Stamp in Sam's Garage

Hangin' Out

2014-09-06T21:08:00.002-07:00

Last time I posted, I mentioned I'd decided to use the Gratitude for Days Simply Created Kit on page 38 of the Holiday catalog to show my 30 Days of Photos.

Here is a photo of 11 of them, hanging on the cord that comes with the kit.

And here are a couple close up and personal. See how small the pictures are on this? Way to small to really appreciate, as I stated before. But, you try stuff and you learn and then you do it again or accept that you're moving on to something new!

I have 11 days of it completed, but won't bore you with all of them. I had made the envelopes and layered the photos on to black so that they would stand out more and realized they needed some pizazz! So, I just took some of our accessories and applied on an "as needed" basis!

There was a gold star sitting around on one of the tables, and seeing it made me realize the packets needed jazzed up a bit.

On Day Two I added one of the wooden embellishments (page 46, Holiday catalog). I just used the Tombow Multipurpose Liquid Glue to adhere it.

Used another one of the wooden ornaments to showcase Smelly on Day 10.

I also used buttons and charms from the Holiday catalog. As I was looking at them just now, it occurred to me that adding some ribbon would work, too! Pretty much an empty canvas to play with!

And, here are a few more pix from my 30 day adventure.

There's the finished angel. She's cute, isn't she? Made with the Gift Bow Bigz L die and a couple of circle punches, and she's Easy Peasy!

The Potting Shed at my house. Along side the house. Believe it or not, I cleaned it off last Fall - and now it needs done again before the rains hit along about November or December. Do you think having this photo of it in front of me will motivate me to do anything about it? (grin)

Another sunset with clouds. I love the plane contrails that criss-crossed the actual clouds that night.

I'll admit, I started blowing the project off after about Day 15, but I've been working on a LOT of new projects lately, as we've been preparing for our FALL FRENZY papercrafting event on September 27th. I'm not lacking photos to finish this project. They just weren't necessarily taken on a specific day of the project! LOL

I can't give away TOO much about the projects we're planning, cuz we want the projects to be somewhat of a surprise, but maybe I'll take a few pixels from some of them and tease you with them next time I post.

If you're at all interested in attending our FALL FRENZY (and we would love it if you were!), please contact me - I'd be happy to send you the flyer and all the particulars!

Thanks for stopping by! Come back soon!

Sam

Pix Galore

2014-08-31T02:01:00.000-07:00

Last post I showed you Days 1 & 2 of my 30 Days of Photos. This post, I'll go through them faster - probably boring all of you do death - like looking at someone else's photos generally does! LOL

Isn't that funny? We take pix in order to share our adventure with others, but they really don't care, because they weren't on the adventure WITH us...

Sure, if you shared your adventure, the photos are interesting to those people - they're just something you didn't get to see from that angle, or pix taken of you that you hadn't seen as yet.

But to an outsider, those pictures don't mean a DANG thang!

Day 3:

This is the mail that's piled up on my kitchen table for about 2 weeks... About 3% of this stack is bills. About 30% are requests for money from the various (mostly animal) organizations that have my name on their list... I've already thrown out the 40% that were flyers from grocery stores and fast food places.

And the balance of it? Just junk. But it's junk with my name, address and goodness knows what else so I have to open, sort, and personally shred. Can you tell I'm not really keeping on top of that task? ha

Day 4:

The Kidz on the patio. It's rare that I can get them all gathered together at one time. I generally take lots of pix when I get that lucky! I think I'd been out watering plants before this - and they all wanted my attention, now that I was done with that task.

Day 5:

OMG! BOTH Velvet and Smudge are eating out of the "cookie dish" at the same time. That NEVER happens! Seriously - Velvet is 18 and Smudge is 8 - it's taken them 10 years to break down to eat together!

Day 6:

My Stampin' Garage. If it weren't for this place, you would have never heard of me!

I spend at least two hours of each evening out there, creating, organizing, playing with new products, brushing cats, trying to find something I JUST HAD in my grubby little paws...

If you're a crafter who is lucky enough to have a space of your own, you know full well what places like this look like - generally somewhat controlled chaos!

My stampin' studio has served me well for quite a number of years. When I started with SU, I stamped on my kitchen table. I outgrew that when I had a bunch of things that needed to sit overnight for some reason, and the only place I could find to put them up and out of the way from the dog and cats was the garage. Somehow, it just blossomed from that into having the garage be my Stampin' space.

I have 4 tables set up out there so I can do classes and stamping events. It also gives me lots of room to spread out - not sure if that's good or bad! Ha ha

Day 7:

There's ole Smelly Belly on the table in the Stampin' Garage - NEEDING to be petted... He's such a pesty nuisance, but I love him anyway! He's nice and warm to cuddle up to on a cold winter night. He ALWAYS needs to be petted, so you've always got a friend. But he also loves to sit outside the screen door at night and taunt me that he's NOT coming inside, no matter what *I* want!

Day 8:

This is part of a Christmas angel I was making using our Gift Bow Bigz L die. I'm sure somewhere I've got a photo of the finished product, but for that day, this was the photo I chose to share.

Day 9:

BEAUTIFUL CLOUDS! And the sun was setting and making such gorgeous shadows. We'd actually had rain that day or the day before, so had the treat of clouds.

Day 10:

We had monsoonal rains this day - but the rain stayed to the East of us - up in the mountains, and out in the desert. This picture was taken from the front of my house, facing East, whereas the previous one was from the back, facing West.

Day 11:

Those cats again! This time, I'd given them all a sprig of fresh catnip and they were lolling around all over the patio! And then, of course, everyone needed to be my BFF! LOL

Well, that's the photo trip for today... I have more pix on my camera to be uploaded, edited, and shared. I've also starting thinking about how I'm going to display these.

For the display I've already set up (which I'll share next time), I printed the pix out at 1.5 x 1.5 inches. WAYYYY too small for anyone to see anything.

I've already got it set up for the 30 days, and I've used the Gratitude for Days Simply Created Kit on page 38 in the Holiday catalog, so I'll go ahead and finish it so I can display at our Fall Frenzy event on September 27th ( you ARE going to join us, aren't you?).

But, for posterity's sake, I think I'm going to print them out in either 2x3 or 3x5 and put them in my Project Life binder. I may just copy the verbiage I've used on this blog to go with the pix -- or maybe change it up somewhat. I'll know when I get to that point!

So, if you were to challenge yourself to a photo a day for 30 days, what would YOU take pictures of? And how would you store them? Inquiring minds want to know...

Leave me a comment!

Thanks for stopping by - come back soon!

