Make-N-Takes Galore...at CHA

I just wanted to share some of the millions of make-n-takes that were being offered at CHA. There were just SO many. Some were like mini classes. There were lines and they were time consuming. I just could not do them all. I was too busy being starstruck...LOL!! This pretty frame was quite a sweet project being offered at the Creative Imaginations booth. I really need to get a good beach photo!! But, you get the jist...

These were from different places: Maya Road, My Mind's Eye, Glitz Designs etc.

LOVED the Kaiser Booth! They are quickly becoming my new Favorite. This is a (wooden) mini book. There were so many goodies here, it was like trick or treat:

This CUTE little Hello Kitty purse was at the Provo craft (cricuit) booth. This is the front:

AND this is the back:

I just could not get a good picture of this. This picture DEFINATELY does not do it justice! This beauty was at the Heidi Swapp booth:

Teresa Collins had many great make-n-takes. This mini book was made with the Bon Appetit line. Check out the little buckle. CUTE, right??!!

Here is the inside:

This is from her Christmas line:

And here is a peek at the inside:

This fun little box was at the Sizzix Big Shot booth. They even gave out more than enough candy to fill it up!

It is so much fun to just play and create. They were all so much fun to make and I was so worried that they were going to be ruined on the way home. So HAPPY that they all made it in one piece. This is really only a sampling of what was offered. Unreal, isn't it??!!

Circle Journal Group One...#1

As part of my first ever circle Journal group with some of my favorite Studio Calico gals, I can honestly say that I am lovin' this!! I just completed my first set of pages for the first journal (besides my own). The first journal I recieved is from the AMAZING Greta Baksa. Her theme is "Lesson's 4 Life's Journey". Here are my pages:

My lesson is pretty simple. 'You do not have to impress anyone. You are perfect just the way you are.' Here is a close up of page one:

Be anything and everything. Here is a close up of page two:

I really did not have a plan, when I set out to do these pages. I literally grabbed a bunch of stuff (Basic Grey paper, My Mind's Eye embelishments, grungeboard & crackle paint, my Threading Water punch, paint, buttons, stamps and distress ink etc) and just winged it! I LOVE how it ALL just came together. So FUN! So now I will be shipping this off to Judi and awaiting my next project. I can't wait!! :-)

Go Tony Go!!!

Tony Stewart , my FAVORITE Nascar driver, is moving on. Moving on up, I am happy to say. He has announced that he will be leaving Joe Gibbs Racing and starting his own race team, Stewart-Haas racing, for 2009. This is so exciting! Look how happy he is:

Yesterday he revealed his new car sponsors (Office Depot & Old Spice) and his new #...14 (in honor of his hero A.J. Foyt). Look he's winking at me! LOL! :-)

So this will be the last year of this;

I will follow Tony, where ever it may lead. That is the life of a true Nascar fan. The only bad thing is, now I gotta buy all NEW stuff. I better start saving up!

Continuing to be Starstruck on Friday and Saturday at CHA

As soon as I found out that Ali Edwards was in the Ranger booth for a demo, I practically ran over there! There she was just hanging out. Playing with some of the Distress inks and acrylic pages. There were only about 5 other people there and they seemed to be a little starstruck. Soooo...I just start asking questions and chatting. It was a very comfortble atmosphere. She was very cool! Tim came over to check in and I asked if I could take their pic together. They were more than happy and it came out AWESOME!! :-)

Jenni Bowlin has such amazing and unique stuff. She and her husband Jared were so cool and so down to earth. Loved hanging out at their booth!

OMG! Then I got to meet the AMAZING and sometimes odd (but I love it!) Emily Adams . She designed one of my FAVORITE lines EVA---Playlist! It so ROCKS!! She now designs for Luxe Designs and her new stuff is AWESOME! I can't wait to get my hands on it!

This is one of the most artisticly creative people that I have ever met. Her projects are so amazing and unique! SHE would be the infamous Donna Salazar . She is now a 'Prima-Donna". I caught up with her in the Prima booth. Isn't she so cute?!!

AND last, but not least, my FAVORITE...Teresa Collins . I LOVE this gal! We have been friends for a while and I FINALLY got to meet her face to face. Words can not express how happy I was to meet her and I actually got to spend a lot of time with her. She is so talented and just so easy to be around. Everyone LOVED her new stuff and just wanted to be with her. She makes everyone seem special. Okay, so this is not the best pictue of us, but it was the best out of what I had. LOL! (I really was having a BAD hairday on Saturday :-)...

