*A Long Break*

It sure seems like forever since I have posted something creative on my blog. I haven't been feeling nearly as creative in the last few weeks as I have in the past months so a card is slow to get out of my brain and in to reality. Of course, the week away at CHA kept me away from my craft table as well.

As much as I love having my laptop in my craft room for surfing and looking things up, it sure is a distraction when I am trying to craft.... reading emails, blog surfing, Facebook.... all distractions.

But I made the decision this afternoon to create a card if it killed me.... and it was painful... really... apparently I put my shoulder our while in California (I'm guessing it was lugging a wheeled tote for several days) so I am nursing a few aches and pains.

We all know how much I love the Mojo Monday sketches so I thought I would start there. I'm not disappointed with the card, but I'm not thrilled with it either.

I used images from Amuse and Unity (can't really see the Amuse in the photo but the blue and green are stamped with Versamark Dazzle Frost ink with an Amuse stamp). The colours are Whisper White, Basic Black, Taken With Teal and Green Galore. I got the colour combination from the ribbon I chose to use. The flowers are the white shimmer flowers from the wedding section at Michael's and I coloured them with my Stampin' Up Markers. I added a little bling to the centre of the flower (cuz I just love the bling!).

Thanks for popping by for a visit!!!

*Something Exciting for the Scrapbook Pantry*

If you're in the Calgary area, I have something you won't want to miss out on...

At CHA we spent some time at the Rusty Pickle booth and we have an exciting announcement... Lance from Rusty Pickle will be in Alberta in February and he has agreed to teach two classes at the Scrapbook Pantry on Tuesday, February 24th!!! He will be doing two different kits .... one during the day and one in the evening.

Now, you need to hurry.... but not that fast LOL! Space is limited for these two classes but we will not be accepting registrations for them until Friday, January 30th. You can stop into the store at 450 Country Hills Blvd NE or give us a call at (403)455-1558

Registration will be on a first come first served basis.

We are currently waiting for photos of the projects from the people at Rusty Pickle as well as information on the cost of these two classes.

We know that these will be such fun for all of our customers!

We really hope that you will help us welcome Lance to Calgary and support our efforts of bringing him to our store!

*I'm One of Cami's People!*

I know I will forget some of those who I have seen or met this trip, but let me tell you how cool it was to meet some of the people I "stalk" online.... these are the "stamping royalty" in many circles....

On my first day here I introduced myself to Jenn Shurkus.... she was shocked to find out she had a stalker LOL

Today I did a make and take with Cambria Turnbow at the Our Craft Planet booth... she was so genuine and wonderful. Lots of hugs later it was decided that I was on of her "people" That was cool. While there I also met Carolyn King and Emily Giovanni. At the Prism Paper booth I recognized and spoke to Keri Serika. These are all people who's work I follow and enjoy and it was great to meet them... even if I felt a little silly.

Today I also ran in to Nicky Manel who I haven't seen in *years*! It was wonderful to catch up with her for a few minutes. She also introduced me to Emily herself... the creator of Stamping Bella.

On Saturday I met the ladies from Hanna Stamps (Vicki and Kristi)

It's been a good week but I am ready to head home to my family...

If you want a few sneak peeks of stuff we've seen, please visit the Scrapbook Pantry blog (where I work)

Cheers

*Having Fun in California*

WOW.... what a week I have had so far. It all started at the Calgary airport at 7am on Wednesday and we've hardly stopped to take a breath.

I don't want to hash it all out again on my blog, so please pop over to the Scrapbook Pantry blog to see what we've been up to..... I know, I hate posts like this too, but I really need to get to bed!

The big news you can see on the sidebar.... I took Copic University today with Marianne (she's awesome!) and am now Copic Certified. I also got to meet Kristi Ferro and Vicki Garret at class today.

And I had a small world moment.... I sat at a table beside a woman I met at Stampendous on Friday.... on the other side of me were two ladies who, after we got to talking, I found out were Canadian.... they have two stores in Ontario (Mississauga and Oakville) and it turns out they own my sisters' favourite store! Of course they know her! Sing it with me........ "it's a small world after all...."

I will update when I can..... internet hasn't been treating me too well since we got here although yesterday we called the help desk and were upgraded to a Level 2 Ticket and now the problem seems to have been resolved (fingers crossed)

Cheers

*Not Accomplishing Much*

I sit down at my stamp table quite a bit... but end up doing nothing. I have so few cards finished and photographed waiting to share on my blog! It scares me!!!

