Greek Isles Scrapbook Cruise
Proud to be a PrimaDonna
Well, I'm off to Florida in about 5 1/2 hours...7am flight (yikes!)
I just finished scanning the Completely Distressed class samples so I thought I'd post them quick before I hit the pillow. If you're taking this class at Whim-So-Doodle or thinking about it...keep in mind you'll be able to choose your own color scheme for these layouts. It's ALL about the TECHNIQUE and ideas for using Tim Holtz stamps in your layouts!
jen
Sorry I've been a bad blogger lately. It's been kind of a teaching whirlwind the past month, so much going on. This is always a busy time for classes and now the CHA booth sample assignments for Ranger are keeping me inspired, BUSY and my fingers all inky...just the way I like them!!!
I had an awesome time teaching and demoing at Ink About It in Massachusetts during their bus tour a few weeks ago. What an awesome store with lots of great inky ladies coming in all day long. I enjoyed a little down time after class exploring Salem with my new friend Raine. It was a fun day to get in the Halloween spirit! Looking forward to scheduling some more classes there in the Spring.
The following weekend I was off to teach at Scrapbooks Plus in Chantilly, VA...more great groups of ladies who had a blast getting inky with me during all 3 classes. Debbie has a fabulous store with a huge teaching area - I had a great time!
You know when I travel, I like to try and make the most of whatever down time I get, so it was the perfect opportunity to meet up with my Uncle and cousins + kids who live in Virginia. I rarely get to see them, so it was nice to sit and chat and giggle over dinner. Miss you guys!!
I'm booked to go back to Scrapbooks Plus January 9-10, so stay tuned for more details on those classes!
This past weekend I got to finally stay local to teach and had a day of classes at Scrapper's Cove in Milltown, NJ. Love these ladies and we had a good brainstorming meeting after classes about our upcoming Bermuda Cruise in April. Loads of fun ideas, early bird specials, sponsors, great giveaways...we had fun just talking about it all! We'll all be posting more in the next few days about new cruise details - Can't wait for April!!
As many of you may have noticed, I've been working on a monthly featured project for the homepage of Ranger's webite. I finished November's project last week and I was happy to be playing with one of my favorite lines - Claudine Hellmuth's Studio paints and Sticky Back Canvas. I made some dimensional pointsettias on a card with the canvas - SO easy and fun. If you didn't see last month's Perfect Pearl Layout, you can check it out here.
As for this week, well besides begging the mojo fairly to stick with me so I can finish all of my Ranger samples by tomorrow, I'll be heading off early Friday morning to Florida! I'll be spending most of the week teaching at one of my all-time favorite stores, Whim-So-Doodle in St. Petersburg. LOVE these ladies and I'm SO excited to be going back again! I have 7 inky classes planned starting Friday night (11/6), Ranger demos during their Fall Festival on Saturday morning.
Here's the schedule...
Friday Nov 6 6:30-9:30PM Funky Flag Book
Saturday Nov 7 Ranger Demos during Fall Festival
then 2-5pm Old Fashion Christmas Cards
Sunday Nov 8 12:30-4:30 Completely Distressed Layout Masterclass
This is a brand NEW class where you will complete 6 8x8 layouts focusing on Ranger's full Distress Line plus all Tim Holtz stamps!
Monday Nov 9 Alcohol Ink Techniques - Beyond the Basics
Complete TECHNIQUE based class - learn all you can do with these great inks!
Thursday Nov 12 6:30PM Christmas Memories Canvas Book
This is the one and only time I will teach this class!
Friday Nov 13 6-10PM Treasure Canvas Book
Saturday Nov 14 10am-1pm Glimmer Mist Galore
4 12x12 pages while you learn all of the gorgeous effects you can get with Glimmer Mist!
It's going to be an INKY week full of fun classes and I'm looking forward to spending some time hanging out and visiting with my Aunt and cousins in Florida on my days off! I might actually get out to see a real movie that isn't animated! Yippee!!!
SPeaking of movies...anyone else DYING for the 20th when New Moon comes out??? The commercials are getting me all excited and I'm re-reading the first 2 books so it's all fresh in my mind...CAN'T WAIT!!!
jen
My Mikie...
12 years ago today, I married my best friend and sweetest man alive. We met through my cousin and when I was about 17 he told me he would marry me one day and I laughed in his face! Imagine that...hee hee. It wasn't until I was 25 that I realized he was right. It's been an amazing 12 years and I cherish our life together...Happy Anniversary Mike, I love you honey : )
I'll be heading down to South Jersey next Saturday to teach 2 classes during Scrap That's All Day Crop.
