Elsie, Elsie, Elsie

Gee, I've used that title before.......here are the stamps designed by Elsie Flannigan. Cute, huh? Very Elsie-fied. Why aren't they acrylic?? Why are they red rubber unmounted?? Why oh why??

A great day

We had a great day yesterday, Easter day. Actually, the entire weekend went pretty well. The husband was home early on Friday, so we took the girls to McPlayland for fries, and we had McFish. They had a lot of fun, then we moved on to Target for basics for the weekend - milk and coffee! Saturday was a neighborhood Easter egg hunt. It was quick, but fun. The girls were cute and loved their basket booty. Sunday brought Easter, making cookies, and a nice dinner. The girls helped frost cookies - first time for that, and we all had fun. I didn't get to scrapbook at all, which I had planned, but the day was full of family fun and togetherness, so how cool is that?

Today, cool mail day! I received the Homegrown Scrapbooks Hybrid kit, which has the new SEI Paisleys and Petals line, some Maya Road chipboard set and book, ribbons and more. Also got the new CK and new Scrapbooks Etc magazines. Then, I received the Fontwerks Elsie stamps I ordered. Big disappointment there. They are red rubber stamps on a sheet to be cut out, not acrylic see-through stamps. UGH. Not sure what to do. Might sell on ebay if I can't return. Might use now that they are here. Still thinking on it. They are cute though. A bit smaller per letter than expected, too.

Cards

Just a quick post of some Easter cards I made. Kinda liked the dry embossing; haven't done it in ages! Like the puffy tails? ;)

More Ali

Here's the cover and an inside look at the "Favorite Photos" book I made with Ali Edwards on Saturday. Had tons of fun, and loved coming home with a completed book. I finished up the journaling at home, but it's done now. So fun!

Betcha Didn't Know

This is the topic of my on-again/off-again Monday blog challenge. Yeah, it's Tuesday, but, as Ali would say, it's o-----kkkk.

10 Random Facts I Betcha Didn't Know About Me!

1. I love, love coffee; developed the habit in grad school.
2. I had eye surgery when I was four, weak muscle or something.
3. I hate cleaning the tub.
4. I love Frosted Mini Wheats anytime.
5. I used to hate my middle name, but now I think it's ok.
6. I wish my house were less cluttered.
7. I cry way too easily.
8. I work parttime, but I hate it.
9. I love our house.
10. I have the brownest thumb known to man.

Good times, Good times....

I will post more later about the fun class with Ali E and Tina this past Saturday. For now, here's us! Sarah, Me, Tina and Ali. :) The class I took was "Favorite Photos," a fun 10"x5" chipboard book with 5x7" photos. Tina took this one and another as well. Lucky girl!

TGIF!

The husband is on the way home. Earlier than expected, so very cool! Also cool, cause the bathtub is stopped up. Curse of an older house. Love the charm, hate the infrastructure. Tomorrow brings a road trip for me again, quick one this time. I'm going with Miss Tina to take an Ali class at Reminisce. Well, I'm meeting Miss Tina over there. She's taking the morning class and we're both taking the evening class. Should be cool. Would be more cool if I had pictures ready! I need 5-6 5x7" photos, which means I can't just print them downstairs. I may have to print my 4x6" though and just see if I can get the enlargements at A's when I go back to work. Hate to pay full price elsewhere, but might have to for Ali. Sheesh.

House-cleaning today. Trying to do things that don't normally get done. That bag of stuff from the kitchen junk drawer in the Mississippi house that's been sitting on the bookshelf in the living room for-EVER? GONE!!!! All contents put away, thrown away, filed away. I'm giddy over just that if nothing else. Sad, I know.

I'm on a roll

With posts, that is. Here's a quick lo I did yesterday. Scrapworks papers and stickers I got on clearance, HS chipboard flowers, white Uniball pen - yeah, just starting to doodle on lo's...not sure if I"m doing it well though.
Not sure about the handwriting here either. Might cover it with patterned paper and rewrite. What do you think?

Couple more....

Me and sis-in-law who I was so glad got to share some of the Saturday eve CKU excitement. Also, me, my cow poster, and prize bag. I won for best use of location theme. Ol' Daisy there had here own CKU badge and scrapbook full of Chicago history. :) Next pic of me, Debbie S, who is Tina's cousin, and Tina. Finally, 1/2 of the Heidi kit. Cool beans.

Just one more sleep

til the husband gets home. Soooooooo glad for that, but we've made it through ok. Last night was the first that I've had a hard time after the girls fall asleep actually getting them to bed. They sit with me in the big chair, and, for some reason, last night they were sprawled in such a way that I couldn't ease out from under one or the other. I ended up putting them both in my bed and joining them a bit later.

Speaking of sleeping girls, Emily is just about finished with pull-ups! She wears only Dora panties, unless she wakes up soaked (about 1 in 4 nights), then she asks for a diaper. Maddie, on the other hand, won't give up the ghost, but I think Target just ran out of pull-ups, ya know? We've one more full pack, and I'm gonna give it a go, fighting her into the panties. Wish me luck.