But now there is no time to create more as I am leaving in the morning to fly to California to attend CHA. CHA is the Craft and Hobby Association... a huge trade show for craft and hobby manufacturers to showcase their new releases... which translates into a buying trip for my Boss and I. I am really excited to be going, although not so excited about the 5:45am wake up tomorrow! I am so not a morning person.

I have a few days off work when I get back from CHA next week and I hope to get some creating done then. I'll have lots of new ideas and information thanks to demos and make and takes as well as a day spent with Stampendous and a day doing Copic University.

If you check out the Scrapbook Pantry blog over the next week you'll see some fun updates from CHA (I hope!)

This card is one of the ones I designed for my January class at the Scrapbook Pantry This is a Z-fold card using Imaginsice Twitterpated paper and image. We used the ScorPal to create the Z-fold and some Nestabilities for the ovals. We coloured the image with Copic Spica pens. There are Dew Drops in the centres of the flowers and little dots of Stickles in each of the scallops.

Not sure how much time I will have to update my own blog over the next week, but I will try to pop by if I can. So glad that I have the laptop to take with me!

Cheers!

*I Used a Mojo Monday Sketch to Find My Mojo*

I ended up with an unexpected day off today and I had great plans of crafting it away. I ran out this morning to get a few groceries and to visit my chiropractor, came home and sat at my stamp table.... and found my Mojo was gone.

Christy admitted to stealing it on Facebook.... she's not very nice.

But Allison suggested I try a challenge to try to find my missing Mojo. She was much more helpful than Christy.

It took me about an hour to make and was difficult since some of my most used tools are at the Scrapbook Pantry (I taught a class yesterday morning and teach it again tonight and I didn't see the point in bringing all my stuff home). I had to make this card without my Cricut (my blade and mat are at the store), my ScorPal and my Nestabilities!!! How unfair!

Anyway, I chose to do the MojoMonday Challenge (#69) for this week. Tough to do circles when you sold all of your larger circle punches and have no Nestabilities with you!!! The patterned papers are by Magenta as are the little stickers on the three circles at the bottom of the card. The flower is by Bazzill (I think). I used Riding Hood Red and Basic Black cardstocks.

Thank you Allison for giving me an idea.... now to see if the Mojo is back or just stopped by for a quick visit!

Cheers

*Hey Brenda*

This one is for you, Brenda... just because you asked, I have put the list of "labels" back on my blog...

Cheers

*The Original*

I had several people help me out with being able to share the original Christmas Card with you... if you'll recall from a few posts down, I didn't take any photos of the original colour combination of the Christmas Card I sent out this year. I ended up making several different variations on a theme as I didn't have enough of the original papers to make them all and I needed to use up some of the patterned paper in my stash.

I had a few people email me with photos and Bonnie dropped her card off so I could photograph it.

So there you have it, the original of the set of Christmas Cards I sent out this year.

*Another Card Class*

My apologies for the lack of posts in almost a week.... it's been a crazy few days including the first Birthday celebration at the store.... which went awesome!!!

I am teaching at the Pantry again this week.... both Wednesday morning and Thursday evening. I am kind of happy to get to design something other than Christmas cards this time around. I love Christmas stamping, but I think I was just done with that phase, at least for now.

Since I got an Expressions for Christmas, I thought it would be fun to use one in this class. If you are a member at the Scrapbook Pantry, you can come in to use our Cricut or Expressions and the cartridges we have and I want to promote that with the members who are taking my class.

This card was done using the Wild Card cartridge on a sheet of BlackMagic cardstock by Coredinations. The sentiment is cut with the same cartridge and says "Bloom where you're planted".

I love how the BlackMagic cardstock is coloured on one side and black on the other, which really makes the flower pop out.

A few dots with a black marker and some ribbon and voila!

By the way.... if you're interested.... the Scrapbook Pantry now has a Blog too!!! It's still in it's beginning stages but please be sure to check back with us often!

*Happy First Birthday*

It's hard to believe, but it's almost been a year since the Scrapbook Pantry opened in Calgary.

I invite anyone who lives in the Calgary area to join us on Saturday, January 10th from 10am to 6pm for our First Birthday Celebration! There will be balloons, cake, demos, make and takes, specials, door prizes and goodie bags! Not to mention a sale better than any other sale we've ever had!!!

