Posies and Party Dresses

On Tuesday evening I had a wonderful time with some women I used to work with. Barb, Carol, Cindy and I met for dinner and then traveled to Ellwood City to our friend, Patti Kuhn's, flower shop, Posies by Patti. Twice a year Patti invites friends to her shop for an evening of flower arranging. We bring a container that Patti suggests and she supplies the flowers and the assistance to make a seasonal arrangement. In the past we have made arrangements in tea cups and pumpkins. The flower choices were plentiful and included gorgeous roses in shades of orange and deep, deep burgandy, yellow and white. My arrangement only had one white rose because poor David, with his wicked allergies, wouldn't be able to handle any more than that. Patti is a generous, loving , friend and you can tell that she enjoys watching us create our "masterpeices". It is always a pleasure to visit her lovely shoppe. In addition to fresh floral arrangements, she has the most wonderful gift and decorative items. My house has many beautiful treasures from her store. I thought it might be fun for you to take a mini tour. The first picture is Cindy, Carol, Patti and Barb.

The second part of this post is about a party dress. We are very fortunate, in this part of Pennsylvania, to have a premier rubber stamp store close by. Stamp Fanci is a jaw-dropping store with thousands of stamps and supplies for stamping. The owner, Margie, is knowledgeable, creative and fun to know! She will always take the time to demonstrate something you'd like to see, whether it's Tim Holtz crackle paint, the Zutter Bind-It-All, different pens and coloring systems or the (I absolutely MUST HAVE) Nestabilities dies. The classes at Stamp Fanci are planned and thought out well in advance and clearly explained and you always leave with many finished projects and the printed directions in hand. Wood mount and clear stamps-she has them all! Needless to say, I've spent many dollars in this Mecca. It's cheaper than therapy, right? Anyway, she has just gotten some of the classiest stamps from a company called B-line. I collect dress form rubber stamps and when I saw this beauty I knew I just had to have it for my collection. I was rummaging around in my supplies and came across this "special" tag that I purchased a while ago on Etsy from Living Room Floor. I thought they'd be perfect together. I think the pale pink seam binding was just the right touch. I've contacted Stephanie from LRF and ordered 10 more of these tags to make more cards with different themes.

Two posts in one day. Is anyone still awake? Have you wandered off to watch Oprah or CNN or are you still with me? I do tend to ramble. Ah, now I can just concentrate on cheering Bethanie on while she works on my "lost profile". Who needs Survivor, when you can have this excitement? Keep your fingers crossed.

Wish I had a lemon bar!

It was the worst Monday...it was the best Monday!

This has been an interesting week with my computer. Shortly after my last blog post on Monday, I couldn't get on-line or find any of my folders. Monday evening, my super techno friend Bethanie was walking me through a bunch of steps to correct the problem, on the phone, while she was making fried rice for dinner and keeping an eye on daughter Amelia, my little 10 month old friend. She has determined that Windows has lost my "profile" and that all of my folders and other info is on my hard drive but misplaced. It's hard to have no profile....I miss it and I want it back! Bethanie will come here tonight and help me restore all of my precious files.



That was the down side. The up side is way up!





Heidi Woodred, of Everyday Cookies fame, and I had a tag swap. On Monday, my little goodie parcel came from Heidi with these beautiful tags. You really must read her blog and visit her Etsy store. She writes interesting stories about home life at Sweet Woodruff Acres in Oregon, has great recipes and shares her beautiful art projects. Go take a peek and spend some time visiting.





The other bit of excitement came when I found out that I won some blog candy on Vicki Chrisman's (This Art That Makes Me Happy)blog!!! She is a designer for Heartwarming Vintage/Crafty Secrets products and her blog is filled with inspiration! My prize is 2 Journaling booklets from Crafty Secrets. I can't wait to see which 2 Vicki is sending.


The links to both Vicki's and Heidi's blogs can be found to the left of this post or simply click on their names above. Thank you ladies, for making a frustrating day more bearable.


The other happy thing that happened on Monday was getting new pictures of Charlie. He is 5 months old now and these are the newest shots of our sweet grandson. The picture of Charlie with the beautiful woman, is our daughter, Michelle, who went to Maryland to visit her favorite nephew. None of us can be away from him for too long without needing a Charlie "fix".






So, that was the good news and the bad news for Monday, which I am just posting now. I have so much more to share with you but tomorrow is another day. I'm praying that Bethanie can work her magic and my profile will be restored soon. I just feel weird without a profile, ya know?

Variations on a Theme

I retired in 2006 after working for over 30 years in the dental field. I never had to have my hands in anyone's mouth....my responsibilities were in the front desk area as a receptionist or office manager. (My hands were in insurance forms and financial arrangements.)

At the time of my retirement, I had worked for 8 years for Dr. Dahar, an orthodontist. I loved my job, the women I worked with and especially the patients and their families. I decided to persue my love of scrapbooking and paper crafts as a mini-profession and I'm not sorry I did. I love working for hours on projects in my craft room and seeing the people I create for smile at the finished projects. I also work one day a week at a local scrapbook store, Your Memory Page, which is, unfortunately, on the market block. I make minimum wage there but I love the store and the people I've met through working there.

