Happy December

Can you believe it's December already???? Time for shopping, wrapping, baking, Christmas cantatas, etc. etc. etc. And of course, time for Shimelle's Journal Your Christmas!!!! Have great ideas in my head, just need to sketch them so I can actually do the pages later.

Thanksgiving was a nice peaceful day---just the four of us--- and then the leftovers on Friday. On this past Monday, I had a new experience--getting a wisdom tooth which I had chipped a piece off right before CE--extracted at the oral surgeon's. Wasn't as bad as I had expected, I actually had minimual pain even after the novocaine wore off. I didn't even take any Advil. Now to make an appointment to have a crown done on the tooth next to it.

I've spent the week weaving panels for a banner I'm making for our Ladies Retreat. The theme is Tapestry of Love and I'm sort of been commissioned to create this project. I'm thrilled with the results so far! It's really "an as-you-go" piece! I promise I'll post photos when it's a little further along.

Got our Secret Santas and Secret Sisters for ScrapEtc. this week as well as signed up for the page swap. And then there's that great collection of teal/brown/pink fabrics I bought for another signature quilt. Oh the projects!!!

Had fun on Friday doing high tea at the Mulberry. Sandy had a gift certificate that had to be used so the ladies had a tea party. Love that!!

Well it seems Blogger doesn't want me to add photos just now so I'll try again tomorrow---

Time for bed--that 7am meeting comes early!!!

Enjoy,
Janet

Monday afternoon--I added the photos!

Off for a Few Days....

I'm actually off from work until Black Friday. How cool is that???? Needed to use up my last two vacation days of 2007 so I'm just trying to get a bunch of odds and ends around the house done. The list is LONG; some fun, some not so fun so I'm trying to mix it up. Spent the morning cleaning out the closet; have a whole bag of "donate" and a whole bag of "throw out". Switched the summer and winter items. And I'm working on questionaires for ScrapEtc Secret Sisters and Secret Santas. Thinking about my Shimelle "Journal Your Christmas" album. Need to start working on a tapestry/mixed media banner I've been comissioned to do for our church ladies retreat in February. Have to finish the label and mail the Pink-Green Quilt. And shop and make my contributions to the Thanksgiving feast.

I seem to be collecting quite a few of these great mannequins----it's my current obsession!

More later,

Janet

Where Did October Go????

I'm getting like everyone else......I don't seem to have any time to blog. Well,maybe if I stopped reading everyone else's and started writing!!! It's finally fall here and today I got some great shots of pumpkins at Johnson's Farm after church.

Life here is hectic.....shortstaffed at work...quality of applications not good....should be an interesting holiday season. Had semi-annual inventory a couple of weeks ago. Got all our stock of holiday CD's and DVD's on Thursday...gotta love those guys in brown!

Spent a wonderful weekend in Omaha with Becca and our girlfriends there at Crop for a Cause. Had a blast, got some cute auction items, stayed AWAY from the paper at the garage sale, and enjoyed Becca's mom's baking! And we drew the winning ticket for the Pink-Green Quilt!!!!!

Went to two marching band competitions early in the month....it's probably been 25 years since we had watched bands do their thing and alot has changed. It was lots of fun and we'll probably do it again next year. Went to the ballet twice as well...love being a city girl. And we managed to get to the King Tut exhibit before it closed at the end of September.

More later,
Enjoy!
Janet

More CE Photos

Must learn how to do photo collages--this way is annoying!!!

Enjoy!

Janet

Creative Escape 2007

What a great experience! After the nightmares with registration, buying someone else's extra seat, and the lack of advance communications the event itself was WONDERFUL!!!! It was so great to finally meet all the sisters we had come to know from the Yahoo Board and to reconnect with old friends.

Tuesday: Left home at 4:45 am for our 6:25 am flight---no problems at all and we were in Phoenix by 10 am. Picked up our car and were off shopping---first stop was a Barnes and Noble for a Phoenix area map book!!! By then we were starving and decided to check out Crackers and CO. Cafe (a Polka Dot Chicks recommend!) and then it was onto Scrapbooks Etc. to get gift cards for our secret sisters. We also visited Mystic Paper where we ran into Margie Romsey-Aslett who remembered us from CKU, and Annalis Scraptique. Had to hit Target as well for wrapping supplies and cases of water and iced tea for the week. Checked in at the hotel and eventually went out again for dinner and then just crashed out after a long day!

Wednesday: Breakfast at the hotel since we finally got "Golden Tickets" for the 9 am Bazzill Tour. Fun times on the bus with Amy T. and the campaign for Hot Totty Orange. The new Bazzill warehouse is huge and Doug Jones (Mr. Bazzill himself) showed us around. We watched them cut and package paper as well as process orders for customers. The warehouse sale was a blast! WE both filled 2 pizza boxes with card stock and I counted later--about 110 sheets a box which makes the paper about 14 cents a sheet. It was on to Scrapbooks Etc. where we did some serious shopping!!! Then back to the hotel and time for the Lazy River!!!!