Photo A Day

2014-08-25T18:26:00.000-07:00

A few posts back, I mentioned that I'd wanted to do this for the month of August, but, come August 1st, I simply forgot to get it started! Maybe those lists AREN'T such a good idea if I keep forgetting to check them once in a while! hee hee

So, I started doing this on August 10th.

Wanna see a few of them?

Day1

First day of pictures = LAUNDRY drying on the line in my back yard. What could be more basic in one's life than laundry?

And, for years, I've sun dried mine. I also wash in cold water. I'm trying to minimize my impact on Mother Earth, and I hope by doing this I'm making a small difference. Besides, using the sun to dry one's clothes saves on electricity, which saves on the bill! I don't even OWN a dryer, so in the watery winter months here in SOCAL, it can get dicey to keep oneself in clean, dry clothes.

I did break down and buy a drying rack a few years ago. Had occasion to try it out during one of that year's rainy spells (we haven't had any of those lately, unfortunately!) and it didn't work out as well as I'd hoped. I put the drying rack out in the garage, where I have no insulation, and the garage door leaks a LOT of cold air in the winter. It took 2 days to dry the towels and jeans. So, the next time I had to use it, I hung those over the shower curtain rods, or put them on hangers. Helped a LOT!

Day 2

I am the Team Leader for Stampin' Up! support at the San Diego Ronald McDonald House.

Every month, on the 2nd Tuesday, I and a few fellow demonstrators go to the house with materials to make cards. The card above was what I selected to do for the August visit.

It's a very simple card, made using the Too Kind stamp set on page 149 in the annual catalog, stamped on Whisper White, layered on Crisp Cantaloupe and Real Red.

I also used "I'm so grateful" stamp from Chalk Talk (page 11 in the annual catalog). I changed it up a bit by stamping the whole thing in Basic Black, the re-stamping just the "there's you" in Real Red, which I cut out and layered over top. Makes the greeting stand out a bit more. I think this may be the first time I've ever tried this technique, although I've seen it many times.

I've been fairly faithful about the photo a day thing, BUT, I've taken a few with my cellphone and have yet to figure out how to get them from the cellphone to my computer and iPhoto! The book says uploading them should be pretty much automatic, but, apparently not at my house! LOL Probably Operator Error - that's usually the case when I can't get something to work...

Must be time to outside and sit on the patio - Smedley (AKA Smelly Belly) just jumped up on my computer desk... He NEEDS to be petted!

Thanks for stopping by - I'll post a few more pictures next time. And, hopefully by then, I'll also have the method of displaying them further along so I can show you that as well.

Come back soon, OK?

Emboss Me

2014-08-16T22:14:00.000-07:00

Do you collect things? Things like embossing powders?

I finally found a way to store them OUT, where I can see them and remember to use them.

Whaddya think about this? It's a K-cup holder that I found at a discount store. It's perfect! I have it on the shelf above my workbench, so it's handy to the heat gun and the VersaMark pad...

I've had some of my embossing powders for a long time. The oldest containers had more of a lip on the cover, which meant they wouldn't fall through the hole. On the newer ones the lid size and the container size are almost the same. So, I struggled with how to keep the newer ones from falling through.

What I ended up doing was to create "toppers" for all of them with their color names in BOLD LETTERING.

I used MDS: I created some punch shapes (if left alone, they are naturally the same size as the matching punch we sell), and filled the shapes in with the names. I printed it out on Whisper White CS, and punched the shapes. I used mini glue dots to attach to the lid.

This works for me - it's handy, people see it, and club members decide to do heat embossing more often lately.

and.............

What about washi tape? Ya got a lot of it? Wanna see an easy way to see it all without it's rolling all over the place?

How about this?

I used the Tag A Bag gift boxes (Big catalog, page 201). I stamped along the sides of the box with one of our large roller stamps (all discontinued). That's it! Put your washi tape inside, slide on the plastic cover and, if you store the box on it's side, you'll have all of them visible to you!

I had an abundance of embossing powders, so the overflow from the K-cup holder ended up in another one of the Tag A Bag boxes. These things are really handy to have around!

There are 8 of these boxes in the kit for $6.95. Big catalog, page 201.

I seem to accumulate a LOT of little items, so I'm always looking for storage possibilities that keep the items out in front of me. Outta sight, outta mind is SO TRUE for accessories.

Well, that's my share for today - hope it sparked some ideas on your end for using these little boxes - and, oh hey -- these little boxes ALSO work very nicely for gifts to others! Just tie and bow and a label and you're good to go!

Thanks for stopping by... Come back soon!

Patio Living

2014-08-07T22:58:00.001-07:00

For the past 6 weeks or so, I've been lingering longer and longer in the evening, enjoying my patio. I go out there occasionally, but not nearly as often as I have this summer.

It's been warm, not windy. It's actually been cooler out there than in the house. It's been just lovely!

I started cleaning/sweeping the patio over 4th of July weekend. While I moved, I also transpanted, snipped pieces off and re-potted some into their resident plant, others into new pots, in hopes of getting some to grow.

The photo above is what it looks like after that exercise. The plants seem to be happy, so I generally don't move them But sweeping and cleaning, sure did make the patio look more spiffy!

I still have an area under the table to do - and every night that I sit out there, I remember it needs to be done - but by that time, it's too dark to do much!

That thermometer there in this picture? It used to say Coca Cola, and I've had it for probably thirty years! The clear plastic was so badly scratched that I pulled it off - and this is STILL a better thermometer than the newer one I bought a couple of years ago. So, now I have two.

The plants in my backyard MUST thrive under neglect! It's a cardinal rule here at my house. I've been very vigilant about being out there this summer, but come fall, when the winds get chillier, it's gonna be harder to convince myself to sit out there. When I sit, I look; when I look, I envision changes...

So I've started taking my iPad out there with me - to make notes on the changes I want to make on the patio, or elsewhere in the yard.

I also make lists of other things I want to accomplish, and the steps necessary to pull them off successfully. As you can imagine, I have a LOT of lists! Too bad I forget to look at them sometimes! LOL

I guess my love of gardening transfers to my stamping, too! I'm a real FLOWER GIRL - as is evident from the cards that were made at my monthly card class a couple of months ago. It's really difficult for me to step out of my comfort zone and NOT make cards using flowers.

The stamp sets using flowers are always the ones that appeal to me first, so I indulge myself - a lot!

Next on the agenda - some of the sets that DON'T contain flowers! But Christmas is coming, and so is the Holiday catalog. So, maybe I'll go off on a Christmas/Thanksgiving/Halloween tangent instead.

In fact, I just got my big pre-order from the Holiday catalog today, so you can bet I'll be playing with my new toys! Will post some pix next week, after Stamp Club and a meeting with some of my fellow demonstrators for the Fall Frenzy paper crafting event we plan to hold on September 27th - SAVE THE DATE!