The crop is free and the classes are open to all even if you are not registered for the crop. Just call the store to register in advance for the classes (609) 386-0607
From Belgium we were off again back up to Ede, Holland to teach at Joan Gevaert Scrapbooking and Rubber Stamp Art...LOVE to teach at Joan's! This was my second time teaching at her shop and her workshop area is HUGE...very "chubby friendly" hee hee : ) Her shop has an awesome array of inky goodies and I always spend a small fortune while I'm there because I simply can't resist!
My best Dutch buddies, Lida and Hetty met us at Joan's house Thursday night for a BBQ in her beautiful garden. It was a wondeful night with friends...we ate, drank and giggled for hours. Thank you, Joan for being such a gracious hostess and having us at your home : )
So here comes the funny part of our adventure...Friday night we started the final leg of our adventure in Germany. Lida and Hetty came to class at Joan's and afterwards loaded ALL of our luggage in to Lida's car and off we went! They were going to Stempel Mekka in Hagen, Germany, which was about an hour and 45 minutes from where we needed to be the next morning by 10am - yikes! My first class was sold out and we could not be late. We got to the hotel, kissed and hugged Hetty and Lida goodnight and got about 3 hours of much needed sleep. By 5am we were outside to catch a taxi to the train station...BUT we were SO tired, not to mention my back was killing me from lugging around all of the class supplies all week and Tracie was limping because a case of paper fell on her leg at Kars. The Turkish taxi driver spoke NO English, but had an obvious little crush on Tracie...so we took full advantage of that (giggling) and using some sign language, sound effects and I think there was even a point that I put out my arms and flew like a plane to make him understand we needed to meet them at the airport, we bargained with him to take us all the way to Frankfurt to meet the store owners...we even threw in 2 stops for coffee to sweeten the deal. We agreed on a price that was worth it for all of us and off we went again and it was beyond hysterical as he cracked up at our attempts to make him understand us.
To give you an idea of how much we laughed, here is how my favorite conversation went...
We were in a bakery having coffee. Keep in mind we have had VERY little sleep. The taxi driver turned to me and simply said "Turkey?"
Thinking that this was maybe one of the only English words he knew, I said, "You like turkey? I like turkey too". He had no idea what I said until Tracie nearly spit coffee out her nose and yelled, "NO, you silly ass, he's FROM Turkey!!!" Then he got it and we all got hysterical again. The country hadn't even crossed my mind...I guess I thought he figured I was the chubby American of the group and we could bond over food or something! Duh : ) It makes me giggle every time I think about it though.
Finally we found Mireia, hugged the taxi driver good-bye and were off again to the shop. Scrapbook Werkstatt is in a pictureque little town and I fell in love with it immediately. The people there were very friendly and made us feel welcome as soon as we got there. Although Tina and Mireia have had an on-line shop, the store is new, full of great new product and beautifully decorated. Everything about our visit there was just so completely charming.
We teamed up with my good friend and local German Primadonna Nat Kalbach and each of us taught 2 classes over 2 days to some talented and fantastic ladies. It was so much fun to meet up with Nat on her "home turf" and Tracie and I even got to take one of her classes. She's talented and fun - we had a complete ball!
We stayed in an apartment in a residential neighborhood, which was nestled right in to the base of a mountain and had a beautiful view of the countryside. The sunsets were breathtaking as we sat on our balcony listening to an owl in the forest behind us just taking it all in...
On our final night in Germany, we went back to Tina's home to meet her husband Peter (awesome guy) and then Tina took us for a quick drive to see the castle near her house - SO cool.
Ooh, and I can't forget about my favorite find while I was there...my new bag that reminded me of the owl who hooted me to sleep at night - LOVE this!
and Tracie couldn't resist getting one too...
Thank you guys, we had an unbelievable adventure in Germany and we can't wait to come back!
jen
The latest teaching tour in Europe was another wonderful adventure with my fabulous friend from across the pond, Tracie Hudson. I hate that she lives so far away, but it makes the time that we do have together so much more fun and this trip was no exception. We had a blast!
