Album for my Sister Wai

Since meeting my sister from America, for the very first time back in November last year, we have had plenty of photos of the last 4 months of her stay here. Unfortunately her time has come to return to her family in Utah & for us to say goodbye, in 2 days we head for the airport for a teary farewell.

I have been compiling some photos of her arrival, first this & first that, etc (mind you we have like 3 discs full of precious memories, but I had to narrow it down) & I bought this chipboard album & decorated it & then made some page LO's. This was made when she was visiting other relatives etc, so it's not quite as indepth as I would have liked to have gone, but time constraints & the whole sneaky process kind of got in the way haha

There are 20 pages to the album (well there was more in the kit but I couldn't close the covers in the end, so I removed the spare ones).

OK so to start with we have the kit, the album, pages & rings:
Then I decorated it with a light yellow PP with white dots.

So now that the album was covered it's time for the LO's.

To give you an understanding as to why it is the first time we have met, we have the same father, but different mothers & when my sister was old enough she went the US for a holiday & there she met her wonderful hubby & made her life. We had contact on the internet via emails & MSN & I would call her once or twice a month, but for so long we all wanted to meet her. I have 2 other sisters & 3 brothers that hadn't met her either, so there was a huge void for all of us. So nearly 25 years after finding about each other, we were finally going to meet!!!

Ok so enough with the whole "Days of our Lives" ...

I will show you more of the album.... ; )




Well here is the opening page: she calls herself "The Princess with the pink fluffy slippers " so this page is in reference to that.
I used: Glitter stack PP, "The Princess" purple ribbon, pearl halves, I cut the crown & slipper from my cricut cartridge - "Happily Ever After" , decorated them with assorted jewel embellishments & feathered wool on the slipper (& entered it into the challenge at the BBTB) , I printed the sentiment on the computer & cut out a tag with my cricut & put some rubons at the bottom of it.

So after months of counting down the days to her arrival, November 26th, 2007 had finally arrived!! So we head off to the airport & met up with the family as we all waited anxiously for the clock to tick over.

The excitement & the butterflies were overwhelming, we all
joked & laughed & mucked around together taking lots of
pictures before she even got there haha.

The top picture is one of my sisters taking a photo of me, taking a photo of them ...haha we are so crazy, the bottom left photo is Me & the one on the right is Me with our second eldest son , he was pushing me around on the airport luggage trolley we had ready & waiting.













By now the time was getting nearer, us sisters (& our partners & children etc) were all waiting for our "big" sister to arrive, & we were getting more & more excited by the minute. So we posed for treasured memory photos, our two girls made their auntie welcome banners & then we all went & stood at the doors waiting for that special moment of her walking through them.

Her plane has landed!!

Now we were waiting for her to go through Customs & the next thing we hear is one of our sisters yell out "Wai" (pronounced why, that's our sister we were waiting for name)

With that everyone was waving & all our waiting was finally over

She was here!!

I used cut outs from my cricut, ribbon, a plane embellishment, brads & lots of stickles to decorate

This page is just my thoughts journalled:

For years we have talked about one day getting to meet you!! And with having a large family Christmas, this seemed the prime time to make this happen. For the first time EVER, all of us Sisters would be together with the added bonus of our oldest brother David too!

Not only is it us as Sisters meetingfor the first time, there is a lot of nieces & nephews & brother-in-laws desperately wanting to get to know YOU!!

So on behalf of all of us, we hope to make this a holiday you will always remember, thus taking home with you, lots of special family memories too !!















This is a very special page, it is a photo of our first hug!! I made a heart pocket to record the date & my thoughts...

I used: lots of pearl ribbon, floral PP, eyelets, hearts & gold string to decorate
































This is a close up of the heart once it is removed from the pocket, the title & date is letter stickers. On the back of the heart, I have once again journalled some thoughts.

For as long as I can remember, I have dreamt about meeting my sister in America.
Now 20 something years later, here you are!! love your baby Sis Rima -x-

This is our niece having her first cuddles.

I used: Glitter stack Butterflies & flowers PP and paper hibiscus flowers attached with little gold brads.

This is the both us together on Christmas day at Christmas dinner. This obviously was our first Christmas together too & we had a rather large gathering last year of over 30 family & friends, needless to say it was very special for everyone!!

For this page I used: more glitter stack PP, you & me cut from my cricut & stickled, rounded cornered rectangle frames, also from my cricut &at the bottom I made an envelope of love (also with my cricut.

This is the tag when it's pulled out

This page is just us sisters being silly... the top photo is of 2 of us sisters (they are actually full sisters, so they are being silly together)

& the bottom photo is me with one of my sisters.

I used more glitter stack PP, heart frames cut with my cricut & smaller hearts, to resemble the bubbles floating each with acetate behind them for the wet look. On the Penny Black Stamp - Love Bubbles, I used water coloured pencils witha blending pen & glossy accents for the bubbles.











Now this page is very very special, well not so much the page but the photo on it. In October last year, one month before our sister was to come out to Australia, she was in a coma after an operation, as was my B-I-L (pictured with her) after a heart attack.
They both were very sick & in my B-I-L's case, we didn't know if he was going to survive!!

The uncanny thing is one was in America & the other was in Australia & they both went into the comas at the same time & both "woke up" at the same time & being released at the same time, half way across the world from each other!!!

Thankfully they both came out of the coma's & made recoveries enough for one; our sister to travel & secondly, our B-I-L to be released from hospital.

And seeing them sitting together at the airport, on her arrival was something very special indeed!!










Wai brought with her some Mickey Ears she had embroidered with our girls names & one of our nieces, who is Mickey's "biggest fan"

I cut Mickey & his Ears out with my cricut & the Mickey & Friends cartridge & used some Disney printed ribbon embellishments to decorate.


















These are special photos, Wai with our brother, our sister, our niece & my Mum, who she calls "Mamma Joan".

I used more glitter stack PP, paper hibiscus flowers with pearl halves & satin ribbon to decorate.























More special photos, my children with their Auntie.


















This is the final page, with two of my sisters celebrating their birthdays together for the very first time. Their special days are only a week apart, so we celebrated on the weekend in between.

I used Innovation Only - One heart, One mind PP
pink satin ribbon
gel pens for the dots on the scallops & pearl halves,
a scallop border at the bottom edge of the photo & a scallop square with a circle all cut from my cricut.
*Birthday Girls* is computer generated.







Well thanks for perserveering with such a long blog!! I will present this to her tomorrow night at her farewell dinner.