I just re-read my last blog post and guess what? I FORGOT ABOUT MY PICTURE EACH DAY plan. So, here it is, August 7th. Should I cheat and go take pictures for 1-7 to catch up or wait until September and just start fresh? Whaddya think?

Thanks for stopping by... Come back soon!

Back Again...

2014-07-30T01:14:00.001-07:00

Hi Everyone!

It's been almost a year since I posted anything to this blog. Not sure where the time went, but it has passed. It hasn't been totally uneventful, but can't say it has had a lot of highlights, either.

I think that's what most of life is like. Not uneventful, but with a few highlights here and there.

I've followed a number of blogs over the years, and find that I continue to follow those who inject a lot of their own personality into their blogs. So, as I start this blog up again, expect some stamping, techniques, photography, gardening, and other things that I may be involved in.

I want to do the Photo A Day idea in August, so I'll have those to post. I think I'll also include a little info about why I chose to make that particular object(s) the photo of the day. I then plan to use Project Life with Stampin' Up! products in my 6x8 memory book. That way, I can print the photos either large or small and have some limited space for journaling why I took that particular photo.

In the meantime, I'll post a few cards and other items I've been creating out in my Stampin' Garage. It's what keeps me happy being a demonstrator -- the creative outlet it provides with all the tools: stamps, inks, paper, kits, tools, etc.

Oh, and I can't forget Paper Pumpkin!

About 6 months ago, my creative juices seemed to have dried up. I had about 4 of the Paper Pumpkin kits sitting around, and decided since I didn't have any projects in mind, I might as well put one or two of these together.

And what happened when I opened those boxes? I started playing with the "guts" and suddenly, I wanted to make changes to the ideas included in the box, and voila! The creative juices started flowing again.

Are you stuck, creatively? Well, give Paper Pumpkin a try! And from now until September 10, 2014, you can sign up for two months and pay for ONLY ONE! This is our way of convincing you to try it!

Go HERE to sign up! Use the code HALFOFF2 and give your credit card information, and sit back and wait for it to arrive in your MAILBOX! Ships around the 15th of each month. And the best part for me? It's a SURPRISE!

After the first two months, the price will revert to $19.95 each month. You don't need to do anything! Your subscription will continue to automatically ship to you each month.

If you want or need to, you can skip a month, simply by returning to the site and selecting the option you want. And once you've gotten your first two Red Boxes with Paper Pumpkin, you can subscribe in 3, 6, and 1 year increments if you'd like.

Want to see a couple of them? Here ya go!

The pinwheels were the kit for June. My friend, Del, just pumped it up a bit by adding some flowers in red, white & blue, along with a few firecrackers. She did an awesome job, didn't she?

Thanks for stopping by - I hope you'll come back and visit again soon!

Velvet

2013-08-20T14:04:00.000-07:00

Velvet sitting on the settee in the back yard. She looks a lot like Grumpy Cat, doesn't she? Notice the one white whisker on the right?

I had a Friend request the other day from an old school mate of mine from University of Phoenix (hi Katrina!). What a pleasant surprise!

Now, that's probably an every day occurrence for you, if you're on Facebook. And while I get a number of Friend requests, this one was special.

First of all, Katrina lives (I think!) in the UK. She lived here in the U.S. when I met her, and we spent many an hour in classes and study groups, so I had the opportunity to get to know her fairly well.

But the best part of getting to know Katrina was that she had a purebred black Persian cat. If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know my cats are my Kidz.

Katrina's cat got out one day when she was in heat, and as a result, there was a litter of 6 or 7 kittens born. All but one were black, like Mom. The outlier was gray.

I had just lost my black Persian cat of 22 years, Dusto, so when the kittens were born, I told Katrina I'd take one of them, as long as they didn't have the smished in face that's indicative of purebred Persians. As it turned out, they didn't.

So, for my birthday that year (1998), I got Velvet!

I don't have any digital photos of her when she was that small, but over the years, I've taken a number of them. After cats get to the age of about 2, they're pretty boring photo ops... They tend to just sit still, OR, move at such high rates of speed that it's difficult to get a good picture.

So, just for you, Katrina, here are some photos of Velvet in the past 5-6 years!

On the patio.

Sitting in the backyard - must be spring - there's green grass growing!

Another one where she looks like Grumpy Cat. Must be winter - she's got a LOT of fur!

Out in my Stampin' Garage.

Another in the Stampin' Garage. Another Grumpy Cat look.

Out on the patio, enjoying herself.

Checking out the patio furniture pads, just before they were replaced with some newer, prettier ones.

In the hallway, with her younger brother (Smedley - gray) and sister (Smudge - black). A rare photo when I can get them all to sit still at the same time!

Velvet's still my favorite (but don't tell the other two!) and the smallest of the lot. She weighs about 6 pounds... Her sister, Smudge, on the other hand weighs about 13 pounds!

One of these days, I'll feature Smedley (AKA Melie) and Smudge (AKA Mudge) with their own posts, but for today, Velvet gets to be the star!

Thanks for indulging me in my trip down memory lane with Velvet. She's been a joy to have in my life!

Come back soon!

Memories...

2013-08-04T14:02:00.000-07:00

Stampin' Up!'s convention this year celebrated 25 years of FUN! I've been a demonstrator since 1991, so I've been able to celebrate over 23 years with them. And it's been FUN, FUN, FUN!

In my last post, I shared the beginnings of my SU journey with you - I still have more pix from my This & That "Stampin' Up! Journey" to share with you, but in today's posts I wanted to bring back memories that MANY of you can share with me - some of our STAMPS!

There was a display at convention that showed ALL the covers from our 25 catalogs, along with photos of Shelli & Family, AND, STAMPS! I did not take the time to photo the covers, since I have most of them - but I WISH I'd photographed the first catalog - it's the only one I don't still have. I threw it away! NOOOOOOO --- yes. Still kicking myself for that one!

So, here are the stamps that they had in the display. What do you think? How many of these stamps do YOU remember?

Bow Wow - my favorite dog stamp EVER!

BUTTON BEAR! We had him around for a very long time...


Don't remember the name of the set, but I do remember the gecko!

Another one I don't remember the name of, but I did love this stamp!

Think this one was called Prancer. He was a very cool stamp to use on Christmas cards, since he was so simple!

We had three different sets in this style, and I still have all three of them! Most of the sets featured women.

Stella Stamper! Still have her and her accompanying pieces and parts. I have one DL who asks me EVERY YEAR if I'm going to sell her - NO WAY! She's going with me when I leave this earth! Ha ha.

