Guess What I Did??!!!

OK, so after mostly staying home yesterday, I just had to get wild today and that is exactly what I did! I got up and went to Curves, came home and said hello to Hubby and then went out again. My first words when I got home the second time? Guess what I bought today! Hubby, who knows me well, took one look at my face and said... "an SUV"??? "What kind", he asked? "Oh, not a big one", I said looking rather innocent. "Ah, how much", he asked? "Not all that much, it's not a big one and I got a great deal, it was the manager's demo. Wanna see", I replied? Sure, want me to drive you somewhere, he asks? "I thought you might ask to drive it so I've already adjusted the seat for you, I said"! "It's a nice SUV" he said contemplating the vehicle. " I know, but it's beige!" "Well it's really a pale metallic gold" he said trying to make me feel better about the color. He knows that I don't like beige and my whole house is painted that color. It was a good house at a great price when I bought it, but it was beige. With all the surgeries I've had since moving here, painting the whole house really wasn't on the agenda. I did manage to repaint my room to a pale green that I also used in most of the family room and I painted the guest bedroom which is a nice blue, all before my hands got really bad with carpal tunnel.

So here is my new, pale gold chariot or PGC as hubby calls it:


Because it was the managers demo car, it is fully loaded. It's a 2007 which helped with the price as well. In addition, I don't have to pay for any maintenance or roadside assistance at all for 5 years or 60,000 miles whichever comes last and as long as I do all my maintenance at the dealership, I get free tires for life! Another feature that I love is that it has a full size spare, not one of those donut thingies.

I even have a DVD player for the back seats, a sun roof, satellite radio, dual air, a cd/mp3 player in the dash, as well as an extra 6 disk cd player! It is absolutely fully loaded. The only thing I compromised on was the power pedals and the color. The rest is way more than I really needed, but this really was an unbeatable deal! The really great thing is that I can now figure out exactly how to load it when I go and vendor at crops of do the TLC booth at CKC in Lauderdale! I am really pleased and think of this as my birthday present! Hubby BTW likes it too ;-) And no it was not really an impulse buy. I've been looking at and getting quotes on new cars for about a month now and I was fairly sure that I'd get the Santa Fe. A friend of mine who drives fairly long distances, loves her Santa Fe more than she liked her Lexus SUV and we all know that one is about twice the price of the other! Now back to working on all the scrapbook supplies!

I Finally Escaped From the Pirates

ArrrrH! It was difficult, it was long, it was fun, it was the Tampa Bay Scrapbook Treasure Hunt and for this year at least, unless I or my buddy Janie win one of the two big prizes, it is over! We did it! I put 550 miles on my car, visited 15 scrapbook stores and had a great time! Some were better than others, some were bigger than others, some were friendlier than others, some were better stocked than others, some had better projects than others, but all were visited!

If either of us wins, we get to do it all over again!!!! We looked for things, found things we weren't looking for and brought most of both home with us! Yes we are stocked or is that stoqued? Hmmm, something like that! Hubby is stoickly walking through a house gone mad with scrapbooking supplies and pretending that nothing is out of the ordinary, are you kidding? Everything around here is out of the ordinary or is that simply out of place?

I have a list of things to work on tomorrow, since it is the first day in over a week that I'll be home! OK, I was home on Sunday, but I wasn't really lucid, LOL! I hope to get the answers for our Carnival Scrapbook Cruise. We may need to add outside cabins and dump the inside ones. Looks like none of us want to be inside! I can't blame anyone, I personally prefer an outside or a balcony. At any rate, I'll do everything I can to get through my To Do list after I get through a workout at Curves! Ah, a day at home!

Too Little Sleep but SO Much Fun!

