Sad day...

Today I lost a friend. Well, maybe not what many people would consider a friend...but someone whom I considered a friend. Someone who cared about me. Someone who went above and beyond his responsibilities as a physician. After I lost two babies he made sure I got counseling and he made sure the nurses in the NICU were watching over me since he didn't see me every day and he was worried about me being depressed and suicidal. And I feel very very sad that someone wasn't there to do the same for him. I wonder what was so wrong in his life. He had kids and grandkids. I'm sure more will come out in the news in the days to come.

Give your loved ones a hug today. Tell people you appreciate them. Be nice to people you don't have to be. Go the extra mile. We never know what is going on in their life.

Jane

Monday, monday

Good morning and welcome back to the drudge that's called a "work week". ;-) I finished unpacking my bags last night, only to realize that now I can NOT FIND my digital card! Yikes! So I can't take pics of the pages I did until I either find that card or buy a new one. I've searched high and low and no luck. I think the company that made the card had a witch putting curses on the digi cards as they came off the line! LOL!

In the meantime, I did have THIS picture on my computer already. It's what my scrap area looked like AFTER I finished making and wrapping all my Secret Pal packages!



Now, do you feel better about how YOUR area looks?

Jane

Happy Sunday!

I'm back from Scrap Camp with some adventures to share. I started off my weekend on Friday (took the day off of work). It took me several hours to pack my scrapbooking stuff (because you never know what you're going to need). I didn't have hardly any pictures printed (whole last year was still on the digi card). So I also needed to do that on my way to camp and I needed to get new tires put on my PT Cruiser. So I left the house about 2:30. Drove into Tucson - stopped at CVS pharmacy. Spent about 45 minutes picking which pictures I wanted...zooming...correcting coloring...making beach pics sepia...and when I was all done I saved them. They told me it'd take about an hour so I headed over to get my tires done. They also said that'd take about an hour. So I left my car and went and got my hair cut and came back. I HAD to be at Scrap Camp at 6:00 for the check-in/announcements. At 5:00 they were still working on my car and I still had to pick up my pics. A little after 5:00 CVS calls my cell and tells me their computer went down and they are unable to print my pics. I finally get my car back and head to camp barely squeezing in under the time limit. I used the valet parking at the front and they told me it was free if I had it signed by the person at the convention. Get all my stuff down to the ballroom and check in. The lady helping me with my "luggage" tells me that she doesn't think valet is free and she'll double check it for me. Turns out it's $20 - so I need to get my ticket validated and move the car to self-parking if I don't want to pay. So I listen to announcements and then head off to try and get my ticket validated. They wouldn't validate it without me having something. So I order a kahlua and cream (by then I needed it! LOL!). $8.50 later (and a $1 for tip)...I get my ticket validated and go move my car. Then I went back and scrapped till about 11:30 that night and then drove the hour home. I was back up at 6:45 the next morning - with my goal to be at Camp by 9:00. I left here and on my way I called CVS to make sure my pics were ready. Still not so I tell them to cancel the order and I'll take them somewhere else. I hadn't brought my digi card...so I had to turn around and drive back to the house to pick it up. Then stopped at Walgreens and spent another hour picking out the photos and prettying them up. Went to finish the process and literally half way through the transfer it says it has encountered an error and needs to shut down. Argh! At this point I literally cried. I spent $120 for the weekend and have no photos to scrapbook...and now it's 11:00 and my day is half over. So I head back out to Camp. Figure I'll just watch everyone else for the day or make some cards or something. Luckily when I got to camp one of the ladies had a self-standing printer with her and I was able to load the card and print enough photos to get me through. So from there on out it was a good weekend!

I had a GREAT secret pal and received lots of goodies. I have more chocolate than I'll ever be able to eat...I have brads in every shape/size color. I have scrapbooking kits and ribbons to match. I have a stamp set I'd been wanting. Lots and lots of stuff! And I never had a clue who was giving to me.

I also had fun with my secret pal. I left her packages all weekend. And instead of just walking up and revealing who I was...I left her a list of clues and she had to go around to the tables asking people things like "do you have a tattoo? do you know how to ride a motorcycle?" It was so funny. :-)

So, with that being said...I'll share the rest of HER gifts here today and then through the coming week I'll share my scrapbook pages that I complted (all 14 of them! it's a record I think!).

Here is her first gift for yesterday morning - an ice chest full of her favorite soda and a bag of M&M's.

Then her second gift was a box of embellishments with this tag:

Then I gave her a plain box of scrapbooking stuff (so no picture to share) and then this was her final gift for the weekend (it's filled inside too! it's a rolling SBing cart).

I also took an alcohol inks class over the weekend so I'll be able to share some of that here soon too. This was the 10th year for Scrap Camp and it's been determined that it's the final year. The people who organize it have decided that it's time is up and they just aren't able to do it anymore (now full time jobs, etc). I'm hoping someone else takes it over. I've even considered it myself. But it's something I'll need to discuss with my hubby. Right now there is a team of 7 or 8 people who put it together. So it's no small undertaking. Generally runs close to 100 women.

Well...LONG post for today. Does that make up for the several days where you didn't have one? Hope so.

Jane

A Partial Secret Pal Reveal

Ok, first I have to say I did NOT get my Bind-It-All. A friend of mine got the last one (and I'd been stupid enough...wait...I mean nice enough...to tell her about the sale). I'll make her share for now and try again in a couple weeks when they have a sale again.

After working my butt off yesterday (no, actually unfortunately my big butt is still there...but you know what I mean! LOL!) I've finally finished my secret pal gifts.

So I thought I'd share a bit. Between them and any pages I make over the weekend at Scrap Camp I should have plenty to share for awhile! Today I'll share everything she's getting tomorrow.

