What a Good Day!

Aside from not really doing a whole lot today, it's been a pretty goo day so far. I got word this morning that Ready, Set, Create is going to publish an altered clipboard I made for Brooke's Preschool Monthly Calendar. I got the reply in about one day from sending it to them! That's fast!

Then, later today, I got an email from Reminisce telling me that they would love to put my French Kitchen Recipe Box set on their online gallery! How exciting for me!!

I know not to get too overly excited about all this good news, because I've been let down by a DIFFERENT eZine just recently that said they wanted to publish something that I altered for one of their calls, but they never ended up putting it in the ezine after all. I never got a reply from them either when I asked them what happened. Not sure that I appreciate not even getting an "Oops, sorry about that..."

Enough about my prior disappointments (there will be many more, I'm sure) so I'm onto another topic - Photoshop Elements 6. I just purchased it & haven't had a lot of time to play with it too much, but it seems a little overwhelming for me & I'm not really stupid when it comes to computer programs, so I'm not sure what my problem is. I'm sure I just need a good nights sleep & a chance to read more about how it all works. I think maybe I've been out of the office workforce long enough that many things I've learned have left me over the past 6 years. I used to know how to make websites too, but don't ask me anything about it now! That is soooo sad too.

I found this cool website http://wordle.net/create I used it to make my Header for my blog here. I thought it was really neat. Now I don't know how to get that darn thing to load into my blog, so I ended up just printing it out & taking a photo of it & adding it that way. Kind of the long way around, but the other way wasn't working for me. Like I've said before....I'm blog challenged!

Well, DD is getting hungry for dinner. Doesn't she realize that I have internet things to do???? JK!!

More CHA...

For those of you who are not yet over all the info that's been put out there for this summer's CHA event in chicago, then here's some more!

Although I still have some pictures to share, I could have swore that I took more than I have on my camera. I don't think I deleted them, as I've learned my lesson on that fiasco before, so I'm not sure what happened to them!

So, I'll share with you what I have. Here is the only "celebrity" shot I got during the whole day there. It wasn't that I didn't see many others, I'm just a little chicken when it comes to approaching these people, because I just admire their talent & inspiration so much. Tim Holtz's demonstration at the Ranger Ink table was packed, to say the least!
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I tried to get this picture posted before, but Blogger wasn't taking it.

Cricut is a true hottie right now & he sure knows it! Oh Baby! I will be more than happy to take whatever he is dishing out & I know every other woman there was in a true estrogen frenzy over his latest work! LOL

The designs they demonstrated for Hello Kitty, Cars & Sesame Street were way too cute! They had free make & takes on Sat. with something from each of these lines. I made a darling round purse tin with the Hello Kitty stuff & Jenny (another DT member) made one of each! And they're coming out with book laminator that looks kind of interesting, but not sure how hot the market will be for something like that. It would be cute for making your own coloring books, but you have to buy special glue & special sized paper if you want to make a standard size coloring book. Not too sure how cost effective it will be, but I guess we'll know more once they release the price of all the goodies to the public. Jenny had her Elmo make & take made into one of the bound coloring books. You could make smaller ones with regular sized paper too, which would be very cute to make birthday party favors for kids. You could even make it into an activity for them as they could make their own designs & the parent could laminate it for them into their own book! I better shut up before I talk myself into REALLY wanting one after all! LOL!

Here is a girl's room they did up using the Hello Kitty cartridge. They also did up a little girl's birthday party with all the trimmings & favors too! They even put an image on the birthday cake itself! Cute, but definitely NOT edible!

I would consider this cartridge for myself because my 4 yr. old daughter's bedroom has red carpet & it's kind of a challenge finding little girl themes that go with red. Not to mention that she loves Hello Kitty. I'd probably be spending more time cutting stuff out for her to do something with than I would for myself. I guess if it keeps her busy creating, then it would be worth it.

They had a darling boy's room done with the Disney Cars theme, & I gotta tell you, if my son was little again, this would be THE cartridge to have - especially if you have the Expression!!

I don't think Sesame Street really needs any hype, it just speaks for itself! I mean, who doesn't love Elmo or the Cookie Monster? I do, and I'm a grown up!

Even Elmo was there in the big celebration & I got a picture of him here (sorry that it's a little blurry too). I also got a picture of myself with Elmo, but that was taken by Jenny on her camera. I'm sure my daughter will love to see that one when I get it.

Well, I think that's all I have for today, I need to work on some more photos for later, but you may be seeing stuff arriving at your favorite scrapbook store very soon! It may get THERE before I post a photo of it HERE! Funny, but true.

Have a good weekend & enjoy your family!

Beth M.

CHA Baby!!

Please be aware that my site is looking a little odd right now. I'm having some technical difficulties, so please keep bearing with me here. Some of my pictures have disappeared & Blogger won't let me reload them. Grrr...!

