Hobby Hill House March 2010

I was looking back through the posts for this year and realized I had totally missed a really important (to me)event this year. This was my third trip to Hobby Hill House in Bowie Texas. Our first visit was in May 2009 and the group was so enamored of the retreat that we all wanted to move in and stay. Cindy, the owner, knew we wanted to come back asap so she called Leslie and told her that she had an opening in August would we like it well...hell yes so we went back!


The third visit this past March was like coming home! We all had our beds and our tables and everyone was out to have a rip roaring good time. Cindy and Sandy out did themselves with hospitality and we had a blast.
Last winter and spring was snowy around here and the Saturday morning at HHH saw a snow storm roll in and we were all despairing of ever getting out of HHH...NOT!!



The cardinals are a little blurry but I wanted to post this picture anyway. HHH has tons of birds!The Swimming pool still looks welcoming even though it was only in the 20's on this day. The big barn is another cropping room and the smaller barn is Cindy and her husbands private quarters. The house is huge with 4 large bedrooms but they usually have all the rooms full of croppers in bunk beds!

On our last night there we always get together and have a dirty cropper swap and take a group picture. In this picture we all were showing off the frames we made. Fuzz brought the frames and all the stuff that we needed to decorate them.
sitting: Cindy, Fuzz(Stephanie), Shakira(Debbi)
Middle row: Deb, Leslie Jamie, Nita
back row: Kelly, Stacy, Nancy, Vickie(me)



Here is a picture of all our frames sitting on a shelf in the crop room. I was impressed how everyone got busy and made the frames up even though some got out of there crafting feel good zone. It was fun.







I really liked the way my frame turned out. Here is an up close of the upper corners. Nice. I love those colors together!





I am glad I found out that I hadn't posted about the third visit before the year had ended. I didn't post much past June of last year so missed posting on the second trip. I love the retreats mostly because of people that go and the rejuvenation I get from it!

Stamp Club December 2010 Pendant

Our last Stamp Club of the year at Leslie's was a whole lotta fun. We decided the month before to have a Mexican food potluck and boy was there a lotta food! Leslie had chips, salsa, and guacamole, Nita mad awesome queso, Mo made some kick ass tamles, Heather and I took some cheese, chili, onion enchiladas and some Mexican rice, Jamie brought a Sopapilla Cheesecake that was to die for. There was more food there but for the life of me I can't remember what or who made it. We decided to get the most vital part of the night over with first and spent the first hour or so eating! Hmmmmm....with all the scrapbookers there I wonder why there weren't any pictures? The food was really good!!

The Stamp Club this month was the Pendant Bundle offered by Stampin Up! that consisted of the 116798 Simply Adorned 1" x 1-1/4" Charm, the 24" chain, and the Charming Stamp Set. The group had a blast crafts all sorts of insets to go in the charm and used various Stampin Up! stamp sets and papers from various vendors.
Heather used my matchbox die and made everyone their own jewelry box to store their pendant inserts in. I made everyone a pink flower to go on top of the box. I had made them by spraying some coffee filters (see there's the technique again) with Cranberry Crisp ink diluted with water let them dry and cut them out with the Big Shot and the flower die. In the pendant is the Stamp Club insert that Heather made for each one of us. This next picture looks a lot like the first but I thought the pendant was nice in the first one and the flower is nice in this one!!
The next couple of pics are of the inserts I made. Everyone had a bowl of 1x1-1/4" pieces of card stock and papers in front of them, stamps sets, embellishments and could pick and choose what they wanted to use.


Christmas inserts and Valentine Inserts





It was another fun night to be had by all. I am really looking forward to next month and this awesome bunch of women!

Stamp Club November 2010 Christmas Cards, Box and Advent Calendar

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and is looking forward to the New Year this coming week. We had a good time over at Heather and Michael's and stuffed ourselves on her delicious turkey, dressing and fixings. I took over a big pan of mashed potatoes, fried okra, and some cranberry salad to share. It was yummy!