This one's fairly recent, but I still love it!

This was Dee Greunig in caricature. She demonstrated at our first conventions. What a creative soul! I learned a LOT about stamping from her.

The TRUCK! I was amazed at how many of my customers purchased this, who I'd have NEVER thought would be interested in it.

Loved this gardening image - you could color or just leave as it is.

Another favorite Christmas image - but it was also good for later in the winter.

The HEDGEHOGS! Always loved them - they were so cute! We need them back, don't you think?

Another garden vignette - this one was fun to color! I think it was one of our first single stamps after we went exclusive.

Our stained glass set. This was my favorite from the set. So pretty when stamped on vellum and colored on the reverse side, then added as a window to the card.

Another garden image. I used this one quite a bit, as well.

So - what did you think of our trip down Memory Lane? How many of these stamps did YOU have? Leave me a comment and let me know!

Thanks for stopping by - come back soon!

My Stampin' Up! Journey

2013-06-03T00:04:00.001-07:00

If you've followed me for any length of time, you know I've been a Stampin' Up! demonstrator for a LOOOONNNGGG time - I started on January 31, 1991!

Over the years, as I've sorted thru the "stuff" I've accummulated, I've saved a few things (ahem!), with the idea of making a scrapbook for all of it at some point in time...

When I got my This & That Bundle in April, (it came with the Designer Series Paper, the die cut adhesives, the MDS download, and the date stamp) I decided THIS would be my scrap book, documenting my Stampin' Up! Journey.

Here's the cover... I used quite a few of the elements from MDS for it. The cool thing about MDS is that you can CHANGE THE SIZE of the item, and then print it out on your computer.

I struggled with the "JOURNEY" portion - I originally had it the size it prints and filled in the letters in a size 12 font. After I adhered it to the front, I decided it was way too small! So, back to the drawing board... This time I enlarged the pennants and used something like a 24 font. I'm happier with it now.

I also covered some of the cover with DSP, then added the "True Story" and the "Rewind" items printed out much larger than the sticker versions.

Then I used the Top Note punch from MDS, enlarged it, and filled it with Calypso Coral CS. I added some verbiage, printed it and hand cut it. It was too large to use the matching framelit...

I have, at this point, left the inside two pages blank, choosing instead to go to the page AFTER the pocket (love those pockets! They'll be stuffed soon!).

A few years ago, I sat down and wrote out "my story" for another event, so I just copied and pasted it into a page in MDS. I used the Calypso Coral CS as the background, lightening the opacity of it, since I knew it would readily match all the pages in the smash book, which meant I could plop it down on any of the pages with little worry...

Notice the difference in hue between Calypso Coral on this page versus how it looked on my cover? That's another cool thing about MDS - you can lighten almost everything to give it a somewhat "washed out" look, if you're of a mind to...

These two pages are photos of one of the first Conventions I attended as a demonstrator. If you look closely, there's Shelli on the left side of the lefthand photo, with LaVonne right beside her. There are several people in this picture that are still SU demonstrators, as well! I can pick out Carol Bartle, and Denise Jorgenson for sure. I guess we could consider ourselves "lifers"! LOL

Shelli's also on the left of the the topmost photo on the right, along with LaVonne and someone I don't know. And in the bottom photo, there are Shelli & LaVonne again.

While there's always a theme for convention, back in those days the themes were geared more to fantasy - the theme for this convention was "At The Hop". We were all encouraged to dress up to fit the theme - and a lot of people did. Made it a lot of fun.

Of course, there were a lot FEWER people at convention in those days! I think there might have been 100-150 people at the first one I attended in 1991. And I knew none of them! "At The Hop" was held in 1994, so I'm sure we had about 300 people there by then.

In the beginning of my journey, all conventions were held in Las Vegas, since Shelli & LaVonne lived in Boulder City, NV at the time. I sure do miss going to Vegas for convention every year these days! Maybe one year soon, we'll get to return...

Have you gotten the This & That smash books and all the goodies? If you have, what are you doing with yours? Inquiring minds want to know...

I'll show you more of My SU Journey next time, so be sure to come back and visit!

Thanks for stopping by...

SPRING in Salt Lake...

2013-04-28T00:12:00.000-07:00

Aren't they beautiful!!? In Pennsylvania, we call this bush Forsythia. Apparently, in North Carolina, however, they're called yellow bell bushes. At least according to Sharon and Karen...

Patti, Sharon, Karen and I attended the Regional in Salt Lake last weekend. We got to see the new catalog AND purchase items from the Sneak Peek!

The Regional was great, as always - and was held in the picking area of Stampin' Up!s Distribution center - what fun!

We had Shelli all to ourselves! All 375 of us...

And what are we celebrating thoughout 2013?

Yep, making a difference for 25 years!

I can vouch for Stampin' Up!'s having made a difference in MY life! It's been a creative journey I would never have imagined for myself 23 years ago - but what FUN!

But I'm getting away from the title of today's blog entry - SPRING!

Most of the plants I took photos of do not do well in Southern California - but they are plants I grew up with in PA, so I had a blast taking pictures and trying to remember what their names are...

First of all - snow in the mountains! It was beautiful all around us, since Salt Lake is in a valley between two mountain ranges...

Can't forget trees with blossoms - I THINK this is a flowering plum...

And tulips!

And LILACS!

This is one of my favorite bushes and they just don't do well where I live in San Diego... We had three or four lilacs in our yard when I grew up and I STILL love the smell of them...

The gals at the hotel told us this was a flowering plum. Quite beautiful in person!

And I can't forget the fun we had while we ate and gabbed!

The REQUIRED visit to Olive Garden! Sharon and Patti here...

And our step out of our normal box - T G I Fridays...

We had a BLAST! Thanks Stampin' Up! for giving us a "getaway weekend" to do something we love!

What? OH - new product? Yep, we got some... New catalog? Yep, we got one...

BUT - I can't show it to you just yet! I know - what a tease, huh?

You're just going to have to be satisfied with SPRING in Salt Lake for this blog post... I'm working on my This And That journal and making it "My Stampin' Up! Journey" - so next time, I'll show you some of what I've been doing with that...

Thanks for stopping by - come back soon!

My WORD!

2013-04-03T16:47:00.000-07:00

Around the first of the year, I saw several people posting on Facebook that, instead of choosing to make a resolution this year, they were, instead, going to select a word for the year that meant something to them and which they could use all year.

The idea appealed to me!

I spent an hour or so talking to my friend Susan about what word to select... I am, and always have been, a procrastinator. There, I said it out loud!

Many of my friends will attest to this (yes, I know you're laughing!)...

So, my thought was that I needed to tackle this habit and see what, if anything I could do to change it.