The store is located at 450 Country Hills Blvd NE... we are a few kilometers west of the Deerfoot. You'll find a large shopping complex consisting of several small strip malls... we're in the strip mall directly west of the Sobey's (same strip mall as the TD Canada Trust).

We hope to see you on Saturday!

*A Challenge Card*

For those of you keeping track, I am still sick and still coughing like crazy. Today, by the end of my shift at the store, I could barely get out two or three words before I started coughing and couldn't stop without some water. It's worse at night which means I'm not really sleeping.

I'm done. Someone tell my cough that I'm done... it's no longer listening to me LOL!

A couple of days ago I was blog surfing and saw a link to the new Mojo Monday Blog... Julee and her girls have set up a new blog for the weekly challenge. Many of my favourite layouts have been Mojo Monday sketches.

I figured, what better way to get myself stamping for me again than to do a challenge. And, true to it's name, it was a bit challenging for me, but I am SO thrilled with the results!!!

This is my take on Mojo Monday Sketch 68.

I am really happy with how this card turned out. I started knowing that I wanted to use these two coordinating papers by My Minds Eye. I added to it some Chocolate Chip and Soft Sky ink. The brad is an SU Circle Brad, the flowers are the paper flowers from Michaels (in the wedding section). I also pulled out my Nestabilities, some Dew Drops and some bling bling. The stamp is one of my favourites, by Stampabilities.

I hope you like this card as much as I do!

Thanks for stopping by!

*First Card of 2009*

I'm back quicker than I thought I would be... but it will have to be a quick post as I need to leave for work soon....

This is not one of the cards I made after work yesterday.... this is truly my first card of 2009.

I got this new stamp in the mail just after Christmas along with a few others from Unity Stamp Company. The image arrived, not as I am used to their images mounted on cling foam. This stamp had foam and this strange wood mount... almost like a piece of plywood. I was actually sure this baby would give me a good image, so right after I got the stamps, I was sitting down at my stamp table doing nothing and thought I would try it. I happened to have a piece of Almost Amethyst cardstock sitting on my table (no idea how or why) so I grabbed my Brilliance Pearlescent Lavender pad and inked up the stamp. Lo and behold, it stamped beautifully.

And I walked away to be with my family.

Then I finally had a day I felt like crafting and had the time to do it.... the test piece was still sitting on my desk so I thought "what the hell" and off I went. I used another Unity stamp from my first time purchasing from them. My colours are one of the SU Greys, Almost Amethyst and Whisper White. The three brads are Filigree Brads from Stampin' Up.

I don't know where I got the idea for this card.... but it worked! I hope it happens again!!

Thanks for coming by!

*Thanks Guys*

I just wanted to take a minute to everyone who commented and emailed me after my post yesterday. I didn't start out writing an "Oh woe is me" post, but that is certainly how it ended up. Part of me is proud of where I've been and what I was involved in back in the beginning. And I should be. Part of me is just sad, missing those days and realizing that things are different now.

But good has come from this.... I did a lot of thinking with each of the emails I read yesterday and I have decided that I need to do what I do because I want to and because I love to.... and not because I think there is someone out there watching.

To that end, I made two cards yesterday evening.

And I will post them once I get them off my camera and altered.

Thanks again guys!

*OMG. I Think I'm A Has-Been*

I was doing some thinking this morning while I was doing my regular blog surfing... and an ugly thought came to mind.

Back, 12 years ago, stamping was *so* new in Canada. It was hard to find supplies. The internet isn't what it is today so it was hard to find information and ideas. Even harder to find like-minded individuals.

Ten years ago, things were changing and I was near the front of the heap of stampers in Canada. I don't mean I was the best stamper out there, but a lot of people knew who I was. A lot of people wanted information from me. A lot of people looked to me to find out about trends and resources. With that in mind, I started the paper crafting list known as CST (stands for Canadian Stamp Talk) over at eGroups, which later became YahooGroups. The list was slow to grow, but it was an active list of people just dying to know more. People in the industry knew my name.

And while there are still people who are out there who know my name, it's different. I am no longer a trendsetter. I am no longer the go-to girl. People who have been stamping a lot less time than me are taking me over by leaps and bounds. People that I know, that have known from my "real life" who have become stampers seem to not even give me the time of day (don't return my emails and things like that).

I have become, a has-been in the grand scheme of stamping things. And that makes me sad.