2010 Ladies Night Out - Chrysalis Community Center

Just a quick post to let you know that we are participating in a charity event to benefit Chrysalis' youth programs at the Chicago Heights Country Club West tonight from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM.    We sold out of our Thanksgiving Hostess gifts at Saturday's show, so we came up with a couple of cute replacements!

These cute little boxes of "Rudolph Spares" are filled with Red Hot Candies or Cherry Candies.

These  Penguin Kiss bags are the substitute for our Turkey Treat Bags!  They'll both make excellent stocking stuffers!  I want them both in my stocking!

Look close our "penguin" is an owl in disguise!   After the Chrysalis Community Center event, I'm off to the midnight showing of Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows Part 1!   I will be drinking a lot of coffee at work on Friday!

Retreat!

We've been keeping quite busy in our scrap-booking room preparing for a few craft shows and some Stampin' Up! events.  I thought I'd share some pictures from a retreat we had at the end of October.  The weather at the lake was beautiful that weekend--mostly sun!  The grass is not brown--it's covered with pine needles!

Sandy, from St. Louis, MO sent us this photo.  The view is from the living room of the house looking at the lake.  I love the fall color in the foliage.  I love sitting on the front porch--it's so relaxing!

 We had a varied group of crafters this weekend-- quilting, scrap-booking, and handmade ornaments.   Saturday after lunch we all ran over to Kathryn Wise's store, Sew Many Pleasures in Dowagiac, MI and we hit a sale!  Kathy specializes in gifts and collectibles.  After our guests departed on Sunday,  Nanci and I ran up to Kathy's shop and hit the sale again!

Best of all we had lively games of dominoes after dinner both nights!   Grilled Peach and Chicken Salad, Home Made Navy Bean Soup, and Creme Brulee French Toast Casserole were the favorite weekend menu items!  We are booking retreats for 2011 now!  E-mail us and reserve your weekend today!

October Stamp Club

We celebrated the arrival of Fall at our October Stamp Club meeting by making 4 cards using Stampin' Up!'s gorgeous Day of Gratitude and French Foliage stamp sets.  Both of these beautiful sets are featured in the Holiday Mini Catalog.  Our DSP for the evening was Autumn Spice.  With all of the rich colors and texture, this specialty paper is the perfect choice for Fall and Thanksgiving projects.  Combined with card stock and inks in Early Espresso, Cajun Craze, More Mustard, Old Olive, Very Vanilla and Crumb Cake, our fall color palette was complete!

For our first card, we used the French Foliage stamp set. 

We used every stamp in this set to create our background paper and then inked the edges in Early Espresso.  We lightly sponged More Mustard throughout our image to give a more aged look.  Our sentiment from the Holiday Best set was stamped in Cajun Craze, layered on More Mustard and Cajun Craze card stock and popped up with Dimensionals.  For our simple embellishment we cut out a few more stamped leaves, inked the edges for a crisp look, added an antique brad and a twist of twine!  All of our ladies LOVED this card!

For our second card we used the awesome medallion stamp from Day of Gratitude.  This stamp is so bold and versatile!  It can be used for all seasons with  just a change of ink colors, and looks great stamped with multiple colors or in just one tone.  It's perfect as a background stamp using tone on tone, or embossed with Versamark.  It's hard to go wrong with this fantastic stamp!

For our project, we went for multiple colors using our Stampin' Write Markers.  We cut out our medallion and layered it on Early Espresso, More Mustard and Cajun Craze.  Our sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes and punched out with Word Window and layed on a Modern Label punched out in Cajun Craze. 

For our next card we made a gate fold and featured a beautiful patterned paper from the Autumn Spice DSP on one panel and complimented it with a leaf image stamped in tone on tone on the other panel. We Ticket Corner punched our layered panel for added dimension.  Our Day of Gratitude sentiment was punched out using the Decorative Label and made for the perfect card closure!

For our last card we created a quick and easy background using the Bright Blessings Jumbo Wheel rolled twice across our paper in More Mustard ink.  Our three simple images were colored using our Regal markers and punched out using the 1 1/4" Square Punch and then layered on Early Espresso.  We used Crystal Effects on the center of our flowers and added 3 Rhinestones across the bottom for a little sparkle and shine!

We ended our evening by making our Turkey Treat Bags, which have become quite a hit!  You can view these cute little guys in our previous post! Thanks for looking at our projects and Happy Crafting!



Craft Show Recovery!

We survived the craft show!  Sunday, October 10, 2010, we participated in the 29th Oktoberfest at Marion Catholic High School.  What a great experience!  

The event is run as a fundraiser for the band.  The band members help the vendors with set up and tear down before and after the event.  They also bring coffee and donuts around in the morning and provide a lunch menu pick up and delivery service.  Everyone was so helpful!  We had a great time!

Nanci's son-in-law and husband built this great display for us!  It folds in half and we can change all the  shelving around to fit the display each time we exhibit.  At the craft show we were invited to three other events.  We will be participating in two other craft shows in November, Miss Nikki's Craft Fair and Ladies Night Out 2010 at the Chicago Height's Country Club! 

We sold out of one item at the craft show--our Thanksgiving hostess gift wrapped chocolates.  Luckily we took pictures of them before the show.  We love the Autumn Spice DSP.  It really has the flavor and feel of Thanksgiving! :)

Nanci's Turkey Treat Bags were popular also!

Nanci's stamp club is meeting on Tuesday, so we will have some sneak peeks for you tomorrow! :) 

Boo! We're Back!

Five days to the craft fair and we're counting!  Here are a few more "crafty" items for Halloween!

We used the Texturized Spider Web embossing folder on the brown treat bags.  It embosses the pattern onto all 4 sides of the bag at one time!   You can also emboss paper napkins with the embossing folders too!  Give it a try!  Here's a close up of the detail on our treat bag.

Our treats bags are stuffed with candy--don't tell anyone! 

We hope you are enjoying all the "owl" art on the internet!   There are so many creative people out there.  Nanci saw a mini lunch sack on Stampin' Connection posted by Shauna O'Donnel with this image on it and couldn't resist turning it into one of the card projects for the September Stampin' Club.   Everyone at the club meeting enjoyed making this card.  Thanks for the inspiration Shauna! 

Owl Punch Playdate Desk Set

Don't cha just love that owl punch and Playdate DSP?  We do!  The Zutter binder is hiding extra large post-it note pages.  Stamps and sentiment are from the Apple Blossom stamp set.  Paper clips are hiding out in our mini-milk carton.  We will be selling this set at the 29th Annual Oktoberfest Craft Show at Marion Catholic High School in Chicago Heights, IL next Sunday from 10 AM to 4 PM.  We hope to see you there!  Happy crafting! :)

Love Letter DSP Desk Set With Note Cards

The elegance of Love Letter DSP is perfectly presented in this desk set which includes seven note cards and matching bookmark.  It would make an excellent gift for your favorite teacher or avid reader!
 

Nanci discovered that the retired stamp set, Note to Self, matches the paper pattern in Love Letter DSP to a tee of T if you prefer!  Take a look at the stamped edges of the post-it notes and the black patterned paper of the note card holder--they are exactly the same pattern!

The note card holder contains seven note cards.  The stamp "just a little note" is from the Apple Blossom stamp set.

There are ten different book markers to choose from.  Each with their delightful "bookworm" sentiment which is also from the Apple Blossom stamp set. 

This set will be available for sale at the 29th Annual Oktoberfet Craft Show at Marion Catholic High School on October 10, 2010 in Chicago Heights, IL.  We hope to see you there!  Happy Crafting!