Back From Convention!

I'm back!!! My first Convention experience was SO amazing; my head is just spinning with all the ideas and projects I saw! I'm trying very hard to get all my ideas on paper so I don't forget them. I know I've already forgotten some things; I just don't think my brain had the capacity to remember all that I saw and heard. Good think for digital cameras, and for the fact that many demonstrations are included on a cd! I met so many wonderful people; all demo's who were just as excited to be there as I was. :) I participated in 2 organized swaps, as well as swapped with demo's at random, and the projects I received in return are so inspiring! I'm glad I got to take them home with me; I get so much inspiration from actually seeing the project up close. I have class ideas galore running through my head right now, and can't wait to make the projects for them and promote them to my customers!

Anyway, while there, Stamping wasn't the only thing I did - if you can believe it! ;) I also went shopping - a tonne - with my upline/friends! Here's a picture of our first trip to the outlet mall!

This is my up-upline Terri, who has been a huge inspiration to me this weekend. We rented the van behind her, and 6 of us headed off to the outlet mall after our last class on Thursday. Needless to say, our way back was pretty uncomfortable, with bags stacked and crammed into the back "trunk" area (right to the ceiling!), bags at our legs, beside out seats, on our laps! It was incredible! This picture is of the shopping damage done by 4 of our spending dynamo's; our hotel bellman was laughing at us when we unloaded the van! Our second day shopping wasn't much different; you can bet we had to sit on our suitcases to close them at the end of our trip, even though we had brought extra bags just for this reason! ;)

Next time I'll post some of the make n' takes we did at the SU Pajama Party Wednesday night! SO much fun - everyone in their pajamas, stampin away! :)

I've Been Tagged!

Does everyone have a post titled something like that now? I've seen quite a few people "tagged" lately, and have enjoyed reading the neat little tidbits posted about themselves. So, it turns out that Kim at Inked has tagged ME! Wow; and just when I thought I was going to escape it... ;)

So here it is; these are the rules:

* I must post 7 random things about me.
* Tag 7 other Bloggers to do the same.
* Post the rules and the Bloggers I tagged here.
* Leave Tagged Bloggers a comment on their blog so they know they have been tagged.

7 Random Fact about me:

1. I am a huge choco-holic, and hope to have chocolate of some form or another delivered to my hotel room every day that I'm at Convention!
2. I LOVE cartoons! In fact, I just went to see the Backyardigans live at the Edmonton Capital Ex! Of course, I took my 2 and a half year old daughter with me so I didn't look too silly ;)
3. I am a SAHM right now, but would like to go back to work once my daughter is in school. I would eventually like to own my own business (other than being an SU demo - I want a real storefront!), but am still thinking about what type of business it would be...
4. My favorite place to be is relaxing by a lake (Not IN a lake... I am definitely NOT a swimmer) with a good book and good friends.
5. I am almost 31 years old, but have only had my driver's liscence for 4 years!
6. I love to travel, and not just to beach locations. I like to explore where I'm visiting, and find out what makes it a unique place to be.
7. My guilty pleasure (chocolate is definitely a pleasure, but for me it's not a guilty one!) is shopping. I LOVE to shop for almost anything, but the guilt comes in spending all that money! :(

There you have it! Now I need to tag 7 other Bloggers. Hmm... Okay, here they are:

1. Judy at Squashjunkie
2. Jen at Jen's Life of Stampin'
3. Tanis at Paper Princess at Play
4. Abra Leah at Abra Leah Stamps
5. Sara at Desperate Samper
6. Lisa at Inkerdoodles
7. Kim at Two Pink Fairies

Whew! That was harder than I thought! Many of you have already been tagged, so I had to try to find people who haven't yet! Hopefully I did it, and none of these 7 have been tagged yet. All of these blogs are on my personal blog roll, because I find much inspiration from them. Check them out! :)

A Quick Post

It's almost midnight, and I'm still awake working on my swaps for convention! Crazy, I know. Only 3 more sleeps!!! I'm so excited to get there and see all the amazing projects, go to Memento Mall, and hang out with a tonne of crazy stampers!

Here is a 6x6 page that I created all by myself! I can hardly believe it, since I am not a very experienced scrapbooker, and actually find the whole process a little overwhelming. While this is a simple page, I really liked the colors together, and can see so many other things I could add to it for embellishments! I used a retired stamp on it though - "Sew Sweet" from the retired hostess set "Tags So Much". I think I'll change it somehow to the "Wild About You" stamp, so everything on it is current. What do you think? Do I pass Scrapbooking 101? If you look closer at the page (click on the picture), you can see that I versamarked little polka dots from the "Three For You" set, under the flowers. I hope you like it! :)

Cinderella in Pearls!

