Hi everyone — had a really great weekend!!! This weekend was the 1st ever Stampin’ in the UP event. It was so well organized and run ina fabulous facility with LOTS of room to work, eat and socialize AND a wonderful in house restaurant where we ate many meals! We had a small group of 22 who participated in card swaps, shoe box swaps, fun, games and prizes. I did a presentation on Saturday, and since requests had been put in earlier as to what these girls wanted, it was a breeze!!! They wanted toseeand use product they were unfamiliar with, so at their request I demoed and allowed them to use Eclipse Tape, the Score-It, Scor-It Mini, Scor-Pal, Nestabilities and other dies by Spellbinders, and several different of the JustRite Stampers.

But, as usual, the best part of this event from my perspective was meeting and visiting with the people. Most participants were from within about a 100 mile radius, but we had 2 brave souls who ventured into our northlands from down below — LOL!!! And here they are:

On the left is Barb Schram from Grand Rapids, Michigan, then me, then on the right is Joan Fricker from Northern Indiana. I’ll start with Barb — well, my goodness — her ever so sweet DH (and he REALLY is!) took her on this 8/10 hour journey, and the moment they walked in the room it was like I’d known her all my life — we just CLICKED!!! We have been Blogging/SCS buddies for a year or so. We became fast friends and have kept in touch regularly, and I’ll tell you, to finally meet someone face to face whom you have been friends with already is such an awesome experience. No introductions, no *get to know you stuff*, just one big hug and start visiting right where you left off the last time you chatted online!!! Barb is an awesome person, a fabulous designer, an absolute delight to be with and a very, very good friend!!! I can’t wait until we can meet up again!!!

Next is my good friend Joan Fricker who came even further, from Northern Indiana. Joan and I also met online maybe 6 months or so ago, and this is the 2nd time in as many weeks that I’ve had the pleasure of spending time with Joan. Considering the miles between us, that’s pretty amazing!!! Joan and I were in the same Copic class2 weeks ago in Chicago at CHA — gee, she puts on a lot of miles!!! Joan has a very, very interesting background, which I’ll share more with you in about a week — need to give her a chance to get home!!! I was just thrilled to pieces to see Joan again and somehow I do think I’ll be running into her some more — LOL!!! More on Joan in about a week!!!

Friday night as the girls participated in games and challenges, I chose to sit and color some images with my Copics as I visited with my table mates. My friend had brought several Gina K sets with her, so I stamped and colored those images — how fun!!! Here’s a card I made with one imageafter I got home:

This beautiful orchid is in a Gina K set called Botanical Dreams and was drawn by Asela Hopkins. This is such a fun image to color — I did several once I had the opportunity, so you’ll be seeing more cards with this image over the next few days or weeks. This set alsohas several lovely single words which, of course, I did not stamp when I had the opportunity. Oh well –This is just a simple card which I did for the Sunday Featured Stamper Challenge at SCS — the featured stamperI cased is Shellapoo and, oh my, she has quite the interesting story and certainly serves as an inspiration to us all. You may read about the challenge and about Shellapoo right here. I loved this simple layout in this card of Shellapoo’s. I followed it pretty much exactly, but added ribbon and a die cut corner. Thank you Shellapoo!!!

• Stamps: Botanical Dreams by Gina K, Floral b/g by SU
• Paper: PTI White, SU Pretty in Pink and Rose Red
• Ink: Unknown Black, SU Rose Red, Copics to color (colors unknown)
• Accessories: SU retired Organdy, SU Pretties Kit, Corsage Pin, Cuttlebug die cut corner, White Pearls, Long Rectangle Nestabilities by Spellbinders

That’s it for tonight — thank you so much for stopping in, and also, I just can not thank you all enough for all your emails, comments, phone callsand the many kindnesses extended to me over the pastfew days– THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH — Blogland readers are truly THE BEST!!!!!

10 Minute Tuesday is still the plan for tomorrow!!!