Finally Home!

Finally home and glad to be back. The picture is of Amadeus- dressed for rain- this was taken on Saturday morning before the tournament. Chattanooga got hit with a major thunderstorm and he had to borrow our friend Judy's raincoat and Australian outback hat just to get his rackets from the car. Luckily, the weather cleared up and he was able to play.

In the meantime, swap cards for the Christmas swap have been arriving. I'll start scanning and posting them tonight.

Tomorrow- watch for my crayon resist tutorial :)

We Have a WInner!

Congratulations Christine! Love the card. If you can email me privately with your address, I'll get your blog candy in the mail to you.

thanks to everyone who emailed scans to my regular email account, too. The cards are all wonderful.

mary

Color Challenge - More Blog Candy

I haven't had a chance to do much stamping this month but I'm ready to pick up the rubber and start stamping again. In order to celebrate Back to School- I'm issuing a challenge and the prize will be more blog candy!

Here's the challenge:

• Create a card using 2 of the new SU "In Colors" as the focal point
• Theme of fall or friendship
• Send me a scan of the card by Sunday at 5 p.m. CST

For every 5 entries received, there will be one Blog Candy winner

Blog Candy will include:

• 1 Foot Grosgrain Ribbon
• 1 Foot Taffeta Ribbon
• 1 baggie of misc. goodies

Ready, set, go

Had to Brag

We'll return to our regularly scheduled stamping and scrapping this weekend. I haven't had much time to stamp at all since July arrived- between travel for work and traveling with my son- taking a moment to just brag about my child (smile), this week was the state team tennis tournament. Our team came in 3rd in the state (yippee) and my son won 47 our of 48 possible games while his friend Tyler had a perfect tournament winning every game in every match. On top of that, our team won best sportsmanship awards for the 14U in both girls and boys. I was more proud of that than our 3rd place finish. I've included a picture of Amadeus- he looks so intense!

More stamping soon....

One Word

There was a great article in our local paper about a 17 year old girl who won an International Filmmaking contest. The rules required participants to create a 30- 60 second film (I think that was it). Her issue was "One Word"- if everyone chose one positive word, how would the world change. I just couldn't resist sharing this with you.

One Word

Just Had to Share

We saw this bumper sticker in MN and I just couldn't resist sharing:

Final Card Candy

Here's the last of the card candy from the VC-Rocks swap. Today I'm working on some ideas for my upcoming Christmas in July classes. I'll post some samples for your feedback. Watch the poll, too and help me decide on some colors :)

All products Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted.

Copyright Stampin' Up 1999- 2007

Copyright Stampin' Up 1999- 2007

More Swaps as Promised - Card Candy

Okay, I'm back home and just unwinding. I have plans for some serious stamping this weekend, provided my son is feeling better. He's out for the count with a sinus infection and that's not a good thing since he's supposed to be going to Chattanooga with his doubles partner to play in a relatively important tournament on Saturday morning. Keep your fingers crossed that he is feeling better by tomorrow.

With that- here are 4 more beautiful Card Candy samples that I received from the VC_Rocks Card Candy swap. All supplies are Stampin' Up.

Copyright Stampin' Up 1999-2007

Copyright Stampin' Up 1999-2007

On the Road again

http://flickr.com/photos/choconancy/772656587/

Last report from Duluth- I've added a picture of part of our crew from TN who attended the conference. I really wish that I had brought a camera, although I do have access to the digital pics fro Flickr and I bought several postcards to use too. Today, I'm going to try and catch a glimpse of the Nina (replica of Christopher Columbus' boat) before I head out to the airport. Check back on Saturday when I'll be posting my how to get started scrapbooking tutorial (I'm teaching that class on Saturday a.m. and Sunday p.m.) for VC Rocks.

Beautiful Duluth

Just a quick update from beautiful Duluth, MN and I really do mean it's beautiful. While I haven't had any time to stamp (who was I kidding- this is a work conference) LOL, I have had some time to see the sites (last night everyone from the conference got to go on a refurbished steam train for a 2 hour ride along the north shore of Lake Superior). Here's a picture from last night taken by another convention attendee.

Click on the image to go to flickr for more pictures

I have also had a chance to learn about some new Web 2.0 technologies that you might also enjoy as a stamper/scrapper/crafter/blogger. I'll share those below.

Now for some of the cool tools I think you might be interested in.

First- my long time favorite is del.icio.us.
Here, you can create an account, store all of your favorite places and also tag them and share them with your friends (or customers!). For example, if you add me to your del.icio.us network, you can see the places that I have bookmarked or share a site that you think I might enjoy. It's also great because you can add a description of the site so when you can't remember why you saved it- the description is there for you.

