Crafty Flowers

[caption id="attachment_163" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="My handmade flowery things"][/caption]

As usual when I find a new crafty thing I dive right in - buying all the necessary STUFF to conquer a new craft project. I've done it with paper-pieced t-shirts, tutus, haloween decorations...I just get myself into all these new things... and that is just what happened this weekend!  I became obsessed with fabric flowerly things. It started when I saw these outragious flowers on a cardigan at NY & CO. and then my brain starts going...hmmm I could make those (and cheaper than buying them at $4.50 a pop). Then the next thing I know I am searching u-tube for "how-to make a fabric flower", "retro hair accessories" and anything related.

Nothing great there so I surf over to etsy.com and find some flowers I like and just start cutting out scraps of fabric and guessing how they made their lovely flowery creations. I used hot glue  (cuz I am far too impatient for sewing!) and some scrapbooking buttons I had around, and before long I have some flowers of my very own.

 

However, my next trip to Hobby Lobby of course included Organza, Fabric Stiffner spray, fun fabrics, more buttons and various attachment devices costing me nearly $100 so my effot to save $ by making the flowers myself is shot down and I have a kitchen island completely covered in hot glue and fabric scraps but they are OH SO CUTE!

Obnoxious Shirts

So I just have to add another pic from the CK Tulsa Convetion...this is actually in my driveway once Katie & I have returned home with an SUV jam packed full of scrapbooking goodies! We are worn out but still smiling. The big sunglasses are oh so typical of us and the Paper Ho shirts just top off the weekend. They make me laugh, while I am sure to others they are just obnoxious but OH WELL!

[caption id="attachment_158" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="The Paper Ho's are finally home...with more than 100 sheets of new paper each!"][/caption]

CK Convention Tulsa

[caption id="attachment_149" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Tillman driving...which is an adventure of it's own!"][/caption]

So Tillman (the other half of KT2) and I have made an annual trip to Tulsa, Oklahoma for the Creating Keepsakes (CK) Convention for the past 4 years. We anticipate and plan for this trip for months! We have googled all the newest paper lines we want to search for, we have saved up extra cash, and booked a room & classes months in advance...all in preparation for "OUR" weekend away.

 

This year, some of the aspects of the actual convention were dissapointing BUT a weekend away with a great friend and more scrapbooking items than you can fathom always equals FUN! We left on Thursday and hit a local scrapbook store in Claremore, OK. This is a great little store and we found some great lines from Collage Press we hadn't seen before - so many cute CuPcaKeS!!! I was very inspired before we even got to the convention. Anyway, we got checked in at the Renaissance Hotel where the convention is held. We realized we are becoming PROS at this!!! We arrived before the crowds of scrappers showed up, getting a primo room with a refrigerator so it was a perfect start. After our smooth check in we hit some of the other stores in the area as well as Michael's.

[caption id="attachment_150" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Buffalo Blasts from Cheesecake Factory"][/caption]

One of our other favorites to do while in Tulsa is to EAT at Cheesecake Factory, so we did - TWICE! It was so yummy, everything they make is good. Perfection even. Our personal favos are Buffalo Blasts, Sweet Corn Cakes, Orange Chicken and Strawberry Shortcake. Those are our recos for your next visit to the Factory!

[caption id="attachment_151" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Very messy but creative class!"][/caption]

Back to scrapbooking...we took classes on Friday & Saturday and shopped the Vendor Fair filling our minds with new skills and plenty of ideas. We headed home Saturday afternoon after hitting "A Memory to Scrap" in Broken Arrow, OK, it was a fabulous store with a friendly and knowledgable staff. We purchased our last scrapping goodies before heading back to Bentonville, AR. Another great year of friends, fun and scrapbooking!

Las Vegas Album

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The Vegas trip I blogged about back in June now has an album to record all the great memories! It is a fresh and young album that is outside my own box. I went with an unusual 11x8.5 landscape chipboard album from Rusty pickle that I painted and then added my pages too. I used a lot of the "saved" items from trip like ticket stubs, napkins and cards, it was a challenge to incorporate them but I like the results now that it is all said and done. Enjoy the ablum!

Me

I know most of us scrappers don't do many pages about ourselves, the one behind the camera taking the photos! I am in the same boat as many of you, I do try to include one picture of me at each event I scrapbook at least. However for this page I did it just about ME. It's simple and bright and there is a page two...maybe it will get posted when I get organized enough to photograph and upload it too.

