The June Winner is...

Well the 4th has come and gone and there seemed to be a lot fewer fireworks in our area. Fortunately, the good Lord is doing His thing right now and there is a whole lot of booming going on outside. Tampa is well known for its thunderstorms and lightening strikes. Hopefully the power won't go out and I can finish this post!

It's been a shall I way interesting weekend around here. My DH decided that we needed to clean the garage out and move things around in the storage units. I must say that my sweetie worked his derriere off and that I did a very little bit as well. Given that I had another of those head colds/sinus colds last week, my contributions was to say the least minimal, which makes me all the prouder of all the work he's done. Since it was 90's DH got himself a cute hat to safeguard from a sunburn!

We haven't finished the job yet, but we are making some headway! Let's hope he can get his portion completed tomorrow while I tidy up the house a little! I also completed my cards for this months RCS Christmas card challenge which I'll scan and upload tomorrow as well as having finally finished my nephew's first scrapbook which I have to scan tomorrow so that I can finally get it off in the mail accompanied by a birthday present for my niece, Lindsay.

As for the winner for June, Sandy, if you'll send me a note to say which of the kits you want with your address, I'll get it and a couple of small surprises in the mail early next week. Congratulations and please don't stop posting comments!

July is a Month of National Holidays

Four countries have influenced my life, and all 4 have their national holidays during the month of July!

First comes the country of my birth, Canada, with its July 1st Canada Day celebrations.

Next my adopted country, the United States, celebrates its birthday on July 4th. To mark this occasion, I created a small waterfall acrylic book, which you will see below.

Following is France, on July 14th. My paternal grandfather was from France.

Finally Belgium celebrates its National holiday on July 21st. My parents and even my sister were born in Belgium as were both maternal grandparents and my paternal grandmother.

So to the countries that have contributed to making me the mixed breed that I am, I wish you all a very Happy Birthday!

So here is the July 4th album:

Boxer Step Book

What an interesting and lets be honest hot day! The weather was really warm outside and the AC at the place where we were cropping just could not keep up, and that despite the guy coming over at least twice to try and make things better!

I decided to do a book for a local scrapbook friend Debi, who is very involved with Boxer Rescue. I wanted to scrap something a little different so I thought I'd make a little boxer book and offer it to her to put in their upcoming auction.

I must admit I had fun and it only took ,e about 3-4 consecutive hours to put it together. I just love the Boxer Jolees and the paper that is currently available is absolutely amazing!

I hope that you enjoy it!

CCC for June Completed

In case you don't know, the online group that I belong to is having an ongoing Christmas card challenge or CCC. Every month we must complete some Christmas/Holiday cards. Tonight I decided to go to the weekend crop. I knew I wasn't going to stay overnight as they are all sleeping together in the same room on air mattresses. I'm afraid that A. I wouldn't be able to sleep and I suspect that many people will not be able to sleep either and B. with my new knee I'm not so good about getting up off the floor. Oh and C, I don't like having to go look for the little girls room 2-3 times during the night while trying to step over everyone. Anyhow, back to the cards!

I stayed for about 2 hours and between catching up with Janie, her daughter Lisa and Teresa, I got 6 cards completed. They are made with Anna Griffin 3-D Christmas stickers. Bazzil white and red cardstock, red metalic paper, I'm not sure who from and some stips of gold metalic stickers. I also used white and gold pens to create some of the swirls, dots, etc.

Hope you like them! Tomorrow I'm back at the crop by 10AM for a cupcake album class, followed by all day cropping and then back home, once I feel tired, so I can try to get a good nights sleep and go in again on Sunday for a few hours! There are some very awesome scrappers in this group of ladies, and some very interesting ladies indeed!

This Months Posting Winner will get...

First let me just say that I've slowed down the slide show of my Bahamas book. I hope that will enable you to actually see the pictures before they blow bubbles, LOL!