At our second Stamp Club meeting in November me met to make the advent calendar I posted about in an earlier posting, cards and card box from a single Simply Scrappin kit from Stampin Up!.





The Christmas Cheer Simply Scrappin' paper/sticker pack and a roll of Whisper White Taffeta ribbon made a card box, 14 6x4in cards, 8 3x3in cards, and the advent calendar with 2 pieces of paper left over. The only additional product used was Snail adhesive, dimensionals adhesives, big eyelets, and the bling that I bought a couple years ago and used to sparkle it up for my granddaughter! I used the Cricket with the George cartridge to cut out the Countdown To Christmas on the top bar of the calendar. If I was to do it again I think I would have sandwiched a piece of chipboard between the cardstock back and front to make it stronger.










The card box was made to hold the cards with a single sheet of the contrasting DP. It is 4 1/4x 6 1/4 in by 4 inches tall.






The everyone decorated their cards how ever they wanted to. All the cards used papers and stickers from the kit.









Once again everyone seemed to have a great time and we decided to add a potluck dinner to the agenda and agreed to meet to make the Stampin Up! pendant bundle. The bundle came with a stamp set and the medium pendant and chain.

Merry Christmas

Just wanted to take a few seconds to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and the happiest of New Year's!

We are having dinner tomorrow with Heather and Michael and just spend some quality family time. This has been a very busy year for them with Michael traveling a lot and Heather was busy with school and graduated from OU with honors this spring. As a graduation gift to ourselves we went on a cruise. Sweet!!



Chad and his family is in Germany this Christmas and will be missed by all! They will be moving back to the states next year! Teresa has grown so much since they were here last year I can't wait for them to get closer to home!


Chuck has been busy traveling again this year to China for 3 weeks and Spain for 2 months. Chuck visited Germany a couple of times for short visits and in November was able to visit with Chad and family. I love this picture of him with Teresa. I am glad he is home now.
I finished my degree program and graduated this spring. I am staying busy here at home trying to get a kitchen redone and doing crafts! It has been a busy year around here!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Stamp Club October 2010 Coffee Filter Fun!

A couple of months ago a friend of mine asked me about doing a Stamp Club and offered to host it at her house. It was to be a group of selected women that had like interests and interacted well together. The first group that got together had so much fun in October and that we decided this was something we just had to keep on doing each month!

The first stamp club was very ambitious with Heather and I showing the group examples of what we had seen made down in Ft. Worth when we went to the Stampin Up! Regional meeting. We were so pumped up about all that we had learned and we had talked so much about the WOW that we had seen that everyone decided to make that project. It was a picture frame, card, and pumpkin that used coffee filters as the focus of each of the three items. We didn't have a tutorial when we started but shortly before the club the Stampin Up! demo that created the set had had so many requests for a tutorial that she put one on the web for anyone who wanted to use it.

A cheap wooden frame from Wally World is the base of the first project. We first inked and stamped the coffee filters then using Mod Podged we adhered the filters to the frame. We cut out leaves with the Big Shot and leaf die from Stamping Up! and adhered them to the frame where the coffee filters over lapped and it was noticeable. My frame turned out a little darker than some of the others but each one was so individualized that there weren't any 'wrong' ways to make them. Due to the shininess of the mod podge it was difficult to get a good picture with light and subsequently the picture is a little dark also!




The pumpkin was fun to create too! A large coffee filter was colored with ink and stamped with a patterned stamp from Stampin Up! then a drawstring was slipped along the top and it was drawn up and stuffed with fiber fill. The leaves were colored and stamped then cut out with the Big Shot and leaf die. We glued the leaves on with 3 and 1 glue and I think if I was to make them again I would use a hot glue gun. The stem here is rolled up card stock but you could use a twig off a tree or some other natural stem!