As Susan and I putzed around on the Internet, we found there really ISN'T an antonym for the word "procrastination".

So, what to do, what to do?

We ran across an article that, among other things, suggested the word ALACRITY.

OK, but what does it mean? Well, here's the definition I found that was the most succinct:

ALACRITY:
liveliness; promptness

Synonyms: alertness, avidity, briskness, cheerfulness, dispatch, eagerness, enthusiasm, expedition, fervor, gaiety, hilarity, joyousness, promptitude, quickness, readiness, speed, sprightliness, willingness, zeal

So, I decided that will be my word for the year...

Now, remember, this is something I'm WORKING on, OK - not something I've yet accomplished!

So, I decided I needed to make a banner with this word on it and hang it in my Stampin' Garage as a reminder that I'm still a Work In Progress (WIP)...

I finally finished it about 2 weeks ago and hung it above the door going from the Stampin' Garage into the house.

Wanna see it?

Yeh, I know you can see all my laundry products as well, but, hey, they've been there for 25 years, so they must work there!

Here are individual pictures of each of the letters in the banner. I spent a lot of time creating this, investing myself into it, in hopes some of its meaning would rub off on me! And I'm very pleased with the outcome!

Something else we learned as we surfed the Web - (Susan and I are both very alike in our procrastination habit!) - some people, rather than being procrastinators are INCUBATORS...

Meaning, they THINK about what they want to do and how to do it, but never put "pen to paper" (if you will) until the last minute because they're creating it in their mind, first... And, at the last minute, because they've created it in their mind, it's no big deal to finish and be very happy with the results!

We both decided we liked that word instead of procrastinator! LOL

So - are you a procrastinator? Or are you one of those people who pack in January for a trip in July? I have at least one friend who is like that (Hi Roxy!) and she just doesn't "get it" that Susan and I wait til the last minute to do things like pack bags and make swaps and make plane reservations...

But, even though we wait til the last minute, somehow we get 'er done! And sometimes, because we've waited, we get better prices on things than if we'd done it several months before!

Taking a vote here - do you procrastinate? Leave me a comment!

Thanks for stopping by - come back soon!

Mob Museum - Las Vegas!

2013-03-31T14:52:00.000-07:00

When we went to St. George for my upline's event in March, Susan and I also took a day to visit the Mob Museum in downtown Las Vegas...

FASCINATING!

Here we are as we entered the museum...

Before you even start your "tour", you have to go through the line up. We had a museum guard take our photo...

Book 'em, Danno!

And I just noticed we have the same number - maybe that's good? They'll get confused as to which of us they really want?

Here are Susan and I in the "Hot Seat".

Of course, it wasn't really hooked up to anything, but sitting in it was a little freaky...

There was SO MUCH INFORMATION in this place - interactive, hands-on, written, videos, lots of photos...

This is the most fascinating museum I've been to in a long time. I LOVE museums! So much to learn in each and every one of them!

It took us SIX HOURS to tour this museum - but worth every minute! If you're ever in Las Vegas and want something to do other than casinos, gambling, shows, etc, check it out. Senior rate was about $15 as I recall - and believe me, I can blow $15 on a slot machine (a penny one at that!) in about 5 minutes! So, SO worth the money.

And the museum is about a block away from Fremont Street and the Fremont St. Experience. By the time we'd finished, it was dark and the Experience was going full blast! We saw some psychedelic music from the 70's and some Heart from the 80's while we hung out for a while.

A fun day in Vegas!

Thanks for stopping by - come back again soon!

It's Spring!

2013-03-29T00:54:00.000-07:00

I've been a little under the weather for the past week... Not sure if it's "the flu" or allergies, but whatever, I have spent almost NO time outside - and the weather has been beautiful!

The other day, I happened to go outside for some reason and look what I found!

Aren't they beautiful? Cymbidium orchids!

I have several - they tend to do really well on my patio, and if something does well (i.e. thrives from neglect!), then I tend to gather more of them.

And why not? Why would I NOT have more of these if they're very little work for the beautiful output!

Here's another view:

This shows their colors a little better...

I also have a lot of California poppies blooming right now, along with some roses and some geraniums... Those California poppies have planted themselves all through my "yard" (which is 99.9% WEEDS!) and I need to mow those weeds down - but in doing that, I'll also be mowing down the CA poppies - what a dilemma!

I have transplanted quite a few back into the flower bed, and I've given quite a few that I dug out of the yard away, but I've still got TONS of them! I LOVE IT!

When I first planted that flower bed about 20 years ago, I struggled to get the CA poppies to grow - I laugh now when I think of that. No problem these days!

Hope you've got spring where you live - has to be one of my favorite seasons!

I'm supposed to get my new This N That Smash book kit tomorrow - can't WAIT to play! Once I get a little bit going in it, I'll post some pictures!

Have you thought about purchasing this kit? It's a Sneak Peek from the new catalog, which will be released to you June 1st. Want to get something from it sooner?

Contact me if you do! Maybe we can compare photos of the progress we've made with our This N That Smash book kits...

Thanks for stopping by - come back soon!

Jill's StampAThon

2013-03-26T17:16:00.000-07:00

About a month ago 3 of my downline and myself made the trek up to St. George, UT to MY upline's annual stamping event. It's always fun, and we always get so many great ideas to bring back and share with everyone. We look forward to it every year as our "Girl's Weekend".

While we were there, I realized that we had SIX generations of Stampin' Up! demonstrators in attendance, so Jill had her daughter, Jenn, take a photo of all of us...

Here we are, from left to right:
Colleen, who is Roxy's DL,
Roxy, who is Susan's DL,
Susan, who is MY DL,
Me, who is Jill's DL,
Jill, who is my UPLINE, and
Janet, who is Jill's Upline!

It's a great picture of all six of us!

Before we left St. George, we HAD to go to the Cracker Barrel - not to eat, mind you, but to purchase SHIRTS! They have the BEST shirts there, and I try to stock up when we're there.

And while we were there, I found these two old geezers playing checkers outside on the front porch! They looked like they were really "into" the game! Not sure who won...

Since Stampin' Up! announced the GREAT FABRIC SALE this week (just about ALL of our fabrics are on sale for 50%!!!!), I thought I'd share some of the projects made from fabric that Jill had on display.

You may remember, she's a quilter and has been going crazy with SU fabric since it was introduced several years ago.

A dish towel and some pot holders. They would totally fit into my kitchen, which I decorated with cherries and roosters! Should have tried to convince her I NEEDED them! Ha ha

A onesie and several purses. I did get one like the smaller one on the right.

Another set of dish towel and pot holder. I'm not sure I'd have ever made either of these with this fabric, but they sure came out cute!

