I've Been Busy!!

I can't believe the last time I posted was October 31! I've been very busy getting ready for my Stamp Camp which was this last Saturday. I've also prepared for my "Crop the Night Away" which was the night before my camp. I know -- I'm crazy to schedule to events back to back and work full-time -- but everyone knows I'm crazy!!

I spent the entire week struggling with the "Thankful" theme for my Crop the Night Away (CNA). As you can see, I used the new Autum Vine DSP and the coordinating stamp set
Season of Friendship from the Holiday Mini Catalog. For the title I used my Cricut. However, the sketch I picked didn't use a lot of photo mats so to make it work for the class I needed to find photos to help my participants visualize the layout. Many times I design layouts without having photos. About Tuesday night I began looking through my digital photos but couldn't find any from family Thanksgivings past that would work. I wanted the layout to be about Thanksgiving but if some of my customers didn't have Thanksgiving photos it needed to be flexible enough to change. That's when I came up with my title "Count your Blessings." Blessings can take any form and come at any time. However, it is during Thanksgiving that we set aside time to reflect and thank God for all he gives us. I quicky tried to find pics of all of my six grandchildren that live in Illinois with me. The pictures are from the past year. Little Ben is now close to his first birthday so he has changed a lot!!

Well, it ended up taking the entire week to create -- I hated it at first -- now I think it may be one of my favorites. I've truly been blessed with all the children, step-children and grandchildren in my life.

What do you think?

Crop the Night Away - Oct. 10

I can't believe it's October already. It's one of my favorite months.

Here is the Halloween layout for my October 10th Crop the Night Away. I used my Cricut and the new SU Designer Series Paper. It says "No Tricks - Only Treats." I hope you like it.

We had fun at last month's crop so I'm looking forward to Friday. Participants come to my workshop, make the layout and then bring projects they are working on and use my stamps, inks, etc. We crop until midnight, have a lot of fun and get things done! It's a fun way to spend a Friday night with friends.

Crop the Night Away

I've been trying to attract more scrapbooking customers. Some of my friends laugh about how much stuff I have in my stamping workshop and that they would love to come and just use my stamps, inks, tools, etc. So I thought why not -- I'll have them come over and they can work on their projects and use my supplies. I also know through personal experience that scrapbookers like to stay up late and scrap, scrap and scrap! So I came up with "Crop the Night Away" (everytime I say that the Van Halen song -- Dance the Night Away -- comes into my head. I was even thinking of playing that song while we cropped!) I also thought it would be fun to make it a monthly event, give it a different theme every month and design a 12x12 two-page layout for them to make based on the theme. I love it when I have those brilliant ideas!

Last Friday night was my first Crop the Night Away event from 7pm to midnight. The theme was BACK TO SCHOOL and I designed this great 12x12 two-page layout using the green apple paper from the Summer Picnic Designer Series Paper. (I was thinking -- an apple for the teacher! Plus, this was the only DSP that was included in the new catalog that I had so I didn't have to order any new stuff.)

Now I had to come up with my "themed snacks." I went for pre-packaged snacks kids would put in their lunch boxes -- small packages of chips, snack-sized candy bars, snack-sized packages of animal crackers, peanut butter & jelly Uncrustables by Smucker's and to drink, of course, Capri Sun pouches. Four scrapbooking friends came and we had a blast. Two of them stayed until midnight and we actually got some scrapbooking done.

Of course, my three dogs had to join in on the fun. Casey, a Sheltie mix, is my big paper-eater. She loves to sit next to you and wait for little pieces of paper to drop. One of my friends dropped her small "apple" embellishment and she didn't pick it up fast enough -- Casey had grabbed it and eaten it!!

My pointy nose sheep dog!

Libby, an English Springer Spaniel mix, is just lazy and slept on the bed in my stamping workshop.

My couch potato!

Then there is Luke. He is my baby (even though he is the oldest at 10). He is an English Springer Spaniel who is truly a lover. He made the rounds to all of my friends that evening wanting them to pet him. Of course, he is too cute to resist so he got plenty of love that night.

My lover, Lukey!

I'd say my first Crop the Night Away was a success. Now I must get busy and design my next 12x12 two-page layout for October. The theme -- you guessed it -- Halloween. I LOVE HALLOWEEN. This one should be fun!!