Just a reminder for those attending the CHA Supershow, don’t forget to stop by the Westcott booth #612 on Friday, July 30 to see the competition for America’s Next Top Crafter! I will be one of the judges and think this will just be so much fun. I can’t wait to see what the contestants have up their crafty sleeves! Check out Marisa Pawelko’s blog for more details. Also just to correct something I said the other day… Marisa did not win this contest- she won the CHA Indie Craft Contest. She is the host of ANTC and also came up with the concept and trademarked it. ANTC debuted for the first time at the first consumer show in Orlando last summer.

More designer news… my friend Kathy Peterson has come out with a new line of outdoor furniture and is holding a blog hop. Every week a different designer works with one of her Adirondack chairs and a different chair is shown! Pat Sloan did the first one and it is beautiful. Congrats, Kathy!

This was a bottle of expensive liquor that was too pretty to throw away when it was all gone. I decided to give it the paint drizzle treatment. About 10 years ago, I went though a phase of making clear Christmas ornaments like this. All you do is take different color acrylic paints and drip it down the lip of the bottle, ornament or whatever glass container you’d like. The colors run into each other and make cool swirls and all kinds of pretty effects. Here I used pastel colors, but I usually like to add in a metallic color too. The hardest part is letting it dry. Check to make sure that all areas of the glass are covered. If you see open areas, tilt the vessel until paint fills it in. I used Plaid’s Folk Art paint for this project because it gives good coverage.

I am back from my adventure driving with my daughter Jess from Kansas to Miami. One observation I noted was that Florida is an extremely LONG state! It’s also hot. After moving what turned out to be 5700 pounds of furniture, we were roasting and ready for a dip in her pool. Let me tell you, that was the highlight of my day!

So I am back safe and sound and surprisingly, not sore. Another thought I had while schlepping all the stuff up to the fourth floor was, “God bless whoever invented the dolly.”

While I was gone, the emails, phone calls, house stuff and piles of stuff to do before CHA has mounted and I am slowly digging my way out. One way or another we leave on Sunday! Yes, I get in the car again for another 860 miles. Luckily, I am driving with my friend Lorine and we usually talk the whole way there and back. So wish me luck, my friends!

A few weeks ago, you might remember me mentioning a visit to some of my favorite discount stores. While there, I picked up a few of these cool burlap bags. I thought they would be the perfect shape and size to hold a bottle of wine. But they were a little plain. So I took one of my Sizzix flower dies and ran a piece of pink mat board through my Big Shot. I inked the edges of the petals and bent them up. I tied a piece of wired ribbon around the top of the bag and anchored the flower to it. We are set for our next dinner invitation with a nice bag to bring the wine in!

This past Friday, I stopped by the Great American Scrapbook Show in Chantilly, VA (right down the road!) It was a good show and seemed pretty busy- definitely more traffic than I remember last year, although it could be that they made the aisles narrower so it just looked that way…. I was happy to see some old friends and picked up a few interesting items along the way but overall, I found myself trying to stick to only buying what I would use. I just have so much stuff already! When I am designing a project for publication, I can only use the most recent products because the project often takes 9 months until it’s published. The manufacturer doesn’t want to have to tell people that they can’t have that certain item because it is discontinued- it’s bad for business. My studio needs a good spring/summer cleaning!

Drumroll please…. I am blogging for a new company and will be posting twice a week with projects, product reviews, reports of events and tips and techniques! I would like to invite you to visit the Memory Keeping Collections site. Isn’t that fun? Please say a prayer I don’t run out of projects! You may recognize some of the Sizzix ScoreBoard Blog Hop designers as well- Candice Windham, Jen Goode, Michelle Cummings, and Lisa Rojas! I know you will want to stop by and see what everyone is up to. For pix of me and famous scrapbooking celebrities from the Scrapbook Show, please visit Memory Keeping Collections this coming Tuesday! 🙂

“When it rains, it pours”. That’s how work goes! I have been working like crazy on a bunch of new projects and hoping I can get them all done AND still have something cool for CHA. Nothing like a little pressure to get the mojo going… 🙂

Here’s where we have been relaxing at night! Of course there’s more water now 🙂 For those of you who have been following my hives situation on Facebook, (when I got in the pool, wound up with huge welts all over me two times) I am happy to report it hasn’t happened again. Actually I felt a little itchy and just got out. Someone suggested that it was a cold water allergy, which I had never heard of before. But my latest thinking is that that was what it was. So thanks for your input on that!

