when will i see you again?

Seems like more often than not my blog post titles are titles of old songs or movies (or lines from old movies).

So, this time my post title (an old 70s song, if I'm not mistaken) is directed to SGT customers: when will I see you again? Hopefully I'll see some of  at you soon at either the Tuesday night Quickutz party, or the Thursday night customer appreciation/farewell potluck at SGT. I'm going to pop in to both of them so I hope I will see lots of you there! If I happen to miss you, just remember that you can keep up with me here or at my other blog, or on Twitter, or Facebook or by email. Or maybe I'll just run into you at one of the places we scrapbookers like to haunt (like Expo, or CHA, or ???)

In any case, sending hugs out to all the lovely ladies I've met through my association with the store and wishing you all the best!

(edited to add a pic that was taken at the SGT Employee potluck dinner last week - a fine looking group, if I do say so!)

day 1 - socal shophop '09

Photo Opp Stop at Scrappin' Good Times

**ETA: I just posted at the SGT blog inviting other Shop-Hoppers to share their S.H. stories - and I'll be doing a prize drawing from the posts once the ShopHop is over!

Even though I got my first stamp on Friday 8/7, I it didn't quite feel like a *real* day of ShopHopping because I did not "hop" to any other stores. No, in fact, I was already going to be at my home store, Scrappin' Good Times because it was time for our bi-monthly Class Kickoff.

It was, however, the night before our first and longest hopping day so there was that anticipation building up and seeing all my fellow 'hoppers' coming through the store was lots of fun. Here are some pics from the night.

The SGT make-n-take "Wild Things" designed by Lizett - isn't it adorable?

One of my classes "What a Zoo" (October 10th)

My purchases for the night - new Abbey Road by MME!

mk-n-tks

fantastic friday: class kickoff AND shophop!

I'm pretty excited to get back home on Friday because not only will we be hosting another mah-velous Class Kickoff at Scrappin' Good Times, but it is ALSO the kickoff day for SoCal ShopHop. I expect things will be pretty hoppin' at the store (word to the wise: if you're thinking of signing up for a class and can make it to kickoff - DO!)

Pics for the SGT classes are starting to pop up on the website, but here are some "extra" sneaky peeks of my classes:

This is the Intro to Scrapbooking class layout

And a close-up of the title

Here is the cover of "You Are My Sunshine

And a sort of interior view (a tease, if you will!)

A cute little birdie

"What a Zoo!" chipboard mini book

...and a close up

A couple of interior pages...

One of two "Fast & Fab" layouts entitled "Fall"

...and some close-ups

The second "Fast & Fab" layout: "Wish Upon a Star"

So, I hope I'll see you on Friday for the Big Night! Be sure and tell me hi if you do stop by. Until then!

kickoff this week ... here's a sneak peek

It's that time again! Class Kick-off is on Friday, June 5th 5pm-7pm. I haven't seen all the samples yet, but I *do* get an early preview of the class titles/descriptions from all the teachers and there are some great summer classes on the July and August roster. I get as excited as anyone about seeing the actual samples the night of kickoff.

I'll have two classes on the July-August schedule - one is a family themed chipboard mini album (that's the one in the pic above) using Graphic 45 papers and the other one is a paper bag album using K & Company papers.

Hope to see you at kickoff!

let's see... what have i been up to again?

Oh yeah.... a LOT! Brace yourself... this is a LONG one.

April has flown by in a shocking blur of events. Makes my head spin how fast time can run by a person. Gonna try to hit some of the highlights...

There was class kickoff on 4/3 which as USUAL was a blast. We had a great group at the store and the SGT teachers had a whole boatload of awesome classes to add to the roster. Here are a couple of pics of my table:

"By the Sea" mini album - class is on 5/9

These are "mini" displays of the layouts for my 6/27 back-to-back layout classes

The kids started spring break that day too, so that weekend their Dad took them to see Monsters vs. Aliens while I continued to plug away on those darn taxes. It wasn't a usual sort of spring break here at our place --not as relaxing as usual with the tax appointment bearing down on me. We managed a few fun moments --had the cousins over on Monday, did a "girls day" with dd, but I have to admit that I was pretty distracted. The tax appointment seemed to sap all my attention as it always does. Fortunately I pulled it off and made it to my appointment on time and well prepared.

