Spring Mega Crop Recap

     In Lilian's absence I had hoped to post a couple of entries for you this week to share all that we had done during our Mega Crop Weekend.  However, I don't usually post to our blog so it proved a greater challenge than expected.  But nothing that a "What's App" message and email to Lilian couldn't fix ... and a bit of extra patience!

     Here's a recap of the challenges we offered, our winners and our make-and-take project...

     The first layout challenge of our weekend was our Sketch Challenge.  Our ladies were given a layout sketch from which they had to create their own interpretation - this did not mean that every element had to be included but that the general look of the layout was the same.  Along with the sketch we also provided a sample layout that we had completed.

Sketch Challenge

Sample Layout

     From the inspiration provided thirteen of our ladies entered layouts.  Each of our challenges have two winners - the first being voted on by all of our scrappers and the second being drawn randomly from those entered in the challenge.  The voted winner of our Sketch Challenge was Jessica Bunn with her Elf On The Shelf layout!

     Our second challenge is our Embellishment Challenge.  This requires our scrappers to create their own one or two-page layout including certain embellishments; pebbles, doodled border, ombré and two of the following; altered brads, ribbon, twine, decorative border, tag.  Again we provided our ladies with a sample layout.

   Our sample included the required pebbles, doodled border and ombré as well as twine, ribbon and a decorative border.  Since this challenge requires our scrappers to try techniques that may be new to them, we also provide a make-and-take project to ease them into this challenge.  Our project this time was to complete a card which included creating an ombré using Versamark ink and chalk and the somewhat unpopular art of doodled borders.  We also showed the ladies how to use their punches in a new way to make flowers.

The winner of our Embellishment Challenge was Kate Price's "Smile" layout!

     Our final challenge is one that we hope everyone will feel they have something to enter.  The Best Page Challenge is open to any page that our scrappers have begun and completed during the crop weekend and that they feel is their personal best!  The winner of this challenge was Krista Shelly's page "Jordyn's 1"!

     Congratulations also to the winners of our drawn prizes and our door prize... Tyia, Candice, Jane and Angela!

     We are always amazed how we are so fortunate at our weekends to have such a wonderful group of ladies.  While some friends come in large groups there are others who come alone or in a twosome but either way we all seem to meld together as a comfortable, supportive group.  We are very thankful for this!

     Finally we'd like to say thank you for the thank you we received and thought the giver wouldn't mind if we shared one of the cards she made for us...

Happy Crafting!

Linda

Who Would Have Thought

....that you could have over thirty women in a room and it was so quiet that you could almost hear a pin drop?  That is of course except for the background music that was a hit too.

But that's the way it was sometimes over the weekend as we were all together with a group of happy scrappers.  If you didn't sign up, then you missed out on some lovely fun and laughter, opportunities to make new friends, and learn, learn, learn.

Here you see our lovely group along with their hard working kitchen staff.

Twenty scrappers took the opportunity to participate in the class that we offered where they were able to create two double page layouts.  Although it was a fast paced class, the general consensus was that it was time well spent.
The ladies got the opportunity to delve into the "Project Life" style of scrapbooking and although it's not for everyone, they were able to view a take on this style that they may well be able to incorporate into their own style.

The make and takes that were offered also caused them to try some techniques that they may never have tried otherwise too.  The style of flowers we made were well received, but we all learned that doodling isn't as easy as it seems, even with a sample to follow.

And the layouts that were created...my oh my, such talent!  Often you think you will see the best from the seasoned scrapper, but the newbie can teach us to look with new eyes as well.  We always encourage our scrappers to wander around the room and look at the work that's created, because it truly is amazing.  


With the crop this past weekend and final prepping for that, I didn't get to surf the web so much but I do have things to share with you.

I thought I'd show you the iPhone case I made myself a few weeks ago, but I still can't show you the other felted pieces I've been making.   It only takes about an hour to make one of these and probably with felt squares at just 49 cents a piece. other than having to have a three colours, the overall cost with floss included is probably less than 50cents.



Not an embroiderer?  Then how about crocheting a case for your phone.  Here's a quick and easy one embellished with crocheted flowers too.



Maybe you prefer to knit rather than embroider or crochet though.  I found this lovely pattern here that I'm going to make some day, isn't it cute and even better it's knitted from the bottom up, so only the shoulder seams to sew and better yet,....it's free!  What do you do when you find a pattern like this that you love?  do you print it out and store it ready for that day when you will knit it, or do you save it on your PC for a later date?  I've got it stored on my PC ready for the day I'll knit it up.

Here are some cute words that kind of go with the clothing theme above.  I found them on Ginger's house blog.


Well I still can't show you Rachel's finished project (she's got another idea in the works for later too), but she did share it with some of the scrappers this past weekend.  It will be given to her recipient in a couple of weeks as I travel around England, so after that Linda will likely share it with you.

With family stretched from the north to the south of England we will be doing a fair amount of travelling, with a quick three day excursion into Wales.  I'm not sure if I'll get the opportunity to upload any photos whilst we're away, but we are looking forward to seeing and walking through lots of lovely countryside around England and Wales which I'll share with you later if not sooner.