I asked her if I could just get a pic of her standing under her name sign. You can see her new Halloween and Bon Appetit lines behind her. Again, her new stuff is AMAZING!

So that is a wrap on my celeb sightings for this time. I had the time of my life and a GREAT Birthday. I made some great new friends and I hope to do this again someday... :-)

Friday, My Birthday and a Little Starstruck-Part 1

Friday morning, while waiting to enter the show, I made a new 'friend'. Somehow (it is a long story...for another time!) Mark Montano picked me out in the crowd and he never forgot me. I ended up seeing him many times during the day. He always remembered me and remembered it was my Birthday (all day!) He kept me laughing every time. He was very entertaining and sorry to say, I did not know who he was (at the time). I now know that he is on TLC's "While You Were Out".

The first celeb that I met, once inside, was the fabulous (and absolutely gorgeous!) Heidi Swapp:

I then ran into The Gretchen McElveen (she is a former Junkitz DT member and a fellow Nascar fan). You can find her here and here. Loved meeting her! She is so sweet!

Next, I had to go see Tim Holtz . He is so amazing and upbeat. I have seen him quite a bit lately. I hope he doesn't think that I am stalking him...? LOL!!

I also ran into the Fabulous Stephanie from "Home and Heart" Magazine. She is so artistic and adorable:

Yes, this is only the beginning. I will share more with you tomorrow. Have a pleasant evening. :-)

CHA Chicago Day 1

I made it to Chicago...all by myself! I was really here! I was pinching myself everyday. It was so surreal! I finally got to meet the amazing and very talented Kathy Marie Perez in person. I am so happy that I got invited to be a guest of her and her boyfriend Jon from Paper Jam Studio . Her Mom Debbie and friend Alane were there too. We had the best time! Can you believe it was so crazy, that we never even got a group shot of us all??!!

Even though it is a little 'old hat' to Jon and Kathy Marie, it was a new exciting expirience for me, Debbie and Alane. The first day I arrived was Thursday, the day before the show opened. There were classes to be taken and lots of fun to be had!

We all took a class with the AMAZING Tim Holtz . Look at ALL the stuff he gave us! Paint, inks, markers, brand new stamps, colorwash, embossing powder, Glossy accents, etc!! WOW!!!

Here are some of the free goodies I got at the show. Making memories handed out the mint green aprons for everyone to wear. They were picking random people at the show and just giving them tons of product...oh, and a free Slice. Debbie, Kathy Marie's Mom was one of the lucky winners. It was so exciting! There definately was a lot of cool stuff to be had. Lots of free totes, some MM clear stamps & block, MM puffy letters, some Piggy tales embelishments fom the new "twinkle, twinkle little star", a set of "Mr Campy" papers from Cosmo Cricket and some great new scissors from Fiskars given out with a little autograph card from (Stephanie) one of the Fab Fiskateers . Good stuff! Good stuff!!

Thursday night we went to a little sneak peek party over at s.e.i. The new Christmas line "Glitzmas" is AWESOME!! Can't wait to get it!!

As guests we got a full set of papers from the "Poppy" line, along with embelishments and brads....and a shirt, a mini album kit and a "thanks" chipboard word album. WOW! Isn't this paper so pretty??!!

It was here that I first met the Studio Calico gang IRL! Yay Me!! Here is a pic I took of the "sandwich" (for those who do not know, that would be Davine, Nicole and Nicole).

I was so happy to meet these gals. I also met April, Greg and Scarlet, but I did not get any pics of them :-(

I did see them all quite a bit over the couple of days though. Plus they got to wish me a "Happy Birthday" in person. That was very COOL!

All for now. I will have more to share tomorrow...LOTS more!! :-)

Just a Few more LO's before I Go...

Over the past few days I have been playing around some more with the July kit (Sea Breeze) from Paper Jam Studio . I have been having so much fun! Here is what I came up with. Lots of the Noteworthy paper from MM. LOVE it! This one is some sparkler fun with Bryant. He is so silly:

Oh then the pout when we do not get our way. You know the one. It looks something like this:

Then Bryant the ham. He LOVES to have his picture taken! I LOVE these pumpkin pics:

So, I have been creating and playing and having fun. Now I am off to bed. I will be in Chicago tomorrow. Starting the day with a class from Tim Holtz . How cool is that? I can't wait to tell you about all my adventures. Try not to miss me too much when I am gone....

Cupcakes Anyone??