The last project that day was a card that is very springy compared to the very fall motif of the frame and pumpkin. The focus of the card was to get everyone used to the coffee filter usage in 'art' and we made the flower by dyeing the coffee filters with Stampin Up! ink and letting them dry before cutting them out with the big flower punch. The coffee filter flowers are held together with a vintage brad. Cute huh!!

Explosion Gift Box

I taught a class at WLS a couple weeks ago on the gift explosion box that I CASED on SplitCoast Stampers. The explosion box picture album normally has a total of 4 layers inside the box to hold pictures but I decided it would be cool to have a box that you could put pictures in and a small gift based on the size of this box.

This box was made using Fancy Pants decorative paper, Bazzil card stock, coffee filters, Chocolate Chip and Cranberry Crisp ink from Stampin Up! Punches used was the double edge lace punch from Martha Stewart. The Leaf die from Stampin Up! Sizzix Big flower die and the strip die flourishes. Distress Stickles Faded Blue Jeans.

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The first thing I did making the box was to dilute some of the Cranberry Crisp ink in a spray bottle and sprayed 5 coffee filters with it. I then set them aside to dry. After they were dry I folded them into 6ths and ran them through the Big Shot! from Stampin Up! using the big flower die. I secured them with a brad from Stampin Up! and fluffed the cut flower pieces around the brad to get the flower effect I wanted.



The box is made from a 12x12 sheet of cardstock scored every 3 inches and then cut from outside to first inside score line once on each corner. The quarter sections are decorated with coordinating papers and embellished.



The flourishes are Stickled and 'buds' made by twisting the small flowers cut out from the flower die around a stylus.



The outisde of the box is decorated with the decorative paper embellished with the double punch ribbon strips that were 'distressed' with the Chocolate Chip ink. I made a box lid to fit using another 2/3 sheet of cardstock. The leaves on top were cut from True Thyme from Stampin Up! (retired) and embellished with Stickles.

I think everyone that took the class had fun making the gift box and that was despite some issues we had making lids fit correctly!

OOOppppssss!!! Snowman boxes!

I think someone needs to take me to raise...or at least remember everything for me that I seem to forget! I just finished reading 50 some odd Gmail emails, 130+ Google reader posts and OMG! I checked my Yahoo! account and I had over 1200+ emails I just deleted from the 6 different groups I belong to on Yahoo! I hadn't been there in a month! Anyhow I didn't forget the promise I made to share each day but I got overwhelmed with other issues and didn't get it done! I have a share of a couple of tin boxes I made for the holidays and will try and catch up before the end of the year.

Both of the boxes are essentially the same just done in different colors, papers, and glitters. The first box I made to teach in a class at a WLS using THE Tim Holtz seasonal paper stash, Tim Holtz Mini Holiday stamps, distress ink, and the Winter Wonder, Snow Flurries edge, and Pine Tree dies. The cardstock the snow flakes and snowman are made from is Whisper White, the tree is Always Artichoke from Stampin UP! The tag is a punch from Creative Memories. The snowflakes were first distressed with the Vintage Photo and when they were dry they were covered with Rock Candy Distress Stickles.



The boxes can hold whatever you want to put in them but for this box I took Hershey's nuggets and wrapped a 1" wide coordinating paper from The Seasonal Stash paper. This box is about 5"x7" and will hold 12 nuggets. The box has a clear plastic window that I could have left more visible but I wanted to get all the snowflakes on it.


The second box used the same dies, stamps, inks etc. The only difference was the tin wrap was a piece of paper in my scrap stash that I don't remember who it was created by. Sorry! The snowflakes were distressed with the Faded Blue Jeans distress ink and then the Crystal Stickles. Two sort of different looks...one distressed and one bright!



Okay that is my share for today. Hope you enjoy it!

Treat box

I have always enjoyed the Christmas holiday because it gave me another outlet for my creative abilities. This year I am somewhat of a scrooge but I have also made a few things that I have had a lot of fun making.