So - do you need some fabulous fabric - at 50% off? Our fabric comes three designs to a package and all three designs are "fat quarters". Haven't purchased one yet that I don't like. AND, it's good quality fabric - straight bias, which, if you sew, you know is important.

Contact me before March 31, 2013 if you'd like to purchase some! Sure can't beat the price!

Website: http://www.stampinup.com/ECWeb/default.aspx?categoryid=560

Phone: 858-271-1924

Thanks for stopping by - come back soon!

Here's what THEY did!

2013-03-23T21:59:00.000-07:00

Ok - in the last post I showed you some of the dresses *I* made using the Dress Up framelits - and I mentioned I had a BLAST playing with all the DSP.

So I decided I'd give my Stamp club ladies the opportunity to "play paper dolls" at their February meeting - and they LOVED it!

Some of them didn't leave until 4 PM - and we start club at 10 AM...

So... wanna see what they did?

Here ya go...

This was clever - top from one DSP, bottom from another.

Scallop punch makes the apron for this one.

The heart is a piece of the Artisan's Embellishment Kit.

Another piece of DSP makes the apron on this one.

Bottle cap for a belt buckle!

Scallop punch again...

Lace and a button!

This was Linda's idea of Beaver Cleaver's mom's dress.

The "Little Black Dress"


All dressed up with glitz and glitter!

So, there are a few - everyone made 4 or 5, and I tried to photograph them, but obviously I didn't get them all. And, a few of them took them home to play with there.

As you can see, we used a LOT of different embellishments to make these dresses - but we all had so much FUN!

Do you need to order the Dress Up framelit so YOU can play "paper dolls"? Give me a holler to my email (stampinsamsgarage@gmail.com) or go to my website and place your on-line order.

Thanks for stopping by! Come back again, soon!

Say Yes to the Dress

2013-03-20T00:23:00.000-07:00

I've been having an absolute BLAST playing paper dolls with the new dress form framelit!

I'd seen a couple of posts on others' blogs and got out my framelit and and a LOT of DSP and started cutting!

And then I started decorating! It was so addicting!!!

Look!

Here's my first piece of art! Found the frame at a big box store on sale for $5. I didn't even take whatever was in it out - I just layered my art over top. Guess I COULD have taken off the corner protectors before I snapped the photo, though, huh?

Here's a close up of several of the dresses.

Decorating them was SUCH FUN! I used narrow ribbon, the new Delicate Details Lace Tape as an apron on one, and one of the doilies as an apron on another, added one of our wonderful new lace flowers on another, and a piece of the Embellishments kits to another. There are just TONS of possibilities, once you get started with all of our embellishments!

I put these dresses up on a pedestal! The holders were really easy to make - a spool, a small wooden block and a piece of CS cut using the dual square die. Then I glued a skewer to the back of the decorated dress form, and VOILA! We have a dress display!

Here's a close up of my pedestal. It's really quite small, but I didn't think to put something into the picture to give you some sense of size. Well, yes, I did - that square scallop is 2 inches square.

Next post I'll show you what my stamp club ladies did with the dress framelits - these ladies are AMAZING!

Thanks for stopping by - come back soon!

And finally - The End!

2013-03-14T17:46:00.003-07:00

Here are the last three months' photos from the family calendar. Next post will be something else, I promise!

For some reason, I can't access the bottom of this post so will say (right here) Thanks for stopping by - come back soon!

My brother found these on Ancestry.com! Guess one of my aunt's relatives posted them, but I didn't recognize the name he supplied. Anyway, that's my Grandfather top left; my Uncle Bob middle left, Uncle Bill top right; my mom in the center, and my Aunt Jeannie bottom left. I TRIED to draw a family tree for my nephews, who never met any of these people - it was pretty lame! LOL So I did one in Word and sent it along with the calendars.

Jim & Laurel like to do cruises, so these are photos from at least one of their cruises last year.

Photos of my nephew Jon - first one in Brazil, the other two in Philadelphia when he ran a marathon this past year. In the top one he's posing with the Rocky Balboa statue. He's big into marathons, so I generally have at least one photo of him finishing one. Wish I liked to run! But I do NOT!

7, 8, and 9

2013-03-10T17:51:00.000-07:00

Here are three more calendar pages.... Then 3 more after that - and then we can move on to something else. I've been playing with the dress framelits and have made some REALLY cute dresses - I'll show them to you soon, I promise!


Brother Jim and all his silliness at Walt Disney World during their family vacation last June. It was great to have enough pics of him for a whole page.


The Princesses "doing tea" with Prince William and Princess Kate; in front of Sleeping Beauty's castle; posing with a fairy at WDW; the whole fam-damily posing in WDW; Maurgen (in orange leg warmers) during her middle school's production of "Fame".

Maurgen & Zoe in their hats at Disney World; the whole fam-damily sporting their rain gear at some point while there (it's Florida! It rains!); riding a roller coaster; Zoe, on several occasions, espressing herself!

Most of my pages were made by printing the photos in 2 x 3 sizes. In some instances I was able to punch out 1-3/8 squares that were the focus of the picture. After I placed all the photos, I started embelling with 3-D effects of some sort.

As I mentioned earlier, last year I did the whole calendar using My Digital Studio (MDS). It came out beautifully, but I wasn't happy with how flat everything looked, doing it that way. I LIKE having the 3-D effect - so I elected to put a little more work into it this year and add things like the ticket punches, mouse ears (a punch I'd bought YEARS ago!), scrunched up tags and logos of the places we'd been.

I went on-line and looked up the various places we'd all been and copied the logos into a Word document . Then I printed those out and then trimmed them to fit the pages. Helped give the pictures more of a feel of the places we'd been.

Thanks for stopping by - come back again soon!

More Calendar Pages and the Mob Museum

2013-03-07T18:31:00.001-08:00

Sorry I've been MIA - went to my upline Jill's stamping event in St. George, UT this past weekend, and of course, it wasn't just for one day!

Several of my downline live in Pahrump, NV, so that's always the first place we go - it's a little more than half way to St. George and room and board are very reasonable! Besides, they were going with us, so we had to stop... Ha ha

After Jill's event, we drove back to Pahrump, and the next day Susan and I went in to Las Vegas to go to the Mob Museum (downtown). It's FASCINATING! It took us 6 hours to get through it, and by the end, I'm sure we weren't really retaining anything we were reading. Great museum - interactive displays, lots of photos, some film clips... If you're at all familiar with the Mob's past, it was basically Prohibition that created their syndicates. They were running booze (while it was illegal to do so, thanks to Prohibition) and developed their syndicate initially to accommodate that. They have just branched out in to other avenues since then.

