Chatterbox and more

Hi everyone!
I'm back from a fantastic trip to San Francisco. I was privileged to travel with Stampin' Cat Studios fabulous owner, Lisa, to a trade show.

We had a great time attending classes by some of my favorite companies, getting familiar with some products that were either new, or new to me, and spending lots of money (mostly Stampin' Cat Studio's money...gotta' love helping someone else spend big).

My highlights of the trip: finally learning to work with Ten Seconds Studios products (LOVED it, by the way, yes, it will be showing up in class very soon), finally getting my hands on a new Alcohol Ink Fillable Pen, playing with the Copic Airbrush system, and playing around with some fabulous new product by Chatterbox.

We didn't know going into this class that the project was going to be a couple of scrapbook layouts. Now neither Lisa or I are scrapbookers, and we weren't really interested in making layouts. The teacher was so gracious to let us use the fabulous product from their new...well...Fabulous Collection to do our own thing.

Here are a couple of cards that I made during that class time. Let me just say, they named this collection appropriately for sure. I absolutely love it! It even has it's own stamp set! As well as an amazing set of die cuts...seriously, the picture on the link doesn't begin to do it justice. They are beautiful, and the cork die cuts...I don't even know what to say, they are so fun.

I had a blast playing with the products, and I hardly made a dent in it. I have so much left to play with, so be prepared to see some more of it in the coming months.

Everything on those two cards except for the twine, and the jump rings...oh, and the ink I stamped with, is from the Fabulous Collection by Chatterbox.Last but not least, check this out. Matt came home the other day and said, "get the camera, you have to see this rainbow." It must have just been perfect conditions, because I have lived in Oregon all my life, and have seen some beautiful rainbows, but this one was above and beyond. It was the most vibrant rainbow I have ever seen. Matt took the camera out and started snapping away. He got some really nice pictures. I just couldn't help thinking about how amazingly creative our God is. I'm glad God loves beautiful things too, I must take after Him.

Catching Up

Well hi again everyone! This is going to be a random post, catching you up on what's been going on in my life recently. I realize spring break has been over for awhile now, but I'm just now getting to sharing with you what we did with our vacation.

We have some wonderful friends in California that welcomed us to their house for a whole week. We had a fabulous time with them, enjoying the wonderful sunshine, beaches, good food and bonus...visiting Disneyland and California Adventure. I thought I'd just include the above picture since this was the whole reason that our son was so excited to go on vacation! Lightning McQueen! Getting his picture taken with him, seeing him in the Pixar Play Parade, and getting a new Lightning McQueen toy made Noah's day...scratch that...the whole trip. He wasn't even smiling in the picture because he was just so in awe.

Next event: Noah started getting sick toward the end of our trip, and by the time we stopped at Matt's parents' house on our way home, Noah REALLY wasn't feeling well. He snuggled in with Daddy, and was content to just sit there and pet Poppa and Mommas new little kittens. This kitten in particular settled right in and seemed to enjoy just cuddling up.

Of course, Noah's sickness was followed by Hannah's sickness, which is followed by me currently loading up on Airborne in an attempt to avoid some not so pleasant symptoms on Easter.

I am supposed to be singing in 4 church services on Easter, and have all kinds of rehearsals coming up in the next couple of days, so I REALLY don't want to be sick. So far the Airborne seems to be helping. Or maybe it's the prayer...either way, I'll keep doing both.

In other exciting news: My sister Birdie just recently announced to the world that she is pregnant with her 3rd child!!! AND while we were on spring break my mom got ENGAGED! So it looks like this summer we will be having a wedding! It's so crazy to watch my mom enjoying new love, I hear myself telling her some of the same things she told me as I was dating and preparing to get married. So funny.

Ok, finally, I have gotten back into my craft room and created something. This was a bit of an experiment, and it was finished up last night when I was tired. I'm just saying... The experimental part was that I used a Copic Colorless Blender Pen and dipped it in my new light and bright colors of Ranger Alcohol Ink and used that to color in the image. My inexperience definitely shows, but I'll keep practicing.

The Tulip Girl stamp and the background stamp are both by Cornish Heritage Farms. The background is the new Distressed Circles Scrapblock. I LOVE it! I definitely see it becoming another "go-to" stamp in my collection.

Oh, just in case you want to know. The Tulip Girl was stamped with Tuxedo Black Momento Ink before being colored in. And the background was stamped on vellum and embossed with Tattered Rose Distress Embossing Powder...LOVE the great texture that the Distress Embossing Powders provide.

Oh, and the Trinkets Pin from the Ideaology line by Tim Holtz says "thoughts" on it. I liked how that went with the "Wishes" sentiment from the Expressions set by Hot Off The Press.

My goal at the beginning of the year was to post at least once a week, so sorry about the long wait for this post. But I'm sure you understand that family and home life have to be my first priority.

Blessings to you!