Angela July's Stamping Party

#1). Fifth Avenue Floral Stamp Set, Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Going Green, and Basic Black
#2). A Flower for All Seasons Stamp Set, Heard from the Heart Stamp Set, Eyelet Border Punch, Sizzix Die: Flower Layers/Leaf, Sale-A-Bration Ribbon, and Delicate Dots Designer Paper (SAB), White Gel Pen, Stampin' Up Markers, 1 3/4" Circle Punch


As promised...I am posting the cards that we made last night at Angela's party. I have been home all day today. I put in the stamping order from last night, took a nap, and worked on finishing up the extra packets that I had cut. I am not feeling so great. My chest feels tight like I am getting sick so just took some Musinex and I am heading to bed. Tomorrow I have a doctor's appointment and am suppose to meet Sarah to shop, have dinner, and celebrate her birthday. Keep your finger's crossed that I am not getting sick...or better yet....pray for me! Have a good night! Elaine

Scalloped Oval Chart

Tonight I had a stamping party at Angela July's home. She served us a fantastic meal and we had a large crowd. Lots of new people and we all had a lot of fun. I made this chart this afternoon to show off the new scallop oval punch and the new stamp set Only Ovals so that my stamper's could see all the possibilities this stamp set and coordinating punches have. I got so busy playing with it that I lost track of the time. It was 3:15 and I still hadn't taken my shower and I had told Angela that I would be there by 4:30. But I made it in time! I will post the pictures of our projects tomorrow!

38 Mini Notebooks

Good Evening from Mayberry! I have been holed up in my little "sweat shop" since returning on Tuesday from Milwaukee. I did escape from here for a little while yesterday. Diane came over in the afternoon and we were doing some stamping. We decided to go to Antler's Ridge for fish fry. It was excellent. I have felt for years that Cat's Down the Road had the best fish fry around but I think they have changed something and now Antler's Ridge has my #1 vote. Jenna and I have both said we would love to go around and try out new restaurants and review the food. I try and do that....but unfortunately mine is not a paid position! LOL So I don't get to do that as often as I would like to!
I have been working on notebooks. I have finished 38 of them over the last couple of days and got some door prizes made for Angla's party but you are going to have to wait to see those. I will start working on something else tomorrow, I imagine you are sick of seeing pictures of notebooks! :D

Mini Notebooks #3

I had planned on sewing today but so far that hasn't happened. I had a marathon of phone calls from 11 am till 4:30pm with a quick shower in there. I decided right away in the morning that if I was going to be on the phone, I needed to work on something that I could do while talking, so I started working on more notebooks. I got 15 of them done while talking on the phone. I have some more started but decided to take a break and rest awhile. Maybe I will sew after I get up. The evening should hopefully be quieter, it usually is....it is like a zoo around here in the daytime!

Olive Garden Employee Treat Bags

These are some treat bags Jenna and I made while I was in Milwaukee this weekend for her server's at the Olive Garden when she does reviews. We had the kids helping out. Diana had a measuring cup and was measuring out jelly bellies for the bags, and Dustin was counting out pieces of candy for the other bags. The kids love to help out.

Mini Notebooks 2

I finished another batch of notebooks today. I am ashamed to admit that these were started last fall. I had put the designer paper on them and the ribbon but had never finished embellishing them. Well today they finally got done! Also did some housecleaning and Susie was over to use my computer to put her first stamping order in. Tonight was our "Yackette's" get together and we met the "old Birthday Club" out at Carlson's Rustic Ridge for dinner. Carlson's over looks Castle Rock Lake and the sunset tonight was just beautiful. A red sky. We had a great time as usual. It is one of the highlight's of my month when we meet.

Mini Notebooks

Today I was out at Lady Di's house stamping and I got a lot accomplished. I tend to get more done when I work out there than I do at home. When I am at home I have a lot of interruptions. Lots of phone calls and people stopping over. I am a people person so love that normally....but sometimes it is nice to work without any interruptions. Today I decorated 15 notebooks and got some additional pieces ready for future projects. Let me know what you think of them! Elaine

