Quarterly cards #3

 Back again!  Monday posts don't usually work for me unless I get it done on Sunday & schedule it for Monday.  I play canasta Hand & Foot every Monday and love that game.   Yesterday I took a "walk about" at WalMart.  I got about 25 of these great clear pouches for less than $1 each.  I am going to use them to store each month's Paper Pumpkin Kits.  It takes up much less than the boxes do & I can see most of the elements from the kit without opening the pouch.  Maybe you have some good uses for them in your craft room.

Well, thanks to my persistent daughter, we got a partial refund for our hotel stay in Hendersonville for the Quarterly.  They refunded one room for us so that was great!  Now I can't decide whether to still give them a bad review or just let it be!

Here are a few more cards we made at Quarterly.

This was a shoebox card.  I can't remember what the technique is called but I remember doing this several years ago & it was a technique I saw on Splitcoast many years ago.  I used post it notes to mask off the center and sponged ink around the sides and top and bottom.  

This is a popular fold now called the Book Fold.  The 1 1/2" section on the left side is scored and adhered closed so the card opens like a magazine or book.

Card - opened.  Great fun fold!

This card took a lot of work - hats off to the creator !   It folds flat for mailing.

Number of Years Fancy Fold

I am almost to the end of my swap cards from Quarterly.  This next card was my sister's shoebox card!  She had all the pieces cut out so it was just a matter of putting it all together but what a beautiful job she did!

I love this set!  The stamp set and the framelits are ones you will use over and over - for birthdays, special events, anniversaries, etc.  

Here is another card using the Number of Years set.

It has turned super cold here!  Yesterday I think our upstairs heater ran all day trying to get to 68 degrees!  I was cold all day and I had my Cuddle Duds on!  Don't think we got out of the 30s.  And it is not going to be much better the rest of the week.   Ashley didn't want to tell me that the high in San Antonio on Thursday was supposed to be 80!!  Wahhhhhh!!!   So where ever you are .... stay warm!

Shoebox Cards from Quarterly PLUS Weekly Deals!

Finally getting around to sharing the Shoebox Swap cards I made at the Wilmington Quarterly.  I finished a little over half the cards Friday night (stamping cards for Marianne also!).  So, when Margaret was visiting, while she worked on the club projects, I finished up these cards.  Hope they give you some inspiration.

This week's Weekly Deals are great!  I have already ordered the tree framelits today!

Built for Free Using: My Stampin Blog

Sonny is getting along pretty good.   He pushed himself a little too much on Sunday with taking a shower that morning (his first since surgery) and then going to Big Al's to watch the football game.   He was wiped out and hurting a little bit when we got home.  Plus, he didn't like the fact that he had to pull the Steelers through without a beer!!  But we got a win .... as usual, in the last seconds!  Yesterday the Physical Therapist came and worked with him.  And today, we had to go looking for a new refrigerator so he has slept a lot this afternoon.  When it rains, it pours!  We had noticed since he came home from the hospital, that the cold packs he puts on his hip were not freezing totally.  (I change them out every 2-3 hours for him.)  I pulled out the bottom piece of the 'fridge and vacuumed the coils but it didn't seem to do much.  So, I have taken most of the food and put it in our outside freezer and put what I can in our small beer refrigerator in the garage.  I called Sears yesterday about getting a 'fridge from them, but their delivery date was going to be Nov. 19!  So we went to Lowe's Home Imp. today but the one we wanted was not in stock.   I ended up going online and found one at Home Depot and it will be delivered on Thursday!!  Yay!

