What a week!  I've been sick, again!  Sinus and ear infections have me down and this antibiotic is making me just a little woozy then again, maybe it's taking Zertec,or to be precise one of it's genric forms. Anyhow, I didn't get a whole lot done this week.  Just five 12x12 pages in the baby book, two cards, and a bunch of posts on Facebook. Oh and I attended part two of my favorite class ever, with the every talented Marion Smith!  I love that we learned the old fashioned art of book binding!  Maybe I'll offer a class of my own doing that!

There are a few things I haven't shared with you yet so I thought now might work! First a coupld of pictures of a larger size mini I made using the various butterfly inspired paper collections:

Next a few birthday and congratulation cards.  I'm actually pretty proud of myself!  I took out and used some cookie cutter diesfrom QuicKuts that I had purchased and put away before our last move.

So what's on my creative to do calendar?  Let me see:

A. Finish my little niece Caroline's baby book;

B. Finish and send or deliver my Mom-in-law's 70th birthday album.

C. Prepare the kits for my the class I'm giving next Wednesday.  You can see the 6 layouts on one of my previous entries, here.  This means a lot of cutting, since when my students come to the class, all they do is adhere everything to the page!  So the flowers must be cut, the doillies cut and misted, all the mats, paper pieces etc need to be ready.  Everything for each page is then packaged separately to make the class super easy.. It's a lot of work, but I really enjoy the time I spend with them each moth! And last but not least:

D. I also have 50 wedding invitations to create and put together by the end of the month! 

E. I nearly forgot, I am also hosting a Birthday card swap for an online group of crafty friends which needs to come on and go out by the end of the month!

Phew... I guess I am busy! As for July? The only things I expect to work on is my monthly layout class.  The thing I am looking forward to the most? CHA, the Craft and Hobby Association summer show in Chicago!  My room is reserved, my pass purchases and the workshops scheduled.  I am so looking forward to it!

My Last Full Vacation Day

I'm just enjoying being away from home and responsibilities and just being able to chill! This morning I went for a walk on the beach and saw some wonderful things, but the best without doubt was a small sea turtle, who had been caught up in the surf and was being washed ashore. After observing it for a while I put it back into deeper water pointing back out to sea.  I'm not a sea turtle expert, but I can easily imagine that it isn't meant to be ashore alone, in the sun with bunches of tourists ready to play or trample it. I hope it has a safe journey!

Yesterday was truly joyous!  I got to spend some quality time with Janie!  I miss her so much! It was almost as if I'd never left! We laughed, shared, shopped at AC Moore, ate, laughed some more.  We kept from crying when it was time to go our separate ways by making silly faces at each other from our cars! Whenever you think of me, Janie, just remember the silly face, that's what I plan to do when I'm missing you!

I do have more pictures to load up from CHA, I think my camera had slipped to the wrong setting as some pictures are just a little blurry! Still amongst my favorite items are:

Tim Hotz Memory Box system:

Best Creations' Papers:

The Flip-Pal Portable Scanner:

The Ranger Scrubbie, got to get it and test it, but for those of us who always have ink on our hands, sure sounds like a winner!

As always there is a lot more to show and tell, but it will have to wait for the next post! Have a great day!

Some Good Stuff

There is so much going on!  If you remember, one of my dreams was to go to CHA in Chicago this summer.  This is one dream that I'm going to achieve and for less than $300, all inclusive!  I was able to combine this trip with another and minimize the difference in airfare for the sidetrip to Chicago to only $90 more.  Thanks to my buddy Pat Davenport, Cricut teacher extraordinaire, I have access to the show floor and 2 roomates, one of them of course is Pat. The convention center is near Chicago O'Hare airport, so the shuttle will be free to and from the hotel, bonus! And the hotel is across the street from the convention center! Yeah!!! I will of course be reporting from CHA again, which if memory serves, is how this blog got started in the first place! Anyone else going to CHA that I can meet up with?

Those of you who follow me on Facebook know that I've been battling a very nasty bug which unfortunately forced me to abort a visit to Ramona's Store in Bellevue.  Ramona created my dream store while I wasn't looking and has expanded from just stamping, for which she is very well known in the area, to also providing scrapbooking and multi-media classes.  Ramona is a wonderful, warm, talented lady that I first met when she came to a Scrapbook Buddies Meetup! I'm going to teach scrapbooking at her store as soon as we can get together that is! Although she only opened her doors a very few months ago, her store has already expanded once. In addition, it and all the wonderful artsy stores in Bellevue, KY were recently featured in Cincinnati Magazine! I'm looking forward to feeling better, meeting Ramona and teaching again!