Heather and I made swaps back in October to swap with the Ink Demos that we meet with every month. I had purchased some treat tubes with lids from Late Night Stampers Bulk Buy Group and thought up a box to hold them. The holly box in the middle is the first one that I made and is my working template. The Santa box was the treat box I swapped with the girls in Ink Demos was made with the cherry cobbler and very vanilla card stock. The designer paper Deck the Halls. Stamps used were a Jolly St. Nick and the Just Believe sentiment. Black ink. Heather also made a treat box to swap and used whisper white, not quite navy, and real red card stock. Designer paper Candy Cane lane, the Snow flake punch, circle punch, and the A Cute Christmas and snow flake stamps. The images were stamped in Not quite navy and black ink. Heather CASE'ed (create and share everything) her snow man poop sentiment on line.



The second thing I want to share is an advent calendar that I made in stamp club from a Christmas Cheer Simply Scrappin' Stampin Up! kit. I made the advent calendar a box to hold 14 4x6" cards and 8 3x3" cards. I still had 2 pieces of paper left over when I was finished. Not bad for a $19.95 packet of paper and stickers huh! I sent the calendar to my granddaughter Teresa so she could count down till Santa came!



I couldn't let it slide without putting a picture of the baby girl in here!



Chuck went to Germany last month for a meeting and had the opportunity to visit with Chad, Candice and Teresa. Here is a picture of him 'playing' with her. I am so
jealous!!



The last thing I want to share was a second advent calendar that I created to use for a class at WLS.




Okay that is it for today. I hope you enjoyed the pictures. I had fun making the Christmas crafts and enjoy looking at the pics of the grandbaby. Teresa is such a blessing.

More tomorrow.

September 2010 retreat

In September I went to a retreat with a group of women from the Oklahoma City, OK area. The retreat was sponsored by Whole Lotta Scrap in Norman, OK and was held at the Tantanka Ranch near Stroud, OK. It is a 1,000 acre working ranch with a rustic resort that offers all the amenities of a big town hotel in the pristine country side of northeastern Oklahoma.



There were 39 excited women that carpooled to Tantanka to spent a restful weekend scrap booking, gabbing, eating, sleeping, and just overall having a good time and enjoying one another's company. At the lodge is where meals were served and comfortable sofas and chairs surrounded a fireplace and there was television if anyone cared to watch. There was a two bedroom guest house and 10 cabins that had various accommodations available.



Some cabins had queen size beds and others had bunk beds and slept 4 to a room. My room mate Sheila and I shared a cabin with two other women and had a good time sharing space. The bunk beds are situated either side of the door leading into the cabin. My bunk...




The barn where we cropped is normally used for large parties and weddings. We are the first scrap booking retreat that Tatanka has hosted.



The barn had lots of tables but we had to have 5 more tables brought in to handle the crowd we brought with us!



The on site store that Leslie brought with her!



Girls just want to have fun!! Deb Sparlin, Terri Smith, and I enjoying a after dinner drink! Let the creativity flow!!



Me and Sheila!



Leslie and Fred brought their four wheelers to get around on. Leslie, Kelly and I took a ride around the lake inspecting the property and enjoying the day!




The lake was fun and the draw of the tower was that Elvis supposedly had signed a board at the top! I just had to see and got about half way up when I turned around and came back down. TOO scary!!



A view from the tower as I came back down. We are dinner at the dock and had a fire to make smores after eating supper. Lots of fun!



I took loads of pictures any could share a bunch more but I think I am going to leave it here and say I hope you can come with us next time!

December 4, 2010 Another Share today

I joined Stampin Up! about 2 years ago as a hobby demonstrator at the urging of my friend Pam so I could get my Stampin Up! product at a discount. Pam said it didn't make much sense to keep ordering from her when I was obviously buying so much so I signed up! Little did I know that over the course of these past few years that I would come to love Stampin Up! and all the products and all the awesome things that you can do with them.

