Sunday, September 16, 2012

Scrapfest 2012 - What Fun!!

Hi there!

I've had a fabulous, crafty weekend at Scrapfest, held at the Mall of America, here in Minnesota! So many creative friends from the Hero Arts Flickr group attended this year, and what a wonderful time we all had! I'll warn you now - this is a photo-heavy post, so I've tried to keep the writing to a minimum. Here we go. . . . . .

Most of us were able to meet at Starbucks on Thursday night. Clockwise from bottom left: Virginia, Linda B, me, Marcy, Janet, Linda W, Lin, Kathy and Sheila. We were all so excited to see each other for the first time!


Then it was time to go do some Make & Takes - lots of standing in line, which made for the perfect opportunity to chat and get to know each other better - and take some photos too of course! Here's Lin and Judy -
- love these two ladies! I was lucky enough to meet Judy earlier this year - SO good to see her again - does that women ever make me laugh!! And I have wanted to meet Lin for the longest time! She was the very first person to comment on one of my photos posted to the Flickr group.

Here's Linda B, Sheila, Janet and Kathy doing one of the many Make & Takes. It was a joy meeting each one of these gals! All so easy to talk to - like we've known each other for years!



And look who we found at the Lawn Fawn, Make & Take booth!

Yup - sweet Nancy! So wonderful to finally meet her too! We were Hero Arts hostesses together and she is another online friend that I've wanted to meet for so long!

We also met Kelly Marie, owner of Lawn Fawn! What a cutie!


She was sweet enough to let me take a picture with her. :)

We also took a Lawn Fawn class, which was a whirlwind - we made three cards and a fun treat bag, all in 45 minutes - so fun! Here's one of the adorable cards:

Some of us took Tim Holtz's class too - it is always such an amazing class - I learn new inking tips and tricks each year from him - LOVED it! Here's what we created:

I took a ton more photos, but I'll only share some of them, so you know who all was there this weekend.


Heeeere's Marcy! This lady amazes me! She has a wonderful outlook on life, smiles all the time and is so very funny!

Yippee! Virginia was there too! And to think it almost didn't happen - I'm so glad things turned around and she was able to join us! It would NOT have been as much fun without her there!

And she brought the famous, Dr. John!! That's right! We all spent time with him too - so fun!

Lin brought her hubby, Denny. What a lovely, kind man he is - so perfect for Lin!

It wouldn't be Scrapfest without my buddy, Linda W! She kept us all moving in the right direction. It's always so great to see her! Here she is with me and Judy.

Ava was there too! She's on the right in this photo with me and Janet. Such a sweetheart!

And last, but certainly not least, Jennifer! She's on the left in this picture with me and Sheila. What a cute gal! She didn't join us until Saturday - wish we had more time together!

Okay, only two more! Here's a group shot.

And this last one is of just eight of us - all past Hero Arts hostesses - amazing that we were all together in one place!

WHEW! If you're still with me - thank you! I know it was long, but I wanted to share what a fantastic weekend it was!

I feel so very lucky to have met all these amazing, talented, fun ladies! I didn't want our time together to end - and now I'm missing them all already!











Monday, September 10, 2012

A Favorite Technique

Hi there!

I have a card to share today using one of my favorite techniques. I just wish I could remember what it's called! If you know, please tell me!

It's the one where you heavily ink up a piece of white cardstock with Distress Inks. Then you take a stamp, spritz it with water only - no ink - and stamp it onto your inked panel. The water removes some of the ink and you're left with a soft impression of the stamp.

In this case, I used a flower from the Bold Pop Design set from Sizzix/Hero Arts. Hope you can see the flowers in the background.



The Distress Inks I used were Fired Brick, Wild Honey and Vintage Photo. I also added an extra, brighter flower. I used markers to ink it up before stamping and die-cutting it. The cute sentiment is from a Simon Says Stamp set called, Handwritten Sentiments by Kristina Werner. I love the variety of sentiments in this fun set!

Hope everyone is having a good week so far! Mine is going to get REALLY FUN starting Thursday evening, when I meet some online friends at Scrapfest!! I'll be sure to share some photos! :)