OK, how lucky was I that I got to go to Chicago for the Craft & Hobby Assoc. Trade Show (CHA) on the 19th! I have to admit that I was excited just to get to be able to go, thanks to the WONDERFUL store owners of The Memory Zone Scrapbook store that I design for!

Once I arrived with my 3 other fellow Design Team members, Kelly, Jenny & Rebecca, I was in total awe of the whole scheme of things. It's like an amusement park for scrapbookers! We all had an amazing time. This was Rebecca's & my first year to attend the event as Kelly & Jenny attended last year.

There was so much to see & do that you couldn't help but get caught up in it all. The make & takes were nicer than I expected & the freebies that they handed out were pretty cool. I had no idea this kinda stuff went on there! I'm really glad that I got to go this year, because I understand that it's in Florida next summer! I could possibly still go, since they're talking about allowing the public to attend & I do have an uncle that lives near Orlando....I just don't understand why it's in such warm climate in the hottest part of the year?

We brought home some pretty cool bags from Provo Craft, Little Yellow Bicycle, MAMBI & a few others. The Bo Bunny bags were to DIE for, but I didn't get one in time - BUMMER!!

I got a little distracted away from my group & couldn't find them. Who knew that hot pink T-shirts would be so hard to find? OMG! Half the women there had hot pink t-shirts! LOL

So, I wandered away looking for the others & ended up finding Eutopia...Kaiser Craft, based out of Australia, but also located out of Chicago, as well. This booth was big, this booth was beautiful, this booth offered a great make & take that was so hot that you had to take a number to get in! I sure got my exercise by running back & forth checking to see if my number was about to be called. Finally, after about 2 hours, I got to do the make & take wooden book. I love how it turned out & I did it in my favorite color combo right now - blue & green. While others watched the M&T, they could let out a WHOOP! & the lady running the M&T would toss out pkgs. of bling to everyone. So cool!! Then, when I was finished with my book, she handed me a whole stack of bling jewels & pearls & brads! It felt like Christmas in July! Here is the wood book I made at their make & take.

We also learned about a new company that has MY interest peaked! It goes by the name of Zva (pronounced zee-vah) & they make jeweled swirls like Prima in a rainbow of colors & interesting shapes & they make fabric flowers in interesting colors & textures! They looked like they were good quality & they claimed that they were a cost conscious company. If they offer Quality & lower costs - now we're talking my lanquage. I find that I spend a lot of hard earned money on poor quality scrap products from the big names & I don't like it. This stuff is supposed to last a lifetime & it can't even make it to my scrapbook page before falling apart! What's wrong with that picture? (pun intended!)

I was impressed with several booths & their products. I like Prima, a lot! But they can be pretty pricey for my budget, but I love their designs & innovativeness! I'd buy it more if I could find it. WRMK is a real favorite of mine & their booth was fantastic! I love their new die cut flocked ribbons & their Christmas line is gonna knock your socks off! Little Yellow Bicycle is another real favorite of mine, but again, a little on the pricey side. It's gotta be a totally stunning line of product for me to spend $1 for one brad & that's what it amounts to when you buy a pkg of 6 brads for $5.99. They're cool though, so you save them for special projects & pages for special people. I liked Rusty Pickle's booth. It was fun with their chocolate fountain & marshmallows & pretzel to dip into the chocolate with. Mmmm...! I really like their rustic Americana line of products! I've liked this look for a few years now & it's still a favorite of mine & it's still a hot seller! Now let's talk Basic Grey...I think these people are finally starting to "get it" with the paper crafters - finally! I loved their last releases & these next batch of releases prove to be winners in my book! I think they fit the artsy crafter as well as the color-in-the-lines crafter. you shouldn't hear the usual comment about their stuff being kind of difficult to work with anymore. I didn't see a new line there that I didn't like! My favorites would be Ambrosia & Eva/Ava, not sure which it was called, but those were my most favs, but I could like all the others too! Petaloo has some very pretty flowers coming out for those fall themed pages! These are just dripping with rich color!

Prima Bling! Mulitple colors together & new shapes !

Petaloo Flowers - they don't get much prettier than this!

Here's a bit of a close-up view of the flowers & cute projects they did.

Well, this is my update for today, stay tuned for more reviews & pictures of CHA 2008!

~Beth

Hi everyone! I know it's been quite some time since I've been on here to do an update. It's summer ~ being on the computer isn't necessarily the LAST thing I want to do, but it's not high on my priority list compared to being outdoors while it's warm & sunny & pleasantly not humid!

In case you're wondering what happened to my blog in it's appearance, it's kinda under some reconstruction right now. I'm not the greatest blog techy out there, so some of the updates I'm trying to do on my own aren't exactly working the way I thought they should! So, if anyone is actually reading my blog, please be patient in the way it looks & I will try to do some more updating of my posts soon. Thx & bear with me....;)