Fun, Fun, Fun at the Stamp Convention!

   What a day! I went to the stamp convention in Hampton that I have been looking forward to since June, and it was as wonderful as I expected it to be. It wasn't very big, thank goodness! There were three vendors there who had the most incredible dies, and one had coordinating stamps and dies, and I could have dropped five thousand dollars easily. Easily! Needless  to say, I didn't spend more than a fraction of that, but it's a good thing I've been saving up for this.
   The three vendors also had the most fabulous samples, how I wish I could stamp like that! Without further ado, here are the pictures that I took. I wish they were better quality, and some of them are dark because the flash didn't work, but I am just going to upload all of them here, if I can get it to do all of them at once. Here's hoping!
   Click on the pictures to enlarge:

Whew! Yes, that's a lot of pictures! I think these are some of the prettiest samples I have ever seen, I wish I could have taken better pictures, one of these days I need to take a photography course. Tomorrow I will take pictures of what I bought and post them, I think I got some really good dies, and I love the stamps I bought. I am very thankful that God let me make it to this convention, with some money! Now I have to clean up the camper to so I won't feel so guilty, lol!
Blessings,
Janis

Creating Again! A project and some pictures of the grands...

   We had to go home last weekend because our dishwasher had started leaking, and we were afraid that the floor was wet under the cabinets, so I got another shot at bringing my stamp supplies back to Virginia. We were just home for Labor Day, but I was too tired and busy to pack it up. I wished so much that I had, so when I got another chance at it, I took it. I nearly killed myself Saturday packing and washing clothes, but I did it, by golly, and went to Leland's Founders Day also with Daphene and the kids, which was a lot of fun. Since Andy and I were founders, when he registered at the VIP station, he got a free meal ticket for all of us. Nice!
   When I got back to Virginia, I filled every nook and cranny in the camper with stuff, and I am still rearranging and reorganizing. I had to pull almost all of it out this morning in order to use it, but I worked on a project all day and had the greatest fun. It has been a long time since I did anything like this, and I really, really needed the relaxation after what we have been through this summer. I am not quite through with this, but here is what I accomplished today:

The shiny stuff is Star Dust Stickles, my favorite glitter glue. Having to die cut the flowers, then run them through the machine again with different plates to emboss them, then roll the petals, put the glitter glue on, let it dry, punch the leaves, put glitter glue on them, glue the flowers together, die cut the wreath base, glue everything together, and put the pearls in the centers of the flowers, took all day. Phew! What a project! But the results were worth it. Now I just have to figure out how I want to hang it. I may just put a hook on it and hang it on the Christmas tree. Hmmm, now I have an incentive to put one up!
   When I downloaded the picture, I found some pictures from Cara's birthday party that we had with just Daphene and the girls, us, and Beth. I can't remember if Brian and my Mom were there or not. The dress was given to her by Beth, and it looks so good on her. She is getting so tall! She definitely inherited her grandfather's (Daphene's father) genes, he was really tall.

One last picture! I kept the girls when Brian and Daphene went to the mountains, I think in June, and they wanted to play restaurant one day, so Amelia was the waitress with a pad and pencil, and she took our orders, and Cara was the cook. She and I fixed something for lunch, and they fixed up a centerpiece (Cara tied a very nice bow) and decorated the table with one of my vintage tablecloths and cloth napkins. So we had a very nice lunch. Love these kids!

Blessings,
 Janis

An Evening with Friends

   I had a ball last night with my daughter-in-law Daphene, my friend Lorie and her daughter Hannah, and Melissa, a friend who moved to Alabama quite a few years ago, and I have only seen her twice since then. We talked like a house afire, stamped, and just enjoyed each other's company. Melissa was one of the people who got started with stamping when I became a Stampin' Up! demonstrator, in fact, I think she might have been my first hostess, but Lorie never did get into it, so it was pretty amazing to have her over to make a card.
   I couldn't find my camera, of course, so I had to take pictures with my phone, which I don't do very well with, so I apologize for the quality of the pictures.  I don't know why the pictures were striped with shadows, that doesn't happen when I use my regular camera. We used a white card, layered with a colored, embossed layer, and then die cut a centerpiece and stamped it. They are all so beautiful!