Oh my gosh do I sound like a broken record yet? I had a lot of fun despite the lack of sleep! Friday was crop night at my house! We had a great time and everyone was kind enough to leave early (just past 11pm) knowing that I had to pack all my stuff so I could vendor at a crop in Sarasota on Saturday. The first picture is of my setup at the crop in Sarasota! By the time I got everything packed and ready and managed to fall asleep it was 3:30 am and I had to be ready to go out the door at 7:15am. For some weird reason I woke up at 5:30 and managed to get a cat nap in between then and 6am. I did have a great time at the crop but according to my friend Janie, I was more talkative than she had ever known me to be, and she's now known me for a year and a half! Probably my body's way of keeping me awake! She said I wasn't bad, but she is a generous soul! Thank goodness she drove and was there to help me load and unload and load and unload again!

We also managed to visit two of the 15 LSS included in the Tampa Bay Scrapbook Treasure Hunt, Scrapbooking Memories and K2. Both stores are within about 7 minutes from each other in Sarasota, and you'd wonder how they manage to survive, but they do, at least so far. It may be because of the difference in their styles.

I had great plans to sleep all day Sunday, but we all know why they are called plans! Hubby woke me up at 8:30 am new time and just when I thought I could go back to sleep, a friend of mine called to tell me that she was finally starting work in a new restaurant. So hubby and I went and had lunch as a show of support.

Today Monday, Janie and I got together and visited 4 stores. Violettes in Lakeland, Sew and Scrap, Scraptorium and one of my favorites, The Scrapbook Shoppe in Tampa. We had a great time and got home somewhere around 4:30pm. Tomorrow i have to get to Scrap Happy and then back to Scrapbook Memories where I had a couple of racks put aside for me on Saturday. Aside from all of that, over the past few days, I have chatted with two people that have organized scrapbook cruises, paid the bills, fed the kitties, done 6 loads of laundry, cleaned and messed up the house, finished a mini album and 2 layouts and somehow managed to enjoy all those moments which we all know, are precious because... they only come once!

Measuring Day

Wow I was so tired yesterday that I forgot to post this update! Given that I have a crop with about 8 people tonight and have to have to pack my stuff up and be ready to load Janie's car at 7:15, methinks, it is likely I won't be able to post anything new tonight!

It was my measuring day at Curves today! I went in thinking I hadn't lost any weight, since my emphasis this month was to really work on my right leg so that the surgeon would have only good things to say on the 20th when I get my 1st year post knee replacement checkup. I was wrong! I lost some, not a lot, 3.5 lbs and better still I lost 10.25 lbs and my BMI went down another 1.5. Still a long way to go, but given that I'm not dieting, just being a little careful, I think this is all good news!!! Best off all I've apparently regained 1/4 inch in height that I'd lost over the years! Awesome what excercise can do for you, LOL!

Gotta go clean house... one room at a time or I'll never get anything done, haha! How do you clean and tidy? Do you go from room to room, tackle a pile in one room and when you go to put the pile in the "right" room you tackle a pile there and hope that by the time 10pm comes around all the piles have changed places??? Frankly, it can work and save on leg wear and tear, as long as you put away the articles in piles that you move into the "right" room rather than leave them in a pile. Confused? You should be, cause this honestly doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me either!!! ;-)

Pictures are from the mini album I made on last Sunday watching TV and scrapping in my bed! I was a tired lady! It's of my little niece Lindsay and is another of TLC's new Shape Upz kits. Everything I used came from that little 6x6 boxed kit, from the ribbon to the ring!!

I'll update you on all the weekend fun on Sunday! Meanwhile, have a great weekend and don't forget to tell your friends about my blog contest and the RCS 4 day cruise March 5th, 2009!!!

Sometime life passes by so fast that you get whiplash! I'm glad that I learned years ago that the best way to make the best of what is going on is to do a mental adjustment. Yup folks, everything good and bad happens between my ears. That might explain why I've had so many earaches and even virtigo, LOL!

Wouldn't you know it, my TIVO recorded something else and not American Idol last night! My fault, obviously, so I had to go through the season pass manager and give Idol a higher priority than Designed to Sell or was it House Hunter. At any rate it will record Idol tonight! I am "trying" really hard to get things all done by Friday, but it is an uphill battle which should be a snap for me given that I spent 11 years of my life living on a pretty steep hill! Here is a picture of the street I lived on.

