Dear Friends,

I have received several emails asking if I am OK because I haven't posted in over a week. I am fine...we are visiting our sweet Grandson Charlie and his family for a few days. I was so busy with swap projects and work before we left that I didn't even have a chance to say goodbye for a few days. Thank you for your care and concern. I am so busy with Thomas the Train, the Cat in the Hat, Dora and Toy Story that I haven't had a chance to be on-line. When I get back, I'll post the details about the 100+ followers giveaway and also share some exciting new news!!!
Miss you all!

xoxo

Joyce

Vintage Vacation Swap

Just wanted to give you a heads up on this swap.....you know if Jenny's organizing it, it's going to be fun!

The details can be found here, and if you've never visited Jenny's blog...take some time there.

 Her art is amazing!

xoxo
Joyce
Yikes! I just realized that I have 99 followers! This calls for a celebration! When I hit 100, you're all invited over for a party....OK, that might be hard....so how about a giveaway? We all like giveaway. I better gather some really cool stuff.

Mother's Day Weekend with Michelle, David and Mr. Monk...and cookies!

David and I spent Mother's Day weekend visiting with our daughter Michelle and a short visit with my niece and her husband and our grandniece, and my Sis and BIL. Michelle lives on the New Jersey side of the Hudson River but works in New York City. We traveled back and forth between the 2 places about 100 times during the weekend. We arrived at my Sister's (in New Jersey) last Thursday afternoon and took in a softball game that my grandniece was playing in. On Friday morning, Michelle took the train from Jersey City to my sister's town and we picked her up and headed for this place...my mecca....

I can never go to visit my sister without going to HomeGoods. We have Marshalls and T.J.Maxx here in Pittsburgh but not HomeGoods. I just wander up and down every aisle and drool over the displays...

The colors are divine!

everything is so interesting!

Who wouldn't want to scoop up all of this?

The tiered wire basket (the big one in the middle) on the top shelf was $29.99 and identical to the one I purchased in Leesburg, VA last year for $69.99. Who knew I'd see it here?

This is my niece, Wendi, casually shopping with St. Frances under her arm.

Our kind and patient driver and Michelle in the back seat of Cleleste with all of our bags! The shopping center where HomeGoods is located has a Panera, a Starbucks and a Dunkin' Donuts....places a husband can hang out while waiting for a wife and daughter!

After we shopped and had luch we zoomed to Jersey City for the rest of our weekend fun.

Our treat for Mother's Day and Father's Day from Michelle, was to go into the city and see Lend Me A Tenor on Broadway. The play starred Tony Shalhoub (Monk), Justin Bartha (from The Hangover) and Anthony LaPaglia (Without A Trace).

As soon as the play was over I flew out the side door to be right in the front at the stage entrance.

 (where the actors depart from the theater)

I had my playbill and my pen ready...

waiting...waiting...waiting....I handed my camera to David who was behind me...waiting...waiting...

after about 20 minutes the actors started to filter out the door. Justin Bartha came over to me and signed...

(That's me with the pink rose)

Brooke Adams (Tony Shalhoub's real-life wife) was very friendly

 talking and chatting all the way down the line of fans....

and then suddenly, the door opened and out came the man I came to see!

When he came to me and started to sign my playbill, I leaned forward and said,

"I miss you at 9 o'clock on Fridays"

He laughed and replied, "Well, I'm here now."

"I know, thank God for syndication!" I said.

He laughed again.

 Total time of encounter-mmmm 30 seconds? I can die a happy woman!

Monk was my favorite TV show for 8 seasons.

After the play we hopped on a subway and rode to

Greenwich Village to eat wonderful pizza...then back on the subway to the PATH train to Hoboken

where we got off, walked 3 blocks and went here....

Carlo's...of Cake Boss fame (The Learning Channel) Bakery

is in Hoboken...2 stops train stops from where Michelle lives.

We got there around 6:30 PM on Saturday night and we were #92 at the door.

The cases were filled with cupcakes, cannolis and cookies of every kind.

We decided on an assortment of cookies...they were boxed and wrapped with string...

We walked back to the train station, hopped on the train and rode on to Michelle's.

I don't know why I never took a picture of the cookies we bought...oh wait, yes I do...

Man, they were good!

What a wonderful Mother's Day weekend we had!

Thank you to Michelle for planning our meals and activities....

and to my sweet and generous David, who has the patience of a saint!

The whole time we were away he was dealing with a bad case of

bronchitis that wiped him out completely by the time we got back to Pittsburgh on Monday.

I love you both.

xoxo

Happy Mother's Day!

To all of my friends..whether you are a Mother or a Daughter or a Granddaughter or an Aunt...

Happy Mother's Day to You!

I won't be seeing this sweet boy today but I'm sure he'll be calling to say

"Happy Mother's Day Bam!"

That's right...I'm Bam and proud of it!

(I'm only Bam to Charlie...not Alvin...LOL!)

Enjoy your day whatever you do!

xoxo

What is your creative process?

I read the blogs of many card makers and scrapbookers. I am constantly amazed at the designs they come up with for their creations. Sometimes they have a new card or tag or scrapbook project to show every day.  Seeing their work prompts me to ask the question....what is your  creative process? Do you start with a sketch? Do you have the idea in your head and then quickly transfer that to paper?
I recently offered to design an invitaion for a wedding shower for the daughter of a very good friend. The shower will be a "Kitchen" shower because the bride likes to cook and bake so that was my starting point. Having recently competed the Vintage Kitchen Tag Swap with my swap pals through Elizabeth, I decided to kind of do a retro/vintagey invitation. OK, first I wrote the text of the invitaion and then had to decide on an image...

Color? Black and white? Small, medium or large image?

A stamped image (mixer...thanks Crafty Secrets) in red or black?

A sparkly crown for the Queen of the Kitchen and then...black mat or red? Ribbon?

This is the finished invitation...

Made the image larger...matted in red with a stamped black mixer....took out the ribbon...rounded the upper corners of the top and bottom layers...added a black and white checked scalloped border paper at the bottom and added faux stitching.

 You can see that this is pretty far removed from the original design.

No sketch..just winging it! I have to see it printed out before I can make changes.

It took me all day until I came up with the final design because I have to fiddle with it forever!

Now I have to cut and assemble everything and get them in the mail today!

I will also be including some scanned and printed recipe cards for the guests to use to write several recipes for the bride-to-be. I wanted to keep the embellishments fairly flat so that the postage would be resaonable.

Back to my original question.....what is your creative process?

 Am I the only one who takes forever to design something?

Just curious.

Thanks for your thoughts!

xoxo

Where Bloggers Create II

Well, I've stepped right off the edge this time! Last year, Karen Valentine of My Dessert Cottage, hosted a Where  Bloggers Create party. You could sign up to "attend" the party, Karen posted links to all of the bloggers who participated and there was a dizzying array of wonderful craft spaces that you could visit. It took me days to work my way through all of them. I found so much inspiration and I pretty much thought it was a one-time event. I was wrong. Karen is again hosting Where Bloggers Create II this year and this time there are wonderful prizes being awarded by Jo Packham of Where Women Create magazine! I have signed up to participate. This means I will need to organize and re-organize my craft room...clean out and weed through tons of things...spruce up my displays and make everything look beautiful and then take gobs of photos to display on my blog on June 19, 2010. Can I "get it done"? Remember my word for this year...

MANAGE
I'm going to try my best! In the meantime...stroll over to Karen's blog and read all about the party. Maybe you'd like to participate, too!

xoxo

joyce