 First up is Daphene and her card:

 Hannah Cotton:

 Lorie Cotton

 Melissa Blanton

Lorie, Melissa, Hannah, and Janis

Lorie, Melissa, Hannah, and Daphene

Lorie, Melissa, Janis, and Daphene

 
   I hope we can get together like this again and maybe do some scrapbooking, it is so much fun to do with other people.  Girls, y'all look so good! Lorie, could I please have some of your hair?

Forgotten Samples

   I was going through my stamped work from the last couple of years and found some things that I hadn't posted yet. I had made a few tags, an altered Bingo card, and flowers, so here they are:

    This was made from Coredinations cardstock, which has a different color core so you can sand it to shade it. I sanded the edges, but I didn't sand it enough so the shading doesn't show up much. The leaves were die cut from an envelope that I received in the mail. This is one time when I love getting junk mail! (I'll post this flower again once I decide what to put in the center, lol!)

 

I like making tags with distress inks, and I love these Wendy Vecchi butterfly stamps.

 

Doing the altered bingo cards was great fun! I wish the butterfly showed up better, I colored it with Ranger's Adirondack alcohol inks, and I love the way it turned out.

 

 I don't know what I am going to do with all the tags I have made, but it sure is fun!

Tammy and I made some paste paper several years ago, and it had just been sitting here. So when I saw the directions for making your own washi paper, I knew this was the perfect thing to try it with. I like how it turned out! You just lay pieces of double-stick tape down on the paper and cut it out. Now these are tapes, and washi tape is all the rage now.

Hopefully, I will be making a lot of samples in the near future to add!

Blessings,
Janis

Finally! A New Sample!

   After a long hiatus from stamping I finally sat down today and actually did a project, start to finish. I don't usually finish something in one day, it usually has to sit a few days while I decide what to add, but this one just flowed. It isn't something that a lot of people can relate to, but if there are any Tim Holtz fans reading this, you might like it. So here it is: Ta Da!

Isn't that crazy?

 Blessings,

Janis

Life Is Sacred

   We must, absolutely must begin to propagate the idea, once held in this country but gone now, that life, ALL human life, is sacred and precious. Teach this to your children please! We live in a country that once had a government that could be described as "rule by law", but I think we have lost that because the principal of the sacredness of life is gone.

Lunch and A Book Review

   I had put out a notice on facebook that the 'ladies" were going to have lunch at Jester's today, but I didn't know if anyone was going to make it so I told Andy that maybe he and I could have lunch with Beth and my mother, and Lorie if she made it. Daphene is sick so they couldn't come, but the rest of us, including Lorie, made it. It was so much fun, and the food was great as usual. The others usually get the pimento cheese sandwich, which doesn't have anything to do with pimentos as it is made with cheddar and cream cheese-yum!, but I have never had this, so today was the day to try it. I got the white bean and chicken chili and a pimento cheese sandwich, and it was all absolutely delicious. I can't recommend it highly enough! The older I get, the more I need to get together with people and just talk and laugh and relax, we don't do enough of that anymore. We really missed Cynthia, especially since we had to put 5 people at a table for four, and if she had been there we could have gotten another table, LOL!
  

   When I went out to breakfast Friday I saw that they were having a yard sale down the street, so when I got back I checked it out. There wasn't much left, but I did find two books, one of which was the first novel written by a woman when she was 85. It was Out To Pasture by Effie Leland Wilder, and I bought it because the woman having the yard sale said that she had gotten to know her, and she told me a few things about her that I really don't remember at this point! Anyway, I just finished it, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It is about a woman in a retirement home who decides to write a diary about what is going on each day in the home. I laughed and laughed all the way through it, and am looking forward to reading the four books that she wrote after this one.
   One of the situations in the book is that she sits in the library from time to time and can't help hearing two of the men talking out on the terrace. This is one of the times that she eavesdrops on them:
   "...I was glad when I listened to my two 'merry men' conversing and heard Paul give a chuckle.
   "What's funny?" asked Curtis.
   "I was thinkin' of two fellow I heard about-Joe and Ed-eatin' breakfast in a cafe. Ed noticed something funny about Joe's ear. He said, "Joe, did you know you've got a suppository in your left ear?'
   "I have?' replied Joe. 'A suppository?' and he pulled it out and looked at it hard and said, 'Ed, I'm glad you saw this thing! Now I know where my hearin' aid is!"
   It was a delightful book!
Blessings,
Janis