Craft With May

I woke up in a suite surrounded by my best girlfriends and started getting dressed. It was THE day I’d planned for (myself – no planner required) and 200 guests would soon join in our happy day.

We picked a date based on the timing for our Disneyworld Honeymoon. 2.2.02 sounded cool sure, and it was groundhog day, but the timing of our vacation was the real reason for the date. That’s just how we roll.

Walking down the isle the traditional way was not an option for me. So J met me at the door of the church and we walked in together, arm in arm. It was the priest’s idea and a darn good one.

My friends asked if I was nervous or anything. I wasn’t. The cold feet never came. I was excited. Thrilled. Totally pumped. I knew I wanted to be married to J – and that was that.

We ate, drank, danced, and loved being surrounded by our loved ones. Then we ran off to the airport to catch the red eye to Orlando so we could start the next day on vacation. Yeah – I said we spent our wedding night sleeping on an airplane by choice and it couldn’t have worked out better. By 10am the next day we were rockin’ Universal Studios Orlando.

That’s how we roll.

Eight years, two kids, a new house, and lots of life later we’re still here. Still happy. Still a great team.

photo credit – the pictures are by Celeste Photo Art (Santa Rosa, CA) sorry they’re BAD scans from the album… scanner is angry this morning.

February 1st, and a new Scarlet Lime kit has been introduced! I squealed aloud when this arrived at my door and I had fun with it. I’m hoping I get time to work with it more this month. For now, here’s two pages…

I thought it was fitting to scrapbook meeting Christy (Scarlet Lime’s owner) with one of her kits.

This kit had so much NEW product… talk about dreamy. I come home from CHA and find the new Melody Ross + American Crafts stuff I’d been drooling over!

I had so much fun with all the bits & pieces I put together for this layout.

You can check out the other designer projects at www.scarletlime.com

 One of the sweetest, most talented, and positive ladies I have the pleasure of calling friend is Margie Romney-Aslett. I was very excited to see what her new line would be like – and let me tell you every item in both debut lines is perfectly executed and absolutely amazing. It’s been such a treat to watch her get so much rave reviews and attention – I think it’s safe to say the girls’ paperie by Margie is going to be a big hit!!

Her booth was so lovely. So vintage chic. SO very Margie. (and totally my style too!) The photos hardly do it justice.

Now I think the product speaks for itself – it’s AMAZING. I can tell you from experience it’s great to work with. I was honored that Margie asked me to make some layouts for the booth, and I’m happy to say I can now share them with you here!

Cutting that blue metal frame was so hard to do. But I’m glad I did because I love how it turned out. This is a hybrid page – some photo editing to help the colors in the photo + journaling. I also made a frame from cardboard that was a lot of fun (but very full of bad paper acid, I know!)

As I look over show reports it’s been fun seeing some of my work pop up in unexpected places like Shimelle’s blog and the paper life in CHA show posts about the booth. I had so much fun working with this line and I can’t wait until it’s all released and I can do MORE!!!

{Have I mentioned I love this line?} Here are the rest of my pages…

Stitching + this line just goes naturally.

Banners & pennants are so huge right now. LOVE the design of paper that Margie came out with. I glittered mine up to add extra shine and detail.

I used a red, white, and blue thread (yep – 3 in 1!) and I love how it looks stitched around the outside. I also love that this line is totally usable beyond just travel pages.

and last but not least…

I’m going to admit it – I was SO pleased with having come up with the cupcake out of scalloped paper idea. I stitched it with quilting batting hoping to make it puffier but that didn’t quite work out. Still – I love how it looks.

The title is hand-cut from a computer font. That’s right, another hybrid page from me! I do adore custom title work.

Finally let me congratulate Barbie H. A whole lot of you entered my Girls’ Paperie give-away last week and her name was the lucky random winner! I’ll contact her via e-mail to get the details all set.

I hope you’ve enjoyed these layouts & peek into this new line of product. Happy Crafting!

PS – if you’d like to see more of my show favorites be sure to keep an eye on www.scrapbookupdate.com – articles are getting added all the time.

Looking over my posts and photos that I’m sharing with you I can’t help but smile. What I didn’t photograph, what you can’t see is how much WORK a show is. Whether you’re in a booth or walking the floor – it is exhausting and the meetings, get togethers, and events go way beyond the show floor hours. If you’re totally rested during a trade show, you’re not doing it right.

I did a lot of pre-show prep and worked hard on planning (flexible plans, of course) to make the most of my short time in Anaheim. The biggest thing I found is that I simply didn’t make time for eating. Noting that, I indulged in room service as I got ready the final day. Yes, day 3 started with French Toast with toasted almonds, peaches, and bits of funnel cake. Oh- and caramel maple syrup. I wanted to make sure I had the energy to power out the last few hours I had on the show floor!!

This is made from Tim Holtz grungeboard. The use of texture & flowers & color… just wow. WOW.

