Monday, March 31, 2008

So Much Fun....




....to spend the day with scrapping friends and support a great cause. Drove to Staten Island to the GRACE Crop for Autism and spent a wonderful day scrapping CE pictures with a gymnasium full of women scrapbooking. Great food, outstanding raffle prizes, and the chance to see a whole bunch of CE and ScrapETC peeps!!!!! Kudos to Barb and her fabulous committee for a great job!!!


We had the pleasure of sharing Table 36 with Cindy and her sister Lisa, Kim, and Chiara. And over at Table 37, the rest of the out of towners---Laurie, Sarah, Catherine, Liz, Susan, and Megan. And we can't forget the locals at #35--Kristen, Kacey, Karen, Ann Marie, and Karen F.

Can't wait to see a bunch of them again in 3 weeks! And I actually got a bunch of photos mounted on to the pages (gotta love page swaps!) and into the album.


We won three of the gift baskets we put tickets in for---a lovely collection of Making Memories embellishments, a collection of Rhonna Farrer stuff, and a SisTV gift package full of all kinds of goodies!


The pix are from Sandy's new camera---I ordered mine tonight so hopefully by the end of the week I'll be snapping away again!
Enjoy,
Janet

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Camera--less...

.... I feel SO lost without my camera in my bag. I've gotten so used to having it there whenever I want to take a photo. But as you remember from my last post, something was definitely messed up. Anything taken with the flash had a lovely glowing pink cast---not a great effect!!! So I found the instructions and reset to the factory defaults. NO better. Found a Canon users' group online, joined, and asked there. NO luck. And then I called Canon Tech support. Very helpful, they suggested resetting the defaults, and then we tried taking all the batteries and memory card out and doing a "clear the electrical" thing and reinsert all the batteries and card. NICE try but still a lovely pink glow. SO.....it needs to go to Canon Service as the sensor for the auto white balance has freaked out. So for $100 they'll fix it and send it back; the only problem is that it's a 10 to 15 business day turn time and I NEED a camera for the Grace Crop next weekend, a surprise party the following weekend, to do my ScrapETC homework and of course, for ScrapETC. SO.............I'm taking the plunge to a Digital Rebel!!! I can't see buying another point-and-shoot so we're going SLR. Just checking some final online stores for prices and then it's a go! I even bought a book today at work to start reading about the whole thing!

Enjoy,
Janet

Monday, March 10, 2008

Let them Eat Cake......




seems like a great plan to me. Tried out a recipe for Texas Sheet Cake done Mud Pie style that Heidi Swapp had on her blog in late November. Oh my heavens, it's SOOOOOOO good! There's something wonderful about baking and I have a family who loves testing the results. Another of my "50 things"---bake something every week. I have this HUGE library of baking cookbooks and I really should use them!!!!

Cut out the pieces for the signature quilt for ScrapETC yesterday. We had to hit my lqs for some more pink/brown prints and then pulled a few from the CE quilt scraps. Now to make the blocks. I do believe that tonight will be a studio night! YEA!!!

Enjoy,
Janet

Saturday, March 8, 2008

FLoWeRs!!!!

Here are some photos from our trip to the Flower Show on Tuesday. I've learned how to use Mosaic Maker (YEA!!!) Sorry the quality isn't so great; somewhere along the line the settings on my camera have gotten wonky. I have now totally reset to factory standards; unfortunately that was AFTER the flower show. The theme this year was Jazz It Up!, a nod to the city of New Orleans and its rich history and culture. The exhibits were full of color and whimsy! Instrument fountains, pianos sunk in bayous, lots of French Quarter type buildings. As they say in New Orleans, LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL!


After a day of cleaning, working on my first Jessica Sprague digital lesson, and generally bumming, we went to the ballet last night. It was a company premiere of Messiah. Yes, that Messiah---George Frederick Handel, Hallelujah Chorus, etc. etc. Absolutely amazing visual effects in addition to the great dancing and singing by a group known as the Philadelphia Kantorei. A perfect piece leading up to Palm Sunday and Easter!


Also been busy planning our trip to Nashville and working on one of my "50 Things"--making a list of all the scrapping projects/albums that need to be finished. It's very scary going back to 2002 and checking all your old CKU/CKC projects. And we found out yesterday that we can go to the Grace Crop at the end of the month!


It's raining big time here; they're calling for flooding. Oh, joy! At least it's not SNOW! Now I have to figure out what to do with the ground beef I thawed for dinner. And maybe I need to bake something..........................


Enjoy,

Janet

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Pretty Pages Go Postal !!!!

Finally, I finished 3 sets of single pages for the page swap for ScrapETC and they went postal yesterday. What a feeling of relief---all I've done for the past couple of weeks is charms and pages. Sandy and I are starting a Photoshop class online with Jessica Sprague. I'm looking forward to learning this program since we've had it on the computer for almost two years now! It goes for a month and has lessons and activities on a daily basis.





We were looking forward to going to the Grace Crop on Staten Island at the end of March but it's SOLD OUT. Great for them; bad for us. We're on the waiting list so we're hopeful. Need to see the girls before Nashville. Plus we were creating a pile of stuff for the garage sale!





Today we're off to the Philadelphia Flower Show. This is such a cool place to go especially later in the day after the tour buses go home and the crowds go down. Plus we'll have cheese steaks for dinner in the Reading Terminal Market. Love the ability to go to the city for all the great cultural activities.

Enjoy,

Janet