Le Vendome that you see here, is the restaurant that my parents started in the 50s in Quebec City. We lived on the top two floors of this historical house built in the 1700s! The main and 2nd floor were/are taken up by the restaurant which actually had two full kitchens. Actually I found some beautiful pictures of the city of my birth taken by a tourist last year or was it the year before. I thought I'd share so here is the link.

I am still working on the cruise and I'm no longer sure about doing a class at CKC. They told me today that of the $25 I wanted to charge for the class, they would take $22!!! I guess I'm not charging enough, but that seemed reasonable to me. The album and the techniques I'd be teaching do require 2 hours. I hate the classes that you go to at conventions that are so fast paced that everyone walks out with most of their kit untouched and nothing quite completed. I guess I might offer the class somewhere more reasonable. Maybe on the cruise, LOL! Just kidding!

Finally, as requested, here is a picture of the mini book that goes with the little mailbox. Now off to bed I go!

Rush, Rush, Rush 'n Breathe 'n Smile

I've got to laugh at the day I had. As I've mentionned before I have the TLC booth at the CKC Convention in Ft Lauderdale at the end of June. Today was the outside deadline to get my class plan to CK. I thought my booth partner was buying the kits for the class. Apparently there was a miscommunication, or rather my email telling her that it was ok and to go ahead and buy the kits never made it to her and so I only had today to put another project together including the class description. Just a little pressure! So here is a picture of the book we will do if the class is accepted.

My poor friend Janie saw me have an artistic frustration fit this afternoon. It doesn't happen often, but with the deadline looming the book just wasn't where I wanted it to be. Thankfully my funk disappeared, I thought of a way to get the balance that was missing on the pages and I'm happy with the final product. Hopefully it will be approved and people will sign up for it. That part is always scary!

Other than that I had a nice chat with my RCS friends. I watched the Biggest Loser and talked briefly to my hubby who was really tired. I'm so proud of him! He has been taking yoga classes twice a week before work, which means that he has to leave here at 6:15. He demonstrated some of his moves the other day. Now, now people, I am speaking of yoga positions here! I was amazed at how flexible he has become! I have another busy weekend ahead of me, I have a 6-12 crop on Friday and I have to then pack my TLC items and some other stuff as I am vendoring at a crop in Sarasota on Saturday. For those who do not know, Sarasota is 45 minutes from here and I have to be there at 8:30 am to set up. Well that's it for another day in the life of "moi"! Now off to see what happened on American Idol. Thank goodness for TIVO!

But It's ONLY Monday...

Someone, who shall remain nameless, but is a very good "buddy" of mine, called me today and said, "you haven't written in your blog since Saturday!" OMGosh... but it's only Monday, right? I actually took it easy yesterday though I did work on a mini book of and for my little niece, while sitting in bed and watching TV. It's almost finished, I was going to share it with you tonight, but I had this brilliant idea that requires that the embellishment dry and then that they actually work and look good, so I'll share tomorrow.

So... I thought I'd share something else, a layout from the wedding album I made for Amy and Eli.

Also here is a picture of a class I'm going to offer. It is a small pink mailbox with a mini book. The paper is all Basic Gray.

Let me see what else did I do today? I gathered April's winnings and they should be out priority tomorrow. I worked on gathering information for a special cruise for all the nice people in my newsgroup to be held sometime in March 2009. I'm hoping that this will be something that everyone wants to attend. I expect the 4 night cruise to be less that $400/double occupancy for an outside and less than $35o for an inside, plus taxes and port fees. Hopefully we'll have a dedicated conference room for the whole trip included in that price. If people are willing to be 4 per cabin the cost could be a little lower for all 4. 3rd and 4th bunks are uppers though and I know that isn't always very popular. We need to reserve a minimum of 8 cabins to get group benefits. Anyhow, I better post this blog before much more time goes by as it will soon be Tuesday and then I'll be in big trouble, LOL!

And the 1st Winner is...