Speaking of Tim – if you follow me on twitter then you know he told me at the show that I’ll love his scissors (made by Tonic). Is it possible they’ll be my new favorites? It’s a scissor throw-down. (Or walk-off- if you’re a Zoolander fan) He’s got a lot of amazing new products and I was glad that I got to meet with him during the show.

One of my new favorite people? Elizabeth Kartchner. Such a sweetheart and she too was a fan of wearing cute shoes and her outfits were just the best. LOVED her line & can’t wait to use it all.

Don’t you hate it when you’re smiling in your head but it doesn’t look like it or you look weird in a photo? Yeah, me too. But oh well. Here’s Nancy Nally & me.

Something I like about Nancy? You can have a difference of opinion without it being a personal attack. We have an ongoing friendly feud over the color navy right now. It makes me smile just thinking about it. It was great to hang out with her at the show and I’ve got a lot of articles brewing & storming in my head for www.scrapbookupdate.com  (stay tuned!)

So I also found a new creative soul sister over at Tattered Angels and she shared with me that a few of the new color names are inspired by Twilight.  “Man Sparkle” really would have been an awesome name for the color below since maybe if sprayed on your man it could make him look like Edward in the sun. I suppose Dazzling Diamonds is still good. There’s also a private meadow green product that’s pretty. I am still cracking up over this.

Here’s me & Liz. Her hands were totally dyed from all the misting – and she’s amazing with all Tattered Angel’s products. Can’t wait to use them in upcoming projects!

Shortly after that photo I sprinted across the show floor – said hey to a few more people & ran for a taxi. Just 48hours after arriving, I was headed back home. At the airport I had to get patted down/wanded by TSA. They were not amused that I thought it was funny… in fact I am pretty sure they were suspicious that I wasn’t put out or angry about it like all the normal passengers being forced to be in that little ‘special’ area. Me? I was just thinking it added another layer, another moment, and another story to my action packed journey.

Over a plate of warm homemade potato chips smothered in Blue Cheese (oh.my) I thought about the show. Overall? HUGE smiles from me. Getting to spend time with, meet, hug, and laugh with so many of my favorite friends and making new friends makes CHA kind of like a summer camp. I stayed up way too late, my voice is still raspy, and my knee is swollen and in a lot of pain from standing for 3 full days. I’ve got ice on it and I’ll recover. It was so totally worth it. I have few regrets – simply that there are people I wanted to see and spend time with that I didn’t find or get the chance to sit down with and people that I was having such a good time with that I forgot to take photos.

Here’s hoping I get to go to the next show… and in the meantime I’m off to work on new projects & work on my post-show list of things to do. I’m so excited about all that happened and all I saw at this show – I’ll be sharing more as I can!! Watch for lots of favorite picks & trend reports from me at Scrapbook Update as well as a post about the girls’ paperie right here…

Day #2 started by going to sleep technically (it was about 1am) and ended with this-

Watching the famous Paperclipping Roundtable get taped live in Noell & Izzy’s hotel room. There were about eight of us on the bed watching them tape it – it was so fun to watch, listen, and of course just spend time with these ladies!

Now let me go back and start at the beginning…

Throughout the day I had appointments, walked the floor, and snapped lots of product photos. There are opportunities I’m excited about, things I hope work out, and SO much product I adored. Seriously one of the stronger shows I’ve ever been to. I also saw a more “we’re here because we love it” type labor of love attitude. It was infectious and I came home happy and brain full of ideas buzzing so loud I could  barely sleep. Today as I edit photos there is one BIG bummer: I am finding that I plum forgot to take photos with a LOT of people. BUMMER!  But I did get some- like this shot with Stacy, Margie, and Tami taken in the Girls’ Paperie booth.

I heard somebody say Scarlet Lime behind me and I spun around – if Christy was there I had to grab her for a picture!! It was her, and I was so glad to finally get to meet her after knowing her for so long. She is just as cute and sweet as you’d expect.

I was in the Webster’s Pages booth at the time. A booth that really let the product speak for itself. No fancy decor or samples galore – something I didn’t even notice until I got home. Here’s the booth-

You can read more about my picks from there at www.scrapbookupdate.com – now back to people. One of my favorite people, and one heck of a great example for how to lead a happy life is Stacy Julian. I am so glad I got to spend more time with her this show and soak up some of her brilliant positive energy.

There is a rule at CHA – make all plans flexible. You think I’m kidding but stuff comes up. New meetings. Unexpected opportunities. So much more. Crystal Rieger (soul sister and my verbal twin) and I were supposed to have dinner but had to settle for a few quick moments together.

The day truly ended with feet up, pj pants on chatting with Nancy and Helen (who had the room next to mine) about all kinds of things. Even when you’re back in your room before 9pm, it’s still impossible to go to sleep when you’re SO wound up on all that’s going on and the good things in the works. I loved having those two in the next room and being able to peek my head in the connecting door to say  hey & chat in comfort of my own room.

{stay tuned for day 3…}