My daughter went to a birthday party today for her friend who is turning 2. Her friend is princess Crazy (so is my daughter for that matter!), so I decided to make a card with a princess on it. I was inspired by this card on SCS; I loved the castle, and her watercoloring is beautiful too! I don't have any castle or other fairytale-like stamps, so I resorted to good old Clipart! I found the castle on my computer clipart, but the Cinderella image came from http://www.disneyclips.com/ . I found the Perfect image of her walking "toward" the castle! I used Pearl Ex in "Interference Gold" all over the front of the Groovy Guava cardstock, and I just love how it turned out!

I decided to post 2 pictures, to give you the full effect of the Pearl Ex. For those of you who haven't used it before, turning the page in different directions will give you different effects! So in one picture, you can see the Groovy Guava color behind a slightly golden "wash", and in the other picture all you see is this brilliant gold - beautiful! I also used some primas in the corner held together with one of SU's new Rhinestone Brads in Fire.

Overall, even though I "cheated" and didn't actually make the images, I think this card turned out pretty well! The party was a success as well; all the kids had a great time, and I think they will all sleep very well tonight! :) I have to say I think my daughter was very happy to have some other little girls her age to play with; most of her friends (with the exception of the birthday girl) are boys! She's a little more rough and tumble as a result of hanging out with the boys, but she loved dressing up with a pretty necklace and bracelet, and donning a princess crown at the party. A girly-girl at heart - I just Know she is! (somewhere in there anyway... ;) )

In Colors Shadowbox Card

Can I tell you how much I LOVE the new "In Colors" from Stampin' UP! ? They're gorgeous! Every one of them; I don't have a favorite. Each one has so much potential, and summons my creativity!
For my July Stamp Club meeting on Friday, I tought my ladies two techniques on one card, using all of the In Colors! I tought them how to do a shadowbox card, which we all know I am in love with making these days. They learned the Saran Wrap background technique, and also how to dye ribbon. I searched SCS for an idea, and found this card by Keurigirl. I liked the layout, and the idea of using a piece of designer paper in the center, so I let her card inspire me! I used the Bud Basics stamp set, and the saying is from the Polka Dots and Paisley set. I decided to do both techniques on one card because the Shadowbox card takes a little longer to make, and I really wanted to teach them how to do one of those! Well, was I ever impressed! One of my ladies brought her 11 year old grand-daughter with her, and she was right in there with the rest of them, her card looking just beautiful at the end! Now there's a girl just Born to make cards! ;)

If you get a chance to make one of these Shadowbox cards, I really recommend trying one! As you can see from the pictures of my other projects, I'm quite addicted to them, and not nearly close to getting over it! TFL! :)

5 Years And Still SO Much In Love

July 5th was our 5th wedding anniversary, and amidst the near-chaos of packing up and cleaning the whole house, we actually took some time to celebrate our special day! My mother-in-law looked after our daughter, and we went to a restaurant called Unheardof, a small, quaint restaurant on White Avenue. You can order two ways at this restaurant: The first way is to order each item you want, like at any other restaurant, and pay the price of each item. The second way is to order a package - a full 5 course meal, and choose one item out of each course menu. Of course we decided on the full 5 courses! And as it was the first Thursday of the month, we also received 3 complimentary glasses of wine with our meal (a promotion they have each month). What an amazing restaurant! The food was delicious, and the service was incredible. It was the perfect place to reminisce about the last 5 years, and dream about what the next 5 (and beyond!) will bring. A beautiful evening!

So here's the card I made for my husband:
I loved the card made by Rascal and posted on Splitcoaststampers. It was perfect for my needs: beautiful, with some nice details, but also quick to make! I even got to use some of the ribbon from the blog candy I won! I love this reverse masking technique, and will use it again often.
My husband loved the card, but of course, while mine was beautiful on the outside, his was (always is!) filled with beautiful sentiments inside. I always have trouble finding the right words to put in a card; I find that I end up writing a novel, and the inside looks very messy and crammed. So this year I opted to use a sentiment from Versalog.com; it was simple, sweet, said exactly what I wanted to say and didn't clutter the inside of my card! Check it out if you're stumped for what to write on the inside of your cards! :)

Practicing Pick A Petal

I had my New Catalog Party on Saturday, and made a couple of cards from the new set "Pick A Petal"; one for a make n' take, the other just because I really wanted to make another one! :)

This one is the make n' take we did. I CASED it from SCS, from "memoriesbybrenda". Here is her card. Since I don't have any of the new In Colors, I used Bashful Blue and Not Quite Navy instead. I really like this card; my favorite color is blue, so it was easy for this card to speak to me. I have to say, the petals took a little practice to get them where I wanted them, but thankfully I got them close enough that most mistakes were covered by the circle in the middle. I loved that I could use these petals directly on the card, and not have to cut them out! Usually when I make a large flower, my first instinct is to cut it out and mount it on dimentionals. What a nice, easy card this was to make!

