it's that time again!

A sneaky peek of the October Intro to Scrapbooking layout designed by Kristin Hayne

Class kickoff at Scrappin' Good Times is here again! I'm excited to be partnering with the delightful Kristin Hayne once again. This time around she has designed the layout for the October Intro to Scrapbooking class. She came up with the cutest CARS layout! It's adorable. (BTW, Kristin will also be teaching a super cute class with Michelle --you really don't want to miss this kickoff. There are lots of cute classes coming up!)

A couple more sneaky peeks

My other class will be in September and is called "Brat-itude". It's a Tinkerbell themed class for all you fans of that pouty little pixie. Hope to see you at kickoff!

Here's some Tink peeks:

"Brat-itude" Tinkerbell class

howzabout a nice hawaiian punch?

Sure could have used one this past weekend. It was outrageously hot here in SoCal. High 90's (or maybe more?) What a weekend to have a yard sale, but that's what we did. It was the usual trio - my mom, my sister and I- braving the unusual May heat to unload our discards.

We like to start our sales on Friday when there isn't so much competition - and it was a good decision again. We had lots of shoppers even without putting any signs up. That's thanks to the power of the Pennysaver, Recycler and Craig's List ads. In fact, we had some mob action at one point. Cath had arrived a little late due to some car trouble and as she pulled up to unload her vehicle, the people all swarmed to her truck, trying to make sure they had first dibs on any new 'good stuff'. Mom said it looked like she was selling tamales out of the back of her truck -lol!

Saturday was possibly hotter than Friday and I found myself leaving my post at the sale early so I could go to Scrappin' Good Times and teach a class. It was the last installment of the "Where's the Party" class designed by Kristin Hayne and me. What a great day to be in the air conditioned store. :-) It was also nice to give my wrist a rest. I had pulled something in the inside of my wrist on Thursday night while I was moving things around for the yard sale. Ouch!

Anyways, after all the hubbub and heat of the weekend, I'm ready for a nice Hawaiian punch. Doesn't this recipe sound good:

Bacardi Hawaiian Punch

1/2 oz Bacardi Limon rum
1/2 oz Bacardi Razz rum
1/2 oz Bacardi Orange rum
1/2 oz Bacardi Vanil rum
3 oz cranberry juice
3 oz pineapple juice

Pour the Bacardi flavored rums into a cocktail shaker half filled with ice cubes. Add the cranberry juice and pinceapple juice and shake well. Strain into a hurricance glass filled with ice cubes and serve.

That recipe was one of the Mixed Drink recipes in one of our "Where's the Party" class add-ons. Here's a look at the add on, "Happy Hour Starts Now". You can pick up your own copy of this book in my Etsy Shop:







And while I'm on the theme, here's a layout I did last month of my brother John doing bartender duty during one of our family dinners last November. Oh my goodness, he made us the most delicious icy, foamy raspberry drinks made with fresh berries. Yum! I need to get that recipe.

plumb tired

New Quickutz "Fiesta" set. I love the packaging --it totally coordinates with our "Party" class!

Today was the first of two "Where's the Party?" classes. It went great! I have to say that we have some truly wonderful ladies that come to classes at Scrappin' Good Times. They make it a pleasure and a joy to teach there. A big thanks to everyone who came today!

There is still room in the May 17th class session

This class was also the first time I've partnered with my good friend Kristin Hayne to teach a class. She was AWESOME! Not only is she a wonderful designer, but an excellent teacher and great motivator too. She's so organized and efficient --she made sure we got our class sample done in plenty of time for last month's kick-off and also was super about keeping us on our toes about getting the class kits ready. Love that girl!

Did you notice my subject line? Well, somehow I scheduled my April and May classes closer together than I usually do, and it's been quite a challenging few weeks. Last week was "Intro to Scrapbooking" (another great class --lots of *new* faces whenever I do the Intro sessions), and in about two weeks is the second "Party" class. Whew --that's a whole lotta class kits! I've been driving my poor little "Cricut" so hard that I think I may have done him in. The poor little machine was starting to smell a bit while it was cutting and then it got so tired that it would only cut through the first image on a page. For the rest of the images, it would act like it was cutting, but it was only pretending.