Cowchipper! Congratulations!!! I'll send your present(s) out in the mail on Monday and you can come back and tell people what you won! Because you're the first winner the prize is a little more generous! Plus it did get a little bigger thanks to your efforts!!! Of course there will be another winner at the end of March from all the comments posted.

Remember only one comment per person per day :)

Now to tell you about the garage sale at one of the local LSS' today. It was awesome! I was so tired yesterday that I nearly cancelled, but my friend Janie worked so hard convincing me and was so happy to see that I was ready to go this morning, that it made it all worth it! It doesn't hurt that I had a good time and that on top of that, I actually sold quite a bit of my older stock of things! Of course the deals were just great, if I do say so myself, LOL! Thanks Janie for driving, for helping me set up, for going to get lunch, for helping me when there were so many people waiting to pay, for helping me take what was left home, etc, etc, etc, as the King of Siam would have said! You were wonderful as always!

I called my friend Marie Laurence and her hand and wrist are doing great, but she had a terrible migraine today, and the pain pills did nothing to make it any better. So given that 6 hours after taking 1/2 pill she had no problems/pain with her hand but the migraine was doing her in, I suggested that she phone the Doc to see if it was OK to take something that would work on the migraine and perhaps even on the pain. Hopefully she reached him and is now resting more comfortably! If you want to see some pictures of her taken at the hospital, you can visit her blog.

For obvious reasons I didn't get any crafting done today, so I thought I would leave you with a picture that has been published and has won me an editor's choice award. It was taken from a cruise ship as we neared an island in the Carribean. The picture is entitled "Island Magic".

A Long Day

Well my friend had her surgery, but the day started in quite the rush. The surgery center called her and left a couple of messages last night, but she never got the message till this morning at 7:30. The messages were telling her that instead of showing up at 9:15, she needed to be there by 8:30!! Oups! She has a 45 minute drive to get there, so she got ready and then called me at 7:50. Now it's me rushing around so I can be sure to get there and translate everything for her and her husband.

Everything went pretty much as planned except that her husband hadn't planned on staying with her all day. Given that this was her first surgery and that as the "official" translator I had to sign as having received all the instructions for her care, I did not want her to be alone. So we told him to go to work and I drove her home and stayed with her till he could get back. I got home feeling really tired and still needing to get things ready for the scrapbook garage sale tomorrow. But I am so glad that everything went well. ML could move her fingers and that is what counts!! She also emailed me tonight to let me know that she is starting to feel the block wear off (think epidural for a wrist) and that she was good this afternoon and rested. For a while there today she was trying very hard to stay awake!

I also needed to get some cards done for the challenge on the RCS card challenge so I squeezed that in. I'll post one of the cards here. Yup and it's a Christmas card challenge to make sure that we have them done early in 2008! A great idea from my RCS pal Lynne!

I'm having some problems getting pictures uploaded, so I'm afraid the baby pages and the wedding pages will have to wait till I have more time! I just wanted to go ahead and post something so that those of you competing might get another chance to comment.

BTW, I plan on a monthly contest, same rules, so keep on coming people! I've enjoyed reading what you have all posted!

Today is Cram It All In Day!

OK, I know I should be working harder on the website, but I took some time today to do some must do girlie things like paint my hair, read some of my favorite blogs, add some digital kits to my ever growing and never used digital scrapbook library and of course I went to Curves. After having that knee replacement surgery in March 2007, I need to impress the surgeon next month when I go in for my one year checkup!

At any rate, I always enjoy taking a trip over to the Faith Sister's Blog and seeing what's up. There is always something inspirational to look at there and we can all use some positive creativity in our lives. OK so maybe it's not everyone's bag, but I for one enjoy taking a look from time to time.

I'm a big fan of Krystal Hartley's digikits, so I also went over to Polkadot Potato to pick up her Tweetie Bird Kit. It's just too cute! Of course, I don't have time to digi right now.