This will be the first gift my pal receives at Camp. The theme for the weekend is a We're Cruising (on a ship). So this is her survival kit. It has a HUGE pair of goofy sunglasses, a compressed towel, a sun hat (the stamped one that's below in my blog somewhere), a little chair for the beach, etc. It's basically just an ice breaker gift. I got the luggage tag at Joann's on clearance for 97 cents. She'll get this Friday early evening.

Then the next gift I haven't decided if I'll give seperate or include with the bag above. It's a plastic margarita glass with freezable ice cubes. Kinda fits the survival theme but looks so pretty by itself! So I haven't decided yet. Here's that.

Next will be this box (full of different paper punchers) and on the back of the tag it says "by now, on a real cruise you'd be a little 'punch' happy". I didn't take a picture of that yet. It doesn't have any stamping. I used a happy face stick balloon and a gift bag and then for the tag I used my circle coluzzle to make a yellow and then a larger black circle. Punched holes for eyes and a nose and drew on a mouth (to mimic the balloon).

Then the last package for the night is this one. It has a note about relaxing for the day to follow. It has bath goodies in it. She collects rubber ducks so I centered on that theme.

Now, don't you wish you were MY Secret Pal??? And there is still more for Saturday. The camp runs from Friday night 6p.m. till about noon on Sunday...but we do the Secret Pal Reveal late Saturday. So you're really giving gifts over about a 24 hour period. The hardest part is sneaking all this in! And then sneaking it to your pal's table when they leave. Last year my pal sat across the table from me. She'd get up for 2 seconds and come back to a gift. I'd literally about toss it across the table in order to not get caught! LOL. This year I'm not going to be able to stay at the resort and it's too hot to leave any of this in the car...so it's all going to have to go in with me. I have a couple crop bags with wheels...I'll just designate one as a gift bag. I think that'll work pretty well. Saturday's things are even bigger...so that may be more of a problem!

Jane

Happy 4th!

Please, take a moment and remember our troops who are not able to be with their families today. I don't believe we should be in Iraq...but I do believe, regardless, that we should support our troops. I have sent several care packages over using Any Soldier . I like that you can kind of pick and choose who you send to. So, for example, I wanted to send a package in memory of my Dad so I searched by last name and found someone with the same last name.

On to stamping things...this morning I saw a sale on Stamping Cottage that was 10% off for the 4th of July. I looked and they carried both Memory Box AND Gina K Designs. I was SOOOO in trouble! LOL! I kept it reasonable...ordering two Gina K crabs and two Memory Box penguins. (oh how I'd love to have all of them...they are so adorable!) I also have every intention of purchasing a Bind-It All tomorrow. A local scrapbook store will take Michael's and Joann's coupons on certain days of the month and they carry this contraption. It allows you to bind your own mini books and such. Normally it's around $50 and I won't pay that much. But if I can get it at 40% off...I'm SOOO there. LOL!

Instead of posting a card here today...I'm going to post a few links to cards I have on SCS that are appropriate for the 4th of July. Enjoy!

Congrats Shirt Card (made for my nephew for graduating basic training)

Soldier Sympathy (made for one of my Dad's Ranger buddies wives)

Many Tanks (just a thank you)

Happy 4th Everyone!

Whoo Hooo...it's Tuesday!

Ok, not as good as Friday - but tomorrow is a holiday so I don't have to go to work tomorrow. A "mini weekend" in the middle of the week! LOL!

This coming weekend is scrap camp. I still have a million things to do to get ready. So I hope to get some of that done tomorrow. We're also going over to my brother and sister-in-laws house for a 4th of July get together. So that will be fun.

I haven't created anything in the past few days. Worn out and exhausted. Last night I laid down fully dressed and fell asleep. My hubby tried to wake me to get me to undress and I told him I was too tired. So I woke up fully dressed this morning (yes, I did CHANGE them after I got up! Ha!)

Decided to pull out something that I stamped that was NOT a card for a change. You know those "painter's aprons" that they have at Home Depot and Lowes? My son's teacher always wore one to keep her stuff in. So when I saw these plain ones at the $1 store I had to buy it and stamp it for her. I used the Avery Dark T-shirt Transfers and stamped and colored as normal on them. Then cut out and ironed them on. She LOVED it...as did all the other teachers. The boy/girl are Hero Arts stamps...the letters are CTMH.

Sunday Surprise!

Yesterday I managed to not only get my resume finished...but I got a JOB INTERVIEW! I love the world of technology where you can email your resume to folks! I'm submitting another application today but they require it by fax or mail. So I'll fax it today to be waiting tomorrow. Anyways, the one I have an interview for is a Reports Writer position using SQL Report Generator.


My dh got a new car yesterday. His car has no air conditioning. It's 109 degrees here these days and since he's taking care of the kids I really wanted to find a way for him to have a/c. Before he just drove the non-a/c car to work in the morning and back at night so it wasn't so hot during the times he drove it. Anyways, he got a Hyundai Tiberon. Very nice looking car. So Monday he'll be busy getting license plates, insurance, etc set up.


Yesterday I decided to play a bit. I wanted to do something new. So I broke out my H2O's (which I'd used once so far) and my transparencies (which I've never used). I stamped a rose in black on white cardstock and then colored it in with the H2O's. And layered it onto a few layers. The brownish/goldish piece of cardstock was purchased on-line at a place that was going out of business. It's really kinda shimmery in real life. Anyways, then I stamped the rose a second time on the transparency and laid it over the top of the original rose. Trimmed around the edge. Stamped on the word and then used the brads to attach. I really like how it turned out. I'm going to post two pictures so you can see it dead on and then a little to the side (which shows the transparency more). Sorry it's a little blurry...really hard to get a good picture of it.