Capture the Details

August pick

My employee pick for August is uploaded. I'll be hanging the layout at the store tomorrow if you're local and want to see it in person. :-)

quick check in

My art table is once again covered with scrapping goodness. I have a ton of stuff to catch up on for the store since I am now two days away from the start of the new month and things are due. Not to worry. I do better under pressure.

Totally unrelated, but I have to share with you....this is why I love graphic design. I saw this link on Ngaire's blog and wow. It's so simple. It's so brilliant. It is design at it's best. I have always loved designing logos and business identity systems and when I see stuff like this I get all excited. :-)

can you say tired?

We. Are. Back.

We. Are. Exhausted.

It's 10:00 p.m. and I am so tired I could cry but I just can't 'shut down', if you know what I mean. So, I blog.

I'm eating my supper of fig newton cookies and milk. I'm all crackered and pretzeled out and I don't want to go through the trouble of making anything...plus the cupboards are bare because I didn't make it to the grocery store before I left. So, a light snack of figgy newtons it is.

Now....... A re-cap of our convention. Aunt Sue and I arrived first and sat in the parking lot waiting for the others to get there. As we sat talking I did a double-take of the vehicle in front of us. I was so excited I had to dig my camera out of my luggage and take a picture. Look! It's the Swedish Fish truck!!!!

I should have taken another shot from farther away so you could get some perspective of the size of this thing - it was huge! I love Swedish Fish... :-)

Our day Thursday was spent setting up the booth. We checked in when we were done around 6:00 p.m.  (Next year we know to check in as soon as we get there. ) Our hotel rooms, which were booked months ago, were supposed to be in the hotel directly over the convention center. When we went to the front desk they told us they moved us to the adjoining hotel. We were a bit disgruntled, but down the loooooooong hallway we went.

We got our room keys for that hotel and went up. We stepped off the elevator and -bleh- (and I'm sorry if I offend any of you smokers out there but to us non-smokers it smells blehky, if that's even a word) it smelled like cigarettes. Our rooms smelled like cigarettes. Back down to the desk we went. So, not only did they move our rooms they switched us from non-smoking rooms to smoking rooms. Well, they basically had nothing available to offer us.

We all went into the hotel restaurant to start ordering our dinner while Amy stayed at the desk and tried to get us rooms. Luckily, and I mean luckily, as she was standing there there was a non-smoking room cancellation. She took that and four of us had to stay in the one room and the other two of us stayed in the least offensive-smelling smoking room and they brought in a room ionizer to get rid of the smell.

You say that's not right...they had reservations... well, as they told Amy, they're not really reservations, they're requests. Huh.

The show was busy. We met lots of nice people. We all looked so cute in our pink and brown t-shirts and aprons. I did get those table skirts made and everything fit just right (phew!). I took pictures this year, I hadn't brought my camera in previous years but this year I wanted to make sure I got some shots. Here is our both, early in the morning before the masses were let loose to shop. Amy is setting up the computers....

Here we are at the end of the day today ( a bit blurry, but it'll do)...

From the left in the front is Kristi, Jill, and Amy. In the back from the left is me, Sue and CJ.

I must say that every year we go we learn what works and what we need to improve. A big thing for us has been the basic necessity of food. Dinner to be more specific. We finish at 6:00 p.m. on Friday and Thursday night it's whenever we are finished setting up. We have always had such a hard time finding somewhere to eat without having to wait forever for a table. This year Amy got smart and made reservations for us (and lo and behold these reservations worked) at an awesome Italian restaurant in the King of Prussia Mall. I highly recommend you try it if you're ever there - Bertolini's. Dee lish!!!!!!!!!

We came back from Bertolini's and it was still pretty early so we watched a pay-per-view movie in our room. Another recommendation for you - Wild Hogs. I haven't laughed that hard at a movie in a long time. We were all hysterical. Great movie!

And, I have to add, the highlight of the show for me was getting to meet my friend Gigi in person. ( I was really looking forward to meeting you, Gigi!!!! ) She took my Saturday class and I had to get a picture of us together....

She is soooo sweet and she made me an adorable, little felt heart with a flower accent - thanks so much, Gigi! I love it!!