Once the taxes were out of the way, we dove straight into preparations for a costume party that dd was going to over the weekend. I spent an entire day sewing her regal gown (she went as Queen Esther) and we were both happy with the results.

Queen Esther

After the party ended, David & I headed out for an early anniversary getaway. We had heard about a fabulous dance party "Radioactive" put together by our favorite radio station, KCRW and decided to make a special evening of it. We started out with dinner at Engine Co. No. 28 in Los Angeles. From there we headed to the legendary Park Plaza hotel where the event was being staged. I have to admit to being a little nervous about going dancing. For one thing we haven't gone dancing in public in ages. For another neither of us has been very active lately --didn't know how much oomph we had in us for a night of endless dancing. And not the least of my worries was fear of being the "old-fogey" couple.

All my worries for nothing. The crowd was diverse in age and style. The music was fabulous and everyone there was there for one thing: to DANCE! As for my worries about our stamina, like a couple of energizer bunnies we kept on going. Didn't want the night to end. The party was scheduled to go until 2am but we must have left sometime after 1am and then an overnight stay at a hotel nearby. My only regret is that we were so full from dinner that we weren't able to try something from the Kogi truck (didn't know it was going to be there, I guess).

The only pics I have from our little getaway are off my phone so not the greatest quality. There are much better pics from the event here if you're curious.

Dinner at Engine Co. No. 28

Radioactive - Neo-Soul Streetbeat Sound System with Jeremy Sole & Todd Simon

The Grand Voodoo Salon

Breakfast buffet at our hotel next morning

I was sad to see spring break end because it went by in such a flash and I really didn't feel like we did "anything" but then again I guess we did a whole lot. From there I was on to my next busy project --purging the ole scrapbook stash. It's amazing how hard it is to get around to doing that. For whatever reason it just seems to keep getting shoved to the bottom of the list. However, deadlines are always a help in getting to these jobs and that was what got me off my keister again this time. I was signed up for a seller's table at the yard sale at the Lounge and wasn't going to "waste" my table, so for two crazy weeks, I was a purging-pricing maniac. (The yard sale was this past weekend --and totally worth the effort. Most of my boxes came back empty YAAaaaay!)

Another little papercrafting project I'm part of is a huge bookmark making undertaking. A group of friends are making over 5,000 bookmarks for an international convention that we're going to in June. The bookmarks are gifts for the delegates who will be coming from several other countries. Let me tell you there is a LOT of forethought and planning that goes into an undertaking of this magnitude. We are going strong though - have done all the prep work of cutting, printing and embossing the elements for the bookmarks. Now we are down to two final meetings (hopefully) to assemble the pieces into finished bookmarks. I'll be sure to post some pics later.

This past week I was also busy with another little project. I did an "instant scrapbook" for a baby shower (more info here). It was a lot of work both in prep before the shower, and then the scramble to assemble the book on site but as always totally worth it. The finished book turned out great. Here are some pics of the album before adding the photos:





And some snapshots from the shower --the host did a beautiful job!

The mommy-to-be seeing her finished "instant scrapbook" for the first time

Some of the guest take a look at the album

On a sad note, one of my sweet aunts died this month. She was the sister of my paternal grandma and the dearest, most generous woman you could ever know. I keep seeing all her animated facial expressions in my minds eye. I will miss her so much. Here is one of my favorite photos of Auntie Susie and her mom, my great-grandma Luisa:


The Scrappin' Good Times family is having some sad times --our owner Trish had to say goodbye to her beloved cousin Crystal who lost a very courageous battle with cancer. Another of our designers, Belinda, has had her father in the hospital and he is not doing well. Please keep them both in your thoughts.

Well, that is a whole lot of catching up. Guess I'll have to post more often if I don't want to write an entire tome for my posts.

Later!

yessiree, it's that time again!

A page from a "Fast & Fabulous in 40 Minutes" session

Spring has sprung!