Thursday: Did some shopping in the morning at Scrap Happy Sisters and stopped at Staples to run off flyers for the quilt. Registration, Technique Boutique, Trunk Show and the Welcome Reception followed. And then the Yahoo Dinner poolside at the North Pointe Pool!! I didn't win anything, but Sandy did!

Friday: Nice breakfast in the courtyard and ballrooom and off to class at 8:00AM--ROSES ROCK!!! Our first class is Tracey N. from K & Co. Love their products anyway but this creative folder/book project is AMAZING!!!! If this is the quality of the projects, OH MY!!
Lesli S. was our next class and was 5 different cards, cute but IMHO not the level of project I would have expected. After lunch we moved on to Rhonna F. and a very artsy art journal for The 21-Day Challenge. While the instructions showed lots of examples, and I will create a great book, all we did in class for the 1 3/4 hours was stamp the pages. Our final class was a layout class with Heidi Lynn. Actually it was 5 layouts and a calendar and the instructions for the remaining pages. We left early as we had a bunch of things to do and I'm not sure how I'm going to use this stuff yet! After a Mexican buffet dinner, we started on the Friday Night Extravaganza---lots of fun with all the alumni teachers from 2006! Think "Shake Up Your Style" with a twist!

Saturday: We had first period free this morning which was really nice---then we were off to soldering class with Chris R. This was actually alot of fun but definitely an acquired skill. It was great being able to try the techniques without the investment in all the tools and supplies. After lunch it was time for the Purse Album with Jennifer W. This is adorable!!!!! Not hard, nothing too unusual, got to use the new Bazzill stitching templates, just CUTE ( I see Christmas gifts!) And finally we got Heidi!!! The project, a canvas memo board, is AMAZING!!!!!!! Love IT!!! Great banquet, beautiful flowers, lots of prizes, Alison Tyler Jones as featured speaker----all just wonderful!!!

But the best parts were all the fun stuff that wasn't the classes--all the swaps, the Let's Escape sisters, Secret Sisters, the fun at meals, the WooHoo girls (LOVE the Photo Dot Chicks!), the photos with friends and the pink and green quilt. Thanks to Becca, Lisa, Nancy. Jeanette, KelliDarr and Barbara; the NY-NJ girls--Kristen, Barbara D., Susan, Cindy, Kim and Liz; my Secret Sisters Kathy and Melanie; my Let's Escape Sisters Ali and Lysa and Suzanne and Sunny; and to all the other Roses and everyone else too.

Looking forward to more RAKS, seeing lots of you at Scrap Etc in April (where the Roses will continue to ROCK) and next year at CE08!

Enjoy,

Janet

Swapps and More Swapps...

....got my Secret Sis package out last week (I'd show you one of the things I sent but I think my secret sis sometimes reads my blog) and I know that she's received it. And I'm finishing up my Let's Escape basket tonight I hope!!!! And then there's the page swapp----or in my case, the many pages swapp. I signed up for 2 double page and 2 single page sets. This way I'll have at least 30 pages ready for my CE photos!! Sounds like a project to take to Becca's crop in October! Anyway I thought I'd add some pix of my pages here---hope you like them.

More later,

Janet

Fun in Valley Forge....

..... this past Friday and Saturday we had fun at CKC (that's Creating Keepsakes Convention for you non scrapbookers). We took four cool classes on Friday during the day, went to the supermarket and bought a big "birthday cookie", went to Bennigan's at the mall for dinner and then back to the hotel where all the CE'ers were staying for our cropping party. Did I mention the wild thunderstorm in the middle of it all???? Sandy and I got drenched getting back to the car from the front door at Bennigan's. And the NY girls were stuck at Bahama Breeze--- we waited at least 45 minutes in the hotel lobby. It was about 10pm when we took over the hotel's breakfast room----pushed tables together, brought in music and food; I think there was about 18 of us in all. 10 of us are going to CE; the others are part of the Staten Island Scrapping group that some of the CE'ers belong to. They were doing the finale of their secret sisters and there were all kinds of little gifts floating about!

It was so much fun to meet all of them --Kristen, Barbara, Susan, Liz, Cindy, Kim, Megan, and Mel before we all get to AZ next month! Met Leah too but she had to go home on Friday afternoon so she couldn't party with us! As the Birthday Officers we made sure to celebrate Liz's birthday at our little party. We left about 12:15 am to drive home--fortunately it only took about 30 minutes at that time of night!

Saturday we drove back up to shop the vendor mall after scoping it out on Friday. Can't say we were overly impressed; not a whole lot of newer stuff and the prices weren't any different than what you'd normally find. But we came away with two big shopping bags of stuff we know we'll never find here at home. Lots of Rusty Pickle albums, Technique Tuesday stamp sets and some items we've been looking for for BPS classes. Unfortunately, I couldn't find any of the things I was looking for for my Let's Escape sister and nobody was carrying any Heidi stuff :-(

Came home to Mom's "Schroeder Cousins Get-Together" where we were the help. Then a full day of Sunday stuff--church, lunch at the diner, and a wedding gown fitting at my boss' house. Then spent the evening finishing my sets of pages---I went to work today for a REST!

Enjoy!!

Janet