BFF

Well HAPPY SUNDAY!!!!  (well, what's left of it anyway!)  By all accounts I should have ben horizontal hours ago but of course I started thinking about stamping and .... well ... here I still am :)

What a FABULOUS weekend of stamping I had.  I'm only just starting to come down off my high (and no, it's not from sniffing the Staz-On again!)  It was just SO MUCH FUN!!

Friday I spent all day prepping for a birthday stamping party I was doing for a 13 year old and 9 of her friends.  Naturally I left everything to the last minute (I've decided I cut down on stress if I only stress for 1 or 2 days rather than trying to get it done weeks ahead ... then I just THINK about it for weeks ahead ... and feel guilty for not DOING anything weeks ahead.  By procrastinating I save myself all kinds of stress!  Makes sense, eh?  Eat the biggest frog first, my a** Tamye ;)   ) 

But (and my faithful Blog followers know what I'm going to "say" next ....) I digress ....

SO!  Although my fabulous husband had Friday off, and my some-times-very-lovely children were at school all day I had to hide in my craft cave prepping for the party projects (rather than going for a day-time date with Craig ... or having a little afternoon delight, if ya know what I mean, wink, wink, nudge, nudge!)  Digressing again ....

Naturally, it was around 11:00 am that I realized I didn't have enought of the supplies I needed to make one of the projects.  Have no fear!  Lori & Trish to the rescue!  (HOW is it that I have a craft room HEAVING with supplies but everytime I need something for a class or party I'm short??!!  THAT will teach me for actually USING my "stuff" rather than hoarding it like I want to!  I finished prepping my projects and my card swaps for the Edmonton Regionals that was going to have me busy all day and still had a little time to relax ... and pick out what I was going to wear ... which of course I completely changed my mind about at 3:30 in the morning when I couldn't sleep because I was too flippin' excited about Regionals!!  (At the risk of digressing AGAIN, Craig didn't sleep well either as he was leaving to go fishing in BC Saturday morning and he too was a little giddy with excitement ... aren't we a pair?!)  Right - focus Tamara - focus .... back to the story ...

Saturday was just SO MUCH FUN!!   I was ready and out the door by 7:20 am (on a SATURDAY!!) and got to the Convention Centre in lots of time to register .. and stand in line.  It's one of the few places we stampers don't MIND stanind in line.  We get to (and DO) chat with anyone and everyone within ear shot.  She swap cards, oohh and aahh over them, discuss new products, techniques and on and on and on.  I MUST say a big thank you to Joan and Amy for putting up with my more-than-usual non-stop yacking throughout the day.  I can't help it!  When I get excited I talk even more than usual!!  Thanks for hanging in there girls (and not whacking me upside the head with your new Card Keepers *lol*!

The festivities lasted from 9:00 am until almost 5:00 pm.  Not gunna lie - I was BAGGED by the end of it - but in a great way :)  We saw some great demonstrations for fun project ideas from four talented stampers, got some good business tips from the Home Office staff, made some nice projects, got free products and had a LOT of fun. 

I then had the joy of driving across the city, hitting about 90 different construction zones along the way (grrrrrrr) to pick up the girls from Mom's.  Naturally she cooked us dinner (as she does ... despite the fact that her and Dad were leaving for Ottawa today and she still had a million things to do ... poor woman looked like she was gunna drop in her tracks!)  By the time I got home at 7:30 I was counting down the minutes until bed time.  By 9:30 I was horizontal and very happy ... as visions of stamping project danced in my head ...

Today was fun but equally as exhausting.  I had the birthday party at 11:00 am so had to get up and moving much earlier than I wanted to.  What a great time though.  These were some really nice, polite, fun young ladies who did an AMAZING job on their projects ... which I am finally going to show you.  When I made this card I just sat and stared at it ... lovingly ... like a mother looks at her children when they are sleeping ... all full of pride and gooshiness (yes, that's a word ... well maybe not but it should be ...)  Drum roll, please ....

Don't you just LOVE it??!!???!!  Sigh.  I love it.  Let's look at it again:

Sigh.  Yes ... it's just as lovely the second time around.  OK.  Details.  Well, I can't actually take full credit for this card.  I started of copying it from Heather Summers, consistently in the Top 10 Canadian Demonstrators for many years now - in fact I believe she was number 1 this year.  I stalk her daily on her blog at http://www.stampwithheather.typepad.com/This was her card:

I just loved it and knew the 13 year olds would too.  Of course as I started making it I realized I DON'T own the Big Shot die Heather used.  Gasp!  An item I don't own?!  Shirley not!  And yet it was true!  So I had to tweak it a little.  Heather used Crumb Cake, Elegant Eggplant and Whisteria Wonder ... I used white instead of the Crumb Cake and just LOVE the clean, crisp look to it.  I was right - the girls loved it too.  I used the 2 3/8" Scallop Circle punch with the 1 3/"4 Circle punch and the Scalloped Edge punch.  I used whisper white Taffeta ribbon and a pearl.  Sigh.  Let's look at it one more time just to make sure we drink it all in:

Collective Sigh.

OK - I could post the other projects ... but I'm now getting typers cramp and need to go to bed.  I will post the other projects, as well as my favorite swap card from Saturday in the days to come. 

That's me DONE *lol*  thanks for reading to the end XOXOX

Tam