Fun times...

So the National Card Making and Scrapbooking day was a HUGE success! We all had tons of fun getting creative, eating and winning prizes. Sharon Zies was the big winner and she was there the shortest amount of time! She won the decorate your-self 12x12 scrapbook, 12x12 paper container and the stamp set! I totally forgot to take photos of us all working hard on our creations, but trust us, we were working. I will post my 'few'creations tomorrow, everyone else got so much done. Thanks to Tracie, Tracy, Jennifer, Patty and Sharon for attending and making the day enjoyable. Everyone loved the food so here are the recipes you all asked for. Enjoy!

Awesome Salad
Nut mixture
1 cup chopped walnuts
3 TBS melted butter
1/2 tsp salt and pepper each
1/4 cup sugar

Mix ingredients and spread on a cookie sheet. Cook at 300 degrees for 5-10 minutes

Dressing
1/4 cup apple vinegar
1/4 cup chopped red onion
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/8 tsp salt and paper each
1/2 cup fresh parsley, without stems
1/2 cup olive oil

Mix top 6 ingredients in a blender, pour the olive oil in a steady stream as it runs for good emoilsion.

1 lb pasta or 1 bag spring mix lettuce
3/4 cup dried cranberries or cherries
4 oz feta (I use sundried tomato) - this was not added in todays mixture but is a GREAT addition

Mix the dressing, lettuce (pasta), cherries and feta together and toss. Add chopped chicken if desired. Add the nuts last and toss.


Texas Caviar
1 small red and green pepper each, chopped small
1 small white onion, chopped small
1 can white shoepeg corn (Walmart carries it) drained
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
2 cans ROTELL Tomatoes and Green Chillis
1/2 bottle Kraft Zesty Italian dressing

Mix all the ingredients and set in the fridge for 1 hour. Serve with tortilla chips

National Card-Making (& Scrapbooking) Day Event

This is the information on my National Card-making (& Scrapbooking) Day Event on October 6th in Hilliard. If you haven't already signed up for this one, ACT NOW - space is limited!!!!!

National Card-Making and Scrapbooking day schedule
I’m so excited you can join us for this fun-filled productive day! This is all the information about what we are going to be doing for 12 whole hours, list of supplies you will need to bring, what I have available for you to use and what’s for sale. Please feel free to ask any questions or give suggestions. The money for the cost of the day will be collected when you arrive, remember the cost is $25 per person. If you are bringing a friend, please RSVP for them, space is limited!

What I will provide

Supplies
I will have non expendable items available for you to use at no cost:
• SU! Stamp sets
• SU! Inks
• SU! Punches and cutting tools
• Cutting board
• Assorted scrap papers
• Cuttlebug (limited dies)
• Quickutz (limited dies)
• Computer to access color combos and scrapbook layouts
• LOTS of samples

These are some items I will have available for sale
• SU! Papers
• SNAIL adhesive refills
• Ribbons
• Alterable items

***Since I am no longer going to be an SU! selling demonstrator, I will be selling off stamp sets, alterables, and general crafting supplies I’ve collected for my business!! Lots of great items at a great discount!

Prizes
Mini prizes will be awarded throughout the day for the challenges. Items include embellishments, alterables, papers and more. For each project completed, you will be entered into the Grand Prize (need not be present of you need to leave early) to be awarded at the end of the night. This quarter’s prize will include a 20 page 12x12 scrapbook (you design – too cool), 12x12 paper holder (I LOVE these and use them all the time), which holds up to 100+ sheets of paper and a 2007 Sellabration SU! Stamp set! It’s a value of $30!

Food
Breakfast: assorted bagels and fruits
Lunch: Honey turkey or roast beef wraps with honey mustard, sprouts and shredded carrots, Awesome Pasta Salad, fruit, chips and pretzels
Dinner: Pepperoni Pizza with chips & pretzels
Snacks: pretzels, chips, Texas Caviar, veggies & dip, candies & cookies
Assorted pop, water and peach iced tea will be provided.
***Please let me know if you have any food needs or restrictions no later than October 3rd.

