It's All About The Journey

A Quick Post Tonight

I know I usually post something and then chat about my day but tonight I am keeping this post brief. If I want to be able to stamp then I need to cut back on my chatting when I blog. I am slow at typing so blogging takes lots longer for me then most of you. :)

I want to thank 2 very lovely  and very creative women tonight.  Please visit their blogs because they have lots to offer are awesome ladies.

A few weeks ago I entered a contest that Sharon hosted on her blog. All you had to do was to enter a Mother's Day card that you made and send it to her. I did and I am very happy to say that I won a very beautiful and *very* unique ring that Sharon hand crafted. I love jewelry and have lots of it.  Up until a couple of weeks ago I never owned an original hand crafted piece of  jewelry. Well I do now. :) I tried to take a picture of the ring that Sharon sent me but I could not get it to look very good so Please go to Nasty Wench's All Things Crafty  and check out what I received.  I have worn the ring  quite a lot since receiving it and I have had many women come up and ask me where I got it. Of course I did not have Sharon's blog address on me. UGH! I have it written down now though. :) I was able to get a picture of the sweet package that it came in.

I *love*  the brown and pink together. I was happy when I opened up the package and here was this wonderful little package inside that held my new ring.  Once again, Sharon thank you very, very much. I love my new ring and will always treasure it.

Saturday evening I found that I had received a RAK from someone I did not really know. Her name is Nancy from Nancy's Creative Mess. Well, tonight I went and visited her blog. Nancy, I love your new hair style. You look awesome!  Your cards are all wonderful and I have enjoyed reading your blog very much. As soon as I finish my post I will be adding you to the blogs that I peruse. Here is the beautiful card that Nancy sent me.

I tried to capture the dimension of the card that Nancy sent me but was not able to. The silver flowers are raised and feel so smooth to the touch. It is a gorgeous card and I thank you very much for thinking of me Nancy. Your card put a huge smile on my face. :)

I am seriously keeping this post short tonight. I am buried under Email letters that I need to respond to, stamps that I need to ink up and put to paper, pictures I need to take, personal phone calls that I need to return.................well you get the picture.

I will be back when I have a card to share with all of you. I hope that your all having a great start to the week. Smile. :) 

The CK Convention

Yesterday was the big CK scrapbooking convention in New Hampshire.  I have some pictures to share with you but not as many as I would like to becuase Wayne kept taking pictures of me and most of them were of the back of my head. UGH! I thought he was taking some pictures of products while I was busy looking around. Oh well, at least he took me to the convention, let me buy what I wanted and was very good natured about the whole thing. :)

One of the first booths that I stopped at was  Nestabilities. Wow! I had no idea that they made so many different dies. There was one other wall that you can not see that was full of them.

Whoa! Side view of me. Here I am looking at the papers and chpboard books etc. At The Rusty Pickle. My other favorite store for papers was the Paper Loft. Becuase this was a Scrapbooking convention and not a stamping convention there was of course lots and lots of designer papers.

After looking at most of the paper booths that I wanted to see I headed to the Ink About It booth. I wanted to check out the  stamps and papers and of course say hello to Jen. I had every intention of asking Jen to strike a pose with me but she was so busy ith her Mak and Takes that I decided it was probably not such a good idea. Little did I know that Wayne was busy taking a picture of me laughing with Jen and one other  woman who I did not know. I have no idea what I was laughing about because at the time I had no idea the picture was being taken. Jen is an A Muse instructor. She teaches classes at Ink About It in Mass. as well as classes at The Paper Tree in NH.

As I continued my journey through the asiles I heard someone say hello. It was Cheryl of Inspire Me.   and her friend Betty. Cheryl and I met about a year ago at Stamping Memories. At that time she was a representative for both Nestabilities and Copic. It was so darn good to see her. We keep in touch via our blogs and private email letters from time to time. It was a pleaure meeting her friend Betty. Hi Ladies. :) 

Wayne and I were at the convention for about 3 hours. Yes, I did buy some things but I decided not to take a picture of what I had purchased this time. Instead I am putting up a picture that I took of Wayne and then one more of me but this time it is a picture Wayne took of me getting ready to leave.

 

I am farely certain that when I took this picture of Wayne he was probably thinking to himself "Okay how do I get Mary out of here?" Ha-ha.

Here I am ready to leave. I could be wrong but I don't think that there were as many vendors this year as there was last year. I did not seem as interested in as many of the booths as I was last year either. But I still had lots of fun.

I think I'm spoiled! I have a fanatstic stamp store in Laconia located just 22 minutes away from me. Yes, that would be Stamping Memories. :) I have a lovely stamp shop  located in Concord just 10 minutes away from me. That would be Art Plus and I also have an awesome scrapbooking store located in Concord called Scrappin' Soul Sisters. That store is also about 22 minutes from where I live.