During the Kefauver hearings (mid 1950's) one of the hearings was held in Las Vegas, and the actual courtroom the hearing was held in is part of the museum. We got to see and hear photos and dialog from the hearing. They also had the actual wall where the Valentine's Massacre occurred many years before that in Chicago.

Just a fascinating place - you NEED to visit it one of these days!

Oh yeh - there are supposed to be photos of stamped items here, aren't there?

OK - here ya go... more calendar pages...

Jim, Laurel, & I in Old Town San Diego; Jim & Laurel at the Fish House at the Embarcadero to help me celebrate my birthday; the last two photos were taken in Balboa Park near the water lily pond.

Jim had requested we go to Croce's - he's a big fan of Jim Croce. We had brunch there - nice quiet little restaurant in the Gaslamp Quarter in San Diego. The other two photos are from Safari Park, which is a branch of the San Diego Zoo.

Laurel and her sister, Cathy, at dinner somewhere up around San Jose; Cathy, Laurel & Jim in San Jose; Jim with a huge cannon in San Juan, P.R. during one of their cruises last year; Laurel and the grand daughters (Maurgen & Zoe) out and about enjoying nature.

We made a lot of cards and other things at Jill's - I'll take pictures and post them soon. Next time will be more calendar pages - still have 6 to show you!

Hope you enjoyed seeing how I do my family calendar. Would love to see yours! Just add a link to your photos or blog, if you're willing to share with us!

Thanks for stopping by - come back soon...

Calendar Girls

2013-02-22T19:27:00.000-08:00

There are Katie & I at Convention last July; Meaghan, Robin & Caitee at my birthday party in October; another picture of some of my friends at my birthday party in October. I also had a pinata (never had one before, decided it was a MUST for this birthday) but I'm not sure I got any good photos of that little event...

Here is one of the 12 photo pages I made for this year's Family Calendar. I'll show you a couple more in today's post, with others to follow soon.

This year I had WAAAYYY too many photos to choose from! Not complaining, but it makes it harder to choose which to feature!

I generally divide the pages up amongst the whole family. And I usually have a lot of pictures of my great-nieces, so they get the majority of the pages!

Not this year! I was a piggy and put myself into a LOT of the pages.

Photos from 2012 convention! Top picture: 5 generations of Stampin' Up! demonstrators at convention! I'm sure it's not a first overall, but it WAS a first for me and my downline. Middle picture: Standing on the red carpet - all in the photo are either in my downline or live in San Diego. Bottom photo: Our traditional dinner at Olive Garden! It's a MUST while we're at convention!

And, of COURSE, I have to feature my babies on the calendar somewhere!

That's Smudge in the upper left corner, Velvet in the upper right corner. Smedley (Melie) is in the lower left and, ta da! A picture of all three of them! That's such a rare occasion, I always take a picture!

My brother and sister-in-law came to California to visit this year, so I was able to get more pix with more of the family in them. And they'd taken THEIR family to Walt Disney World for a vacation, so, again, I got lots of pictures with multiple arms of the family all together!

Stay tuned for more calendar pages!

Do you do a family calendar of some sort? If so, would you be willing to share with myself and my blog readers? Send me a link to your calendars in the Comments section - would love to see what you do and get some new ideas!

Thanks for stopping by... come back soon!

A Valentine's Card

2013-02-11T00:24:00.001-08:00

Here's a valentine card I made a couple of weeks ago for my club ladies to reproduce if they wanted to. Several of them did, but I didn't take pix! My bad... cuz they always make improvements on my ideas!

I used Primrose Petals CS for the base and then the heart was punched out by bottoming the punch out on the CS. I stamped one of the hearts from the Hearts A Flutter set using Primrose Petals ink on the card front. I really like a tone-on-tone effect and it's easily accomplished with Stampin' Up! ink and card stocks, since they're color coordinated!

The LOVE ticket is from the Artisan Embellishment Kit. There are 5 tickets in it, so you can make five Valentines with each kit! There are a couple of small pieces of the doily from the Artisan kit buried in there, as well.

I inked the Pennant stamps from the Hearts A Flutter Framelits set with Primrose Petals ink on Very Vanilla CS.

The gals who made this card at club hung the pennants from the top of the card using baker's twine and it was very cute! When I make another (and I will) I think I'll steal their idea! Gotta love the ability to copy someone else's great idea!

Here's the inside of the card.

I cut the lace heart using the Hearts Aflutter Framelits, as well, and then positioned it thru the heart punched in the front of the card. The doily is from the Delicate Doilies set, and the verse is from the You Are Loved set.

Isn't it wonderful how you can pick and choose stamps from different sets and mix and match them? I think that's a real strong suit of Stampin' Up's!

I had found these heart shaped Dove candies and thought this was a great idea for giving one to a friend!

Of course, this would be very difficult to mail, so maybe this one should be saved for those hand delivered cards this year...

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Have I mentioned our SINGLE IMAGE stamps that we are carrying now? These were introduced last fall and were a hit, so SU had come up with two additional offers.

I THINK this link (and the following one) will take you to the flyer showing the images - first time to try it! Guess we'll find out!

Single Images #3

Single Images # 4

Most of these images are brand new and all are available until March 31, 2013 ONLY! Contact me to order, or order on-line thru my website HERE - be sure to select me as your demonstrator, OK?

Thanks for stopping by - be sure and come back!

LOVE You More...

2013-01-28T23:55:00.000-08:00

Here's another version of the LOVE banner I made.

When I saw Janet's post, I wasn't sure which size scallop square she'd used, so I cut one from the 4x4" die (retired) and another from the Two Scallops Bigz die.

After making the one I showed here, I decided to finish the 4x4 one.

I could use the larger letters (I'd cut some for something else, which I'll share another time, so had a couple lying around to try) and cut the DSP to a larger size!

I also used the Tea for Two DSP this time around - after all, LOVE isn't just for Valentine's Day!

You can also see last year's banner hanging below the LOVE banner - I cut a lot of hearts out of First Edition DSP for that one and decorated...

But back to the 2013 version!

Here are the individual pieces:

I used the doily Sizzlet for the silver glimmer scallop. But punching out all those little pieces wasa lot of work! I probably wouldn't do it again unless I had a LOT of patience!

I used the Silver Glimmer paper and the heart punch for this one. Also used a pink marker to color the 5/8" flower trim piece - LOVE those flowers!

That doily again - only about 1/2 is punched out - I gave up!

Same scallop made from Silver glimmer paper - notice NONE of the holes are punched out?

This version was too large to hang down, so I punched holes in all the pieces at once, using my Crop-a-dile and then threaded it on to Cherry Cobbler seam binding.