Now I think I'm wound-down enough to attempt sleep. Gotta brush my teeth (gotta get those fig newtons off!) and then read just a bit of Harry Potter before shutting my heavy eyelids. Night! ;-)

something's missing

I am kind of out of sorts this evening.....my children are not here. What is this strangeness??? They are camping with their Nana, Pappy and Tante Kimmy in upstate New York near Lake Placid while I will be away at the convention.

I drove over to the grocery store tonight to pick up a few things and I had the sun roof open, the windows down and the music loud. No kids = do something you can't normally do. My hair was blowing and I was singing along at the top of my lungs...feels good to do that every so often! (Mind you, I only do the loud music thing on the back roads....I'm too embarrassed to do that in populated areas, hee hee hee!)

The XM radio is sooooo much fun. When I drive the old car now I'm like, What? Only six stations? On the Envoy's radio I even have a whole channel devoted to nothing but 80's music!!!!  I sang along to Down Under by Men at Work and Mr. Roboto by Styx. Remember those??? Todd loves the play-by-play baseball. No more static trying to catch the game while we're driving. The car makers are smart...they give it to you free for three months just knowing that you'll get addicted to it and have to subscribe. What? listen to only six channels again - no way!!!

Tomorrow morning we are off.... Valley Forge here we come! I'll be away from the computer for several days, so check back over the weekend. Bye! :-)

today I

woke up and turned on Spongebob. The kids crawled in bed with me and all three of us snuggled and giggled as we watched.

did four, count 'em, four loads of laundry... and actually got it all folded and put away.

called Todd on his cell phone at work because of water shooting out of a crack in the pool hose and my duct tape job wasn't stopping the geyser. He told me where to find the plugs (thank goodness for cell phones).

picked up pieces of orange plastic bucket from the driveway after Sarah dropped the bucket and it broke.

watched about 10 teeny tiny toads hopping away in the grass after I made the kids release them back to the wild.

threw out a few items from the black hole, I mean refrigerator, and then scrubbed it clean.

became 'mean mom' and made my kids pick up all their toys in the living room.

vacuumed the living room carpet after we unearthed it.

scrubbed the tub, sink, toilet and floor in the bathroom.

made Pillsbury cinnamon rolls for breakfast and had to settle the war over who got the coveted 'middle one'.

talked to my mom on the phone.

talked to my mother in law on the phone, twice.

talked to Amy on the phone.

became 'referee mom' and separated my two squabbling children and doled out punishment.

walked by my scrapbook table and looked longingly at it....did this a bunch of times.

retrieved the bucket Sophie took off the side porch and tried to play her favorite game with...'look what I have mommy, try and get it from me mommy'.

read a frog book to Ben.

made lunch. made supper.

trimmed Sarah's fingernails.

packed the kid's clothes and other essentials for their trip tomorrow with Nana and Pappy and Tante Kimmy.

read some Harry Potter while I ate lunch.

watched a bit of Oprah while I folded laundry.

cleaned the smudgy fingerprints off the TV screen and the computer screen.

unloaded the dishwasher.

changed the water in the fish bowl and gave the hermit crab fresh water.

checked out the blogs I read to see if anything new has been added.

posted an entry on my blog because I haven't been posting a lot lately. :-)

I can sew for miles and miles

and miles and miles...... Okay - yards and yards. But it sure looks like miles when I'm at the starting end of ironing the whole piece!

I'm making table skirts for our booth at the convention. Three big table skirts.

Everything is coming together....I did the sample for our make-n-take so the paper can be cut for them. My class kits are all together - I stopped by the store yesterday and assembled them while the kids amused themselves on the write-on/wipe-off board for a good hour and a half. Amy is entering product into the computer for our registers. Boxes boxes everywhere at the store. If I seem absent from the blog lately, and I feel that I am, it's because I'm busy busy busy!!! :-)

toad mode

You'll find Ben and Sarah playing with their 'pet' toads, captured in the back yard....