What you need to bring
Bring anything you need that is not listed above. That includes papers, scissors, glue, photos, embellishments, etc. The more you have on hand, the more you will create!

Activities
I am providing you with this information so that you may plan ahead for the challenges if you choose to participate. The challenges will be presented every 2 hours, plenty of time to create a scrapbook layout and card. I will also post suggested layouts that you may copy or choose your own.

Card Challenges:
Each challenge will be posted every 2 hours. You may choose to do as many or as little as you like. 2 Prizes will be awarded for each challenge, 1 random drawing, 1 voted on by the group. For each project completed to the specifications presented for the item, you will receive a ticket to be entered into the drawing for the grand prize.
1. Stampin’ Around – Create a card using a stamp wheel.
2. Halloween Card – Anything goes as long as it’s for Halloween!
3. Scrap Card – Using only scraps from the scrap bin, any theme.
4. Holiday Card - Create a Holiday card, but you can’t use Christmas red or green!
5. Punch Out! – Use any punch and any theme.
6. Give Thanks – Show your appreciation, or celebrate the holiday, your choice!

Scrapbook Challenges:
1. Hot! Hot! H-O-T!!! - I thought this would be most appropriate with how the weather was this summer!
This theme has a wide range to choose from. You could scrap anything from: How to beat the heat to Who's a Hot little babe? (photo of a child of course).

2. Special Nights - We’ve all had that one night out on the town with friends, significant others, family. Show me the fun! Scrap any special night/even that you’ve attended.

3. "Cheaper by the Dozen" Scrapbook style!!! -
The movie Cheaper by the Dozen is a wonderfully cute family comedy.
And, as the title of this challenge implies, you have to use a 'dozen' PHOTOS on your layout!!

4. Happy Fall Y’all – My favorite season is fall! I love the colors, chucky sweaters, football games, playing in the leaves, kids dressed for Halloween, pumpkin patches, you know what I mean. Show us your favorite part of the fall season!

5. Layout Challenge – This is any theme, you just have to follow the layout provided!

6. Notable Quotable - Hello ladies! Welcome to the library, find a comfy seat, get out a book by your favorite author and get ready for another challenge!!! This is a pretty simply and straight forward challenge. You can make any type of layout you wish, your only rule, the title of your page has to be a quote from a book!


Make & Takes:
If you need a break from coming up with your own ideas, here are some projects I will have available for you to make.
1. One Sheet Wonder – Create beautiful paper using stamps and ink, use it to create 8 cards or use in scrapbook layouts.
2. Candy bag: Create a cute bag of candy using mailing labels and stamps.

Creative Therapy

It seems like FOREVER since I was able to sit down and create without a little one pulliing on my arm. now that Lily is in school 2 days a week, I'm trying to make that a little "me" time and do some creative therapy. Here is the gift I made for my DDSS little. It includes a gift bag, tote and monogramed notecards. The gift bag is made with a large bakery bag, the letter is the Cuttlebug Olivia font and the flower is dyed with Cool Carribean and Not quite navy. She likes things rustic, and not girly-girl. Since I'm girly-girl, I thought I'd combine the 2 styles. It's heading out with her reveal package tomorrow (her birthday is the 18th). I hope she likes it!

Before I left for vacation, I participated and hosted 3 swaps! Here are just some of the swaps I made for them. I love partipating in SU! swaps, you get back some great quality samples!

Lily's first day of school!!!

Click to play | Make your own Smilebox

Well, we have returned from our fall family vacation in Disney and Lily started her very first day of pre-school today! I made this layout using Smilebox.com. A great place to make some scrapbook pages to share with family far away!

Back to School

These are for a really fun class I am doing this weekend. The theme is Back-To-School, and we are making lunchboxes, spiral notebooks, a post-it note holder for the teacher, pencil box and a crayon or colored pencil box. Everyone gets to select their own kit and there is enough product left over for a 6x6 scrapbook or 40+ card fronts! My goal with this was to do little or no stamping to show how beautiful these kits are by themselves (for my non-stamping ladies). I hope they all have fun with these!