Today was my last workday...until Monday. So we celebrated my B-day (a little early) with some cupcakes made by my co-worker friend Liz. She made a bunch, but I was able to keep 3 to take home to the fam! Don't they look yummy??? Cute little corner view of my desk too!!

Tomorrow I pack, and I stress, and I am sure I am going to forget something...but I am going to CHA!!! Can you believe it?? WOW!!!

Now I need some sleep. Night, night all... :-)

Stephanie we are all thinking of YOU

The gals at Studio Calico have come together to support one of our friends, sweet Stephanie Howell . Her husband has just been recently deployed to Afghanistan for 15 months. That being hard enough they also have 2 little girls under the age of three. So we all wanted to show her support and friendship in this difficult time by doing what we all do best, making cards and tags, etc. to show her how much we care. This is for you Stephanie! The quote says "Love is missing someone whenever you’re apart, but somehow feeling warm inside because you’re close in heart."

Please keep her family in your prayers...

A Fun Challenge and Oh Ya...Check out the NEW 'Do'!!!

As many of you know, I LOVE a good scrapbooking challenge. I found a great one here on the Studio Calico blog. It was basically, just to use red, white and blue on a page. It did not have to be patiotic, but it could be. Here is what I came up with:

Oh yes, that is Bryant with his new Summer mohawk haircut. He is lovin' it! We even made up our own little rap. What'ya think??

Anyways, I just recently took a class with Tim Holtz and got tons of ideas on how to use Grungeboard. I played around with some paints, some ink and yes, I even sewed on the page. I had a lot of messy fun! I HAD to document THIS moment!

You Rock Dude!!

Leaving on a Jetplane....

Yes, I am!!! I am really doing THIS!!! A dream come true....well, definately the BEST Birthday present EVA!! WOW!! Last year I turned 40 and it was, to say the least, disappointing. No trips, no parties, no big deal...well I can not say no parties, because my sweet co-workers did this. So, EVERYONE at work knew it was my Birthday. We even had sales reps in for training that week. Well, they will never forget me (not that they would anyways...LOL!)

My Birthday is really next week (1st day of the show! WOO HOO!!), but I can start partying now...right???

Short post...I will fill you in more later... ;-)

TAGGED!!

My friend Pam tagged me today and since I haven't done a tag in some time I figured I'd get right to it!

The Rules: Answer the questions using only one word. Then tag four others.

1. Where is your cell phone? charging
2. Your significant other? work
3. Your hair? messy
4. Your mother? home
5. Your father? home
6. Your favorite thing? Birthday
7. Your dream last night? forgotten
8 Your favorite drink? DietPepsi (ya, I made it one word!)
9. Your dream/goal? debtfree (is that one word?)
10. The room you’re in? storage
11. Your hobby? SCRAPPING (OH YA!!)
12. Your fear? death
13. Where do you want to be in 6 years? traveling
14. What you’re not? skinny
15. Muffins? Chocolatechip
16. One of your wish list items? Mustang (car that is!)
17. Where you grew up? NH
18. The last thing you did? dinner
19. What are you wearing? jeans
20. Favorite gadget? phone
21. Your pets? none
22. Your computer? slow
23. Your mood? tired
24. Missing someone? yes
25. Your car? Focus
26. Something you’re not wearing? shoes
27. Favorite store? Absolutely Everything (scrapstore!)
28. Like someone? yes
29. Your favorite color? blue
30. When is the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? today

I know some are more than one word...oh well. Now I tag Jonelle, Liz, Aleida and Stacy.

AND because, I can not do a post w/o a photo...here I am teaching my first ever scrapbook class. This store is now closed. It is truly sad. I had some good times there. :-)

Have a wonderful evening.... :-)

The Beginning of a Long Journey...

I have been truly blessed to join a group of extremely talented ladies over at Studio Calico and be part my first ever 'Circle Journal' group. I am very excited to see what is in store. I wanted to take pictures of the beginning of my journal and share it with you all, for once it leaves my hands, I will not see it for ten months. Here is the cover:

When you open it, the first thing that you see, is my happy face:

Behind my picture is just a little note, then a cover page. My theme is music. We all love music, so I wanted the book to be about how it makes us feel.

The next pages are sign in pages:

Sign in pages:

Sign in pages:

Here are my two funky pages. I LOVE music!!!

This is the back cover:

There is room for a two page spread for each person. I really am looking forward to each and everyones take on this. You should really check out the fabulous work by all the talented ladies involved (Judi , Aleida , Denise , Greta , Amy , Anne , Jen , Anilu & Michele). See what I mean? WOW!! This is so EXCITING!! Let the Journey begin...