Heather joined me in Stampin Up! after we attended the regional meeting down in Fort Worth, TX last September and we are working together to expose as many of our friends to the products as we possibly can cause it is so much fun and such a relaxing hobby to become involved with. To learn how to build our businesses we felt we needed to continue interacting with the people like the awesome folks we met at the meeting so I contacted the office in Utah and they put me in contact with my Stampin Up! up-lines here in OKC.

Leslie Bumgarner and Jann McCollum are two of the most awesome people I have met in the business and they both are so supportive of their down-lines. I am 6 or 7 down from Leslie and she was sponsored by Jann. Anyway back to my story...
Heather and I have started attending meetings in OKC on the first Saturday of each month at Panera Bread on SW Penn. It is an awesome group of women we are interacting with and we are learning so much from them.

The meeting on Dec. 4 was a Christmas party where you were to make something to swap and play dirty Santa with. I had CASE'd an idea from another meeting and we collaborated on making the swap gifts we were going to take. All the products except for the post its are Stampin Up! current products and we used the stamp cases that you can buy from SU.

My organizer is made with Deck The Halls Designer Paper, Cherry Cobbler and Whisper White card stock. Cherry Cobbler and basic black ink. I used the Decorative label punch to make the planner label on the front. Cherry Cobbler seam binding was used as ribbon.




Taking a picture of the inside of this case was a little difficult because the plastic glares if you try to use a light or flash. It works this way though. The DP is two sided and the picture of the front side of the paper is awesome but I really like the reverse side in this set also.Heather made the little pocket on the left side of the case to hold the 3x3 in cards we made. The calender was printed from the Ink Demo site. The post its on the right side of the case is Studio G.





Heather's dirty Santa gift is made with the Candy Cane Lane designer paper, Whisper White, real red, garden gree card stock. Real red and basic black ink. The satin ribbon is real red. The ornament punch was used to cut the real red and garden green ornaments with to stick on the front of the box. Stickles glitter glue was used to embellish them.





Don't you just love this blue green pattern that is the flip side of the ornament pattern on the front. I love the stripe that she made the 3x3" card pocket out of and I covered the top of the calendar with. I don't know if you can see but the stripe has glitter in the striping. Love it!!





Anyway that is it for today. I will be back tomorrow to show you the little candy boxes we made to swap last month.

Snowman card

WOW!! It has been a while since I have blogged!

I have been having multiple health problems and with renovating the kitchen I haven't had the opportunity to document everything on my blog. I promise to blog at least once a day until the end of the year to make sure I don't miss anything this year!

Today I want to share a card I made for challenge #26 at Joan's Garden and the rules included that I...

1. Use some kind of snow or snow flakes
2. White is the color for the week, so make sure you have white on your card
3. Do some Chalking
4. Create some kind of a window look

I decided to make another easel card for my grandaughter for Christmas that I know she will love! I think she would love anything I made her though!!

I used Whisper White cardstock for the card base, snowman, and snowflakes, Old Olive for the Pine Trees, Cherry Cobbler for the mat on the sentiment. All card stock, ink, chalk, and gel pen was purchased from Stampin Up!. The decorative paper is from Echo Park. I used Tim Holtz dies, Winter Wonder, Snow Flurries, Pine tree, and the Snow Flurries embossing folder. The greenery, buttons, mittens buttons, and bling were unmarked part of my stash. The sentiment stamp used was from the Tim Holtz stamp set Retro Christmas.



I have been following the Tim Holtz blog the past couple of weeks fairly religiously as he made his 12 Days of Christmas Tags this year (I have been making tags but will hold off posting them until I have all 12 made to put up on the blog.) and I have picked up quite a few new techniques that I am going to put to good use. One of which was on his snowman on tag Day 10. I love these new dies they are so much fun to play with!!







I cut two of the Snowman then ran one of them through the Big Shot in the Snow Flurries folder and embossed him. I used the chalk to color his arms, nose, and to do the shadowing on the snow flakes embossed on his body.










More chalking was done when I used the cutout from the pine tree as a mask and put a couple trees on the card front!









I really had a good time creating this card. Hope you enjoy it also. Merry Christmas!