I think I like this one better - what do you think?
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I wanted to remind you about The Paper Pumpkin - a monthly subscription to receiving all kinds of wonderful surprises in the mail - all oriented around Papercrafting!

Do you like surprises?

Well, this is the item for you!

It's a Magical Paper Escape Every Month!

Sweep away the mundane-your creativity carriage awaits!

I'm Paper Pumpkin . . .
I come to your door each month (a fully decked-out creativity carriage). I'll help you to escape your life with some paper fun.
I come in a sweet box, but you'll really love what you find on the inside:
All the stamps, ink, paper, and accessories to create pinable projects. Create stuff like cards, journals, décor, and more!
Paper Pumpkin by Stampin' Up! is a new monthly kit program that anyone (even you) can enjoy!

Just click on the here and follow the link for more information!

I have the Try It kit - it's really cute! I'll put it together and feature it on my blog one of these days.

Thanks for stopping by - come back soon!

LOVE You!

2013-01-22T10:07:00.000-08:00

Isn't this CUTE?

I CASEd it from Janet Baker's blog (Thanks, sweetie!)

As soon as I saw it, I knew I needed to share it! So, I had my stamp club ladies make it on Saturday, and then my Team Members made it last night.

Of course, everyone changed it up a bit to make it "theirs"! Which is fine with me - that means that, over the years, somehow either Stampin' Up! or me has generated creative juices these ladies are now USING!

Want to see it a little closer?

Here ya go...

I used the larger of the two squares on the Scallops Square Duo Bigz die to cut the Basic Gray CS, then embellished with 2-3/4 x 2-3/4 pieces of More Amore DSP. Then the 1-3/4 scallop punch was used on the Silver Glimmer paper. Those were topped with circles cut from More Amore DSP. I added one of those wonderful flowers from the 5/8" Flower Trim, which I colored with a marker.

Finally, the LV & E were cut using the Timeless Type Alphabet Junior Sizzlets, which I just discovered has been discontinued (sigh...). Well, size-wise, these worked fantastically, so we used them! No sense letting them lollygag in the Stampin' Garage and not see the light of day!

And, speaking of love, here's something else I love!

Yep, that's my Velvet. She was sitting on the end of one of the tables in my Stampin' Garage the other day and I actually got a great photo of her!

OH - DON'T FORGET! SALE-A-BRATION (SAB) is ON, starting TODAY! Call or email with a $50 product order and YOU can select an item from the SAB brochure for FREE! Doesn't get better than that!

I Must Be MAD!

2013-01-18T18:23:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I stopped by one of the big box electronic stores to LOOK AT a new phone.

The one I have had for 2 years is a flip phone. At the time I bought it, it was "the bomb".

Well, times change, things move forward, and I'm still sitting still, apparently! Cuz everyone I know texts now - and let me tell you, texting with that flip phone (just number keypads, remember?) is HARD!

So, after asking a lot of questions about monthly plan costs and going into "sticker shock" over the past week, I finally decided I needed to be pulled KICKING AND SCREAMING ALL THE WAY into the 21st Century.

So, after I looked and talked to the sales clerk, who was VERY patient with me and another lady about my age who was there with her daughter and grandchildren, I came home to cogitate...

I know I'm going to need a new computer this year. Mine is 7 years old, the RAM can't be upgraded, and I've started getting way too many error messages about this not working and that not working... So, that's on my list for expenditures this year. BUT, I'm hoping to get a rebate on my taxes, and have decided I'll just wait til then to get the computer.

In the meantime, though, the phone I have is just awful. Drops calls, voice connections are always garbled, if I move, I lose my caller. It's a "pay as you go" phone and was my first venture into cell phones.

I'm not a phone person!

Yes, I will call you back if you call me, but I really don't like making phone calls (sound familiar to any of you who are Stampin' Up! demonstrators? Hee hee).

So, good ole "pay as you go" was for emergencies, and basically, I lost a lot of money on it, since you have to renew every three months. At one point, I think I had $50 on it. Then I discovered a way to add only $10.00 at a time, which suited my usage much better...

So, back to my venture to the big box electronics store --- Yes, I went back and jumped in with BOTH FEET! I bought an IPhone AND an IPad...

Of course, now I'm frazzled from trying to learn to use not one, but TWO new devices! True, they're Apple products, which, to me, makes them a whole lot easier to learn to use, but they're still NEW TOYS to me, so I'm struggling...

I know, in about 6 months, I'll be very familiar with both of them. But in the meantime, if you hear a lot of screaming, just know it's me, trying to use one or the other of them and getting totally frustrated!

One of these days I'll be telling you how much I LOVE both of them. But not today...

Sigh... OK - back to climbing the learning curve!

If you have tips you'd like to share, please leave me a comment!

Thanks for stopping by - come back soon...

The Wizarding WORLD...

2013-01-15T15:57:00.001-08:00

of Harry Potter!

For Manager's Meeting this year at Leadership we got to go to The Wizarding World of Harry Potter, which is in the Universal Studio's Islands of Adventure.

Hey, LOOK! There's our awesome logo!

Shelli was standing at the front gate, waiting to greet all of us as we came in.

IT WAS A BLAST!

NO LINES!

FOOD! (and they told us we were only going to get hors d'oeuvres!) Gosh, there were turkey legs, cornish pies, Shepherd's pies, fish and chips, cheeses, breads and FANTABULOUS desserts!

Here I am, greeting Selma, who is SUCH a sweetheart! That's me on the left, Selma in the middle, and my friend Joanna on the right. So great to see Selma at each event - I always make it a point to get a hug from her...

Standing in line to get Butter Beer - it was GOOD!


The conductor of the train, talking to one of our demonstrators.


The village - it looked just like I'd pictured it, but that MAY have been because I've watched a couple of the movies...

What a GREAT RIDE! And NO LINES! It took us forever to walk to the point where the animated pictures started talking to us. I can't even IMAGINE trying to do this ride when the place is open to the general public! They had little cubbyholes EVERYWHERE where they could create yet another snaky line!


The gal walking in and I rode together. Neither of her friends wanted to go on this ride, so I asked if I could accompany her. She has a 10-year-old and decided after riding it, maybe it wasn't for her! I thoroughly enjoyed it.

This was a "simulator" ride - wasn't sure what that meant until we started out. It was exciting! The best part of the ride, to me, was following Harry to a Quidditch game and getting to see everything from the air. Of course there were monsters and dragons to be dealt with along the way, but we made it!

Really enjoyed visiting Harry Potter! Wonder what wonderful place and things we'll get to see next year at Leadership? They never disappoint...

Thanks for stopping by - come back again...