All of that being said......I still do some creative work for Dr. Dahar. He is often asked to contribute something to be auctioned off for charitable organizations and so I create gift baskets for donation which contain gift certificates for orthodontic treatment or electric toothbrushes and the like.

At other times, he takes gifts of food or flowers to dental offices that refer patients to his practice as a little thank you. This month, he is taking potted flowers to several of these offices and I was asked to create a tag to go with the plants. This tag is a 4-inch chipboard coaster that I have decorated using paper and Quickutz die cuts....I love the seed packets....mounted on a balsa wood stick to be stuck in the pot.

After finishing the tags for Dr. Dahar I decided to make a variation of the tag to send to Heidi Woodruff for a one-on-one tag swap we are doing. This is the second tag I made...

It was OK, but I know Heidi likes a vintage look so I made another variation which was this one...

No seed packets or ants, but the flowers are there and the little fairy on the scalloped cloud. So there you have 3 variations on a theme. What do you think?

Heidi, if you're reading this post, I am mailing your little package today. There is another tag made just for you that I don't want to show until I know you've received it. I will write more about our swap at that time, too.

Oh, and we've all looked at pictures of craft desks/tables, either neatly organized and looking like they're never used or like mine.... with hardly an inch of exposed surface left to work on.

Thank you for visiting today. I love it when you visit and leave a comment. Have a good day....I'm off to the post office to mail Heidi's package and then back to clean up my room!

We ARE GaGa for Garlands!

Tamy just sent out the badge with the pictures of everyone's garlands from the GaGa For Garlands Swap. What a beautiful display! She's going to post about it today and then maybe we'll find out who made each one. They are all lovely. It is great to be surrounded by such a talented group of women!

Is it just me or is Blogger having a problem? A friend posted on my blog today and it's not showing up. I've also had a few problems uploading photos. Anybody else having issues? Email me if you can't post to my blog. Thanks.

Garland Reveal

Today is the day to reveal our garlands in the GaGa For Garlands swap hosted by Tamy Ottomeyer.

The interesting thing about any swap is that you have to be a little bit of a detective (personally, I'm a Monk fan!) to find out things about your partner...who she is, what she does, what she likes, that sort of info. That's what makes these things interesting. In reading Robyn's blog (yup, from the beginning) I learned that Robyn has been married for almost a year and a half and her husband has a job that keeps him away from home for weeks at a time, she works in a hospital, she has a lot of friends (people who actually comment on her blog), she has a dog & cat, and she loves to "junk" and craft. The colors she picked for her garland were pink & green.

The garland had to have "celebrate" incorporated somehow and I decided to celebrate Robyn herself. I used an 8x10-inch art board for the garland and chose images that depicted Robyn. She has dark brown hair and I imagined her daydreaming like the lovely lady in the chair. The image of the couple is obvious and the one of the 2 girls represent Robyn and her best friend Adrien who plan Mystery Trips each month. (Such a fun idea!)

Robyn, I hope you enjoy your garland as much as I enjoyed creating it for you. Celebrate your life with joy.

Note: The picture of the garland with the pitcher of tulips was taken when I thought the garland was complete but then I remembered that I needed a flower.....so the sheet music blossom was added!

Another note: YAY PENS!!!!! Another win over Ottowa last night making the series 3-0.

LETS GO PENS

Just a quick break in the regularly scheduled programming to say THANK YOU to our Penguins for a great game last night!

A Gift for Pam & A Peek for Robyn

It has been a long time since I've posted pictures of anything I've made and I have been busy, really I have.

For her birthday, I wanted to give my friend Pam an initial charm pendant made by Mimi, another dear friend. I've spoken about Mimi's work before and her lovely things can be seen here. In order to make the presentation a little more special, I covered a paper mache box and added a punched scalloped oval stamped with a P, a little Quickutz bluebird and my favorite sheer dotted ribbon. I accompanied this gift with a ribbon tied assortment of greeting cards I made. Pam was pleased which made me happy. There are certain friends who prefer handmade gifts and are very appreciative when you make the effort.

And now for the peek for Robyn. As I mentioned, in an earlier post, I am participating in the GaGa for Garlands swap being hosted by Tamy Ottomeyer. Our banners are to be in the mail this week and I'm almost finished with Robyn's. I thought I would post a peek of it here.....

Robyn, If you're reading this, I'm hoping to get it in the mail to you tomorrow. My husband just had some surgery yesterday and I've had to stick close to home but I think I can skip on over to the post office and get this on its way to you. I hope you like it.

Now you know that none of my posts can end without adding of a picture of my very special sweetie....who has been very sick this past week. Feel bettter Charlie...Gram sends kisses! He's 4 1/2 months old and still a happy guy-even when he's not feeling well.