Until later...Happy Crafting,
Lilian


 

Short but Hopefully Sweet.

That's what tonight's post will be, as Linda and I gear up for the coming weekend event, hopefully keeping all the balls in the air without dropping them.




We are also looking forward to a wonderful evening of entertainment this week as Rachel, Emily and Jonathan perform at the Rene Caisse Theatre in their school music program. 




So you see I'm rambling already ..hard to keep focused sometimes...LOL!


I have a new file now where I store ideas that I have through the week ready for the blog, hope it works for me.



One thing I did trip over last night was a website that I'd been to before and may even have shared before, but well worth sharing again in readiness for this weekend of scrapbooking.

How many times have you completed a page, but been unable to come up with a "catchy" title?     Take a look here and you'll find hundreds for you to choose from.  There's a menu bar on the left side in pink.  Scroll down to choose an idea, click on it and many more choices will open up for you.  Wonderful site when you are stuck for words.  Why not bookmark it for future reference.



Have you checked out our Flickr site lately to see what cards the ladies have been making at the Thursday Technique class and All Day Card Class?  Here are two they made at the All Day Class,  check out more here.







As Rachel has been making her gift that I will be presenting to the recipient soon, she had need to transfer some embroidery markings onto the fabric.  I recently read some raves about a product that we've now brought into the store, and which would have worked perfectly for Rachel.

It's called a Pilot Frixion Gel Pen.  You draw/write your design onto fabric and follow the design with your floss or thread.  Once you've completed the design you can use a warm iron/hair dryer/heat gun to heat the area and the pen lines disappear.
It's pure magic and at only $3.19 it would be worth it's weight in gold to an embroiderer, quilter or cross stitcher and likely needs to find a way into your stash.






Last but not least for our scrapbookers again, I wanted to share this that I found on Scrapbook.com

Now I'm not advocating violence, but know the feeling when someone messes with my stuff!

  Until later, Happy Crafting,

Lilian

Rain, Rain, Go Away....

come again another day...do you remember saying that as a child?   Maybe it's the English in me and the fact that we had lots of rain in England.

Anyway I'm really not saying that at the moment.  The rain on Sunday certainly took away a lot of snow and I even saw crocuses peeking up in some gardens in town.            

Spring has sprung!

My sister-in-law asked me if we were bringing rain coats with us when we visited, although my sister said they'd been having some beautiful weather where she lives.  If it was only the weather we were going to England for, guess who we'd be visiting...LOL!

We had another lovely day on Saturday with the ladies at the All Day Card Class which we held in the Community Room at the Independent Grocery Store.  Some of them had traveled two hours to get to class, then five hours of busy card making before turning around again for that two hour journey. Dedicated crafters don't you think?

I'll be putting the cards onto Flickr so that you can see them all there.  We didn't get a sense of any one card being a favourite, but they did like learning a new way of tying a simple bow.  Ask us how we did it the next time you're in the store.

We are always impressed by the talented people who are our customers.  One of those talented cardmakers shared a card with us that she just made using a Die-namics die that she had us order in for her.  It cuts a lovely flourish from card stock and becomes a very nice embellishment on a card or scrapbook page.

Here's our talented card makers card.  Don't you wish you were the recipient of this lovely card! What a great job of colouring her image too. It looks to me like she used a Spellbinder scallop square die cut behind her image and you see that lovely flourish on the right side coming over the focal point, that's the Die-namics die.

I can see we may well be selling lots of these delicate die. This small one is the perfect size as you can see for a card maker, but it comes in medium and large sizes which would work well on a scrapbook page too.  There are other shapes too, leafy or border, flowers and many other shapes all attractively priced too.  This small flourish was just $7.69.

We are always thankful to our customers who show us new products to stock the store with.

Did you see this scallop punch that Linda had on the newsletter today?  We used it in the All Day Card Class and it got a work out with two classes, 45 ladies and we found it worked a treat.  It was a new company to us recently and a great price point. If you're looking for a small scallop punch at just $9.59 this one is well worth your consideration.

I've made another digital stamp for you to use on your birthday cards.  Here it is.  Remember to left click to make it larger and then right click to save to your computer or to copy into your word or publishing program.

I've left the word "Happy" blank so that you could colour it in to suit your card.   Enjoy!

Rachel and I were busy yesterday with the doll she's making.  She now has hair! Rachel wrapped yarn around a piece of cardboard to get the length she wanted, then sewed the strands together ready for sewing them onto the head.  Once that was done, the strands were braided and ribbon added to the top of the braids and voila!  A very pretty little hairdo.  Only felt shoes to make and an embellishment to be sewn onto the doll's blouse and she's good to go.  I can hardly wait to show you the finished doll, such a great job she's done on it.  What a lucky girl that's going to be the recipient.

I've had a busy week this past week, and haven't browsed the web as much as usual.   I did find this though as I was looking for some needlework sites and thought it was worth a moment's consideration.