Fortunately, when the machine started acting up I had finished most of my cutting. Somehow I managed to get enough of that last piece cut for today's class (talk a sigh of relief).

So, the point of all this... me and my baby bug are tired!

a blip in the CHA transmittal

Well, I had to interrupt my CHA pic posts for a quick trip to Scrapbook Expo in Costa Mesa. My friends Allison and Lisa and I booked a room at a hotel and spent a night scrapping our hearts out. We stayed up WAaaaay too late (3:30am) then got up early for our day at Expo. I was pretty wiped out when we were done. I hardly remember Sunday at all, as I crashed and burned pretty hard after 3 days at CHA and then the 2 days at Expo.

Since then, I've been immersed in making kits for the upcoming Silly Old Bear class at Scrappin Good Times (this Sunday already --wow, where does the time go?) I was able to expand the class and accomodate the people on the wait list (woo hoo!) and also put together an alternate version of the class for 3/9. The new class is called "In the Pink with Pooh & Piglet" and is very similar to the original, but in a different album and with more pink touches. Here's the cover:


I'll get back to my CHA pics soon. I think I'm going to give up on editing them tho. There are just *SO* many of them and so little time. There are probably so many pics from CHA up now that mine are an afterthought anyway.

Later!

made-and-took

Last Friday was the bi-monthly class kick-off at Scrappin' Good Times. It was a chilly night, but even with that nip in the air we had a great turnout. Did a fun little make-n-take card. My DH complained that this is the hokiest sentiment ever, but I can't take credit for coming up with it. I didn't write the song, and can't even take credit for the idea of pairing it with a chandelier --found that inspiration in the February, 2008 issue of Paper Crafts ("Show Your Moxie"). Here's what it looked like:

"You Light Up My Life" make-n-take card

I introducted two new classes. For March I'm teaching "Silly Old Bear" - a mini album featuring Classic Pooh. I guess that cuddly old bear is as popular as ever because the class sold out before the night was over. I'm working now on (hopefully) putting together a second session of the class or at least kits. We'll see how it goes...

A couple of inside pages from "Silly Old Bear" Classic Pooh mini album

My other class this 'semester' is Introduction to Scrapbooking in April. The layout for this one is a bit more intricate than I usually do for the intro class, but it turned out awfully cute (if I do say so myself). I used some Sugar Coated cardstock from Doodlebug -love that sutff!

a little peek at "Spring Joy" layout (April Intro class)


Thanks to everyone who attended the Kick-off --ya'all make it so fun!

what's up

Wow, it's been so hard to find time to sit a the computer these last few weeks. We're still knee deep in projects on the homefront (golly, sure hope we're done soon!) Making progress, just not going as quickly as I'd like.

Then this past week was spent finishing up class samples and other preparations for the bi-monthly class kickoff at Scrappin' Good Times. In addition to finishing up my class samples and the related miscellany, I also do the computer work for the store's printed calendar. Plus along with this week's kickoff, we had an open house so there were goodies to prepare and transport. It all came together in the end, but made for a busy week!

Here is a pic of my 1/5 class, "She's One Hot Mama" --a pregnancy journal. This class is almost sold out! As of this afternoon there are two spots left.


I'll also be teaching "Introduction to Scrapbooking" at the end of the month (1/27). It's a great class for anyone who is just starting out (or thinking of getting started).

Can't wait for classes to start again!

instant scrapbook

A little footnote on the new dies. Almost forgot to mention that I was already able to use a couple of them for the baby shower album that my friends and I made on Monday. Here is a pic of some of the album pages (tho not the ones I used the new dies on because I don't want to post guests' photos without their permission).



