wouldn`t be complete without a little st. patrick`s day inspired tutorial...

(source:  sweetopia)

marian is also the creator of the eiffel tower cookies that are so beautiful!

i love the stencilled cake made by a piece of lisa.  here it is:

(source:  a piece of lisa)

i`d love to make one for each of the kids!

that`s it for today folks...  hope you liked the links!

xoxo,
carla

so alike

i was going over some photos the other day and ran across one of dom's baby photos.  dom was 2 months old, & sola just turned 9 months old in the photo below.  now, i can really see how much solana resembles dominic so much!!!  see for yourself:

dom (left);  solana (right)

what do you think?  i love taking photos of the kids when they are sleeping.  i love their cheeks and how their lips become so full when it's relaxed. 

hope you are having a wonderful day!
xo, carla

custom cross-stitch portrait

jozen (aka. lola's girl) asked me to create a cross-stitch portrait for her beautiful family.  inspired by these photos:

here's the finished portrait:

 i love the stitching on the skirt:

i was so happy that they loved it!  i even got this beautiful craft kit in return - thanks joz!

(source: lola's girl)

happy sunday to you!
xo, carla

cross-stitch portraits

just wanted to share a little project i did over the holidays.

i decided to make handmade presents for our family members.  inspired by martha stewart's cross-stitched portraits, i decided to create versions of my family members.

so, here they are:

below is a photo of my designs and martha stewart's templates.  i find, that the most exciting part of the project is designing and creating the templates.

i'm currently working on one with the whole family, starting with mine:

the finished portrait would probably be 5 inches by 24-30 inches...  i can't wait to show you!  i will also create a background & custom frame it.

i hope you enjoyed them!
xo, carla

coming home embroidery

megan of studio m.m.e. is one of my favorite artists.  she is also one of the nicest people i know.  i love the whimsical subject matter & the detail of her illustrations.  when i found out that she would be creating embroidery versions of her art, i was ecstatic!  i was even more excited when she started selling patterns of her embroidery work!  you can get your own pattern at her shop on  www.studiomme.com .

here is coming home, it is one of her works that i really admire:

as soon as i found time to work on the embroidery pattern, i jumped at the chance to finish it - quickly!  it`s been hectic lately (hence, my temporary hiatus from the blog.  more posts coming soon!).

here`s the finished product:

it was really fun to make and so easy!  i can`t wait to get my hands on the feeding the moon embroidery kit! 

xo,
carla

happenings on all hallows' eve...

we celebrated solana's first halloween!  she dressed as a ladybug, thanks jay and aileen!

dom was dressed as a ninja!  we can't believe that this is his 4th halloween already!

also, our crew was 12 kids strong this year:  dom and solana were joined by isaiah, reece, demian, riley, ashton, shayla, shandon, siana, sylus, & svea!  it was a lot of fun!  one of the highlights was the reaction of the home owners when they see all the kids .  a lot of "wow's" and "whoa's".

the rookie & the veteran

we tried getting a photo with both kids, but dom was already running from home to home.  he's apparently a trick or treating expert nowadays...

here's the lil' man in action:

 here's the lil' miss in action:

... and not in action - LOL!

i am also loving cul-de-sacs, because the parents got to hangout while the kids went from one house to the next!

well, that's all folks!  hope your halloween was just as fun, have a great week!
xo, carla