October Marker Club

So, tonight was our second of four marker clubs. Valerie was the host tonight and before the girls left last month, we talked about any special requests that they had for holidays/cards/techniques for the following meetings. It was an overwhelming response to do Halloween tonight, so we did!

The first card is created with Pumpkin Patch as the stamp set, Pumpkin Pie cardstock base, Old Olive, the pumpkins are "markered" onto Whisper White Cardstock, and the grass is made with Versamark. My favorite part? The Pumpkin Pie ribbon. This ribbon is the softest ribbon I've ever felt. I love it!

The second card is created with the Twick or Tweet stamp set. All "ink" that you see on this card is made from Stampin' Up Shimmer Paint. Night and Day DSP covers the Basic Black cardstock base, and I cut out the scallop square using a die. With just a hint of ribbon, I think it really brings this card together.

What do you think? Are YOU dressing up for Halloween? Do you get trick or treaters? We don't...but oh well!

Stampin' Up Regional - Portland

So last Saturday, (October 17), Julie and I made the trek to Portland, Maine, to attend the afternoon session of the Stampin' Up! Regional. I think that this may be the first? time that they've come north this far, and Julie and I had a great time. We didn't do swaps (well, I brought digital cards with me, but no one was interested....MDS anyone? BOO!), but we met a lot of great ladies, heard some excellent demonstrations, and had a wonderful time scouting out the idea boards that they had set up at the back.

They did a bunch of giveaways, but neither of us won anything. Oh well! The three projects that we did revolved around the Berry Christmas set that is in the Holiday Mini. I wasn't so crazy about this set pre-Regional, but now I like the way that they combined colors and the stamps for Christmas.

I would definitely go back again, I wish that they would come to this neck of the woods more often!

The photo that you see here isn't one of our projects, but is instead one of the cards that they had displayed on the idea board. Image is copyright Stampin' Up!.

Richards' Wedding - Oct 10

Yesterday, I had the joy of witnessing the marriage of Suzanne and Chris! The ceremony was in a beautiful church in Loudon, NH and I do believe that Suzanne found a GEM of a reception place in Chichester. No detail was overlooked; Suzanne did a lot of crafty work to decorate the reception area, including making drink tickets, name tags, table cards, a welcoming framed sheet from the Richards'....it was just amazing. The centerpieces were PERFECT, ranges of low to high berries, wispies that you would see in a field, etc, all placed in Bell Jars. Just absolutely astounding and fitting in with the whole country feel extremely well.

The reception was great, the food was fantastic, and catching up with everyone from UMaine was AWESOME!

Reed Island Bridge - Camp, Week 1

So Warren and I headed up to the middle of nowhere Friday morning (aka Millinocket, 4.5 hours North of us in NH) so that he could help my dad and the other TL Camp Owners Association volunteers with the rebuild of the footbridge that goes out to the island that my family's camp is on.

Half of the day yesterday (Saturday) was spent carrying all of the supplies from the parking lot where the lumber truck dropped them off down to the waterside, a hike of about 1/4 mile. There were about 90 2x12x24 feet long pieces, over 600 2x4's. This doesn't include all of the other building supplies. Once the pieces were lake-side, the men carried over to the island what they'd need that day to do two spans worth. They tore down the two spans and started to reconstruct. When we left this morning (at 7am), it looked fantastic!

Construction will continue through today and hopefully be finished when they pick it back up next weekend. We didn't stay today, as it was get off the island before deconstruction started at 7am, or not be able to get off the island until about 7pm. We chose the morning departure!

Welcome to the Digital World!

So, recently, Stampin' Up! released their new digital product, called My Digital Studio. This will be available to customers on October 1. The plus, is that for those of us that already have an image manipulation program (such as Photoshop), we can buy the digital elements that are made for MDS. I had my first opportunity to play with some of those elements last night. Not only did I have a FANTASTIC time creating these items (and putting my newly learned PS skills to the test), but I'm also LOVING how I can change the size of SU! stamps (such as Upsy Daisy used here), because the Brushes that I purchased (as stamp sets) range in size from 1 px to 2000+ pixels. What options!

Let's see...I started with Tempting Turquoise as a base, added WW ribbon (with bow, two seperate digital elements), used a scalloped oval punch, connected a distressed piece of night of navy with the punch shape, added the "Thank You...For Your Friendship" stamp from Upsy Daisy (and erasered out the ...For Your Friendship), and used two colors and two sizes of the flowers from Upsy Daisy. Finally, I added brads to the ribbon. I used shadowing in Photoshop to add a little dimenson (to make it a little less flat). LOVING these digital SU! products!

Jack and Jill - Suzanne and Chris

I drove up to Farmington yesterday afternoon for Suzanne and Chris' Jack and Jill party, planned and hosted by VALERIE!

The party was great; Valerie had purchased these coasters that had random questions on them (on one side) and on the other, we got to try to answer the questions. Tracy and I had a great time being funny and reading other people's responses. Of course, family and friends from both families were there and we were all pulled together by Beer Pong, Foosball, Poker (which happened after I left), AND Fireworks that Chris and Mark just HAD to light off!

The food was fantastic and it was great to see people from Suzanne's family that I haven't seen in quite a while. Of course, Miss Lexie was there licking all of the crumbs dropped off the floor, cleaning out people's beer bottles, and even sneaking food from tables!

Suzanne and Chris focused on asking for money/gift cards, but a few people brought gifts, so they opened the few that were there. Someone had made them a shadow box with their Save the Date, Invitation, and a bunch of flowers that was fantastic and Tiffany bought Suzanne a sewing machine! (So exciting...now Suzanne and I can learn together?)

It was a great time and I can't wait for the Bachelorette Party in Portsmouth in October!

Marker Club - Sept 11

We had our first Marker Club meeting on Friday, September 11. Suzanne, Holly, Valerie (and Brian!) all came to my apartment in New Hampshire. Brian entertained Titus while us ladies crafted.

We did two projects. The first, more complicated, used the Branch Out set, and focused on the Watercolor Wonder Crayons and using a large eyelet as a "tire swing". I think the girls really liked the crayons, which is good, because I do too!

The second project used Happy Blessings. We embossed a pumpkin with white embossing powder, used two coordinating pieces of DSP, and then colored in the scarecrow with the SU! chalks and blender pens.

We had a lot of fun and I can't wait until next month! We're going to make Halloween cards!

Don't forget about your challenges, girls, to win a set of the In Color Markers!