Workshop CASE

My latest workshop was a challenge for me! My hostess requested a class with hand crafted gifts and a 12x12 page. Now I don't have a school age child, so I don't have any stamps sets to go with that theme! Think...think...think... I decided to make projects with the Office Accoutrement stamp set in the colors featured on page 8&9 of the catalog. It took me a while to figure out what to do for the 12x12 layout, then I spotted my inspiration, the sample from the 2007 Cinci regionals! So I cased the page and also made 2 mega paperclip book marks. It was totally fun creating BTS stuff, now I can't wait for Lily to start Pre-school!

Mom's class for friends

Mom's girlfriends from high school still get together once a year for a few days to have fun, connect and reminisce about the old days. This year they are staying at mom's and asked if I could come over and have a stamp camp! So I have 7 projects for them (I know I went over board), 2 are from my stamp camp on the 14th, one I haven't taken a photo of yet, so here are the last 4. I LOVE the 3x3 cards with the Take Three stamp set, so simple and cute! I'll be doing that one more often!

Fabulous!!!

So I've finally stopped traveling and am now home catching up on life. After days of laundry, cleaning and trips to the vet, I have finally been able to get down to stampin'! Liz Anton and I were talking at the gym today how much fun she had doing the SCS challenge this week, (her first time to participate) jealous, I decided to get home and do one. This is from a few days ago, the Color Challenge, and she's right they are so much fun...I've missed doing them! The colors for this challenge were Close to Cocoa, Bashful Blue and Certainly Celery. I hope you like it!

Finally, I'm stamping again!

So...I've been on nationwide tour for the last 3 weeks, with each stop filled with work, fun and frivolity. When I came home, to my surprize (well, not really since I ordered them) were 3 SU! boxes filled with goodies for me to play with! Here are some samples of the projects we will be doing at my New Catalog party this Saturday in Perrysburg. All of these were CASED items from SCS. Thanks for the inspiration!

Bows, bows, bows!

People ask me all the time how I make such perfect bows for my cards. Although I have had extensive training in the art of bow making (former florist & special events designer) I have to admit, this techique came from the master herself...Martha. After you complete your bow, just attach it to the card using a glue dot, it stays on perfectly! I hope this helps you all with your bow making and check out the other bows she has tutorials on.

1. Shape two evenly sized loops, one in each side of the ribbon.

2. Cross right loop over left one.

3. Knot loops by threading right loop behind left one, under, and up through the hole; make sure ribbon is not twisted or bunched.

4. Pull loops into a smooth knot. Adjust loops; trim tails to be slightly longer than loops

I'm Baaaack~

Well, I've finally made it back from the sunny hot state of Florida! We took our daughter to Disney to see all her "friends". In preparation for our trip, I made her an autograph book for the characters to sign. I had a ton of fun making it for her, and have many more pages to add (I thought 30 pages would have done it, I was wrong!) I don't have the photos in it as of yet, that's my next project. Here are a few pages to look at, but check out the entire album by clicking here Let me know what you think!

Look at what I've been doing!

I've actually gotten some stamping done this week! I've joined in some swaps on SCS so it's given me a great excuse to get some "work done". The first swap I joined is for mini sprial notebooks, which I love to make! I thought I'd join so I culd see what other people are doing! I of course had to add some "bling" to each of them. My favorite is the "Sweet Friend" one.

The cards are for a swap called the Great Assortment Swap. I make 11 of the same card in different catagories and receive 10 back, all different themes! I picked out Humorous Birthday, Baby Girl (of course), Thanksgiving and Love note. This is the Humorous Birthday one made with Birthday Banter retired last year.
I had to use my favorite stamp set, A Little Love for this one. It's my favorite stamp set and card layout.
This one was by far the hardest for me to make, I don't have any Thanksgiving stampsets!
I think it's pretty self explanitory why I used this stamp for my Love Note card!!

Heartbreak...