Secondly,I've sat here deciding what to give my June Blog winner. And I've decided that the winner will get their choice of one of the following complete mini album kits. Please click on the picture to see a bigger image!

Home Kit;

The Circle Kit;

Heart Kit; or

The Flower Kit.

Each includes everything you need, the chipboard album, ring, pre-cut flower, colored chipboard die cut sheet, 6x6 papers and a matching rubon sheet and matching ribbon.

More From the Bahamas

As promised here is my book from the Bahamas.

One of the things that is truly special in the Bahamas is the Bahamians. They are a kind, free spirited, jovial people at least nearly all those I met were. Despite the fact that they drive on a different side of the road, speak with a cadense unique to them, have a Queen and a Prime Minister and not a President, they are not so very different from Americans and have even more in common with Canadians. But their sunny Island smile is very special and something that lights up almost every moment of your stay in beautiful Nassau.

Thanks again Keshia for having me.

Back Home Again

You know how it is, you love to go on a holiday and then you love to come home! My trip to the Bahamas was wonderful, but I missed my DH and my DS.

I did find out a few things! There are may may ways to eat conch and I tried at least a few of them. Bahamians are totally crazy drivers! Not only do they drive on the wrong side of the road, they often do it in American cars, so they are also driving in the wrong side of the car! Local restaurants there don't often bother to debone the meat! Watch out for bones in everything from soup to curried mutton. By the way for those who don't know, mutton according to the Mirriam-Webster dictionary is defined as follows:

Middle English motoun, mutton, sheep, from Anglo-French mutun ram, sheep, mutton, of Celtic origin; akin to Old Irish molt wether

Date: 13th century

: the flesh of a mature sheep used for food

Mutton tastes really good, especially if the fat is removed.

Keshia and her husband Michael were on the same flight as I was from Nassau to Ft. Lauderdale. Since almost everything sold in the Bahamas is imported, my friends were on a shopping trip to bring back tables and chairs for The Scrapbook Cottage's scrapbook class/scraproom. Can you believe that it is cheaper for them to pay for return tickets to the the US, shop there and ship things back than to order the same items online and have them shipped? Unbelievable!

I am also hoping that Keshia had a chance to go to CKC Ft. Lauderdale and will let us know, via her blog, how she found it! As big or smaller than last year?

I've been settling back in, enjoying being with my DH, watching Disney movies, from the Parent Trap to Santa Clause 3 to Ratatouille. I went out too, it was nice to be able to hop in the car and just go where I wanted. Strange the things one can miss!

I did complete a small We R Memory Keepers 2 ring album while in the Bahamas to put my trip pictures. I'll try to complete it tomorrow and share. I also worked on a 4th of July acrylic album today, which I'm also hoping to finish tomorrow!

So what have my friends been up to, I wonder!

Message From the Bahamas!

Keshia is getting quite the kick, having me try Bahamian food! Here I am making a total mess of things trying to eat a Bahamian mango. I had to go and floss afterwards, the mango was so fibrous. But the taste, mmmmm very flavourful! After spending the early morning of Monday puttering around the house ,we spent some time at the store.

Keshia's small but beautifully put together store is sure to be a hit with the growing scrapbook community in the Bahamas!

Lunch found us at the Petite Café where we had the boiler plate and mutton in curry. We visited a fabric store that had a lot in common with the smaller JoAnn’s stores we have in the US, in that it had a craft area, a very small scrapbook area and the like. After stopping in a mini mall to pick up a catalog for ready to embroider shirts etc, we went back to the SB Cottage.

Dana, Keshia's daughter, and I had a great time working on a new sign for her bedroom door, and generally enjoyed ourselves cutting out letters and adding stickes glitter to just about everything.

After leaving the Cottage we took Michael to his meeting and spent some time driving around the island. Anyone that has been to the Bahamas and Nassau in particular, knows how beautiful the island is and how amazingly clear the water is. You can see the bottom clearly even where the water is really deel. I even saw a submerged submarine on the crossing from Florida to the Nassau. I though I was seeing things until the guys behind me started talking about the submarine too!

