The warehouse sale

ok so I don't know the secret to adding lots of pictures to this blog and moving them to where I want them so I started a new post about the sale. If anyone does have a secret to this and wants to share it with me............that would be awesome! This is the picture of all the boxes on my dining room table just after we got home.

So this is a big warehouse with aisles of pallets and boxes and basically you just go up and down picking up what you want and putting it in empty boxes on your cart. If you were not lucky enuf to get a cart you have to push the boxes along the cement floors. As you can see I have my cart kinda full.

Then you stand in a very LONG line that snakes up and down the aisles until you get to the checkout. Good thing is you can shop the aisles as you walk up and down them............bad thing is that somehow the lines got mixed up and were merging together.............the lucky ones got through allot faster then us. They didn't realize this problem until we had been in line for TWO hours. So there were some crabby shoppers and people cutting in line...........that part I could do without.

We didn't get home until almost 4pm (thank goodness Jen ran out and brought back McDonalds for all of us).........did I say Thank you JEN!!!!

These pictures are after it is all separated by the line like Kimberely Polosum, Ink by Steph, Cloud 9 etc. Lots of cute scissors, stencils, some albums, trimmers too.

Now comes the fun part of deciding what to keep, who I bought for, where am I sending it etc.

The day after

The last few days seemed to fly right by. My Fiskateer friends arrived Wednesday around 5 and after a quick tour of my home & the gardens the pizza had arrived and so had Ashani (another gal from Illinois) and Jen. We ate & chatted and got right down to some crafty business.

Kimberlee was the speedy one of our bunch so no she's not bored.....maybe a little tired after a long day of driving and touring the Fiskars headquarters in Madison.....she is just waiting patiently for the bracelets to dry and us to finish up.

Merlene brought some wooden bracelets along so we painted them green & orange (Fiskar colors) and then embellished them with bling, buttons, etc.

Ashani brought along a make n take earring project since she makes and designs jewelry. She had cute orange & green beads and the little scissors we cut out of that shrinky dink plastic & then shrunk in my toaster oven. They turned out so cute & original too!

In between these two projects we tye dyed t-shirts (my very 1st time). It was a little messy but actually kinda fun and they each turned out so different. Betsy then used her Cricut to cut out our names, Fiskateer numbers & a pair of scissors for the back of the shirt (we stenciled that on with paint). Between all these projects and just gabbing away it was after midnite before we went to bed.

We all got up with Kevin around 5am so that we could leave for the warehouse sale by 6:30am.

It didn't start until 9 but there were already 8 to 10 people there in front of us. The reason we go early to these sales is not only to get the special item that is limited (like Fiskar tree branch trimmers for $20....normally $70) but also cuz they only have so many carts available to use and the way I shop I need a big cart! Yes they do sell garden tools along with the crafty stuff and scissors galore! Here's a picture of us all decked out in our crafty projects waiting a the warehouse for it to open.

Tomorrow or later tonite I will post again with pictures of the sale & all my goodies I got!

Company Coming

Thursday is the BIG warehouse sale at Fiskars in Wausau. On Wednesday some out of state Fiskateers will be arriving at my house to spend the night so that we can go bright and early in the morning to the sale. A pool/pizza party is planned for that night and some local gals might pop in. Plans are in the making for doing some tye dyed shirts to wear to the sale and some beading. Of course majority of the time will be chatting since most of these women I have only met online. Isn't it great that the internet can connect people from all over the world just by their interest or passion of crafting?

Course with 6 overnight guests..........guess what I have been doing for the past week or so? You guessed it CLEANING! I also wanted to be able to show off my gorgeous gardens that are still in full bloom since our temps are still in the 70's. How bizarre is that for middle of September? We have lacked rain for the past 3 weeks so watering is must and does take a few hours to do all my gardens and the lawn. We do have an inground sprinkler system but it only covers so much.

My hibiscus (red) finally opened up last week since it is only 1 year old. I forgot how huge the flowers were! Also my butterfly bush which I cut down to the ground in the spring is now over 6 feet tall............flowering and attracting butterflies! I did find a plant that I don't remember planting and I believe it is a chinese lantern plant..........here is a picture of one of the orange

lanterns.

By the way thanks for all the names that you came up with............winner drawn was Maxine...Congrats Maxine! I will get that out to you soon. Well back to cleaning!

Wanna Win a PRIZE?

Okie Dokie I have a neat contest for this week and all it takes is some imagination.

A friend is hoping to open a Pawn Shop soon and asked me to think of some unique names but seeing as I've only been to a few out in Arizona I thought I would ask for your help. Just leave a comment with your suggestion of a name and you can enter as often as you think of a name.

I will draw a random winner on Sunday and the prize will be a Fiskars 45mm rotary cutter from their coastal collection. Great for you sewers but also works on paper, vinyl and cardboard for those scrappers like me who don't sew much.

Good luck and can't wait to hear your names! If you have any good pawn shop stories to share please do!

GiddyUp Little Horsie

Yesterday we went with a group of friends horseback riding to a place that just opened up the week-end before called K R Stables. Talk about a cute place.............it was picture perfect (must have been if I printed 85 pictures at Walgreens already). It's probably been 15 years since I rode a horse and this was Kevin's 1st time! That must explain why I'm a little sore and stiff today especially in the legs.