St. Patrick's Day Candy Bars

Yesterday I was talking to my niece Brooke on the telephone and all of a sudden, out of the blue she said "Aunt Elaine, are you working on St. Patrick's Day cards for me, Ben, and Bob?" Of course...being the World's Greatest Aunt....I had to say "Yes!". Now mind you...I don't send the kids a lot of cards but Brooke knows that I am stamping all the time and I usually make them some sort of stamped treat for the holidays or for when I see them. I always have some sort of little goody for them. I haven't seen them since January so I guess she is missing that! Little con...LOL Anyways, Aunt Elaine couldn't let her down. But the problem is...that I don't have St. Patrick's Day stamps! But I did have one that I found of a shamrock that says Go Green that I had bought from a dollar stamp bin. So I ran up town to drop off a bank deposit, stopped at Pamida and found Hershey's chocolate bars on sale. I went through my paper and found some nice green prints and decorated these candy bars. I ended up doing a dozen so that I can take them for the kids and adults when I go back to Milwaukee on Saturday. So....I packaged up Brooke, Ben, and Bob's and sent it off in the mail today. Hopefully they will get there by tomorrow so Brooke will have her little St. Patrick's Day treat. I thought I would shoot a picture of them so you could see them. The paper is cut at 6" x 7 1/2" for the wrapper and the ends are crimped with the crimper.

Good Morning Sunshine Designer Series Paper Cards

I usually make up some sample cards with a stamp set that I want to feature a particular month or in this case I decided to feature a Designer Series Paper. I made this batch of cards with a bunch of different stamp sets and accessories to show case the DSP Good Morning Sunshine. It is a fun funky paper, kind of retro with all the owls and birds and 70's colors. I had a lot of fun coming up with these and playing with our new chipboard owls and birds.

March Scrap Book Class

We made this project at this weeks scrapbooking classes and it was a big hit. Lots of cutting and taping but well worth the effort as it is adorable when it is finished and to learn how to make this, they needed to do the cutting. The pictures don't do it justice and it was hard to photograph. We used the following Sale-a-bration products, Delicate Dots paper, ribbon, and Polka Dot Punches stamp set. The gals can add there photograph's later as this took almost 3 hours to make. They were busy making plans on who they were going to make them for. It would make a great gift! Diane helped me clean up after class today and we went to Main Street Station for supper. She had her usual chicken and I had my usual Olive Burger and ff's which was fantastic. No one can make an olive burger like they do...they have the very best olives!

March Stamp Camp

This month at Stamp Camp we made this card pouch with 4 cards and envelopes. The cards slide into a 6" x 6" scrapbook page protector. The card fronts are embossed with the Big Shot and embossing folders. The designer paper is Delicate Dots, the stamp set Polka Dot Punches, and the ribbon bundle are items that you can get for free with a $50.00 order during Sale-A-Bration. The other stamp set we used was Lovely Labels. They fit so nicely on top (the words Baby and Thank You are stamped with this). This class was a big hit! They loved the colors and they plan on making more for gifts.

Jenna stamps her first cards!

Jenna asked me to teach her how to make some greeting cards as she had never made any cards before. She is a scrapbooker. The first one I had her do similiar to a thank you card that I had made for Sarah to use for her wedding shower gifts. We recreated it in different colors. Then the second card Jenna created herself. She signed up to be a Stampin Up Demonstrator and she wants to make cards to sell in her spare time and do a few parties. I also taught Diana (Antonio's daughter how to make a card too and she did a wonderful job. But I didn't have time to shoot a picture of it as I needed to get on the road to come home before the weather got bad. Diana gave it to Jenna for her birthday and Jenna loved it. She told me that she was going to scrapbook her birthday cards!

Olive Garden

Wow...it has been a whirlwind week. I have tons of things to post on here but haven't found the time to do it! I will tell you a little bit about my trip to Milwaukee. Jenna and I decided to go out for lunch when I got to Milwaukee. At first we were going to go to a place near there home. But it is Antonio's favorite place also and Jenna knew that he would like to go with us there so she asked me if I would like to go to her restaurant and I jumped at the chance! The three of us ended up going to Fritz's Pub on Friday night for fish and it was excellent! Back to my story... I like to go to the restaurant's Jenna manages to see the restaurant and meet the people that she works with. When we talk about her work in future conversations, I can picture her at work and I will know some of the people she is talking about. I have to say, of all of them I have been to...this one was the very best! We had a wonderful time. I am going to tell you what we had to eat because I highly recommend it! I started with a N/A Strawberry Mango Margarita and we had an appetizer of Smoked Mozzarella Fonduta. Yummy! Jenna had soup and I had a little bit of salad and some bread sticks. Then we shared a dinner of Ravioli Di Portabello which was out of this world and this will be what I will be ordering there in the future. For those of you that know me well...once I find something that I LOVE at a restaurant, that is what I will always eat there in the future! Then we had a few bites of Chocolate Ciuttuli Cake and I took the rest home. That was fantastic too...we were just too full by this time! I had mentioned when our waitress was at our table that this could be Jenna's birthday cake and she didn't say anything but in a few minutes, she had rounded up about a dozen people to sing to Jenna which was quite fun as we weren't expecting it! This restaurant is the busiest Olive Garden in the state of Wisconsin and is located in Brookfield, WI. They serve over 7000 people per week! I will tell you more about my adventures later!

