HAPPY HALLOWEEN - FROM MR. AWESOME!

 JP was Mr. Awesome for Halloween.  How cool is that?  Did you know that Awesome ends with Me?
Pretty neat, isn't it?

Luigi was Jaws for Halloween!  Too cute! More posting tomorrow!

  Maria

MASQUERADE PARTY AT THE REMARKABLE RETREAT

WHAT A GREAT TIME!

Yes, this is me and I'm actually a blonde!  Oh, and I'm stamping away!  This retreat was the most fun I have had in a long time.  I had some of my best friends with me from the Remarkable team.  We had a masquerade party last night and it was fabulous!

This is our dinner table.  We all dressed up in something for the occasion.  That's me with the blonde wig and the cat woman glasses.  Everyone thought I was lady GaGa!

This is our leader Janet Wakeland.  She's the best Stampin Up! leader period!  She puts on the best retreats!  Doesn't she look spooky?

Linda Nagle handmade this costume.  It was made out of all SU! supplies.  You need to see the straw.  It is actually our SU! waffle paper!  So clever.  I hope I can find a photo of her all the way down to her feet because she was just amazing in this costume!

This is Jan and I posing together.  Wow!  We look good!

 Here's Jan stamping in costume, too!

 Jeanne Nata and her table mate are really adorable here!  Too too cute!

 

Here is Deb Lehigh.  I almost didn't recognize her in her Steelers uniform.

Connie and Carol were great meal time mates!

The Remarkable Retreat convenes again next year in April.  Space is limited.  Remarkable Stampers are invited to attend first and then they may bring their guests.  Let me know if you would like to attend.  Only 75 spots and it will sell out!

More from the retreat coming soon!  Hope your Halloween was Grand!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

I just want to wish you all a hauntingly good Halloween today! 

MORE FROM THE REMARKABLE RETREAT

MY TABLE MATES AND I ON THE RETREAT

We are having a wonderful time in Harrisburg Pa.  Tonight is our big Masquerade Party.  Right now we are scrapbooking and stamping!  We are having the best time.  Here are my table mates:

 Jill Hilliard

Deanna Wolfe

Lisa Chatterjee (j not g!)

Hsiao-Hui Lin

and Me  

(p.s notice Jan Wakeland in the background photographing us!)

Pictures of the Masquerade Party coming!

HALLOWEEN HOOT

 With tomorrow being Halloween, I wanted to make sure I mailed some Halloween cards to friends and relatives so that they would have them in time.  If the post office came through, then this is the card that most everyone received.  I used the new SU! embossing folder that is a web and swiped white craft ink over it so that I could highlight the web. Then somewhere I saw this take on the witch from Halloween Hoot, where they took the original witch and cut her up a bit to make it look like she fell into or maybe she was pushed into the cauldron! Certainly adds to the Halloween is a Hoot theme!

Below is the inside of the card.  I pulled out some gable green card stock to use up and stamped Happy Halloween from House of Haunts set.

GREETINGS FROM HARRISBURG

REMARKABLY HOT RETREAT

We are here in Pa for a wonderful crafting weekend with all of our Remarkable Friends!  The first night has been wonderful  We have been stamping and scrapbooking all day.  Here we are enjoying dinner.  Starting with Lisa in the blue plaid and going around to her right are Connie, Carol, Sharon, Jill, Deanna, Hsiao-hui and I.  Our team leader - Janet Wakeland - arranged a fabulous Fajita Bar for us.  The food was so good.  We not only had the fajita's with chicken and steak, we also had nacho's and salsa and cheese and all the fixings, and then we had key lime pie for desert.  I truly believe it was more of a key lime cheesecake and it was oh so incredibly delicious.  Tomorrow I'll try to post some projects we are working on.  Wait til you see some of them.  Janet certainly outdid herself this time.  Oh...there is also an incredible candy bar!

HALLOWEEN BALTIMORE

Here are some appropriate Halloween type cards that I got in a swap from the SU! Baltimore Regionals.  Credit to the creator of the cards is on the card.

These were some of my favorites.

DAYS OF GRATITUDE - FALL FUN CARD CLASS

Oh, I just love this Days of Gratitude set.  It is really a very beautiful and versatile set.  This is one of the cards we did at my Fall Fun Card class this past Monday night and it is a different card from the last class so I wanted to post it.  Some of you may have seen this card before because it was one of our cards from the SU! regionals in Baltimore at the beginning of the month.  I thought it was a very easy card to do.  Just a little stamping going a long way.  And look at those tiny pearls on the label.  They are just gorgeous!  The card stock, ink and ribbon are all old olive.

 This is the envelope and the inside of the card.  The sentiment Happy Thanksgiving is really great.  I love the font.  This sentiment is from the stamp set Thankful for.  It's a great set that I almost missed.  It's in the main idea book on page 28 (US edition).

Here are some photos from class:

The ladies really liked this card and so did I.  I may use this for some of my Thanksgiving cards, or possibly even for thank you cards and just change the inside sentiment.