The owners Kurt & Kay Ross just opened their dream last week-end. Here is a picture of them in front of their guest house cabin. Inside was so cute including 2 beds and a loft bed over them, mini kitchen, wood stove etc. It would be my "dream cabin" if it only was on a body of water so I could fish. It paid to keep my eyes open as different animals were showing up all over the place. I saw a llama, sheep, donkey,pony, kittens and of course lots of horses.

It was a perfect fall day even tho the temps were almost 80 by the time we got back at noon. You sure can tell how pretty the leaves are when you look at the chicken coop. I'm not too fond of outhouses but this one with curtains on the window and candles and potpourri burning inside was really nice.

Here is a picture of just Kevin & I after our ride and then a group shot of some us. I must not have gotten the memo about wearing cowboy hats & boots. Kevin actually traded in his golf hat for a straw hat borrowed from Chris.

Kurt (the owner) had the wagon hooked up to his big beautiful Clydesdale's "Bill" and "Bob"! What a great picture they made especially with the 3 "cowboys" driving. Notice how the leaves are just starting to turn too.

Here's a picture of Kevin on his horse and the owner Kay is holding the reigns. They own quite a few acres so it was fun following the trails thru all their woods and the scenery and weather could not have been more perfect.

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I can definitely see scrapping this adventure. It sure was a fun time and it was only $20 for a trail ride that was a little over an hour long. Could really see doing this in the early evening and coming back and roasting marshmallows on the campfire.............couldn't you?

9/11

Some days stick in your mind forever and this is one of them. I can remember where I was and how I found out and thankfully I did not lose anyone I knew that day. My heart goes out to all those who did and I'm glad we all take time to remember this day every year.

I seem like I have been very busy this past week just trying to catch up from the Labor Day week-end. My brother Andy and his fiancee Genne came up on Friday and stayed until Tuesday. The guys did allot of fishing and we women did allot of shopping. When home together we played croquet, yahtzee and grilled out. We also watched some good movies on our new tv. All in all we had a really nice visit and it was very relaxing. Speaking of our tv...........here is a before picture of our BIG projection tv that took up allot of room and here is another of our new tv hanging on the wall. Quite the difference...........and boy do we love the clear picture, the awesome color and high definition with surround sound. It is an anniversary gift that we will

enjoy every day for the next ten years!

Course after company goes home then it is back to the real world. Cleaning, laundry, paying bills, yardwork and now I hope to find some time to do some scrapbooking. I actually have been keeping track of my scrapping and so far this year I have made 107 cards, 85 layouts and 19 projects or mini books. June was my most productive month and April was my worst. I've never kept track before so this will be nice to see how each year progresses.

Our 10 year anniversary

I wanted to make something special for this day and I found this neat 6 1/2" board book with 16 pages and windows. Wasn't sure how easy it would be to work with all those windows but actually found it quite fun! The first thing I did was distress the whole book with some chocolate brown ink and then I picked out the coordinating paper (Black Market Paper Society), ribbons, brads and embellishments. It is all done in teal, brown and a hint of green.

The ribbon I used on the front was a perfect match and wider then I normally use. The flowers were velvety soft and I used flower brads for the centers. The word Love I made with Thickers. This is the first window which centers on the picture from the next page. Neat huh?

This is the back of the cover and you can see the blank window too. I continued that gorgeous ribbon around to the back of the book and added jeweled brads to the center of the prima flowers. Then a few rub-ons to finish it off.

This is the page that you see through the window of the cover. I used thickers for the words and added a small jewel to the center of the wooden embellishment. This picture was taken shortly after we first met................ahh to be so young and lovely again LOL! Yes I was wearing contacts too!

Wedding pictures............we all love them and I love the paper that I used to display them. The picture on the left is Kevin & I on the riverboat waiting for the ceremony to start. My parents are sitting behind us. I added corner embellishments to the picture and a family rub on. On the other side is a picture of me the next day in one of those dress up studios. I use thickers for the numbers and punched out hearts with my Fiskars squeeze punch.

Here's a couple of pages of wedding pictures. Don't ya just love the wedding cake brad in the center of the flower? The flowers and leaves on the bottom are actually soft like velvet and I used a small brown heart brad for the center. These were all taken out in Arizona.

This has to be one of the best pages in this book. I took this picture of us at my son Todd's wedding and put teal mesh behind it and used a fabric tag on the bottom. The other page has a neat rub on and I used thickers for the numbers. 2 great events..........a wedding and Disneyland!

Ok here is another page with a picture window. I added some ribbon and rub-on's and it was done. The other side is one of my favorite pics of my dh at a craft show (Yes he does have a crafty side to him too). Added that neat arrow, ribbon & a rub on to finish it.

These next 2 pages are of our trip to Reno. I did use the 2 mini windows and then used brown & white Prima flowers and then glitter brads. I'm glad I distressed the book as I really like the way this window page turned out. Only thing special about this next page is ribbon and rub-ons.

On the final page I used a wooden flourish embellishment and added a mini flower to the center of it. On the other page I criss crossed ribbon behind the picture, then added some mini Prima flowers on the corners with a mini brad in the center of it. I liked this effect.

On the back cover I used my new Cuttlebug folder and in the frame I put our years together. I just love that folder...........love the swirls and love the versatility of it. But more then that I love my wonderful husband and can't wait for another 10 years with him! I love you Kevin!

hand made flowers RAK----Winner

Well I guess my flowers weren't a big hit as I only got a few cards for our 10th anniversary tomorrow. By the way they were all very lovely and special to me. Winner drawn was Lorraine...congratulations and I will get them out very soon.

Watch tomorrow and I will post pictures of the mini book I made my husband! It is really nice!