We started the weekend with a coffee together at the airport in Amsterdam. We timed it so that we arrived only minutes apart so that I could pass off some supplies I brought over for her. After about an hour of quick catching up we had to part ways for 2 days to work for different distributors, she was off to Kars for Prima and I was heading off to Scrapbook Mate to do Ranger demos and a workshop at their open house. It was like old times as I've been working with Heidi at Scrapbook Mate for years and was happy to spend time with my friends and made a few new ones along the way! Over the weekend, I met some lovely shop owners from Germany and I'm hoping to get some plans together to visit their stores next Spring : )
Tuesday morning I headed down to meet Tracie again at her hotel to begin the journey. Our first stop was Venlo, in the south of Holland to teach at Special Memories. Manita, the shop owner, had just combined with another shop that carries yars and all sorts of needlework goodies - we were in heaven and both left with yards and had a little lesson while the other was teaching...Tracie was knitting and I was attempting to crochet some very cool little flowers they had there. I think I need a LOT more practice : )
The town was gorgeous with some great shopping and we had a fun day of classes with the ladies there. I even came home with a fancy handmade hat that I just HAD to have!
The next morning we were on the road again heading to Belgium. We were met near the border by Vicky and her Father Mark, who own Tiny's Hobby in Kortrijk. We stopped for a beautiful, trypically Belgian lunch (YUM!).
I have to digress for just a minute here to say the people in Belgium REALLY know how to eat! The food there is just awesome and they are not afraid of big portions! Wow! Even the pizza was good there, and being from NJ/NY you know I am a complete snob about pizza (and bagels, but that's a whole other conversation : )
Tracie and I each taught a class at thier shop that night and I introduced a new class, The Funky Flag Book...
Vicky and her Dad have done a lot of work in the teaching area and the store since the last time I was there about 2 years ago. It's bright and open with a great work space so it was really a pleasure to be there. It's a great shop with lots of different types of crafts besides scrapbooking...lots of treasures!
The classes were full with students from Belgium, Holland and France...I don't usually have any issues with language barriers, but it was a bit of a challenge with 3 different languages (besides English) in the room, but we got along just fine and had a great time.
We had a whole day off on Thursday and we took full advantage of the beautiful day! Mark was a tour guide in Brugge at one time and offered to drive us there for a quick tour before heading back up to Holland. I have to say, out of all the places I've been in Europe, Brugge is one of my absolute favorites. I love the small town feel, the cobblestone streets, canals, the huge square with the clock tower, beautiful architecture, and oh my GOD - the Belgian chocolate!!! I have been to Brugge before and walked most of the city, but this time was so much better because Mark was able to tell us what we were looking at and give us the history I didn't know before. We got in some shopping...oh, the shopping there is to DIE for! And of course, a Belgian Waffle!
Here's some of my favorite sights from Brugge...
That last one is ALL chocolate and I bought LOTS to bring home!
I know it's been a few weeks since I've posted...well after 10 days in Europe and a very busy travel schedule over the summer, I decided to take 2 weeks off to just be Mommy and get in to the new Fall schedule with the kids...it's been great, aside from the nasty cold I caught from Mike over the weekend - never fails this time of year!
So to back track a little, Ryan started 2nd grade and Maya is now in Kindergarten half day! I actually have 3 whole hours of quiet, all to myself time in the mornings!! Of course I shed a tear or 2 when my baby got on the school bus grinning and waved good-bye...BUT a "WOO HOOOO!" and happy dance quickly followed once I came back in the house. Does that make me a horrible mother? I don't think so. I think they were happier to go back to school than I was to have some time to myself.
At least the mornings are peaceful...now the after-school activities and homework gets a bit crazy for a while. Maya is about to start Gymnastics and Ryan is in soccer, cubscouts and CCD starts tomorrow with Ryan working towards his first Communion in the spring. Since Mike is the "Cub-Master" for Ryan's pack, the cubscout activities are mainly Mike's thing, but he has recently informed me that I have "volunteered" to take over new registrations - not sure how that happened, but it's a good family activity and something the boys really love...honestly, I think Mike has the most fun, he's reliving his childhood! LOL
I'll update more later with pics from Europe...off to get some more cough medicine!
jen
I know, I know...it's been a while since I've posted. I came home from CHA and hit the studio running with new classes for Europe in September, finalizing my schedule for Fall and designing 6 new Tattered Angels classes for the New Jersey Scrapbook Expo this weekend. The Expo website has not been fully updated, but I am teaching all of the Tattered Angels classes this time.
Here's the schedule and some sneak peeks of the classes...if you're in Jersey, I hope to see you at the Expo this Friday and Saturday!!
Friday, August 28th
9-11am Friends Album
12-2pm Garden Journal
2:30-3:30pm Royal Layout
SATURDAY, August 29th
9-11am Travel Ledger
12-1:30pm Family Bingo Board Flipbook
2:30-3:30 Explore the Outdoors 2-page layout
jen