AUTUMN SPLENDOR FROM FALL FUN CARD CLASS

 

This is one of the cards we did at my Fall Card Class this past Monday at my home.  The ladies who came made some of the same cards we did at Pat Nuckels home earlier in the month but also did a few different cards.  I like to change things up a bit so this is one of the new cards that the Monday group got to do.  I'll show the other ones over the next few days or so.  This card uses Soft Suede Textured card stock.  I love textured card stock because it makes the card look so much more elegant.  It is really a nice touch for cards. The Autumn Spice Textured dsp in the new Holiday Mini catalog is a nice extra touch.  It is the expresso strip of paper that looks like either wheat or leaves on it.  The accent piece of card stock is so saffron color and it is embossed with the Big Shot to give the dots.  So cool! At the top of the dsp I put one of our new Flower Brads.  They come in exclusive SU! colors and this one is expresso.  I didn't color these leaves, but I told the ladies that it would be nice to watercolor them and maybe even put some shimmer paint on these leaves.  What do you think?

 This is the inside of the card and the envelope.  We kept is very simple and clean.  The sentiment says "gentle thoughts of you" and is from the Grateful Greetings set.

Here are some photos of some of the ladies working in class.

This is Donna P.  She is working on this card and is cutting out her stamped leaves. The ink color, by the way, matches the card stock and is also soft suede.

This is Cathy S.  She is also working on cutting out her leaves.  Leave just a little rim of vanilla card stock around your cut outs and they won't look jagged.

This is Leslie W and Dale T is on the side of her.  They are stamping away and having fun. Can't you tell?

GREAT GIFT CARD IDEA

I love the new satin seam binding by SU!  It is just da bomb!  Look how elegant it looks on this gift card holder we made at class this past week.  I learned how to make this awesome gift card holder from my upline Janet Wakeland at Diva Day a few weeks ago and I just had to share it with my group.  We used the new Christmas wheel in the SU! holiday mini catalog on the always artichoke cover.  Notice the scallop edging at the bottom?  The Holly Jolly Christmas is from the holiday mini catalog also and is stamped in cherry cobbler classic ink.  Inside is the gift card holder as shown below.  We used cherry cobbler card stock to make it.  This is such a great idea and it really looks expensive also. What a nice way to give a gift!

Wow!  A Build A Bear gift card inside!  How wonderful!

FUN AT CK SCRAP AND PLAY

Ok I'll admit it!  I copied this photo from my friend Lisa Chatterjee's blog! (ps. j not g!)

If you want the deets....head on over to her blog - highlighted above - for more info!
CK Scrap and Play was the best!  I'll post some on it soon, but for now, you have to hear what Lisa is saying!

MORE FROM CHRISTMAS CARD III CLASS

SCENIC SEASON

This is one of the most gorgeous cards you can make for the Holiday Season.  The ladies at the Christmas Card III class (both nights) loved this card the best!

We stamped the beautiful evergreens in garden green classic ink onto a vanilla top note. The top note was die cut from the Big Shot and the outer border was trimmed so that a chocolate chip top note could border it.  Of course we added dazzling diamonds to the trees to make them sparkle and shine.  The sentiment is from the same set scenic season and is stamped in chocolate chip classic ink.  This is all mounted to the card base which is bravo burgundy card stock that has garden green designer paper attached to it. We stamped snowflakes using white craft ink onto the striped dsp.  The snowflakes are from the stamp set serene snowflakes.  The ribbon is my favorite ribbon - it is wide grosgrain ribbon that is striped.  This one happens to be chocolate chip.  If you head on over to my website you can get this ribbon in riding hood red on sale at a huge savings of only $1.99 for 10 yards.  It is a great deal - otherwise the ribbon in other colors is $9.95!  I think this card would look great with riding hood red as the base and the top note and it is is still a current color.

On the inside of the card, we stamped the sentiment from the stamp set and more serene snowflakes in white craft ink.  The night of class we heat set the ink so that it would dry faster and not pass ink to the other side of the card as we finished it.  The envelope is stamped with the trees stamped "off" once so that they are a lighter green.  The serene snowflakes are stamped in bashful blue.  I can't remember who had the original idea for this card.  I actually got a variation of this card in a Christmas card swap at the SU! convention in SLC in 2009.  I just modified the card and updated it for this year. It is really gorgeous and it is a card that I will be sending to some of my friends this year.  And since it is about 2 months until Christmas, I'm glad I have most of my holiday cards completed.  Only a few more designs to go.  Watch for another Christmas Card Class coming soon!

Here are some photos from one of the classes:

I forgot to take photos of the class attendees on Tuesday as we were having so much fun, but these are some of the ladies from the Weds. class. Above you can see Lori in blue with the dazzling diamonds.  Leslie is in green tying her ribbon on her card, and Dale in red working on last minute touches on hers.  Marlene got stuck at the airport or she would have been here also.  We missed you Marlene - catch you next time.

See you all at the next card class!