There are apparently a number of caves near the beaches of the Bahamas. We did visiting the openings of one cave that is just a few feet from the main street next to the beach and is left open for anyone to see. And if you're asking yourselves if I went down in one the answer is a resounding NO! Not only do I not like small claustrophobic places under the earth, but these are inhabited by Bahamian bats, which I had no strong desire to meet!

I was pretty tired by the time we got back to the house and retired early. What a great first day!

In the Bahamas

Well friends I made it to the Bahamas and what fun it has been already! I had an authentic Bahamian dinner last night at the home of Keshia's friends and then we drove around a while. I have visited the Bahamas before, but only for a few hours at a time off a ship. Even so, I recognized some places that my DS and I walkd around at and even the restaurant where he and I had conch fritters, yum, yum. BTW homemade conch fritters were on the menu last night and I ate a bunch and would have eaten more except that there was also crab n rice and BBQ ribs, yummy to MC's tummy!

I've finally gotten to see The Scrapbook Cottge which is right on the corner of Deveau and Dondeswell Streets. The store is so cute! It isn't big but what an awesome job of space planning went into it! Now I want to buy just about everything in it! Keshia can be very proud of herself, she has done a fantastic job of setting up the first scrapbook store in the Bahamas!

As for me, I am thrilled. How many times do we get to see a scrapbook store, pristeen, fully stocked with nothing but the latest and greatest and totally untouched! The perfect reflection of the owner's vision? I have no doubt that she will be a success and I can honestly tell you all that it is worth a look see when you stop in the Bahamas! Frankly, I can see why she is dying to open and share it. But for now it's going to have to be all about me, LOL as I am going to have a hard time NOT shopping!

I can't post pictures today, but will have some I hope to post tomorrow, sine I now know what the setup is here in her office. Well off I go to take pictures of the store and make a list of items I want to buy for a special present I have in mind for a small friend of mine!

Woo Hoo! Things are looking up!

Wow! I can't believe it, my passport came in this morning! That is so awesome, Thomas at passport Canada got the pictures on Monday. That means that he got the passport printed and back into my hands in two days! WooHoo Thomas, I know you won't be reading this, but you rock!!!

So now I'm going to have to pack, yeah, and get myself on a plane on Sunday! I can't wait to see Keshia, we had a great time when she visited here and I'm dying to see her store and talk about her future plans! I have a class and crop on Saturday, so I'm going to be pretty tired on Sunday, but I'll just try to rest while on the plane!

Good news too on the CKC Ft Lauderdale front, they have finally responded and let me know that it is OK for me to cancel my booth! With all the changes I just could not justify doing it this year. Who knows what I'll be doing next year, but hopefully I'll be enjoying life and keeping up with the costs of my scrapbook habit!

I'm going to post a challenge for everyone in my next post. Remember, there is still a nice prize going out to someone at the end of the month for their posts and on December 15th, there will be a grand prize winner... stay tuned!

I leave you with a picture of Savannah post op! Doesn't she look good! Right now they are on a major fund drive as Savvy's COTA fund went down to zero! With all the treatments, meds and trips she still has to take to the two different hospitals that are part of her treatment team, in St Petersburg, Fl and in Philadelphia, PA, we really need to continue to support thisd family. Finally, as they say, don't take your organs up to heaven, heaven knows we need them here!

Love ya Savvy!

Need your input!

I'm still waiting for the final outcome of the passport. It should be printed and shipped out today and I should get the tracking number tomorrow which will tell me what I'm doing this Sunday till the 20th.

But here is what I need your comments on! I was offered the job at our Jo Ann's etc in our area as the papercraft (scrapbook/card) instructor. It's a pretty restrictive job in the creative sense, there is a lesson plan to follow, the people are told generically what to purchase, 1 12x12 printed paper, 2 pieces of cardstock etc. They then come to a class where they use their own supplies to learn the basics. I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around that. I guess I just make a few samples using similar supplies and let them play...

