Great class!

I took a class with Zana Clark from Stamp Zia on Thursday evening at Frenzy Stamper. A couple friends who are quite familiar with her products highly recommended her .... and I'm so glad I did.

This is what I made. We started with watercolor paper, and applied numerous of her products, in layers, to create this look.

She's demo-ing at the Mesa Stamp show today, if anyone is heading out there.

Check out her products .... they're pretty cool!

Practice, practice, practice ....

After watching demonstrations, for years, at CHA ... knowing full well that I could get totally hooked ..... I finally caved and started my own collection of Copic markers .... and I'm loving them!

The easy flow, the blendability, the beautiful colors .... yep, I'm hooked!

Here's one of my first efforts ......

I have to thank Debbie at Frenzy Stamper for bringing them into inventory ... makes it much easier to feed my addictions!

And speaking of addictions ..... SPICA pens! Spica pens are high quality glitter pens .... they're like Stickles with precision! They are part of the Copic marker line and go hand in hand with them ... many beautiful colors! Debbie was so nice to bring the entire color line of Spicas into inventory too!

These pens just color my world!

Happy Days!

A very busy, productive weekend .... my favorite kind!

Frank was busy playing golf, watching ASU football, and the Yankees ... he's a die hard Yankee fan from growing up watching them as a little boy. He's hoping they finish off the world series tonight!

I was busy making this ....

Its a plain little wood chest that I got at Hobby Lobby when I was in Wisconsin. Its covered with 10SS pearl metal, highlighted with Rangers dimensional pearls acrylic paint, which gave it a very cool marbled effect. There's close to 180 smokey topaz gems on it ... and it just sparkles in the light! The drawers have cork lining on the bottom and distressed papers on the sides.

And of course the back has to be pretty too ...

And my Copic markers and 10SS tools fit perfectly in the drawers!

Frenzy Stamper has Copic markers in stock now!! If you haven't played with them yet ... oh, yeah, you really should try them out!

Hey Phoenix people!! Do you know that we now have two more Hobby Lobby's that are having a grand opening today?? One is on Cactus and Tatum, the other Ray and I-10 .... both, much closer to me than the others!! I won't tell you how many times I've been to the one on Cactus and they've only been open a week!! Oh, I'm in trouble!

Have a great week!

Watch out for the ghosts and goblins!

Wishing everyone a ghoulishly happy halloween!

Click on this link for a special FREE offering from Jessica!

JessicaSprague.com. Grow Your Skills.

Absent, but having so much fun!

Before I tell you what I've been doing ... a quick update on Erin. She's going to physical and speech therapy still, but doing great! She's slowly regaining her strength and getting her life back in order.

Me .... I just got back from a week with Terri. I can't even tell you how much fun we had and how special it was! First of all, she has this basement that would be an envy for any artist. When I'm there, we rarely leave the basement. Her husband knows this and her children know this. We come up only for meals and the bathroom. And what a sweetheart her husband was over the weekend ... making all our meals ... and just hollering down the stairs when it was time for us to come up and eat.

I arrived Thursday early afternoon .... we made a quick stop at our favorite shoe store before heading home to start our first project.

We made our version of a class from the Club Scrap retreat earlier this month


The next morning we headed down to the basement in our jammies with coffee cups in hand and started designing what was supposed to be a big metal project. Throughout the day it took many shapes and changes .... a 360 degree turn and it became this. The frame is 22 x 28, and this photo does it no justice. Its cork background ... the words are distressed grungeboard and chipboad, embellished with rusty objects, woven trim and metal squares. If I had a suitcase big enough to hold this, there would have been a battle over who was going to keep this piece! But sweet Terri sent me home with the ingredients to make another!

That evening we added photos and embellishments to my most recent Carol Wingert book. I love leaves and autumn colors, so its full of photos that remind me of just that.

Next morning, back to the basement in our jammies with coffee cup in hand. Today we decided to play with wax. We played, experimented, added, deleted, re-designed .... and ended up with these creations.

Next was a project from the Farmers Market kit .... a magnetic board .... and here's what we did with it ...

Next morning, back to the basement in our jammies with coffee cup in hand ... decided to work with metal today ... We made the frames out of foamboard, covered them with dictionary paper. distressed them and went to work on the metal.

The best Hobby Lobby is in Appleton, and of course we made time to do our 3 hour shopping trip and found lots of treasures!

We started a 4-drawer wooden chest thats going to be covered in metal, but darn if it wasn't time for me to leave by that time, so that project is sitting upstairs in my studio waiting to be finished.

Thanks Mike, Jack and Greta for letting your mom and I share these very special times together!

The miracle ...

I drove to California last weekend with my sister, Erin's mother. We spent the mornings helping out with the new baby, Peyton, and Makayla, then spent the afternoon and evening at the hospital with Erin. We watched Erin progress each day, almost by the hour, you could see more life come back to her ... and I'm happy to say that she went home yesterday!! She's got a few weeks of intense physical therapy to get her strength back, but she IS our miracle! We're so proud of her for the fight for life that she put up. Here's little baby, Peyton ... we, also, watched him over a three day period, almost double his intake of food ... he's growing like a weed!

And one of the many highlights of the weekend was to watch Makayla play soccer with her team, the Glitter Girls! 5 and 6 year olds, no referees, no goalees, not too much structure even, but 45 minutes of such joy and laughter.

And each night, Mallory and I spent hours putting together the scrapbook for Erin. All the work last weekend on the pre-made pages, made this task so much easier. Thanks again, my friends, for taking part in that. I do believe that book will make Erin feel like she didn't miss the first 3 weeks of Peyton's life ... and I'm sure she'll treasure it. Who knows, maybe she'll show it to Peyton when he's grown ... and what a story to tell that goes along with it.

I've got the BEST friends ....

About ten years ago, a group of women came together. We all had two common threads .. we were all members of Club Scrap, and we all shared the same passion for scrapbooking. We started meeting once a month, sometimes working on particular projects, teaching each other new techniques we'd learned, sometimes visiting stores together, and forming strong lasting friendships.

We've shared some amazing adventures together over the years and I treasure each and every one of them!

On September 11, my niece, Erin, gave birth to a healthy baby boy! What a great day .... but by that night Erin had developed some complications. Over the next two days, she had emergency surgery, and ended up on a ventilator in ICU in very critical condition. Yesterday we got the best news since all this happened ... she breathed on her own for 1 1/2 hours, and she recognized her husband and pictures of her kids!! This is the kind of stuff you read about in the paper, or see on TV, but not in your own family .... we are so thankful for her baby steps forward .... and the thoughts and prayers from so many people.

Erin is missing the first weeks of her new baby boys life, so her oldest daughter, Mallory, is putting together a scrapbook, so Erin will be able to see his progress through photos when she is feeling better. Mallory hasn't scrapbooked before ....

So back to my friends ...... Club Scrap donated several packs of paper perfect for a new baby boy, along with their famous ALSB (assembly line scrap book) instructions, so we had a gathering of the group at my house yesterday. We formed several "assembly line" lines ... and we pumped out a good supply of pre-made pages to help Mallory accomplish the scrapbook for her mom!






These photos don't show everyone that was there, but from the bottom of my heart I thank each and everyone of you for taking part in making this happen. Thank you Dinah and Tricia for supplying us with the perfect batch of goodies!

I really do have the BEST friends!