Happy Birthday dear Jenna......Happy Birthday to You!

Jenna's 25th birthday will be on Monday, March 9th. I can't believe that she is this old already....and look how old that makes me! Tee Hee
I made this birthday card over the weekend for her and have been waiting to post it on here as I did not want her to see it. I am headed to Milwaukee in the morning and will be giving her present to her and this card then. She figured that she wouldn't be getting off work till at least 8 o'clock tonight so I am guessing.... (finger's crossed) that she won't be looking at my blog before I get there, as she plans on resting up so we can have lots of fun together. She wants to scrap book pictures of Sarah's and Zach's wedding while I am there and we will see what else she has cooked up.

I want to go to the scrapbook store in Greenfield. I have a box of Wayne's 6"x6" scrapbook stands in the van that I asked him to make and I am going to see if the Scrapbook Super Store is interested in buying some. I have talked with the owner of this store on previous visit's so she knows who I am. The stands are adorable with my scrap book pages on them if I do say so myself. :D

I will take a picture soon and put it on here so that you can see them. I will be selling them at the Friendship Shoe Box Swap and also will have them for sale at the flea market. If you are a scrap booker or stamper....you will want one for sure. They are a cute way to display scrap book pages, calendar pages, recipe cards, etc. Any hoo...I am turning inside out about going to Milwaukee and I wish that it was morning so that I could leave! My backs are packed...I'm ready to go! I'm leavin' on a Jet Plane....don't know when I'll be back again.....

(not really....I will be taking the Yackette Mobile and I have to come back to good old Mayberry!!!!! The city is a nice place to visit but this is home.

This stamp set is by My Favorite Things and it is a set that Jenna got me for Christmas. I had some of the Who's that girl? line on my Christmas wish list and she got them all for me! What a sweet girl! Just like the card says....You're Simply Sweet. Inside the card I stamped...you are better than ice cream! Which I thought was quite appropriate as Jenna loves ice cream.

I am hoping we will make a trip to Cold Stone Creamery while I am there. Most of this card is colored except for the wall paper and I paper pieced her pants. I fondly call these the headless girls! And being they are headless...they can be any buddy you want them to be. Can I have her body!?!?!?

Today has been another busy day. I picked up my prescription, dropped off library books, went out to Carol's and picked her up for her doctor's appointment and took her to Mauston so that she could get her stitches out. We stopped at Better Buys and I found some wedding scrap booking stuff for all of wedding picture's I have to scrap. Then we had lunch at the Oasis. We had Chicken Salad BLT's and FF's which were excellent and then dessert. We headed back to town and I took Carol to the other pharmacy so she could pick up her prescriptions and then took her back home. She has done so very much for me and my girls through the years and it was nice to be able to do something for her today. She can't drive for another week. Since I have been home I have been catching up on my emails, answering the phone, packing and loading stuff in the van. I don't know how I ever lived without a van. I sure do make the most of all the space in it! See ya in a few days! The jet will be leaving soon! Boo

Happy Birthday Minerva!

This is one of the birthday gifts that I made for Melissa for her birthday. I also made a leaf wall quilt for her. This is a new stamp set from My FavoriteThings called Hangin' with the Peeps! When I saw this I knew I had to get it to make something for Melissa as she loves her birds and I tease her about being batty for birds. She stopped in tonight on her way home from Madison and I gave her birthday gifts to her. I paper pieced the dress, sweater, shoes, the floor and the wall. If I had my gals do this in stamp camp....they would lynch me at it is very tedious and you have to be so careful cutting all the small pieces. But I think it is worth the effort. In case you can't read the saying on it, it says on the top of the frame"To One of My Favorite Peeps" and then on the wide oval it says"You are my kind of Chick". You can always click on the pictures to see them larger if you wish too.
I have been going non stop for days. I was over to Mauston to the doctor and grocery shopping, running errands in town. I have been getting ready and packed for next weeks stamp camps, and packing for my trip to Milwaukee. I have my scrapbook stuff packed, and stuff for the kids and still need to pack my clothes. But I am very tired now as I haven't taken a break all day long so am going to head off to La La Land!