Enjoy.

[caption id="attachment_97" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Me @ 25 Layout"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_98" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Close up of Layout"][/caption]

Pink Paislee Virtual Warehouse sale

Hopefully many of you scrappers out there were able to take advantage of the virtual sale on pinkpaislee.com where they cleared out their warehouse in preperation for the upcoming launch of their new lines at CHA Summer 2009. The grab boxes were $55 and worth EVERY penny - here is just SOME of what came in my box:

[caption id="attachment_70" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Pink Paislee Stamps"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_69" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Fascinating Line"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_68" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Fetching Line"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_66" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Pop Fashion Line"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_64" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Office Lingo Line"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_62" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Spring Collection"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_63" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Christmas Collection"][/caption]

Can't wait to get to scrapping with these goodies, which will surely be posted here too!
Enjoy.

Summer Vacation

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So I can honestly say this was out FIRST all out Tennis Family summer vacation where we completely got away and just relaxed as a family. We have taken many small weekend getaways, visited family all over the country, and traveled to see Jon wherever the military took him before but this is the first time honest to goodness we planned and went on a vacation for ourselves and it was AMAZING!

We spend 3 nights in New Orleans, staying in the French Quarter (long story but we came in late Friday night to cop cars surrounding the hotel, not a great first impression but it turned out to be a great little place). We had been to New Orleans last spring for just one day and all loved the city so we planned to the 3 nights prior to the cruise there to explore. The first day we did a Airboat Swamp tour and it was so much fun. It's one of those things I did because I knew Jon and Kaia would really enjoy it and of course them having fun makes me happy but this one I ended up liking too! I learned bunches about the history of the Pirates of the Louisianna swaps, got an education of "Coonass", was 2 feet from a real like 'gator and much more. It was well worth the money and I highly recommend it for other families traveling that area of the country for all ages.

The only downside to New Orleans was that a chunk of the second was spent at their lovely Children's Hospital ER! ug. It a bad Mom moment I neglected Kaia's complaints about her ear bothering her the day prior and ended up with a night full of screaming and a sever ear infection. Being that we were out of state that left us with the option of the ER. Anyway, she did get plenty of meds and we spend the remaining mornings and evenings of our vacation creativly getting her to take them. No fun but she is 100% recovered now.

Moving on...Monday mid-day after a horse and carriage ride around the French Quater we boarded the Carnival Fantasy!!! We had a great embarkation and were quickly on board eating lunch on the Lido deck. We set sail for Progresso, Mexico. Being a planner, I have been reading message boards on cruisecritic.com for weeks (okay, months) and got numerous recommendation to take the double decker bus tour thru the little port town. We did so, and other than very low hanging electrical lines it offered a great overview as promised by the other cruisers. We spent the remainder of our afternoon in Progresso on the beach, collecting shells and warding off all the salesmen and women! The beach was fairly pretty, not blue water but the ocean nonetheless which is much better than we get here in Arkansas. We then grabbed lunch at a quant little restaraunt and headed back to the boat off to our next adventure in Cozumel.

I can say that all of us were looking forward to Cozumel the most probably because we had planned and booked a Swim with the Dolphin adventure excursion. The Dolphin Swim didn't dissapoint, it was truly a highlight of the trip. We got to kiss, high five, belly ride, and boogie board with the dolphin which was a once in a lifetime exprience. The Cozumel water was prestine blue and breath taking...you could see to the bottom everywhere! We say a stingray and tropical fish whiel snorkleing around with the dolphins.

My only other note to self for future visits to Cozumel is to bring more $$$$ to jewlery shop! I had no clue it was a destination for cheap diamond and silver etc. There were jewlery shops everywhere.

Anyway, back on board we enjoyed our last day at sea & Kaia's Birthday! Kaia loved the Camp Carnival for kiddos as they were always doing something exciting like dance parties or exploding volcanos so she spent some of the day in there and the rest between the pool and water slides on board. At dinner we once again enjoyed a great meal with our 9 other table mates and a great Chocolate, Chocolate, Chocolate cake for Kaia's birthday. It was a great way to wrap up our vacation as it was already time to start packing up and dembarkation!

We have to remember to do this type of REAL vacation thing at least once a year.