All 3 of these stores carries a different variety of things that I am looking for. If  for some reason they do not have what I want or can not get what I would like then I turn to my favorite on-line stores to order what it is I want. I think what I am trying t say is that I truly had fun at the convention but I don't think that I will be going back again becuase I have it all right by me and why not spend my money at my local stores?

Instead of heading right home Wayne abnd I went to the Mall of New Hampshire. We walked through the mall looking at the stores. Of course I did make a quick stop at AC Moore. I picked up only one small item. I know, hard to believe right? ;) Then we went into Macy's and JC Penney's becuase I was looking for a few things.  Success! A quick stop off at Best Buy where Wayne purchased a few thinsgg and then we stopped off at Orange Julias so that I could get a strwberry banana smoothie. YUMO! It certialy did hit the spot. We came home at around 7 PM and as tired as I was I had the urge to walk outdoors. So I headed right out and did just that. I walked for 30 minutes.  Can you say pain? What to high heaven was I thinking of?  I guess I am becoming obsessed with walking. Not sure but I know I have to be a little less anxious to walk. Today I am hurting from my  head to  my feet.  All in all I had a wonderful Saturday and I think Wayne did too. :)

This week is looking busy for me but I think this is my last week for awhile where I will be expected to be some place just about every day of this week. I am hoping to get some much needed stamping done.  I hoep that all of you have had as wonderful a weekend as I have had. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful weekend. Smile. :)

A Lilac Hyacinith

Hi ladies. I'm back home from my class(more on that later) and thought that I would post a card that I made last night. I would have posted it last night but it was very late when I finished it and I was exhausted.  I made my card by using a Punch-in-Single Hyacinth stamp and Blooming In Joy both made by Make An Impression stamps  and purchased at Stamping Memories.

I used Lavender Lace  and Whisper White card-stock by Stampin' UP! The designer paper is  from Making memories. I used Lilac iridescent paper to punch out the flowers for the Hyacinth. The punch that I used is called CP-1N Sparkle and is made by Carl Carla Craft. The ribbons that I used are from May Arts. All of these items were purchased at Stamping Memories.   I paper pieced the pot holding the Hyacinth. I used a copic marker to color the green leaves. Last but not least I added 2 light green Austrian crystals to the Blooming with Joy sentiment.  Once again, a very simple card to make.  I hope you enjoyed looking at it.

I can not believe how busy I have been and will continue to be. I hope that things will slow down for me soon. Today I did not get a chance to walk because I had to finish my assignment for school  and do lots of things around the house and finish my card. I did walk yesterday for 3 miles. It was a little chilly and it was quite windy but I was determined to walk because I knew that today and tomorrow would be full days for me.  I did stop off at Stamping Memories yesterday and was able to visit with Bette. I also saw Liz and her adorable granddaughter. It was very busy in the store but it was a fun busy. I got lots of new stamps from Bella. I got the beautiful Gardenia Gardenthumb,Tutuface, Ambitious Cowgirl,Little Johnny Depster(he is a pirate), and Pirouette Pointytoes. I also picked up the Patriotic stamp set from Hanna stamps and some new Memory Box stamps. Bette enabled me to buy all of the things that I did. :)

I was a little disappointed in my class tonight. First of all I was hoping to learn more about how to use my camera. Instead we talked about color and how it affects your photo and what the colors mean. Then we did a show and tell on the photography books that we bought and why we chose that photographer. Last but not least we then showed the photo's that we had to take for our homework last week. I put a few of them on my blog  to share with you. Well, the 4 chairs picture, the hydrant picture and even the horse carriage picture did not go over well at all. The chairs were too green and not very  inviting. So I need to take them at a different time of the day like at dusk. The hydrant  and horse carriage should be used in an essay not  alone. The teacher felt that the horse carriage would have been better had I took a picture of the wheel only. UGH! Maybe I misunderstood what composing a picture means?  This is not the first week that I have walked away from class feeling frustrated. Next week we are suppose to learn about metering. I hope so because as I stated I would like to learn more about how to operate my camera. Thanks ladies to all of you who liked my photo's. I really appreciate all of your kind comments that you left. It has saved me from pulling out my hair tonight. :)

I will be at the Creating Keepsakes Convention in Manchester, NH on Saturday afternoon. I will be one of the few women who has her husband with her. Ha-ha. If your at the convention and you see me please come up and say hello. Wayne will be taking photo's for me so that I can put them up on my blog Saturday night.

I hope that all of you have had a terrific week. Smile. :)