As you know, I also teach at an LSS and at my house and love the creative outlet of doing that. The questions is, should I take the job at JAs? I have to give the lady an answer tomorrow and I just can't make up my mind. I get to pick the dates and times where I will teach. For example I would have to give her my August hours this week. I just don't know if I'm cut out for working under those conditions. Then again, I love a challenge and I love getting to know people. Your comments are most welcome, appreciated and yearned for!

What's a blog without a picture? So here is one from my archives... my beautiful, cuddly Radar says hello to all of you he has met and shedded on and offers a friendly paw to those he has yet to share his fur with!

What are the Odds?

If you can't stand to hear more about my passport saga, it's time to click and go to another blog now! First let me just say that there is this awesome person called Thomas at Passport Canada that is trying really hard to make it all happen. He has been calling everyday for the last four days and is even checking the tracking of the pictures. Thank you so much Thomas, you make me believe in the goodness of Canadian civil servants!

As you may know, Passport Canada (PC) rejected the first two pictures I have sent them. Both were taken by Walgreens who need I say it takes thousands if not hundreds of thousands of passport pictures each year. Can you imagine that they messed mine up twice? OK, so Monday I get the letter from PC saying that the picture in't any good. Tuesday I get the new picture taken at Ritz Camera and yesterday by 9:30 am, they are in the hands of Fedex for an overnight trip to Gatineau, Quebec, just across the river from Ottawa. I am told that they will be delivered in the AM and I have no reason to believe they won't given that everything went exactly as planned the last time that I fedexed pictures to the same address.

Well rather than being in the hands of PC by 10am, today, the passport photos made it to Memphis, TN at sometime past 11am today. Unbelievable... is it that I am not supposed to go to Nassau? I am told that Fedex had problems flying into Memphis last night. Really? Must have been their plane! Do you know that it is cheaper to Fedex a letter in their envelope overnight than in something else using 2nd day delivery? Hmmm.... the things you learn!

Anyhow, the waiting continues. Fedex Memphis got a message from Fedex national asking to expedite. Memphis called to tell me that they would make sure that Fedex Ottawa knew to expedite the delivery in the morning and hopefully Thomas will be able to dig it out from the rest of the requests in pelenty of time to get me on a plane on the 15th.

What an unbelievable saga, wouldn't you say? Well tomorrow I get my van back and turn in the car and have my the crop at my house at 6pm. Saturday, since my class has been postponed, I am going to an all day crop and Sunday? I'm spending in bed, LOL!

Hope you all have a great day!

I Wish I Could Keep Up

I wish that I could keep up with everything I've got going on, especially my friends, but I'm falling flat on my face these days! Way too much going on, LOL!

I can't believe that it's been since the 22nd of May since I've posted! It's not that I don't always start blog posts, but I don't always finish them. For example I wrote this last week...

Today, I spent the day with Janie and as usual, it was a calming and fun day! Spending a day with Janie is almost like taking a deep cleansing breath, I just feel so much better afterwards! Honestly, I really needed it! Thanks Janie!

So what have I been doing? Putting together the kits for my class at Scraptopia is taking quite a bit of time! I'm still not done. I love creating classes, cutting everything and getting ready, I must admit, not so much!

Sunday (May 25th) Janie and I went to a class at Scraptopia given by folks affiliated with My Mind's Eye. Janie and I both won awesome prizes. She won all the papers and embelishments in the latest Wild Aspergus line and I won all the papers in the 29th Street line as well as some embelishments from one of their other lines. We both also got a full set of titles. That's Keesha, Madison in the middle and Janie.

I thought I would also share two of the four pages that will be used in another class at Scraptopia, this one in July.

I've just got to share with you Scraptopia's announcement for one of my classes:

'Summertime' by Marie-Claire
This is an adorable, 6"x 6" colorful book with a tropical look! Learn how to play with acrylic pages and incorporate them into your mini projects.