They capture some, keep them in a bucket with a habitat of sticks, rocks, grass and water for a day or two and then release them. The other day I was making supper and Todd was grilling back behind our barn. The kids were with him - it's excellent toad territory back there - and after they caught the first one Ben ran all the way back to the house to tell me they caught one. He ran back in again after the second capture. By the third time he was all sweaty and his hair above his eyes was wet and pushed straight up like he had wiped his brow... he came in the door and his eyes were huge and he said, "Mom! There's a terror of toads out there!" They ended up with twelve teeny tiny toads, no bigger than a fingernail. Sarah had them all named, of course. :-)

if you are local

to the Kinnon Keepsakes area the sign-up list for my Life is in the Details class is now available at the store (this is the class that I'm teaching at the CK Valley Forge Convention). This is the album that we will be making.....

a side view.....

It is sooooooo cute and it can hold 40! pictures if you want it to. You will be decorating the front and back covers and creating the tabs using the Revolution tool by QuicKutz and beautiful, bright papers by Scenic Route. ( By the way, the Revolution tool is now on sale at the store at a GREAT Price  --- $69.99!!!!! That's over half off the MSRP! If you've been thinking about getting one now is the time. And QuicKutz just released a new product line for the Revolution tool called Cookie Cutters. We will be selling and demoing all these new goodies at the convention in our booth.) You'll do the basic album like you see above in class and then add accessories and finish decorating at home using your own supplies.

I had to make my album waaaaaaaay back in February because CK needed an image, so my stickers are slightly different. I hand lettered the rest of my title - you could use your own alphabet stamps, letter stickers or whatever to do yours. And I added ribbon from my own stash - you can do the same at home with your own ribbon or let it as is. So many possibilities once we get the foundation laid!!!! I really hope you'll be able to join me at the store if you missed getting in at the convention. :-)

all the hoopla

It's that time of year for me again....a few weeks before the Creating Keepsakes Valley Forge Convention. I've been busy with getting my thoughts together for my class and finishing projects, etc... ( Plus, this summer with the kids has been very active, so my creative time is at a minimum.) There's all that hoopla.

Then there's this hoopla.... the Harry Potter hoopla. The new movie is out. The last book is being released soon. It's Harry Potter everywhere you look. Including my own house. See, Sarah started reading the series and she is currently beginning the fifth book. I'm re-reading the series because it's been so long since I read them and I want to freshen my memory before I read the last book. (I reserved the last book and will be among the mob at the bookstore next Saturday.) Anyway, Sarah has been telling Ben about the story line as she goes through the books and now he's into Harry Potter. And I mean into him. If you're a long-time reader of my blog you will know that my son loves to create things out of paper, cardboard, miles of tape, ...you get the picture. He has these blue glasses from a dress-up outfit (Sportacus from the Nick Jr. show Lazy Town.) And he made a lightning bolt scar out of paper and taped it to his forehead, just like Harry......

Here is Ben a.k.a. Harry Potter eating breakfast with us. Milk mustache and all. :-)

I'm 'it' again

I have been tagged again. This time my circle journal friend Erin tagged me. So, let's see, seven more random things about myself....hmmmmmmm.

1. When I take the first sip from a soda I hiccup one time. Just one.  Strange, but true.

2. I have over 100 Longaberger baskets.

3. When I was a teenager my family used to go camping. On one trip I was riding my bike on the path around the lake. Part of the path is for pedestrian and bike traffic only, no cars allowed, so they have wooden posts (pretty big wooden posts) in the middle of the path where the car traffic branches off and the walking and biking path branches off. I wasn't paying attention to where I was going and I drove my bike straight into the post and stopped dead. I earned the nickname 'Patty Postwacker'.

4. If money wasn't an issue I would love to own a Jaguar. The car, not the animal.

5. My full name is Patricia Ann but I go by Patty. When I meet anyone else named Patty I always ask what their middle name is and would you believe it is almost always Ann. What's up with that?!! I guess Patty and Ann just go together.

6. It has to be very hot for me to be at all interested in going in the pool.

7. The seasons, in order of my most favorite to my least favorite...spring, fall, summer, winter.

Okay, that about does it. I'm not going to tag anyone else. Now you know a bit more about me. :-)