I lost one of my best Lake Norman friends yesterday - the "good Sharon" as she always told me.  Sharon has been battling a blood disorder (similar to what Robin Roberts from GMA had) for about five years.  For the past year or so, she has been doing great.  But she started feeling bad in August shortly before they were supposed to go on a cruise.  They ended up canceling the cruise and she had several blood transfusions and platelets over the past couple of months.  I visited her in the hospital last Sunday and she was did not look good at all.  It scared me. Wednesday after Sonny's surgery, I went to see her again and she looked so much better.  But that evening, I stopped by her room as I was leaving and she was not in the room.  I was told that she was moved to Critical Care where she stayed for a couple of days.  She was taken to Hospice late Friday.  I went to see her Saturday morning, knowing I was saying my final good bye to her.  She told me she just couldn't fight any more but she wanted to make it through Sunday since that was their 40th wedding anniversary.  She died Monday at noon.  Luckily her children were able to get here in time.  Sharon was the first friend I made when I moved here nine years ago and I will miss her terribly.  We played bridge together every Monday.  We will have a big gap at the bridge table now.

Over the Rainbow Shoe Box

I have found another favorite from the new catalog!  It is Over the Rainbow!  I have made a bunch of cards today with that set.  It is a really versatile set - good for sympathy, congrats, good luck, love you .... endless ideas!  Here is a card I made for my shoe box swap at convention.

How about that for bright colors?!!  Love it!  I also love the sentiment.  I scattered small pearls on the card that I colored with a few Copic markers (missing those Blendabilities!)  You could also color them with Sharpie markers.

I had a pretty quiet weekend - which is just fine with me!  Sonny and I went to breakfast yesterday in Denver (NC) and afterwards wandered around the Farmers Market buying a few fruits and veggies. Then we drove out to the Peach Stand, which was the main reason we went to eat in Denver, but they were already SOLD OUT!!  It wasn't even noon.  I really believe they never opened.  How could they have sold everything by 11:30????  I'll be traveling out there again one day this week I guess.  Today I got Sonny to go to the neighborhood pool with me to exercise there.  We did pretty good and were there over an hour and the pool all to ourself most of the time.  That is the coolest way to exercise and I don't know why I don't do it more often.  Gonna make a resolution to do that.

Shoebox Swap Cards

These are some of the Shoebox Cards we made at the NC Demo Quarterly.

Final Shoebox Swap Cards

A few more cards to share from the Occasions & Sale-a-Bration catalogs.

Balloons are from Balloon Bash (pg 13 - Occ.) and saying is a Sale-a-Bration stamp

DSP  from Sale-a-Bration

Stacked With Love DSP Stack and stamp from You Plus Me (both on pg 5 -  Occ.)

Hey Valentine decorated bag

Best Day Ever stamp and Best Year Ever DSP - both Sale-a-Bration

Shoebox Cards

Brrr - it was cold here today.  Not that it bothered me since I didn't go outside all day!!  I felt a little industrious this morning and found a recipe for pork chops for the crock pot and got that going before making an apple pie.  I usually make a pie at Christmas but didn't do it this year so thought I'd surprise Sonny with one today.  Not to mention, I needed to use up some of the pie crusts I have in my freezer.  I cleaned out my fridge/freezer earlier this week and found 13 frozen pie crusts!  Every time I want to make a pie, I can't remember if I have any crusts at home so I buy more.  Don't think I will need one any time soon!

Thought I'd share a few more shoebox cards with you.

Painted Petals (pg 19 - Occasions)

Painted Petals with Work of Art.  The strip of DSP at the back is from the Sale-a-bration catalog - Irresistibly Yours (pg 15).  It s a white paper with glossy white patterns that you can sponge, spritz, brayer, etc. any color.

Sheltering Tree - again using the Irresistibly Yours DSP

Sheltering Tree - the grass is made with Work of Art

Your Perfect Day (pg 44 - Occasions catalog)

Basic Butterfly Bundle

It's time to share some of the cards that I made at Joanne's shoebox swap last weekend.  There was a pretty good mix of different stamp sets which I enjoyed.  The most popular stamp used was the Butterfly Basics.  It comes in a bundle and is on page 26 of the Occasions catalog.  There are several videos on YouTube demonstrating easy ways to cut out the butterfly using the framelits and the Big Shot.  Patty Bennett demonstrates one method using a dryer sheet!!  I am waiting on my Butterfly Bundle to arrive so I can't attest to any of the methods yet.  It is a beautiful and intricate butterfly and comes with 3 dies.