Still need to post pics from the weekend adventure. Can't believe it's been a week already since I was there! A few pics from the weekend ~ 4. Me and Heidi Swapp. I love her spirit!! of course, love the products, too. ;) 3. Me and the unsung hero of CKU's, organizer Paula. 2. Me and Willow friends Dalis and Julie. 1. Me and Cricket, who I will love forever. Thanks for being such a sweet, caring, fun, real person and friend. (I had to reload the pics and got them backwards; thus, the numbers.)

Tagged by Dalis!

Another post within 24 hours? Wow....good record for me. I've been tagged by WT Dalis, so here goes!

5 snacks I enjoy:

Chocolate - duh!
Ice cream - vanilla, cookie dough, vanilla
Pretzels
Popcorn
Trail Mix

5 songs to which I know all the lyrics:
(Nothing new.....lol)
The Star-Spangled Banner
The One that I Want (from Grease)
I think I Love You (yep, Partridge Family)
Annie's Song
Country Roads (yeah, both JD songs, Tina)

5 things I would do if I were a multi-millionaire:
Pay off debt
Take care of family near and far
Invest
Travel
Give a lot

5 bad habits:
Eating - bad portion control, eating late at night
Staying up too late
Too much internet time
Waiting for the husband to clean the bathroom instead of doing it myself
Spending too much at the grocery

5 things I like doing:
Being with my family
Scrapbooking
Talking about scrapbooking
Reading about scrapbooking
Decorating

5 things I would never wear, buy or get new again:
The latest greatest sb thing in its first five minutes (before seeing, researching, etc)
QVC sb kits with tons of stuff
Christmas ornaments just because
Heels, if I can avoid it
Bras without underwire

5 favorite toys:
Stamps and ink pads, esp alphabet
Wishblade die cutter
Our computers
Sewing on layouts
My AMM Tote-Ally Cool tool tote

5 people I will tag:
Tina
Tori
Cricket
You :)

That was fast!

Here it is, Tuesday, and CKU is past. It's amazing how quickly time flies. I had so much to do to get ready, and it seems like the days there, while jam-packed, just happened so quickly. The drive home seemed long, but that's the only thing I can say was long. Hopefully, I"ll upload my pics today and can share a couple.

First, I had great fun on Saturday evening visiting with Tori, my sis-in-law. We had a Chicago dog! New for me....yes, I ate the pickle; no, I didn't eat the tomatoes. Uh, yeah, I put ketchup on it. Sorry....it had to be done. Just had to. So, for authentic Chicago food, pizza - check, hot dog - check. Oh, and I gotta give props to Cricket for being the most fun ever. Chicky, I"m sooooooooooooooo glad we got to spend some time together and look forward to doing it again. Tell Sue that Iowa City is at least an hour past Davenport. ;)

Because the final event at CKU (graduation and prizes) does not require a ticket, Tori was able to go in with me and see all the craziness. It was fun though. I made a great poster and was fortunate to win my category. Got a great goodie bag for it. Later that night, roomie Sue and I "worked the crop room" by going around talking to people cropping and looking at albums we hadn't seen from the other tracks. I didn't get to see the AMM Life Lessons one though. I hear it turned out great. :)

The classes were pretty awesome, some better than others. The main class, my album track with Heidi Swapp, was truly awesome. It's too bad that she will be changing the class after this, but hopefully, it will have the same impact on participants. What an amazing experience. It's not so much that, ooh, it's Heidi Swapp. It's really that she shared with us some of herself, something she discovered, something she thought would touch other women, too. And it did touch other women. So many women in the group shared how it touched them, and it was great. I have a lot of work to do to finish my album from the class, but we did a lot of the hard technique work, so the pages should come easily.

The regular classes, the 60- and 90-minute ones, were pretty good. I can't say that any I took were great, but several were ok. The best I saw was the Rusty Pickle 26-Reasons one. Great project. I really like the little book we made in "The Guy in my Life," the board tag book we made in "Festivities at your Fingertips," and Bo Bunny's board book class. The other projects were a little less exciting and really too simple for a CKU albums class. Seriously. Too Simple.

As to the evening activities, they were ok. I had a blast on Wednesday shopping with Lori Bates and Kathy Northup and crew. Wild and crazy chicks. The Yahoo group dinner on Wednesday night drew a small group, but the 10-12 of us had a really fun time. I loved the pizza! Thursday night brought the dorm contests and CKU pep rally. I preferred last year's way of doing these on two nights, but it was ok. The dorm stuff is really getting major....not sure I'll do that again. Had fun seeing it all though. Friday night, no party, but cropping with our album track for 2 hours was scheduled. Heidi Swapp and crew ordered great pizza once the "official" time ended, and we kept going for hours. I loved that and I got a lot done, too. ;)

All in all, thrilled to have had the experience. Not sure how so many do all the CKUs that come along, but happy I went. I made new friends, stepped out of my box, did some great stuff, had tons of fun. Didn't spend *too* much either, which was nice. Now to unpack it all and get back to work on all the projects!

So now, it's Tuesday already. The husband is on a business trip this week, so it'll be another long week around here, or maybe it'll fly by like the rest of them do. Saturday brings a class with miss Ali over at Reminisce, so that'll be cool. At first, I thought of cancelling and saving the credit for Donna D classes in July, but I think I'll go and have fun with Tina, maybe some early dinner before hand, and some coffee talk. Sounds fun, no? Tina, ya ready to do Donna D with me in July??!!