When I saw this card on SCS by "Kari", I knew I had to make my own version! I also don't own any Kraft cardstock, so I improvised by using Creamy Caramel. Since I didn't have any light blue gingham ribbon, but I do have pink, I opted to make my card with Pretty in Pink accents and paper. I thought about offering this card for a make n' take, but the white craft ink takes a long time to dry (it is the first step in making the flower), and I wanted some cards that were faster to make. I love the sponging around both pieces of Caramel, the little ribbon accent at the top, and the "bling" of the new Fire Circle Rhinestone brad! That was a little harder to use than I had thought; instead of laying nicely like a regular brad, these brads are set higher (it reminds me of a ring setting). Also, as I was deciding which size to use, I unbent the arms intending to try another one. Well, it snapped! So, I thought, instead of using and possibly breaking another of these little beauties, I would make this one work. So, I snipped off the other arm and used Crystal Effects to adhere it flush to the middle of the flower. I also stamped another smaller flower and cut it out, and punched 2 flowers from the Spring Flowers punch, for the middle. This one really Wowed me! :)

SO Spoiled!!! A HUGE Thank You!

I want to thank Tanis over at http://paperprincessatplay.blogspot.com/ for this HUGE blog candy! All the papers, ribbon, flowers and other accessories are SO beautiful; I actually got little butterflies in my stomach when I opened them up, dreaming of all the creations I will make with them! I can't wait until this move is over so I can sit down and really play with all my new things! Thank you Tanis for some truly mouth-watering candy!!! :)

The New Catty Is Here!!!

Just a note to say, "Happy New Catty Day"! I actually got my complimentary copy on Tuesday, and my pre-ordered boxes arrived on Thursday. I had a New Catalog Party yesterday, and gave my stamp group their copies. Everyone was so excited to see the new catty, and at one point, the room was so silent as everyone was turning page after page. You could just see their minds working on a wish list! I showed them mine: 2 - 8 1/2x11 pages so far! There has to be over 50 stamp sets on the list, and SO many of the designer papers! I have to have all of the new In Color products (LOVE them!), and the Crop-A-Dile too!

Anyway, I've been counting down till the day, and here it is! If you go to www.stampinup.com you can now view the new catty on-line! Happy shopping! :)

My 3-D swap for Convention

As if I don't have enough to do in the next few weeks, I have joined not one, but 2 swaps for convention! One is a Wow! card swap, and the other is a 3-D item swap. I need to make 21 of each swap project, so I've got to get cracking!

Today, while my daughter was napping, I sat down and decided what to do for the 3-D swap. This is what I came up with. This little notebook measures 3"x4". I bought the Spiral punch, thinking it would really help me do these in a lot less time, with a lot less trouble. What ended up happening is this: I punched my 3"x4" piece of cardstock with the spiral punch, and it didn't line up! The holes of the notebook are closer together than I can make with the spiral punch. So I spent almost an hour trying to make that punch work for me, and in the end, ended up using a 1/8" circle punch (I don't own a small square punch) and then cutting slits to get the coils in. ARGH!!! Oh well, I figured out that spiral punch will work on a larger notebook (I measured it against another one I have that is about 6"x8"). I then went punch crazy, and decided I wanted to make "spots" out of 1/16" and 1/8" punched out holes for the giraffe. Then I used the 1/4" punch for the "NOTES" letters, and the 1/2" punch for the Celery background. Holy circles!!!

So, it took me 2 and a half hours to make this one, but now that it's done, I think it'll only take me about 20 minutes per notebook. I also want to decorate a pen to go with it, but I haven't been able to find any with clear lids that I can put paper into. I've heard of some beaded pens, so maybe I'll check out how to do those...

By the way, what do you think of the ribbon covering the coils? Too much? I can't decide. My husband says he likes it better this way, but I don't know if I should trust him (isn't that always the way? "Honey, which shirt should I wear?" "The blue one" "I think I'll wear the pink one!") Heehee! :) Tfl!