I have a little confession... I have a real love/hate attitude about spring. First, I *love* it for its absolute gorgeousness. The clean, crisp feel of the air, the sunshine, the little tweeting birds, the fact that everything is budding and blooming and green. Isn't spring just grand?

But just to temper my wonder and amazement at the glory of the season, I am usually beaten down by allergies and asthma and sinus trouble and (sometimes) vertigo. Bummer, dude. And, of course, there are also the taxes which are no fun for me since I save all my financial entries up all year and then have to scramble to excel-a-tize them before my appointment with the tax specialist. I'm up to my eyeballs in that mind-numbing project right now. Sigh.

On the positive side of the ledger, though, it's also time once again for class kickoff at SGT. I have a whopping four classes on the upcoming session. WOW! I've added a session of "Fast & Fab 40-minute layouts on 4/25 right after Intro to Scrapbooking, then another session of back-to-back "Fast & Fab" layouts on 6/27. On May 9th, I'll be teaching "By the Sea" which is a technique-heavy mini album. If you've been curious about Glimmer Mist and want a chance to try it out, this is the class for you!

"By the Sea" mini album

You can take a peek at all the upcoming classes at the SGT website here. Better still, come to the kickoff this Friday from 5-7pm and see all the samples up close and personal. Hope I see you there!

take a peek

Here is a little taste of one of the classes I'm working on for the next session at Scrappin' Good Times:


In case you can't tell, I've been having fun playing with Glimmer Mist and Stickles.

just two more days

Just look at all that yummy, yummy ribbon and trim. I want to roll around in it! In the background there is my Cricut Expression that moved in here last November after my baby Cricut misbehaved for the last time. (A certain well known retailer made me a black Friday deal that I couldn't pass up.)

So what's the point of this pic? Just a hint at what I've been up to for the past week or so and a subtle reminder that there are only two more days until my "Very Stylish Girl" class. There are a few spots left and you can reserve a seat by calling the store. In case you missed my earlier post, this class is inspired by the movie Breakfast at Tiffany's and its star Audrey Hepburn.

This week between kit prep and the stuff known as "daily life", I also managed some scrappiness. I completed this layout for a special scrapbook that you can learn more about here.

didja miss me?

Well, I hope you did miss me because I sure have missed popping in here and rambling about stuff! It's hard to believe it's been a month since my last post --that's a new record of inactivity for me (sad face). And what exactly, have I been up to? Well, mostly I have not been up to anything other than dealing with an especially icky bout of vertigo. Thankfully, it's nearly gone now though for about 3 weeks I was pretty much housebound. I wasn't able to drive for a couple of those weeks. Talk about being stir crazy!

About the only thing I did work on was scrappy stuff. For some reason, that was a nice calm thing I could do that kept my head steady (the more still I am, the less dizzy I feel). Plus it distracted me enough that I could forget the nausea and spacey feeling of vertigo. For some reason, I can't say that about computer work. I'm not sure if it's the angle of my monitor or what, but when the vertigo is bad enough working on computer is very difficult.

In any case, I had a very productive three weeks. I finished a new paper bag album to list on eBay. I completed all my class samples for January & February WAAaaaaay early (for me). I also put together several projects for some home workshops I'm doing for some friends later this month. So, at least there is something good that came out of the down time.

Here are some peeks...

First my January class "A Very Stylish Girl". This is a 12" x 6" wire bound chipboard album. My inspiration for this project was Audrey Hepburn and the movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's".








My other classes are a "double-feature". In February, I'll be teaching back-to-back layout classes which I'm calling "Fast & Fabulous in 40 Minutes". Both classes are 2 hours and in the course of each class we'll complete three double page 12 x 12 layouts. (So a total of six double pagers if you attend both classes). I know that lots of scrappers are re-focused on getting their albums done, so I'm hoping this will really be helpful in doing that. Here are a couple of pics from some of the layouts:








If you're a local, you can check out these samples up close and personal at the Scrappin' Good Times Class Kickoff tonight. The event begins at 5pm - hope I see you there!