Take a look at the website here and you'll find some lovely needlework samplers if that's your interest.  To get the pattern, you simply click on the name of design you want in the  "Shared Files" box on the right hand side. This one for example is called No Farmer ever Plowed and is near the bottom of Shared Files box 1.  You can download the pattern key as well as the coloured photo.

And for all those ladies that are joining us at the Mega Crop Weekend in a couple of more weeks.  Take a look again here for some great ideas to prepare yourself to get the very best our of your weekend!   Just scroll down a little way to re-read the article, so many good ideas for prepping yourself.

I can't leave you tonight though without sharing what happened at our family dinner Sunday night.  We had a delicious dinner with Cheesy Chicken wrapped in a crescent roll with potatoes, carrots, broccoli, peas, corn and mushrooms....hmm hmm good!  

Dessert followed with the choice of, or maybe both, homemade strawberry ice cream or cheese cake.  Sounds good doesn't it!  

Certainly no-one was hungry after that delicious meal.  

However....as we all sat around doing different things, Jonathan decided he wanted to bake something.....anything.  After a look through my pantry, he decided to make some mini lemon tarts, which he did and they were delicious too....oh the calories that were consumed that night!!!  

My point being though, how many fourteen year old boys suddenly decide not only they want to bake something, but do it!

Until later...Happy Crafting

Lilian

Did You Ever Hear My Story About April Fool's Day?

That was the day many years ago we were scheduled to emigrate to Canada.....however!  

I couldn't do it, so the date was changed to April 2nd (today is the anniversary of the day we arrived in Canada 46 years ago)...however!  

That meant it was a Sunday that we arrived with minimal resources at the airport on that day.  What difference did that make to this young family and dog arriving to take up residence here?  Well that meant no Vet on duty to check our dog's papers therefore they wouldn't let our poor dog out of the cage he had already been in for close to ten hours.  

So who do you think got caught by the April Fool's day thing?  Yup...sure did.  Here's

What did you think of March going out like a lion?  Seems to me it came in like a lamb and left like a lamb too because we certainly had a beautiful Easter Sunday yesterday.  We had ten for dinner here and enjoyed a lovely ham, with many many vegetables (my favourite) with apple pie, ice cream and cream puffs for dessert...mmm good.  

Also now thanks to Audrey we have another lovely dessert recipe to try out. Considered one of her "go to" recipes, you can find it here on the Kraft site...easy peasy too, my kind of recipe.  Less time in the kitchen, more time here....

That of course would be my Craft Room...LOL!

You remember my new love of felt?  During the week I made up these table favours. Yes if you count them there are just nine, but I quickly made up another for our additional guest.  You can find the pattern here.

Here's what our daughter Sandra and grandson Jonathan were up to for their Good Friday crafting, and which they gave one to her Dad and one to Linda's husband.

You have to know that we are going on a Disney Cruise in September to really appreciate this and also how my husband an Linda's husband have apps on their phone tracking the days to this event...LOL!

Isn't that the cutest countdown calendar?

Now if you only knew for sure which day I took the photo, you could work out what the date of our Disney Cruise was couldn't you.

Rachel has been busy sewing lately too, but I can't share that with you just yet as it's a gift for a relative we will be seeing and she wants it to be a surprise.  Honestly though I think she's going to have a hard time letting go of it, because it's so cute!  A lovely gift to a relative she has met just once and enjoyed a lovely afternoon and evening with.

Well Linda and I have a busy week coming up with the regular Thursday Technique Class where 12 ladies are signed up to make three cards. They're going to love what they do this week using their Scoreboard, heat embossing and vellum work, we'll keep them busy.  

Then on Saturday we have our second All Day Card Class at the Independent Grocers.  I think there are two spare spots available due to some calendar conflicts having happened. If anyone's interested give us a call at the store (705-645-6231) and grab the unexpected opportunity, you will not be disappointed.  You'll receive supplies and instruction to make eleven cards in just five hours for only $40.00, great value.

Do you recall I mentioned how a customer had asked for some instruction on how to embroider French Knots that wouldn't disappear behind her work?  

Well Mary learned how to I make them and later I discovered they aren't called French Knots at all!  The way I make them, they are called Colonial Knots and here's a great visual tutorial on how they are worked. As you can see from this photo, they are lovely and raised without being bulky.  They neither wobble nor disappear behind the work.

It's never easy to create a scrapbook layout when your photos have very strong colours.  That's especially true with dance recital photos and the great costuming worn, but saying that they are usually happy colours.  

Take a look at a two page layout that my friend Edie created for her niece.  

Edie had the newspaper headline that she wanted to incorporate into the layout too, but because newspaper has such a high acidity level, the first thing to do is to have it colour copied.  Yes colour copied because if you do a black and white copy it loses the lovely newspaper look.

As you can see the colours in the photos were not only strong but extremely bold together, and yet the paper choices enhanced and calmed those photos beautifully.  Along with some bold black stickers and a title (the name of the dance) cut out on her Silhouette machine, Edie was able to bring everything together to make a powerful layout.

Another beautiful album in the works by my "one album only" scrapbooker.

I'm off now so until later...

Happy Crafting

Lilian