M-C is a very talented designer and you will love this project at a great price - only $29! The date is Saturday, 7 June from 10 - 1 p.m. Don't wait - this class is limited and going fast! (There are so many talented people out there, it just blows me away that I even get to teach at the LSS)

Now back to today June 3rd. What has happened since last week? Plenty, but it would take a long time to write all about it so here are the highlights!

I spent the whole weekend in bed on pain meds trying to get rid of the sciatica that has been plaguing my life for 3+ weeks.

Janie and I spent Monday, that is yesterday, together. Thank goodness because she was the only highlight of the day. I got a notice from passport Canada saying they didn't like the 2nd set of pictures I sent, Rick had a bad day which always upsets me, and someone scrapped and dented my brand new SUV while I was in a store ordering glasses and contacts for Rick! On the positive side, the lady did stick around and said she would pay for everything rather than go through insurances.

Today Tuesday. I got all prettied up to have my passport pictures taken for the 3rd time. Before going for the picture at the mall, no Walgreens this time, but Ritz Camera, I dropped off the van at MAACO for the repairs and paint jobs. Was driven to Hertz to get a rental car and after that stopped at Scraptopia. As luck would have it, my email with the list of products required for the class somehow didn't get to the owner and the covers that she did order did not come in. So my class of the 7th is now postponed to sometime in July!

On a high note, a nice lady that I spoke with at Passport Canada last week called me to follow up. She had noticed that there were no updates on my file and said that the note was still in there that my passport needed to be printed by the 10th and that I should write a short letter to send in with the new pictures and then overnight everything and that just maybe, I might still get my passport in time to go to Nassau on the 15th! Let me just say that I will consider that to be a miracle and I guess I'd better start packing just in case!

I'm sitting here and realizing that I am so grateful for my friends! You guys rock, all of you! You are always there to raise me up and make me feel better! Thanks and now... for the May winner of my blog comments...

The winner is Crystal!!! I know that you are on a cross country treck, but as soon as you settle down and email me an address to send your prize, I'll get right on it! It might be fun to rak you as well at that time since I'm guessing that you haven't hauled too many scrapbook/card making supplies!!! Congrats Crystal!

What an Interesting Couple of Days!

As I write this Keshia is, I think, passed out from exhaustion! I've got to tell you that it's been an amazing couple of days! We've been going around not only to scrapbook stores, but also to an amazing home and crafts decorating warehouse, Home Goods, Pier 1 and I've probably driven a couple of hundred miles. We've found items that I had seen at the Doodle, that up to then I had no idea where to get, tracked down big and small wrought iron easels in a couple different sizes and just had a general great time.

Of course, I myself am about to go and crash. I've got tons of things to do, sorry to say still no passport, but who knows I may get a phone call from DHL telling me that they have a delivery that needs a signature tomorrow. No leaving of a passport at the front door or in the mailbox. Big no, no! The great thing about DSL is that the driver works around your schedule if at all possible and gives you a 30-60 minute window when he will come to deliver.

I'm glad to say that my buddy Janie got home safely a couple of days ago, but we've had no time to catch up yet! If you're reading this Janie, I hope we can catch up sometime tomorrow.

I completed a series of 4 layouts with the Basic Grey Sugared line and I will be teaching a class using those layouts at the end of month, so that is a total three classes plus Nassau in June! Of greater concern, I can't seem to get a human being at CK to return a call or answer an email, which really sucks because I absolutely need to cancel my two booths! Perhaps next year I'll come up with a new way to have a booth, but I need to regroup and figure out what I really need/want to do going forward. Of course if I don't get in touch with them soon, they will say that I didn't cancel and charge me anyhow. It would be nice to know how to get that one sorted out because if it's already too late to cancel, I need to figure out what I'll take to sell.

So there you go, live in the fast lane, M-C style, LOL! Hope everyone is making every moment special. Because as you know, each moment only comes "once"!