The finished album turned out so cute (if I do say so!) There were four of us who worked on it, but despite our differing individual styles we still managed to put together a wonderful unified album. It really helped to use papers from one manufacturer/line (in this case K & Company). And let me just add that I loved the "teamwork" approach -- the four of us were able to complete in a single afternoon-to-evening.

Today as the shower progressed, we quickly snapped, printed and adhered the photos into the album so that it would be done when the guest of honor finished opening gifts. The completed album was the last gift she opened. She was very happy with it.

Instant albums like this one are great fun to do and are a big hit. If you don't have a photo printer, you can use a Polaroid camera instead.

aloha to "aloha, baby"

It's almost time to say aloha to the "Aloha, Baby" class. Before we do, I just want to let ya'all know that there are two extra kits up for grabs thru this weekend (first come, first served). I will be closing out the class on Monday and removing them from the store. I also left two add-on kits at the register in the hold files. The add-on includes one extra 6x8 pre-made page and two half pages (4x6). These are completely done and ready to be inserted into finished albums before binding.

The kit includes wire coil binding pieces to finish the 6x8 chipboard albums off. FYI, there is a binding machine in the store so you can bring your books back when you're done to close them.

Mahalo to everyone who was in the class. I had a great time teaching and hope you enjoy your books.

slice of life

So I had to hit the ground running as soon as we got home from Vegas. I had a class today (Sunday) that still needed some prep work. Been a mighty busy girl, so this is the first chance I've had to post.

Speaking of girls, here's a pic of a girl we saw at the M&M shop in Vegas. She had the coolest 'do. I thought maybe she'd been a model at a hair show, but no she told me she just likes to have her her done up at the salon. I love the slices in this coif. (Yes, I asked if it was okay to take this pic.)

We had much too much fun in the M&M store and bought too much chocolate (esp considering the heat --I had to pre-plan stuff so that my candy was always in a safe cool spot).

We were at MGM, which I love. We've stayed there a few times before and so it's very comfortable. We *love* the lazy river that you can float on all day long (just wish there were a couple less waterfalls!) I also like that there's a movie theatre within walking distance. We took the kids to see Ratatouille (sp?) Cute movie.



Here kitty, kitty! This was the first time we really had a great moment at the Lion Habitat, too. There were two cubs and they were adorable. So playful and fun to watch. They were right in front of us a good deal of the time. Just wonderful!


Now this picture just makes me smile. This little ogre family is so cute. Last Monday night, I was blog surfing and at Susan's blog I saw the pic of her son's Shrek collection. The very next day we saw these guys at Build-A-Bear so I snapped a pic. The funny thing is she took her little guys to a Build-a-Bear store that same day so they could buy baby Shreks.


I also did a bit of scrapbooking and finally had a chance to play around with a clear album. So fun, but a bit tricky since the pages are .... well, CLEAR. You do have to pre-plan somewhat and since I was in lazy, vacation mood with poor lighting and limited supplies my book is a bit on the sloppy side. But I still had a blast making it and can't wait to try another. (You can see more pics from this album at my other blog.)


Well, that's just some of our pics. In case you can't tell, we had a good time!

aloha, baby!

If you've been waiting patiently to see the full sample of my August class at Scrappin' Good Times, the wait is over! I'll be dropping the completed sample at the store this evening.

After I scanned the book, I noticed that the first two pages kind of remind me of the children's book "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" by B. Martin Jr. and J. Archambault (illustrated by L. Ehlert). However, you'll just have to come into the store to see what I mean, because I didn't include those pages here. Just teasing you with a little peek.

I can't tell you how many times I've read that book when the kiddoes where younger. I used to be able to quote most of it by heart. Evidently it still lodged somewhere in my subconscious.

A told B, and B told C, "I'll meet you at the top of the coconut tree...

a night to remember

My "A Night to Remember" paper bag album class was yesterday. What a great group we had! The class went very smoothly and we even finished up on time (my new goal!)

I still have a few class kits. Visit my PaperCraft Princess blog to order kits.

Here's a look at a couple of the interior pages.

And the add on kit (a small, glitzy frame suitable for wallet size photos):