I cry at parades, baseball games and pretty much any event where the colors are flown or “The Star Spangled Banner” is sung. I can’t explain why. I think much of it comes from our family’s connection to the military. Those stars and stripes just get me. We just found out a couple of weeks ago that our son will be deploying to Iraq for his third time three months sooner than he thought he’d have to go. We are so proud of him but wish he could be here with his wife, daughter and us. I just got off the phone with my Coast Guard daughter who was talking with her new fiance about getting married THIS October before my son leaves so that he could be at their wedding. I think of all the sacrifices that our military is making and the hardships their families endure for our freedom and cry some more.

So, here’s my Flag Day project. I saw this ad on the cover of a trade publication I get and loved the industrial look to the stars. I thought about how I might achieve this look with everyday materials and gave it a whirl. I do like how it came out although it has a somewhat softer look to it than the original. However for the materials I used, I thought it came out pretty cool. Click here to see my version of the finished project. I’ll be talking about how I did it on Cool2Craft live web TV show today at noon EST. Last Monday, a new segment was introduced called “Too Cool”. This is a place where guest designers come on to show what inspired them and how they interpret the inspiration piece to reflect their style. If you miss it, no problem- it’s recorded 🙂

Hope you can join me. This week I will share the fun purchases and resulting projects obtained during out jaunt last weekend so make sure to stop back.

I am a guest blogger today at Lois Winston’s blog. Lois is a mystery writer who also crafts. Her lead character, Anastasia Pollack, is a magazine crafts editor. She’s a widowed, debt-ridden mother of two teenaged boys and the reluctant caretaker of both a cantankerous semi-invalid, communist mother-in-law and a five-times widowed mother convinced she descends from Russian royalty. When the magazine’s fashion editor, suspected of having had an affair with Anastasia’s husband, is found dead and glued to Anastasia’s office chair, and the murder weapon is Anastasia’s glue gun, she becomes the prime suspect. Anastasia must use both her wits and her crafts skills to find the killer before he finds her. We join the story as Anastasia and her fellow magazine editors have gotten together to blog at Killer Crafts & Crafty Killers. You’ll find craft projects and tips; recipes; decorating, beauty, travel, fashion, health, and budget advice; and Book Club Fridays where Anastasia will host guest authors, many of whom will be giving away copies of their books. Stop by!

I just finished a “rush” project and am very happy with how it came out. Not sure why I need a tight deadline to really get my creativity in gear but there you have it… I am curious how other people operate. I would like to say that I have everything all organized in my head and know exactly how I want to make something but most of the time, once I get started, the design just kind of comes out. Anyone else work that way?

Another weekend ahead… tomorrow we are driving off in the RV for an overnight adventure. At this time of year, it’s usually hard to get away, but we found ourselves with nothing planned this weekend so thought we should take advantage of it. The weather is not supposed to be great but we’ll be in our cozy camper listening to the rain pattering on the roof as we enjoy our traditional Scrabble game and then perhaps a DVD. There’s something about being away from home that inspires me to think in a different way. The first summer we had the RV, we camped a lot and I basically planned and wrote Matboard Magic while on the road. So who knows what will come to mind this trip! The funny thing is that I was NOT in favor of buying this RV in the first place. The way my husband got me to the dealer’s was to offer me the choice of working on taxes OR going to look at RV’s and lunch at Burger King. Well, of course you know what I chose… and as they say, the rest is history!

One of the many good things about a house on wheels (besides having our own bathroom) is when an interesting place is spotted, we just pull over. I always have a good book on hand and will read, maybe do a little work or have a nap. Same for my husband… and that bed is pretty comfy! All in all, it was a good investment. Plus it was on sale 🙂 I’ll let you know what I find.

Are you a self-taught crafter or did someone teach you? Check out the link to Fave Crafts and see my answer.

I hope you can stop by Cool2craft on Monday, June 7, where we’ll wrap up the ScoreBoards blog hop and see some of the amazing bow projects that the designers created all using the one die.

Have a great weekend!