Tomorrow morning my french friend, Marie Laurence is having carpal tunnel surgery on her right hand and I'm the official interpreter. I recommended the Dr to her so it's extra important to me that she get the best of care and that her husband gets all the instructions needed to keep her comfy and safe, post op! So I'm happy to spend the morning with them to ensure that there are no communication problems. Saturday I'm selling some stuff off, or at least I hope to at the Whim-so-Doodle garage sale. So that will take care of most of the morning and the early afternoon. Sunday I have one of my S4O customers coming over to see the progress on her daughter's scrapbook which I am completing for her. The challenge here is to make my pages flow with hers. So I really need to get working on packing for the sb garage sale and get some more layouts done so that my customer is happy with the pages.

Oh and of course, I do have to eat, so off I go to McD's to eat a ceasar salad with grilled chicken! I am trying to be good. But I know that when I stop "trying" I'll succeed. To me the word trying is rather negative as if easily fortels that you expect that you might not succeed. So hopefully I'll come on here soon and actually say, I am now seriously changing my eating habits. All that gym work would truly pay off if I were to take modifying my eating habits more seriously. But more on that later, LOL! For now, I'm still trying, haha!

I'll post one of the pages from the baby album later. They are not my usual style but when you are scrapbooking for others it really is about what they want and agree to pay for. Oh and if you're wondering, I do have my customers sign a document where they choose to let me share their pictures and I do have permission to share this album. To me that is very important, especially when you are dealing with baby books.

More later...

M-C

Working Hard on the Website

Putting together the new Not Just Scrapbooks website is taking up a lot of time! There are so many aspects to it and I lost a week waiting for the provider to actually make it possible for me to upload everything to the site. There wasn’t a lot of incentive to work on pages that might never work. Finally we got everything squared away and I’m working hard to get everything up and running. For now I am a team of one so I hope you’ll indulge me.

I have to go back and work on links and see if everything matches up. I still have to add items in the store and that ain’t easy, as they say. At least now I can probably work on it a little faster, but more so in the morning as right now I am pooped and it’s 10:31pm my time. I did do something fun and booked a cruise for hubby and I to go on in August. It’s our first Carnival cruise and we are going to four places that I’ve already been to, but the good thing is we are shipping off from our home port so it’s only a 20 minute drive to the terminal. How fun is that!

Last couple of cruises I’ve actually taken my small HP printer, a TLC 6x6 scrapbook kit adding a few elements and scrapped the trip as it happened. I’m going to do that again as it’s so much fun! All I need is my cutter, a pair of scissors, some scrappy glue, a slick writer and some photo paper and I come home with only the last couple of pages to complete.

It’s not fancy scrapbooking it’s more like capturing the moment as best as possible.

Here are the front pages of those two trips.
The two books are filled with journalling, pictures, and in between the pages, the daily information sheets. I really like the fact that on the Ryndam we also got a daily news update as that will help ground the time spent on the cruise with what was happening around the world.

I know I promised pictures of my set up at home for my crop store, but I didn't get to that today. So I must apologize and promise that you'll see it all soon, perhaps as early as tomorrow! Meanwhile the prize for the drawing has grown a tiny little bit as a few people have trickled in mostly friends of April's! Thanks Cowchipper!!!

Will it be a magazine? A page kit? A mini album? something both bigger and smaller? Only a few days left till you find out who and what! I can hardly wait! Keep the people coming! Remember anyone that comes has a chance to win and the prize gets bigger the more people that come and leave a comment. One entry per comment and no more than one entry per person per day! Enjoy!

Time's a Flying

OK, so which one of you stole all my time away? Seems like I can never stay on yop of things! I forgot that I had a teddy bear show to go to. My first since leaving the Tampa Bay area in 2004. I met up with my teddy bear collector buddy Tami who I met while I was working for Arthur Andersen.

Amazing how small the show was as compared to the days just before the 150th birthday of the teddy bear. It makes you wonder if somehow the media has something to do with creating the hype that transforms a hobby from small to huge and then back to small again. Could the same thing happen or even be happening already to the scrapbook industry? Everyone that had gone to CHA said that this one was very poorly attended compared to that of previous years. It was also obvious that things were turning around based on the very small number of new companies in the innovation hall. What more, most companies had lowered their 1st order minimum and many were eager for business. Another trend seems to be the purchasing of one company by another, and I'm not speaking of the great absorber, EK Succes, but rather more like 7Gypsies now owning Chatterbox. This is not to say that scrapbooking is dying, but rather that the rapid growth of the past 7 years or so has come to an end. The hobby is now coasting and manufacturers are trying everything they can to attract younger scrappers.