My heart (and current stamp collection). It's broken. Shattered into a million little stamp pieces. Devistation. The SU! retired list came out yesterday, and I have lost a total of 42 stamp sets to retirement. (I have a lot of gold watches to buy).
Then a ray of hope...something new, exciting, and cutting edge on the horizon? While I morn the departure of my dear good friends, the remaining 13 (yes, only 13) stamp sets and I eagerly await the arrival of new bundles of joy! I have had a preview of the hostess sets alone, and they are AMAZING!!! I can't wait to "bulk" back up so I can create hip and happenin' cards, scrapbook pages and 3D items to knock your socks off! Check out the list and let me know if you need to order that stamp set you've been eyeing, because after June 30th, they are off the books!

Who'd a thunk?

On Tuesday, SCS posted it's weekly color challenge, Pink, Pink & more Pink! Make cards using any color of pink and a neutral! I thougth this was a great idea for 2 reasons. First, this theme was to honor the Avon Walk for Breat Cancer Awareness, and second, since I only have 1 daugher, my life is surrounded by pink, so I have tons of it! I posted this card I made 2 years ago when I did craft shows in Perrysburg, Ohio and Petoskey, Michigan. I had a few left over and thought I would post it on SCS for this challenge. This is my favorite layout for cars, simple and cute! The similar card below is one I made that was featured on the SU! web site a few months back for a baby boy. Well, the ladies at SCS loved it, and have been e-mailing me their comments for the last 2 days! It just goes to show you, simple is better!

Simple Invites

After Gina's bridal shower invites went out, a friend of my MIL contacted me and asked if I would make some for her daughter's bridal shower. The theme of the shower is lady bugs and dragon flies. Well, I just got rid of my Bunch O' Bugs stamp set, so I had to get creative! Here are some simple samples of the invites I came up with. The first 2 have bugs made out of punches. The dragonfly uses 2 vellum heart punches from QuickCuts and I cut the body out by hand and covered with beads and glitter. THe lady bug is made with SU circle punches and a hand held heart punch for the spots.

The last 2 are the really simple ones! The 3rd one has a black embossed Floral piece of paper trimed with red grosgrain, and the last one is totally computer generated and just mounted on Real Red paper! I'd love to hear your opinion or suggestions too...please leave a comment!

Little Sis Paperbag Book

Here is the first Paperbag book I made. My "little sis" stated she loves the Petal Prints stamp set and wanted a paperbag book. She is also the only woman in her house, so I thought I'd make this to celebreate the men in her life. I hope she enjoys it!

This is page 1 & 2. There are 2 pull out tags for photos or journaling between pages 2 & 3.
These are pages 3&4. There is a tag for journaling on page 4.

These are pages 5&6 with 2 pull out tags on page 6.

This shows the detail of what the pockets look like. They are made with the opening of the paper bags.

Paper Bag Scrapbook

Well, I have to admit I never thought I would make one of these, but now I think I'm hooked! I haven't even put photos in it yet and I love it. I am a member of the SCS DDSS club (secret stampin sisters) and my "little" stated in her questionare that she would like to see a paperbag scrapbook. So I did some research and got my directions from momscape.com. After I made hers, I had to make one for myself! So here is my personal favorite creation. Check out the above link for detailed instructions.

This is the front of the book. The colors for this book was inspired by the striped ribbon I used in the binding and on the front. It has Yoyo Yellow, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, Whisper white and an old SU color, Mint Melody. When I found this ribbon, I thought the colors were unusual, but pretty. I used white lunch bags I found at a local craft wholesale store, but they are also available at GFS. I punched 3 sets of 2 holes and tied various ribbons thru them to make the binding of the book.

This is page 1 & 2. I used SU daisy flower punch to create the edge of page 2 and attached daisies to the edge of the tag that are in the pocket.

These are pages 3 & 4. Under the flap of the bag I added a tag that is removable for journaling.

These are the last 2 pages in the book, and it also has a daisy pull out tag from a pocket made from the opening of the bag.

Birthday Party!

Aren't these cute party invites? These are going out to some of our friends for Lily's Birthday party next weekend. I'm making favors for the kids using this same stamp set "Kids Cards". I'm stamping this and the other images to the center of a blank card, putting them along with a box of crayons and envelopes so the kids to take home and make cards themselves!