It's the most wonderful time of the year!

This is what came for me in the mail today! Yippeee! It doesn't get much better than that - does it??
But my biggest news this week is that some of my Trinkets merchandise is now being sold in a storefront! Last month we met the nicest girl - Julie - from "Chloe's Closet!" She took some of our work in and is going to hang it all over the walls of her store. "Chloe's Closet" is a clothing resale shop and is located in Jaffrey, NH. You should definitely get in to see our stuff and hers as well - when I was there I bought a beautiful raspberry sherbet colored sweater! The best thing was that Julie herself was the most positive, upbeat person I've met in a long time! It's worth a trip to her shop just to meet her!


Chloe's Closet - 105 Peterborough St., Rt. 202, Jaffrey, NH 603-532-6211

My favorite time of year

So this weekend was an early Christmas for me. We got our tree and I put white lights in it - we'll decorate it this week with the kids. Then tonight was the annual tree lighting ceremony. After the choir sings (Noah sang this year for the first time and was so proud!) they light the tree and then Santa arrives via fire engine! The kids love it and even the adults get excited! Then we all walk to Town Hall and the kids get to sit on Santa's knee and tell him what they want for Christmas. I especially loved seeing the kids look upward - thinking about what they really wanted to tell Santa.

The part I enjoy the best is walking home after and seeing our lit tree in the window. It really looks beautiful - all twinkly and pretty in the glass. Our neighbors this year have also really outdone themselves and many houses on the street are lit up. It always gives me a cozy feeling. And to top it off - we may even get snow tomorrow!

Time to wrap more presents! But before I do, I want to send out a big thank you to all the people who wished me a happy birthday last week - it was much appreciated! And thanks, most of all, to my best friend, Deb, who always remembers and always makes it special. You're the best, Deb!

Happy Holidays, everyone!

Fun Weekend!

What a nice time I had this weekend! Not only did I get to spend lots of quality time with my cute kids, but I also got to meet some of the people I talk with over at Scrapbooker Online. SBO

We had the best time at Maryfrances' house, cropping and laughing and shopping! I'm so glad I made the drive down! Thanks for everything, MF!

Thanks for a wonderful show!

What a terrific weekend we had at the Trinkets show! So many of our good friends came to visit - we cannot thank you enough for always supporting us! We saw many fellow crafters and made new friends, too. It was so great to see all our merchandise together in one place and to spend the day together in a relaxed atmosphere. Thank you all for making it so special!

Crafting!

I did some more projects last night just for fun. Got some new stamps and paper last night from my new good friend Julia and started a layout. What fun!

Our show Trinkets is tomorrow! Don't miss it!

Colorful Cards

I just made a bunch of these cute notecards this week for the Trinkets show. They're ultra colorful and come in cute zippered bags with a pen. I'm having fun mixing and matching the colors!

Kooky Kalendar

So, I finally tried my hand at making one of these fun cookie sheet calendars. I was inspired to do it after seeing Teresa McFayden's and Pam Garrison's version - although I think mine pales in comparison. I tried to make it usable for many months - and I'm hoping I can pop the title off to switch it in November and December.

Nesting

So, this is what I made tonight. I have always had a thing for birds and I just love these two colors mixed together - robin's egg blue and brown. I found a blue-ish green that I was happy with and just started painting everything that color! I don't know if I've gotten it out of my system - yet!

Signs!

I am fast becoming the queen of signs! I can't stop making signs for our show! Here's some recent ones for fall and Christmas.
Don't forget to check out our new weblog - just in time for our Holiday Open House at Trinkets!

TRINKETS

Setting Up Shop

So, today I moved a lot of my products downstairs to the dining room to take inventory and price things - assess what I have. It's all for our holiday sale at Trinkets, and I'm so, so excited to get it going! I keep coming up with new ideas and I need to get organized so I'm ready - this year we plan on having our sale a little earlier for those early-bird shoppers. So excited!

Pretty Little Cards

I just got my monthly kit this week from my scrap club and made these cute little cards in about an hour. It's so much fun to sit down with everything you need and make something quick and easy. All the paper coordinates beautifully and I love the little embellishments. Coming soon to a mailbox near you!

Perfect Day!

So, I met my scrapbooking idol today - Elsie Flannigan! I took a class at my LSS and got to see her, chat with her and do a super cool mini album. She's totally easy going - fun and friendly. I really had an awesome time and it didn't hurt that I got to go shopping after the class, too!

It was so good to get out and do something I enjoy - today was a great day! :)

Blown Away!

Just look what came in my mailbox today! I am doing a "Secret Pal Swap" through one of my scrap sites, and each month we are creating a new project for our "pal." This one was a "freestyle" project that could be anything we wanted to send, and this is what I got!
It's a beautiful green album filled with 12 pages of pre-designed pages, just waiting for my pictures and journaling. Whoever made this spent an awful lot of time on it. She included a sweet little note and even put more embellishments in the end pages so that I could add on to it if I wished.
It was so thoughtful - I cried when I opened it! Wow. I guess the way to my heart is through a scrapbook these days! Thank you whoever you are! !!!!!

I won something!!!

So - after such a long time of entering contests and finally taking a break after all the rejection - lo and behold I finally won a challenge! I did this layout a while ago. Luckily, someone nice emailed me to tell me I had won or else I may not have known!

I don't even know what the prize is, but that doesn't seem to matter so much! It's good to feel special once in a while!

Painting

So I've been going off in another direction - painting again on wood items. I just love to paint! It's all for our holiday sale in December and my friends and I are gearing up for it. I'm not sure still the exact products I'll be making, but it's fun trying different things on for size.

I have so much to get done! And what a great way to extend my favorite holiday - Christmas - by starting in July! :)

Check me out!

http://www.scrapbookeronline.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=89

I am a featured scrapbooker this month on "Scrapbooker Online." Whoo hoo!

Relax

Here's a layout I did of the party on Saturday. Isn't this a nice picture of Lisa? I thought so. Joey too, of course! :)

Glad she's settling in.

Summer is Here!

School's out for summer!

Need I say more? I have two very happy kids. And one fearful Mother am I! :)

Will I survive it? It's only day one tomorrow and I am dreading the fights, the demands, the imminent boredom. Ah well... I am going to try to combat that - but alas, I am only one woman! Wish me luck!

Swap-O-Rama!

So here's some pictures of swap stuff - finally! I have been a very bad blogger lately - but so much stuff has been going on, so I do have valid excuses!

The first pic is a lovely bunch of goodies that I received from a trim swap I did, and these came from Abby Powell Thompson of "Abbytrysagin" (abbytrysagain.etsy.com). They were fabulous and I haven't used them yet but I will! Thank you Abby! I especially love the little tags she made which were extra goodies she sent that she didn't have to! Love it when people throw in extras.
The other picture is a bunch of swap items I sent for a "Pretty Bird" swap, which I had so much fun gathering and sending - but alas, the package I should have received from my swap partner never came. Oh well.... My rolodex card swap also got lost in the mail. Whaaaa! If I cry like a baby will the postman bring them??? HA.
I get enough in the mail, I don't know what I'm complaining about!

Projects

Trying to get back into the swing of things - and using swaps and other goals to get me creating again after a brief lull. Here's my "Americana themed tag book" that I'm doing for one swap - it's blank without pics or journaling so that I can give it to someone else to fill, and then the other thing is my June calendar. I can't believe it's June already and so hot! I'm already wiping the condensation off of my drinks as I sit at the computer and using the fan. It seems that summer has come so quickly.