I was going to post pictures of the store I have up for crops at my house, but that will have to wait till tomorrow as time did get away from me again today! I've taken the pictures, but they need to be downloaded from the camera, resized and uploaded to the blog and it is a little late. It will have to wait till after the gym and the visit of my scrapbook buddy. We are going to work on our itinerary and schedule for the 2nd annual Tampa Bay Scrapbook Treasure Hunt. We had fun doing it last year and hope that this year we will be even more successful and win the $1000.00 shopping spree.

I Love my Scrapbook Buddies

Guess who dropped in to say hello! My favorite Warrior Princess Savannah, sporting her new Diva Liver! She came with her Mami Ana and Supper Papi Robert (he took the picture). We were all so happy to see her beautiful healthy skin and her normally rounded tummy! I hadn't seen Savvy or her mom and dad since the day before they left for Philly to be closer to CHOP! Savannah make it crystal clear why we should all adhere to the saying "Don't take your organs to heaven...heaven knows we need them here!" Have you signed your organ donor card and told your friends?

Although Ana could not stay with us last night to crop, we had such a great time! The gang you see on the picture came for the pot luck, and Michelle V.E. came in later. We all loved Marie Laurence's chocolate "Fondant"and after I translated the recipe (lots of dark chocolate and only 2 tablespoons of flower) each of us got a copy. We might have a bit of a hard time with the imported French chocolate part, but I'm sure we'll manage somehow!

I think we all greatly enjoyed the evening which did not end at midnight, but at about 1:30am once it occured to me to ask someone what time it was. There is no clock in the room we scrap in (my living room), that way creativity is not trumped by time restrictions. Here is what I worked on:



My 1st All Clear Acrylic Album.

Front Page
Everything is in black and white except for that splash of pink Prisma flowers on the rings, suggested by my scrapbook buddy Michelle V.E.

Looking right through the album
The hard part was keeping it clear right through. After the first mistake, which required taking the picture on the second page right off and spending quite some time cleaning off the glue left behind, it was quite fun working on multiple layers to make it all work. Good thing to know, the TLC album did not get scratched despite all the rubbing I did to get the glue off!

Tomorrow - a look at my crop "store" set up!

When Time gets Away from you

It's amazing how fast time seems to be flying by! It’s already Friday afternoon and I just spent another $770.00 on car repair. Ugh! Can you say think new car??? I’m going to see if my gas mileage has improved and if not, it’s bye-bye car between now and the end of May!

On a more positive note, I’ve been getting some shipments in. Some of the new TLC line is in and I’ve got to say I love their new chipboard kits. It comes in the following shapes, flower, home, circle and heart. Sorry about the glare on that, I'll try to do better and change the picture!

I’ve also gotten most of my Cookbookin order! I just love their stuff! It will be up on the website for sale in the next couple of weeks, even if I have to link it from here and/or just put a simple front page on my www.notjustscrapbooks.com webpage. Their designer just emailed me to let me know that she is getting some pictures ready for me so that I can post them on mywebsite, but she needs a couple of weeks as they are very busy after the show! Thanks Jackie, that's really sweet of you and I do appreciate it!

Well I have one hour till people start arriving and tons and tons to do!!! I’ll let you know how things went tomorrow! I can't wait to see everyone. Ana is coming tonight and it's the first time I've seen her since the day before she left for Philly to get Savannah a new liver! It will be great to give her a big hug! It's going to be a bit of a reunion night and I really need to go clean up!!!

For those who are asking, I haven't seen anyone bring anyone new to the site, so right now the prize hasn't grown!!! Tell your friends to come on over! The more the merrier and the bigger the prize!!!

Did I mention that I need to go clean up, LOL! NOW!!!