Another site I learned about was Meebo
Set up a free account here and then you can actually chat with your friends, customers, blog readers directly from your blog or website (when you are logged in of course).

Several more sites but time to go to tonight's adventure. More from the road later.

Notes from the road

Just a quick update- I'll be posting lots of card samples and new goodies after I return from my trip to Duluth, MN. I'm here for a work conference (yes, I have a "real" job that helps me support my stamping passion!) LOL

The town looks like it might be fun- we just got off to a rough start when our final connecting flight was cancelled and we had to drive nearly 3 hours to reach our final destination. What should have been a fun, relaxing evening at the pre-conference activities turned out to be a crazy ride with 5 colleagues and a stray person who attached herself to our group.

Ah well- life is an adventure....more from the road later this week.

Colorful card swap

Just a quick post to share a few more samples. This was from the colorful card swap I participated in with VC_Rocks. I will have to come back and give credit to the stampers but I wanted to at least share a few pictures with you to get your weekend started.

The theme for this swap was to create a card using a minimum of three SU colors (not including black/white). All samples displayed were made using SU products unless otherwise noted. Hope you enjoy and are inspired.

All images Copyright Stampin' Up 1999-2007

All images Copyright Stampin' Up 1999-2007

All images Copyright Stampin' Up 1999-2007

Card Candy Swaps have arrived

I knew that July would be a great mail month (after signing up for about a zillion swaps) with VC_Rocks. I'm going to share some of the great Card Candy swaps I received. If you aren't familiar with Card Candy- it's a great gift for scrappers and card makers alike.

To create your "Card Candy" stamp several smaller images that would make great embellishments on either an album page or a card. For my card candy, I used SU's "Looks Like Spring" set plus some coordinating Gingham and buttons. After stamping and coloring my images, I used mini glue dots to adhere them to a piece of waxed paper. Now, when I'm ready to use the "candy" I can just peel it off and add it to my card or page.

I think these will also make great hostess gifts, if placed in small cello bags. I will give credit to each of the swaps later today (I need to go home and read the backs of each), in the meantime, enjoy the samples.

All images, papers, inks etc. are Stampin' Up.

The Winner is...

The winner of this first blog candy is Tami!

I put all the names in a hat and had my son pull one! So Tami, if you could contact me, I'll get your goodies to you!

Thanks everyone for the kind comments. Have a wonderful day- I'll be back with more pics and ideas later this week. We're heading off to the tennis courts in a few minutes and then to a picnic :)

Blog Candy winner is....

Wow, this is so cool how the word gets out- I already met my goal!!!! We just got home from watching fireworks (11:00 p.m.) so I will post the Blog Candy winner tomorrow morning. I'm going to have my son pull the winning name from a hat when he gets up in the morning.

Thanks everyone for stopping by!

Mary

First Blog Candy-

I need your help! I've decided that my goal is to have at least 350 visitors to this blog by Wednesday- July 4. Can you spread the word to all of your stamping and scrapping friends about my blog? Please leave a comment to this post and when I reach 350 visitors- one lucky person will receive some blog candy!!

What, you might ask is blog candy? It's a gift from me to you. The blog candy this time will include:

- 2 yards of Chocolate chip grosgrain
- 2 yards of celery grosgrain
- and some other goodies

Swap Updates...

Just a reminder, for those of you who joined in the fun with the OSW (one sheet wonder swap), the second part of the challenge was to create at least one card using a swap sheet and then send me a picture to share on the blog. Thanks to Susan B. who has already completed the task. Here's a picture of her card:

Some images copyright Stampin' Up 1999- 2007

Reminder- the July Swap will be Christmas in July- create 5 full cards with a Christmas theme and receive 5 full cards back. Sign ups end July 6. Cards are due by July 23 and will be returned to you by July 30.

New Catalog is here

Okay, well, I was going to post some pictures for you from the Card Candy and Shaped card swap that I received yesterday and wouldn't you know it, the camera battery died :(
That's okay- tomorrow, you'll get lots of pictures.

In the mean time, I went through the catalog one more time getting my initial order placed. Here's what I ordered- can't wait to let you play with these new sets:

Boatload of Love (works with Loads of Love set)
See page 53 in the catalog

Big on Christmas (will make great framed presents and cards)
See page 35 in the catalog

Tennis set (of course)
See page 87 in the catalog

Plus the new accents and elements Build a flower kit (page 178) and my Crop-a-dile(189)! !