This card uses the smallest die with one of the butterflies in the stamp set.  

This is a sparkly butterfly - using the glitter paper.

Marianne's card

Monochromatic card

I had a real experience today at our Newcomers Coffee!  Our speakers were the owners of the Laughing Yoga and Meditation Studio in Charlotte.  I had never heard of Laughing Yoga and don't think many of the ladies in the group had either.  It was quite entertaining!  Lauging Yoga is a global movement for health, happiness and world peace.  It blends yoga practices with the science of laughter to teach people ways and means of joyful living.  They did several group exercises to make us all laugh.  And we also did some breathing techniques followed by an 8 minute meditation.  I felt pretty relaxed at the end of our meeting that's for sure!

More Shoebox Swaps

Sometimes if you don't have bad luck, you don't have luck at all!  Ashley made a quick recruiting trip Sunday to Little Rock, Arkansas.  I believe she could have driven there quicker!  She flew from San Antonio to DFW for a connecting flight and ended up spending about 6 hours in the DFW airport!  Her noon time flight was canceled and she couldn't get on another flight until around 6 pm.  When she arrived at her hotel in Little Rock, her wallet was missing!  Yep, all her ID, credit cards, etc.!  She knew she had it right before she boarded the flight.  She was finally able to get checked in to her hotel with a little help, but the next day, she did not have any ID to fly back home.  And to make matters worse, she had flown to Little Rock on American Airlines but was traveling back to Texas on Southwest so there was not even a round trip on one airline to follow.  Plus getting through Security with no ID can be tricky!  She was in her uniform which helped a bit.  But the only thing she had with her name and address on it was a mailing label on her Real Simple magazine that she had brought along to read on the flight.  That worked!  Now the hard part - trying to replace all that you lost!  I have always been scared when I am on a trip as to what would happen if I lost my ID.  Guess I'll save my magazines from now on!!   Although sometimes a bus pass will work.  When we lived in Washington, our friends, Margaret and Graham came to visit and brought Margaret's parents from England.  They wanted to see the Army base where Ashley was stationed.  So, they all piled into Ashley's car and then realized that Marg (the mom) did not have her ID - all she had was a bus pass (or maybe it was a library card - can't remember).  Anyway, Ashley bundled everyone's ID up and gave them to the guard at the gate.  I guess he didn't look at them close because he saluted Ashley and sent them onto the base!  Same thing happened last year to Marianne.  She arrived at the airport for their family trip to Las Vegas without her ID.  She was able to get through Security with her BJ's Club card because it had her picture on it!!  Maybe we're not so secure????

You should be able to get a lot of ideas from these great shoebox cards from Quarterly!

Quarterly Shoebox Cards

We are almost at the end of our catalog year.  It's always exciting to guess what will and won't make it into the new catalog.  I have a few guesses on what will be retired and I'm sure I'll miss a few stamps plus a few of the outgoing In Colors (like Summer Starfruit). I will be going to Stampin' Up's Catalog Premier event at a theater in Raleigh in a couple of weeks.  This is the first time Stampin' Up has revealed the new catalog in such a flashy way.  It should be a fun event.

 Here's the schedule of some of the upcoming events:

• Monday, April 21 - Retired List to be published (products available while supplies last)
• Monday, June 2 - New 2014/2015 Annual Catalog goes live!  (ordering begins at 12 pm MT)
• Wednesday, June 4 - Last day to order from the "old" 2013/2014 Annual Catalog
• Thursday, August 28th - New 2014 Holiday Catalog goes live! (ordering begins at 12 pm MT)

These colors will be retiring so make sure you stock up and get your ink refills before they are all gone.

We have a lot of talent in our NC SU demonstrator group.  We did 31 shoebox cards last weekend.  That sounds like a lot - wait a minute!  It is a lot!  But everyone designed their cards so that they were pretty quick to put together and followed the instructions to package each card separately and do all the embossing and die cutting in advance.  So we started putting the cards together around 5 and Marianne and I were finished about midnight.  Here are some of the cards: