Maya Road and Me

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A couple of times a year, Deb and I head out to Asia to check on some of our production as we get ready for the show. There are times when we brought our families with us but now with 4 kiddos between us all under the age of 5, it is a bit harder. And since my Grandma passed away a year and a half ago, there hasn't been as much urgency for us to bring our kids along on these trips like there was when she was sick.

In ways it is easier, we can spend the whole day working and on some evenings, we can even see the rest of our family in Asia but every time we go see our family and we go into my Grandma's apartment there is a rush of sadness that overcomes Deb and I. We miss her a lot.

Some of the best parts of the trip is the food. Deb and I often times will find ourselves in McDonald's at 5 am due to jet lag:

Ah we love McDonald's in Asia. Some of the foods there are different - like for example the chicken noodle soup you can get for breakfast which is a personal favorite of mine. We are also fans of the free wifi at McDonald's. I was even able to use the WiFi to talk to my family back in the US while we were there. 

We also found another place for breakfast that had fresh watermelon juice - yum:

And one of our absolute favorite places to go is this chain  called Curry-In-A-Hurry which is in a lot of food courts. Absolutely love the roti they make and the set menus they have:

So delish. This is of course in addition to all the other food we ate while we were over there. The dumplings, sticky rice rolls, pan fried noodles and more. Even now my mouth waters at the thought of all that good food.

But with all that too Deb and I pretty much finalized all of our next release for Maya Road. Lots of cool things coming includine some unexpected stuff. It is hard to believe that the tradeshow is about 2 months away. 

While I was away though I did manage to create a tiny bit - check out this flower I made one night as I was fighting some jet lag:

You will see this little flower soon as we are working on our early Summer Release that is coming out in about 2 weeks.  Lots going on to keep us busy.

I am also busy planning my boy's Birthday Party. I still have many many Angry Birds to sew but I think I have it under control. I cannot believe this is what I looked like 5 years ago:

Only a couple of days before my baby boy was born and here he is 5 years later:

But adjusting to being home again, fighting a bit of a cold and jet lag and spending some time with my family before things get hectic again.

Bottlecaps

 

I have spoken about our bottlecaps in the past. Our mega bottlecaps were something which we made almost our very first year as Maya Road. We had a lot of them. And it took us a good while to sell out of them ( give or take a couple of years). When we were done, we breathed a sigh of relief. But then something odd happened. We were getting calls every single day about these things:

These were the original 2" ones we started out with in 2004:
Anyhow, we decided to bring them back around the 2007-2008 time frame. And today they are some of our best sellers. So we added 3" and 4" ones.

I created this the other day with our 4" ones:

 

And hope you are loving this butterfly you see as it is something you will be seeing very soon!

Some peeks at things we have coming soon

 

Here is a first look at some wonderful things we have been working on.  ;)

Working on a project

 

Here is a project I have been working on that I will be teaching at CHA-S. It is called 6 Ways With Maya Road. Using our ATC shadowbox, each cubby will showcase a different technique so that when you are finished, you will have a completed display box! I chose to use Maya Mists, Trims, Spools, Chipboard, Kraft, Pins and more to create something that will highlight the best of Maya Road:

Can't wait to finish up and share with you the rest!

Mother's Day Cards With Kraft Envelopes...

 

So if you haven't heard of pinterest, i would highly recommend you do not start using this site. Unless you have a bunch of time you want to be sucked in and see lots of inspirational stuff. Seriously you could waste spend hours on there seeing lots of inspirations things and virtually "pinning" them onto boards. I have some boards created for ideas for kiddo parties, food to make one day and crafts to do. 

The other day I saw this pin, and I knew I wanted to recreate it with our kraft envelopes. So what I did is I took one kraft envelope and I cut it apart. Then I went ahead and started using the pocket part to create this card:

Then I took the top flap of our kraft envelop and created a second card like this:

These will make handy Mother's Day cards for the upcoming weekend!

So if you do decide to get started on pinterest, just remember I gave you fair warning!

Answered Prayers

It has been about a week since I wrote my last blog post. Lots of things have been going on here. The biggest thing that happened was my dad got his PT scan results today to determine how he was doing with his treatment for his lung cancer.  It has now been 7 months since his initial diagnosis of stage IV lung cancer. Since then he has gone through 6 rounds of chemo and 2 hospital stays. As of 6 weeks ago he started a pill treatment which is something he has taken every day but we wouldn't find out the results til today.

So I went with my parents today to the doctor to see what was gone on. Short of a miracle of the cancer totally leaving my dad's body, we got the best news we could have gotten. The total volume of my dad's tumor has shrunk by close to 85%.  After we heard the results, I heard a collective sigh of relief in the doctor's office. My dad is by no means out of the woods but he can now at least see some light. 

Throughout this diagnosis with my dad, I sometimes wonder when the other shoe will drop. I have seen 2 friends in the same period lose their parents to cancer so why is it that my dad is doing so well? I don't have the answer to that. I am just going to learn to be thankful and have faith that this is the time my parents can enjoy themselves a bit. I already convinced them to take a trip this summer to see my dad's family. The tix are booked and my parents are super excited (even if they don't admit it to me).

In the meantime, I spoke to the doctor and my dad will have a bone scan so that we can see more clearly how the other hot spots of cancer are doing in his body. As I told the doctor I would rather we know now than later if there is an issue we need to address. 

In the meantime, my dad has been joking around with the kids - here he is with baby girl (she is trying to escape) .

My parents have had the last 7 months to see my kids grow and for all those memories, nothing can take that away.

I have also been busy planning my boy's 5th birthday party. Seeing as he is an angry birds fan, we decided he will have an angry birds party. So I have been busy sewing all of these guys:

And we were busy working on his birthday invitation - to keep it simple I decided I will use some ideas I have seen floating around of a "Save the Date" idea by putting the info on his party in a frame and taking his photo with it:

I have been making these angry birds like crazy using a tutorial I found here. I do want to try to make all the angry birds for the boy in time for his Birthday as part of my present to him. But we will see as he also requested a pinata and for that I will have to come up with something.

And finally I have a new zipper trim tutorial up to make these:

You can see it here:

 

And sign ups started last week for Artistic Journey 2011, we are almost sold out for the event! So excited I know it will be amazing.

I have also been working hard on our mid-release. All the details should be out by the end of the month with lots of fun new goodies from Maya Road you will definitely want to have. Can't wait to share it with you all.